Cheapskate in Love

chapter 14





Later that evening, Helen was knocking on Bill’s apartment door. In one hand, she held a bottle of codeine. There was no response to her knocking. After waiting a few moments, she knocked more loudly.

“Bill, I know you’re in there,” she declared, raising her voice. The sound of her words filled the hallway. “Jonathan at the front desk told me that you had come home.”

After a short pause, Bill, who was peeking through the peephole, replied, “What do you want?” He had been daydreaming about Tanya before Helen knocked on his door, and the reality of who was at his doorstep disappointed him.

“Open the door,” she said. “I have something for you.”

He opened the door just enough for her to see his face. “What is it?” he asked brusquely, without any greeting or smile.

“Can you open the door more? You know who I am.”

He complied with her request reluctantly and opened the door all the way, placing one of his feet in front of it to keep it from closing. He was still dressed in his work clothes, a polo shirt and khakis. She also wore a polo shirt, which was of a finer material than his, and Capri pants. The colors of her outfit brought to mind blue sky, soft clouds, and the bright sun of early summer, while his clothing suggested a sale table of merchandise from past seasons, marked with further reductions.

“What is it?” he repeated.

“How are you feeling, Bill? Is your back better? Did you take enough time to recuperate before going back to work? I know you’re a hard worker and like your job, but back injuries are serious. It takes time to heal.”

“I’m fine,” he answered.

“You said that even when you couldn’t move. I hope you’re better.”

“I am. Thank you,” he said, without sounding at all thankful. “Was there some reason for your visit? I have things to do.”

“Yes. I brought another bottle of codeine for you. I told my doctor a little lie, so he would write a prescription. I said I pulled a muscle. I think he knew it was a lie, because I didn’t act hurt enough, but doctors always want you to leave so fast. I think he gave me what I wanted just to get rid of me. Here, you can have it.” She held out the bottle to him.

“Thanks, but I don’t need it. Was there anything else?”

She lowered her hand. “Are you sure? Jonathan at the front desk says you can hardly walk...”

“I’m fine.”

“That’s not what he says. He says you asked if there was a wheelchair...”

“That was days ago. I’m fine now.”

“He said you couldn’t even think of going to the gym your back hurt so much.”

“Well, the pain’s gone now. I’m fine.”

“Back pain can last a long time and recur almost instantly, without any apparent cause,” she warned.

“OK. I’ll take it,” he agreed at last, having exhausted all of his flimsy, false excuses. His back still hurt, and his discomfort was evident in his posture and face, especially to someone like Helen, who had known him for a long time.

She held out the bottle, and he grabbed it. “Thanks,” he said, receding into his apartment and preparing to let the door close. Before he moved his foot, Helen inserted herself in his doorway, placing one hand against the door to prop it open.

“I made lasagna tonight,” she said, inviting him with a smile. “Would you like to come to my place and have some? I was thinking that you might want a ready-made meal to save yourself the hassle of cooking, although I know now that you’re fine and don’t have any back pain.” The last part of her invitation was ironical, and she delivered it like a comedian.

Despite himself, he was amused by her mockery of him, and his mood lightened. Lasagna sounded like a good dinner to him, much better than all of the rice dishes he ate, when he had gone out with Linda, even the spicy dishes, which he liked. But all he could think of was Tanya, how young and beautiful she was and how lucky, how glad he was to have met her. He was incapable of pushing his heady infatuation of her to the side for a solid, filling meal with Helen, whom he knew from previous occasions, when George was still alive, to be an excellent cook. Bill had set his sights on Tanya. He was like a deranged traveler, dying of thirst in a desert, who believes the distant mirage of a lake to be real. Nothing was going to distract him from his goal, no matter how substantial the alternative might be.

“I...I,” he said, hesitating, while his stomach grumbled loud enough for both of them to hear. “I have some work to do. There’s a project deadline tomorrow that I have to meet. Being out of the office put me behind.” Although both had heard the grumbling of his stomach, Bill stood there pretending as if he hadn’t.

“Tomorrow is Saturday,” she pointed out.

“I mean Monday. The project is due first thing Monday morning. I have to work all weekend to make the deadline. It’s a really big project.”

She looked at him as if his head had sprouted ears and a long nose to complement the multi-colored hairs on top. He was obviously inventing a story, and it wasn’t an interesting one or a believable one. “You have to eat, don’t you?” She said, as if he was four-years-old.

“I’ll probably just throw a frozen dinner in the microwave,” he replied. That didn’t appear to be an appetizing option to him, and Helen knew it.

Since further conversation with him about dinner seemed futile, she decided to forego more back and forth and have her delicious lasagna alone. “Come over another time then,” she encouraged. “I’m still in the habit of making meals for two. I won’t make you clean the dishes either.” She moved out of his doorway back into the hall.

“Thanks for the invitation. I’ll think about it,” Bill answered. Of course, he wasn’t going to do that. There was only one thing he was going to think about at the moment and in the foreseeable future, and that was Tanya. To her his thoughts turned, as he shut his door.

All weekend, he feverishly thought and dreamed of Tanya. He relived the train ride with her over and over in his mind, erasing the awkward moments, and dwelling upon the magical ones: How she had sat next to him, how young she was, how hot she looked in her skimpy clothes, how she laughed at his jokes, how she had grabbed his wrist without shyness or embarrassment, how she had promised to call. He repeated snatches of their dialogue—of course improving and refining what they had said to each other—until the meeting took on the clarity, delicacy, and wonder of a fairy tale. In his fantasy, he became a kind of battered knight, someone worn down to a low physical and emotional state from terrible battles with ogres, giants, and dragons—creatures that bore a strong resemblance to his previous girlfriends—while she was a lost, wandering princess without a defender, fearful of what the future held for her. From each other they grew strong again, able to face any adversity.

Bill was troubled when Tanya did not call on Saturday or Sunday to arrange another meeting. That seemed to suggest a certain lightness in her regard for him, which he found hard to accept. It caused him a great deal of agony. But he excused her when he came to the realization that since she was visiting relatives for the weekend, her time might be fully occupied. As much as she might want to call him—and he was nearly positively sure that she did—she had previous obligations to attend to, which prevented her from reaching out to him.

To his further chagrin, he stumbled upon another idea in his obsessive mental concentration that was thoroughly unpleasant. Not only was she unable to call him on the weekend, he thought her female sensitivity might prevent her from calling him until late next week, for example, on Tuesday. He thought she might do this, so that in her eyes she would not appear to be an easy woman. Bill had encountered this female trait before and detested it. He thought it was part of their craziness. Why couldn’t the women he liked show the same, spontaneous interest in him that he expressed in them? Why did they always make a relationship so difficult? He became peeved at Tanya because she seemed to be acting like a typical woman, but he forgave her every fault when he thought of her youth and beauty. Those overpowered any other consideration. He was certain he was in love, because he couldn’t think of anything else, except her.

He decided that he needed to impress her with the size of his affection by spending a large amount of money on her. Battling hard with his cheapskate character, he began to compile a list of the top-rated restaurants in Manhattan for her to choose from. He would not put any limit upon her choice. He might have to loosen his tie and start taking deep breaths when the check came, but she deserved the very best meal in the city. She would remember and return his generosity as best she could, he was sure. He even went so far as to investigate luxurious hotels in San Francisco. He had once heard that that was the city couples in love went to. He didn’t know why. He had never been there. But he and Tanya were in love, he knew it, even if it was still an early stage. That was where they should go, even if it cost him more than he could bear to think about.