The Ladies' Man (13 page)

“And that's not good?”

“Serving papers?”

Richard grins. “Perfectly nice people get served. Eighty percent of the population will at one time in their life come into contact with a deputy sheriff.”

“Blah, blah, blah,” says Lois.

Nash likes the sound of this outlaw dating pool. “Like who?” he asks.

“You mean, who gets served, or who have I ended up dating?”

“We like Leslie,” says Lois.

“Leslie's a writer,” says Richard. “She was being sued by an old boyfriend who claimed he was the model for the asshole husband in her novel.”

“Is Leslie the woman you're currently … on hiatus with?”

“Correct.”

“He says he doesn't flirt with them when he serves them,” says Lois. “But there's no other explanation for why they call.”

Richard raises his eyebrows. “No other explanation?”

Lois turns to Nash. “Would you ever think of calling up someone who served you papers, or notified you that there was a bench warrant for your arrest—”

“Wrong,” says Richard. “I've never called or dated anyone I've served a bench warrant to.”

“They call
him
,” says Lois.

“I serve dozens every day. Most are debtors and lowlifes. Once in a great while I ring someone's doorbell, and they answer it, and we have a nice conversation, and I get a sense of what her situation is, and maybe she'll ask for my card.”

Nash now recasts Richard's life as that of a dashing door-to-door salesman calling on housewives who are naked and perfumed under their dressing gowns. “Deputy sheriff,” Nash muses. “I wouldn't have thought …”

“Richard could have gone to law school,” says Lois. “He was accepted at Suffolk University.”

“Nights,” says Richard.

“You obviously like your work,” says Nash, messy eyes shining over the imagined perks.

“It's interesting. And no two days are the same.”

“Can you arrest people?”

“I can.”

“He can get beeped in the middle of the night,” says Lois.

House call, Nash thinks. Housewife. Housecoat. “For what?” he asks.

“Last time it was a custody case. I got a call from Florida—”

“When was this?” asks Lois.

Richard answers in shorthand: Florida Highway Patrol called Suffolk County. The father had custody. The mother took off for Boston with the kid. We got him back. Four years old.

“Wow,” says Nash.

Lois asks if she can get anything. Peanuts? Crackers and cheese? Chips and dip?

“Not a thing,” says Nash.

“All of the above,” says Richard.

“So you had to find the kid and return him to Florida?” asks Nash.

“The father followed them up to the grandmother's, so we turned the kid over to him.”

Lois smiles, and asks, “Do you visit Boston on a regular basis?”

“Unfortunately, I don't.”

“Not since your folks died?”

“Longer than that. They'd come out to escape the winters.”
For a week in January
.

“I'm certainly not going to spend many more winters here,” says Lois.

“Since when?” asks Richard.

She turns to Nash. “Are you still writing for the movies?”

“Music,” he says. “But more for television these days.”

“That must be so interesting. And creative—to be surrounded by music all day.”

“That part's true,” says Nash.

“I love music,” says Lois. “I don't know if you remember, but we all had piano lessons.”

Nash says, “I noticed the Chickering. I wondered which one of you played.”

“I'm the only one who stuck with it past junior high school. I'm not very good, but I love it.”

“Which is the most important thing,” says Nash.

Richard says, “Where are we eating?”

“Dining room,” says Lois. “We'll need bowls and soup spoons.”

“Do we have chopsticks?” he asks.

“No we don't,” says Lois, as if it's further evidence of his annoying lifestyle. She turns to Nash. “Maybe you'll play for us later.”

“How about now?” says Richard. “Unless you think you've been sidelined by Kathleen.”

“That reminds me of a joke,” says Nash. “A man asks his doctor—”

“Cloth napkins, please, Richard,” says Lois. She turns to Nash. “I insist on having the piano tuned once a year.” She stands and gestures toward the rooms beyond. Limping slightly, Nash follows her through the green dining room, into the rose-colored parlor, to the end of the needlepoint piano bench.

“Play something of yours,” she says.

“No,” he says. “I'd rather hear you.”

Without further coaxing, Lois moves toward the center and tries the pedals. She arranges her pleated skirt once, twice, until her right hand grazes his trouser leg. “Let me see,” she murmurs. “Do you want to hear popular or classical?” She shifts pages of sheet music. “Classical, am I right?”

“Of course,” says Nash.

Lois returns her hands to her lap, then up again to the keyboard in a graceful arc, reminding Nash of his first spinster piano teacher—two dollars a lesson, by the forty-watt glow of a plastic candelabra. Lois's right hand begins tinkling out the opening notes of Mozart's “Turkish March,” as her shoulders hunch with artistic endeavor.

“Ahhh,” Nash murmurs.

He hates this piece. He doesn't notice that her lipstick has been refreshed while he napped, or that she's exchanged a velvet headband
for her daytime barrette. He does notice a substantial diamond ring on her left hand, and nail polish on her fingernails, which are too long for the serious pursuit of piano. As she approaches the last notes on the first page, Nash reaches up to turn it. Lois smiles with the gratitude of someone who's been chronically unaccompanied and, without apparent talent, plays her heart out.

B
yron Sprock thinks they should eat a therapeutic dinner and drink a restorative bottle of wine. “You could tell your girlfriends, ‘After the two-car pileup—me entirely at fault—he treated me to dinner. Imagine. That's when I knew he was a prince.' ”

Dina doesn't know how to respond to this campaign. She hasn't experienced anyone like Byron Sprock before—this utterly dry delivery of rather charming thoughts. It must be what people from New York are like, she thinks. Or maybe New York intellectuals. “I'm sure you
are
a prince,” she says, “but it's been such a horrible day that I can't even think straight, let alone evaluate your character.”

“Mine is spotless,” he says. “And I can give you references.”

Dina takes several sips from her teacup before answering. It occurs to her that Nash could walk through the door any minute and find what he deserves—the woman he spurned drinking green tea with a tall, distinguished, Obie-acclaimed stranger. “Ordinarily I'd have a comeback,” she says finally, “and I might even call your bluff, but this has been the worst day of my life, so I'd just as soon not have supper and a drink with you.”

“But?” he prompts.

“But nothing,” says Dina. “I'm exhausted.”

“Have you eaten?”

“I'll make something here.”

“Such as?”

“I have things in the freezer.”

Byron walks to her side-by-side refrigerator-freezer, and asks, as he opens the left-hand door, “Mind if I see if you're telling the truth?”

Dina, from her stool at the Formica island, lets him survey the frozen foods. “Lean Cuisine Fiesta Chicken,” he says. “Cascadian Farm Organic Gardener's Blend.… Pot-stickers. I like those.… Nutri-Grain Waffles.… Look at this, will ya: ‘Vegetarian Pad Thai.'
Très exotique
.”

Dina's never seen such conduct. It reminds her of something she can't pinpoint, until he catalogs a few more items: bagels, Birds Eye Sweet Peas and Pearl Onions, Five Alive. Then she remembers: As a little girl, she'd watch Art Linkletter rifling through an audience member's pocketbook, making everyone laugh as he brought forth the unexpected—an alarm clock, a tiara, a bottle of Wite-Out.

“You're funny,” she says.

“I know.”

“Without cracking a smile.”

“It's charming, isn't it?”

She doesn't know and can't decide.

“What about eggs?” he says. “It always makes the romantic hero look tender and affectionate. Whipping up an omelet on stage works well because any feeb can break eggs into a bowl and use a whisk, and if you have any kind of run at all, he looks better and better each night.”

Byron closes the freezer and opens the refrigerator. He checks the cheese and butter compartments and all four crispers. Paper towels line each empty drawer. After a moment he says, “Is this the usual state of things, or did you forget to go shopping?” He opens the freezer again and says, “How are Juice Only Fruit Bars?”

“Good,” says Dina.

Byron helps himself to a bag each of chopped onion, chopped bell pepper, and broccoli spears. “Have any protein?” he asks.

Dina finds foil-wrapped portions marked “chick. patty,” “chick. breast,” “f. of sole.”

Byron says, “Is this how you eat?”

“I eat salads,” says Dina. “Rice cakes, bagels, fish, chicken.”

“Do you cheat?”

Dina says, “Not with food.”

“I hope when we do get out to a restaurant you don't do that thing that anorexic women do—push their food around on their plate instead of putting it in their mouth. Sometimes I stick my fork in whatever it is they're pushing around, and pop it in my mouth.”

“You date a lot of anorexics?”

“Actresses in my plays,” he says. “Same thing. Working lunches, though, not dates.”

“I don't have an eating disorder,” says Dina. “I just watch my fat grams.”

Byron tosses the bags of frozen vegetables into the kitchen sink, and walks to a cupboard.

Dina asks what he's looking for.

“Oil.”

“I have Pam,” she says.

Instead Byron finds an unmarked plastic bottle with an inch of yellow liquid left. He sniffs it and says, “Stale.”

“It's the best you're going to do.”

He asks Dina for a big sauté pan, a wok would be even better, and could she zap those chicken portions, then hand them here? He'll approximate a stir-fry. Cutting board?

“This knife is pathetic,” he says after a minute's work. He presses the minced onions and peppers into the sides of the oiled wok, then shakes it by the handle so that the morsels jump around impressively. “You must have garlic,” he says. “Don't you people think it's imbued with healing properties or some such horseshit?”

“ ‘You people'?” Dina repeats.

“Californians,” he says. “Granola eaters. Volleyball players.”

“That's a little harsh,” says Dina. “Especially for someone who's talking about a future together.”

“I'm having second thoughts, though. It says a lot about a person when she shies away from food. I mean, as much as I'd like to stay here tonight, I'm not sure I want to sit down at a table and have a slice of dry toast tomorrow and call it breakfast.”

Dina is startled. Which piece of this arrogance should she rebut? The “stay here tonight”? The character analysis? The breakfast menu?

“Only kidding, cookie,” he says, stirring and flipping expertly. “The idea of sleeping over never entered my mind. I'd hate myself in the morning.”

“So would I,” says Dina.

“You have this face that begs to be teased. This born-yesterday quality which I find, quite frankly, irresistible.”

“I don't think you can judge someone on the basis of one survey of her refrigerator,” says Dina.

“You're absolutely correct. Or freezer.” He points with his chin toward a cupboard. “See if you have soy sauce.”

Dina locates a low-salt soy sauce that looks somewhat evaporated. “Give it here,” says Byron, “then find me some cornstarch.”

Dina doesn't even bother hunting for the cornstarch. She returns to her kitchen stool at the island and watches. Byron adds another splash of oil to the wok. He starts scrambling the stir-fry once again with confident turns of his wrist. “I'm going to need plates in a second,” he says.

Dina supplies an oval platter painted with the head and skeleton of a fish.

“Two dinner plates are fine. I'll divvy it up.”

“Where did you learn to cook?” she asks.

“In the poorhouse.” Dina's eyes widen.

“Not literally. I meant, playwrights don't have a lot of discretionary income to spend on dining out. Among other things.”

“I would imagine,” murmurs Dina.

Byron says, “I can see exactly what you're thinking: ‘He's nice. He's not bad-looking in a geeky, valedictorian kind of way, but if he's penniless … no, thank you.' You looked crestfallen when I said ‘not a lot of income.' ”