Cheapskate in Love (34 page)

“Where did you get this thing?” he asked.

“I bought it. I knew it’d come in handy.”

“Tomorrow, I’m going to write you a check for it and for the
home care attendant. You shouldn’t have to spend a dime on me. If my health
insurance won’t pay, then I need to. I was the foolish one.” The magnitude of
the astonishing change that had begun in Bill was apparent in how easily he had
assented to a home care attendant earlier in the day, when Helen had suggested
hiring one for a few hours everyday, to help him bathe and do other tasks. The
change in Bill was still visible now, as he calmly took responsibility to pay for
such assistance.

“Are you sure your hand can write a check already?” she
teased.

“If not, I’ll give you my bank card and my password, so you
can withdraw the money. Without your help, I don’t know where I’d be.”

“Since you were so foolish, maybe I should bill you for my
services,” she said breezily. Since she could tell that suggestion greatly
disturbed him—fireworks of fear lit up his face, as he mentally
calculated the enormity of the expense—she reassured him, “I’m kidding. I
don’t mind helping out an old friend. Now, remember, if you need anything
tonight, don’t hesitate to call me.”

“Thanks, Helen,” he said, his momentary fright relieved. “I
should be OK. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Have a goodnight, Bill,” she said, patting his hand.
“Tomorrow, I think I’ll try to do some cleaning up around here.
If that’s OK with you.
Seems like it’s been a while, since
anyone tidied up.” She looked around his apartment disapprovingly.

“Only if you want to,” he replied, accepting her offer with
a submissive deference, entirely unlike his response to her first scouring of
his apartment. “The place sure needs it, but only if you want to.”

“I don’t mind. A clean house is a happy house, I think.”

Bidding each other goodnight, she turned off the lights in his
apartment, except for a light in the kitchen, and left, locking his door from
the hallway.

Alone in the semi-darkness of his apartment, Bill did one of
the few things that he could still do: He thought. Memories of his many former,
miserable relationships with women came to haunt him, as they had so often in
the past, while he was at home, but he sent them away. He was no longer under
their spell. He was thinking about the future, and for the first time in his
existence he was thinking realistically about life with another person.

In his current physical state, where he was entirely
dependent upon the efforts of other people to help him live, the things that
were important for his future and his present were different from what he had
desired in the past. Although his infantile dependency would be over in six
months, if his recovery progressed normally, his paralyzing experience had
changed him forever. Youth and beauty were never going to be the primary
qualities by which he judged any woman from now on, as appealing as those
traits can be. Instead, he wanted—at the moment he needed—someone
who would care for him and appreciate him. If he had never had the accident, he
might not have arrived at this simple truth, but that thought didn’t make him
grateful to Donna and Frank. He railed at his stupidity for not discovering on
his own, a long time ago, what others seem to know intuitively, without coming
close to the severe humiliation and crippling injury he had suffered.

The more he thought, the more his thoughts
circled back to Helen.
The sprout of love, which had germinated in him while in the hospital, was
rapidly sending out roots in the rocky, dry soil of his heart; tiny, tender,
branches and leaves—the arteries and veins of living affection—were
spreading throughout his body. His flourishing emotional state, he could feel,
was improving his physical one. Even his financial state showed every sign of
thriving in the future, if she was a part of it. In the past, Helen had been
perfectly delighted with a fifteen-dollar bouquet and a free donut social, so
he wouldn’t have to purchase costly gifts or plan extravaganzas for her. She
might not be the woman of his former dreams, but she promised to be the most
suitable woman that he had ever known, someone who could cherish his
well-being
, as well as his wallet.

His prosperous thoughts were suddenly dampened by a
devastating remembrance: Helen’s new friend Tom. The drama of Bill’s fall and
his disordered thinking in the hospital had pushed Tom out of his mind, along
with every other subject, unrelated to his desperate desire to avoid a nursing
home. Were Tom and Helen still going out and swing dancing, he wondered? Bill
started to fidget with impatience to know. He wasn’t sure what he could do
about this potential menace to his budding happiness, if they were still seeing
each other. But he wanted to know whether he should be doing something. After a
few minutes of hesitation, his fear overpowered his self-restraint. He fumbled
with the emergency call device, until he was able to press the button. It
emitted a continuous high-pitched sound.

Minutes later, he could hear the sound of different keys
being tried in quick succession in the lock of his door, until Helen found the
right one and rushed in, turning on the lights.

“Bill, is something wrong?” she asked worriedly, coming to
his bedside.

“No. No. I’m all right,” he prevaricated, uncertain how to
ask what he wanted to know. “Everything’s OK. I was just...” Unlike so many
times before, when he had spun fantastical, deceiving, sugary confections to
lead women on with him to some imaginary place, he resorted instead to a direct
question. “Do you still go dancing with Tom?”

Helen’s concern subsided. “No. I only went out with him that
once. He’s not much of a dancer. He’s more a rock-and-roll type.
A bit too casual and easygoing for my taste.
I guess I’m
more old-fashioned.”

“When I’m better and can move again, I want to take you
dancing.”

“I would like that,” she said, with
a new
warmth in her voice. At last, she could discern with certainty that his
feelings had changed. “I would really like that. Goodnight, Bill.” Before
leaving, she kissed him on the cheek.

Bill always wanted more than a kind kiss on the cheek from
women he fell for, but on this occasion Helen’s assurances were enough.

Chapter 36

Many months later at that time of year in which Manhattan
becomes the most magical, decorated as it is for the holidays, with colorful
light displays and other seasonal finery, Helen and Bill were on a date, their
first evening out as a couple. It wasn’t their first out-of-doors excursion,
however, since his incapacitating spinal injury. She had driven him to doctor
appointments and physical therapy sessions many times before. Exercise had been
the doctor’s strongest recommendation, and she had ensured Bill’s compliance.
With her assistance and persistent insistence, Bill, who had never been
physically fit as an adult, had begun to exercise for long periods while first
confined. Within two months his mobility had returned enough that he could
hobble on his own, and the cast and the brace were replaced with a more
flexible body support. After this time, in addition to physical therapy
sessions, Helen took him to her gym to swim and sit in a Jacuzzi. She made sure
he swam more than he sat. With her steady coaching, care, and attention, his
recovery was more rapid than expected. At the end of four months, he was
walking with ease. At the end of the fifth, although his ability was still
limited, his urge returned to swing dance. On this evening, they were going out
to celebrate the removal of Bill’s body support the day before and to fulfill
the promise he had made to her in June.

The transformation that makes Manhattan seem so different,
so memorable, so full of festivity during the darkest days of the calendar, is
not solely one of appearance. In fact, the change in scenery is the smallest
change that occurs. As Bill had discovered through his errors, appearances make
very little difference in a just evaluation of a person’s character. The same
is true of a city. Appearances can conceal all kinds of unpleasant,
undesirable, hostile qualities. Although dazzling decorations, darling gifts,
merry gatherings, and tables loaded with food and drink may be visible,
veritable signs of Manhattan’s alteration in December, the real
change—when it occurs, and it does in abundance—happens first in
something that no one can see or hear or touch. Wherever people live, this
invisible, inaudible, untouchable thing most certainly exists. It is universal
and inseparable from human life. Some may call it the soul or the spirit or the
human heart, but whatever term is used, as the days grow darker, a light grows
brighter in it in us, for we are creatures of the light and yearn for light and
can not live without it. Even though winter settles in with the darkening days,
and snows and ice sometimes appear, sunlight that is absent from the sky wells
up within us in another form, and the hope of spring is born. The final month
of the year is a time for celebration, not of the past, no so much of the
present, mostly for the future, our future, to come.

The hearty and hopeful holiday change that had overtaken the
city, as great and grateful as it is, because it soothes for a while some of
the customary harshness in this capitol of finance and business, where so much
money flows in currents unrelated to human need, was less, however, much, much
less, than the change that had come to Helen and Bill. They had undergone what
can only be described as a metamorphosis, since Bill’s injury in June. Their
constant daily interactions had shown each that the other fulfilled their
deepest respective needs, Bill’s for care and appreciation and Helen’s for
companionship. The anger they had once had for each other was forgotten. As
soon as Frank’s push removed the biggest obstacle to their
interaction—Bill’s insensitive and immature longings—their
understanding and regard for each other quickly established an active bond of
mutual affection. The years of their acquaintance, similarities in social
background, and shared traits, especially a fondness for economizing, although
Helen would never be the cheapskate Bill was, strengthened their connection.
Despite their actual ages and Bill’s temporarily injured body, they felt themselves
to be again in the prime of life. More than the hope of spring had touched
them. They were filled with the freshness and vitality that infuses nature
during that season and were experiencing the joys of tender, continually
intensifying young love, Helen for the second time in her life, Bill for the
first.

Their friends had been forced to change some of their
opinions. Stan, who had always thought Bill a dumb dog when it came to women,
now started calling him a lucky dog. When he visited, little by little,
laughing plenty, he told Helen all of Bill’s hapless romantic adventures that
he had heard, so she would know how much better she was than anyone before her.
Helen smiled at the stories, most of which were new to her, and smothered her
laughs, until she was alone. Bill told him to shut up once in a while. But
mostly he hung his head sheepishly, as much as he could in the brace or body
support, and wondered why it had taken him so long to come to his senses.

Sandra and Joan were not as friendly toward Bill, as Stan
was to Helen. For the first few months that Helen took care of Bill, Sandra
only had equivocal comments about what she was doing, while Joan tried to have
none. It would slip out, however, that Joan thought Helen was wasting her life.
After those first few months, when they saw that Helen’s entire day had begun
to revolve around Bill’s recovery, and they heard that he was rapidly
improving, they invented an excuse and made a surprise visit to Bill’s
apartment. They had to see for themselves how well Helen and Bill got along.
When they observed how compliant, patient, and appreciative Bill was, they
began to think their own husbands materially deficient. When they saw how easy
and affectionate the interaction was between Helen and Bill, they felt a slight
twinge of envy, but that was a passing sensation. They left, happy for Helen,
completely persuaded that people, even a person like Bill, can change for the
better.

When Marie heard that some woman had volunteered to care for
her brother, she was so shocked she couldn’t pick up a cigarette for half a
day. For several days, uncle Joe had to fend for himself, because of her near
catatonic state. At last, she decided that she simply had to see who this
female wonder of the world was, so she invited herself over to Bill’s place for
Sunday dinner. It was the first time she had stepped foot in his studio in over
a decade. Her brother’s personality was altered so much and Helen was so warm
and welcoming that she stayed for hours. She didn’t even mind when he called
her sis. After that, she came over regularly, always bringing her husband and
uncle Joe for the main Sunday meal. Helen’s culinary skills inspired her to try
cooking a dish for those get-togethers, but after a few attempts she decided it
was simpler and more delectable to pick up something to bring instead.

When Bill had recovered enough to use his Blackberry by
himself, he let Linda know that he was no longer available to see her. She
congratulated him for finally leaving her alone, since she was sick of him. But
when he didn’t respond to her subsequent, multiple, abusive text messages, she
eventually perceived that he was truly never going to see her again. With
fervor, she set out to find a more fitting subject for her fondness and
ferocity.