Westlake, Donald E - Novel 42 by A Likely Story (v1.1)

Author:A Likely Story (v1.1) [Story, A Likely]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Saturday, June 11th

WHAT a week; I never thought I’d get through it alive.

The trauma started on Tuesday, when Vickie called to say we were destined to have dinner together on Friday; all of us. It seems Ginger had tired of my inactivity and had made the Approach Direct, calling Vickie at work, identifying herself as “Tom’s friend,” and saying (according to Vickie), “We’d love to have you and your friend to dinner. Tom has just raved about how much help you’ve been on the book.” Spasms closed my throat when Vickie reported this, but I did manage to say, “What did you tell her?”

“What could I tell her? I was so startled all I could think to say was how delighted I’d be.”

“Oh, boy.”

“So we set a date for Friday.”

“This Friday?”

“Of course. Tom, it’ll be all right, don’t worry about it.”

“Who’s going to be your friend?”

“I’ll bring Carl along,” she said.

Well. Carl Bindel is Vickie’s secretary, a willowy boy in his late twenties with a sandy bushy moustache, large moist hazel eyes, spectacles with frames the same color as the moustache, and an absolutely terrifying sex life centered around various S-M bars in the West Village. There is absolutely no possible sexual permutation that could wind up with Carl and Vickie in a carnal relationship; it would be practically cross-species. Even Gretchen would take one look at those two and know they didn’t hang out together, so the idea of Vickie passing off Carl as her boyfriend to Ginger would have been laughable if it weren’t so horrifying. “Vickie!” I said. “Carl?”

“He can be very butch when he wants,” she promised. “When his mother comes to New York, for instance. Besides, I already asked and he said yes. He’ll do just fine. He says it’ll be a hoot.”

“Uhh, Vickie,” I said, “maybe you should suggest that he not call anything a hoot during dinner.”

“He’ll do just fine, Tom,” she insisted. “Are we still on for our conference tomorrow?”

“You bet,” I said, but faintly.

The rest of the week, apart from editorial conferences, I spent working on a couple of magazine pieces to pay the rent, trying to get them out of the way before the copy-edited Christmas Book comes back, which will be any day now. Unfortunately, it seems impossible to get Lance out of the way, so I’m still working in the bedroom, which is all right for now, but once The Christmas Book returns this room is going to get awfully crowded.

The problem is, since Lance hasn’t found an apartment yet and we’re going to be out on Fire Island all next month anyway, it’s been agreed he’ll stay here through July He absolutely swears and vows and promises he’ll have made some other arrangement by August first, but in the meantime his interest in both of his searches—a place to live and a new girlfriend—seems to have slackened considerably He’s spending more and more evenings at home, and is now an apparently permanent addition to my weekend jaunts with the kids.

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