Cheapskate in Love

chapter 33





After Donna parked her BMW in her driveway, she quickly exited the car and hurried to her front door. At first, she wasn’t going to say anything at all to Bill—she couldn’t wait to rid herself of him—but an impulse of common courtesy pinched her. Halfway to the porch, without stopping, she said over her shoulder, “Goodnight, Bill.”

He had gotten out of the car soon after her and watched her rush away. It was another odd moment in an extraordinary evening, and he didn’t know what to do. He had old-fashioned views about first dates and thought there should be at least a formal wrap-up: A cuddle, a kiss, a thank-you-for-a-wonderful-time, even if there would never be another. But the evening had been an unmitigated disaster, and he was baffled by how it should end. He couldn’t sugarcoat what had happened, which is what he normally did with his dates. His stomach hurt too much to do that, and he was rather ashamed of wasting so much good food by barfing. Maybe he should let the evening fade away without any words, he thought, and try to forget the paradise he had imagined it would be.

When she bid him goodnight, he automatically wished her the same. Then, since she had spoken to him, which he considered an open invitation, he decided to make one last effort to redeem the evening and have it end with a little bit of romance. After all, she was gorgeous, he had time, and they were both single. He took off after her. “Donna, wait,” he cried.

She didn’t. Instead, she scurried faster. It wasn’t until he jogged, as quickly as he could, onto her porch that he caught up with her. The porch lights came on automatically, and illuminated the two for anyone to clearly see.

“Let’s have a drink and finish this evening on a happy note,” Bill urged.

“No. Goodbye,” she said firmly, as she searched impatiently for the keys in her purse, not making eye contact with him.

“Forget about tonight,” he pleaded. “We can go somewhere else next time. A fancy restaurant, a movie, a nightclub.”

“There won’t be a next time.” Where are my keys, she was thinking, so I can escape this fool, who doesn’t appear to understand English or know when to leave?

“We can go swing dancing,” he rhapsodized.

She was not interested in that or any other activity with him and stopped looking in her purse to be blunt. “Look. I have a boyfriend. I only asked you to come because he worked tonight, and I wanted to go with someone. He should be here any moment, and I suggest that you leave, because he’s hotheaded and doesn’t like seeing me with other men. Thank you for coming tonight. I’m sorry about what happened. But I don’t want to see you again.”

Bill was not so easily put off by a woman, whom he considered attractive and who would talk with him. “I didn’t think the evening was that bad,” he said, twisting the truth.

When she didn’t say anything, he choked the truth to death. “It was OK.”

Unpersuaded by his lies, unable to stand talking with him anymore, she turned her head away from him, looking out into the night, and exhaled deeply. An immense frustration weighed upon her, with a force greater than gravity. She felt as if she was being pressed and pounded into the ground. Her unhappiness was even visible to a man like Bill, who preferred to disregard the emotional states of his dates, along with their verbal communication.

Without a doubt, he perceived that this would be their only date together. The window for future negotiations and rapprochement had been slammed shut and sealed forever. Yet, despite his accurate prediction of the future, he could not leave. There was one more thing he had a greedy wish for, something free. He was going to try and get it. Stretching his hands to her waist, he leaned in close for a little happy memory of the evening, a little romantic fantasy. Of course, he wanted much more than a little, but he would take what he could steal.

She pulled back in surprise, exclaiming, “What are you doing?”

“Giving you a kiss goodnight,” he replied, with as much fondness as he could feign.

“Oh, all right,” she conceded, thinking how useful he had been on the dance floor in her triumph over Leo. “One kiss.”

Their lips met in a touch more sour than sweet. Yet Bill extended the kiss for as long as he could. After all, it was free.

The sound of a car pulling quickly into Donna’s driveway caused her to break off their awkward, unsatisfying embrace. She grabbed his arm and pushed him toward the steps. “Hurry,” she told him in a panic. “Run down the lawn. My boyfriend’s here. Quick, go.”

The alarm in her voice and her words had no effect on Bill. He was disappointed that the kiss was over. He didn’t understand why he should run away. They had only kissed, and it wasn’t what he would call a great one. Surely, no man could be jealous of that insipid smooch.

Donna’s boyfriend, Frank, jumped out of his car. A muscular man in his mid-thirties, who worked in law enforcement, he had a rash, judgmental nature. In both his professional duties and his private life, he was more concerned with enforcing his hasty, intolerant conclusions than respecting the law. “What’s going on here?” he yelled, running to the porch. Unlike Bill, he could really run.

Donna tried to push Bill off the porch. “Go, before it’s too late,” she warned him. “If you run down the lawn, you can escape.”

Bill still didn’t feel himself in any peril. He was not easily intimidated, and he was curious about her boyfriend. He wanted to see if the boyfriend had something he didn’t. Maybe there would be a way to go out with Donna again. Besides, if the boyfriend tried to act tough with him, he would stand up to him, just like he had to Leo. He wasn’t going to be pushed around or frightened.

“Am I interrupting something?” Frank asked angrily, as he leaped up on the porch. He stood glaring at Donna and Bill, hyperventilating.

“Frank, relax,” Donna said, with a voice of forced calmness. “Bill is going. I’m never seeing him again.”

“Aw, why not? Isn’t this your old man, who you dearly love? That was some kiss.”

When Frank called him “old,” Bill’s stomach burned even more than when Leo had punched him, but he remained silent.

“It was nothing, Frank. Don’t start imagining things.” To Bill, she said, “You can leave now. Please don’t ever call me again.”

Frank was not placated by Donna’s words, because his mind was too heated for sense to penetrate. “Hey, pops,” he attacked Bill. “Am I imagining things, or were you kissing her?”

“It’s none of your business,” Bill replied, getting as hot as Frank. “And don’t call me pops.”

“What’s the matter, pops? Don’t you like how old you look, pops?”

“I said stop it.”

“What if I don’t, grandfather?”

“I’ll show you something.”

“You’ll show me something, old man?” Frank pushed Bill hard, and they began to scuffle.

Bill was clearly at a disadvantage, as he had been earlier in the evening, but this time he wasn’t able to save himself by vomiting. With little difficulty, Frank forced Bill against the house, grabbed him by his shirt, and repeatedly threw him against the wall. Bill tried to remove Frank’s hands from his shirt, but he was too feeble to do more than hold onto Frank’s wrists.

Since his opponent was not yet subdued, Frank decided to take further action. He swung his opponent around and began pushing him back toward the edge of the porch. The width of the porch was approximately twelve feet, so there was some distance to travel before they would reach the edge.

Donna had been standing aside, hoping that Frank would just shake Bill up a little and let him go, but when she saw where they were heading, she tried to intervene. She grabbed one of Frank’s arms and tried to pull it off Bill. “Stop. Stop it. That’s enough,” she begged. “Let him go.”

Her intervention had the unintended effect of making Frank think that she still had some feeling for Bill, so he summoned even more strength to punish his apparent rival. Frank released his hold on Bill’s shirt. Grabbing him by the shoulders, he shook him as a child would shake a stuffed toy. Bill put up no resistance, because he couldn’t, and Donna’s attempts to pull Frank’s arms off him were half-hearted and ineffectual. When Bill was wobbly and light-headed, Frank stopped shaking him, and for a brief moment, the lop-sided contest seemed over. Bill tried to stand straight and still, while Donna let go of Frank. To both of them, Frank seemed satisfied with his retribution, although he was still glaring at Bill. Suddenly, however, like a rattlesnake, coiled in watchful waiting, which lunges at its prey, Frank rammed his hands into Bill’s chest and launched him off the railing-less porch backwards.

Donna gasped.

Bill flew through the air, his arms flailing like broken wings. The porch was about two feet above the ground, but the force of Frank’s push carried Bill away much more than that. With a thud and a groan, Bill landed hard on his back on the lawn ten feet from the porch. He tried to get up, but his limbs hardly responded.

“I can’t move,” his piteous voice cried. “My back. My back is broken. Donna, help.”

Donna and Frank were still standing on the porch.

“Can’t you get up?” asked Donna wistfully, leaning forward, although she was not about to venture any closer to Bill.

“I’ll help him get up,” snarled Frank, starting to walk off the porch. “Hey, pops,” he shouted at Bill, “I’m coming to help you. Can you move yet?”

“Frank, listen to me,” she yelled, raving with emotion to convey her meaning. “Don’t touch him. If you touch him, you’ll be leaving, too. I mean it. I won’t have a dead man on my lawn.”

Her words were close enough to a declaration of love for Bill, and he slipped into unconsciousness from the searing pain in his lower back with a contented look on his face.