Perri O'Shaughnessy - Unlucky in Law

He went out onto the deck and leaned on the railing. A coyote cry sounded in the hills. He couldn’t see the stars through the clouds gathering up there. The neighbor next door, Mr. Mitts, had company tonight and Paul could smell teriyaki. Tight-lipped Mitts with his cat and his knitting had a friend visiting.

Meantime I’m saving myself like a virgin in a medieval romance, he said to himself. He felt unmanned thinking about Nina, and then there was Sergey, who he couldn’t do anything about right now. He would like to break the Russian’s skull. He would like to teach him about justice in America’s wild wild West, if only he could find him.

He went back to the phone and pressed the callback button.

“This is Susan.”

“Hey. Remember me?”

“Do I ever,” Susan said in a voice rich with pleasure.

“It so happens that I am home tonight.”

“What a coincidence. I also am home. Alone.”

“Two such fine citizens should combine forces.”

“That would be-fine.”

“Would you possibly be in the mood to drive over here? I’ve had a couple and I can’t come to you.”

Susan didn’t ask any questions. She was free at the moment; he was free; they didn’t plan things. That was how it had been with them in the brief time they had hung out together. She just said, “How about an hour?”

“Chinese sound good?”

“Sure.”

He had the best local take-out Szechuan waiting on the kitchen table when Susan arrived. She threw her jacket on the couch and took the shot glass of slivovitz he offered. The red tube top over jeans left her shoulders bare and undefended-looking.

“Up yours,” she said, smiling up at him from under the black bangs, and drank it down, then sputtered. “What the heck is that?”

“Something my uncle cooked up,” Paul said. “Hungry?”

“Always.” They sat down at the kitchen table and started talking as if a lot of time and a lot of events hadn’t passed. Susan said, her mouth full of noodles, “I met Nina.”

“Right. In court.”

“The circumstances weren’t conducive to developing a friendly relationship.”

“Do you need to?”

“I guess not. In fact, I didn’t like her one bit.”

“Oh? Why not?”

“Too pretty. What’s she doing tonight, by the way?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well. Let me have another shot of that stuff. It’ll break down the hoisin sauce in my stomach so thoroughly I won’t absorb a single calorie.”

Paul laughed. He leaned over the table to give her another one.

“You, too,” she said.

“But that would be excessive.”

“Isn’t that the point?”

“Good point.”

“Drink up, then,” Susan said. “Very good. I like the way you throw your head back when you drink. Don’t ever cut your hair. May I ask you a question?” She took his hand lightly. “Remember the picnic at Point Lobos? I guess it was in August last year. And afterward? At my place?”

“You have red curtains,” Paul said. “When the light comes through them, the bedroom feels like a nightclub. I do remember.”

“We were getting to be good friends,” Susan went on. “I don’t have many friends here. I work odd hours, I don’t have family around, and I don’t go to church. If it wasn’t for e-mail I’d pass a lot of evenings feeling pretty lonely.”

Paul looked at her, really looked, and saw a woman, a sweet woman with a sense of humor, brought up well, straight A’s in med school, her parents’ darling. All alone in America. Her parents hadn’t liked California and had gone home to Japan. Her mother probably wrote her once a week: “Come back.” But Susan was forty-one and liked the U.S. “You’re very pretty,” Paul said. “Very nice. Not like…”

“Not like your idea of a pathologist who cuts up corpses for a living?” Susan said. “It can put people off, if you know what I mean. Just ever so slightly. I suppose if I worked the line at the slaughterhouse I might be less popular.”

“Well, why are you in this town, then?” Paul said. This string of beach towns surrounded by lettuce fields, a hundred thirty miles from San Francisco, not exactly a hotbed of intellectual vigor or cutting edges, although you could probably find them if you searched. “Why do you stay?”

“Fair question. I came for the excellent job after my divorce, but I do wonder if I should stay. Some nights I walk around my place, Paul, and there isn’t a sound. Everything is just where I left it. There’s no disturbance, no action, no life. I won’t be going on much longer like this. So now I get to my question.”

“You want to know why I stopped calling,” Paul said. “Just when we were getting on so well. I’ll tell you. Nina called and I answered, then recently, she moved down here to be with me.”

Susan looked thoughtful. Ignoring the pile of food Paul offered, she poured them both shots. The kitchen, post-Nina, looked as it had looked pre-Nina. Raising her eyebrows, she got up and stood at the doorway to the living room and studied the scene. Paul knew she was searching for the woman who was supposed to live there. She downed her drink, standing at the doorway, and said nothing.

“She moved out,” Paul said.

“Left you flat.”

“No. We still see each other.”

Susan came over to Paul, seeming to slip and tumble softly into his lap. She put her arms around his neck and her lips close to his ear and whispered, “I miss you. Can we listen to some music? Let’s just relax. It’s so great being here.” She took the bottle.

Paul had just bought a digitally remastered recording of Coltrane’s A Love Supreme . He knew every note of the music. He hadn’t had the heart to play it yet, he realized now. Music wasn’t right if two people weren’t listening. He inserted a disk into the little Bose and let the first seven notes open his soul, saying, “Did you ask your question yet?”

“Soon. You know, Paul, it feels so good just to have someone to lean against. Just your physicality next to me. I liked being friends with you. That’s why I called.” The heat popped on, and Paul’s living room, with the prized old Tibetan rugs and the beat-up leather chair, the books piled on the dining room table he never used, all seemed to wake up, come alive.

How lonely he had become. He felt an acute sadness, understanding suddenly that he had begun to give up on Nina. God, he was sad. Not confused, not drunk, just damn sad. The sax flowed out of the Bose straight at him, the tone one of longing and desire.

“I’m with her, Susan,” he said, sitting down, leaning back and closing his eyes. “I’m…”

“And here comes my question,” Susan said. Softly, her fingers touched his hair and began to stroke his forehead. The alcohol, the music, and this tender stroking let Paul slump into complete relaxation for the first time in a very long time.

“What I’m wondering is, well, could I stay here tonight? Just as a friend, a lonely friend. Would you do me that favor?”

Paul turned and held her. She smelled like roses and her body steamed with heat. “Don’t talk that way,” he mumbled. “Like I’d be doing you a favor. It’s the opposite, in fact.”

“It’s just that I feel so good right now.”

Turning out the light, he carried her into the bedroom and placed her on the bed, listening to Coltrane playing his joyful and tender sax. She took off her clothes; he could see her in the half-light, sitting up, naked now and slipping under the comforter. Outside the half-open balcony door, foggy wisps drifted on a wind. He pulled his shirt over his head, sat down with his back to her, and let her fingers caress and appreciate him. He lay down, overwhelmed, overtaken, overjoyed. Damn sad.