The Ladies' Man (21 page)

She says, “I thought we agreed it was an accident.”

Nash flexes his eyebrows above his dark glasses. “Was that your formal apology? Because it doesn't sound very heartfelt.” He raises his sunglasses to his forehead. “You'll be happy to see the discoloration under my eye is changing from purple to a nice dark yellow-green. It means it's healing.”

“It's not that noticeable.”

“Behind dark glasses maybe.”

“Another day or two and you won't need them.”

“Really? You have experience with shiners? Because I'm going to drop by in a couple of days and you can tell me whether I still look like Robert De Niro after the climactic fight scene in
Raging Bull
.”

Unmoved, Kathleen asks, “Can I tell Richard that you forgive me for letting the casserole slip?”

Nash lowers his sunglasses back onto his handsome, straight nose and says, “Can I let you know?”

The neighbors have been complaining about the piano playing and the particularly annoying, repetitive nature of the noise. Cynthia thinks she can win over the complainants if she invites them for drinks, during which Nash will perform his jingle hits and give a brief talk on the history of musical advertising.

She is so much in love and so happy to announce obliquely their living arrangement that she thinks “An Evening with Nash” is a good idea. Bostonians are indulgent of genius, especially of the musical variety. She knows from many overheard conversations in elevators that there are music lovers and B.S.O. subscribers among her fellow residents. What comes through her walls sounding like short, sappy melodies will soon be understood as an art form and honorable livelihood. Complaints will metamorphose into dinner invitations when they see she is involved with a composer. Cynthia pictures Nash in tails, sitting at her gorgeous black Steinway & Sons grand piano, made in Hamburg, lecturing between tunes like the ghost of Leonard Bernstein enlightening children in Avery Fisher Hall.

She'd like to broaden the guest list to friends outside the building,
a few clients, and a relative or two, but Nash says no—he is too modest to turn a public relations stratagem into a recital.

“There are people who want to meet you,” she says.

He asks, rolling off her after intercourse and reaching for the remote, how she will introduce him at this shindig. Friend? Roommate? Client? Nothing cute, he hopes, or overly personal. Their relationship is special, but no one's business but their own.

Cynthia says coldly, “ ‘Friend,' of course. I wouldn't want to narrow your options.”

Nash puts his arm around her and strokes her ample tricep. What had they agreed to? One step at a time, right? Hadn't he said an emphatic
No
to moving in after one night together, and hadn't she promised he wouldn't regret his decision? Hadn't they been honest in exploring the connotations of commitment? Don't get him wrong: He loves being here, loves the gourmet meals, and—why mince words?—the sex. But he's between two worlds right now—an old stifling life and a new uncharted one. Perhaps it would be better if he got his own place and they had an old-fashioned dating courtship?

“No,” says Cynthia. “I want you here.”

“Give me a kiss,” he says.

Before he falls asleep they discuss the format—Cocktails? Tapas? Sit-down dinner? Desserts?—and decide on a buffet featuring products Nash has turned into jingles.

After Cynthia leaves the next morning, he calls California, ostensibly to see if Dina is keeping up with the mail.

“I sent it to the address you faxed,” she says. “One looked like a check.”

“From?”

“A.F.M.”

“Good. I need that.”

“Why don't you send change-of-address notices instead of me having to forward everything?”

Nash says things are fluid. He's subletting and doesn't know how long this address will be in effect, which leaves him dependent on the goodwill of the landlady to forward important mail. He
walks the portable phone to the bedroom and lies down on top of the white damask duvet. “Have I asked how
you
are? How's the foot biz?”

“Do you know what a synclavier is?” Dina asks.

“I certainly do.”

“Do you have one?”

“I intend to get one.”

“It's state-of-the-art,” she says.

“Who have you been talking to?” Nash asks.

After a pause she says, “A friend.”

“A friend in the business?”

“A friend who's around music. A friend who has a friend who wrote ‘I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing.' ”

“Wow,” says Nash.

“Where are you?” she asks.

“Boston.”

“I know that. What's her name?”

“My landlady, you mean?”

“The last person who changed your sheets.”

“Cynthia.”

“And you've been together how long?”

“A week? Ten days?”

“House-sitting or cohabitating?”

Nash hesitates. “It's kind of a B-and-B situation.”

“How many bedrooms?”

“Two. The views are phenomenal. I love the Atlantic.”

“How'd you meet her?”

Nash says, “You sound belligerent.”

“Wouldn't you be? Last time I heard you were flying across the country to mend fences or someone's broken heart, or find your roots, but now I hear you got waylaid.”

Nash considers saying, If you mean Adele Dobbin, I found her easily. Just in time to save her life.

“Can you answer?” asks Dina.

“I did find Adele,” he says sadly.

“Alive?”

“Of course alive. Why would you ask that?”

“The way you said it. I thought the rest of the story was, ‘I got there too late. I found Adele's headstone in the cemetery where we used to go make out. They buried her last week.' ”

“Not at all. I found her, and on some level it was enlightening.”

“Meaning, ‘She's fat and old and now I can cross her off my list'?”

“No.”

“Then, ‘She's married and happy. I didn't ruin her life and I can stop feeling guilty.' ”

Nash switches ears and plucks absentmindedly at his chest hair.
Guilty
might give a name to the twinge he feels when he pictures Adele's life, her ochre kitchen and tender ribs. “How are the dogs?” he asks.

“Fine.”

“Do they miss me?”

“No. What does your roommate do?”

“Manages people's money.”

“How'd you meet her?”

“On a plane.”

“The one you ran away on?”

“That's the only plane I've taken lately.”

“How perfect: You met her on the plane five minutes after you left Orange County.”

“She's a graduate of Harvard Business School,” he says.

“Maybe she can fix your money troubles.”

“I haven't availed myself of her services.”

Dina laughs.

Nash says, “One of these days she's going to take a look at my returns, but this is her busiest—”

“How old is she?”

“Fifty.”

“Old,” says Dina.

“For a roommate?”

“Old for you to fuck,” says Dina.

Nash says, “I won't dignify that, but I will tell you that I made the rounds of the local agencies.”

“So?”

“Want to hear what I'm doing?”

“Not especially.”

“I'm working on a unique instrumental with a vocal tag for a casino on an Indian reservation.”

He hears a yawn, then a pallid, “Good for you.”

“You don't sound terribly enthusiastic.”

“You woke me up.”

“You know, it wasn't easy to pick up the phone and call you because I didn't know what kind of shape you'd be in or whether we could have a civil conversation. And the longer I put it off, the harder it became.”

“And finally you do call,
and …
?”

“You tell me,” says Nash. “What did I find when I called my old number and the woman who shared it?”

“That I want half of everything,” says Dina.

As soon as Nash's bruises fade, Cynthia gathers the names of the neighbors who wrote cranky, typed complaints to the board citing the noise clause. She finds high-quality ecru invitations embossed with G clefs, and mails them with postage stamps of dead U.S. symphony conductors. “Regrets only,” she writes at the bottom. No one calls.

The day before the event, fearing an empty living room, she invites Philip from the office and her two favorite doormen to what she calls a little musical get-together. “An impromptu salon,” she amplifies, to meet—well, they
had
to have noticed the newly authorized handsome gentleman with the Burberry raincoat and sunglasses, hadn't they?

Felix declines because he has to work, but Lorenz asks if he may be so bold as to bring a date.

“Why, Lorenz! How wonderful. And you know, I suspected as much.”

“I'll have to ask her first. Can I let you know—” He checks his watch. “She gets in at ten.”

“I don't need a formal answer. Just show up at eight. Tie and jacket.”

“What can I bring?”

“Nothing. Nada. Not a thing. Just you and your … friend.”

“Kathleen.”

Cynthia smiles at that, at the quaint, chambermaid quality of the name, and the melting-pot charm of a Lorenz and a Kathleen attending her chic affair. She drives to work feeling generous and democratic, and only moderately worried about Saturday night.

E
verything's ready: the Orientals and kilims vacuumed, the black granite mantel buffed, the piano polished, the bridge chairs arranged in a half circle, the guest bathroom scrubbed and perfumed, the dimmer switches slid to atmospheric, the beans ground for the decaf. On a marble-topped pedestal table, there is imported champagne and fluted glasses. The Israeli oranges and California prunes of two advertising campaigns nest in Cynthia's beautiful rose-colored Sandwich glass bowl.