“Right,” Max agreed. “Although, if I had been in that meeting with the bluebloods this morning I would’ve jumped at that Yankees deal. That’s the last time I let someone from Nebraska negotiate on my behalf. I suppose if your bosses had offered me a bushel of corn and three pigs you would have agreed to that, right?”
“Hey!” Katie exclaimed.
Danielle said, “Oh please, Max, what do you know about running a baseball team?”
“Look, like I told your wife earlier, any idiot can run the Yank—”
But Max was cut off by a horrid noise that suddenly came from another part of the dining room. It was the sound of someone singing a cappella but having no business doing so because the singing was so off-key that it could hardly be said to come from a human being.
“Honey, you…are my shining star…don’t you go away!” the singer belted out, mangling the opening line of the Manhattans’s hit.
“Wanna be…right here where you are…’til my dying day!” the brutality continued.
Naturally, every head in the dining room turned to see who this was disrupting their pricey dinners.
“Oh my God!” Danielle exclaimed when she saw the person.
“Oh, no!” Arlene muttered.
“Oh, fuck!” Katie ejaculated.
Harold, drenched from the rain that was falling outside, was standing smack dab in the middle of the dining room staring earnestly at the table Max and the ladies were seated at. As the water dripping off of him formed a puddle at his feet he continued: “Don’t you re-a-lize…how you hypnotize? Make me love you more each time! Oh-oh baby!”
By now Nobu’s maître d’, hearing this ruckus, had rushed in from her station up front. Pleading with Harold she vainly tried pulling him back out of the dining room but considering she was the type of hostess typically found in elite restaurants—that is, a stick insect in high heels—there was no way she could budge a grown man.
“Honey I’ll never leave you lonely…give my love to you only. To you oooooonly; to you own-own-ly!” When Harold attempted to hit that high note it was as if someone were playing the violin with a stretched out length of barbed wire. People winced.
The maître d’, abandoning her fruitless attempts to abscond with Harold, rushed over to Max.
“I am so sorry, Mr. Bland,” she said, her eyes beseeching the famous author and frequent customer to have pity. “He said he was with your party; I was on the phone when he came in and I assumed it was alright to send him back. I am so, so sorry.”
Danielle, too, wanted to plead similarly with her husband. This was the worst possible thing her father could have done. Max loathed people who made spectacles of themselves and he particularly loathed people who made spectacles of themselves while embarrassing him in the process. He had once told her that if Meg Ryan had ever faked an orgasm while sitting across a deli table from him that he would have thrown cold water in her face and told her to knock it off.
The matter was made even worse when Danielle noticed that many of the other diners were now using their mobile phones to take pictures of Harold, and then of Max, recording for posterity this supremely embarrassing moment—and Danielle was willing to wager anything that many of those pictures would not only appear in tomorrow’s tabloids but be on YouTube tonight. If he hadn’t done so already, Danielle worried, Harold was in danger of seriously jeopardizing relations between her and Max for days, if not weeks or months, to come. She could imagine it now: Max sequestering himself in his wing of the mansion, refusing to see or speak to her, let alone have sex with her. Even on his upcoming birthday he’d be nowhere to be found. There would be a void in her life for however long it took him to forgive her for her inability to keep her nutty relatives in check. And for every day this went on Danielle knew she would hear one phrase repeating itself over and over again in her cranium like the tolling of a church bell: “Scotland, Danielle…Scotland.”
Meanwhile, Harold kept singing.
“Wanna be…right here where you are…’til my dying day!”
But just as Danielle was rising from her seat to show the twit of a maître d’ the proper way to yank a man in the direction one wants him to go Arlene, apparently also sensing the threat of losing favor with Max, beat her to it.
“Harold, stop it this instant!” she yelled at her ex-husband as the cell phone shutterbugs clicked away. “How dare you come in here making a fool of yourself and us in this manner!”
“Arlene, baby, I love you!” Harold wailed, mercifully ending his serenade. He just stood there, soaking wet, looking as pathetic as a human being can look. “Please don’t go through with this marriage when I know there’s still hope for us!”
“Hope for us?” Danielle’s mother all but screeched. “Any hope for us went out the window the second I found out you had a child with another woman!”
Murmurs of surprise escaped from the onlookers.
“But it has always been you I loved,” Harold insisted. “Cora was just an affair. I never meant to get her pregnant, to have a family with her. I had actually stopped having sex with her ten years ago.”
“Which means you were having sex with her for seventeen years!” Arlene rejoined. “That’s no affair, that’s a whole god-damned second marriage, Harold.”
The spectators to this scene, particularly those who were women, were nodding their heads in agreement with this declaration.
“And the fact remains that you spent a lot of time away from our home in Arizona to be with them in New Mexico. I may have had my own dalliances, Harold, but I never let them interfere with my responsibilities to you or to Danielle.”
“Please don’t use my name, Mom,” the daughter whispered, sliding lower in her chair.
“Do you really expect me to believe you feel nothing for me now?” Harold asked. “After more than thirty years? And do you really expect me to believe you’re gay, Arlene?”
More murmurs of surprise from the onlookers.
“And tell me, is that the woman you’re planning on marrying?”
Many people had to shift their chairs or crane their necks to get a gander at Nita, at whom Harold was now pointing.
“I am gay, you fool. I have always been gay. But even so I was a good wife to you for a long time. I never gave you cause to run off and find a second woman.”
Suddenly, none other than Lord Kenilworth stood up from his party of four at the next table and said, “Pardon the intrusion but if you’re gay then why did you bother marrying the poor fellow in the first place?”
Arlene said, “It was the seventies. I wanted things; things you could only get back then if you had a man.”
“Seems a bit deceptive if you ask me,” Lord Kenilworth answered back. “In fact, it seems to me like you used the poor chap.”
A chorus of yeses and yeahs, mostly delivered by males, greeted this remark. But before Arlene could respond a forty-something woman stood and, pointing at the dignified figure of Lord Kenilworth said, “Oh, that’s a typical male response, alright! Look, I’m sure that in exchange for everything she got from this two-timing bastard Arlene worked her tail off making him happy. She must have for him to stay with her for thirty years!”
“That’s right!” Yet another woman stood and faced Kenilworth. “How many times in thirty years do you think your so-called ‘poor chap’ cooked a meal? Or ironed his own clothes? Or hoovered the floors? Or even changed nappies? You men from Harold’s generation expect your wives to double as slaves.”
Now a young man with a Zachary Scott mustache joined in.
“The point still remains,” he began, “that Arlene created a marriage based on false pretences.”
“But what else was she have to done?” a silver-haired woman asked pushing back her chair and getting to her feet. “I’m sixty-seven years old and I’m a lesbian. Sure, I can say that now and no one blinks an eye but back in the seventies I would have been an outcast. In fact, I too was married, for nearly forty years. Men were a necessary evi
l back when I took my vows, but a useful one; I had a house in Kensington and five wonderful children.”
“With respect,” Lord Kenilworth replied, “I cannot agree. You and Arlene should both have accepted whatever societal limitations existed at the time and made the best of things. At least then this poor chap wouldn’t be here trying to win his wife back.”
A black man stood.
“Excuse me,” he said, “but your comment about societal limitations is a bit disturbing. Should the blacks in America for instance have just accepted slavery and made the best of it?”
“That’s not what I meant, sir,” Lord Kenilworth replied with feeling. “I merely meant that if it was unlikely for a gay woman to have kids and a Kensington home back in the seventies then gay women back then should have adjusted their expectations and found other means of fulfillment.”
The forty-something woman said: “But Harold isn’t trying to win Arlene back because of her being gay. He’s trying to win her back because he’s a shite who couldn’t keep his pants fastened in New Mexico!”
The black man pointed at her.
“Well perhaps he couldn’t keep his pants fastened in New Mexico because a particular gay woman at home knew nothing about satisfying a man!”
“That’s not true!” Harold cut in. “Arlene was a terrific lover.”
“That’s right,” Arlene said. “I read books. It was Harold who stunk.”
“I did?”
“I’m afraid so.”
“And what would you know about it, love?” a new voice uttered; it belonged to a young lawyerly type sitting with three other young lawyerly types. “You dykes can’t exactly claim to be experts on what makes men great lovers, can you?”
“Do shut up!” the sixty-seven year old lesbian snapped. “A twerp like you is not allowed to refer to us as dykes.”
“Still, the young man has rather crudely made a point,” Kenilworth stated.
“Oh, please!” one of the other women said. “I doubt Harold even tried to be a good lover. You lot don’t give a shite about us in bed and for some reason each one of you thinks he’s the greatest lover on Earth. I bet all Harold cared about was getting on and then getting off.”
Arlene nodded.
“It’s true. He never once gave me an orgasm.”
“I didn’t?” Harold asked with dismay.
“Not once.”
But the former spouses may as well have kept their mouths shut for by this point no one was listening to them. The dining room had erupted into a chaotic brouhaha with people at one table arguing with people at the next table, and people on one side of the room trying to shout down people on the opposite side. Even the maître d’ was getting into it with one of the waitresses, the maître d’ referring to Arlene as a dishonest cow while the waitress saw Harold as a two-timing wanker.
As the overall pitch of this scene escalated Max recognized an opportunity. Turning to the ladies at his table and said, “Perhaps now would be a good time for us to make a graceful exit?”
“I couldn’t agree more,” Danielle said, gathering her things.
“Is your driver still standing by?”
“Yes,” Danielle confirmed.
Max then told her that he’d take Harold in the Jaguar while she and the other ladies should ride in the Bentley. They’d meet at the mansion.
“Let’s go, buddy,” Max said to the dripping wet Harold, grabbing the older man’s arm; at first Harold resisted, his eyes still on Arlene, but though Max was no Schwarzenegger neither was he a skeletal maître d’ and thus was easily able to force Harold out of the raucous dining room. By now the scene in Nobu had evolved—or devolved—into one reminiscent of that scene at the beginning of 2001—A Space Odyssey wherein the monkeys wage war against one another and because of this no one noticed the Bland party steal quietly away along with the ersatz crooner.
Chapter 36
As the Jaguar pulled away from Nobu and headed in the direction of Kensington Max took a glance at Harold to his left. Danielle’s father was slumped miserably in the passenger seat as though he were car sick.
“How did you know where to find us?” Max asked his companion.
“I called Danielle this afternoon,” Harold said. “I pretended as though I was at the airport waiting to fly back to Arizona and that I was just calling to apologize again. Then I changed the topic, got her talking about her plans for the evening and she mentioned the name of the restaurant. Then I stood across the street waiting for you guys to show up.”
“Not bad. So tell me just how much you’ve had to drink,” Max said. “It must have been vodka because I certainly don’t smell anything.”
“I haven’t had a single thing to drink,” Harold replied morosely.
“Are you kidding me? You mean you did that cold stone sober?”
“I love her, Max. Wouldn’t you do the same thing for Danielle?”
“Make a complete ass of myself in a room full of total strangers? No.”
Harold scoffed.
“You younger generation know nothing about romance,” he said.
“Harold, I’m ten years younger than you—we’re in the same generation.” As he made a left turn Max said, “Do you realize I’m closer in age to you and Arlene than I am to your daughter?”
Harold looked at the writer and said, “My God, that’s true isn’t it?”
“Yep.”
They drove on in silence for several blocks. Behind them Max saw the headlights of the Bentley following; he wished he could be privy to the conversation going on in that vehicle. Finally, Harold said, “I’m sorry if I embarrassed you tonight, Max. I know Danielle is going to ream me a new one because of that. You know, she’s like your bodyguard.”
Max laughed.
“No, seriously,” Harold went on. “She really takes pains to protect you, to make sure no one pisses you off or upsets you. I can’t tell you how many times she’s lectured Arlene and me about what not to do or say in your presence.”
“I don’t ask her to do that,” Max replied. “It’s just a thing with her.”
“She doesn’t do it for Katie.”
“Katie has fewer quirks than I do,” Max said. “Actually, if you really wanna know what I think then I’ll tell you.”
“Sure.”
“Just between you and me I think Danielle is more like her mother than she wants to admit,” Max stated. He had to increase the windshield wiper’s speed for it was raining harder now. “I think Danielle goes out of her way to be my bodyguard as you put it because I’m Max Bland, famous author. See, she likes to pretend like that doesn’t matter so much to her but I know it does. She’s the envy of all her friends; she lives in a showpiece mansion; she’s admitted to all the best restaurants; invited to all the best parties; is on friendly terms with fabulous people and can afford to take her considerable salary and blow every pence of it on designer clothes and shoes. Now, I don’t think she’d love me any less if I were a regular bloke—like the computer programmer I was before Pope Anne was published—but I don’t think she’d bend over backwards making sure my low threshold for annoyance is seldom exceeded.”
Harold told the writer that he was right, Danielle and Arlene were two of a kind and that it had always humored him to see how hard Danielle tried to make it out to be otherwise.
“In fact,” the professor said, “I can’t think of a single trait of mine that Danielle inherited.”
“I can,” Max offered. “You both can’t sing.”
They laughed.
“Boy, I really made a fool of myself tonight, didn’t I?” Harold asked after a moment when the laughter was done.
“I applaud your valor, though,” Max said. “And it was for a good cause.”
“But an ultimately fruitless cause,” Harold opined. “I see now that you and Danielle were right: I really do need to forget about getting Arlene back.”
Max saw him shudder.
“Did you see the way she was looking at
me?” Harold asked. “Her eyes were…dead, Max. They were almost like a doll’s eyes. There was nothing in them for me any longer. I didn’t believe it could be true but there it was.”
Max braked for a red light and then faced the professor.
“Listen, Harold, here’s how I see it: Arlene would’ve eventually left you anyway. Sure, that second family of yours may have greased the skids a bit but even if they didn’t exist your marriage was probably doomed. What with her daughter setting an example by living openly as a bisexual and what with the way the world’s been changing over the past twenty, thirty years I think eventually Arlene would have mustered enough courage to walk out on you and move in with the Fountain Hills version of Nita. She’s gone, man. Poof! You ain’t getting her back. I wish you could so you can get her the hell outta this country, but c’est la vie, right? And yeah, it’s sad but at least you’ve still got time to move on.”
“With a grad student, as you suggested the other night?”
“Absolutely,” Max stated. “No better way to get over a failed marriage. It is the male sex’s ultimate weapon against women who break our hearts: there’s always someone younger. Besides, you’ll need to sport a twenty-something on your arm for a while just to regain the respect of your friends because once they hear you were married to a lesbian for thirty years you’re gonna look like a huge chump.”
***
In the Bentley the women were having their own conversation.
“Do you think Max will hold this against me?” Arlene earnestly asked her daughter.
Danielle and Katie shared a look and then shook their heads. It was amazing. The woman suffers a public airing out of her dirty laundry and all she could think of was keeping favor with Max.
“Stop worrying about Max, Mom. Jesus.”
“Are you okay, Nita?” Katie asked.
“Oh yes, darling,” the wedding planner affirmed. “It was all quite…exciting, actually.”
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