Pavlov's Dog by David Kurman

Author:David Kurman [Kurman, David]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-78535-614-8
Publisher: John Hunt Publishing
Published: 2017-11-24T00:00:00+00:00

He wasted several precious minutes deciding if he should go. If he was fast, really lightning-round fast, he could go to her, give her his pitch, make a date, and still be back in time to record the show.

Panting for breath, he had no idea what he was going to say. Who knew if she’d even remember that small, meager moment they had shared, months ago? Who knew if it had even been as memorable to her, as it had been to Stan?

He finally got to the address the barman had given him; it was a vaguely rundown apartment complex, and, winded far more than he cared to admit to himself, he leaned against the mailbox out front while he tried to catch his elusive breath. He looked nervously at his watch. Okay, no time to catch his breath, he’d have to worry about that later.

He chucked himself against the lobby door, uncaring of the consequences, pleased as well as slightly embarrassed, when it turned out the door was unlocked and opened inward; he took several faltering steps before awkwardly regaining his balance.

Okay. No elevator. Fuckity, fuckity, fuckity, he thought in perfect rhythm with his pounding heart as he bounced up all seven flights of stairs, and hurled himself at her front door, repeatedly. He looked intensely at his watch again: at best, he had about three minutes to do this.

“Hey … hey! Open up! Listen … sorry … I don’t have a lot of time but … I … just haven’t been able to stop thinking about you.”

Talking was taking more out of him than he had anticipated and he leaned heavily against the doorframe and clutched at his chest. “Please. I just … I just want … to see your face again. Just for a moment …”

A befuddled fifty-something man, his reading glasses perched clumsily on the end of his nose, opened the door, just a fraction. “Um … can I help you?”

Hope, who had been standing, arms crossed, in her doorframe across the hall for most of the performance, coughed politely. “Stan? I live over here.”

“Oh.”

As Stan turned to go, the man gently pinched Stan’s shirt-sleeve with his thumb and forefinger. “Does that mean you take back what you said?”

“Well, I—”

“Staaaan!” Hope warned.

“Right, right … coming …”

He let himself be led into her apartment, but he didn’t notice anything other than her light blue eyes, which were so pale it looked like someone had forgotten to finish coloring them in. His eyes were drawn relentlessly to her bottom lip—pink and proud—jutting out slightly like a window ledge. She had ruler-straight hair—it was quite a bit shorter than he’d remembered—that couldn’t decide if it was blond or brunette and wasn’t going to be making a commitment any time soon. And major, major jugs. Seriously, you could lose a bicycle pump in there.

He tried to straighten himself, his untucked clothes, his wild hair.

“So, what were you saying—”

Stan was too tired to even hold up a hand; he gradually bent over, silently cursing the nagging stitch in his side.

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