Hope, and a Friend
Aaron slid the papers across his attorney’s desk. There he’d done it. His signature hadn’t been steady, but he’d vouch that it was his. The parenting agreement spelled out the holidays he’d have custody of eight-year-old Michael. The little league park where he could watch his son play wasn’t but three blocks from the apartment he had leased six months ago when Edith had, with a flourish, tossed his belongings onto the patch of brown summer courtyard grass.
“Mr. Reynolds,” the words seemed to him to come from a far off place, “that’s all for now. There’ll be a court hearing with the judge to confirm. You can be present if you like. My secretary will be in contact.”
“Thanks Cyrus.”
He pushed back his chair with its soft, creased leather and nail studs. The plush carpet muffled his footsteps past the mahogany paneled waiting room. Everyone seemed so serious, yet smiled when his or her gaze caught his. He suppressed his impulse to slam the door upon his exit into the corridor.
The elevator whisked him twenty floors to the lobby. He needed a stiff drink.
“Johnny Walker, on the rocks, double.”
The frilly-skirted server nodded, although he sat at the bar. Nylons swished on her exit.
“Rough day,” asked the gentleman seated to his right at the bar.
“Yeah.” He didn’t want to encourage conversation. His apartment on West 46th had enough conversation heard through the walls. The couple fights, tossed dishes, angry insults. That had not been Edith, yet he wished it had been. He could understand outbursts. He’d stopped countless flaying arms and misdirected punches in his three months of being a part-time bouncer. The economy had cut into his nine-to-five sales job hawking prescription drugs designed to ward off life-threatening viruses and related flu. A major drug producer, citing the a sales slowdown, had cutback his assigned territory by a third. He’d promised himself never to speak their name in public outside doctor offices he made sales calls to.
“I’ve had those, rough days,” said the bar mate. His red-striped tie loosened, a cell phone face down on the bar in front of him.
“Not like mine.”
“I’d disagree, but I learned long ago that each person considers his situation to be the worse no matter what anyone else says.” The gentleman lifted his glass in a toast. “So, here’s to a better day.”
Aaron clinked his glass to the stranger’s. He’d done that during many happier times. The diverse bars of Manhattan entertained and easily soothed the weary and the restless. He had no reason to strike out at this stranger. “To your health in the New Year.”
“Did your lawyer help you?”
“What tells you I saw a lawyer?”
“Mine’s in this building. Many lawyers are. This bar’s well-known for confused clients who never reach the revolving doors to the street until they’ve had a drink or two.”
“So, you’re saying I’ve telegraphed my situation.”
“No. I don’t know your exact situation. But, between you and me, if you’ve never been here before all you need to do is slid a C-note under your check and the frilly server is yours for fifteen minutes.”
Aaron looked behind him. The tables were filling fast. Rush hour. He could catch the express subway to 50th street and walk to his apartment. Microwave Healthy Choice entrees or grab takeout on 8th Avenue. He’d never paid for sex before. What about AIDS? Protection? His problem had been the lack of an erection. For months he’d hid the Viagra prescription from Edith. He let her believe he wasn’t interested. He thought that had been the best strategy. That is, until the threatened divorce.
Their Eastside apartment for a decade had all the amenities: twenty-four hour security, doorman, and one-car-garage space. Their neighbors all represented well-connected, type-A achievers. The cocktail parties beneath the Renaissance artist reproductions with tailored servers were sufferable only because it related to his work. An occasional lead to a doctor, sometimes a recommendation, padded his commissions.
When visiting Dr. Chomsky, a plastic surgeon with an office near Battery Park and second cousin or other to one of his cocktail hosts, he thought his being nice to an office nurse named Corrine had been perfunctory. He learned two weeks later Corrine had other ideas. On a second visit, she invited him to have a drink with her. What could he do? Dr. Chomsky had placed multiple orders, reoccurring ones that generated hefty commissions.
The two one-hundred-watt bulbs in the bar Corrine suggested didn’t illuminate much. The servers carried flashlights for every patron’s convenience. His knees touched Corrine’s under the booth table no matter how he moved.
“I like you,” she began.
“You’re nice, too.” Her stylish brunette hair had been combed back. She had to workout for her white blouse and navy blue skirt hugged defined curves. Before Michael, that had been Edith, too. Yet, Edith had a personality he’d described to friends as being flypaper to a fly. He’d been the latter and attracted from day one. This Corrine had been forward and he couldn’t antagonize her for he assumed her personality had the same convincing power on Dr. Chomsky as it did on him.
Her finger slid up and down her drink’s swizzle stick. Her knees separated Aaron’s. “The last drug salesman said he had a wife and I see you have a ring. Is that for show, or real?”
“For real. Twelve years.”
“You swing both ways?”
He felt his neck hairs straighten and the perspiration at the nape of his neck. He glanced all around. This wasn’t a men’s locker room or sauna. He wasn’t a native New Yorker, but he’d read about them. “Heavens, no.”
“Great. Then there’ll be no conflict with Dr. Chomsky.”
“What?” He raised his hand to his jaw to find it dropped.
“You’re kidding, right?”
“I don’t know what you mean?”
“Dr. Chomsky’s the most open out-of-the-closet guy you’d ever meet. I guess you don’t read the online New Yorker.”
“I just work, call on accounts, don’t have time to do all that much Internet surfing.”
“Well, if you don’t read words, you must read legs for I saw your extended stare at Suzie in our office. Damn. I wish I had her sugar daddy to buy those designer slit skirts.”
“You looked nice.” He tried to regain his equilibrium after caught that his eyes had searched the boundaries of Suzie’s exposed thighs up to a white strip of lace and the bombshell about Dr. Chomsky. Not that a gay doctor would be unheard of. His antennae hadn’t picked that up. Luckily he hadn’t said a wrong word to the doctor. Now, Corrine. He felt her hand on his knee. Gads. Forget he was married. He hadn’t taken a Viagra pill.
“Want to order us another?”
“Sure, sure.” He signaled the server. “You live around here?” What a stupid question. He didn’t want to take her anywhere. Two drinks, repeats of their first order, appeared on their table.
“Uptown, West 52nd.”
At least not the Eastside, he thought. Finish his drink and they’d have to take different subway trains. A rational excuse he could use and save his account.
She gazed at him with expansive blue eyes. “I don’t have to go home right away. I know the bartender. He has to work until one. He’ll give me the keys to his place. It’s two blocks from here.”
“I...I don’t know. I’m expected home.”
“Call. I’ll cover for you that you had to wait for the doctor. Trust me. I can be convincing.”
Aaron shrugged. She had the bases covered. If only she knew. “No I can’t, not tonight. My son’s grandparents will be over.” He lied. “Family birthday. I can’t miss it.”
She squeezed his knee. “I only take one rain check. Remember that.” She downed her cosmo, grabbed her purse, and strode out the door. Aaron waited for the check.
Two weeks later, when he entered Dr. Chomsky’s office, Corrine winked. He had surmised she’d been the one to stretch his day in that the doctor wouldn’t be available until four thirty. Yet, he couldn’t bypass the commission of a reorder and the promise of an order for a new miracle drug his company just released following FDA approval.
Aaron reluctantly agreed to another drink with Corrine. The only surprise came with the exploding flashbulb. He hadn’t seen the camera in the darkness or the photographer. Startled, he left the bar after tossing a twenty on the table. If more, Corrine would have to be responsible.
The crash of a tray full of glasses behind the bar brought Aaron back to the moment. “What you say, slid what?”
“Never mind. If you have to ask, you’re not really interested.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You don’t have to. No questions-asked sex only dulls the pain of the truly guilty. You must not be.”
“I had thoughts. Really tempted.”
“Yeah, but for some reason, you didn’t go through with it, right?”
“Well, no.” He didn’t feel it necessary to explain about the flashbulb.
“Consider yourself lucky.” The bartender looked at them, then away.
“I don’t. Lost a marriage.”
“But have you lost your self-respect? Can you look yourself in the mirror, grab a razor, and not contemplate suicide?”
“Yeah.”
“Most men in a divorce feel hopeless. I suspect you don’t.”
“How’d you know I’m getting divorced?”
“I was in the corridor when you entered my lawyer’s office. He only does divorces.”
The gentleman raised his glass. Aaron did, too. He knew that, when one encountered a friend, life wasn’t hopeless.
Copyright DOTDON Books 2010
Copyright Donan Berg 2010
Read other short stories by Donan Berg at
www.authorsden.com/donanberg . Recently posted, "Bubbling Conflict" and "The Compass." Prior stories entitled "Memories" and "Christmas: No Extra Thrill in Sugar" and the holiday most popular "Pennies for Christmas."
