“No, not at all.” She closes the door behind her, and calls out: “A trailer would be nicer!”
I think of something to yell back two minutes later, but by then I’m alone. I bustle around the trolley, making it mine and trying to ignore the growing sense of isolation and the encroaching dusk. I assemble my new bureau, and then disassemble the bits that don’t fit, then reassemble it and it’s perfect! I glow with satisfaction at being so handy and self-sufficient, and I look up and it’s pitch-black outside.
I meekly open the door, and the lovely tea-garden has been transformed into a horrible, brackish swamp. I lock the door. Close the curtains. Grab one of my IKEA knives, just in case. And curl up in my new comforter, pretending to leaf through Marie Claire.
The wind scratches tree limbs against the trolley, and I manage not to shriek. I often feel I’m in a movie; tonight, it’s Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Santa Barbara Years. I turn on all the lights, then realize this just makes the trolley a beacon in the darkness. Moths and rapists will be swarming around shortly. I turn the lights off. It’s worse.
I watch a rerun of Bewitched on the little TV Maya loaned me. Turn the sound up all the way. Not loud enough, as a gust of wind sends the branches into a terrifying crescendo, and something slams against the trolley.
I think it was a slam. It definitely wasn’t a tree branch. It could have been a knock. Schoolmarm Petrie seems the sort who’d make one sharp rap on the door, like the smack of a ruler down on an errant pupil’s knuckles.
I crack the door and peek out. Nothing but menacing swampland. And something brown at the bottom of the steps.
It’s a dead squirrel.
I clutch my throat in horror, like some prim Victorian lady who accidentally wandered into the Vagina Monologues, and debate the various merits of fainting and screaming.
A motion sensor light illuminates the Schoolmarm’s gate, and I see the shadowy form of a pudgy boy recede into the darkness. Eddie Munster.
“Hey!” I yell. “You little creep!”
I’d track him down and kill him, but that would mean leaving the relative safety of my trailer. Trolley. My trolley.
“Squirrelly, aren’t you?” he yells.
I respond with a well-reasoned string of curses, and slam the door. On TV, Samantha has black lines painted on her face. I wonder what happened to her. I wonder what’s happened to me.
Chapter 11
The telephone rings at 9:12, waking me from a Swamp Thing nightmare.
It’s Bob from the VW dealership. And when you think about it, being a car salesman isn’t so bad. Plus, he’s actually seen my credit report, and still he calls.
“Bob,” I say. Bob. Bobbing for apples. “Robert. Robbie. Rob. That’s a lot of possible nicknames.”
Silence on the phone.
I think of saying Bobby?
“Well, I just go by Bob,” he finally says. “I’ve been thinking about you since last week.”
“Oh, have you?” The New Elle plays hard-to-get.
“Yeah, I got this…borderline trade-in. My boss doesn’t want me to put it on the lot. And I know you’re looking for something affordable.”
“Borderline?”
“It’s a BMW, though. A Beemer. 1974. It’s virtually a classic luxury automobile. Plus, it’s not worth sending it down to L.A. for auction.”
“So you’ve got a car you can’t sell, and thought of me?”
“Yeah, you interested?”
This is insulting. “How much?”
“I’ll let it go cheap. Fifteen-hundred.”
Fifteen-hundred! That’s a huge chunk out of my monster stack. But I do need a car. “Can I come see it this morning?”
“This morning isn’t good. I’ve got real clients coming in. How about two this afternoon?”
Real clients. “Two is fine.”
“Actually, three would be better.”
I sigh. “Three, then.”
I hang up, and immediately check my voice mail to see if anyone called while I was on the phone…and I have a message! It’s not even Maya. It’s a smooth, masculine voice.
“Eleanor Medina,” the smooth, masculine says. “You’re a hard one to find. This is Carlos Neruda. We haven’t met…yet. But I’ve heard all about you, and I really want to talk. My number is—” he pauses, and I realize he has Antonio Banderas’s voice and I’ll coolly wait ten or eleven seconds before returning his call “—no, on second thought, I’ll call you back. Take care, Eleanor Medina.”
Ha! Take that, Bobby! You’re not the only car on the lot.
IKEA furniture delivered precisely on time. Perfect Brad, too, precisely on time. Perhaps Brad is Swedish. Perhaps he is Bräd.
I bought a white linen chair. Am very pleased with the mature, adult decision to choose white. I was worried it would be like a white T-shirt: a magnet for chocolate ice cream, tomato sauce, coffee, mystery stains. I’d stared at it drooling, like a dog at a barbecue, until Maya found me. To prove her wrong, I decided the New Elle was adult enough to take care of white linen. Am pleased with the decision—it’s pretty against the chipped carnival-red of the trolley walls.
“You’re sure that’s where you want it?” Brad says, after relocating it several times. If he weren’t perfect, he’d be exasperated. But he is, so I don’t worry.
“I’m sure. Thanks, Brad—you’re a prince.”
He stammers endearingly, and spots the bureau I assembled last night. He fixes the bits that were uneven, and puts the drawer-pulls on. He knocks together the sides and adjusts the two drawers that had refused to close.
I consider being insulted by the implication that I’m not capable of doing it myself. But honestly, men enjoy this sort of thing. Why ruin their fun? It’s like shopping. Men think it’s a chore, and can’t understand why we like it. He can fiddle, I can shop, and we’ll both be happy. Maybe I’ll repay Brad by buying him a new pair of shoes.
Then I realize I have a bigger treat for him. I am forced to wheedle and whine slightly, as he wants to get back to his office. But it only takes Perfect Brad fifty minutes, and I own the Beemer for one thousand, flat. Including taxes and registration and all that. Apparently fifteen hundred was far too much.
Don’t tell Andrea Dworkin, but it’s good to have a man around. I consider getting weepy about Louis, and how much I miss him. But frankly, PB is better at the manly stuff than Louis ever was. And I do have PB around, even if he’s just a loaner. So it works out fine.
I swing by to take Maya for a Beemer joyride and ask if she’s interested in a time-share agreement.
“There’s plenty of Brad to go around. Plus, I’ll cancel out all the non-Jewish parts.”
She laughs. “Don’t get any Big Chill ideas. I draw the line at furniture assembly and car shopping.”
“That is so bourgeois,” I say. “If you were young and hip, you’d share.”
“And if you were young and hip, Elle, you’d get a bunch of your tender places pierced, and sleep with girls. But, if you’re still interested in men…”
“What?” I say, thinking: Carlos? Is he a friend of Brad’s? I bet he’s a coder, too—exactly like Brad, but Latino. “What man?”
“You know the guy at the bar the other night?”