Fag Hag (Robert Rodi Essentials) (3 page)

“Yes,” she said with a throaty purr,
“quelle
hunk!” She ran her fingers through his long, wavy hair; as she’d guessed, it was sprayed stiff. “I especially adore these lovely locks; so radiant! But so are your eyes. I can see why Peter’s so bedazzled by you. And I can only imagine what’s underneath that impeccably tailored suit coat.”

“Just a shirt,” he said, his face nearly blood-colored now.

She elbowed him. “Oh, I think you know what I mean.” She turned to Peter. “And he’s a joker, too! What a prize, honey! He must be
gobs
of entertainment.”

“I might have to agree with you there,” said Peter suggestively. He turned and his eyes met Maurice’s.

“Such a gallant, Old World sort of name, too,” said Natalie, suddenly serious and reverent. “Are you really French, Maurice?”

“Oh, no,” he said, still smiling stupidly. “Jewish, actually. My name’s spelled M-O-R-R-I-S. I just like people to pronounce it with the accent on the last syllable. My way of being different, I guess.”

Natalie noticed the surprise on Peter’s face; he hadn’t known this, then. “Why, how darling!” she said with a clap of her hands. But she was thinking, buddy, you don’t even need me—you could hang
yourself
if I gave you enough rope.

Now she turned off like a faucet, and her gush of compliments ceased. As if serenely unaware of any change in her behavior, she stared at the overhead TV monitor, which was showing a music video of Guesch Patti singing “Étienne.” Natalie studied it as though it were the most important piece of film the world had ever produced.

Peter turned to make romantic eye contact with Morris, but found that Morris had his eyes glued firmly to Natalie; he was staring a hole right through her and had a perplexed look on his face. Every now and then he’d check the screen, as if wondering what on earth could be so important up there.

Finally, Peter spoke up. “Yoshi’s was wonderful, Natalie. Best restaurant I’ve ever been to. Food as good as sex.”

“That’s funny,” she said, looking only at Peter, “I always think of it the other way around—that sex can sometimes be as good as food.” They all laughed at this, Morris much harder than the others, and Natalie allowed her eyes to meet his briefly and unmeaningfully before returning them to Guesch Patti.

It was well past midnight now and the bar was getting crowded. Men were pushing their way into the throng of bodies, and Natalie allowed herself to get shoved between Peter and Morris, where she wedged herself tight. She held her Bacardi-on-the-rocks in front of her as if it were nitroglycerin.

“Haven’t been here in ages,” said Morris. “Been working too many weekends lately.”

And what do you do, Morris?
thought Natalie scornfully as she stared up at the monitor.
Sorry, buster, I’m not going to ask it.

“Morris works at Amlings,” Peter offered helpfully.

She smiled as if something delightful had occurred to her. She turned to Morris, then to Peter, and said, “Morris the florist!” She tittered. “Isn’t that adorable?”

Morris went pale, and after an awkward silence Peter said, “Well, actually, it’s only adorable if you pronounce his name incorrectly.”

She gasped, then turned to Morris and clasped his arm again. “Oh, I’m so sorry, I forgot. Forgive me?”

“Of course,” he said rather humbly.

Now he looks silly, she thought, with his ridiculous affectation about his name becoming an issue in the conversation. She decided to really lay it on: “Are you
sure?
I want you to like me so much, honey—Peter’s my oldest and dearest friend, I’d do anything for him!” That’s it, make him feel like an outsider. She felt her powers of manipulation surge within her; this was a masterful performance.

Morris was completely flustered. He looked at Natalie’s half-empty glass. “Refill that for you?” he asked, and his voice actually cracked.

“No, thank you, darling.”

He looked over her head at Peter. “Drink, babe?”

Babe!
thought Natalie. Her stomach lurched.

“Light beer, thanks,” said Peter.

Morris nodded and squeezed his way over to the bar.

Natalie immediately turned and grabbed Peter’s arm. “I like him
sooo
much,” she trilled. “I mean, first, he’s drop-dead gorgeous, and he dresses to kill, and I cannot
wait
to hear how he fucks, but you can tell me that later. What I want to know now is, what is it about him that made you change your mind?”

“Change my mind? What do you mean?” His brow furrowed attractively.

“About dating a Jewish guy! You said never again, not after that guy Todd went all Hasidic on you, remember? You took him home for Christmas and he freaked out that your parents had a tree and a manger scene?”

“Oh, yeah,” he said, laughing a little. “Well, I guess I shouldn’t judge all Jewish guys by Todd. But as far as Morris goes, I didn’t even know he
was
Jewish.”

She looked at him as though he’d just admitted to some grave moral lapse. “No, really,” she said.

“I’m not kidding. I found out when you did.”

“I thought you were practically in love with this guy.”

“Well, I am.” He paused. “Practically.”

“How can you be in love with someone when you don’t even know something as profoundly basic as h—” She waved her hands and cut herself off. “No, no. I’m staying out of it. I suppose you have to go about this your own way, not mine. I just wish you oceans of happiness, and he does seem like an angel.” She took a sip from her Bacardi, and when she looked over at him again his brow was still furrowed. She congratulated herself. Mission accomplished.

By the time the three of them left the bar, the dizzy drunkenness that Peter and Morris had brought from the restaurant had dulled into a kind of sullen soddenness. Morris wasn’t keen on the airing-out ritual, but he and Peter insisted on Natalie sharing their cab, and after a chorus of no-I-only-live-four-blocks-
away, she gave in. And by the way the ride passed in silence she knew that the reason they’d wanted to see her home was that they were no longer so eager to be alone with each other.

She sat back, satisfied, and planned the next move in the campaign.

I
N THE MORNING
she suffered a setback.

It started with a call from her mother. “Well, thank God, Calvin’s finally set a date,” she said. Natalie was still in bed, and the sound of her mother’s voice jarred her out of her pleasant Sunday-morning drowsiness.

“Mom, it’s got to be seven-thirty,” she said, knocking things off the night table in search of her alarm clock.

“Sorry, honey, I thought you’d want to know. He and Vera decided last night; it’s going to be in two months. Saturday, the twenty-third. At St. Edmond’s here in town. I said, Why such short notice? Well, it turns out Calvin didn’t have any trouble proposing, but when it came to actually setting a date he kept dragging his heels. I mean, he gave Vera that ring six months ago! So last night she made him promise, the first available date the church had, that would be it, and poor Calvin almost had a stroke because it turned out there’d been a cancellation for September! A couple was set to get married that day but the groom died of a brain hemorrhage, a strapping young thirty-two-year-old! Makes you wonder, doesn’t it? We could go at any time. They say the good die young, but every time I hear that I think of your father. He died at thirty-six, and if
he
can be called good then the rest of us have nothing to worry about.”

She was starting in on one of her endless digressions; Natalie jumped in to bring her back to the matter at hand. “Mom, this is ridiculous. I’m supposed to be a bridesmaid. Is Vera going to have dresses picked out and fitted in time for a wedding in two months?” Secretly she was wondering,
Can I lose any weight in two months?

“Honey, Vera is so ready for this wedding she could be walking down that aisle at an hour’s notice. She’s been straining at the leash for six months, remember, while your brother’s dithered. I just saw her, she’s been up all night addressing invitations, whipping them out like a conveyer belt. Calvin just sits there in the background looking pallid. I wanted to tell you early, so you could get a date. You’re not thinking of bringing Peter, are you?”

“Why not?”

“Oh, never mind. I really don’t want to lecture you, dear. Bring him if you like. I have to go now, I need to call Vera’s mother to see what color dress she’s going to wear. I’m afraid I’m going to have to insist on rose for myself. Harriet always looked good in powder blue. Plus she already as all the accessories, which is something one should always consider. I’ll try talking her round to it.”

“You do that, Mom.”

As soon as she’d hung up, Natalie dialed Peter’s number. It rang about twelve times before he answered dazedly. “Hello?”

“It’s me, doll. Guess what? My brother’s finally set a wedding date, end of September. Remember you promised to be my plus-one?”

He paused. “I did?”

She couldn’t believe he was even questioning her on this. “Of course you did. You’re not backing out, are you?”

“It’s just that I don’t remember it, that’s all.”

“I told you six months ago Calvin was getting married and said what a blast if you went as my date, and you said it was a great idea.”

“I said it was a great
idea,
Natalie. I didn’t exactly
accept.”

The entire planet seemed suddenly very still. “What?” she said, her voice like ice.

“Six months ago, for Christ’s sake! It was a good idea at the time, but times have changed. My weekends are—uh—kind of precious to me now.”

“What do you mean? You’re a freelance artist. You don’t work regular hours.”

“I know, but—well, other people do.”

She heard a giggle—the unmistakable, repulsive giggle of Morris.

“I really can’t talk right now,” he continued. “I’m not alone.” He turned away from the phone and said,
sotto voce,
“Will you cut that out?”

She shook her head, wounded beyond belief. “Fuck you,” she snarled, and she turned off the phone. It was an unsatisfactory gesture. That was the problem with portable phones; you couldn’t slam them back in the cradle.

Almost instantly she regretted having cursed him. It would drive him further into the arms of Morris. That had been a tactical error. She mustn’t let emotion taint her strategy now; she might lose everything. What could she do to make up for it? She rolled over and considered the problem rationally for a moment, then settled on a solution. She sat up, fluffed her pillows, pulled a notebook and pen from her nightstand, and composed the following note of apology:

Darling Peter,

I’m so sorry for having lost my temper this morning. Bad, selfish Natalie! You know how much I love you and the thought of that dreary wedding without you just fills me with trepidation and dread; it won’t be any fun at all without you there to wink at and poke in the ribs and dish everyone with. But family occasions are meant to be a bore and a trial, so I shall stiffen my spine and bear my lot with grace. Of course your weekends are precious to you now, sweetheart, and no one in the world knows better than I how much you deserve them after the many disappointments life has handed you. Yet instead of strewing rose petals on your road to happiness, I’ve thrown up barbed wire across your path; you must feel utterly betrayed. Rest assured, I have now come to my senses. I beg your forgiveness. Why don’t you and Morris come to dinner on Wednesday? Just some pizza and lots of wine. It’s a school night, so it won’t interfere with your delicious weekend debauches. I will entertain and enchant you both and prove to you my worth as a loyal friend and ally. I do so want to get to know and love gorgeous Morris as much as you do. Does he have a brother for me?

XOXO

Natalie

She read it over and was satisfied. She decided to copy it onto her best stationery, and personally drop it in Peter’s mailbox.

Convinced that she had salvaged her relationship with the man she loved, she lay back on her pillow and tried to think of a way to get rid of the man
he
loved by September. That wasn’t far off—but, she thought, far enough. Now that she had a deadline looming before her, she might even rise to the occasion and have Morris banished from Peter’s life by mid-August. If she used all her tried-and-true stratagems, she couldn’t possibly fail.

And, she thought, what better place to begin than over pizza Wednesday night?

P
ETER ACCEPTED BOTH
her apology and her invitation, as she had known he would. Emboldened by her success, she set about her plan to divide and conquer.

On Wednesday morning, the temporary agency she worked for sent her to an office that needed a receptionist. Once the first flurry of morning calls had passed, she telephoned the floral shop where Morris was employed.

A young woman answered. “Amlings, Illinois Center.”

“Good morning,” said Natalie. “I’d like to make a purchase from Morris Gross, please.”

“Morris is busy with a customer at the moment. Can I have someone else help you?”

“Certainly not. I will wait for Morris Gross.”

The woman sighed. “Okay.” The sudden sound of music told Natalie she’d been shifted to the limbo of the hold button. A full orchestra was playing an unspeakably syrupy version of 10,000 Maniacs’ “Like the Weather.”
Will I ever be able to listen to that record again?
she wondered as she shuddered in revulsion.

She was jolted to attention by Morris’s voice. “Morris Gross speaking.” He really did pronounce it Mor-RISS. She rolled her eyes in irritation.