Cheapskate in Love (29 page)

“And you brought her chocolates? There must be a ton in that
box. You should give them to me, because she’ll just take them to the salon for
us to eat and get fat on. She has self-control, unlike the rest of us. Here,
let me take them, since your arms are full.”

As Catherine reached out to rob him, with a bolt of energy
Bill sped past her, like someone running from a crocodile. When he had escaped
her, he became all smiles once more and gazed intently at his date. “Donna,” he
exulted. “I’m so happy to see you. You have a beautiful house.” The finish line
and trophy of all his imaginings was within sight, and he rejoiced.

While Bill hustled up the rest of the walk to the front
porch, Catherine turned around and said to his back, “Bye, Bill. I hope to see
you soon. You should go out with me someday.”

He didn’t respond, except to shudder visibly. Catherine
grinned at Donna, gave her a thumb-up sign, and vigorously waved goodbye,
before she went to her car and drove away.

Immobile and expressionless, Donna watched Bill, holding his
large bundle of things, unsteady and tripping, try to get up the two steps to
her porch quickly. When he finally arrived, panting, he told her, “You look fabulous,
better than ever.” Those cloying sentiments were quite different from what she
wanted to tell him. Shifting his burden a little to his side, he leaned forward
to kiss her on the cheek.

Donna drew back in distaste and gestured disparagingly at the
flowers and chocolates. “Bill, what is all this?”

“A few small gifts for my lovely date,” he replied tenderly.
He moved closer to her, and she allowed him a peck on her cheek, before pushing
him away.

“You should have given the chocolates to Catherine,” she
criticized, bad-tempered as a shrew. “I guess we can take them to the barbecue.
I don’t know what to do with those flowers. They belong at a funeral. And
where
did you find those clothes? You
look like a circus clown.”

Exasperated from having to point out such obvious,
unpleasant facts, Donna turned around and walked to the front door, leaving
Bill slightly stunned at his reception. When she was at the door, she looked
back at him. “Are you coming? You can set those flowers up someplace, while I
get ready.”

He immediately brightened like a lamp. “Of course. I’m right
behind you.
Such a beautiful home.
Let me put these
flowers in your bedroom.”

She rolled her eyes and exhaled heavily, oppressed with the
feeling that it was going to be a long, aggravating evening. Bill clumsily
followed her into her house, but his feelings were of a different nature than
hers. Like a Muslim pilgrim, who has reached Mecca after an arduous, long
journey, his heart filled with joy, upon entering the home of his dearly beloved.

Soon after they entered her house, however, the intensity of
his feelings began to waver. She told him he could set up the flowers in the
living room and watch television, while she changed into different clothes.
Without responding to his non-stop stream of compliments about the house, its
decorations, and herself, she went upstairs to her bedroom, slammed the door
shut, and locked the handle. She remained there for over an hour, until it was
six o’clock. During that time, after placing the flowers on the stand in a
corner of the living room, he waited patiently at first, sitting, looking
around, expecting her to return soon, so they could spend time together. He was
not the sort of guy who was upset by a few mean words or hostile actions from a
woman, especially a woman who looked like Donna. It would take a lot more than
that to shake the romantic fantasy he had planted in his head. Yet the minutes
dragged on, and she didn’t reappear. There were only women’s magazines in the
room to read, so eventually he turned on the television, which he watched until
she came down.

Exchanging few words, they left for the party in her car.
Although his feelings were almost as strong and raging as they had been when he
had arrived—his juvenile hopes for a successful evening were definitely
still the same—he had come to the conclusion that he needed a different
wooing tactic. While she had been upstairs, he decided that she was a quiet and
reserved type of woman, who didn’t like small talk. To adapt to what he thought
was her true character, he began to imitate a strong, silent man, as well as he
could.

As she backed her BMW out of her driveway, however, she
broke through her calm reserve, which wasn’t reserve at all, but a repressed
fury and deep annoyance, to assault his silence. She looked at him sitting in
the passenger seat and grimaced. She had changed into flowing linen pants, with
a tight-fitting sleeveless top underneath a loose, long-sleeved, lace-like
sweater. Everything was white. It was a lovely, casual outfit for summer.

“You can take that jacket off,” she said to him harshly. “No
man there will be wearing one.”

He struggled to take off his jacket in the car and
eventually succeeded.

“I think you can borrow a pair of jeans, too, where we’re
going,” she continued, insulting him further. “They should fit, if your waist
isn’t too big. Do you ever go to a gym?”

The only response Bill allowed himself to make was to wince
and twist his mouth.

At that moment, Donna drove down the block where Bill had
parked his car. It was one of the few vehicles on the street.

“What a pile,” she observed, seeing that car, which she
didn’t recognize as Bill’s. “I’m glad it’s not by my house. It ought to be
towed to a junkyard. It’s a piece of scrap.”

To him, she now seemed to be more of an assertive person
than a reserved person, so he thought he had to say something and assert
himself, too. “It doesn’t look so bad,” he said, softly and meekly.

She scowled at him, but said nothing. His comment made her
remember where she had seen that car before. She knew to whom it belonged.

Chapter 31

The barbecue party, to which Donna and Bill went, was held
at a sprawling mansion of recent construction in the Hamptons, next to the
ocean. An outlandish creation of wealth acquired in high finance, the house had
more resemblance to a casino than a residence, because the proportions of the
building had been so super-sized to accommodate large numbers of people. When
the owners weren’t working long hours at their offices, they liked to
entertain; they calculated their net worth not only by the sums in their bank
accounts, but also by the number of bodies at their house parties.

The couple’s desire to gather and impress a horde within
their residence was a natural one for them, since both husband and wife were
loud, vain, and ostentatious. They had many so-called friends, such as Donna.
Although they were considerably younger than Donna, their attachment to her was
stronger than many of their friendships with other people. Similarities in the
characters of all three and compatible personal needs created a special
symbiotic relationship: With them, Donna could pretend to be younger than she
was, while they could imagine that they were more mature.

As soon as Donna and Bill arrived, Donna ran and begged a pair
of jeans from the man of the house for Bill. When she had them, she told Bill
to go change in the upstairs bathroom and not come down till he had them on. He
could find her then on the lower level where the great room was. That’s where
everybody would be.

Bill tried to comply with her command. He wanted to please
her by wearing the jeans; he thought they might be the key to getting into her
pants later on. But when he saw how wide their waistband was, his gut quivered
forcibly in resistance, and the idea of fitting into them struck him as
hopeless. However, he still tried. In the bathroom, he jumped up and down in
the pants in an attempt to tug them over his thighs and fasten them shut. He
removed his underwear, in case that might be an obstacle. He even tried lying
on the floor and pulling the pants on in a supine position, thinking that
gravity might be making his middle section larger when he stood. Nothing helped
put those thin jeans on his egg-shaped, overweight body.

Although he was deeply reluctant to disappoint Donna, his
desire to join the party had become greater, since he had been kept from the
free food long enough. He pulled on his underwear and seersucker pants again
and left his tropical-print shirt
untucked
, in the
hope that she would not notice what was covering his legs beneath.

Rock music boomed louder and louder, the further he
descended toward the great room. When he was finally on the floor of that
space, the music was throbbing in his ears, as if a street was being dug up in front
of him with drills. The decibel level prevented much conversation from taking
place, since people had to yell to be heard, but he thought that interesting,
rational talk did not appear to be the goal of anyone there. All the guests
that he could see were in their twenties, thirties, and maybe forties. They
were casually dressed, as Donna had said they would be. Earlier in the week,
she had told him that five hundred people were invited, but he thought that the
number present was closer to two hundred. They were standing, sitting, moving
around a little with drinks in hand. Apparently, they had come for the sake of
being there and drinking, for when he could hear others try to communicate
above the din, the boisterous inanities that they hollered back and forth
didn’t seem worth the effort.

Since he wasn’t interested in trying to talk to someone yet,
the noise didn’t bother him. He wanted food and lots of it. As he looked
hungrily around the great room, which was a vast space, like a hotel banqueting
room, he didn’t see any food tables. The bar was located on the opposite side
of the room from where he stood, so he thought the food might be near there.

On his way to the bar, he saw Donna from a distance and
waved at her with both hands. He acted like someone wearing a Mickey Mouse
costume at Disneyland, greeting visitors. There was a big smile on his face. He
was happy to see her again. Donna noticed him, saw his pants, and turned her
back to him. She was much less happy than he.

At that moment, a hamburger on a plate, which a young man
carried, caught his attention.

“Where did you get that?” Bill accosted him.

The young man pointed outside to the huge patio, which was
accessible through several sliding glass doors. Bill now saw other guests
coming in and going out. Forgetting all about Donna, he hurried outside.

The first table he arrived at on the patio was covered with
a wide variety of hors d’oeuvres and salads, which many people were hovering
around, complimenting and admiring, trying to decide what to take for
themselves
. Everything looked fresh and delicious.

“Where’s the real food?” Bill asked loudly, to no one in
particular. He had pushed himself through the guests around the table to the
food and saw that there were only light, low-calorie, vegetable-dense choices
there.

Before anyone would answer—they were too busy staring
at him, wondering how he had been invited—Bill noticed further away a
professional chef in a tall white hat, cooking on a massive grill. There was
another table besides the grill, and Bill sped to that location. On top of the
second table, he discovered rows and rows of thick, juicy, grilled beef patties
sticking out of buns. Also on the table were all kinds of ordinary and exotic
toppings to add to the hamburgers, but he was much less interested in those
garnishes. He was obsessed with meat.

Shaking with excitement, as if he had stumbled upon a gold
mine, Bill grabbed a plate and quickly set three hamburgers on it. He smeared a
little ketchup, mustard, relish, and onion on the inner side of each top bun.
Unable to wait any longer and drooling from gluttonous cravings, he bit deeply
into one prepared hamburger and grabbed three more plain ones from the rows.
After garnishing them lightly, as he had the first three, while still trying to
chew and swallow the wad of food in his mouth, he lifted his plate, stacked
with hamburgers, and looked for a place to sit. The closest vacant chair was at
a table otherwise filled in the crowded outdoor seating area. Taking another
big bite of a hamburger, he hustled over to it. After confirming that the chair
was not taken, he sat down and stuffed himself like a contestant in a
speed-eating contest, shoving the six large hamburgers down his throat as fast
as possible. People around him stared and whispered, but Bill continued to
feast, completely unconcerned about his neighbors. At that moment, he was
attending to his stomach and couldn’t be bothered by social niceties.

When he had finished his quick meal, he went back to the
burger buffet table, moving more slowly than before, but determined to sate
every real and imaginary prick of hunger he had. He took three more hamburgers.
When the same few condiments had been applied, Bill chowed, standing by the
table, unwilling to waste time by finding a seat. His rate of consumption
decreased with each hamburger. He had to push the last of the third one into
his mouth to make it disappear, as if he was clearing a clogged toilet with a
plunger. He looked longingly and lovingly at the remaining hamburgers on the
table, but he had no more room inside for the scrumptious little mountains of
meat. His gorge soaked in bile was already rising slightly in his esophagus
from his stomach with a burning sensation. He tried to stretch his waistband,
which was digging into his skin, by putting his hands under his shirt and
pulling it outwards, but it would not expand. Sadly, he thought it necessary to
leave the grill table for now and wash down the heap of hamburgers with a beer
to try and create space for more.