Life Blood --VI---Page 21



After I dropped off Lou at his space in Soho, where he was
house sitting for an estate now in the courts, I decided to head on home. The more I thought about Alex Goddard, the more I felt frustrated and even a little angry that I'd completely failed to find out any of the things I'd wanted to learn about him. I replayed our interview in my mind, got nowhere, and then decided to push
away thoughts of Quetzal Manor for a while and dwell on
something else: Sarah, my film, anything.
It was Saturday, and unfortunately I had no plans for the
evening. Translation: no Steve. Back to where I started. How
many million stories in the naked city, and I was just so many
million plus one. It's not a jungle out there, it's a desert.
The truth was, after Steve took off, I hadn't really been trying
all that hard to pick myself up off the canvas and look around.
Besides, I didn't want some other guy, I wanted him. Added to
that, I somehow felt that when you're on the short countdown for
forty, you shouldn't have to be going out on blind dates,
wondering whether that buttoned-down MBA sitting across from
you in some trendy Italian restaurant thinks you're a blimp (even
though you skipped lunch), telling yourself he's presentable,
doesn't seem like a serial killer, has a job, only mentioned his
mother once, and could qualify as an acceptable life's mate.
There's no spark, but he's probably quite nice. You wanly
remember that old Barney's ad jingle, "Select, don't settle," but at
this stage of life you're ready to admit you've flunked out in Love
101 and should just go with Like.
Which was one of the reasons I missed Steve so deeply. He
was a lover, but he was also a best friend. And I was running low
on those.
Every woman needs a best pal. After my former best, Betsy,
married Joel Aimes, Off-Broadway's latest contribution to
Dreamworks, and moved to the Coast with him, I was noticing a
lot of empty evenings. In the old days, we could talk for hours. It
was funny, since we were actually very different. Betsy, who had
forgotten more about clothes and makeup than most women
would ever know, hung around the garment-center showrooms
and always came away with samples of next season's couture,





usually for a song. I envied her that, since I usually just pretended not to care and pulled on another pair of jeans every morning. But she shared my love of Asian music.
Anyway, now she was gone and I could tell we weren't
working hard enough at staying in touch. She and Joel had just
moved to a new apartment and I didn't even have her latest phone number. . .
Which brought me back to Steve. I'd often wondered why we
were so alike, and I'd finally decided it was because we both
started from the same place spiritually. In his case, that place was
a crummy childhood in New Haven—which he didn't want to talk
about much because, I gathered, it was as lonely and deprived as
my own, or at least as depressing. His father had owned a small
candy store and had wanted all his four children to become
"professionals." The oldest had become a lawyer, the next a
teacher. When Steve's turn came, he was told he should become
a doctor, or at the very least, a dentist.
Didn't happen. He'd managed four years of premed at
Yale, but then he rebelled, cashed in his med-school scholarship,
and went to Paris to study photography. The result was he'd done
what he wanted, been reasonably successful at it, and his father
had never forgiven him. I think he was still striving for the old
man's approval, even after all the years, but I doubted he'd ever
get it. Steve was a guy still coming to grips with things that
couldn't be changed, but in the meantime he lived in worlds that
were as different from his own past as he could find. He
deliberately avoided middle-class comforts, and was never
happier than when he was in some miserable speck on the map
where you couldn't drink the water. Whatever else it was, it wasn't
New Haven. . .
Thinking about him at that moment, I had an almost
irresistible desire to reach for my cell phone and call him. God, I missed him. Did he miss me the same way? I wanted so much to hear him say it.
I had a contact number for him in Belize City, an old, Brit-like
hotel called the Bellevue, where they still served high tea, but I
always seemed to call when he was out somewhere in the rain
forest, shooting.
Do it. Don't be a wuss.
But then I got cold feet. Did I want him to think I was chasing after him? I didn't want to sound needy . . . though that was
exactly what I felt like at the moment.





Finally I decided to just invent a phone conversation,
recreating one from times past, one where we both felt secure enough to be flip. It was something I did more than I'd like to admit. Usually there'd be eight rings at his Park Slope loft and then a harried voice. Yes. Steve, talk to me. . .
"Yo. This is not a recording. I am just in a transcendent plane. And if that's you, Murray, I'll have the contact sheets there by six. Patience is a virtue."
"Honey, it's me. Get out of the darkroom. Get a life."
"Oh, hi, baby." Finally tuning in. "I'm working. In a quest for unrelenting pictorial truth. But mainly I'm thinking of you."
        "You're printing, right? Darling, it's lunch hour. Don't you feel
guilty, working all the time?"
The truth was, it was one of the reasons I respected him so
much. He even did his own contacts. His fervor matched my drive. It's what made us perfect mates.
"I've got tons of guilt. But I'm trying to get past it. Become a full human person. Go back to the dawn of man. Paint my face and dance in a thunderstorm." He'd pause, as though starting to get oriented. "Hey, look at the time. Christ. I've got a print shoot on Thirty-eighth Street at three."
He was chasing a bit of fashion work to supplement his onagain, off-again magazine assignments.
"Love," I said in my reverie, "can you come over tonight? I
promise to make it worth your while. It involves a bubble bath,
champagne, roses everywhere, sensuous ragas on the CD. And
maybe some crispy oysters or something, sent in later on, just to
keep us going."
Then I'd listen to the tone of his voice, knowing he'd say yes but putting more stock in how he said it. Still, he always gave his lines a good read.
"Then why don't we aim for about nine?" I'd go on, blissful.
"That ought to give me a chance to get organized. And don't bring anything except your luscious self." The fantasy was coming
together in my mind. Thinking back, I realized how much I missed him, all over again. . .
That was when the phone on the armrest beside me rang for
real. For a moment I was so startled I almost hit the brakes. Then
I clicked it on, my mind still buzzing about Steve, and also, in spite
of my resolve, about the curious runaround I'd just gotten from
Alex Goddard.

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