8
With aching legs and burning feet, Sandy plodded toward his apartment door, grimly certain that he'd find the place empty, Beth gone. Which would be in perfect synch with how he'd come up after a day of trudging through the Upper West Side: empty.
Can't expect to strike it rich first time out, he kept telling himself.
But he couldn't deny that the hope of a lucky lightning strike, however unreasonable, had nestled in his brain when he'd set out this morning.
So much for hope. By five-thirty he'd had it. He knew he should keep pushing but he'd run out of gas. The streets and sidewalks were jammed and he couldn't take any more suspicious looks or negative headshakes. He was tired of hearing "Never seen him before in my life," and even more tired of lying about why he was looking for the man in the drawing. So he'd packed it in.
Tomorrow was another day.
But what about tonight?
I could sure use some company now, he thought. Female company with big brown eyes and short black hair. Beth company.
But he couldn't allow himself to hope that she'd still be there. She'd probably awakened, maybe hung around a little, got bored, and went back to her boyfriend.
And then Sandy heard the music, the spellbinding strains of "It Could Be Sweet" from Portishead's first album filtering through his door. He keyed it open and stepped inside. The music engulfed him along with an odor. Food. Someone was cooking.
"About time you got back!" Beth said, smiling from the kitchenette. "I was getting worried."
Sandy tried to take it in. Bottles and jars and boxes on the counter—wine, Ragu, Ronzoni. A candle burning, the blinds drawn, music playing…
Beth's face fell. Something in his expression maybe.
"Is this okay?" she said. "I hope you don't think I'm horning in but I woke up and there was no food so I thought I'd cook us dinner. If you're not cool with that…"
Sandy couldn't speak so he held up his hand to stop her.
"What's wrong?" Beth said. "Say something. Look, if I've overstepped my bounds…"
What to say? Sandy thought. Then it hit him: try the truth.
"Sorry. I was kind of afraid to speak. I'm so happy you're still here I thought I'd cry."
Her smile lit the room. She ran to him and threw her arms around his neck. She hugged him, gave him a quick kiss on the cheek, then stepped back.
She said, "Jesus, you're something, you know that? So sweet! I've never met anyone like you."
"Well, I—"
"And I can't believe you like Portishead—at least I assume you like them because you've got all their albums. I love them. And not just because the lead singer and I have the same first name."
Lead singer? Sandy thought, still dazed. Oh, yeah. Beth Gibbon.
"You bought food?" he said. So lame, but it was the best he could do at the moment.
"Yeah. Are you anorexic or something? I mean, there was no food in this place."
Sandy's head was spinning and Beth was talking at light speed. Could she be a crankhead or something?
"I eat takeout a lot. Look, uh, Beth, are you all right?
"All right?" she said, laughing. "I'm miles better than all right. I don't think I've been so all right in years!" She dashed to the couch and picked up a handful of yellow sheets from his legal pad, the one he'd left the note on. "Look at this! Notes, Sandy! It's just so pouring out of me!"
"Notes about what?"
"About what? What else? Last night. I woke up and found your note and remembered what you'd said this morning and suddenly it was like wow! Insight! I am 50 psyched!"
"What'd I say?"
She grinned. "Oh, so you like Ray Charles too."
"Huh?"
"Never mind. You said maybe you were able to handle what happened because you had to write about it. That the writing forced you to confront your reactions, that putting it all down on paper was some sort of exorcism. Remember?"
"Yeah." He vaguely recalled saying something like that. "Sort of."
"So that's what I've been doing! For months now I've been going crazy trying to decide what to do for my thesis film, and when I woke up this afternoon I remembered what you said and there it was, staring me right in the face!"
"Your film?"
"Yes! It's going to be about what happened on the train last night. Not literally, of course, but metaphorically about having your mortality so shoved right in your face. And you know what? Ever since I started writing down these notes, I'm not afraid anymore."
She tossed the yellow sheets back toward the couch. They never made it. They fluttered instead like dying birds and fell to the carpet.
She threw her head back and shouted. "I'm saved!"
They drank the wine and talked as she cooked the spaghetti and spiced up the Ragu in some wonderful way. And they talked while they ate. Beth was twenty-four, from Atlanta, with an English degree from Baylor. Her folks were the sort who valued stability, she told him, and weren't all that crazy about her going for a film degree; it wasn't a career that guaranteed a steady income and benefits—like teaching, for instance.
And all the while Sandy ached for her but couldn't say so, couldn't make the first move.
Finally the wine and the food were gone. Sandy cleared the table with Beth. They were both standing at the sink when she turned to him.
"Can I ask you something?"
"Sure. Anything."
"Have you got something against sex?"
Sandy blinked in shock, tried to say no, but found himself stuck in a Porky Pig stutter. "M-m-m-m-me? No. Why would you say that?"
"Because I'm here and I'm as willing as I'll ever be and you haven't made a move. Not a single move."
That fear of rejection shit again, Sandy thought. Damn me! How do I get out of this?
"Well, look," he said. "I mean, after you gave me such a brush-off last night I thought maybe you might be, you know, playing for the other team."
He hadn't thought that at all, but it was a good cover.
Her grin split her face. "Me? A lez? Oh, God, that's such a riot!"
"It is?" It was the best he could come up with on such short notice.
"You were just a stranger on a train then." She nudged him. "And hey, how about that—I was reading a Hitchcock book no less. But now…"
Beth slipped her arms around Sandy's neck again and pulled his face down to hers.
"Now you're a guy who saved my life, or at least was willing to take a bullet for me, and then you calmed me down when I was so freaking out, and then you inspired my student film. Where the hell have you been all my life, Sandy Palmer?"
"Waiting for you," Sandy said.
And then her lips were sealed over his and she was hooking her right leg around him and tugging at the buttons of his shirt.
She wants me! he thought, his heart soaring. Wants me as much as I want her.
What a difference a day makes.