Lucy's Launderette. Betsy Burke

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СКАЧАТЬ went into the bathroom and stared into the mirror. I looked like a chimney sweep. Paul Bleeker’s charcoaly fingerprints were on my face. I probably had smudges all over the rest of my body as well. I scrubbed myself with wet paper towels, brushed my hair and put on a little lipstick. A nice dark shade.

      When I’d finished cleaning up and was back at my desk, Nadine said, “I’ve got an IT expert here. Jacques needs to examine your computer. He’s going to be putting in some new software.”

      “Jacques? Jacques who?” My heart skipped a beat. A computer whizz would be able to see where I’d been on the Net, see all the hours I’d frittered away checking out eBay, Big Brother sites and Lonely Hearts Web pages.

      “I’m upgrading,” said Nadine. “Jacques, this is my assistant, Lucy Madison.”

      Jacques came into view and I laughed.

      “Hey, Luce, how’re ya doing?”

      “Jacques. What are you doing here?”

      Jacques came over, picked me up and whirled me around. I only came up to his chest. Next to him I was a sylph.

      He put me down and glanced over at Nadine’s raised eyebrows. He said, “Miss Thorpe wants to buy the farm, add a few more gigabytes. And some fancy stuff for showing off artists’ work to full advantage. That right, Miss Thorpe?” I could tell by the way Nadine was looking at him that she wanted a few of Jacques’s private bits and bytes as well. It was understandable. Jacques was six feet four inches of broad-shouldered barrel-chested male sweetness. Because he didn’t have to impress anyone, he always wore the same uniform: jeans, lumberjack shirts and long straight black hair that went past his shoulders. He had a hint of local native blood and an easy smiling expression. Like Geronimo on tranquilizers.

      He was a computer genius. He’d been finishing his studies when I first met him. In university days, he’d been lost in love with Madeline from the art department. Madeline was his only defect. He would come looking for her, his dark eyes puppy-dogging along all the routes Madeline might have taken, checking out all the places where Madeline might be. We made friends during his long waits for her. What Jacques didn’t know back then was that Madeline was a very busy girl, very popular, with a lot of extra-curricular men, and she loved having Jacques as a personal six-foot-four doormat.

      “So what are you doing these days, Jacques?” I asked.

      “Working at the university, rescuing departmental techno-dummies all over the campus whenever they melt down. Hey, you still painting, Luce?”

      “Mmmm-hmmm.” It was neither a yes nor a no. I hate lying to friends. “How’s Madeline? She still making…”

      “Heart art. Yeah. She’s doing some really great stuff.” He sounded slightly panicky, the way the less-loved partner in a relationship sounds when they are afraid of losing the other. “She’s selling quite well in New York.” He sighed. “She’s there right now. Gonna be there for a couple more weeks.” He sighed again.

      These words crushed me like a ten-ton block. Back then, Madeline had been into this mock-sixties pop art stuff using a lot of pink and hearts and doe-eyed Twiggy-like female figures. The worst part was that there were professors who thought she was the great promise of the art department.

      Hearts.

      She still had Jacques’s heart after all these years, and it looked like she was still reducing it to pulp.

      I reached for my caffe latte and knocked my bag off the desk. Its contents, including my virgin peach lace underwear, spilled all over the floor.

      Jacques smiled and raised his eyebrows quizzically. Nadine looked peeved. I would like to have told them that it had been a great night, a masterpiece of lovemaking, but the fact was, the Maestro had barely dipped his brush.

      7

      Jacques was there all morning fiddling with the computers. Nadine sent me out on errands three times. First it was to the post office to mail some packages, then the department store to buy cleaning supplies and finally to the bakery for cinnamon buns because she was feeling a little peckish. Around one o’clock she said, “I have a yen for some Dim Sum today. Shall we all go to lunch? My treat?” She smiled her porcelain smile at both of us. I rarely refuse a free lunch and I was happy to have the chance to hang out with Jacques again after such a long time. We drove to Chinatown in his Porsche. Nadine raced to get into the front seat next to him. I had to sit in the back.

      In the restaurant, Nadine gleefully chose something off every trolley that came around: shrimp dumplings, steam buns with sweet bean filling, sausage wrapped in grape leaf, ducks’ feet, spring rolls, it all just kept coming. Nadine had a sneaky way of eating that made it look as though she were just picking at her food, but she was really putting it away. During the hour and a half lunch, she got up three times to go to the bathroom.

      “Miss Thorpe must have an awfully weak bladder,” said Jacques.

      “Acute observation.”

      The thought of elaborating on Nadine’s bladder depressed me, so I didn’t bother.

      Jacques spent the rest of the afternoon working on the computers. Around six o’clock Nadine tried her “me and a few friends are meeting for drinks. Would you care to join us?” routine on Jacques.

      “Sorry, Miss Thorpe, I’m going for beers with Lucy,” he said. His voice was blunt. It seemed to say, “Shame on you for asking.”

      I was flattered. I pulled on my coat, grabbed my bag and left the gallery with Jacques. He took me to the Four Seasons. They let him in, dressed in blue jeans. When we had our beers in front of us he said, “It’s great to see you again, Lucy Madison.”

      I knew what was coming.

      He launched into his favorite subject: Madeline.

      Madeline and her affair with her New York gallery manager, Madeline and the wealthy businessman she met on a plane and oh it was just one of those things that happened—it doesn’t mean anything. I kept wanting to pipe up, Madeline and the postman, Madeline and the plumber, Madeline and the paperboy, Madeline and anything in pants that breathes.

      Poor Jacques. He needed to talk to someone and I let him talk. He was finally growing up a little. But knowing about all her betrayals didn’t seem to help him. If anything, they made her more desirable in his eyes. I couldn’t understand it. I resisted saying what I’d always wanted to say, that he should dump her cold, forget about her forever because she was bad news.

      He would never leave her, and even if he did, she would always stay with him, metaphorically, occasionally popping out of a huge, messy emotional scar to say “Cuckoo.” Any smart woman would sense Madeline’s ghost.

      It was about nine when we left the Four Seasons. Jacques abandoned his car in town and we both took a taxi. In the back seat, he held my hand and I thought for a minute things might get interesting. But he just went on holding my hand, the way an old friend or a brother might. The decent brother I wished I had. Then I said, “Hey, Jacques, what are you doing for Easter?”

      “Nothing, I guess. Madeline will still be in New York.”

      “Come with me to my parents’ for the big meal.”

      He СКАЧАТЬ