The Boy Next Door Page 9
Subject: Oh for God’s sake…
Just call the girl, would you? While you’re sitting around beating yourself up, some other man could be stealing her out from under your nose!
Don’t worry, the Max Friedlander stuff will work itself out. You wouldn’t believe some of the lies Jason told me when we first started going out…foremost of which was that he went out once with Jody Foster. He just didn’t mention that it was when she happened to be on the same ferry he was taking to Catalina.
Yeah, he “went out” with her, all right.
Oh, and your grandmother showed me a picture of this Michelle girl, whom your brother insists was the most beautiful woman he has ever known: Hello, somebody call the pound, I think there’s a pit bull on the loose—
And here comes Jason, he’s screaming something about grilled cheese and why don’t I get my own e-mail account, and why must I keep pillaging his, and now he’s trying to shove me out of his chair, even though I am seven months pregnant with his unborn son, not to mention the mother of his daughters.
Stacy
To: jerrylives@freemail.com
From: Jason Trent
Subject: Go away
I just want you to know that while you are burdening my wife with your half-assed problems—all of which, by the way, are of your own making—everything here is going to pieces. I just had to make the girls their lunch and the cheese dripped out into the toaster oven all over everything and started a fire.
So all I have to say to you is get your own wife already and stop bothering mine.
Jason
To: jerrylives@freemail.com
From: Jason Trent
Subject: HI, UNCLE JOHN
IT’S US, HALEY AND BRITTANY. MOMMY AND DADDY ARE HAVING A BIG FIGHT OVER WHAT YOU SHOULD DO ABOUT THE REDHEADED LADY. MOMMY SAYS YOU SHOULD CALL HER UP AND ASK HER OUT TO DINNER. DADDY SAYS YOU SHOULD GET THERAPY.
IF YOU MARRY THE REDHEADED LADY, WILL SHE BE OUR AUNT?
WHEN ARE YOU COMING TO SEE US? WE MISS YOU. WE HAVE BEEN VERY GOOD. EVERY TIME THAT VEIN IN DADDY’S HEAD STARTS TO TURN PURPLE WE SING THAT SONG YOU TAUGHT US, JUST LIKE YOU SAID TO. YOU KNOW WHICH SONG. THE ONE ABOUT DIARRHEA.
WELL, WE HAVE TO GO. DADDY SAYS TO GET OFF HIS DESK.
WRITE SOON!!!
LOVE,
BRITTANY AND HALEY
To: Mel Fuller
From: jerrylives@freemail.com
Subject: Baseball-sized hail, and other weather anomalies
Dear Melissa,
Sorry it took me so long to get back to you. I had some business that needed tending to. But it looks like it’s all more or less in order now—at least, as much as it can be for the moment.
It’s sweet of you to offer to visit my aunt with me, but you really don’t have to.
Wait. Stop. I know what you’re going to say.
So to cut you off at the pass, might I suggest that we do it tomorrow evening, if you don’t already have plans?
And I think I will take this opportunity to discuss something that has been weighing somewhat heavily on my conscience ever since we met: the great debt I owe you for saving my aunt’s life.
Stop. Again, I know what you’re going to say. But the fact of the matter is, you did exactly that. The police told me so.
So although it is rather an inadequate means of expressing my immense gratitude and appreciation for what you did, I was hoping that you’d let me take you out to dinner some night. And since I know how deeply this will offend your Midwestern sensibilities, I am prepared to let you pick the restaurant, lest you worry that I might choose a place destined to bankrupt me.
Think it over and let me know. As you are aware, my evenings are, thanks to Paco, quite free until eleven.
Sincerely,
John
P.S.: Did you see that thing on the Weather Channel last night? Why is it that people who attempt to drive through flash-flood-swollen rivers in their SUVs always end up being people who don’t know how to swim?
To: Nadine Wilcock
From: Mel Fuller
Subject: He wrote back!
And he asked me out.
Well, sort of. I guess it’s more of a pity/thank you thing than an actual date.
But maybe if I get just the right dress…
You’re the restaurant expert. Which one should I pick?
Mel
To: Mel Fuller
From: Nadine Wilcock
Subject: You aren’t going to…
be able to pay your rent next month if you keep buying outfits to impress this guy.
I have an idea. Wear something you already own. He can’t have seen everything you own already. He only moved in a couple of weeks ago, and I know you have ten million skirts.
Here’s another idea: Why don’t the two of you come to Fresche? That way, Tony and I can get a look at him and let you know what we think.
Just a thought.
Nad
To: Nadine Wilcock
From: Mel Fuller
Subject: Ha!
What do you think I am, stupid? We aren’t going anywhere near Fresche. Not in a million years.
Mel
To: Mel Fuller
From: Tony Salerno
Subject: So we’re not good enough for you, huh?
I guess when it comes to fine dining, you really know who your friends are. I mean, evidently, you have some kind of prejudice against my restaurant that I never knew about before now.
And yet whenever I’ve offered to grill you up some of my classic chicken paillard, you’ve never turned me down. Could it be that all this time, you’ve merely been humoring me?
What about Nadine? She’s not really your best friend, is she? You probably have some fancy other best friend tucked away for emergencies, don’t you?
It’s all becoming clear now.
Tony
To: Tony Salerno
From: Mel Fuller
Subject: You know good and well
why I don’t want to go to your restaurant. I don’t care to be gawked at by my best friend and her boyfriend!
And you know it.
You are really insufferable, you know that? It’s a good thing you’re such a good cook—and so good-looking, too, of course.
Mel ;-)
To: Mel Fuller
From: Dolly Vargas
Subject: Dinner
Darling, are you mad? You have simply got to make him take you to La Grenouille. There just isn’t anywhere else worthwhile.
And it isn’t as if he can’t afford it. My God, Max Friedlander made a fortune photographing that Vivica creature for that new Maybelline print campaign.
After all, you did give that woman first aid. For that he owes you something from Tiffany’s, or Cartier, at the very least.
XXXOOO
Dolly
To: Mel Fuller
From: George Sanchez
Subject: Corner bistro
That’s where you make the guy take you. Best burgers in the city. Plus you can watch the game while you eat.
George
To: Mel Fuller
From: Jimmy Chu
Subject: How can you even
think of going anywhere but Peking Duck House? You know it’s the best Peking duck in the city.
Jim
To: Mel Fuller
From: Tim Grabowski
Subject: Gay
dar
Nadine passed me your friend John’s latest e-mail, which I guess you forwarded to her, and I can say unequivocally, speaking as a homosexual, that this man is straight. No gay man I know would ever let a woman choose the restaurant, even if she did save his aunt’s life.
Make him take you to Fresche. Nadine and I and the rest of the gang are going to sit at the bar and pretend we don’t know you. Puh-lease make him take you to Fresche….
Y’all have a nice time and be sure to practice safe sex, you hear?
Tim
To: Nadine Wilcock
From: Mel Fuller
Subject: For the love of God…
would you please stop telling everyone who works here about my personal life? It is so humiliating! Tim Grabowski from Programming just e-mailed me. And if Programming knows, you know it’s only a matter of time before it gets down to Art. And what if somebody in Art knows Max Friedlander, and tells him how everybody in Features is talking about him?
I mean, my God, what are you trying to do?
Mel
To: Dolly Vargas
From: Nadine Wilcock
Subject: Mel
All right everybody, lay off her. We’re just making her nervous.
I really mean that, Dolly, so don’t even think about another ladies’ room ambush.
Nad
P.S.: Besides, you know she can’t keep a secret to save her life. She’ll blab about where they’re going eventually, and then we’ll have her. ;-)
To: jerrylives@freemail.com
From: Mel Fuller
Subject: Dinner
Dear John,
Hi! It’s really sweet of you to offer to take me to dinner, but you really don’t have to.
I was happy to do what I did for your aunt. I only wish I could have done more.
But if you really insist, I honestly don’t care where we go to dinner.
Well, that’s not true, there is one place I really DON’T want to go, and that’s Fresche. Anywhere else is fine. Why don’t you surprise me?
See you back on the fifteenth floor tonight at six (ICU visiting hours are only from six-thirty to seven)?
Mel
To: Mel Fuller
From: jerrylives@freemail.com
Subject: Dinner
You got it.
I’ll make reservations for eight. I hope you know what you’re doing, however, letting me choose the restaurant. I am very partial to entrails, you know.
John
To: jerrylives@freemail.com
From: Mel Fuller
Subject: I don’t believe you
You’re just trying to scare me.
I grew up on a farm. We had entrails on toast every morning for breakfast.
Mel
To: Mel Fuller
From: jerrylives@freemail.com
Subject: Now you’re
scaring me.
See you at six.
John
To: John Trent
From: Sergeant Paul Reese
Subject: Last night
Trent—
Look, man, I can’t apologize enough. I don’t know what’s going on between you and the redheaded broad, but I didn’t mean to blow it. I was just so surprised to see you there! I mean, John Trent, at the Animal Medical Center? What kind of crime could he be following up on? Certainly one of a fowl nature….
Sorry. Couldn’t resist.
Seriously, we were just there to check on Hugo, the precinct’s bomb-sniffing pooch. Some clown fed him a bunch of KFC left over from lunch, and you know what they say about dogs and chicken bones….
Well, it turns out to be true. Although Hugo is expected to make a full recovery.
What were you doing there, man? You looked strung out. Well, for a guy with a hot babe like that on his arm.
Let me know if there’s anything I can do to make up for it…. Fix some parking tickets, maybe? Have the redhead’s husband held without bail for the weekend. Whatever.
Anything, anything to make it right again.
Paul
To: Sergeant Paul Reese
From: John Trent
Subject: All is forgiven
At least now. Last night, I easily could have throttled you.
Not that it was in any way your fault. I mean, you saw me. You said, “How’s it going, Trent?” as any normal person would.
How were you to know I am currently living under an assumed name?
But what started out as the most disastrous evening of all time—who knew cats eat rubber bands? I certainly didn’t—turned out to be pure bliss.
So consider yourself forgiven, my friend.
And as for the redhead, well, it’s a long story. Maybe I’ll even tell it to you someday. Depending on how it turns out, of course.
Right now, it’s back to the Animal Medical Center for me. I have to bail out the cat, who has supposedly recovered nicely from his intestinal surgery. And on the way home from the animal hospital, I am going to buy that cat the biggest, smelliest fish you ever saw, as a thank-you for his kind thoughtfulness in ingesting that rubber band.
John
To: Mel Fuller
From: Nadine Wilcock
Subject: Well???
What did you wear? Where did you end up going? Did you have fun?
WHAT HAPPENED???
Nad
To: Nadine Wilcock
From: Mel Fuller
Subject: It happened
>What did you wear?
I wore my short black Calvin Klein wraparound skirt, with my V-necked light-blue three-quarter-sleeve silk sweater and matching blue ankle-strap sandals with the three-inch heel.
>Where did you end up going?
We didn’t end up going anywhere. Not for dinner, anyway.
>Did you have fun?
YES.
>WHAT HAPPENED???
It did.
Okay, well, not really, but almost. What happened was, I was just applying my final layer of lipstick when there was a knock on my door. I went to answer it. It was John. He actually had on a tie! I couldn’t believe it. He looked great—only really worried. So I was all, “What’s wrong?”
And he went, “It’s Tweedledum. Something’s the matter with him. Would you mind coming to take a look?”
So I went and took a look, and sure enough, Tweedledum, who is quite the more active and affectionate of Mrs. Friedlander’s two cats, was lying underneath the dining room table looking like a little kid who had eaten too many of those Necco Wafers. He didn’t want anybody touching him, and growled when I tried to.
Anyway, I suddenly remembered something, and I went, “Oh, my God, have you been removing the rubber bands from around the Chronicles when you bring them in?” Because you know the Chronicle thinks so well of itself that it always comes bound in a rubber band, to keep the sections from falling out, since its customers would freak out if one single part was missing and they happened not to get their financial news or whatever.
And John went, “No. Am I supposed to?”
And that’s when I realized I had forgotten to tell him the most important thing about cat- and dog-sitting for his aunt: Tweedledum eats rubber bands. So did his brother, Tweedledee. Which is why Tweedledee is no longer with us.
“We’ve got to get this cat to the hospital right away!” I cried.
John looked stunned. “You’re kidding, right?”
“No, I’m serious.” I went and got the cat carrier down from where Mrs. Friedlander has always kept it, on the top shelf of her linen closet. “Wrap him in a towel.”
John just kept standing there. “You’re actually serious.”
“I am totally serious,” I said. “We have to get the rubber band removed before it blocks something.”
Actually, I have no idea if a rubber band could block something, but you could tell just by looking at Tweedledum’s glazed eyes that he was one sick animal.
So John got a towel and we bundled Tweedledum up (John sustained several evil-looking scratches before he accomplished this) and took him to the Animal Medical Center, which is where I know Mrs. Friedlander took Tweedledee when he had his fatal encounter with the rubber band off a copy of the Chronicle. I know because she asked mourners to send them a donation in lieu of flowers after Tweedledee’s demise.
The minute we walked in, they took Tweedledum and rushed him off to X-ray. Then there was nothing we could do but wait and pray.
But it was kind of hard to sit and pray, you know, when all I could think about was how much I hate the Chronicle, and here it was, ruining my big date. At least, I thought it might have been a date. I just kept thinking about how the Chronicle is always scooping us, and how they get to have their Christmas party at the Water Club, and ours is always at Bowlmore Lanes. And how their circulation is like a hundred thousand more than ours, and how they always win all the journalism awards, and their style section is in color, and they don’t even have a gossip page.
Well, it just started making me laugh. I don’t know why. But I just started laughing about how once again the Chronicle had managed to ruin something for me.
Then John asked me why I was laughing, and so I told him (not the part about how the Chronicle had ruined our date, but the rest of it).