The Man Who Loved Women to Death (36 page)

“You’re right, Lieutenant. That’s no chump change.”

Our drinks came. He took a swig of his. He sat there. He seemed terribly depressed all of a sudden.

I said, “Look, if you’d like I’ll see if I know anybody who knows somebody who knows her, okay?”

Very frowned. “Knows who, dude?”

“Cokie Roberts, who else?”

He brightened considerably. “You’d do that for me?”

“I would.”

“Check it out—does that mean we’re friends?”

“Lieutenant, I don’t know what we are.” I clinked his glass with mine. “Until next time.”

“Dude?”

“Yes, Lieutenant?”

“Does there have to be a next time?”

“It would seem so. I’m sorry.”

I AGREED TO GO
ahead and write the definitive, the authorized, the one-and-only true story of the answer man. I donated most of my whopping advance and all of my royalties to a fund that I set up for the families of the victims. And I would only sign with a publisher that was willing to do the same with
its
share of the proceeds. The contract turned out to be a nightmare. For one thing, the publisher now had to come to terms with Tansy’s estate, not Tuttle’s. And she left behind many relatives and they all had lawyers who were expensive and annoying. Or am I being redundant?

The other reason the contract got so complicated was that I would only do business with a publisher who was willing to take on Novel No. 3. Package deal, take it or leave it. Hey, proud I am, stupid I am not. I know a buzz ploy when I see it. I also know the meaning of the word
leverage.

I like to think Cassandra would have been proud of me.

Everyone wanted a piece of Merilee after it came out that she single-handedly slew the fire-breathing she-dragon that had been the answer man. Oprah wanted her. Barbara Wawa wanted her, Jane Pauley, Lesley Stahl … Merilee declined them, one and all. Said she was in seclusion, preparing for an upcoming play. Which she was. Although the revival of
Wait Until Dark
turned out to be something less than a major theatrical event. The play closed after three performances in spite of the mountain of publicity that Merilee brought it. Not to mention those unqualified raves that Luke Perry got from the critics. Audiences just stayed away. No one knew why. No one ever knows why. That’s show business. Although I must tell you that several critics did find Merilee’s performance unconvincing. I agreed with them, actually. I think she left it in our dining room and she never got it back. I think it was all just a little bit too painful for her to relive on stage every night. I think she was grateful when the show folded. I can’t say how Luke felt. We were never close.

I was there that morning in our dining room. I was there for her real performance. And it was plenty convincing, believe me.

We fled home after that. Home to the eighteen acres at the end of the twisting lane in Lyme. Home to the 1736 center chimney Colonial with its seven working fireplaces and its post-and-beam carriage barn and the chapel with the stained-glass windows where I did my writing. We made it out two days before Christmas. It snowed the first night we were back. We awoke to eight inches of fresh, white powder. Lulu went romping in it, arfing ebulliently. Tracy, done up like a Russian cosmonaut in her water-resistant Gore-Tex snug suit, ate a handful of it and pronounced it not dissimilar to cheeseboogers. Vic and I tromped deep into the woods and cut down a blue spruce—a great big one like I wanted—and dragged it home. I made a huge fire in the parlor fireplace and Merilee and I drank spiked eggnog and listened to old Nat King Cole records while we decorated the tree. Her old decorations that had been handed down from mother to daughter for the past five generations.

“I’m afraid you’re going to be stuck with me for awhile, darling,” she announced giddily. Eggnog happens to go straight to her head. “The Brad Pitt movie’s not going to happen.”

“It fell through?”

“It didn’t. I did. They went … younger.”

“Who?” I demanded.

“Romola.”

“The fashion model? They can’t be serious.”

“She’s nineteen and she’s gorgeous and the whole world wants to see her naked.”

“But she can barely speak.”

“They’ll dub her.”

“You mean like a voice double?”

“Something like that. They offered me the job, actually. I told them to stuff it. I said if they want my voice they have to take my big fat forty-year-old butt with it.”

“Good for you, Merilee.”

She sighed dejectedly. “Hoagy, I hate the real world.”

“It doesn’t have much going for it,” I agreed.

“What do you say we stay out here until spring and watch the daffodils come up?”

“Okay, but that’s not the only thing that comes up in the spring, Miss Nash,” I warned.

“Why, Mr. Hoagy. I do believe your shoulder is starting to feel better.”

“Better than new. In fact, I’m thinking of making a comeback.”

“Oh, yeah? What as?”

’Twas the day before Christmas when the polite young minister from the Congregational Church arrived to perform the ceremony. He has a red beard and keeps bees. Vic Early and his blushing bride, Pam, were married in the parlor next to the Christmas tree with a few close friends standing up for them. Merilee and me and Tracy, of course. Lulu, who blubbered uncontrollably through the whole thing. Mr. Hurlburt, the farmer next door, who Vic fishes with. And Pam’s little reading group from the Lyme library. There are ten ladies altogether. Pam, being under eighty, is the baby of the group.

Vic was trembling badly when he handed me the ring before the minister arrived. He’d cut himself shaving so many times that morning it looked like he’d been in a swordfight. I fortified him with a stiff shot of Laphroaig while Merilee and Pam fussed over Pam’s dress. Fortified myself as well.

“You d-don’t think I’m m-making a mistake, d-do you, Hoag?” Vic asked, his teeth chattering.

“I do not.”

“It’s n-not too late to make this a d-double wedding, you know.”

“Oh, yes it is.”

Afterward, we ate red velvet cake and drank champagne and Merilee officially gave them their wedding present from us, which was the deeded rights to the hand-hewn chestnut carriage barn and an acre of land around it to turn into a home of their own.

And then all of that laughter and good cheer started to get to me so I threw my coat over my shoulders and slipped out the kitchen door and sat by myself on the bench by the pond in the snow. I thought about those three bright and shining young track stars in that photograph and about what twenty years of living had done to each of us. I thought about that scrawled message I’d found in Tuttle’s notebook:
Subject for short story
—
Doof. How does he keep going? Doesn’t he fucking KNOW?
I wondered what he meant by that. God, how I wondered. I thought about Tansy and that time I kissed her good-night outside of her building. I thought about how many times over the alone years I’d almost picked up the phone and called her. Almost … I thought about a lot of things, sitting there on that bench by myself in the snow, until Merilee came out and got me and led me back inside to my own fine version of a life.

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cover design by Kathleen Lynch

978-1-4532-5978-8

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