Cheapskate in Love

chapter 36


Many months later at that time of year in which Manhattan becomes the most magical, decorated as it is for the holidays, with colorful light displays and other seasonal finery, Helen and Bill were on a date, their first evening out as a couple. It wasn’t their first out-of-doors excursion, however, since his incapacitating spinal injury. She had driven him to doctor appointments and physical therapy sessions many times before. Exercise had been the doctor’s strongest recommendation, and she had ensured Bill’s compliance. With her assistance and persistent insistence, Bill, who had never been physically fit as an adult, had begun to exercise for long periods while first confined. Within two months his mobility had returned enough that he could hobble on his own, and the cast and the brace were replaced with a more flexible body support. After this time, in addition to physical therapy sessions, Helen took him to her gym to swim and sit in a Jacuzzi. She made sure he swam more than he sat. With her steady coaching, care, and attention, his recovery was more rapid than expected. At the end of four months, he was walking with ease. At the end of the fifth, although his ability was still limited, his urge returned to swing dance. On this evening, they were going out to celebrate the removal of Bill’s body support the day before and to fulfill the promise he had made to her in June.

The transformation that makes Manhattan seem so different, so memorable, so full of festivity during the darkest days of the calendar, is not solely one of appearance. In fact, the change in scenery is the smallest change that occurs. As Bill had discovered through his errors, appearances make very little difference in a just evaluation of a person’s character. The same is true of a city. Appearances can conceal all kinds of unpleasant, undesirable, hostile qualities. Although dazzling decorations, darling gifts, merry gatherings, and tables loaded with food and drink may be visible, veritable signs of Manhattan’s alteration in December, the real change—when it occurs, and it does in abundance—happens first in something that no one can see or hear or touch. Wherever people live, this invisible, inaudible, untouchable thing most certainly exists. It is universal and inseparable from human life. Some may call it the soul or the spirit or the human heart, but whatever term is used, as the days grow darker, a light grows brighter in it in us, for we are creatures of the light and yearn for light and can not live without it. Even though winter settles in with the darkening days, and snows and ice sometimes appear, sunlight that is absent from the sky wells up within us in another form, and the hope of spring is born. The final month of the year is a time for celebration, not of the past, no so much of the present, mostly for the future, our future, to come.

The hearty and hopeful holiday change that had overtaken the city, as great and grateful as it is, because it soothes for a while some of the customary harshness in this capitol of finance and business, where so much money flows in currents unrelated to human need, was less, however, much, much less, than the change that had come to Helen and Bill. They had undergone what can only be described as a metamorphosis, since Bill’s injury in June. Their constant daily interactions had shown each that the other fulfilled their deepest respective needs, Bill’s for care and appreciation and Helen’s for companionship. The anger they had once had for each other was forgotten. As soon as Frank’s push removed the biggest obstacle to their interaction—Bill’s insensitive and immature longings—their understanding and regard for each other quickly established an active bond of mutual affection. The years of their acquaintance, similarities in social background, and shared traits, especially a fondness for economizing, although Helen would never be the cheapskate Bill was, strengthened their connection. Despite their actual ages and Bill’s temporarily injured body, they felt themselves to be again in the prime of life. More than the hope of spring had touched them. They were filled with the freshness and vitality that infuses nature during that season and were experiencing the joys of tender, continually intensifying young love, Helen for the second time in her life, Bill for the first.

Their friends had been forced to change some of their opinions. Stan, who had always thought Bill a dumb dog when it came to women, now started calling him a lucky dog. When he visited, little by little, laughing plenty, he told Helen all of Bill’s hapless romantic adventures that he had heard, so she would know how much better she was than anyone before her. Helen smiled at the stories, most of which were new to her, and smothered her laughs, until she was alone. Bill told him to shut up once in a while. But mostly he hung his head sheepishly, as much as he could in the brace or body support, and wondered why it had taken him so long to come to his senses.

Sandra and Joan were not as friendly toward Bill, as Stan was to Helen. For the first few months that Helen took care of Bill, Sandra only had equivocal comments about what she was doing, while Joan tried to have none. It would slip out, however, that Joan thought Helen was wasting her life. After those first few months, when they saw that Helen’s entire day had begun to revolve around Bill’s recovery, and they heard that he was rapidly improving, they invented an excuse and made a surprise visit to Bill’s apartment. They had to see for themselves how well Helen and Bill got along. When they observed how compliant, patient, and appreciative Bill was, they began to think their own husbands materially deficient. When they saw how easy and affectionate the interaction was between Helen and Bill, they felt a slight twinge of envy, but that was a passing sensation. They left, happy for Helen, completely persuaded that people, even a person like Bill, can change for the better.

When Marie heard that some woman had volunteered to care for her brother, she was so shocked she couldn’t pick up a cigarette for half a day. For several days, uncle Joe had to fend for himself, because of her near catatonic state. At last, she decided that she simply had to see who this female wonder of the world was, so she invited herself over to Bill’s place for Sunday dinner. It was the first time she had stepped foot in his studio in over a decade. Her brother’s personality was altered so much and Helen was so warm and welcoming that she stayed for hours. She didn’t even mind when he called her sis. After that, she came over regularly, always bringing her husband and uncle Joe for the main Sunday meal. Helen’s culinary skills inspired her to try cooking a dish for those get-togethers, but after a few attempts she decided it was simpler and more delectable to pick up something to bring instead.

When Bill had recovered enough to use his Blackberry by himself, he let Linda know that he was no longer available to see her. She congratulated him for finally leaving her alone, since she was sick of him. But when he didn’t respond to her subsequent, multiple, abusive text messages, she eventually perceived that he was truly never going to see her again. With fervor, she set out to find a more fitting subject for her fondness and ferocity.

There was only one obstacle, a minor one, on the path to Helen and Bill’s unfurling union: They had to find a new hairdresser, since neither of them wanted to see Donna again. Catherine had called from the salon soon after Bill’s return home, to express what sorrow she could at his mishap, and she offered to cut his hair at his apartment, without any surcharge. But Bill thought she merely wanted to torment him, while Helen thought she wanted to gather gossip. With Bill’s consent, Helen declined her offer, saying that Bill had decided to shave his head, as Catherine had once suggested, and wouldn’t need someone of her talent anymore.

For their first actual date that day in December, Bill wore a business suit and shirt that Helen had selected from his closet and sent to her cleaners, while Helen settled on a one-piece pastel dress with a ruffled skirt. It was something she had owned for many years. As he drove her in his battered car into Manhattan, he was reminded of his ill-fated date with Donna. He told Helen more details of that barbecue party and the pre- and post-happenings. Embarrassment had prevented him from dredging up much from his memory of that disastrous time for anyone before. Helen tried to discourage his retelling, because she thought that occasion best left in the past. But he insisted, conscious of a guilt he felt compelled to discharge, since she had warned him in advance about Donna. She listened attentively and couldn’t help smiling at times, but she refrained from asking questions until he finished, when she turned to him with an arch look.

“Would you like to have hamburgers tonight for dinner, so you can defend me?”

Throughout his recital, his face had been troubled, but now he broke into a grin. “Have you been spending time with Donna’s crowd lately? Is that why you need defending? I hope not. I don’t think there’s a hamburger on the menu where we’re going.”

Their dinner that night was high above Manhattan in the Rainbow Room, an elegant restaurant near the top of an art deco skyscraper, where there was also a dance floor and a live big band. As he had done in the past, Bill was splurging on his date, contrary to his usual tightwad tendencies, but never had he done so with better reason before.

To save money, he had wanted to drive back home late that night after dancing, but Helen insisted they stay in a hotel room. After a little silent reflection, he thought that was a fine idea, as long as there was only one bed in the room, which he would arrange. At first, he booked a room in a hotel a mile from the restaurant, because it had the cheapest rate, but he was forced to cancel that reservation when Helen found out. “Remember,” she told him, “you weren’t walking at all a few months ago. The hotel should be real close, unless you want to hop in a taxi.” He didn’t want to use a taxi, but he was reluctant to find a closer hotel, because of the price, until Helen said he didn’t need to give her any flowers or chocolates that day. Then he cheerfully reserved a standard room at the closest hotel. Little economies suited them both.

The dinner was delicious and full of eye appeal. Since Helen had fed him by hand for months, he was cured of his hoggish habit of guzzling food. He did complain about the tiny size of the steak he was served, but it didn’t seem so small to Helen. She reminded him that they would be dancing soon, and he didn’t want to have too much in his stomach. He understood what she was hinting at and didn’t say another word about the portions on his plate.

While they dined, he casually asked her what she thought of marriage.

“Are you proposing?” she wondered, with the quickening feeling of someone ready to accept.

“No, I’m doing some calculations.” He was thinking about how much an engagement ring would set him back.

“You can put me down in the ‘yes’ column.”

Her answer pleased him, of course, but he saw that he would have to seriously consider the expense of a ring and the other expenditures that marriage and uniting households involved. Moving closer to Manhattan or buying a pied-à-terre there seemed unavoidable, since she had brought up those subjects at least sixty times in the last three months. His brow became furrowed with thinking.

Later on the dance floor, where he and Helen were the slowest swinging couple among the number of dancers there, he was suddenly inspired with a cost-effective solution.

“What’s wrong with using your old wedding ring?” he asked excitedly, as they swung close together. “I can use mine. We won’t have to buy anything.”

She was slightly startled by his suggestion. She wasn’t averse to prudent measures, but she didn’t think that they should embark upon marriage in the stingiest way possible. Living with another person required sacrifices and compromises, she knew, and she thought that Bill’s capacity for listening and giving still needed to be enlarged.

“I want a new ring,” she asserted, moving more freely than him on the dance floor, not holding back her enjoyment, because of his less agile condition. “With rubies, diamonds, and emeralds. And I want a matching necklace with matching earrings. We can go looking together, so you buy exactly what I want.”

Bill stopped dancing. He was stunned. He looked at her, as if she had suddenly been transformed into one of the greedy, grasping harpies he had known before.

She continued dancing, swinging with ease, perfectly aware of his discomfort. “An ankle bracelet would be nice, too, dear. Women of all ages wear those things.” She had no real interest in anklets or sets of jewelry, but she wasn’t about to tell him that yet.

When he had stood a few moments like a totem pole, staring at her, aghast with anxiety, she flashed him a sassy smile, as if to say he wasn’t going to get what he wanted all the time, so he had better get used to it. He understood what she meant without any need for an interpreter. She was the first woman that he actually paid attention to, and his skill at reading her behavior had advanced far. He had discovered how little it cost him and how great the return on investment was.

He grabbed and gently crushed her in a kiss.

Through the windows around the ballroom, the lights of Manhattan shone in the distances beyond and below, thousands and thousands of lights, illuminating the cold, dark, December sky. To them, the lights seemed to signal so many more special evenings and beautiful moments together. The sounds of the big band stirred the air, calling them, and they started dancing again, by no means the fastest or most daring dancers on the floor, but in all likelihood the happiest.

The End