Little Did I Know: A Novel (5 page)

Lizzy leaned into the table, lifted her glass and said, “Congratulations.”

“For what?”

“So many things. The sunset, the road ahead. I’m sure there’s more.”

“Being driven by your chauffeur to the most popular hangout in town is not worthy of congratulations. If it were this whole town would be toasting my accomplishments.”

“Everyone will be, Auggie. They certainly will. By the way, people often get lost on the way to anywhere, let alone to a rendezvous that will change their life.”

I noticed she was wearing perfume. I wasn’t sure whether there was innuendo in her voice or just hope inside my head.

“Well, I’m happy to be here.” I took a long pull on my beer. “I just followed the pheromones . . .”

“Pheromones?”

“You know, the scent we all unconsciously convey to others.”

She smiled a sultry, sexy grin as she realized the nuance of the word. “So you just followed my pheromones and they led you right to me. I bet you couldn’t wait.”

“Mrs. Barrows, let it be noted that you asked me here tonight.”

“Yes, that’s true. But you picked up my pheromones.” She said this gleefully, as if taking ownership of the word. “I never knew what to call it, but they’ve often come out in the early summer. And you picked up their scent?”

“Absolutely, Mrs. Barrows,” I replied playfully.

“Then, as I said, congratulations.”

She clinked her pink drink against my beer glass and drank it all the way down. Then she licked the orange for punctuation. She stared at me for a long time and winked. “How’s your day been?”

I thought for a moment about the wink and the question. “Good. In fact, better than good. My day was excellent. Thank you for asking. How was your day?”

“Like all the rest. Except you showed up.”

“Stranger shows up in a small town, things happen. The energy changes, as does the gestalt of the community itself.”

She didn’t get it, but she laughed politely, sweetly looking young and pretty. “Gestalt? What does that mean?”

“Well, the makeup of things, the configuration symbolic or actual of people or places.”

“Who talks that way, Auggie? I never heard that word. No matter.” As if on cue, our waiter brought a round of tequila with all the trimmings. Lizzy winked at me again. “Drink your drink.”

I did. She followed suit and then sucked on her lime. It was strange how she truly was such a chameleon. Pretty, young, sweet one moment and then coarse, vulgar, and an old, sad presence in the body of a starlet.

“So what are you doing here?” she asked.

“You asked that I join you for a drink.”

She giggled. “Not that, silly. I
know
that. I mean here in Plymouth.”

“I told you this afternoon: I came to see your husband to rent the theater and put on shows.”

She waved for yet another round. “Really? Truth: why?”

“Because it’s what I want to do with my life and I think I’ll be good at it.”

More drinks arrived and we repeated what was quickly becoming a ritual. I was buzzed as I watched her work the lime. This time it was flirtatious, direct, and very sexy. Was it the tequila or the girl?

“Yeah, but then you have to spend time in Plymouth and talk to my husband . . .”

She stopped in midsentence and crushed out her cigarette. Then she stood up quickly, leaned over the table, and kissed me hard on the mouth. She tasted of liquor and ash. Still, her lips were soft and her hair smelled of lilac. When she was done with me, she sat back down and said with a mischievous grin, “How’s your gestalt now, Auggie?”

I couldn’t help but smile along with her. “My gestalt is just fine, Mrs. Barrows. Is that the tequila or the pheromones asking?”

“Pheromones? Are they related to gestalt?” She said this as though she thought she was just the cutest thing.

Before I could answer she continued, “You want to make a deal with Andy, you’re gonna need my help. Andy does what I ask him to. He is one son of bitch, but he likes to make me happy. You want me to tell Andy to give you that theater, then you’re gonna have to make me happy. You up for that Auggie?”

Yet another round of drinks arrived, so I didn’t have to respond.

Before she had her third shot, she removed her silk headband and shook her hair free, which made her look even better than she did before. She drank and lingered yet again on the lime. Her eyes were green like a cat’s-eye marble, and I was lit, and young, and stupid.

“You come by my house tomorrow noon and we’ll work something out,” she said. “I’ll get Andy to give you financing as well. I mean, we all need money, right? It’ll be fun. Bring your pheromones.”

Then she walked out of the Full Sail to her waiting limo. I wasn’t the only one in the bar to watch her ass sway as it left the place.

Sarah Vaughan sang “Mood Indigo” on the jukebox. I took in a deep breath of crisp, salty air that cleared my head just a bit. The ocean was aglow under a black, starry night. I looked at the moon, which seemed to race across the sky as if chasing something important. Sometimes the unexpected little things say a lot. As do the lips of a stranger.

I
lingered for a while, then began the long walk back to Garden’s Beach View Motel. It was just shy of ten o’clock on this late spring night, yet it felt much later. The sky remained crystal clear, and blazing stars and a robust orange moon lit the road. There was no one around. The streets had rolled up early; other than the warm, heavy breeze off the bay, there was a disconcerting calm.

Still, my thoughts were racing. I wanted to produce some shows. Sow my oats. Seek my bliss. It all seemed there for the taking, like the brass ring on a carousel; yet one that doesn’t come around as often, perhaps only once. I should have been elated that Mrs. Barrows had suggested that by noon tomorrow I might be on my way to making some magic. Instead I felt confusion and angst. What the hell was going on? Was I going to fuck this up, blow this chance for lack of knowing what to do?
Man, I’m still a New York neurotic, even after four years in Boston.

I told myself to relax, but I felt overmatched. What was expected of me at noon tomorrow? I thought about my father and where he was at my age. Six thousand miles from home in a bunker somewhere in Europe. He had real problems, true stakes. Freezing his ass off and eating K rations. There was no pinklip-glossed beauty offering herself to him. It made me feel guilty and spineless.

I had a buzz from the alcohol, or her kiss, or her perfume, and a seemingly endless walk in front of me. I found a beachside pay phone and asked the operator for the local taxi company. She gave me the number for Garden Cab, I dropped a dime and ten minutes later a beat-up Chevy Impala drove up to meet me.

My driver was a heavyset man in his midfifties sporting a long ponytail, tattoos, and a belly that made you wonder when the baby was due. His cab smelled of stale cigarettes and beer. It was a short ride home; I managed with the windows down.

I retrieved my key from the front office. Surprisingly, Veronica was still manning the fort, and she greeted me with a big friendly smile. Noticing that I was drunk, she came around from behind the desk and steadied my walk with her arm firmly placed behind the small of my back.

“Quite a night, handsome,” she said. “There’s a whole summer ahead. Pace yourself. You can’t live it all at once.”

I said something dumb and obvious about her being “really hot,” as if she had never heard that before. She helped me climb the steps to my room, opened the door, and navigated me to the side of the bed. Veronica pulled off my shoes, arranged the pillows under my head, and headed out.

Before leaving the room, I stopped her with a question. “Why is someone as pretty as you working at this crummy hotel?”

“Why are
you
staying here?”

“Because I have no money and
you
are the desk clerk.”

“That’s sweet. So if I wasn’t attractive it would be all right to work here?”

“Yup. I mean
nope
, don’t I? It’s just that people like you seem to have it easy. And you’re really pretty.”

“People like me? What does that mean exactly?”

“You are extremely attractive.” I slurred this.

“Did you just say I looked like a tractor?”

“No, you’re pretty. If you
were
a tractor, you’d be a pretty one.”

She paused for a long time. “I’m working here because I need the money for school. I work at the front desk so I might get the chance to meet someone like you.” She said this with her tongue firmly planted in her lovely cheek.

“If I had any money, I would give it to you,” I said.

“Why would you give me money?”

“Well . . . because . . .”

“I’m pretty?”

“Yup.”

“Then you’re a dope.”

“Yup,” I said proudly. “Hey, where are you going to college?”

She sat at the very end of the bed. “I’m going to Boston University to become a shrink. I just finished two years at community college and worked here and at odd jobs to save as much money as I could. I like to watch people and their behavior. I think this’ll make me a good shrink. I can tell things about people just by looking at them.”

“Like a fortune teller?”

“If you’d like to look at it that way.”

“My fortune says you want to kiss me, right?”

“See, I knew that about you: that you were an unabashed flirt.”

“What else?”

“You’re ambitious and on a mission. You’re a person who chooses life rather than allowing it to choose you.”

This inebriated silly exchange had taken on new depth. “We are both too young to think those things, to figure it all out so quickly.”

“You’d be surprised. Our lives are there for us to make something of. To do less is a disappointment.”

“Have you read
The Fountainhead?”

“No, do you think I should?”

“Yes, I most definitely do.”

She looked hard into my eyes, as if trying to figure something out.

“So will you kiss me?” I asked.

“No,” she replied very quickly and with absolute certainty.

“But everybody kisses me. It’s like a ritual, maybe even a tradition. Why won’t
you
kiss me?”

“Because everybody kisses you.”

“That’s a real shame because you’re such a pretty tractor.” I began to wonder if the room rate was going to go up if I didn’t stop talking.

“And although there is a certain charm about a drunken flirty lug, it’s fleeting and I’m better than that.”

“That is
so
wise,” I said, sadly knowing she wasn’t going to change her mind.

“No more trouble for you tonight, big boy. Lights out till morning.”

She got up from the bed and left immediately. I lay there, unable to let the day or thoughts of her end. After a while I noticed there was a phone on the bedside table. I picked it up and was immediately connected to Veronica at the front desk.

“You’re supposed to be asleep, Mr. August,” she said kindly.

“Just one thing and then I’ll be good,” I replied. “Could you connect me to long distance?”

I waited a brief moment, then gave her the number of my dad.

M
y father picked up on the third ring. “Dad, it’s me. Sorry, I know it’s late.”

“Sammy, we’ve been waiting all day to hear from you. You okay?”

“I’m good. Tired, but good.”

I brought him up to speed, but I didn’t want to sound too self-indulgent. My father had been struggling in his work over the past years, yet he remained strong and good humored. He always assured my family that the worst had already happened, and better things were coming. His optimism always got us through, and it rubbed off on me. I had always been fearless, but the encounter with Mrs. Barrows made me feel cheap and vulnerable; I needed to reach out to my dad for advice.

I could see him smiling through the phone. “You have your whole life ahead of you. Don’t use up all your adventures in one day.”

“You’ve been talking with the blonde?” I asked. “She just told me the same thing before I called you.”

“But for different reasons, my son. Her agenda is much different.”

“What’s her agenda?”

“The answer is the joy of being you. Youth allows you to find out.”

“So what do I do tomorrow?”

“Don’t rush into things. Just wait and see where everything goes.”

From where I was standing, though, there were only two choices: either I slept with the wife of a powerful man who could launch my theater career or I drove out of Plymouth without any other prospects. Even if I did sleep with her, it didn’t guarantee I would have complete control of the theater. She could always use our affair as leverage to get other things from me, or her husband could drive me out of town if he found out.