Chapter 6: Change

Chapter 6 of the Larry Smith Saga

Change

“When something has to change, then it always does.”

“Bullets”, The Editors

Wednesday, July 26, Casa de Larry

Nadine walked through the door at 8:15 a.m. She was a little later than usual. I had my cereal out and she grabbed a banana. When the door opened my urge was to stand up and greet her properly. We never were hug and kiss at the door kind of people, except for that one time.

I was dressed and ready to leave for the funeral. Nadine would stick around for a while, catch up on E! Entertainment news and other such nonsense before going home to sleep. She always slept in her own bed.

I stood up, dumped my bowl full of brown milk in the sink, and found my key ring near the front door. Nadine was already on the couch, fiddling with the remote. She looked up at me. For fifteen long seconds she just looked at me.

“Whatcha lookin’ at, sugar?” I asked. She called people sugar. It was not reserved for me.

I tried to be funny, which mean that I was not. Nadine was nice enough to not call me on it.

“I’m so glad that I nursed you back to health,” she replied.

I turned and unlocked the door.

“Be careful,” she said as I closed the door behind me.

***

Larry’s place, 4:56 p.m.

I got home from the funeral in the middle of the afternoon. I made a few calls, paid some bills, and left some pork out to marinate. Instead of taking care of a few deadlines I was asleep on the couch when Nadine walked in. When not in scrubs she dressed in as uncomplicated a fashion as possible. Today it was a purple TCU t-shirt, black nylon shorts and red gardening clogs. She loved those freaking shoes. Her streaky brown-blonde hair was tied up into a knot in the middle of her head, like Pebbles. There were times when I thought it was cute.

I was still in the post-nap daze when I felt fingers dabbing at the right corner of my mouth. I nap, therefore I drool. I still had on my suit from the funeral, save the shoes, jacket, and tie. I was wrinkled.

“You dress up nice,” she said.

“I do?” I asked, sitting up slowly. There was a plastic cup of water in hand’s reach. I didn’t put it there.

“How was it?”

“Sad.” I’m not a conversationalist immediately upon waking up.

“Have you been to a happy funeral?”

I wanted to offer a snappy retort. Instead, I answered her question, which took a few seconds of thought. “This is the third funeral I’ve been to in my life. It’s the first time I really knew the deceased.”

“I know. How’s his wife?”

“Good.”

“Good?”

“I’m sorry. It’s been a weird day.” I hadn’t slept well over the past couple of days, and the nap only made me more tired.

“Drink the water.”

I did. I then told Nadine about my day. It was a ten-minute summary version. She listened quietly and patiently. As I talked I thought about the part that I wasn’t going to tell her, and what it meant.

“Go home,” I said abruptly.

“Excuse me?”

I looked up at her and spoke in a serious tone. “I want you to go home and change. We’re going out to dinner.”

Her jaw didn’t exactly hit the floor, but it stayed open more than usual. I expected some kind of comment. Instead I saw a gleam in her eye. “OK boss,” she replied.

“I’ll be at your door in thirty minutes,” I said.

***
Nadine’s place, 5:58 p.m.

It was more like 32 minutes, but I like to give a woman extra time. I knocked, waited a minute, knocked again and this time she answered.

Nadine wore black flats, a beige skirt that stopped an inch above her knees, and a powder blue silk blouse. She could dress like a girl. The piece de resistance was her hair. It was down, somewhat moist but with potential. From experience I’ve learned that it’s OK to arrive at a woman’s door ten minutes early. If you show up ten minutes late, when she’s actually ready, odds of a good-night anything significantly decrease. As soon as you knock on the door, you’re on her clock.

“I blew a fuse when I used the drier. I need a minute,” she said, leaving the door open a crack. What would the neighbors think?

“You look nice.”

When I first opened the door, she looked distracted. The compliment got her attention in a big way.

“I’ll look even better if you can switch the fuse back on.”

I’ve been through this drill before. I’ve never reset my fuse at home, but we have the same floor plan. She had an ironing board wedged in front of the fuse box, so getting it open was a chore. I succeeded and before I could say a word I heard the whirring.

Nadine doesn’t have a TV, so I leafed through Grey’s Anatomy while she got ready. This girl needed a hobby. I saw a box of Zodiac powder-free rubber gloves in the corner. The hair drier stopped.

“Nice gloves,” I said.

“What?” she replied. I heard water running.

I walked into her bathroom. Nadine faced the mirror. Her blouse was on a hanger on top of the bathroom door. I saw the black lacy bra, front and back thanks to the mirror. I had a sudden feeling that I was invading her privacy.

“I said,” as I turned around and started walking down the hall. “Nice gloves.”

“I didn’t steal them,” she replied.

“I wouldn’t think less of you if you did.”

“I bought in bulk,” she said, joining me in the hall. “Didn’t like what you saw?”

“Oh no, I liked plenty.” Nadine kept her eyes downcast as I looked her over.

“Please don’t say it’s not like us,” she replied. “Five minutes. Sit down.”

I smiled, nodded, and did as I was told.

I planned to show up at 6:00 knowing that we’d be a cinch to make a 7:00 reservation. It was close. Nadine insisted that we let the Valet park my car. I stubbornly accepted. In improv comedy the main rule is to always agree with your partner. Otherwise the scene grinds to a halt. When dating, it’s a good idea to remember this rule.

I opened the door for her and had a few words with the host, who immediately led us to our seats. The place was packed, but a nice corner table was unoccupied.

Nadine sat herself down and put her purse on the floor. It was the first time I’d seen her with one.

“I don’t want to sway you, but this place makes a great melon margarita,” I said.

“I was thinking about a bottle of wine,” she replied. Women don’t get the improv rules.

I held off on recommending the cayenne fried chicken. A man can only take so much rejection. The server arrived and told us of a California Cabernet Sauvignon that I impulsively ordered. When he mentioned the organic filet mignon special, we both took that option. I should have expected as much from a Midwestern gal.

Another server dropped a bowl of chips and salsa on the table. Chips and salsa are Mexican staples, but at Agave they are works of art. They were fresh and hot. The server allowed me to test the wine, which was quite good. He poured a healthy amount into Nadine’s glass and then mine. I felt the sudden urge to cliché.

“Let’s toast,” I said.

“What to?” she asked. Not only was she wearing makeup, she wore it well.

“To negotiations,” I said and we clinked glasses.

***
Larry’s mind, 7:01:02 to 7:01:45 p.m.

When I approached Nadine to be my back door woman, as it were, I offered to pay her in services rather than cash as a half-hearted joke. I didn’t know much about her other than her profession. When you see someone consistently walking to their condo wearing scrubs, you get ideas. We chatted friendly-like so I knew that she’d at least listen.

Her services were easily measured. I had a wound that needed cleaning and packing twice daily for at least 12 weeks. At first I offered her dinners as reciprocation. I wouldn’t call her a stunning beauty but I never could take my eyes off her. That’s probably why I approached her in the first place.

I’d cook her dinner on her off nights, which was sort of like breakfast to her. Nadine usually slept during the day. Sometimes when you give a woman stir fry, she assumes that there will be another course. Eventually that morphed into unlimited usage of my TV and I even did her laundry once or twice. Nadine would insist that what eventually happened between us was my idea all along, but I would disagree. She was in need, and needs I understand.

Did we talk about our quasi-relationship? There was no point. We provided services for each other and the rest was unimportant. I continued to date and she did whatever it was nurses do on their off days. Every other Wednesday, along with every Thursday and Sunday I made dinner for us. We never went out or ordered in. Just about every Tuesday, Wednesday, and Saturday morning she’d stop by before going home to crash. At first it was because I had immediate medical needs. By the middle of July I was completely healed but we were too deep into our routine to stop. If she lived more than two buildings away I doubt that our arrangement would have continued for long after I healed.

***

We interrupt this daydream for a short blog

Negotiations work when both parties have a vested interest in making a deal. In the NFL negotiations work because the Player’s Association is weak and the owners are strong. One of the bargaining chips a player has is to hold out of training camp. When the NFL extended its labor deal, much to my relief, one clause that stood out was the fine for missing a mandatory team practice. It skyrocketed from $5,000 to $14,000 per day. That adds up in a hurry and puts a lot of pressure on the player to cave, or at least show up to practice long enough to get an unspecified injury.

I chose the word carefully. Where we had been and where we were going were different places. I for one was interested to find out what exactly that meant. Our whole reason for spending time together was gone, so we had to replace one ritual with something else. Whether it was real or imagined was up to us.


End blog, Nadine officially notices that Larry’s zoning out

“What exactly are we negotiating?” she asked, reminding me of our location.

“Our deal has expired. It’s time to talk extension.”

“Aren’t you supposed to extend a deal before it expires?” she asked. Dang, she even started to pick up some of my football lingo. No NFL team lets a head coach go into the last year of his deal unless they intend to let him go. This leads to transactions that aren’t logical, like the Falcons giving Jim Mora a three-year extension after a disappointing 8-8 campaign.

“Generally yes, but in this case I think that waiting benefits us both.”

“In what way?”

“We can get certain concessions that would be unthinkable a month ago.”

She gave me a look. I shrugged with my eyebrows.

“Well, your performance during the previous contract has been excellent.”

“And you certainly reached many performance bonuses had they been written into the original deal.”

“I signed that during a weak point. Don’t expect me to cave so easily this time,” she said with a wink that meant we were back on track.

“I expect as much from a playmaker such as yourself.”

“Playmaker?”

I once heard that Mike Vick is a playmaker and Tom Brady makes plays. The crap that sports radio hosts pull to maintain an audience is amazing.

“Would you prefer a different term?”

“I should be MVP, or MVC.”

“What’s that?”

“Most valuable chick.”

“You’re going to regret that one later. Do you have a highlight film?”

“Neither I nor your friends would want to see that one.”

I solemnly nodded. “I don’t know why I decided to keep it from everyone.”

She held her hand up. “You don’t need to explain. At least you were consistent.”

“Do you value consistency?”

“Proven consistency should help in negotiations, don’t you think?”

“I admire your following a question with another question. Keeps me on the defensive.”

“You’re a good cook, Larry.”

“Thank you. Shouldn’t you be listing your own accomplishments?”

“Just for a second, let’s pretend that we’re a couple of adults having a real conversation. I’ll try to keep it short because this is kind of fun. Just listen to my words. You are a good cook.”

“Thank you.”

“I want this to sink in. You could have made Manwiches for 12 weeks and satisfied the terms of our agreement. Instead you tried something new every week.”

“I was inspired,” I said.

“That’s more like it. Suck up like that and you might even extend this session.”

“You went far beyond the call of duty many times. I noticed.”

“Good,” she replied. The wine gave her cheeks a healthy glow. Then again, it could have been my wine doing that.

“I have to say that we should continue the negotiations until a deal is met. No lawyers, no breaks, none of that baloney. Do we agree?”

“We do,” she said, offering her hand.

There was a mandatory break while we ate. The filet was like butter. Before I made this deal with Nadine, I didn’t cook much. Cooking for one is pathologically depressing. I found the practice therapeutic, and there was no reason to go buy a bunch of cookbooks with all the recipes online. Search engines are your friend. I even turned into a borderline food snob, paying double the price to get my produce from Whole Foods. I’d still hit the Kroger for staples that involved too many artificial ingredients.

I looked forward to cooking for her.

There was enough wine left for one more glass each.

“So, what can you offer me now that I don’t have any immediate medical needs?” I asked after a good-sized sip.

“I don’t know, that was my trump card all along.”

“I don’t have to tell you this…”

“But you will anyway,” she replied. Somehow her responses were sharper under the influence.

“You packed a hundred times better than the doctor.”

“What do you expect? He gets paid to cut, not for the follow-up crap. The desk girl could take care of that, to be honest.”

According to my calculations, she “packed” me 186 times. When you consider the details involved, and you don’t really want to get into it in the middle of dinner, that’s worth a lot more than a few hot meals.

“So you’re saying that nurses do it better.”

“It’s what we do. Do you really think I was so good just because I liked you?”

“I don’t know, you tell me.”

“I’m a professional,” Nadine said. “Maybe I’ll need you as a reference some day.”

“I give good reference.”

The waiter came by and asked about dessert. I’ve never made it to dessert at this place.

“You didn’t like me at first,” I continued.

“I felt kind of trapped by our vague agreement. Pretty soon, though, I figured out that I was getting a much better deal than money.”

“You don’t like money? Not a fan of the get-rich crowd?”

“I could do rich for a while. I barely get by sometimes, but I love my place.”

“You like living alone?”

“I like sleeping alone.”

I call that an anti-innuendo. She went on since I was busy typing something in my head.

“I had way too many bad roommates. It seems like with a roommate you’re always compromising about something.”

“That’s true. I haven’t had a roommate since my freshman year of college.”

“That’s something else.”

“Maybe I have a problem with sharing.”

She smiled at me. “So it’s a big deal that you let me walk in at all hours.”

“It’s a very big deal.”

I paid the check and tried to drink an entire glass of water in fifteen seconds to restore my equilibrium. Nadine waited outside as I went to the bathroom. There’s a black-and-white photo of a stunning topless woman near the urinal. Her smile alleviates any possible stage fright.

I paid the Valet ransom to free my car. It was still early, around eight in the evening, and the sun was about to set. I stopped at a sketchy convenience store and made an impulse purchase.

I kept a stadium blanket that I bought at a Titans game a few years ago in my trunk. After parking on the street I pulled the blanket out and Nadine nodded her approval. Piedmont Park is one of my favorite spots in town. There’s a great view of the skyline, and yes, you can actually see it through the smog. At the same time you don’t have to put down a lot of dough. Just pull out a blanket and a six-pack of Miller Lite and you’re golden. We found a nice spot in the middle of a giant green field, kicked off our shoes and cracked open a couple of Milwaukee’s finest. My beer-snob friends wouldn’t approve, in fact I wouldn’t approve 95% of the time, but I considered this to be hydration.



Piedmont Park, 7:42 p.m.

I pulled Nadine’s feet into my lap and started massaging her right foot.

“You need a pedicure,” I said.

“This is an unusual tactic,” she replied. “Trying to lure me into making a bad deal?”

I dug my thumbs into her heel and she closed her eyes.

“Mmm…” she said from the back of her throat. “You do this a lot with other girls?”

I stopped for a moment.

“I’ve rubbed a foot before.”

“You’re very good at this. That’s all. I didn’t mean to imply anything.”

“That’s quite all right,” I said, continuing.

She leaned forward and put her hand on mine. “Do you ever wonder why we’ve never had sex?”

I had the Peyton Manning playoff choke face on.

It commonly happens that two people who spend a lot of time together will end up doing things that adults commonly do when they turn out the lights. We had never done the deed, but we hadn’t been completely chaste.

“According to Bill Clinton’s logic, aka bullshit, we haven’t had sex,” she said.

“Mmarf,” I replied.

“I know you date. It’s fine, because that’s what you do. I have to tell you something.”

In the history of the world that sentence has never led to a statement that I’ve wanted to hear. I listened anyway. I swallowed hard. It wasn’t theatrical; my timing was poor.

“It’s about the day of your draft party.”

Oh boy.

“I’d been flirting with this guy in radiology, no harm no foul. Instead of walking off with the last word, as I liked to do, I lingered. He made it clear that he’d like to get some breakfast with me. It was implied that we’d go back to my place.”

OK, so I thought that I knew where this was going.

“We ate quickly. I think I got a little indigestion. It all ended a little too quickly, if you know what I mean.”

I nodded. Bastard.

“It doesn’t always happen with me, but it had been a long time.”

The world narrowed as she said her next sentence.

“A long time.”

A verb short of a sentence, I know, but her point was clear.

“He left, I showered, then remembered that you were overdue for a packing. As I was about to walk out the door I got this sudden urge to vamp it up a bit.”

When I meet with potential clients, I try not to leave any dead air in conversation, because a pause can be the difference between working and not working. That day, when I opened my door, I had trouble talking. Dressing up for no apparent reason wasn’t the kind of thing that Nadine did. At least that was my understanding to date. “Your timing was excellent.”

“It wasn’t planned that way. You were a bit worn out when you woke up later, and you still made me dinner.”

I made stir fry. Cut some chicken, open a bag of frozen veggies, add some soy sauce and hot sauce and you’re golden. The meal’s quality was directly in proportion to my hangover.

“I thought you worked an 18-hour day, so I was impressed that you came over at all.”

“I lied about that.”

“Yeah, that kind of came out. We don’t have to put all the cards on the table yet, you know.”

“Yet,” she whispered.

The setting sun did strange and wonderful things to her eyes. She broke the moment by talking.

“I asked for extra hot sauce, and when you gave it to me, our hands touched.”

“That wasn’t terribly unusual.”

“I was still horny. I kind for forgot about that until you touched me.”

Our hands brushed, if that. I learned a few things about Nadine Walker that night.

“My instincts were good that night.”

“They certainly were,” she replied, smiling at the memory.

“What you did that night. . .” she started.

“Was exactly what you needed. Am I wrong?” I said.

“It was never needed more. How did you know?”

“I read people.”

“I can be so transparent sometimes.”

“Well yes, that night you were. Don’t think I have some special insight. I rarely win at poker.”

“Do I give you the same look every time?”

“Most of the time, I just know. Didn’t you?”

“Your signs are more obvious than mine.”

I blushed. “I thought you had already gone to the bathroom to clean up.”

“And I thought that you were in pain, but you rolled over and there he was.”

“You weren’t shy.”

“You started this.”

“If you need to assign blame, I accept.”

“I never thought of scrubs as erotic,” she said. “I understand that men have the naughty nurse scenario in their heads, but aren’t I supposed to be wearing white with one of those stupid little caps?”

“Maybe it was the peach scrubs in particular.”

We both finished the thought at the same time. She looked at me and smiled again, like we shared a secret. I guess we did.

“I only wore them that one time,” she continued. “I think we need to focus on your hands. My dogs are barking.”

“Excuse me?”

She gently dropped her foot on my hand. “You may continue,” she said, leaning back. I seized her foot and did.

I finished with the left foot just in time to refill our cups and watch the sun go down. We sat next to each other but didn’t touch. The treeline kind of obscured things but we got the jist of it.

Ten minutes later we got up, deposited our empties in the nearest trash can and went back to my car. Our silence continued. After it was obvious where I was going, Nadine spoke.

“Can you drop me off at my place?”

“I can do that.”

We parked in front of her building. I started to open my door but she grabbed my wrist. The grip was firm.

“You don’t have to walk me up.”

“It’s not a have to kind of thing,” I said, looking her in the eyes. There were flecks of dark green in her left iris. I can’t say that I had ever noticed them before.

“Go home, Larry,” she said.

“But the negotiations.”

The tone of the evening had shifted without me noticing. “Do me a favor and don’t go anywhere for a while, OK?”

“OK,” I replied.

She nodded, got out of the car, and walked into her condo. I sat in the car for two minutes. Then, in typical Atlanta fashion, I pulled out and drove the 20 feet to the parking space nearest to my building.

I got home, took the greatest piss in the history of the universe, and thought about what to do next.