Читать книгу Hand-Me-Down - Lee Nichols - Страница 8

The third time Ian Dunne came into my life was eight years later.

I was twenty-nine, with a steady job and a steady boyfriend and a steady life. And I still managed to invite my sister’s ex-boyfriend to an inappropriate party. There’s a word for that: Fate.

Or maybe it’s: Stupid.

It started when Emily and I were having lunch at the Sojourner, a natural foods restaurant downtown. We were arguing over a gift for Charlotte’s birthday. Emily and I always joined forces to buy presents for Charlotte. Even though Charlotte insisted she loved everything we got her, together we could afford something unembarrassing.

“You know what she gave me last year?” I asked.

“A mahogany tilt-top occasional table.”

I nodded. “Used furniture.”

“It’s an antique. Must’ve cost thousands. And it’s in perfect condition—it looks brand-new.”

“But it isn’t.”

“I’ll take it, if you don’t want it,” Emily said. Like she needed secondhand used furniture. Between her book and her articles, her lectures and TV appearances, she was almost as stinking rich as Charlotte. Well, maybe a tenth as rich, but that was still pretty stinking if you were only an office manager, like me.

“I didn’t say I didn’t want it,” I said. “Just that it wasn’t new.”

Emily shook her head. “Well, neither is the gift I want to get her, so you’re even.”

The waitress came and I ordered a Gorilla Fizz, which I’d been ordering at the Sojourner since I was a kid, and a Popeye Salad, which I’d been ordering since I had trouble zipping my Levi’s last week. Emily quizzed the waitress about what exactly was in the vegetable timbale, then ordered the pumpkin ravioli with a totally different sauce than was on the menu. Then called the waitress back and changed to the stew. When she finished, she turned to me. “Charlotte and I found a new antiques place in El Paseo a couple weeks ago.”

“Antiques,” I said, disgusted, “are the world’s biggest scam. First something is new. Pristine. Unsullied. Then it’s gently used. Crusty. Questionable. Then used. Old. Nasty. And finally, if nobody’s thrown it away, it becomes antique. Repulsive, rancid, swirling with layers of greasy body oil. And more expensive than when it was new.”

“It amazes me you can eat in a restaurant,” Emily said. “You know other people have used that fork.”

I paused midbite, trying not to think about it. Hundreds of mouths sliding wet tongues over the prongs. It was deeply off-putting—but fortunately, my fondness for all things new and unused was (mostly) limited to what I owned. Besides, I liked to eat. I put the forkful of salad in my mouth and smiled triumphantly at Emily. “See! Not crazy.”

“Good,” she said. “Prove it by picking up Charlotte’s gift at the antiques store.”

“What is it?” I asked.

“A lacquer box. She loved it when she saw it in the window.”

“Why can’t you get it?”

“Because I have a real job, Anne.” Emily thought I wasn’t living up to my potential, answering phones at a real estate company. She didn’t understand that that was my potential.

“Oh, yeah,” I said. “Academia. Nothing more real than that.”

“At least I enjoy what I’m doing,” she said.

“So do I. Putting people in real homes, with roofs and doors—things they can use. Not theories about how porn queens articulate their genitalia.” Emily had actually said that once, articulate her genitalia, on Crossfire or Politically Incorrect or somewhere. She hated to be teased about it. “Don’t tell me how important your work is compared to mine.”

“I didn’t say it was important. I said I enjoyed it.” She looked down at her plate. “At least I used to.”

I immediately felt awful for snapping at her. She’d been having a terrible time with her second book, struggling with it for years. “Problems with the book again?”

“No, it’s—well, it’s finished. The first draft.”

“But…” I prompted.

“But nothing.”

“What does Jamie think?”

“He says he likes it.” She dipped a hunk of bread in her stew. “My agent wants to shop it elsewhere.”

“You mean—elsewhere?”

“She says I should get a big-name publisher.”

“Instead of Jamie?”

She nodded.

It would kill Jamie. Emily was his lead author as well as his wife. The reason he’d been able to attract other good writers was because of Porn Is Film. And Emily relied on him more than she knew, and not only because he stayed in Santa Barbara with their son, Zach, while she commuted three days a week to UCLA.

“You can’t do that,” I said.

“No,” she said. “I know.”

“Do you want to?”

“I don’t know. Not really. Remember when my first book came out? How excited I was? Everything seemed possible. I just want to feel that way again.”

I felt for Emily—and still wanted to stab her in the eye with my fork. She had a career she loved. She was famous enough to get mentioned on NPR—though, I’m pleased to say, not on SNL. She had Jamie, who doted on her, and Zach, who was a great kid. Yeah, she wasn’t a dangerous young mind anymore, but she had the perfect life. Well, Charlotte had the perfect life. But Emily’s was first runner-up.

Still, because I’m a good sister, I made sympathetic noises and kept my fork to myself. I even paid for lunch—treating Emily as a reward for finishing her book.

She gave me a quick hug outside the restaurant. “You won’t forget Charlotte’s gift? The place is called Tazza.”

I wrinkled my nose.

“Just buy it, Anne.”

“Okay, okay. But if I come down with medieval squirrel-pox, it’s your fault.”

“What are the symptoms?” Emily asked. “Irritability, lack of ambition, fear of commitment— Annie, you’ve already got a terminal case.”

After the EMTs arrived to remove my fork from Emily’s forehead, I rushed back to my job at Parsons Realty. I tried not to take long lunches, even though I’d been dating the owner, Rip Parsons, for six months. Knowing where the boss sleeps at night (the right side of the bed) is pretty good job security.

I’d been working there for eight months, and considered the longevity of both relationship and job fairly impressive. The longest I’d worked anywhere was at the dot-com, a little-used search engine called The Ask It Basket. A name even lamer than “Rip,” but the company had been started back in the days when all you had to say was, “It’s a company on the World Wide Web. Which is on the Internet. Which is a global network of computers,” and millions dropped into your lap.

I’d worked three years at The Ask It Basket. My job title was Coordinator of Technology, but my business card said Geek Wrangler. I basically translated requests from management into geek-speak and back again. If a manager asked: “Why are the coders three weeks behind deadline?” I’d ask the geeks: “Would you stop downloading porn and get to work?” Or if the coders said, “Seagate’s got a brand-new campus, with a video-game room and everything,” I’d tell my boss: “They want free Mountain Dew and fruit leather.”

Then I’d sold my stock. But you weren’t supposed to sell stock, you were supposed to spend hours online every day, watching it go up and up and up and up. Selling stock was a betrayal worse than corporate espionage or claiming that Bill Gates wasn’t actually Rosemary’s Baby. I became persona not-entirely grata, and quit shortly thereafter, clutching the meager proceeds of my stock sale close to my heart.

Then I spent a depressing year watching the stock go up and up and up and up.

Then down. Wheeeee!

Everyone had thought I was crazy to sell, but after the dotcom crash I felt like Warren Buffet’s love child with Suze Orman, despite having sold a year early and spending nearly everything. Still, Dad was so impressed he said I should become a stockbroker. Instead I convinced Wren to hire me at Element—the clothing boutique she managed. We’d been best friends since working together at Banana, so she sort of had to hire me. Sadly, I was so bad at selling clothes that she sort of had to fire me three months later. But at least she wept while giving me the pink slip, so I forgave her.

After Wren fired me, I starting doing temp work—which I loved. Every job was a new job. I worked for an interior designer, the community college, a sheet music business, and World of Goods, a nonprofit. A local title company hired me permanently, and I stayed six months before I realized I’d paper-cut my throat if I had to type one more set of title instructions.

Right on cue, Rip Parsons had wandered into the office. A little flirting, an extra-long lunch, and I had a new job. He wanted an assistant, but I insisted on “office manager,” because it sounded almost reputable. Plus, I figured it was a good way to explore the possibility of becoming a Realtor (who basically mints money in Santa Barbara) without actually taking the courses and test.

A couple months later—a little more flirting, a few dinners added to the lunches—and I had a boyfriend. Rip had short brown hair and green eyes and I liked his arms, muscular from tennis, with the hair bleached blond from the sun. He looked faintly like Peter Gallagher, and on paper seemed like a jerk—a too-handsome young Realtor, a smarmy salesman. But he was lovely, super kind and always caring.

So, sure, I was twenty-nine and working behind the front desk of a real estate company—my career peak apparently long past—but at least I had a wonderful boyfriend.

Actually, getting boyfriends had never been a problem for me. I have a system. Wanting them after a few months was tougher.

There was Matthew. I broke up with him when he said, “Because I’m Matthew, that’s why,” once too often. There was Billy from Banana. My “dumping” him at Emily’s party had somehow ignited his interest, but I dumped him for real after he admitted he fantasized about Charlotte when we had sex. I didn’t mind him doing it, but couldn’t forgive him admitting it. Then Doug, the creative genius behind The Ask It Basket. I broke up with him when he started a porn-only search engine, called The Beaver Basket. There had been Mason, the public defender who was great fun when drunk, incredibly tedious when sober. Nick, the portrait artist with the trust fund who I had to leave because he wore Mary Janes. Arthur, the world’s sexiest plumber who liked laying pipe a bit too much. Alex, the wannabe screenwriter who asked me to give him “notes” about his lovemaking.

And Rip. Who had just buzzed me from his office. I hated that buzzer—sounded like I’d said the wrong thing on Family Feud—and had warned Rip not to touch it. Now he only buzzed to annoy me.

I opened the door to his office. “What?”

He grinned.

“I’m on a deadline, Rip. The ads are due.”

“Guess who just sold Knox Tower.”

I looked at him. “No!”

“Yes!”

“Oh, my God! That’s fantastic. Who? When?”

The Knox Tower wasn’t a tower. It was an old lodge in the Santa Barbara mountains, with 360-degree views of the valleys below and the distant crystal blue of Lake Cachuma. A rich socialite of the Great Gatsby type—though named Knox, I presume—had hosted lavish parties there until it burned down into ruins, many decades ago. It was never rebuilt, and the land and rubble had been on the market since. For millions.

“Just now,” Rip said. “That was the buyer on the phone.”

“Who is he?”

“Super rich L.A. contractor. CEO of Keebler, Inc.”

“Keebler? Like the elves?”

“If you meet him,” Rip said, “that’s the first thing you shouldn’t ask. Anyway, he’s big into low-impact, green construction. Fell in love with the place.”

“I thought you couldn’t build up there.”

“Green construction, Annie. He’s gonna put up tents. Or yurts or something, a cistern, solar energy, the whole deal.”

I shook my head. “Will it actually close?”

“I spoke to the lender. It’s a go.” A gleam came into his eyes. “I’m thinking I deserve a reward.”

“Oh, is that what you think?”

“Mmm-hmm.” He put his hands on my hips and pulled me close. “That was a good movie last night.”

We’d watched Secretary on video. “You want me to play your secretary?”

“You are my secretary.”

I nipped his ear. “Office manager.”

“Even better.” He nuzzled me. “Besides, you told me you liked spanking.”

“When? I never!”

“You’re always begging for it.”

I started to giggle. “I am not.”

“I can’t get into bed without you shouting, ‘Smack me, baby.’”

“I have never in my life said, ‘Smack me, baby.’”

“And ‘tan my naughty ass!’”

I shoved him, laughing. “‘Tan my naughty ass?’”

“See! There you go again!” He ran his palms down my hips, took both my hands in one of his and rubbed my bottom with the other. “Just one?”

I bit my lip. “Okay. One.”

He gave my ass a wallop and his eyes lit up—meaning he was ready for business.

“Later,” I said. Because we’d agreed: never in the office. But I could still tease. I kissed his neck and wriggled as he ran his hands over me.

“You’ll play secretary tonight?” he asked, a bit breathlessly.

“Office manager.”

“Office manager it is,” he said, and spanked me again.

Rip was out all afternoon, so I had time to finish the ads before they were due. It was a near thing though, and I was halfway home before I realized I hadn’t stopped at Tazza Antiques. I wasn’t exactly bothered—if I forgot to buy the desiccated old pot, maybe Emily would agree to get something else. Something better. Like a magazine subscription.

I picked up my dog, Ny—a ridiculously red chow mix—and took him to the beach before going to my dad’s house. I stopped at Dad’s two or three times a week, to check in and mooch dinner. Actually, checking and mooching were one and the same. Because if he knew I was coming, he’d buy food. Otherwise, he’d eat cold cereal three times a day. He was a bit of an absentminded professor.

Ny romped with his dog buddies and chased seabirds through the waves until he was exhausted. I toweled him dry and helped him scramble into the cab of the pickup—he was getting chubby and needed an extra boost.

My truck was a silver Ford Ranger pickup, the Splash model with chrome wheels. I’d bought it with my Ask It Basket money—the only new vehicle I’d ever owned. If I closed my eyes and sniffed deeply, I could still smell the new-car perfume. Plus, it was half of the patented Anne Olsen System for Being Semi-Successful with Men. Step One: don’t care about long-term relationships. Men love this. They swarm. Step Two: drive a pickup. Women driving pickups are to men what men driving Armani suits are to women. Don’t ask me why.

Dad lived in the same old Victorian on the upper east side where I’d grown up. It was a mixed neighborhood, filled with old houses like my dad’s that locals had owned for thirty years, and the updated versions that wealthy L.A. people had recently bought and renovated.

Dad glanced up from his newspaper when I let myself in. “What’s hanging?”

“‘What’s hanging?’” I let Ny track his sandy paws inside and closed the door. “Where’d you hear that?”

“I like to keep up with you young people,” he said.

“I don’t know, Dad. I don’t feel so young anymore.”

“Of course.” He shook his newspaper derisively. “You’re bent with age at twenty-six.”

“Nine,” I said. “Twenty-nine.”

“Really?” he said. “That is old.”

“What?”

He laughed. You’d think after twenty-nine years, I’d know when he was teasing.

“Still gullible as a teenager,” he said. “Have you eaten?”

“Of course not.” I headed for the kitchen. “What’s for dinner?”

“Stuffed pork chops. You’re staying?”

“I am for pork chops.”

He followed me into the kitchen and checked the oven. Two pork chops and two potatoes were already baking.

“Why two?” I asked. “Am I stealing one of yours?”

“No,” he said, “I was making leftovers for tomorrow.”

I glanced upstairs. “You haven’t got a woman hiding in your bedroom, waiting for me to leave?”

“Of course not,” he said. “She’s in the bathroom.”

“Oh! Sorry! I should’ve called—” I saw his expression. “Ha-ha. Very funny.” I opened the fridge and grabbed a soda. “But the way you play the field, I keep expecting to hear you eloped.”

He shook his head. “Three girls is enough.”

“Why haven’t you remarried?” I wasn’t sure if I liked the idea, but my dad wasn’t really meant to live alone. “It’s been almost twenty years.”

“You’re one to talk, with all your boyfriends.” He grabbed lettuce and carrots for a salad. “You’re a female Lothario.”

“I am not.”

“You’re Lotharia.”

“I’m not Lotharia.”

“You break up with every man you date. I can’t imagine Rip’ll last much longer, poor guy.”

“You like him?” Every time Rip met my father, he tried to sell him a new house.

“The question is, do you?”

“He’s funny and smart and wonderful—what’s not to like?”

“You’re not getting VD?” Dad asked.

No, he didn’t mean VD VD. He meant Vague Dissatisfaction. I’d stupidly confessed to him once that I had an acute case of Vague Dissatisfaction. Nothing in particular was wrong, but nothing felt right. It was why I never stuck with things very long. Dad considered it a low-level social disease, which would flare up periodically into unsightly outbreaks: VD. Dad thought he was pretty funny.

I glared. “Everything’s fine. I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Then give me an onion.”

I gave him an onion, and we let the subject drop. He told university stories over dinner, and when we’d finished, he offered me Oreos for dessert.

“Is it a new package?” I asked.

“Anne, you’ve got to stop this.”

“My diet starts tomorrow.”

“You know what I mean. Your obsession with newness.”

Easy for him to say. With two older sisters, hand-me-downs had been the primary fact of my young life.

Charlotte had a Malibu Barbie with a full wardrobe. Emily had a slightly used Malibu Barbie with two outfits. I had a one-armed, bald Barbie who enjoyed nudist colonies.

Charlotte wore Jordache when it was popular. Emily wore Jordache when it was passable. I wore Jordache when it was passé.

Charlotte learned to drive on a six-year-old VW Rabbit. Emily learned on a seven-year-old VW Rabbit. I learned on a twelve-year-old, rusted-out junker with suspicious stains on the seats and the faint odor of Gruyère.

But all I said to Dad was, “I don’t like stale Oreos is all.”

He lifted his pipe from the ashtray on the kitchen table and packed it with tobacco. “They’re fresh from the factory.”

“Where are they?” I asked, heading toward the pantry.

“Bottom shelf.”

I pulled the half-eaten package from the shelf and forced myself to take one. From the back. The very back. “Not bad.”

Dad looked pleased as he lit up his pipe, and I surreptitiously pulled a brand-new carton of milk from the fridge—ignoring the one which was already open—and poured myself a glass. I’d let him discover that little treat tomorrow.

When I got home, I found a message from Rip. The nights we weren’t together we usually talked before sleep, and lately we’d been discussing moving in together. I’d lived with other men—Doug and Alex, for about twenty minutes each—but always returned to Charlotte’s guest house when things went awry. I wasn’t sure if living with Rip was a good idea. We already worked in the same office, and spending more time together seemed a great way to kill a nice relationship.

I picked up the phone to call him back, but didn’t feel like talking. I was itchy and restless. I switched on the TV. I’d see Rip at work tomorrow.