Hating Olivia: A Love Story (10 page)

I
was
a man,
wasn’t
I? Damned right I was! But where I’d expected a cathartic moment of insight when I finally submitted my case for examination, all I found instead was the ugly reality of the drab office and the dullness of the muggy afternoon.

“Well, you see … my life … it’s not—it’s not really
going
anywhere…. ”

Lame. Impotent. And not really the truth—it
was
going somewhere, and that somewhere was straight down the toilet—but it was the best I could do.

“I see,” said Ms. Bentford. “Maybe it would help if you told me a little about yourself. What your life is like right now, for starters.”

Well, that was something I could do. I laid out the facts as dispassionately as I could: That I was busted and out of work. That I was living with Olivia Aphrodite. That I was in love with her. That anything I’d attempted as a creative artist—which hadn’t been all that much, truth to tell—had come to naught. That lately I’d been harboring nebulous fears about …
everything.

“I know it doesn’t really shed light on what’s bothering me…. so I guess I don’t really know what the hell it is.”

“Does it comfort you to know that all the people who come through that door feel pretty much the same way?”

It didn’t. And what did I have to feel lousy about, after all? Wasn’t I merely the victim of my own laziness, my own inability to cope with the world as it was? And whose fault was that? Nobody ever asked me to think of myself as an “artist,” nobody told me to walk off the one thousand and one jobs I’d held, nobody had forced me at gunpoint into a ditch of debt. I was young. I was healthy. I could work. Most of my life lay before me—maybe.

And, too, I had Olivia.

So what the hell was my problem?

Though nothing got resolved, I walked out of there feeling a little better than when I went in, if for no other reason than that someone was trying to understand. I even found myself speculating on the personal life of my shrink. Married? Kids? Available? It was a good sign that I could think about fucking. But of course I always thought about fucking.

The sliding-scale fee for my initial consultation was a scant five bucks. I asked the receptionist if I could pay later. Presently without income, I explained. Okay, she said. People do it all the time.

I
t came as a jolt when I reported for my six thirty session a few weeks later and discovered that Ms. Bentford was a footnote in the agency’s history.

“I don’t get it,” I complained to the receptionist. “I saw her five times, and she never indicated that she’d be leaving.”

“It was a last-minute decision, I’m afraid. In fact, she’s left the state to open a private practice. We were all quite surprised by it, actually.”

“Damn…. ” I was utterly crestfallen. That’s the way it always went. Find something half decent and before you know it, it’s gone. And Ms. Bentford and I were just beginning to get somewhere.

“Mrs. Dintenfaus will be taking on Ms. Bentford’s patients.”

“Who?”

She pointed to an open office door, where a pig-faced, bespectacled figure with a functional crop of dyed red hair sat hunched over a fat textbook. She glanced up at me and frowned. I didn’t like the looks of the bitch at all. If you’re putting your fate into a woman’s hands, she at least has to look like a flesh-and-blood human being.

“You know what? I’m going to think it over.” “Are you sure? Mrs. Dintenfaus is the head of our agency. She’s considered one of the best in her field.” “Maybe later…. ”

“We would rather not have our patients to go away dissatisfied with the quality of our service.”

“It’s not that. It’s not that at all.” I waved my hand. “As a matter of fact, I’m feeling fine. Great. Better than I have in months. Those sessions with Ms. Bentford did the trick.”

“All right…. ” The receptionist sounded skeptical. “If you need further help, please don’t hesitate to come back and see us.”

“I won’t.”

She looked disappointed. Before I could make it out the door, she consulted her ledger.

“Your total invoice is thirty dollars. Will you be paying today?”

“Tell you what. Drop it in the mail and I’ll be sure to take care of it.”

I was getting used to telling that story. A little too used to it. I turned on my heel and bolted.

19.

We went through that mini-loan from Livy’s old man like it was lunch money. When the dust settled and the change was counted, we were still in arrears straight across the board. And she couldn’t go back to Enrico for more.

“Now what?” I asked when we’d polished off the hummus and pita (a dish Livy’d learned during the course of her relationship with Basil).

“You tell me, Max. I’m all out of brilliant ideas.”

“Well, you still are gorgeous,” I said, thinking of having her for dessert.

“We can’t go on unless you help me, Max. I can’t carry the load all by myself. We’re both going to have to do something, and fast.”

“Maybe we overextended ourselves.”

“But I need nice things. I can’t live in a rathole.”

“Well, this place isn’t exactly what I’d call skid row.”

“It’s not exactly what I’d call the Taj Mahal, either.”

She was bummed. What she said was certainly true, but I was beginning to see that I was on Mars and she was on Neptune when it came to how to get by in life, to say the least. Me, I could make it on a lot less than Livy could, for sure. But I was in. I was
going to have to hold up my end now, no matter what. Writing and music and philosophy and books and all the rest of it were going to have to go on the back burner while we tried to crawl out of the pit we’d dug for ourselves.

T
hat Livy scored first wasn’t exactly a surprise. Whenever a hot piece strolls into your place and asks for a job, you’d be crazy not to find something for her to do, and fast. What did surprise me, however, was what she snagged: the position of administrative assistant at Temple B’Nai Jeshurun in ritzy Short Hills.

“You sure you’re up to this?” I said after Rabbi Chaim Rosenberg formally phoned the offer in. “Don’t you think you should have waited it out for something else? I mean, what the hell do you know about Judaism?” What was more, with her wild and impulsive nature, she would have been my last choice to lock up in an office.

According to Livy, all her neighbors growing up, as well as most of her mother’s clientele, were Jews. She was conversant with their calendar and customs, and she felt a kinship with the faith, if not in blood then in sentiment. The salary was decent, too—don’t let’s forget that. And besides, it was only for a short while, until we got back on our feet.

There was another thing. She knew how to handle Jews. The religious types at the temple would be a piece of cake. She’d certainly
slept
with enough Jewish men.

“Oh, yeah?”

There was Peter Feldman, and David Lorenberg, and Donald Robinson. Those were just the guys she could recall off the top of her head.

“I thought you had a thing for Arabs.”

No, Basil was the only Arab she’d ever had. There were lots more Jews. What did it matter? They were all Semites. And the thing with Don Robinson was quite serious. He was the son of a doctor. Very intelligent. Very ambitious. But sexually he had his quirks.

“Oh, really? You never mentioned him before. Sexual quirks, you say … such as?” I felt myself getting turned on.

“He believed that the woman’s anus would dilate when she had an orgasm. That he could feel it when he put his fingers in there. That when he—oh, I don’t want to get into this now.”

“But I do!”

“Some other time. Besides, you haven’t come up with anything yet and unless we pay the rent, we’re going to be out on the street in ninety days.” (A new warning about the consequences of unpaid back rent had arrived in the mail the day before.)

“If you want, I’ll split if that will help,” I offered lamely.

“No! Just help me out. That’s all I ask!”

Done. And now, for the first time in my life, it was time to upgrade—no more loading docks, no more factories, no more low-wage crap. Above all, no more daydreams of artistic grandeur.

I began to religiously comb the “Help Wanteds.” At the library I dug out a manual on proper résumé format and stretched my meager white-collar experience across the page until it looked like something nearly legitimate. Amazing how resourceful an unresourceful bugger can be when his back is to the wall.

Besides the ubiquitous agencies with names like A-Plus Temps and Office Power, I mailed out envelopes full of my credentials wherever there was a fit—and even where there was no fit that I could perceive, my strategy being that some scattered buckshot is bound to hit the bull’s-eye.

To my surprise, I didn’t have long to wait.

The smoker’s rasp on the telephone belonged to an employment counselor by the name of Bob Tarlecky. His Hanover Technical Affiliates had been contracted to deploy sharp, language-adept editors for a long-term project at the new American Telephone and Telegraph headquarters down in Somerset County, and would I be interested at the salary of twelve dollars per hour?

Twelve dollars an hour!
Was this joker kidding? Twelve smackers was more than I’d ever brought down—or dreamed of bringing down—in my working life. Fucking aye, I was interested! Visions of a fat bank account that would allow me to coast—for years, maybe—doing nothing but indulging my creative penchants bloomed in my excited brain. What made it all the more enticing—and unbelievable—was that Tarlecky had no interest in interviewing me beforehand, so desperate was the telephone monster for help.

“When do I start?”

“They really need bodies in there as soon as possible. Would it be possible for you to start on Monday?” Monday?
This
Monday?

My hopes for a grace period during which I’d lie around and read and fuck and drink and mentally “prepare” myself for entry into the corporate world were dashed into flotsam against the hard rocks of exigency.

“Well … sure.”

“Good. Now let me explain something to you, Max. I see from your résumé here that you’ve never worked for a big company before. You have to understand the mind-set at AT&T. Be deferential at all times—they like that. Toeing the company line is the ticket. As long as you’re a team player, you’ll do fine. Mind your own business, work hard, if you have any problems, don’t bother management—
call me.
Got it?”

“No problem, chief.”

“Good. If it works out, you can expect to be there two, maybe three months. Ivan Holland is heading up the project you’re assigned to. He’ll sign your time sheet, which you then forward to me. Paychecks are issued every two weeks. You’re eligible through us for a full health insurance package at forty dollars per month. Any questions?”

“No.”

“Good luck to you, Max. And welcome aboard.”

20.

And then it really was true—the honeymoon
was
over. That Monday morning Livy and I were to go our separate ways for the first time. Some major turn on the highway had been negotiated—where it would take us was anybody’s guess.

I shaved, using a red, ball-like gadget that heated the cream as it spurted out of the Barbasol can. It was a sort of bon voyage gift from Livy, who looked like a fashion model in a new ensemble she’d snuck out and bought when I wasn’t looking. As usual, it was dark and form hugging, and a flaming orange-and-black scarf that was knotted at her neck set off the whole shebang. I hadn’t noticed those high suede pumps on her feet before, either.

Dressed to fucking kill,
I thought as I watched her primp and preen in the bedroom mirror. The sight was enough to stir my prick to attention. I pushed it into her ass.

“Let’s do it,” I proposed, “as a sort of farewell bang.”

“You’ll mess my makeup,” she whined, disengaging herself. “Maybe when we get home. And if you don’t get a move on, you’ll be late.”

Which, of course, was the point.
Let the bastards wait.

But off we went nevertheless, she in her taxi dancer’s outfit,

me in my only blazer, tie, and worsted wool trousers, an outfit befitting a young man going places….

I jumped into my rusted-out beast and drove. The signs for exclusive country clubs and gated communities I passed along the highway made me feel like a chimpanzee being rocketed to a distant planet. The folks living in these Somerset Hills were the genteel set, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and her ilk. They played polo and hunted foxes—where the hell did I fit in down here?

Headquarters for the communications monolith was a gargantuan pagoda-like concrete-and-glass complex that had killed off hundreds of acres of virgin forest in one of the Northeast’s most expensive counties. A little sick at heart, I followed Tarlecky’s instructions and turned into a gaping maw that led into the underground parking facility, in the process dodging a gaggle of carefree Canadian geese that I suddenly envied. The elevator was packed tight with grim-faced, cologne-scented men and perfumed women in Brooks Brothers suits. By the time I reached the main concourse, I knew I’d made a fucking terrible mistake. My palms were clammy from sheer claustrophobia. A rivulet of sweat rolled out from under my armpit and made its way toward my elbow. I was a prisoner on his way to the gallows. The thought of a drink crossed my mind.

I don’t know why I didn’t turn back. For one thing, I needed the jack. I felt a little guilty, for another—I’d been given a long free ride by Livy. But even that didn’t explain my passivity at the open elevator door.

What did, at the bottom of it all, was the uneasy sensation that I had no choice in the matter, that I was being nudged from behind by some supernatural imperative, some invisible finger of
fate,
and no matter what I did or didn’t do at that moment, I was condemned to lose my illusion of
will
—that I was punier than
the puniest rat flea that subsisted off the scum of the earth, and that the course of things was being decided by some entity much greater than my frail self….