Lucy's Launderette (27 page)

“That's what I thought, too. Well, listen, I'll let you go. You've got a business to run.”

And business was good. Candace was beginning to snap
back to her old self like the elastic girl I'd always thought she was. After the first week, she managed the cappuccino bar like she'd been born to it. Bob and I shared shifts with her. Bob had a clever way of hauling himself on to a high stool so that he could work all the machines.

They let Connie out of the hospital forty-eight hours after they'd taken her in. There were never really any doubts that if the baby was a boy, he'd be named Jeremy, so Jeremy was the name she put on his birth certificate.

Connie and Little Jeremy took up residence in the launderette during the daytime. This thrilled the group of Italian widows who came to do their laundry and criticize our cappuccinos. Those women could spot a baby carriage at twenty miles and as soon as they spotted Little Jeremy's, they were in the baby's face. Connie got a lot of advice on how to insure his well-being, medieval advice involving hot peppers, wild boars' tusks and holy water. When he wasn't feeding, the baby slept in the pram in the back room. Connie napped on the couch when he slept. She came to life for any problems or inquiries about paintings.

In the first week after the opening, Connie sold two pieces of mine for much more than they were worth. It was hard letting go of my paintings like that. My children. I was tempted to hire a detective and find out where they'd been taken, who their new parents were, how they were being hung, how they were being treated. But Connie said I had something to learn about success, that it sometimes comes with a feeling of loss. I thought that was pretty funny coming from Connie, somebody who really didn't have a lot of experience with success. But then I thought about it a bit harder. Maybe we're all doing what we intend to do, and sometimes, for a reason that's much bigger than us, or just
too difficult to comprehend, we choose to live what looks like the life of a loser. Maybe it's just a way of getting from point A to point B.

 

When Connie realized how many people were going to be there for the music evenings, she got agitated.

“They can't just sit there, listening. They've got to consume, consume, consume.”

I said, “Whoa, Connie.”

And she said, “Whoa, nothing. This is a business. We gotta run it like a business.” So she added some fruit juices and Perrier water to the menu, and got the Hit and Run girls making more ambitious ready-to-eat food, pizza by the slice, foccaccias stuffed with brie and prosciutto, spinach pies and a dense vegetable minestrone soup.

 

The second big music night was two Saturdays following the opening. The group of musicians that Leo sent us came from the college where he occasionally taught piano. They were serious classical string students by day, but by night they liked to cut loose with their own mix of rocky bluegrass hip-hop. Very weird sound but a big hit with the evening crowd at the launderette.

Sky and Max came down that evening. At the musicians' halftime, I invited them both into the office for a drink. Sky was obsessed with the two-way mirror. She never took her eyes off it. She loved to spy on people. So of course, she was the first to spot Nadine with Paul Bleeker.

“My God, would you look who just slithered in? It's the woman with the Stretch 'n' Sew skin and her maintenance man.” I looked to where she was pointing. Nadine was dressed in black. She planted herself in front of each painting and stared, her expression growing as black as her cloth
ing. Paul was beside her. He'd lost weight and looked wasted. He kept wiping his nose with his sleeve and glancing behind him. “Just look at him. He's on a skiing weekend. The old coke nose is unmistakeable, a dead giveaway. Now, I know you don't like reading the paper, Lucy, but you'd learn all sorts of interesting things if you did.”

“Like?”

“Well, it looks like your friend Paul is going to have to come up with a lot of hard cash. He's being investigated for tax evasion.”

I said, “It's not as though he can sell a lot of his work. So many of his pieces were conceptual or comestible.”

“Exactly,” said Sky, very smugly. “And I imagine that's why he has to stay stuck to Nadine and her purse strings, and do her bidding.”

What a chilling thought.

 

Sam didn't call. I'd been counting the days that had passed since the night of the opening. Seventeen. Seventeen days of staring at the launderette door and hoping he'd hurry up and darken it. Seventeen nights of being woken in the dark by a yowling infant and wondering who Sam was with in that moment. Lying there in the dark, my mind skidded out in all directions. Maybe I had it all wrong. Maybe he was a completely different kind of man from the one he appeared to be. Probably an octopus man, the kind that stares you solemnly in the eyes while his tentacles are clamping on to eight other women at the same time.

And then he reappeared. Three weeks after our last meeting. It was a slow lunchtime and he was in a hurry. There were no kisses and he didn't touch me once, but he smiled a lot and said, “Just wanted to see how you were doing.” He stayed long enough to drink an espresso. Well, as you prob
ably know, any self-respecting espresso drinker downs that little shot of caffeine in one gulp, and that's what he did. And then he was gone again. I had a terrible sensation of déjà vu.

But then he came in again two days later. He ordered a sandwich and a Perrier and said, “Can you sit down and keep me company, Lucy? I've got fifteen whole minutes.” He spent the whole time giving me the rundown on Dirk and then as he was standing up to leave, he said, “I'll drop by again in a couple of days. I should have a little more time.” He touched me on the cheek and hurried out.

 

As soon as he was gone, I called Sky. “I'm depressed,” I whined.

“That Sam guy, right?”

“Right. He's probably gay. You know, one of those married gay guys, just afraid to come out of the closet.”

“Naw,” said Sky, “Listen. Max is in Seattle. You want me to come over tonight? I'll bring a couple of videos.”

“And some of those Belgian chocolates,” I said.

“I would have thought you might never want to taste chocolate again.”

“I'm over that. I've got a new set of problems.”

“What?”

“If Sam doesn't touch me again soon, I'm going to have to attack him.”

 

But the rest of the summer passed like that. Sam's short but frequent visits, bringing gossip or news or some tidbit of trivia. He was becoming a familiar fixture. We traded books and CDs, he talked about some of his cases, I talked about paintings and new ideas. I resigned myself to the fact that Sam had changed his mind, that he was not interested in me, not in THAT way, at any rate.

We were becoming friends. Of a sort. Real friends would have gone somewhere, done things together. We never saw anything but the inside of the launderette. But I got used to it. Not having to worry about whether I'd shaved my legs or put on the right underwear. I could look forward to his noncommittal fly-by visits and be completely relaxed.

Whenever I thought about the fact that I had no boyfriend, painting consoled me. When I painted, there was no sense of lack or loss. It buoyed me up and kept me going. And helping to look after Little Jeremy took up the rest of the time.

Then one day in late September, in the afternoon, I was up on a chair refilling the soap machine when Candace came over and whispered, “He's been sitting there for the last ten minutes just staring at you.” She jerked her head in the direction of the cappuccino bar. Sam was sitting there, leaning against the wall, blue-jeaned legs and cowboy boots stretched out, watching me. There was something different about him. He had a sleepy ruffled look. He took a long time standing up. He came over to me and said, “You free tonight, Lucy?”

I wanted to scream, “I've been free for the last sixty-five nights but who's counting?”

“Depends when,” I said.

“Eight o'clock. I wondered if you might come to the Rain Room with me. For dinner.”

I wanted to ask, “Where's the hitch?” but said, “I think I can manage it.” My heart was racing. Only a couple of shopping hours left.

“I'll pick you up at seven-thirty. It's funny, I don't even know where you live.” IT'S NOT FUNNY, I wanted to scream. But I gave him my address. As soon as he was gone, I called Sky.

“This is it, Sky, it's the big countdown. I've got a date, a real date with Sam Trelawny. The Rain Room. What the hell am I going to wear?”

“That's easy,” said Sky, “your red dress, of course.”

 

Sam sat across from me in the Rain Room. We had finished dining on crab cocktail, steak and lobster, rugola salad, asparagus, and wild rice and mushrooms. Half-finished dishes of strawberries and cream were in front of us. We sipped a chilled Sauterne.

Sam was casual chic, black dress jacket and pants, white shirt and no tie. He said, “I had to backpedal with you, Lucy.”

“I didn't notice,” I lied. “Painting takes up all my energy these days.”

“Uh-huh. I finally got some holidays,” he said, “I've been putting them off for months. Up till now, it's been all emergencies. I have two and a half more weeks left. Caught up on a lot of missed sleep the last couple of days.”

“You look more rested,” I said.

“Holding back can be a good thing,” he said. “It makes the senses more acute.” He reached across the table and took my hand. “I've got a friend who runs a seaplane between here and Victoria and I've got a booking at the Empress Hotel. There's just enough time to throw some things together and make the last flight. Will you come with me, Lucy?”

I nodded.

 

Sam shut the door, locked it and put the key on the bureau. It was a suite, a whole suite in the Empress Hotel, looking out onto the inner harbor. I went over to the window. Lights glittered across the water. From the sailboats below, I
could hear the cowbell-like clanging of lines against masts. The wind was coming up.

Sam came and stood beside me at the window. “If it blows any harder, we may be stranded here.”

His arms were around me.

I pulled away. “I'm not sure I'm ready for this.”

“Oh, I wasn't touching YOU. I was admiring the fabric. I meant to tell you before, the night of the launderette's opening, that's a very pretty red dress. Now I just have to figure out how to get you out of it.”

“I'm really not…”

“Not what?”

“Ready.”

“Ready for what?” Sam faked innocence as he fingered the neckline of my dress.

“Another first time.” My face felt hot.

He continued to move toward me and I continued to back away.

“We'll just forget about the first time and skip to the second then.”

“Er…” I'd reached the wall and had nowhere to go. He rested his hands above me on the wall and pressed in close.

“Is there some problem?” he asked. “No. Don't tell me. I know. You're afraid all our children will look like your brother and think they're superheroes. Sorry. Low blow. Feel free to hit me if it makes you feel better.”

I raised my hand to swat him. He caught it, turned it over and kissed its palm. He went on holding it for a minute then led me over to the couch.

“It's not that,” I said, looking away and into the flames that leapt in the fireplace.

He didn't let go of my hand. “Okay, let me see. You already
have a child locked in your basement, fruit of a relationship with a famous politician?”

I shook my head.

“An alcoholic husband locked in your attic?”

“Nooooo.”

“A girlfriend?”

“Not likely.”

“You're under contract to a big studio and are only allowed to be seen with the star of their choice.”

“That might be interesting.”

“Go on. Who is he? Tell me about the other guy. There's always another guy lurking around somewhere. Just open up your emotional baggage and dump its contents all over me. I can take it.” He assumed a Christ-like stance, arms outstretched.

“Well, it's just that…I'd really hate for something to start and then find out it was all a lot of hot air, a big nothing, that the initial potential wasn't…er…fulfilled. I mean I went through this already this year…and he was just such a disappointment.”

“In what way exactly? I want details,” Sam said. By then he had moved off the couch and was kneeling on one knee, looking up at me, green eyes, long sleek sandy hair and very predatory smile.

“Well, really, in every way, when I think about it, and especially in THAT way.” I raised my eyebrows.

“Oh, THAT way,” said Sam, slowly. “Well, I don't know about you, Lucy. But for me, it's like falling off a log when you're with the right person. Money-back guarantee if you're disappointed. Oh. And I should mention that I believe in a global approach,” said Sam, taking off one of my shoes then the other and massaging first my feet then moving up my legs. “No stone should be left unturned. I think the most
practical thing at this stage would be to caress every part of your body very, very slowly. What do you think, Miss Madison?”

I tried to think of something smart to say but all that came out was “Ahhh.”

He stopped.

I came to my senses.

He moved back up on the couch beside me, leaned back and stared.

“What did you stop for? And don't look at me that way. It's unnerving,” I said.

“What do you want me to do?” he asked earnestly.

“I want you to kiss me.” I hate having to beg.

“Are you sure?”

I nodded. He leaned in slowly and pressed his lips against mine. A little after that I started losing all sense of time and all of our movements became liquid. There was an unzipping sound and his hands were on my shoulders, gently pulling the sleeves of my dress down.