The Romance Reader's Guide to Life

I looked at him. “People tend to find what they look for,” I said.

“You don’t have to help them by standing still in an obvious place. I don’t think the first thing he’ll think of is a slip in a Charlestown marina. Please, Neave.”

“Okay.”

“Tonight. We’ll move some of your things and you’ll stay on the boat.”

I agreed, too close to the hanging ponytail to resist him.

I followed him to the Rubber Duck at her slip in Charlestown and let him lift me over the rail into the boat. He left me in the snug cabin. I lay down on the bunk with the soft bumping slap of the water beneath and around me. The refrigerator was stocked according to Max Luhrmann’s idea of need: coffee, milk, bread, bologna, peanut butter. I waited for sunrise and when it came I boiled water in the little electric heater and made myself toast, which I smeared with peanut butter.

Charles would be angry if he knew I’d moved to this boat and not told him about it. I thought about anger being his first probable response. Charles Helbrun was most comfortable when he was in charge, and this, in many circles, made him terrifically attractive. People, powerful people, asked him to sit on their boards specifically because of his ability to radiate power, to engage and persuade and control. He had money and respect. When he was with me he listened to me with care. He had introduced me to the universe where men wore English suits and women wore Parisian scents and everyone knew how to order wine: a world of complete safety. Many beautiful women had pursued him without success. As his wife, no social door in the city would be closed to me if I wanted to walk through it. No policeman would dismiss my concerns as frivolous. No day would end alone with a peanut butter sandwich and a Mars bar. There would be no watching my rearview mirror for pursuers. I would be watched over; I would be listened to; I would be treated carefully by powerful people.

If I said no to Charles, I might never marry. I could live out my entire life alone. If I said yes, I could walk down an aisle in flowing white silk, Janey wildly happy and Annie in a puffy pink dress, me with my gaze fixed on Charles: handsome, clear-eyed, disciplined, faithful Charles, waiting for me at an altar. I could have that.

I screwed the top back on the peanut-butter jar and rinsed the coffee cup. I left the Rubber Duck, walked to a bus stop in the nacreous six a.m. light, and went directly to the office. The moment I reached my desk I picked up the phone and dialed his number. It was barely daylight but I knew his habits. He’d been up for an hour already and was probably on his third cup of coffee, strategizing, laying out his day. He picked up immediately.

“I am honored that you asked me, Charles. But I won’t marry you.”





NEAVE

The Rubber Duck

Ruga brought it to my attention that I was scaring the Be Your Best staff. “You act crazy, you cancel meetings, you don’t get orders in, and you look like you rolled in hay. All the time. Look at your nails, all bitten and raggy. Look at your hair! You act like the company’s going down the tubes so they look for new jobs.” She stood me in an inconspicuous space to observe the office movements at strategic points of every day so I could see a little gang leaving early, taking long lunches, spending time on the telephone—rats thinking the open water was a better bet than my particular ship. This year’s sales conference was so close and here I was, nominally in charge, alienating friend and foe, leaving the office for long stretches without explanation.

“Look,” Ruga said with a shrug, “you wish this to happen? What are you thinking?”

She was right. I had to straighten up.

A week after I’d started going to the Rubber Duck I went to the parking lot behind our building and found all my car’s tires slashed, flattened right down to the pavement. I didn’t need to wonder who had done it. Max had been right. Ricky had been here, maybe been here night after night, and not found me. Tonight he was determined to keep me from leaving. I felt the rush of something like cold water in my chest. I scanned the street. I walked around the block, looking. There was no sign of him; no dark figures of any kind sitting in cars for no apparent reason. But the tires hadn’t been slashed for no reason. I called Snyder.

“Snyder,” I said, “I need a favor.”

“What’s the favor?”

“Oh, for chrissakes. How many favors do you owe me? What difference does it make what the favor is?”

“Fine. All right. What do you need?”

“I need a ride someplace. And then I need you not to mention where you take me to anyone. Not even Jane.” I named a street corner about a half mile from Be Your Best and told him to meet me there. I called a garage to have them put the car on a flatbed and haul it off to get new tires. I put a change of clothes in a bag, pushed my hair under a hat, settled a large pair of sunglasses over my face and walked out of the building with the last salesgirl to leave. I walked quickly to the block where I expected to find my brother. He was waiting.

“Why is all this so secret?” he asked. “Is something wrong with your car?”

“Just give me a ride, Snyder.” I directed him to the docks in Charlestown, taking a discursive route and checking the rearview mirror regularly. Nothing. When I got out of the car I looked Snyder directly in the eyes. “You won’t mention where you dropped me off to anybody. Anybody at all.”

“How will you get back to the office tomorrow?”

“There’s a bus I can use. You don’t have to worry about it. I can trust you on this, right, Snyder?”

He nodded soberly and I believed him.

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