Running Into Trouble Page 3

  Jennifer turned around, surprised mid-whack. It was Eli, who was smirking at her as if he knew all about that singular and ill-advised one-night stand she’d had five years ago with the drummer for the Licks, a local band that played every so often at the Uvula.

  “You dropped some things by the register, and I was going to give them back to you, but now I’m not so sure.”

  Blushing furiously, Jennifer approached Eli and took the crumpled receipts and the nickel from his warm hand and shoved them into her pocket.

  “Thanks,” she said.

  “And, now, would you mind telling me what your car did to deserve such a beating?”

  “Oh no. Um, my car is just kind of old and, you know, temperamental. The trunk sticks so I have to, you know, give it a few good whacks before I try to open it,” she said, pleased that she had kept the number of ums and you knows down to just one apiece.

  “So your naughty car needs a spanking? Maybe I can help.”

  Without waiting for an answer, Eli began whacking the side of her car and, on his second try, opened the trunk. While he did this, Jennifer stood completely motionless with a blank expression on her face, as though all the CPU in her brain was needed to run an especially complex program.

  “Aren’t you going to thank me?”

  Jennifer blinked and shook her head. “Um, yeah, thanks,” she sputtered.

  “Well, maybe I’ll see you at the Thing tonight. Bye now.”

  Jennifer watched as Eli jogged slowly out of the parking lot towards the trailhead. She put her bag of groceries in the trunk of her car and pondered the considerable accretion of evidence suggesting that Eli had actually flirted with her. There was the chasing after her to return what was, essentially, a handful of litter; the amused looks; the bit about spanking the car (sheesh!); and the vague suggestion of meeting up at the Thing, one of the R&M club’s monthly wine and cheese and more wine parties. Yep, she thought, it all added up to actual flirtation, which would be great, except that Eli had a girlfriend, and Jennifer observed a strict no-poaching policy.

  Or, to be more precise, Eli had the girlfriend. Almost every twenty or thirtysomething guy at the R&M club with any ability at all was convinced that he could easily win the Death March if only he could find a girlfriend like Helen, who would “do everything” for him. Helen’s “doing everything” routine included showing up to virtually every R&M club event with a plate of cookies or brownies, taking Eli’s place at informational meetings “so he can rest,” and providing impeccably proofread, if somewhat breathless, copy on Eli’s victories for the R&M club newsletter.

  The women of the club, on the other hand, were more conflicted about Helen, who was a fixture at club events. The “pro” Helen contingent maintained a friendly and nonjudgmental “well, if it makes her happy…” stance, and correctly pointed out that Helen was a perfectly competent recreational runner who had every right to attend as many events as she had the time for.

  The “cons” (which included some of the “pros” after a couple of drinks or a particularly bad day) were more inclined to dislike Helen on principle for setting impossible standards of good girlfriend conduct and for helping Eli (widely considered a sexy, charming, and, most of all, lazy bastard) to triumph over less flashy hard workers, like Harry “Hundred” Hickey, a scrawny, laconic guy with severe acne scarring who ran over 150 miles nearly every week of the year.

  As Jennifer pulled out of the parking lot and onto the Painful Precipice Expressway, she wondered if you really had to be “a Helen” to keep a boyfriend. Over the years, Jennifer had drifted in and out of a series of relationships, each following the same basic template.

  Meet a nice, self-reliant guy. Become buddies with the guy. Discover all his sterling personal qualities. Carefully analyze the pros and cons of “taking the relationship to the next level.” Engage in the usual amount of sweaty yet responsible sex that’s reasonably fun but also vaguely reminiscent of a tennis match. Hang out regularly, but keep boundaries well defined, until one party becomes unspeakably busy, changes jobs, leaves the country, becomes a minister, or enters graduate school. Part amicably. Maintain e-mail contact.

  Although Jennifer knew her relationships were basically healthy, in that each one had enriched her life in some way without interfering with her priorities, she couldn’t stop wondering if she wasn’t missing something. Sure, she’d watched other women ricochet between euphoria and despair, finally collapsing into months of soggy depression after the inevitable breakup, and she knew she didn’t want that. But wasn’t there something just a teensy bit cold and bloodless in the way that she managed her growing portfolio of friendly ex-boyfriends? Could she, perhaps, be afraid of really caring, of inviting passion (and its corollary, soggy depression) into her life?

  Maybe. But, as she pulled into Anastasia’s driveway and parked her car, she figured she had more important things to worry about. Like Anastasia (Nasty, for short).

  Nasty had been (and still was) an unapologetic consumer of recreational drugs, an avid smoker and drinker, and an unrepentant boyfriend stealer. Naturally tall and bony with a plastic, symmetrical face, Nasty had worked briefly as a fashion model (which was how she’d picked up all her bad habits in the first place). Over time, Nasty had stopped working as age and too many parties took their toll on her looks. She eventually became an impoverished socialite who lived off a succession of model-obsessed Married Boyfriends.

  Three years ago, Nasty went skiing with a fifty-ish Married Boyfriend in Crawford’s Notch and found herself strangely out of breath, struggling to drag herself into and out of the ski lift, and barely able to ski a straight line. Deciding she was just out of shape, she went to the Lodge (an upscale resort that most locals had never seen), ordered hot chocolate-infused vodka, and went outside to have a smoke while she waited. Then, under a brilliant winter sky, she coughed up a fistful of clotted blood, staining her new snowy white apres-ski sweater and the Lodge’s blond wood outdoor deck. After a round of painful tests at the local hospital (which was, if not the best in the country, then certainly pretty good), Nasty discovered that she had lung cancer, of the terminal variety.

  The Married Boyfriend was shocked, deeply saddened, and terribly disillusioned (he didn’t think anything so mundane as illness happened to models). He mourned Nasty on the spot, sobbing uncontrollably and gibbering on about how much he was going to miss her. Nasty found this somewhat disconcerting; it was as if she had walked in on her own funeral. Of course, the Married Boyfriend couldn’t continue to see her—spending time with a cancer patient was work, and that was what he did at home, with the wife—but he felt awfully, crushingly guilty.

  “Do you like it here? In the mountains?” he asked eagerly.

  “Sure, I guess.”

  So the Married Boyfriend bought Nasty the house in which she reckoned she would eventually die, and even set aside some money for her living and dying expenses. She joked that she’d better not have a miracle recovery because then she would have to start looking for some minimum wage job.

  Nasty and Jennifer met one day when Jennifer delivered an order of groceries from the Organic Food Store to Nasty’s house. Knowing about Nasty’s terminal illness (the whole town did, because Nasty was a regular at the Uvula), Jennifer felt it would be impolite not to stay for a quick drink, which turned into dinner, dessert, and coffee. In awe of Nasty’s ability to laugh at her own impending death, Jennifer began delivering Nasty’s order every week, and so they became friends as Nasty’s health declined and Jennifer’s athletic career took off. And, even after she had left the Organic Food Store, she kept delivering Nasty’s grocery order as though nothing had changed.

  Over the past month, Jennifer had become increasingly worried about Nasty, who seemed to need less and less food each week. She had also started leaving full ashtrays around her house (Nasty always refused to quit smoking, saying “But I already have lung cancer…”) and wearing stained, randomly assorted bits of clothing.

&nb
sp; Jennifer got out of the car, collected the groceries from the trunk, and walked up Nasty’s driveway, which led to a cozy house, a two-story cabin, really, with spectacular views of Mount Overreach. As she opened the front door, she braced herself for the musty, sick-person smell of stale cigarette smoke mingled with dirty clothes. Nasty, who carried a cigarette in her right hand and dragged a portable oxygen tree with her left, greeted Jennifer with wide, intoxicated eyes.

  “Jenn!” she said, “You won’t believe what I saw last night.”

  Jennifer shrugged. “I’m sure I’ll believe it,” she said, unloading the groceries onto Nasty’s kitchen table, which she noticed was covered with small bits of dried food.

  “A mountain lion. Big, huge, and male. I heard a noise at four in the morning, so I got up and flipped on the light in the back yard. And there he was. Magnificent.”

  “You didn’t feed it, did you?” Jennifer knew that Nasty was something of a thrill-seeker, and going out to feed the poor hungry mountain lion was just the kind of thing she would do.

  “No, not at all. Would you like a drink? Or a Percocet?” Nasty waved for Jennifer to follow her into the living room, where layers of stylish but unwashed clothes covered every available surface. Jennifer shifted a tangle of sweaters and halter-tops to clear a space for herself on the couch.

  “Oh, um, no thanks. So, how are you doing?” The state of the house told Jennifer exactly how Nasty was doing, but she thought it would be more polite to ask.

  “Steady decline, as expected. But I probably won’t need hospice care for another two months. I can probably start the morphine in one, though. I wonder if they’d let me use heroin instead?”

  “Um, I don’t think, you know, that…” Jennifer struggled with a tactful way to dissuade Nasty from seeking out the local heroin dealer, if there even was one in the Notch, when Nasty mercifully interrupted her.

  “Just kidding. Do you want my car when I die?” Nasty stubbed out her cigarette and lit another.

  “Um, I don’t think that’s something you need to worry about right exactly now, um…” Once again, Jennifer groped for the right thing to say.

  “Don’t feel sorry for me. So I’m leaving the party a little early, big deal? I had an interesting life. I got to do all the biggies. Fall in love, check. Wonderful sex, check. Exotic travel, check. Exotic drugs, check. Lots of good food and fun and parties,” said Nasty, underscoring each point with a wave of her cigarette.”

  Jennifer looked away and tried to ignore the stinging sensation in her eyes. Somehow, Nasty’s wildly positive attitude made her physical decay seem all the more apparent and real.

  “Quit it, or I’m going to start worrying about you,” said Nasty, who paused and appeared to ponder something. “You know, I think I am worried about you. You’re too cautious. You play everything too safe, and, if you don’t start taking some risks soon, you won’t have any interesting memories to look back on when it’s your turn to die.”

  “You’re wrong,” said Jennifer, startled. “I’ll, um, have plenty of memories, like, um, the first time I saw Mt. Overreach, and when I won the Death March, and…” Jennifer was prepared to list at least ten different things—all of magical moments and proud accomplishments—when Nasty cut her off.

  “Oh, those things are alright, but they’re kinda vanilla, aren’t they? No, I’m afraid you’ll have to do something reckless. Yes, reckless. You have to promise me, a dying woman, that you’ll do something reckless. And do it soon, because I’d like to hear about it before I croak.”

  “What about that time with the guy from the Licks, that was—”

  “No,” interrupted Nasty. “That was just kind of gross.”

  Jennifer didn’t like the idea of being reckless; she was more of a calculating risk sort of a girl. But then, looking around the house, she got an idea.

  “Okay, I’ll promise to do something reckless under one condition. You let me find someone to come in and help you with the cooking and cleaning every couple of days.”

  -felis concolor-

  The predator woke up after a long day spent curled under a tree. He yawned, stretched, and sniffed the air. And…nothing. He began traveling purposefully through the brush, collecting sounds and scents, and sifting through them to find new prey.

  -Helen Kale-

  Over and over again, Helen watched Eli’s loose, sleepy face tighten into a mask of disgust because she’d asked him for a “real kiss.” Or, at least, she’d thought it was disgust. After replaying the scene so many times, she wasn’t sure anymore. Maybe Eli really had been worried about having “morning breath.” Or maybe he was just surprised and a little disoriented from having just woken up.

  Following her morning breakdown in the car, she’d managed to pull herself together by getting mad at Eli all over again. And she’d managed to stay pleasantly angry for most of the day. Like a mantra, she told herself: I am his girlfriend, and I am entitled to a kiss. I deserve a kiss because I am a good person, and I do everything for him. He shouldn’t just want to kiss me, he should be begging to kiss me. But after running life expectancy calculations for ten “special risk category” policyholders—people who’d had heart attacks, a woman with lupus, a collection of cancer survivors—Helen no longer wanted to rip Eli’s long curly locks out by their coal black roots.

  Instead, by afternoon, Helen had become increasingly worried that storming out on Eli had been a terrible, relationship-killing decision. Don’t bother. I’ll see you tonight. Have a nice day not working. How could she have said that to Eli, the man that she was going to marry someday? And, if she couldn’t marry Eli, then she didn’t want anybody else. That, she thought, would be settling. Since she’d been with Eli, she hadn’t been able to imagine herself with anybody else, even movie stars. But, if she didn’t get married, then what would happen to her as she got older? In her line of work, this was something she thought about a lot.

  If she managed to save her money, and the stocks in her retirement portfolio continued to tread water, she could buy a large ranch-like property, and maybe breed large dogs (maybe border collies?). She might even keep a few sheep or chickens for the dogs to chase. Of course, she’d cut her hair short, eschew makeup, and wear a lot of denim with flannel shirts and work boots. Maybe she’d volunteer for a cause like abused dogs or breast cancer. This was the best case, the Dog Lady scenario.

  But what if something happened? What she got sick or hurt, and her medical bills were so big that they ate up all her savings? What if she had to sell her house? She’d probably be able to eke out a very modest living on Social Security and a miserly pension. Perhaps she’d get an efficiency apartment off the freeway somewhere, an anonymous concrete box for graying, barely visible people. Eventually, she’d get lonely and adopt a cat or two. Pretty soon the small, cramped apartment would always have the slightly ammoniac scent of cat urine. This was the worst case scenario: the Cat Lady.

  Feeling panicky, Helen quickly cobbled together a three-part plan to win Eli back. First, she would apologize for “being so snippy this morning,” but in a quick, lighthearted way. Under no circumstances would she try to get Eli to Talk About what had happened. Second, Helen would be flawlessly, faultlessly nice to Eli no matter what. Whether he grunted or snarled or growled or simply ignored her, she would be understanding and kind. Third, she would drive him to the Thing, pass around the walnut brownies she’d made over the weekend, and then stay out of his way so he could have a little space and come to miss her. She’d read somewhere that men are like rubber bands: if you let them pull away without a lot of angst and recriminations, they’ll bounce right back.

  Having a course of action all mapped out in her head made Helen feel better. She worked swiftly for the rest of the day, predicting customers’ deaths with a shy smile on her face.

  At exactly five o’clock, Helen turned off her computer and gathered her things. She walked past a gauntlet of cubicles, turning to exchange “Good-byes” and “Have a good ones”
with her fellow actuaries who were popping out their chairs like prairie dogs. After being delayed by a brief discussion of the Mc Donald case (a customer died on the day his policy was enacted and the company was trying to prove that he’d lied on his intake questionnaire), Helen said a lengthy farewell to the receptionist, a bitter women well on her way to becoming a Cat Lady, who would lose all your messages if you didn’t pay enough attention to her.

  Once she was safely in the parking lot, Helen turned off her cell phone, got in her car, and merged into the freeway. Just thinking about what would happen when she saw Eli filled her with adrenaline. She imagined him alternately wrapping her in his arms and throwing her onto the bed, and sullenly greeting her with a grunt. It was the uncertainty of it all—what did he think? what would he do?—that was so exciting. It made her feel alive in a way that nothing else did. As she was picturing Eli yelling and throwing a glass filled with chocolate soy milk against a pristine, white wall, the SUV in front of her slammed on its brakes.

  With quick deft movements, Helen skirted the SUV and sped up. She was a woman with a mission, and nothing, not even a wall of Hummers, would stop her.