“My girl needs looking after.” He patted her hand. “She’s a tough cupcake in her own milieu, but she’s in a different world here. At the show, I mean. I don’t want anyone to take advantage of her … naïveté.”
“What’s gonna happen to me at a flower show—I’m gonna get attacked by a man-eating plant?”
“Nothing’s gonna happen. I’ve made sure of that. I sent Fat Frank and Cookie to look out for you.”
“Don’t you dare. I’ll be mortified.”
He put his fingers to his lips the way you’d silence a child. “It’s already done. See, you didn’t even know they were there. And this girl, this woman, is gonna help, too. What’s your name again, hon?”
We’d already told him twice. Clearly I wasn’t making much of an impression. Insult aside, did I want to be on a tag team with two guys named Fat Frank and Cookie? Were they the men I’d seen? But neither of them was fat. Would I be required to adopt a nickname, like “the Chin” or “Lips”? I felt the urge to get up again but suppressed it, since Guy weighed around 230 pounds, roughly double my size. Trying to muscle past him would be ridiculous.
I shook my head—dumb move since it magnified the buzz I was getting from the combination of champagne and no food except the nuts.
“I’m sure I can’t improve on anything Fat Frank and Cookie can do.” I struggled to keep a straight face when I said their names.
“My boys will make sure she’s safe, but I want you to keep an eye on her. Make sure she’s not lonely. That, you know, she’s included in all the reindeer games.” Connie protested, but Guy made it sound like a perfectly reasonable request. A big sister program.
Though I could have used their advice, Michelangelo, Leonardo, and the dead relatives were strangely silent on this issue. Perhaps I was channeling my inner cugine, or my inner Brooklyn girl, but I found myself agreeing. The show lasted just a few days and I didn’t know many people there myself. Why not spend time with her? Everyone I knew in Springfield, apart from Babe and Caroline Sturgis, were so beige. It could be fun.
“I like Connie. You don’t need to recruit friends for her,” I said, not using the more obvious word—pimp.
“Good, well, that’s settled,” she said. “You’ll help me decide what to wear to the reception. We can go shopping.”
“No money to go shopping,” I said. “Besides, I have to finish setting up. And don’t you have last-minute primping to do?”
“Go shopping. Have a good time.” He whipped out a roll of bills and left a stack on the table.
Connie said nothing, confident there’d be no serious objection to her shopping excursion, from either of us. “I have to go tinkle. Guy, make her say yes.”
She playfully knocked Guy’s elbow off the table on her way to the ladies’ room, and his hand accidentally brushed my knee. At least, I hoped it was an accident, but it lingered longer than it needed to and unless I imagined it, Guy’s pinkie finger trailed a good three inches up my thigh before he threw a pretend punch in Connie’s direction and said, “Yeah, sure.”
When Connie was safely out of earshot, he gave me his full attention. “So tell me what it is you’re selling, hon.”
My first sale. Maybe that old house detective knew something I didn’t. I convinced myself playing kneesies with Guy Anzalone was an offer I couldn’t refuse and was a small price to pay for the sizable purchase I’d pressure him to make. I’d take one for the team. Primo would sell a piece, Babe would be pleased, and I’d earn a commission. What could happen in a public place while his wife was in the ladies’ room?
To keep the conversation professional I’d flipped open my laptop as soon as Connie left. Tactical error. Guy took that as an excuse to squeeze closer and reacquaint his hand with my knee. His thigh pressed against mine and it was surprisingly warm. I can’t say I was aroused, but it was hard to ignore the heat. I repositioned the computer screen and crossed my legs to avoid contact.
By the time Connie returned, Guy’s head was inclined a little too close to mine and he had to pretend to be interested in a large wind device Primo had constructed out of two rusted lawn mowers. Served him right for hitting on a woman while his wife was twenty feet away and getting closer.
She peered over my other shoulder. “Ooohh, I like that one.”
How much could I milk this? I clicked on another image. “Of course, if you have the space, you could go with this one, constructed from vintage tractor parts. It’s much more impressive.” And twice the cost. I shamelessly played to his vanity and her eagerness to impress. Say yes, please, I thought. I’ll even go shopping with you if you buy this one.
Guy looked like a man who’d been caught with his hand in the cookie jar. Connie and I were about to deliver a five-thousand-dollar slap on that hand. Her lower lip started to quiver. His eyes softened. The checkbook was produced. Good grief. I didn’t want to think about what I could have sold them if I’d actually let him cop a feel. I agreed to meet her the next morning for a fashion consultation and left the two lovebirds canoodling—or maybe it was arguing—in the hotel bar.
Twenty-one
As I recalled, that’s what relationships were like—blowups, followed by makeups—though I imagined few were as animated or as expensive as the Anzalones’.
My last relationship ended when I was accused of being married to my job. Ironic, since I was fired soon after. It never occurred to me to call the man and tell him what happened. Some relationships have an expiration date, like milk, and that one had no longer passed the sniff test.
I’d been on my own for a while and, apart from the semiannual fix-up orchestrated by Babe or Lucy, I was content running my business, getting used to life in Springfield, and taking the occasional trip into the city to catch up with old friends. Apart from Hank Mossdale there had only been one other man on my radar—Mike O’Malley, a Springfield cop. But subtle signs were putting him into the confidant/brother camp and not the what-does-he-look-like-naked camp, and I was fine with that. In fact, I’d thought that he and Lucy might have some chemistry, but that flirtation was short-lived. He’d gotten her out of a jam and she was suitably grateful but, according to her—and she’s the kind that tells—it never went any further.
When I got to her place, I picked up the mail and left the poisonous-to-pets info sheet and a brief note under the corner of the doormat of the woman on three. Or four, whatever it was. I would have slipped it under her door but worried she might automatically assume it was a menu and shred it and let her cats pee on it.
Once in the apartment, I hung on the refrigerator door, willing the remnants of the previous night’s chickpea salad to miraculously turn into kung pao chicken or a slab of lasagna, but it didn’t happen. The hurricane drink mix started to seem like a good idea but it went better with jambalaya than it did on an empty stomach.
I tiptoed down the stairs. As I passed the neighbor’s apartment, the peephole cover moved, and I gave the woman behind the door a slight wave I knew she wouldn’t return. The pet poison list was still outside. When I reached the ground floor, I held the inside door open with my stockinged foot. As the cat lady had predicted, any number of menus from local restaurants littered the floor. I had my choice of Chinese, Japanese, Italian, the intriguingly named Fusha Fusion, or a Greek diner, from which I could presumably get anything I wanted. This was New York at its best—anything you wanted brought to your door, 24-7. Food was the least of it.
The diner menus were just beyond my reach, stacked neatly by the outer door. Why did those guys have to be the neat ones? Everyone else had just flung theirs in the doorway and disappeared.