Boyfriend from Hell (27 page)

“Jesus, Richard, why ennoble these people by writing about them?”

“It’s part of the story. So I’ve been around the clock unearthing this stuff. I just got back to checking messages. On the book, Ronnie, what’s best for you is what’s best for you. I feel that way completely. If it isn’t the project for you, for whatever the reasons, walk away. Antoine will live, I assure you. It was a thought originally. That’s all it was.”

“You’re totally cool with it?”

“Totally.”

“Good. I’m moving on, doing something for
New York
on daytime TV. It’s fun to do.”

“Great.”

“The book might have been important. But not fun. And not for me, ultimately.”

“I’m with you. And I’ll
be
with you. Coming back a week from Thursday. I saw they’re having a night of swing dancing at the plaza in Lincoln Center with a live band. Ever do that kind of dancing?”

“A little. In college.”

“I’ll be back that day. Let’s go.”

“Somehow I don’t think of you for that. Are you good at it?”

She was thinking of Bob and the bowling, wondering if Richard would say no, and then turn out to be a terrific dancer and thus curiously deceitful. This was a day for his surprising her.

“I am very, very good,” he said with directness. “Follow my lead and we’ll be stars.”

“Richard, thank you for this call.”

“Just direct your feet to the sunny side of the street,” and serious Richard left her chuckling, also a surprise.

Jenna Hawkins called Ronnie to say Antoine Burris sent a letter back, confirming the author was withdrawing from the project, that the advance of the moneys received thus far, fifteen thousand dollars, would be returned by the author, and he would agree to a release from the contract. Ronnie estimated she had spent the three thousand she mentioned to Bob and Nancy in time given over to the project, she wouldn’t be getting any of that back, and would have to take it as a loss. However, Hawkins was talking about making it all back on the
New York Minute
anthology of her articles. As Hawkins anticipated, Burris claimed ownership of the outline, a point Hawkins was prepared to negotiate. Burris asked if he could talk to Ronnie and Hawkins encouraged her to do so. A few days earlier Ronnie had been one of his authors and it was a courtesy she considered appropriate to the situation.

“It’s Antoine. Richard talked to me. And I heard from your agent. But let me hear it from you. This material turned out not to be the right fit?”

“It was psychologically more demanding than I anticipated.”

“It is an intense subject. Intellectually, did you find it interesting?”

“I did. If that were the only concern—”

“Fascinating, possession. Richard said your first pages were wonderful. More’s the pity. Ronnie, I’m not going to reassign this as yet. On the grounds that interest in the subject seems to be ongoing, I’m going to set everything aside for three months. If after three months, you’ve possibly had a change of heart, we’ll draw up the papers again and the project is yours.”

“That’s very nice of you, Antoine, but frankly—”

“Don’t commit yourself. You don’t have to do anything or say anything. This is all on my end. Legally, we’ll close this out for you. Informally, it remains your project if you happen to feel more inclined to do it.”

“You’re being very nice about it.”

“Self-interest. You may yet come around and then we’ll all have a wonderful book. All the best, Ronnie.”

“Thank you, Antoine.”

She couldn’t determine if he behaved responsibly because of Richard or was trying to find a way to hold on to a project he thought promising. Whatever the reason she was pleased to have received the call, which was better than a lawsuit.

Richard sent Ronnie an e-mail saying he would be dressed in period for their dance event, an unusually playful choice for this straight-arrow man. To match his style she went to a vintage dress shop and bought a 1940s blue and white polka-dot dress with an imitation gardenia for her hair. He arrived in a taxicab wearing a full-fitting blue pinstriped suit with wide lapels, wide slacks with big cuffs, a white shirt, and a period painted tie.

She laughed when she saw him, and was beaming over her own outfit.

“You’re going to die in that,” she said in the ride to Lincoln Center.

“I’ll take the jacket off,” and he opened it to reveal that underneath the suit jacket he was wearing broad suspenders.

A portion of the plaza was cordoned off for the people attending the event. The Lincoln Center Big Band was set up with a bandstand and sound system. At the sides were a couple of bars for drinks, and for those paying a surcharge on the night, Richard one of them, seating was available at tables ringing the dance area.

The band played “Take the A Train” and the evening was off to a fast start for the two hundred or so people participating. Ronnie’s swing dance experience was limited to a couple of college parties, but she had a sense of the lindy. Richard, though, was extremely deft and guided her through the moves. She blended with him and on a couple of the faster numbers a few of the senior citizens on the dance floor stopped dancing to watch them. On the slow dance portion, to “Star Dust,” Ronnie said, “Now I know why this kind of thing was popular,” as he drew her to him, their bodies pressing together.

They sat and sipped their Tom Collins drinks, a theme drink of the evening. Richard excused himself to go to the men’s room. Ronnie watched the dancers and then turned to look at the people seated. At a nearby table, holding a wineglass aloft, tipping it toward her as if to toast her, smiling a taunting smile, was Satan.

Horrified, she turned away and struggled for breath, then staggered from the table. The Satan of her dreams, of the drawings, had broken out of the confines of sleep and her unconscious and appeared in her conscious, waking life.

A
S THE BAND PLAYED
“Polka Dots and Moonbeams,” wildly irrelevant to her state of mind, she held on to a stanchion for the sound system to keep herself upright. She was trembling and soaking with perspiration. Richard found her there, outside the outer ring of tables.

“Take me home. I’m sick.”

“What’s wrong?”

“Take me home.”

They rushed toward the taxicab area, Richard supporting her stooped body with his arm.

“We should go to a hospital.”

“Take me home, take me home.”

After traveling a few blocks she asked the cabdriver to stop, went outside the taxicab, and vomited the sweet alcoholic drink and bile.

“You must have food poisoning.”

“It was the drink. Let me just get home.”

Nancy was in the living room reading a newspaper when they entered the apartment.

“Ronnie?”

“I got sick. The heat, the drink—” and she rushed to the bedroom and lay on her back.

“Maybe you should sit up,” Richard said, standing over her, Nancy next to him.

“I just want to rest. I need to rest.”

“Get you a cold towel?” Nancy asked.

“Good.”

Nancy brought in a moist washcloth and placed it on Ronnie’s forehead.

“I’m going to sleep now.”

“You sure you’re okay?” Richard asked.

“She’s obviously not okay,” Nancy said sharply.

“I’ll be fine, let me just close my eyes. Sorry I ruined the night.”

“You don’t have to apologize to him,” Nancy said.

“I’ll call you in the morning.”

He took a last look and headed out of the apartment, Nancy not acknowledging him.

Nancy stroked Ronnie’s hand and Ronnie slipped into sleep, like a child exhausted by a most terrible day.

In the dream she was on a ballroom floor, the dance area enclosed by mirrors. She wore a white gown. Satan came forward, ludicrously wearing a tuxedo. He extended his hand to her to dance and she shook her head, no, and ran away from him in anxiety, the movements outsized, theatrical, as if it were a dance performance. She looked in the mirrors, which reflected her anxiety back to her as Satan hovered in the background, smiling, and in the repeated motif, the mirrors suddenly shattered. She awoke, soaking in her polka-dot dress.

She sat on the floor of the kitchen with the lights out, sipping a bottle of water. She saw Satan
in
her life,
in
her very life? “What?” she said aloud. She changed into pajamas and went back to sleep. Nancy looked in on her in the morning, saw her sleeping, and waited for her to awake. Nancy left for work only after assurances that Ronnie was feeling better.

Moving slowly, Ronnie showered and emerged to answer a ringing phone.

“How are you today?” Richard asked.

“Better than last night. Not terrific.”

“What was wrong?”

She was not inclined to admit, Oh, I merely saw Satan at an adjoining table, just sitting there among the dance patrons.

“Probably what I drank.”

“Are you going to be all right?”

“I hope so.”

“This is a bad time to be slipping out again, but the cult leader, the guy who hasn’t been well, he took a turn for the worse. I need to go there, see if I can get in a last interview—”

“Whatever.”

His career was the least of her concerns.

“Probably back within a week. And that should do the traveling for a while. You sure you’re going to be okay?”

“I’ll manage.”

“Feel good, Ronnie. We’ll be in touch.”

“Sure.”

She watched television for her article. Nancy called a couple of times. She and Bob had theater tickets that night, would Ronnie need anything from her, she could drop by after work.

“I’m just going to have a light bite for dinner.”

“Richard, is he going to look in on you?”

“He went out of town again.”

“Of course he did.”

She slept peacefully that night, not expecting to, and in the morning willed herself to work. She was scheduled to see Kaufman at 2:00
P.M.
She anticipated what Kaufman would say, that the scene at the plaza was a variation on the drawings with the same root causes.

She took a crosstown bus at Ninety-sixth Street to the East Side and transferred to the downtown bus at Second Avenue. She casually looked out the window. A black sedan drew next to the bus and in the second seat a window rolled down, and looking up at her from the open window, smiling, was Satan. She covered her face with her hands and sat that way until the driver announced Thirty-fourth Street, where she got off.

Ronnie described the manifestations to Kaufman slowly, haltingly.

“It was like Satan was trailing along as I went to my therapist, a superior look to say, It won’t do you any good, honey.”

“These fantasies, they’re similar to the drawings, aren’t they? Except you’re giving the symbol of Satan full dimension.”

“It’s worse, because it’s in my walking-around life.”

“Veronica, we know you’re fit, physically. And you don’t show the symptoms of schizophrenia. You’re functioning. You’re working.”

“More or less. But that’s great news, Dr. Kaufman. I’m not schizophrenic.”

“Why are you doing this to yourself?” she said bluntly.

“What kind of question is that?”

“A direct question. There is no Satan, Veronica. No Satan who rides around in the back of a car, or sits at a table at a dance in Lincoln Center. You’re imagining him, dreaming him, drawing him, seeing him. And I’m asking why you’re putting yourself through this.”

“I don’t want to go through this.”

“I wish I were sure of that. You’re punishing yourself.” She observed Ronnie, who was looking at her hands in discomfort. “Who gets punished in our culture?”

“I feel like a schoolchild answering. Someone who’s been bad.”

“Someone who’s been bad. It’s the same origins, the bad girl conjuring up the embodiment of evil—Satan.”

“I knew you’d say that.”

“Knowing I’d say it doesn’t mean it doesn’t have validity. Once you think of yourself as bad, it keeps building on itself.”

Kaufman urged Ronnie to go back once again, painful as it was—and Ronnie was very uncomfortable—and talk about her mother’s death, which Kaufman characterized as “your original sin.” She then prodded her to talk about her father’s death, and the sex with Richard, whether she thought taking pleasure in it made her bad, and the article about Cummings, how she was prepared to believe writing it somehow led to his death and made her bad, until Ronnie was weary, eager to get out of there.

Kaufman wanted to increase their sessions from once to three times a week, “on the clinic’s nickel,” she said, and strongly advised it, to which Ronnie said, “So it’s not just similar to the drawings. This is obviously crazier, these ‘sightings.’”

“I didn’t say that. I merely feel you could use additional therapy.”

“I appreciate it, Doctor. I’ll ponder it, with all else.”

She dared not look out the window in the buses that took her home. In the apartment, she turned on the television set to watch people parading problems that didn’t seem to be in the same world as hers. Nancy came home from work and found Ronnie lying in bed on her back staring at the ceiling. The nightly news was on. Ronnie wasn’t paying any attention to it.

“This doesn’t look good.”

“Satan’s been showing up, Nancy.
In
my life. Not in my dreams, not in drawings. I saw him today, he was in the backseat of a car, and I saw him when I went dancing with Richard, which is why I got sick. It made me sick to my stomach. A horrible face. Human, but not really. A dark angel with a human face and he smiles at me, a sort of condescending smile.”

“Ronnie!”

“Dr. Kaufman says I’m not schizophrenic. Just having your run-of-the-mill, explainable hallucinations.”

“What’s explainable?”

“I’m someone reliving her mother’s death and a whole arsenal of other guilt. Thinking of myself as bad and conjuring up the ultimate symbol of badness.”

“What can I do for you?”

“Seems to be between me, and me. Right now, I’m going to try to get some writing done. I’ll just have a yogurt or something for dinner. And pretend normal.”

“She’s supposed to be very good. Is she?”

“She’s smart. She’s offering me three sessions a week. But it feels like I’m on a train heading toward a station and the station is where it’s safe and I’ll be fine, but the train is moving very slowly and the station is moving, too, even faster than the train, and I’m not catching up.”