The Boy Next Door (12 page)

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
Chronicle
s 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).

So then John started laughing, too. I don’t know why
he
was laughing, except, well, he doesn’t exactly strike me as the praying type. He kept laughing in these little bursts. You could tell he was trying not to, but sometimes it would come out.

Meanwhile the weirdest people kept coming in, with the strangest emergencies! Like one lady was there because her golden retriever had eaten all of her Prozac. Another one was there because her iguana had taken a flying leap from her seventh-story balcony (and landed seemingly unscathed on the roof of the deli below). A third lady was worried about her hedgehog, which just “wasn’t acting right.”

“How,” John whispered to me, “is a hedgehog supposed to act?”

It really wasn’t funny. Only then we
really
couldn’t stop laughing. And everyone was giving us these mean looks, and that just made me laugh harder. So we were sitting there, the dressiest people in the place, pretending to be comfortable in these hard plastic chairs and trying not to laugh, but doing it anyway….

At least until all these cops came in. They were there to check on one of their bomb squad dogs, which had choked on a chicken bone. One of them saw John and went, “Hey, Trent, what are
you
doing here?”

That’s when John stopped laughing. He got very red all of a sudden and went, “Oh, hi, Sergeant Reese.”

He put a very hard stress on the word Sergeant. Sergeant Reese looked quite taken aback. He started to say something, but right then the veterinarian came out and called, “Mr. Friedlander?”

John jumped up and said, “That’s me,” and rushed up to the vet.

The vet told us that Tweedledum had, indeed, swallowed a rubber band, and that it was tangled in his small intestine, and that surgery would be necessary or the cat would definitely die. They were willing to do the surgery at once, only it was very costly, $1,500 dollars, plus $200 for the overnight stay at the hospital.

$1,700! I was shocked. But John just nodded and reached for his wallet and started to pull out a credit card….

And then he put it away really fast and said he forgot, all his credit cards were maxed out, and that he would just go to the bank machine and get cash.

Cash! He was going to pay in cash! $1,700 in cash! For a cat!

Only I reminded him that you can’t get that much cash from a bank machine in a single day. I said, “Let me put it on my credit card, and you can pay me back later.” (I know what you’re going to say, Nadine, but it isn’t true: He would have paid me back, I know it.)

But he absolutely refused. And next thing I knew, he’d gone over to the cashier to arrange a payment plan, leaving me alone with the vet and all of the cops, who were still standing around staring at me. Don’t ask me why. Undoubtedly my too-short skirt was to blame.

Then John came back and said it was all taken care of, and the cops left, and the vet suggested we stay until the surgery was over, just in case there were complications, so we went back to our seats and I went, “Why did that policeman call you Trent?”

And John went, “Oh, that’s just how cops are, they always make up their own nicknames for people.”

But I definitely got the feeling there was something he wasn’t telling me.

He must have realized it, too, since he told me I didn’t have to stick around and wait with him, that he’d pay for a cab home for me, and that he hoped I’d take a raincheck on dinner.

So I asked him if he was crazy, and he said he did not believe so, and I said anyone with as many nicknames as he has definitely has some major problems, and he agreed with me, and then we argued pleasantly for about two hours over which serial killers throughout history were the most deranged, and finally the vet came out and said Tweedledum was recovering and we could go home, and so we left.

It wasn’t too late to get dinner by Manhattan standards—only ten o’clock—and John was all for it, even though we’d missed our reservation at wherever he’d planned on taking me. But I wasn’t up
for battling the late-night supper crowd, and he agreed and said, “Want to order Chinese again or something?” And I said it would probably be a good idea to comfort Paco and Mr. Peepers, who were surely unsettled by their missing feline brother. Plus I had read in the
TV Guide
that
The Thin Man
was showing on PBS.

So we went back to his place—or his aunt’s place, I should say—and ordered moo shu pork again, and the food arrived just as the movie was starting, and so we ate it off Mrs. Friedlander’s coffee table, sitting on her comfy black leather couch, on which I dropped not one but two spring rolls smothered with that orange stuff.

Which was, incidentally, when he started kissing me. Seriously. I was totally apologizing for getting that sticky orange stuff all over his aunt’s couch when he leaned over,
stuck his knee in it
, and started kissing me.

I haven’t been that shocked since my algebra tutor did almost the same thing my freshman year in high school. Only there wasn’t any orange stuff and we’d been talking about integers, not paper towels.

And let me tell you, Max Friedlander is a way better kisser than any algebra tutor ever was. I mean, he has got the kissing thing down pat. I was afraid the top of my head was going to blow off. Seriously. He’s
that
good of a kisser.

Or maybe he isn’t that good of a kisser. Maybe it’s just been so long since anybody has kissed me like he meant it—you know,
really
meant it—that I forgot what kissing is like.

John kisses like he means it.
Really
means it.

Still, when he stopped kissing me, I was in such a state of head-spinning shock that all I could do was blurt out, “What did you do
that
for?” which probably sounded rude, but he didn’t take it that way. He went, “Because I wanted to.”

So I thought about that for, like, a split second, and then I reached up and put my arms around his neck and said, “Good.”

Then I did some kissing of my own. And it was really nice because Mrs. Friedlander’s couch is very cushy and soft, and John kind of sank down onto me and I kind of sank down into the
couch, and we kissed for a very long time. In fact we kissed until Paco decided he needed to go out, and stuck his big wet nose between our foreheads.

That’s when I realized I better get out of there. First of all, you know what our mothers always said about kissing before the third date. And second of all, not to gross you out, but there was some very interesting stuff happening downstairs, if you know what I mean.

And Max Friedlander is definitely NOT gay. Gay guys do not get full-on stiffies from kissing girls. This much even a small-town girl from the Midwest knows.

So, while John was cursing Paco out, I was straightening myself out and saying primly, “Well, thank you for the lovely evening, but I think I have to go now,” and then I tore out of there, while he was still going, “Mel, wait, we have to talk.”

I didn’t wait. I couldn’t. I had to get out while I still had control over my motor functions. I am telling you, Nadine, this guy’s kisses are enough to numb your brain stem, they’re that good.

So what’s to talk about?

Well, there’s one thing: Nadine, I’m letting you know right now. I am bringing a date to your wedding.

Gotta go. Fingers are cramping up from writing too much, and I still have tomorrow’s column to do. Things are looking up for Winona and Chris Noth. I hear a vacation in Bali is in the works. I can’t believe Winona and I have both found guys at the same time! It’s like when she and Gwyneth were going out with Matt and Ben—only better! Because it’s me!

Mel

To: Mel Fuller

From: Nadine Wilcock

Subject: I hope at the very least

you let him pay for the Chinese food.

Nad

To: Nadine Wilcock

From: Mel Fuller

Subject: Well of course he

paid for the Chinese food. Well, except the tip. He didn’t have any singles.

Why are you being this way? I had a great time. I thought it was sweet.

And it’s not like I let him feel me up or anything, for God’s sake.

Mel

To: Mel Fuller

From: Nadine Wilcock

Subject: I just think

that this is all happening too fast. I’ve never even met this guy. No offense, Mel, but you do not have the greatest track record where men are concerned—Aaron being only example number one. I mean, what about that Delta Upsilon and the sock thing, which you yourself mentioned only the other day?

I’m just saying I might feel more comfortable about all of this if I had actually met the guy. We’ve heard some pretty sketchy things about him from Dolly, after all. How do you expect me to feel? You are like the baby sister I never had. I just want to make sure you don’t get hurt.

So could you get him to come over to pick you up for lunch or something one of these days? I’d be more than willing to forgo spinning class….

Don’t hate me.

Nad