Cheapskate in Love

chapter 28





Two days before Saturday, Stan arranged to meet Bill for lunch in Midtown with the intention of talking some sense into him about Donna. Stan wanted Bill to apologize to Helen for his rude words in the social hall and take her out on a date. Donna, Stan planned to say, was another of his pipe dreams, while Helen was attractive, intelligent, and considerate. She was a long-time acquaintance, he would emphasize, who was visibly, seriously interested in him. As his friend, Stan would command him to wake up.

This time, they went to an Indian buffet restaurant that a coworker of Stan’s had recommended. Bill had assented to this choice, because Stan had assured him that it would be inexpensive. When Stan arrived at the place, however, he found Bill reading the menu posted outside with a worried look. After they exchanged a few pleasantries, as they usually did, about how decrepit and near death the other appeared, Bill broached the subject of his real concern.

“The prices are kind of high,” he complained.

“It’s only three more dollars than the Chinese buffet we went to last time,” countered Stan, not considering the difference that three dollars make to a man of Bill’s economical views.

“I spent a lot on cupcakes this morning,” griped Bill. “And it doesn’t seem like much food. I saw the plates people have inside. The Chinese place piled more on.”

“If you want to go to the same place...” answered Stan, becoming impatient, since Bill was acting more shamelessly cheap than usual.

“No, no, let’s eat here,” Bill interjected. “If you pay this time, I’ll pay next time when we go back to the Chinese buffet. How does that sound?”

Since Stan was never going to argue with Bill for the distinction of being an equal or greater cheapskate, he agreed to Bill’s suggestion, and they walked inside.

When they had sat down with their trays to eat, Stan immediately launched into the speech he had thought about, while Bill forked food into his face. Stan told him how impressed he had been by Helen, how good-looking she was, how much she seemed to desire him.

“Forget about her,” Bill broke in. “I’m not talking with her again. Leaving me stranded at church was a mean trick. Here’s something for you to appreciate. What do you think about this? Does she have curves or what?” He handed Stan a picture, which he had printed from the Internet.

“Yeah, she has some round spots,” Stan admitted grudgingly, looking at the picture.

“That’s Donna,” crowed Bill. “She’s something to remember. That’s one ski course I want to slide all over.”

As Stan gave the picture back, he joked in return, “Probably won’t be on your feet for long.”

“I’d keep falling and falling, every time I got up,” answered Bill with glee, running with the metaphor. “But I’d get up again and again and go at it.”

“Are you seeing her before the barbecue?” asked Stan, trying to determine the extent of Bill’s acquaintance with her.

“She’s too busy.”

“Find out any more about her?”

“She has a BMW.”

“Nice,” said Stan. “And you’re driving her to the barbecue in your rusting jalopy?”

“No. She’s driving. I told her my car broke down again, and I ordered an Audi...”

“You bought an Audi?” Stan was astounded.

“Of course not. Not yet. If we have a great time, maybe. She likes nice things, so I want her to think I do, too. I said the new car isn’t ready yet, because all the extras have to be installed. I told her someone will drop me off at her place.”

Stan was shaking his head in disbelief. Since his friend was apparently hopelessly infatuated, thinking that lies and deception would lead to love, instead of trying to converse with him rationally, he realized that the best means of communication would be ridicule. “I’m sure Helen would like to do that for you.”

“I’m driving my car,” Bill responded tersely, irritated by the remembrance of Helen abandoning him. “I’ll just park it out of sight.”

“What happens when Donna drives you home? You’re going to hitchhike back to her place?”

“I’m staying the night,” Bill said confidently.

“Oh, really? Does she know?”

“She invited me to the barbecue. What do you think?”

“That she wants a party companion, like Helen said. What makes you think that isn’t true?”

“I know it,” declared Bill dreamily. “This time...”

“You’ve found a sex-worker, who happens to own a salon and likes driving strange men from barbecues right into her bed,” spurted out Stan sarcastically.

“Sounds sort of appetizing,” remarked Bill, delighted with the idea.

“For five-hundred bucks an hour.”

“That’s too much,” argued Bill. “I’ll bring chocolates and flowers. That’ll be enough for her.”

“Bring your luggage, too. She should let you move right in.”

“I was planning to leave a change of clothes in the car,” admitted Bill, “in case she wants me to stay Sunday, too.”

“Bring everything. Rent a moving van, and be ready to unload all your stuff the next morning.”

Bill considered Stan’s mocking suggestion seriously. “I’ll just need clothes. The rest I could toss. None of it’s worth much. I’m sure her house has everything.”

“When you awake from this teenage fantasy, tell me,” demanded Stan, tired of the silliness. “I’m advising you to drop Donna. Throw yourself at Helen, grovel for her forgiveness, and ask her out. How you can be so blind to your unbelievable good luck, is beyond me.”

That was not the sort of advice that Bill wanted to hear or consider, so he sulked for a few moments, scraping his plate to gather any grains of rice he had missed. Stan had to finish a good-sized portion of his food still, so he was content to let the conversation lapse. Besides, he thought his silence might persuade Bill to set a new priority; peer pressure can have a beneficial effect sometimes.

Stan’s well-meaning interference in Bill’s affairs, however, failed to make any difference. When Bill finally spoke, he asked him where he should go to buy chocolates and flowers. “I need good ones,” Bill said. “Not super expensive, but nice enough to impress someone. I don’t know where to go. Linda didn’t like what I gave her.” Although Bill didn’t say who might be the recipient of these gifts, he didn’t have to. It was clear that he still had the same plans for Saturday.

Stan’s response was quick, brutal, and ruthless. He supplied his friend with information about the most costly and exclusive places he could think of for those gifts.

That evening, as Bill was walking up to the entrance of his apartment building with his briefcase in hand, Helen, accompanied by Tom, came out of the front doors. They were attractively attired in fine, informal summer clothes. Helen wore a dress and Tom a blazer. It was their first date. They were absorbed in conversation and didn’t notice Bill, although the distance between them was only about sixty feet.

Bill noticed them, however. Although he had vowed never to speak to Helen again after what she had done to him on Sunday, he had not counted on seeing her in the company of another man, especially a man like Tom, who was handsome, well-dressed, and seemed to be of some importance. This was an unexpected development, a complete surprise. Bill was accustomed to Helen running after him, trying to talk to him, dote on him, entrap him. But she wasn’t doing that now. She was talking to another man, entirely unaware of his presence.

When the couple had come close, Bill startled them by saying, “Hi, Helen.”

Helen looked at him. A wave of disgust washed over her face. She wanted to pass him in silence, but the recollection of a feeling, not yet extinguished, forced her to say a cold “Hi, Bill.”

When Bill saw that she intended to walk past without saying anything more, he asked, “Where are you going?”

The two stopped. Helen was shocked by Bill’s polite inquiry. This was the first time he had ever shown an interest in what she was doing. Then a tinge of spite got in her, and she wanted him to know that she was no longer pining after him. “Swing dancing,” she said. “Tom is willing to try.”

“I’ll be the slowest swing dancer ever,” Tom remarked, with his usual conversational ease and good-natured friendliness. “Helen’s going to have to teach me every step and watch out for my two left feet.”

“You’re a smart guy. You’ll catch on fast,” Helen said, flattering him. “Tom, this is Bill, a neighbor.”

“You’re lucky to live so close to Helen,” Tom told Bill, shaking his hand.

“I guess so,” Bill replied. Until that moment, he had never thought that his apartment’s proximity to her’s was an advantage.

“Tom is a new friend of mine,” Helen said. Tom’s congenial, nice-guy character was already overcoming her natural reservation. The more daring, adventurous behavior of her friends and their encouragement was also helping her to accept Tom more quickly, than if she had met him on her own. “I’m so glad he’s willing to give swing dancing a try. I’m excited to hear big-band music again. You still like to listen to it, don’t you?”

“Sometimes,” said Bill. “I have some records.”

“There’s nothing else quite like it, is there?” enthused Helen. “Well, goodbye. We have to go.”

“So long,” added Tom, waving at him.

Bill bid them goodbye, feeling like he was missing something. He trudged to his apartment, while Helen cheerily went away with Tom.

Inside his apartment, in angry irritation, Bill threw down his briefcase, which he had been gripping tightly, ever since encountering Helen and Tom. “I can dance better than him,” he boasted.

Turning on big-band music to a louder volume than he had ever done before, Bill showed what he could do. He began to swing dance like a demon.

In his imagination, he and Donna were once again in a famous hotel ballroom, this time the ballroom at the Plaza Hotel. They were a stunning couple to look at, he in a tuxedo, she in a white, beaded, calf-length dress. And they could dance. On the crowded ballroom floor, they were another Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, except they were swinging, not tap dancing or waltzing. They were like music on four feet, a symphony of style, so smooth, so fast, so full of rhythm and motion, always stepping in harmony with each other.

The other couples perceived their dancing perfection, their dynamite charm and pulled back, forming a circle around them, watching and clapping to the beat of the music.

Bill was happier than he had ever been. Donna was, too. She came close to him and with her beautiful face beaming said, “You’re such a great dancer. And so good-looking. Let’s spend the night together, tonight and every night, forever.”

Bill couldn’t contain himself. Although it broke the peerless unity and flow of their dance, he grabbed and kissed her. After a long, melting kiss, they danced again with even greater brilliance than before, both smiling deliriously. The crowd whooped and hollered, clapping harder and harder.

The daydream suddenly dissolved into nothing. Bill sensed that the occupant in the apartment next to him was pounding on the common wall between them at the same tempo as the music. The pounding had been increasing in volume, until Bill heard it.

“OK, OK, I’ll turn it down,” cried Bill, raising his voice enough for his neighbor to hear a little. The walls in the building were rather thin.

He lowered the volume of the music, but since the magical vision had been interrupted, it would not return, and he lost his urge to dance. He shut off the record player. Soon, when he was dancing with Donna in the flesh, the vision would become a reality, he thought. As a result, his anticipation and expectations for their date kept growing, although both were already enormous.