An Ex to Grind

by Jane Heller

  “And that’s not all they were doing,” she said, bringing me back to the present. “After my visit over there, I came home and started watching my program again. And wouldn’t you know it, the noise got worse.”

  “The dancing?”

  “No. The sex. My bedroom backs up to his, remember?”

  I did remember. The Antster used to complain whenever Dan and I went at it a little too spiritedly.

  “I’m not a prude, mind you,” she continued, “but it says right in the building’s bylaws: no resident shall infringe upon the peace and quiet of another. So I made my displeasure known to them.”

  “I bet they were thrilled,” I said.

  “Not my problem,” she said. “If I have to police them every night of the week, that’s exactly what I’m going to do.”

  Police them. Wow. I couldn’t have put it better myself. She was stepping right into the job.

  “You should definitely watch what’s going on over there,” I said, “especially on Saturday nights, when they’ll probably have parties.” I leaned toward her and added in a whisper, “Someone told me Leah’s parents were very strict when she was growing up, so now she overcompensates by going wild and crazy on ‘date night.’ It’s a shame how dysfunctional childhoods can cause trouble later in life.”

  She grabbed my arm. “Is this Leah a dope fiend?”

  “I doubt it, although she does have access to drugs. She’s a veterinarian.”

  Her nostrils flared. “Well, she’d better not bring any of her ‘patients’ over here. We have rules about that too. Only one pet per resident.”

  “Which is why I think it’s crucial that you keep a close eye on her. On her and Dan. You’re the enforcer, Mrs. Thornberg. Everybody looks to you to maintain order and decorum. If you don’t monitor their every move, who will?”

  The more I talked, the more I realized how perfect Antoinette Thornberg was for this assignment. As I’ve said, she stayed home on Saturday nights, loved snooping, and didn’t need my money.

  “Why do you care so much what they do?” she said a little suspiciously. “You’re out of the picture.”

  “Because of Buster, of course,” I replied, as if it were obvious. “I don’t want him exposed to loud noise or any other unseemly behavior. This shared custody arrangement has been difficult enough for him. He doesn’t need any additional stress.”

  “You said Leah’s a vet. She won’t hurt him.”

  “Not unless she’s having one of her Saturday night orgies.”

  Antoinette’s jaw dropped. “Orgies?”

  I shrugged. “Anything’s possible from what I hear.”

  “That’s it! I’m going to watch them like a hawk,” she vowed.

  I smiled. “I’m very relieved. Feel free to call me if things get out of hand.” I gave her my card.

  She looked it over. “Vice president, huh? No wonder you got divorced.”

  “I don’t—”

  “In my day, if a woman made it in the business world, she had to be a man hater.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” I said. “Women can be just as successful as men—more successful than men—and still have a happy marriage.”

  “Oh, yeah? Then what happened with yours?”

  “My divorce had more to do with Dan’s failure than with my success.”

  “You sure about that?”

  I checked my watch. “I really do have to go.” I got up from the chair, peeled the plastic off the back of my legs, and shook her frail, limp hand. Imagine my surprise when that hand tightened around mine and locked me in a viselike grip. “Glad we talked,” I said, extricating myself. “I feel better about leaving Buster next door.”

  Later that night at about eight, I was back at the Heartbreak Hotel, eating a bowl of Cheerios and doing some paperwork, when my cell phone rang. It was Mrs. Thornberg. She was at Lenox Hill Hospital with a sprained left arm after having slipped and fallen on a wet spot in the building’s lobby (they had washed the floor but hadn’t mopped it properly and she intended to get to the bottom of it). She said the doctor discharged her, but she had nobody but me to call and pick her up.

  “Don’t you have any children?” I said.

  “No children,” she said. “Mr. Thornberg was sterile. His testicles didn’t work the way they were supposed to.”

  Too much information. “How about friends?”

  “All dead,” she said. “When I saw your number on the card, I thought of you.”

  Well, of course, I went all the way uptown and crosstown and picked her up. I couldn’t very well tell her to hop in a cab at her age and in her condition.

  I brought her back to her apartment, got her undressed and into bed, dashed out to fill her prescriptions at the pharmacy, took care of her entire shopping list at the supermarket, bought her cold cuts and chicken soup at her favorite deli, and rented her a bunch of movies at the video place. The doctor said she’d be able to resume her normal activities in the morning, but I felt good knowing I’d helped her out.

  “Is there anything else?” I said when I’d returned with the loot, the sum of which added up to five hundred dollars (painkillers are expensive, but it was the groceries that broke the bank, since she wanted one of everything).

  “No, that’s it,” she said weakly. “For now.”

  Her eyelids were heavy, so I thought I’d hand her the receipts and her checkbook, let her reimburse me, and get going.

  “Here, Mrs. Thornberg,” I said when I’d pulled the receipts together. “Grand total for tonight—not counting the taxi fare, which I’m happy to pick up—is five seventy-two. Call it five, even.”

  No answer. The heavy eyelids were now shut.

  “Mrs. Thornberg?”

  Then came the snoring.

  I left the receipts on her night table, tiptoed out, and made my way home, resisting the urge to barge in next door, get a good look at Leah, and spend a minute with my precious Buster. I was too tired.

  No, it didn’t escape me that I had paid Ricardo and Isa five hundred dollars each to spy on Dan and that I had now shelled out the very same amount on Antoinette. In my attempt to get richer, I was actually getting poorer, which was slightly anxiety producing and didn’t seem like a sound business plan. But I was cheered by the fact that Leah was spending her nights at my ex’s and that all my accomplices were lined up to get them on record. Yes, the project was moving forward more quickly and efficiently than I could ever have imagined.

  Chapter

  15

  “Miracle of miracles. You’re right on time,” I said after I opened the door for Dan. It was eight-thirty the next Monday morning and he was bringing Buster back after their week together. And what a week it was. According to my spies, Leah and Dan weren’t apart for a single night. Especially exciting was Isa’s news that Leah had moved some of her clothes into Dan’s closet and that we had the photographs to prove it. Oh, and there was Desiree’s report, which prompted me to pump my fist in the air. She had spoken to Leah, who said she’d never been so happy, and although she knew she was rushing things, she felt sure that living with Dan was the right direction for her. In my wildest dreams, I never expected my plan to proceed so smoothly, and I had to give Desiree the credit. Of course, the minute I did she demanded the rest of her fee. I had to remind her that the deal wasn’t a deal for another seventy-something days. Still, we were both filled with optimism that we would each put money in our pockets as a result of our arrangement.

  “I know you have to get to work early, so here I am,” said Dan, releasing Buster from his leash.

  “My needs never seemed to interest you before,” I said offhandedly.

  “Is that true, or are you just yanking my chain?” he asked.

  “Is what true?” I said as I got down on the floor to hug my dog.

  “That I’ve never been interested in your needs.”

  I glanced up. So he was serious about the question? How odd. He was dressed oddly too, now that I took a good look
at him. No fancy duds, just jeans, sneakers, and a faded Giants sweatshirt. “I might have overstated it with the ‘never,’ because in the old days you bent over backward to accommodate me,” I conceded. “But let’s be real here: mostly, the person whose needs interest you is you. How often over the last year did I tell you I had to be at the office by a certain time and yet you brought Buster over whenever you damn pleased?”

  He considered this, then: “Too often. I’m sorry.”

  He regarded me with his beautiful blue eyes and his eight-byten-glossy face, and I waited for the smirk, the punch line, the put-down. Instead, he just stood there. Silent. Even penitent. Was it possible that his apology was sincere? Nah. His sincerity may have drawn me to him in the beginning, but the only thing he’d been sincere about recently was refusing to grow up.

  “The truth is,” he went on, “I think it’s amazing how hard you work. If I had your discipline and focus, I’d be a lot better off.”

  Now I was really confused. For the latter part of our marriage, this loafer, this moocher, this spendthrift, ridiculed me for being a workaholic. A “maniac,” he’d once called me. All of a sudden he was wishing he could be more like me?

  “Better off how?” I said, keeping the discussion going, just for argument’s sake.

  “By being fully invested in something,” he said. He was taking a little stroll around my poor excuse for a living room, acting all deep in thought, which amused me. You have to be deep to be deep in thought. “I’m starting to realize that for a while now I’ve been kind of checked out.”

  “Kind of?” I scoffed.

  “Okay. Completely. I guess what I’m trying to say is that you’re passionate about your work, and I’m envious of people who are passionate about what they do. I’m passionate about football, but that hasn’t done me much good. Not lately, anyway.”

  I was about to get on his case about how there were plenty of football-related jobs out there if he bothered to knock on doors, but why frustrate myself? We’d had that conversation a thousand times—my urging him to be a college coach, for example, and his insistence that former-pros-turned-coaches were losers—so what was the point? What did intrigue me, though, was why the subject was even coming up. Normally, my Monday morning exchanges with Dan were Buster-related and hostile at best.

  “Where’s all this soul searching coming from?” I said as I watched him pace then stop to stare at the ceiling.

  “Leah,” he said with the sigh of a lovesick teenager—the heaving shoulders, the faraway look, the whole business. “We talk about things like this.”

  “Leah? The woman you’ve been dating?” I said, trying to maintain a deadpan expression.

  He nodded. “She’s passionate about her work. She’s a vet.”

  “Right. I remember now.”

  “She went into her field because she loved animals, not because she expected to make a lot of money. She’s encouraging me to do the same thing.”

  “Become a vet?” I know, I know. I was being a smart-ass, but you’ve got to remember: my position was that the guy was stealing from me.

  “No, follow my passion. She believes that I’ll find a way to contribute to society if I just go with what I love.”

  “You mean she doesn’t consider hanging out with Ernie a contribution to society?”

  He couldn’t help smirking at that one. “Fine. I’ll shut up. But you’ll be happy to know that Leah has the same opinion of Ernie as you always did. Since I’ve been seeing more of her, I’ve been seeing less of him.”

  “Let’s hear it for Leah! She sounds like a good judge of character. Well, except where you’re concerned.”

  He laughed. “No sense in trying to have a meaningful conversation with you, darlin’. I’ll do us both a favor and let you get to the office.”

  He kissed Buster good-bye and left. And then I sort of snickered to myself. I mean, how funny would it be—funny, as in ironic—if Leah not only cohabitated with Dan for ninety days and relieved me of my financial burden, but also turned him into a decent human being who went on to lead a productive life? What a joke, huh? That’s how I thought of it at the time. Honest to God.

  That night I ran into Evan at the trash compactor, looking his scruffy but hunky self, his lanky but muscular body clothed in jeans and a turtleneck, his dark hair in boyish disarray. He smiled when he saw me, the crinkles forming around his eyes, and I found myself drawn to him again, drawn to his friendly, open face. He was more than a neighbor to me, I realized. If he were merely that, I wouldn’t have been so glad to see him whenever we ran into each other.

  Thankfully, I had all my clothes on this time, wasn’t locked out of my apartment, and didn’t need help with my belongings. None of those damsel in distress situations, in other words. I admit I liked the feeling of his coming to my aid, but I didn’t want him to view me as needy, which men think is just about the worst thing a woman can be.

  Well, I wasn’t needy until the tall-size Hefty garbage bag I’d lugged into the compactor room sprang a leak and all its contents started tumbling onto the floor.

  “Oh, no. Not again,” I said, throwing up my hands in frustration. “You weren’t sure before, but now you’re convinced I’m this lonely divorcée trolling for attention.”

  “Nothing wrong with being lonely,” he said matter-of-factly. “And you don’t need to troll for my attention, Melanie. You’ve already got it.”

  I met his eyes. His pupils were so big that they completely eclipsed the irises, the effect of which was that you couldn’t look away from them.

  Still, I cleared my throat and refocused on the matter at hand. “I’d better put all this stuff back in the bag.”

  “Here, let me,” he said as we both got down on the floor.

  We didn’t butt heads this time, but it was a little awkward, as I was feverishly trying to stick the balled-up tissues, the candy wrappers, the mail from advertisers of antiaging creams, and all my other embarrassing personal articles back into the smelly bag.

  “I notice there are a lot of these,” he said, tossing one of the tissues into the bag. “Have you been crying a lot?”

  “I never cry,” I said emphatically, tying the bag up and throwing it down the chute. “I use the tissues to clean my dog’s face.”

  “Hey, I told you. It’s not a sin to be lonely,” he said.

  “No, really,” I said. “I use them on Buster. With pugs, you have to get the grungy stuff out from between their wrinkles or they can become infected.”

  “I love pugs,” he said after it sunk in that I was serious about the reason for the tissues. “How about introducing me to yours?”

  “Sure,” I said. “My ex-husband and I share custody of him, but this is my week. You’re in luck.”

  “It sounds like your divorce from Traffic Dan was amicable,” he said. “The support. The shared custody. You’re so cool about it all.”

  Yeah, cool. That’s what I was. A cool customer, scheming and plotting to defraud my ex out of what was legally his. But Evan didn’t have to know that.

  We walked to my apartment, and I opened the door to find Buster standing inside waiting for me. As soon as he saw we had a guest, he went right into his Flying Wallenda act, leaping onto the sofa, leaping onto the nearby chair, leaping back onto the floor. If he could have curtsied, he would have. Such a show-off.

  “Buster, this is Evan,” I said. “He’s a painter. Maybe he’ll paint a picture of you someday.”

  Evan bent down and stroked Buster’s back. “Hey, boy. I’m the guy from down the hall. Pleased to meet you.”

  Buster snorted.

  “Don’t take it personally,” I said. “He does that even with people he likes.”

  Evan smiled. “So you think he likes me?”

  “I think it’s too soon to tell.”

  “Well, I’ll just have to try and ingratiate myself with him. Why don’t we take him for a walk?”

  “Now?” I checked my watch. It was eight-thirty. Maybe
Dan and Leah were finishing dinner and hopping into bed early, and I could log in another night of cohabitation.

  “Melanie? Did I lose you?”

  Yes. “No. It’s just that I’ve got work to do and you’ve got your painting and—”

  “Come on. We’ll take a quick one, just around our neighborhood.”

  “Our neighborhood.” I rolled my eyes. “The lovely Hell’s Kitchen.”

  “Oh. Right,” he said, heading for the door. “Patty told me you’re a former Upper East Sider. Well, this neighborhood is lovely, if you know where to look. So grab your coat and let’s go.”

  It was another breezy January night. Not bone chilling but cold. Smoke-coming-out-of-your-mouth-when-you-talk cold. I bundled up in a down coat and floppy wool hat. Not very glamorous, but Evan didn’t seem to mind.

  “You like to eat?” he asked as we strolled down Ninth Avenue, Buster trotting along on his leash.

  I puffed out my cheeks to demonstrate what a piggy eater I’d become. “More than I ever thought possible.”

  “Then how can you take the Upper East Side over this?” He gestured at all the restaurants on the avenue. “It’s the city’s premier neighborhood for food.”

  “No way,” I said. “The Upper East Side has some of the most famous places in the world.”

  “Famous, maybe. But does it have Hallo Berlin?” He pointed to a small, undistinguished-looking fast-food place. “Authentic German. More wursts than you knew existed.”

  I turned to look at him. He was smiling, and his smile was infectious. “Hallo Berlin, huh?” I laughed.

  “One of many treasures in our neighborhood,” he said.

  We kept walking. Despite my cynicism, the blend of aromas from the various cuisines were definitely whetting my appetite, not that it needed whetting lately.

  “Over there,” said Evan, nodding at a storefront called Fatina. “Middle Eastern food, plus live music and—you’ll love this—belly dancing.”