Cheapskate in Love (28 page)

“Four dollars a piece?” he exclaimed to the salesclerk,
almost shouting, when he was told the price. “For these little bitty things?
What’s in them? Gold dust?”

The salesclerk, a young, well-mannered foreigner from
Belgium with the name of Marc, had not met quite a character like Bill yet in
the United States. But Marc was not going to be disturbed by someone who
couldn’t recognize the finer things in life and pay accordingly.

“Chocolates with gold dust are a special order, and they
cost more,” he replied with equanimity, unruffled by Bill’s temper. “Would you
like to place an order?”

“No, I would not,” growled Bill. “Is anything in this place
on sale?”

“No. We don’t have sales. There are some that expire today,
which are reduced...”

“Give me fifty of them,” Bill snapped.

“Fifty? Are you sure? They must be eaten today.”

“I’ll tell her.”

“This is a gift? For a lady?” The idea of a woman eating
fifty fine chocolates in a day was incomprehensible to Marc.

“Do you think I would buy anything here for myself?” was
Bill’s flippant response. He couldn’t conceive of being in that store for
anyone, except Donna. And he didn’t understand Marc’s concern. He could easily
eat fifty of those teensy candies, and he thought that others, even Donna, were
just as capable. Of course, if she wanted help, he would be ready. He was
always prepared for an orgy of food.

Marc coolly appraised Bill from head to toe. Bill’s old,
ill-fitting, unfashionable clothes told Marc that his customer’s parsimonious
mindset extended to all aspects of his life. “No, not at all,” he replied, with
concealed condescension. “I don’t think you would ever buy something for
yourself here, or in many other places.”

Bill took considerable pride in his thrifty ways, but he was
unsure whether Marc was complimenting him or not. So he waited in silence,
while a box of fifty chocolates was wrapped for him in colorful paper and tied
with a ribbon.

The amount that Bill had spent for chocolates hovered in his
mind like a dark, cloudy turbulence when he went to pick out flowers. As he
stood in front of the refrigerated cases, where exquisite roses, lilies,
chrysanthemums, irises, and other flowers were displayed, along with their
exquisite prices, his face became gloomier and gloomier. He looked like a man
going to the gallows, without hope of a reprieve, on a brilliant spring day
when the earth is in bloom.

“Red roses would be perfect,” he sighed in agony to the
young Hispanic shop assistant, Elvira, who was trying to help him. “But they’re
too much. I just spent a fortune. What do you have that says a lot for very
little?”

Elvira pondered his request and looked around the shop. “Do
you want to see our plastic flowers?” she asked.

“No,” he despaired. “Fresh ones, I need fresh ones. These
are for a date.”

After a moment of reflection, she asked, “Do you want a
potted plant?”

“No,” he wailed. In his misery, he turned his back on the
refrigerated cut flowers and looked around the shop. In a corner, he saw a large,
pyramidal display with a profusion of gladiolas, chrysanthemums, and
carnations. The floral arrangement was on a stand to which a small sign was
attached that read “Eighty percent off.” Bill’s eyes zeroed in on the sign.

“How much is that?” he asked, excitedly.

“Forty dollars. It was for a funeral. But an autopsy was
called. Suspicious circumstances, they said.” Elvira shrugged her shoulders.
She didn’t have an opinion about the death.

“I’ll take it,” Bill crowed.

“For your date?” she asked, puzzled.

“Of course,” Bill explained. “I’m not going to a funeral.”

She shrugged again. It was best, she thought, not to inquire
too much into the lives of her customers or hold too many opinions. Knowledge
and opinions could turn into liabilities, she believed. But when Bill said he
would also take the stand for the arrangement, if it was free, she couldn’t
help forming the view that he was exceedingly cheap, someone who really wanted
a whole lot for very little.

With his gifts in hand, Bill hurried home for a quick, light
lunch before dressing for the party. Since he would be eating heavily that
evening, he didn’t want to spoil his appetite. Because he had become lost
trying to find both shops—the stress of spending money clouded his
mind—it was also a late lunch. It was already two o’clock, and he was
behind the schedule he had planned for himself. Although the party began that
evening at six, and Donna had told him that he could come over at five thirty
or even six, since the distance to the party wasn’t far from where she lived,
he wanted to arrive at her place no later than four. He wanted to create an
opportunity for them to get to know each other better. However, he didn’t
imagine they would spend all of the pre-party time at her house talking. He
told her that he had to come early, because the person giving him a lift had to
go somewhere and couldn’t drop him off later.

Despite his best efforts to suck down food and speed dress,
he was delayed in leaving his apartment, on account of the pants of the
seersucker suit. The suit had been bought years ago when his waist was less
wide, and at first he didn’t think he would be able to zip and fasten the pants
shut at all. But the thought of missing his date with Donna drove him to the
edge of hysteria. By grunting, struggling, and sucking in his abdomen, he
finally succeeded. He made his belt extra tight to keep the zipper and tab
fastener closed.

“
Gotta
be careful on the fast
dances,” he said to himself, hesitant to inhale too deeply.

Suddenly his Blackberry rang with an incoming text message:
“Come to yoga with me. You need lose weight. Call me Linda.”

“She knows I hate yoga,” he vented in annoyance, deleting
the message. “Tomorrow, I’m going to tell her it’s really over. She’ll have to
find another loser to torture. I’m a winner now.”

He put on the seersucker jacket and fastened a button.
Looking into the full-length mirror to check his appearance, he saw that the
jacket pulled tightly around the button, and his midriff looked like the skin
of a pineapple, so he unbuttoned the jacket. He couldn’t find anything else
amiss with his appearance. The tropical-print shirt really popped to his eye
underneath the seersucker suit. The jarring visual effect seemed to be the
height of fashion to him.

“You could give Tom a few tips about grooming and style,” he
haughtily told his reflection.

Sliding his Blackberry into an inside pocket on his jacket
and making sure he had the directions to Donna’s house, he prepared to leave
his apartment. As he reached the door, he turned around and involuntarily
stopped. Despite his lateness, a sudden reflective mood seized him. For a few
lingering moments, he looked at the place and everything inside. Remarkably
little had changed, he noted, in the twenty-some years he had lived there.
Although he still felt young, like a man in his twenties, when he had first
seen the studio, he had been much younger than he was now. He had been in the
prime of his life. The possibilities for his future were then unlimited, and
his stay in that rectangular box certainly seemed like it would only be
temporary. Two decades had turned out differently than expected, he thought
with some regret, but tonight hope had come into his heart again.

“I’m ready to leave this castle and never return,” he said
without any trace of nostalgia.

Filled with optimism and moving with a sprightly step, he
left his apartment, humming snatches of big-band swing music.

Chapter 30

As fast as traffic allowed, he drove to Donna’s
neighborhood, which was in a different town, about twenty minutes away from his
apartment. She lived in an attractive residential area with large,
single-family homes on large lots. As he had planned, he parked his old car a
couple of blocks from her home, so she would not see it. After taking the
flowers, plant stand, and box of chocolates out of the car, he locked the
vehicle and attempted to pick up the gifts. The flowers were large and
unwieldy, and he was later than he wanted to be. After a brief struggle to hold
everything carefully, he crushed the three items to his chest and walked
awkwardly, trying to hurry, stumbling at times, to Donna’s house.

Meanwhile, Catherine and Donna were inside Donna’s large
house near the front door, talking. Catherine was holding a bag of Donna’s old
clothes, which Donna had given her to keep.

“I better go now,” said Catherine, brassy and outspoken as
ever, “so you can get ready for your date. He’ll probably be early. And, of
course, he’ll want to stay late, real late, way into the morning. He won’t ever
want to go. I hope he likes your cooking.”

“Oh, stop,”
Donna
told her.

“Thanks for these clothes,” said Catherine, with less
impudence. “I probably won’t be able to fit into anything, but I’m sure going
to try. They’re all beautiful pieces. Maybe this will be the motivation I need
to exercise more. Now I really must go, because I know you’re only thinking
about one thing, and it’s not me.”

“I’m having real doubts about tonight,” said Donna. She was
in a pensive mood that was unusual for her.

“Don’t. Enjoy yourself.”

“But I feel like I’m misleading him.”

“How? A fool like that is always lost.”

“True, but he’s going to be disappointed.”

“Good. Maybe he’ll pay more attention to me or Helen, rather
than act like a fathead, ogling you.”

“I wish I could give him to you.”

“Ha,” laughed Catherine. “He’s not ready yet. You need to
take care of him. I’m really going now.”

“See you Monday,” said Donna, as she opened the front door.

Catherine was about to leave the house, when she screeched
to a halt in the open doorway, overwhelmed by what she saw. There was Bill on
the sidewalk, in front of the house next door, approaching. He made an
unforgettable sight in his clothes, burdened with his gifts. Bill saw her and
wrinkled his face, as if he smelled something bad.

Donna wondered why Catherine was standing there, speechless,
so she looked outside and saw Bill, too. When Bill perceived Donna, his dream
girl, he broke into a showy smile, like the sun appearing from behind clouds.
His smile jabbed Catherine into speech again.

“My God, Halloween came early this year,” she gasped to
Donna. “What is he supposed to be?” Bill was too far away to hear what she
said.

“Oh, no,” groaned Donna, with a look of horror on her face.
She was unaffected by Bill’s smile in any positive way. “Tell me what to do.”

Donna’s misery and desperation restored Catherine’s
self-possession. “You can handle this one,” she assured Donna. “You’ve been in
far worse scrapes before. I’ll put him in the mood to see you.” Catherine gave
her a hearty hug and kissed her goodbye on both cheeks.

“I wish you would take him with you,” Donna sighed.

“Not a chance. That ninny needs to see you first. When he
wants me or someone else, he’ll find us.”

With mischief on her mind, Catherine skipped away and went
directly toward Bill, who had turned from the sidewalk up the path to Donna’s
house. He avoided looking at Catherine for as long as he could. He kept his
eyes and radiant smile on Donna, who didn’t know where to look or what to do.
She had come out of her house and stood on her spacious, covered front porch.
Although the house was large,
well-cared
for, and
built on a big lot, it was only about thirty years old and had no identifiable
architectural style or charm. The porch, which was an addition that Donna had
built on, did not help give it any.

Catherine and Bill were still a good distance apart, when
she greeted him rambunctiously, as if he were her twin, whom she had not seen
in a decade. “Bill, what a pleasant surprise! How nice to see you! You look
great!”

Since Donna was watching, he felt he had to say something to
Catherine.
“Hi,” he
monotoned
,
looking at her momentarily.
They were separated by less than ten feet
now, and he attempted to go around her without any further talk, but she
bounced straight up to him, forcing him to stop.

“Is that a new suit you’re wearing?” she asked, her face
expressing child-like wonder. The suit was clearly of a previous generation,
and Catherine knew it.

“No,” he snipped, feeling ungracious by her imposing upon
him. He tried to circumvent her, but she blocked him.

“It’s super sharp with that shirt,” she gushed, delivering
her barefaced lies with more passion than any politician. “I’ve never seen a
tropical-print, pastel-stripe combination. Very snazzy.”

“Thanks.” Once more she stopped him, as he tried to get past
her.

“Such a magnificent, big bouquet. Donna will be impressed.
She loves flowers.” Catherine thought the arrangement was the strangest thing
to give a date,
who
was still alive, but she kept that
to herself.

“Let me give them to her,” he peeved. Again, she prevented
him from moving.