Troy missed the interplay between Carol and Nick. So he was quite surprised, when he turned around and sat down after the final applause, to find Nick’s shoulders set in an unmistakable pose of hostility. “Wasn’t she wonderful, angel?” Troy said to Carol. “And how about you, Professor? Was this the first time you heard her sing?”
Nick nodded. “She was great,” he said, almost grudgingly. “And I am thirsty. Can a man get a drink in this place?”
Troy was slightly offended. “Well, pardon us,” he said. “So sorry that the entertainment lasted so long.” He tried to signal for the waiter. “What’s eating him, angel?” he said conversationally to Carol.
Carol shrugged her shoulders. Then, trying to lighten the atmosphere, she leaned toward Nick and tapped him on the forearm on top of the table. “Hey, Nick,” she said, “have you been taking angry pills?”
Nick quickly withdrew his arm and grumbled something inaudible as a reply. He turned away from the conversation and saw that Angie was approaching the table. He stood up automatically and both Carol and Troy joined him. “You were fantastic,” said Carol, a little too loud, just as soon as Angie was within earshot.
“Thanks… Hi,” replied Angie, as she walked up to the table and took the chair that Troy had pulled out for her. She spent a few moments graciously acknowledging the praise from people at the nearby tables. Then she sat down and smiled. “You must be Carol Dawson,” she said easily, leaning across the table toward the reporter.
Angie was even more beautiful in person than she had been in the picture on the disc jacket. Her coloring was a dark brown, not quite black. Her makeup, including the light pink lipstick, was muted to permit her natural assets, including virtually perfect white teeth on prominent display when she smiled, to draw the attention. But beyond the beauty was the woman herself. No still photograph could do justice to the natural warmth that radiated from Angie. You liked her immediately.
“And you must be Nick Williams,” Angie said, extending her hand to Nick. He was still standing, looking uncomfortable and uncertain, although Troy had already seated himself. “Troy has told me so many things about you in the past few days, I feel as if we’re already friends. He claims that you’ve read every novel ever written that’s worth reading.”
“That’s an exaggeration, of course,” Nick replied, obviously pleased to be recognized. He seemed to loosen up a little and finally sat down. He started to add another comment but Carol jumped into the conversation and cut him off.
“Did you write that beautiful song about the blind man yourself?” she asked, before Angie had really had time to sit down and collect herself. “It seemed to be a very personal statement.”
“Yes,” Angie answered Carol pleasantly, without a trace of irritation at Carol’s aggressive behavior. “Most of my material comes from other sources, but occasionally I write a song myself. When it is a very special subject for me.” She smiled briefly at Troy before continuing. “My father is a remarkable, loving man, blind from birth but with an uncanny comprehension of the world at all levels. Without his patience and guidance, I probably would never have had the courage to sing as a little girl. I was too shy and self-conscious. But my father convinced all of us when we were small that we were somehow special. He told us that God had given each of us something unusual, something uniquely ours, and that one of the great joys of life was discovering and then developing that special talent.”
“And that song, ‘Let Me Take Care of You, Baby,’ did you really write that for Troy?” Nick blurted out his question before Angie had finished her sentence. He thereby destroyed the soft mood created by Angie’s loving description of her father. Nick was on the edge of his chair and for some reason seemed agitated and unsettled. Troy wondered again what he had missed in the interaction between Carol and Nick that had caused his friend to become so tense.
Angie looked at Troy. “I guess so,” she said with a wistful smile, “although it was originally meant to be a playful tune, a light commentary on the game of love.” She stopped for a moment. “But it does talk about a real problem. It’s very hard sometimes being a successful women. It interferes—”
“Amen. Amen,” Carol interrupted while Angie was still developing her thought. This was one of Carol’s favorite subjects and she was ready to pounce on the opportunity. “Most men cannot deal with a woman who is the least bit successful, much less in the spotlight.” She looked directly at Nick and then continued, “Even now, in 1994, there are still unwritten rules that must be followed. If you want to have a permanent relationship with a man, there are three don’ts: Don’t let him think you’re smarter than he is, don’t suggest sex first, and, above all, don’t make more money than he does. These are the three key areas where their egos are extremely fragile And if you undermine the ego of any man, even when you’re just kidding with him, then it s a lost cause.”
“Sounds like you’re an expert,” Nick replied sarcastically. His hostility was obvious. “I wonder if it ever occurred to any of you liberated females that men are not put off by your success, but rather by the way you handle it. What you accomplish in life does not mean shit at the personal level. Most ambitious, aggressive women I have met (and now he was looking directly at Carol) go out of their way to make male-female relationships into some kind of competition. They will not let the man, even for a moment, have the illusion that he lives in a patriarchal society. I think some of them purposely emasculate—”
“There it is,” Carol jumped in triumphantly. She nudged Angie, who was smiling but still a little embarrassed at the rancor in this exchange. “That’s the magic word. Whenever a woman wants to argue and not accept as gospel some profound male truth, she is trying to ‘castrate’ or ‘emasculate’—”
“Okay, you guys,” Troy interjected firmly, shaking his head. “That’s enough. Let’s change the subject. I had thought that maybe you two could enjoy an evening together, but not if we’re going to start this way.”
“The problem,” Carol continued, now looking at Angie and ignoring Troy’s request, “is that men are frightened. Their hegemony in the Western world is threatened by the emergence of women who aren’t willing to be just barefoot and pregnant. Why, when I was at Stanford—”
She stopped and turned when she heard the legs of a chair scraping across the Roor. “With all due respect, Miss Leatherwood,” Nick was standing up again, holding the chair in his hand, “I believe I will excuse myself. I thoroughly enjoyed your music, but I do not wish to subject you to any more bad manners. I wish you continued good fortune in your career and I hope that someday you can spend some time on the boat with Troy and me.” Nick turned to Troy. “I’ll see you at the marina at eight o’clock in the morning.” Finally he looked at Carol. “You, too, if you still want to go. You can tell us about the wimps at Stanford while we’re out in the middle of the Gulf.”
Nick did not wait for a reply He picked up the envelope and walked back through the crowd toward the exit. As he was approaching the door he heard a voice calling him, “Nick. Oh, Nick. Over here.” It was Julianne, waving to him from a nearby table full of glasses and ashtrays. She and Corinne and Linda were surrounded by half a dozen men but Julianne was moving them all around and pulling up an empty chair. Nick walked over to her table.
Thirty minutes later Nick was very drunk. The combination of Julianne’s occasionally brushing his leg, Corinne’s gigantic breasts (they were covered now but he could remember them from Troy’s game in the afternoon), and intermittent glimpses of Carol through the cigarette smoke had made him very horny as well. God damn it, Williams, he had thought to himself when he first sat down with Julianne’s group. You blew it again. Here you had this perfect chance to charm her. Maybe even score. But half an hour later, after the drinks, his thoughts were more reminiscent of Aesop’s fox. She’s too aggressive for me anyway. Famous. Pushy. Probably too hard underneath And cold in bed. Another ballbuster. Yet still he watched her from across the room.