Lawrence Eisenberg

It was the first anxiety attack of the rest of his life.

Everything had seemed okay. Seat belt buckled, seat upright, a tingle of adventure. Sam had been reading through his background material, underlining and making notes with such concentration that he barely noticed takeoff.

The captain was in the middle of his peppy speech about how every one of the 2,456 air miles to Los Angeles was going to be packed with fun, when, without warning, Sam's mouth felt as though it was filled with sand. His eyes itched, and when he rubbed them with his fingers--whose tips had gone cold--the left one began to twitch. His nostrils were clogged, though he knew that if he blew his nose it wouldn't matter. He forced himself to keep swallowing and, feeling as though his hands were moving in slow motion, put his notes back into the carry-on. Then he clasped his arms around his chest, trying to slow down the spasms of fear.

He looked out the window, hoping to find comfort in the clouds, but they gave him nothing, except the certain knowledge that he was alone with his anxiety. He wondered how fast the money in the bank would go if he couldn't make a living. Some hell of a time for a career switch.

Twenty-two days ago, on a sunny afternoon in May, a week after his thirty-eighth birthday, Sam had been fired from his job.

It had started with what seemed a routine call from Patrick Ransom, his employer of nine years. There was the glum hello, Ransom's trademark when talking with employees or lower echelon civil servants-as opposed to the hearty hello when talking to clients and the other rich and famous people with whom he always associated. Sam played his part in the charade, asking where he had flown lately (Ransom owned his own jet and flew like other people jogged).

A conversation with him was usually filled with long silences, but today they seemed longer. It sounded like a serious client crisis.

"I've been thinking a lot about restructuring the New York office of Ransom Public Relations," Ransom said, as though Sam didn't know what the company was called, "and I've decided to go in a different direction." Pause. "There isn't enough business coming in and, economics being the way they are...Hold on."

Click. Real life did have cliffhangers, after all. Sam felt as though he'd developed lockjaw. He was being fired. Over the phone, from Beverly Hills.

He could picture the bastard on the other end. Evenly tanned, with highly coiffed, ingeniously transplanted sandy hair, and, at fifty, a wrinkle-free face, thanks to a freebie Brazilian facelift he denied having had. He'd be wearing one of his sixty or seventy leather outfits (in a town where there were more skins on the residents than in the zoo, his was considered a serious collection. He'd recently become co-owner, with a former actor named Augie March, of the Santa Monica boutique, The Hides of March). On his wrist would be one of the dozen or so expensive watches given to him by Clint Eastwood or Farrah Fawcett, Burt Reynolds or Ilie Nastase.

Behind him, on the wall, were autographed photos of the beautiful, famous women whose beds he claimed to have shared as one of Hollywood's reigning bachelors--whenever he wasn't married; he had five ex-wives. Amidst the gallery of conquests hung the propeller from a DC6, in which he'd once crashed and walked away. At this moment he would be tilting back in his Peruvian chair, made from the hide of a single llama. Feet, in expensive leather sneakers, would be on his desk--a slab of lapis lazuli supported by four gilded miniature oil wells, given to him by a sheik for some small service, like getting him invited to a party.

Patrick Ransom, mover of mountains, was about to move one onto Sam's head.

Click on again. "Sorry," said Ransom. "I had to take that call. It was from Vanna White’s manager...As I was saying, I can’t afford to carry you anymore, so I'll be..."

Sam broke in. "When did you decide all this? Did something happen?"

"No." Ransom’s voice softened. Well, softened wasn't accurate. It got less sullen. "I’ve been off flying for a week and doing a lot of thinking."

So far he hadn't given Sam one piece of information. "Are you replacing me? Are you closing the office? What?"

"At this point in time I don't know my plans."

This son of a bitch had a point in time. He certainly didn't have a heart.

"There isn't enough revenue coming in from Ransom Public Relations-New York to justify your salary," Ransom continued.

No sense in arguing. "When do you want me to leave?" Sam asked, not believing this was happening.

"May twenty-seventh," Ransom said. "That goes for your secretary too."

Sam knew there was more to be said, but couldn't think of where to begin and was afraid to break the connection.

"Are you still there?" Ransom's voice had an edge. The voice of a slasher looking down at his victim and asking, "Are you still alive?"

"Yes, okay. I'll make arrangem--"

Ransom said good-bye and hung up.

Sam replaced the phone gently on the receiver and wondered why he hadn't seized the moment to tell Ransom what a cheap, conniving, nasty, imperious sleazebag he was. How ungrateful for loyalty and hard work, how unforgiving of small mistakes. After nine years, firing him, with ten days' notice. The moment was lost.

If he'd been paying close attention, he would have seen it coming. The company had dropped a lot of business in the past year, and he'd had to lay off two of his associates. For the past six months it had just been Sam and a secretary, and he'd spent most of his time trying, unsuccessfully, to get new business. He only vaguely knew that he'd lost the elusive "it" that you needed to stay a successful public relations executive: the ability to woo potential clients by promising much more than you ever intended to deliver.

I have to update my resume, he thought. How much money do we have? He needn't have asked. After they'd made the down payment on Peter's first semester at Brown they had exactly $31,000 in the bank. No Ginnie Maes or no-load funds or shelters or any of the other crap everybody he knew was always talking about.

I have to call Julie. He couldn't think of how to handle it because he'd never really had to break bad news to her. Punching in the number, he rehearsed several openings. In the end he settled for his usual method of dealing with a crisis joking. "Hi," he said. "I have a Double Jeopardy answer for you. Just give me the correct question and you win a microwave bidet. Ready? Here goes: Billy Martin, Joan of Arc and yours truly, Sam Newman."

Julie laughed. "You know I'm terrible at that, Sam! I give up.”

"Who are three people famous for getting fired?"

Silence. Then a lot of questions, most of which Sam couldn't answer. "It's an economy move and he wants to save my salary, and it's not negotiable."

Julie's voice was like flowing cream. "You sound too calm, Sam. What are you thinking?"

He let out a long sigh. "That I'd like to strap Ransom's balls to a bobsled! Oh, God, how I want to open the obit page tomorrow and find him on it, with his name misspelled."

She giggled. "Good. Your priorities are straight." Her voice escalated. "I love you, Sam. And so do a lot of other people. Every PR company in town'll offer you a job. Don't worry."

She was probably worried sick herself, he thought.

He went out to Hilda's desk, not knowing how to break the news to her, even though he'd only known her for four weeks. Gloria, his secretary for the past three years, had left to move to Seattle. He'd interviewed a few trendy types with pseudo-English accents and decided to hire Hilda, a sixty-two-year-old black woman who'd once been a Broadway actress and, for the past few years, had worked as a secretary. His L. A. associates had thought he was nuts. Hilda had no glamour, she wasn't "upscale" (there was no word Sam hated worse). All she had was intelligence and quick wit, and a wonderful, velvety voice that was like a hug.

She smiled warmly and he put his hand up, as though to erase the smile. "I've just spoken to our boss. The cocksuck...uh, Mr. Ransom, said he's economizing. You and I have until May 27th to leave."

She stood up and hugged him. "Your first description was accurate, honey. The man is evil and God'll punish him. You've got to believe that."

Sam realized he was trembling. "Sometimes God takes too long," he said. "I'd like to put Agent Orange into his coke jar, that son of a bitch... I hate it that I just hired you and soon you'll be out of a job."

"Don't you worry about me, Sam. I'll get by. You have yourself and your family to think of."

He held on tightly to her, kissed her cheek and left the office.

When he got home he found a note from Julie, saying she'd gone to the market and Peter was at graduation rehearsal at the McBurney School.

Sam changed into shorts, dug out his roller skates, knee pads, and wrist braces, and went behind the building to the makeshift tennis court, which wasn't being used at the moment. Lacing on his skates, he circled the court, feeling his heart pumping up. He rolled on his right foot, then his left, got onto his haunches and did a few elaborate curves.

It was 6:00 P.M., but the sun was still high in the sky, which, he realized, was the exact color of Julie's eyes. Thank God for her, he thought.

He and Julie had first seen each other when both were eighteen and students at Brown. They'd been in an English class together and he used to notice her around campus, before they'd actually met. Several people had remarked that they looked like brother and sister. Both were tall (he was 6’1", Julie 5'7"), with clean, straight features and black hair streaked with premature gray. They even had matching blue-gray eyes, cleft chins, and dimples in their cheeks.

But what made Sam handsome and kept Julie from being beautiful was an attitude. His face reflected perpetual amusement. He was probably the preppiest undergraduate in Rhode Island that year, the most popular man in his fraternity. A friend had once said--actually, a lot of people had said--"When you're as good looking as you are, you don't have to work at anything. Which was ironic, because Sam had always felt he had to work twice as hard as anybody to convince people that he was serious. His body, for instance, was in near-perfect shape, and he was always told how lucky he was; nobody bothered to consider that he worked out religiously to keep it that way. (It wasn't until years later that Sam concluded that some people will always try to punish you if you're too accomplished or too good-looking or having too good a time. But poll any ten people, and they'll all tell you that envy was an emotion they never felt, just as a sense of humor was something they were never without).

Julie usually wore a no-nonsense expression and very little makeup; she never bothered with a trendy hairdo and, though her clothes were impeccable, they always seemed a season behind. She had a good voice that, on another woman, would have been sensational. It had a sexy crack--but always seemed to crack at the wrong time.

She was "intellectual," people said derogatorily, she asked a lot of questions in class, and sometimes spoke in what people described as "old English" (using words like "abstruse," "albeit," "to wit"). When not attending classes, she kept mostly to herself, which made her even more unpopular. It's one thing for people not to like you, but if you don't seem to care about it, then they hate you. People called her "the ice princess." The hot men on campus never asked her out and when the nerds did, she turned them down.

Sam never thought about Julie, or at least thought he didn't. But one day a friend told him that she'd been in a car accident and needed blood. He took a taxi to the hospital and donated a pint.

Next day he got a call from a nurse, saying that if he had some free time later that day, Julie would appreciate a visit from him. Reluctantly, he went, wondering what he'd started.

She was sitting against a bunch of pillows, her hair loose, wearing makeup and looking beautiful. Extending her hand, she said, "I'm Julie. We've never met formally, and I was wondering: Why did you give me your blood?"

He shrugged. "You needed it," he said.

"But why me? Why you?"

"I don't know." At that moment, he did: He was in love with this eccentric girl. All the while he was fucking every sorority bimbo on campus, he’d been saving part of himself for her without realizing it.(On the day he asked her to marry him, Julie told him she’d known it all along; what's more, that she'd been keeping herself in reserve for him. "What if I hadn’t gone to the hospital that day?" he'd asked. She'd shrugged. "Something else would have brought us together...I would have seen to that.") Soon after they'd become engaged, people began noticing how pretty Julie was; the main reason was that her no-nonsense expression was gone. To Sam she was always beautiful, and, steadying (even, he was surprised to learn, while making love).

Graduation day, when Julie and Sam were 20, was also their wedding day. Peter was born a year later.

Marrying at all was unorthodox in 1970, but marrying at twenty was considered bizarre. Sam's parents encouraged it because they had also married at twenty and their backgrounds had been anything but orthodox. Sam's paternal grandfather, Gottfried Neuman, of Vienna, had gone on holiday to Lake Como in the summer of 1923, where he fell in love with Flavia Batcelder, daughter of the rabbi of Como. They married and went to live in Vienna, where Sam's father, Luciano, was born in 1926. The week before Luciano was to be bar mitzvahed, his parents were taken away by the Gestapo (luckily, he was at a friend's house in the country that day). Before he was smuggled to the United States, he was told that his parents were in Auschwitz and would join him when the war was over.

Relatives in New York took Luciano in and sent him to school, where he managed to erase his native accent and became interested in anthropology. One day, at the Metropolitan Museum, he spotted the most beautiful girl he'd ever seen, and introduced himself. She was Rosalita Levi, who told him that her father was a career diplomat stationed in Paris and her mother was a full-blooded Zuni princess. From this union, in 1950, came Sam.

He could never remember a day that he hadn't loved his parents madly. His father, blond and handsome, was uproariously funny, constantly playing practical jokes on his mother, who had a giggle that was like a rushing brook. They took him along on every vacation, often to Zuni reservations in New Mexico ("Look at the strong cheekbones on that boy," his Zuni relatives would say). No matter what age he was, he was treated
as an equal. They never had a lot of money, but always enough to take Sam to the theater and to good restaurants and to buy him anything he wanted at Brooks Brothers. Eight years ago, while on a trip to the Grand Canyon, their car had skidded over a cliff and they'd died in the Colorado River. Every time Sam thought about them, he ached.

Julie's parents made him ache for a different reason. Dr. Joshua Carter was a child psychologist, clearly a case of the blind misleading the innocent. He never talked to people, only at them. Julie's mother, Bebe Lipsig Carter, was the compleat bitch, who had gone far beyond Jewish princessdom and thought she was a royal czarina, for whom the whole world was required to audition. She looked-and acted-like Margaret Dumont in the Marx brothers movies, without any of the fun.

When Bebe heard that Julie had accepted blood from a stranger, she told her she should have checked out his background first. And when Julie told the Carters she was going to marry Sam, they were appalled that their daughter--who, after all, had been brought up on Park Avenue--should marry somebody of such mixed heritage ("An American Indian! Honestly! What will the children be like?")

Sam always wondered how anybody as wonderful as Julie had come from these humanoids. He'd managed to keep his temper under control most of the time, until a little over a year ago. They were visiting, and Peter greeted them, showing off his new punk haircut. (Neither Sam nor Julie liked it, but figured that Peter needed to get it out of his system).
Bebe shouted, "The idea of any grandson of mine doing something like this is unthinkable!" She turned to Julie and Sam and said, "You should be ashamed!" Sam said, quietly, "Your grandson has parents who support what he does because we love him. Love, I'm sure, is a concept you don't understand and an emotion you've never felt."

"I've never been so insulted in my life!" she said, just before swooping out with Joshua, who was muttering, "Reaction formation, reaction formation..." And Sam had said to Julie, "With a father like that, who's probably destroyed the psyches of thousands, how can you still want to be a psychologist?" She had answered, "To right the wrongs."

Sam hadn't seen them since, though Julie and Peter would sometimes sneak out to visit them. A few months ago Joshua had retired, sending mental health statistics through the roof, Sam was sure, and the Garters moved to a condo outside San Diego. If there was a God, Sam had thought then, he'd never have to see them again.

But if there was a God, he thought now, why had he been fired?
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CHAPTER 2

He became uncomfortably aware of speculative eyes from the woman in the aisle seat. She was clearly in her 60s, despite the camouflage: platinum hair, with long wisps hanging from her ears down to her shoulders, like Goldie Hawn or an Afghan hound. Tight-fitting, black and white tiger-striped dress, with a leopard-spotted belt. Trailing over the freckled cleavage and reaching her stomach was a necklace of ivory elephants. Her fingernails were painted white, her eyelids blue and her lips, which seemed permanently pursed, were mahogany.

"I always feel exhilarated when I'm flying to L.A.," she said, segueing into: "What is it you Jew?"

What? What was this woman saying? "Excuse me?" he asked.

"What is it you Jew?"

It dawned on him: "What is it you do?" "I'm a writer."

"What kind of writing?" "Magazines."

"Interesting," she said. "Have you been at it long?"

He ran his lower teeth along his lips. "About a week...full time."

"What about the rest of the time?"

"I used to be in PR. Show business PR." He was sorry he'd said that. Now she'd spend the rest of the trip asking about the real story behind every celebrity who ever lived. Wrong. Her opening remarks were a launching pad. "My jawder is a jirector," she said.

"Excuse me?"

"My jawder is a jirector." She was close to losing patience with him.
Then he got it: "My daughter is a director." All you needed was the key and you could crack the code.

"Oh, what does she j...direct?"

"Commercials, for now, but she's looking for movie properties. I'm happier about my older jawder. She's a joctor." Sam wondered whether the middle daughter, if there was one, was a jentist. She turned out to be a marine biologist who lived in San Jiego. Mrs. Jaroslow (it wasn't "Daroslow," just a lucky coincidence) said he should really do a story about her daughters, and proceeded to give him detailed biographies broken down into: their nicknames, genetic characteristics, intelligence and how each had kept her room when she was growing up.

I really need this, he thought.

Reaching into her initialed Fendi purse, Mrs. Jaroslow removed her initialed Christian Dior wallet, from which hung a plastic accordion of pictures. All the daughters, shown at various ages, were rather pretty versions of their mother. Amidst them, on occasion, was a tall, goofy-looking man. "That was my Cecil," she said. "I buried him last year." Sam wondered whether he'd been dead at the time.

Closing his eyes, he feigned sleep, with an occasional snore, but she continued talking, maybe on the theory that he might absorb the information as one did a language tape.

He felt a gentle nudge and cracked open his eyes to see a meltingly beautiful blond stewardess smiling at him. "What would you like to drink, sir?"

"A Bloody Mary...Two," he said, rubbing his eyes.

As soon as the stewardess left, Mrs. Jaroslow commented, "Did you catch the Beth Raines hairstyle on her? Everybody wants to look like 'Temptation.' I thank God none of my girls became stewardesses. Nowadays they call themselves flight attendants, but I call them whores. You watch the show?"

"What show?"

" 'Fortunes,'" she said indignantly. "What show did you think?" She held up the Ladies Home Journal. The cover featured Beth Raines, a 50ish former has-been, who was now the biggest star on television, maybe the world, thanks to "Fortunes," the hottest, newest prime time soap opera. Everybody loved her character—"Temptation"—because she vamped or insulted all the other characters. The casting inspiration was that this evil woman resembled a Madonna--gossamer silvery blond hair, blue eyes, skin like satin (photographed, no doubt, through enough gauze to wrap a mummy), and a soft, husky voice, full of promise.

Mrs. Jaroslow tapped Beth Raines's face with her index finger. "As beautiful as she is, that's how much of a tramp she's been her whole life. She's a `Temptation-and-a-half'. And that's not her real nose ... God knows what else she's had done to herself, if you get my drift. I heard recently," she added authoritatively, "that she's as dumb as dishwater and every smart thing she's ever said--except `I do,' of course--was written by her press agent."

You may be right, Sam thought. He'd written clever lines for some of his dim-witted clients--and all of them had behaved as though they'd made them up themselves. But that was the PR business, to which he'd given almost 18 years of his life. He went into it soon after graduation from Brown, because Julie was pregnant and he decided to delay his original ambitions--sportswriter, newscaster, investigative reporter--in favor of something that would get them quick money. His first job was at CBS, his second at MGM, third at Burson Marsteller, and his last at Ransom.

Always he told himself he would eventually get out and become a full-time writer. Ten years ago he'd become a part-time writer, selling humor and travel stories to several magazines and doing celebrity interviews and glamour industry pieces for Cosmopolitan. At least, he'd thought, if I have to do PR to earn a living, I'll feed my creative needs part-time (he also fed their bank account, though his free-lance earnings were nowhere near enough for them to live on). Two years ago he'd had a novel published--"Falling Up the Ladder"--a comedy about a TV network. The reviews had been terrific, but the publisher hadn't promoted or advertised it and practically nobody had bought it. So he had remained a press agent.
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At 6:30 P.M. on the day Sam was fired, the sun was still shining and he'd rolled most of the tension out of his system. Removing his skates and protective guards, he went back to the house. Julie and Peter were in the kitchen and he hugged them, then took a bottle of champagne from the refrigerator, filled three tulip glasses, and held them out.

As Peter took his, Sam got the peculiar feeling that he'd grown since this morning--his 17-year-old baby, who would be leaving for college in less than three months and who already wore a bigger shoe size than his father. Peter, in his Bill Rodgers running suit and Nike running shoes, was a younger, better version of himself, a super-preppy, whose closet had some of Sam's clothes from Brown, ("Preppy never goes out of style," the boy had said)

"What are we celebrating?" Peter asked.

"In times of joy and sorrow, always champagne," Sam answered.

"Who said that?" Peter asked.

"Your paternal great grandmother, Flavia Neuman."

"I thought she died in Auschwitz."

"She did," said Sam, "but the Nazis didn't dehumanize their victims retroactively. They once had lives like everybody else. That was one of her credos."

Peter asked, "What's this occasion--joy or sorrow?"

"It's a little early to tell," Sam answered. "I've been let... Euphemisms...Our lives are filled with euphemisms...To get to the point, I've been fired."

Peter got very still, his eyes seeming to have grown to twice their normal size. When Sam told him about the conversation with Ransom, the boy said, "That fuck-knuckle! Are you going to sue him?"

"Fuck-knuckle? That's new." He smiled. "I'm afraid I can't sue. But..." He nodded. "...the bastard hasn't seen the last of me." He punched his right fist into his left palm. "I never told him that I'm part Italian, and everybody knows that Italian men are interested in only two things--revenge and food. Speaking of which, we have twenty minutes to change, because we're going to the Cafe des Artistes."

As they walked downtown on Broadway, they were accosted regularly by beggars shaking empty Styrofoam coffee containers. On 68th Street, in front of the post office, a bum in a belted raincoat held out a McDonald’s thick shake cup. "Can you help me?” he asked. "I was sexually abused as a child, I'm homeless, mentally disturbed and disabled. I'm AIDS-positive because of a careless transfusion. I don't snatch chains or purses and I don't want to be a drain on society. I'm hungry!" As they slipped past him, the man said, "Can't you spare something? I don't have a job!"

"Neither do I," Sam said softly.

The bum shouted, "Whatsamatter? You got no fuckin' compassion?"

When they'd turned the corner, Julie said, "He's a whole week of Oprah." They laughed intermittently all the way to the restaurant.

Dinner was festive and Sam ordered the most expensive items on the menu, always aware of Peter's eyes on him. Occasionally, between bites of wild mushroom, Sam would feel a pang of panic, but he washed it down with wine.

On the walk home, Peter wore one of his characteristic worried, secretive expressions that both troubled and annoyed Sam. It was as though Peter wanted him to know something was upsetting him, but also wanted him to know he wouldn't burden him with it.

When they got to the house, Sam followed him into his room. "What's bothering you, Peter?"

The boy shrugged.

"Is it about my job?"

Peter smiled shyly. "Well, that's one of the things...I...uh..." What was he about to say? That he was on crack? That he was gay? "I...uh... have been asked to make the valedictory speech at my graduation."

And what's the good news? Sam thought. Sam held him at arm's length. "That's wonderful, son."

Peter shrugged. "Yes, I guess it is...but I'm not sure I'm the one who deserves it. At least two people in my class have better grades, and one has a nicer personality."

"This is a prejudiced father talking, but I can't imagine anybody with a nicer personality than you. When a valedictory decision is made, a lot of factors are considered, and whoever made the decision obviously thought you were the best. Never feel guilty about honors." He hugged Peter. "I'm so proud of you. I've been proud of you every day of your life, but this is special. "

"Dad, what do you do when you feel unworthy?"

"You mean what do I do--personally? Every fourth morning I wake up thinking, 'This is the day they're going to find me out.' But I manage to fake it through the day...and if I can't handle it on my own I talk to Mommy or to one of my friends. It's called the Importer Phenomenon, or something like that. If you have any real friends to talk this over with, you should. If not, I'm always here for you, son. You might feel uncomfortable talking to old Dad, but remember that I've probably been through everything--except nobody ever asked me to be valedictorian."

Peter hugged Sam and kissed his cheek. "I love you, Dad."

"I'll tell you how you can show your love, Peter. If something is on your mind, say it. Don't give me goony eyes and expect me to guess what's bothering you. Okay?"

Peter nodded. "And, Dad...don't worry about that douche, Ransom. You'll get a better job." Sam kissed him on the neck and went to his room.

Julie was taking a shower, and came out damp and naked, something she'd never done before. She wasn't shy about being naked during or after sex, but always before. Sam, who'd been lying in bed, semi-erect, became hard immediately.

Their lovemaking was so good that, right after they climaxed, he said, "Maybe it pays to get fired." They stayed together for a while, then Sam rolled over, sweat pouring off him. "Jesus," he said. "I need a cigarette."

"Have one and I'll bust your prick," Julie said. "You gave it up thirteen years, two months, and four days ago, according to the calendar inside your closet."

"Bust my prick? Where did you learn that--from your mother? Ms. Yea-Verily-and-Forsooth has come a long way since college."

She sighed exaggeratedly. "Life has left its mark on me." Her voice cracked on "mark."

"It was so good that it called for a smoke, was all I meant."

"You were smoking most of the time, tiger." Her voice cracked on "smoking."

He kissed her nose. "What were you doing in my closet?"

She giggled. "I look in there from time to time."

"You also inspect my jockey shorts for lipstick?"

"No, silly, nothing like that. It's a way of getting to know you better."

He sat up and rested his elbow gently on her stomach. "We've been together for more than half our lives. How much better could you possibly know me? I have no secrets."

"Everybody has secrets. You may not know that you do. When I look into your closet and see the way you hang your clothes...how you put things on shelves...It's not to spy. Just to get better acquainted with you."

"And here I thought I was an open book. You want to see another side of me? Drop into the office and watch me work the phone. You'll see the side that leaps through hoops and bullshits and is slick and subservient and ass-licking. But do it fast. As we all know, I only have nine days left." He ran his hand along her side, from shoulder to calf. "There are parts of you I don't see. I'd like to spend four hours examining your crotch."

She laughed. "You sound 12 years old."

"I am 12. Adulthood is overrated and maturity sucks. Speaking of which-"

"Not now, sailor."

"Julie, I loved it when you came to bed naked with all the lights on. I'd like to spend a whole week with you alone with both of us naked."

"My body isn't that great."

"Eye of the beholder, luscious thighs. We could throw away all the mirrors and then I would be the only one to see you. God, I love you." He kissed her shoulder and moved to her collarbone, heading for her nipples.

She nudged him away. "Not now, Sam. I feel too peaceful."

"Whatsamatter? You got no fuckin' compassion?" Giggling. Long pauses. Fondling. "All in all, Julie, we haven't exactly had a tough life."

She was half asleep. "I haven't. That's because you always made it easy for me. I love you, Sam."

They were almost asleep when the team of buffalos settled into Sam's stomach."Julie, what am I going to do?"

"We'll think of something," she mumbled, her light snoring trailing right after.

Tell that to the buffalos, he thought.

Copyright Lawrence Eisenberg. 2009. All Rights Reserved
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