"The writer?"
"That's the guy." Once again she looked toward the bathroom, saw something, and without another word walked quickly out of the restaurant. I watched her go. Once outside, she paused on the street, looked at me, mouthed, "Donald Gold," and took off.
Veronica returned a moment later and asked coolly, "Was that Zane?"
"Yeah. Strange woman." I hesitated, then thought, what the hell and said, "She told me to ask you about Donald Gold."
"Good old Zane. Still Miss Terminal Toxic Nastiness. Did she think that was going to ruin things between us? Before I met her, I lived out here with Donald. We were bad for each other. We fed on each other's weaknesses. He threw me out and was right to do it."
"That's all?"
"I was lost then, Sam. Maybe a little more than is safe. I was living a life that if you read about in a book, you'd say, 'How could she let that happen?' But here I am now and you seem to like that me, right?"
Taking her hand, I kissed it and intoned pompously, "Omne vivum ex ovo."
"What's that?"
"The only Latin I remember from school. 'Everything alive has come from the egg.'"
I don't remember what television shows we watched as kids on Saturday mornings, but all of them were sacred. Television itself was sacred then. That big square altar in the middle of the living room that held you captive anytime it was on.
I was watching TV that Saturday. My parents and sister were off shopping. I was sitting on the living room floor eating a doughnut when the doorbell rang. White powdered sugar was all over my fingers and mouth. The only thing I did to prepare myself for whoever was waiting was to rub an arm across my mouth, then my hands over my filthy jeans. Unhappily I went to the door.
When I opened it and saw Pauline Ostrova facing me, looking gorgeous and scared, I didn't know what to say. Of course I knew who she was. I was in lowly junior high while she lived in the upper echelons of high school, which would have given her godlike status even if her unprecedented reputation hadn't preceded her.
When she saw me she smiled a little. I almost peed my pants. "Hey, I know you! You're Sam, right? Listen, I ran over your dog."
"That's okay." I said cheerfully. I loved Jack the Wonder Boy but so what compared to Pauline Ostrova knowing my name.
"He's all right, I guess. I took him to the vet. The one on Tollington Park, Dr. Hughes?"
"We use Dr. Bolton."
"Yeah, well, I thought he was going to die from the way he looked, so I took him to the vet closest."
"Okay. You want to come in?" I had no idea what I was doing. She'd just run over our dog. Shouldn't I be frantic? What would I do if she came in? Just the idea of Pauline Ostrova breathing the same air made my heart race around my chest.
I was twelve, so she must have been sixteen then. At school even I knew she was all things to all men – adult, whore, scholar, artist . . . A few years later they would have called her liberated, but in those black-and-white Dark Ages before Betty Friedan and feminism, Pauline was only one word – weird. Everyone knew she slept around. That would have been acceptable if it had only been that. Then we would have had a category for her, ugly and simple as it was. But she made everything complicated by also being so smart and independent.
Waiting for her to say something else, I suddenly remembered the doughnuts I had been eating. Frantically, I rubbed my mouth in case any crumbs were still there.
"Don't you want to know more about your dog?"
"I guess." I leaned against the door, then stood up straight, then tried leaning again. In her overwhelming presence there was no comfortable position on earth.
"He ran out in the street and I hit him and broke one of his rear legs. Actually, it was kind of cool because the vet let me stay and watch him put the leg in a splint."
She was talking to me. I was just a little tool in seventh grade who watched her float by every day with upperclassmen, all of them carrying reputations nine miles long behind them like bridal trains. Yet for the moment, this high honor roll/slut goddess who knew my name was saying words meant only for my ears. The fact she was doing it as a way of apologizing for almost killing our dog was irrelevant.
"Listen, Sam, I really have to go to the bathroom. Could I use yours?"
Bathroom! Not only was she admitting she peed like the rest of us mortals, she wanted to use ours! Pauline Ostrova's bare ass on our toilet seat!
"Sure. I'll show you." I started down the hall and heard her footsteps behind me. The nicest bathroom in the house belonged to my parents. It was big and light and had thick powder-blue shag carpeting on the floor – very fashionable back then. But it was upstairs and I didn't think it appropriate to take her up there, no matter how much I longed to show off the carpeting. So I went toward the smaller one just off the kitchen.
Naturally when she was inside with the door shut, I wanted to glue my ear to it so as to hear every sound she made. But I was equally afraid she'd know and come bursting out of there like a Nike missile, intent on catching me listen to her tinkle. I went into the living room and quickly scarfed down the doughnut I had been eating before she arrived.
She didn't come out. The toilet didn't flush. Nothing happened. She just . . . stayed in there. For a while I thought maybe she was only taking her time, but that time grew too long and I began to grow apprehensive. Had she had a heart attack and died? Was she having trouble going? Was she snooping in our medicine cabinet?
I grew so nervous that I took another doughnut and ate it without thinking. I wanted to ask if she was okay, but what if that question angered her? What if she had taken sick and for some reason couldn't speak? I pictured her grabbing at her throat, her face cyan blue. With a last gasp, she'd reach weakly for the toilet flush so when they found her, at least she wouldn't be embarrassed by what she'd done before dying.
When I could no longer stand it, I purposely walked to the corner of the kitchen farthest from the toilet and shouted, "Pauline? Are you okay?"
Her answer was immediate. "Yeah, sure. I'm reading one of your magazines in here."
When she reemerged, we drove across town to the veterinarian to get the dog and then she took us home. I wanted the whole world to see me in her car and misinterpret why I was there. Unfortunately, the only person I recognized on the streets was Club Soda Johnny Petangles, the human commercial.
As I climbed out of her red Corvair with the dog fussing in my arms, she said, "I took that magazine out of your toilet 'cause I want to finish the article. I'll give it back to you in school."
"That's okay. What's the article?"
"It's in Time. About Enrico Fermi?"
"Oh yeah, I read that one."
Enrico who?
I was delighted because something of ours would stay with her and there'd be reason for further contact with her.
Sadly, despite a desultory "hi" from her now and then in the halls at school, I never spoke with Pauline again until I pulled her out of the Hudson River a few years later.
When the book tour was over, I returned to Crane's View. Working in the old guest room of my childhood home, I continued writing the first pages of the book. That was the easy part – just letting memories roll in and carry me along, like waves on their way to shore. There was no way I could tell this story objectively, so I decided to tip my hand early and begin it with my personal involvement.