Duet Read online

  It was strange to Duet that her mother was somewhat humorless. Maybe it was because she had been left as a child by her own mother, Daisy. Duet loved her Viennese grandmother and found her fascinating with her smoky voice and the way she baldly said anything that came into her head. Her grandmother didn’t believe in politeness, therefore she made polite people nervous. Duet’s mother had said Daisy had been too damaged in the war to raise a child. Daisy didn’t talk about it and Duet’s mother didn’t either. Duet felt maybe Daisy would eventually reveal something to her granddaughter, but why hurt her by asking questions? The closest they had ever got to the subject was when Daisy said, “Go see Schindler’s List … “

  Duet’s father sat down. “My little girl at the Waldorf.”

  The waiter brought his Dewars immediately. Duet stroked his arm, “I ordered it for you, Daddy.” God it was great to see her father. Now the world was safe.

  “Good. Did you pick a place for dinner? You know more places than I do,” he said. “Girl about town.”

  “That is so odd,” she said. “That’s the name of the lipstick I’m wearing.”

  He paid no attention to that and she liked him for it. “How’s your own music coming?” he asked.

  At this Duet perked up. “I’m composing now. I write music when I get home.”

  “What kind of music? “ he asked. He didn’t know Brahms from Vivaldi but he was glad to see her happy.

  “You know Mahler never wrote piano music. Well, a quartet when he was a student. I am taking his symphonies and interpreting them on the piano.”

  “Oh,” her father said, looking confused.”Would anyone want to listen to that?”

  “I don’t know, Dad. It’s not why I do it. I do it because I love his music and it’s a challenge. As Dostoyevsky said, it’s beauty which saves us.”

  He put his hand on hers. “Dostoyevsky. What about what Robert Ludlum says? Anyway play one for me some time.”

  “I will. But you won’t like it. Still…I will. When I come home next time.”

  “As if you’ll ever come home again. So where are we going for dinner?” He looked her over while she was mentally scanning restaurants in the neighborhood.

  “You look more lovely to me every time I see you,” he said.

  “Oh Dad, I must be starting to look like you!” she said. “Come on. Let’s go to the Brasserie round the corner. It’ll be easy.”

  “Okay. In a minute,” he said, sitting back in his chair, savoring his scotch. “So how are you doing?”

  Duet noticed the blonde older women in fur coats looking at her father. They probably think I’m his mistress. “Work is the usual. Busy. Occasionally exciting. The agency has fashion and music clients. I’m getting the music ones. So I am helping Atlantic Records promote Kid Rock.”

  “Who’s Kid Rock?” he asked.

  “ A number one recording artist.”

  “A black gangsta type?”

  “Yeah. I met him. “

  “And he asked you out.” Her father again looked confused.

  “He did,” she smiled. “But he asks everyone out.”

  “I can just see it,” her father said. “This is my son in law. No real name. Just ten million in the bank—“

  “I don’t think he had marriage on his mind. Anyway the only woman he ever loved was Pamela Anderson and I don’t think I want to go up against her –“

  Her father smiled. A few years back you’re intently discussing doll clothes with your daughter. Then you blink and you’re discussing your daughter’s sex life. Well, if she had one.

  “Are you dating anyone?” he asked , leaning forward.

  “No.”

  “Because?”

  “You know why because.”

  “ No, I don’t.”

  “Don’t be coy, Dad. Let me explain in case you forgot. I’m a freak.”

  Her father had been down this road with her before. And with Duet’s mother who thought Duet should go into some kind of special therapy group for people who are deformed. Her father didn’t agree.

  “You know they just discovered a deer in Italy that has one horn in the middle of his head like a unicorn,” her father said. “I would not call that deer deformed. Quite the opposite. That deer is a symbol of magic.”

  “He doesn’t have a sexual deformity,” she answered quickly.

  “Cut it out,” he said, “You are not deformed. Jump into life. The world is not a cruel place. There is all kinds of beauty in nature. “

  “Oh really, Dad?” she answered softly. “Nature is cruel. Everybody knows that. Except you.”

  He could hear his wife. “Nelson, the world is not a cruel place? What planet are you living on? You remember what happened to her in high school when Ann McNichol spread it all around. I thought I was going to have a suicide on my hands. The world IS a cruel place. ..” and then his wife would get rather high pitched and he knew she was going to that place she went to when she remembered her own mother’s life, his hard-hearted, half crazy, in his opinion, mother-in-law who god knows what had happened to in the war.

  He gazed at his grown up beautiful daughter. “Honey,” he said, “when a man loves a woman, she can be homely, she can be four feet tall, she can be cross-eyed, but if he loves her soul, he doesn’t see it. You are not homely, you are beautiful. That is what counts. You’re beautiful outside and inside. A man makes love with you and doesn’t spend his time thinking about the rest of your anatomy. He makes love with you because he loves you.”

  “Dad, what planet do you live on?”

  At this point, she knocked back her drink and began looking around the room. The men at the bar, probably men from out of town, were still staring at her.

  “Duet,” her father said, “Are you listening to anything I am saying?”

  Her dark eyes flashed defiantly. “Nope. I am not.”

  “Well you should be. I live on this planet too and for the record, young lady, this may come as a surprise, I am a man. I can imagine myself in this situation and I can imagine my response. It’s not the end of the world –“

  No,” she said poutily, “it’s the beginning of the world.”

  Her father ignored her. “It does create one problem – you have to meet a decent, stand up, mature guy. That’s a problem a lot of women have.”

  She motioned to the waitress for another old fashioned and Dewar’s, and then turned to her father, “On that, Dad, we agree.”

  He knew enough to stop this conversation. Both of them were tired of it.

  They didn’t end up going to the Brasserie. He decided he wanted fish so they took a cab to City Crab at 19th and Park. She liked that place. It made her feel she was in Martha’s Vineyard or by the sea while being on Park Avenue. They sat in a booth and her father had a combination of cold raw fish, mainly oysters and clams, and she picked off his shrimp. They talked about people back home, her mother’s rigidity, and he tried to explain it was really just a mask but, as he said it, he wasn’t sure himself. Then they discussed what Microsoft, his company, was launching next. At least what he was allowed to talk about. When they finally got to eating a chocolate ice cream cake, he brought Duet’s love life up again.

  “Contrary to conventional wisdom, there’s got to be some decent guys. How would you meet them? I mean everyone is staring at you here.”

  She looked around the busy restaurant with its big booths and captain’s tables and chairs and the room full of young people. No one was staring at her.

  “Only the waiter was, Dad. That’s not everyone.”

  “Maybe he’s in med school, ”her father said, trying to get a rise out of her. If she would just fight him, then he would know she was struggling with herself. But she seemed to placidly accept that she was meant to be alone because of this configuration not, as he had explained to her numerous times, disfigurement.

  “Paula’s gone online,” she added, as a peace treaty.

  Ah, he thought. Light at the end of the tunnel.”Well,�
�� her father said, “Seems to be what people do nowadays. I would imagine you could meet a lot of creeps. Maybe not. You just have to meet one good man. You could try it.”

  “No thanks. “Duet smiled at him. “Can you imagine how I would terrify those guys?”

  Her father stiffened. “It’s not necessary to go to bed with every date, you know.”

  “Thank you Daddy. I’m not going to do it anyway.” She hesitated a second, “If you were a widower, would you go online?”

  He took another pick at the chocolate cake. “This is good,” he said, holding up his fork. What would he do if he was a bachelor? A rather exultant thought for a second. But then it might get lonely.

  He looked across the table into his daughter’s mildly haunted eyes and said, “Sure I’d do it.”

  She smiled, “Well, I guess we’re different.”

  “Maybe,” he said. “The main thing is that you keep open. Open to what’s good in life. There is good in life, you know,” he continued.

  She looked over at him. “Who are you trying to convince?”

  “You,” he said. He picked at his cake and laughed. “And myself, I suppose.”

  Four:

  After dinner, Duet went home to her walk up apartment and put her bag on the dining room table. She had a large floor-through apartment in the East Village, but it was an old building where the floors tilted a bit and the fixtures, the door lock and the kitchen felt like they were from another century. Still, she had a view of a garden from her bedroom and room for a piano. In truth, she was happy here. She went into the living room to read her mail when she heard her blackberry buzz. She walked back into the dining room. A text message. Mirta at work. “I know you may be in your PJs but we’ve got a party you’ve got to go to. Lila has a temperature. Will you cover for me? It’s for the guys in JERSEY BOYS. You read about it no doubt when you wrote the release. W Hotel. Union Square. NOW. MUCHO THANKS.”

  Back on with the Jimmy Choos. She went to her bathroom mirror and switched her business blouse to a bustier and kept the black slacks on. Okay. Talk to people. Her job is talking to people although she’d rather write the faux news stories. Interviews are alright but she hated having to ask insinuating questions of people she didn’t know. She hated being invasive. How would she like to be interviewed? No thank you.

  She went out and flagged a cab and thought she should have gone into medicine. Gynecology. Yeah, right.

  The Jersey Boys’ publicists, namely her company, had rented a suite for the party and by the time she got there, people were pretty high (on what? she wondered). At this point, people who weren’t in the press were pretending they were, so people would talk to them, and people who were in the press were pretending they weren’t, so they could just enjoy themselves on their bosses’ dime, and generally she looked over the room and thought, This party is winding down.

  She saw Diego Cordero from work who handled the Spanish newspapers. Diego always had a big smile, dressed nattily and loved to talk recipes. She wasn’t sure, but maybe he lived with his grandmother. In Queens. He came over and gave her a kiss on the cheek. He always kissed women.

  “Hi,” he said, “You look great.”

  “How is it going here?” she asked, relieved to see someone she knew. She could never make up her mind if she liked Diego or not.

  “The Jersey Boys have left the building so it’s just the remnants, “ he answered.

  “How did it go?” she asked.

  “They made a quick speech about their music, gave out some CDs, talked about a road show…the usual.”

  “Anything worth knowing?”

  “Somebody asked why would we listen to them if we could listen to the older guys you know the ones who did Big Girls Don’t Cry –“

  “Right,” Duet said. “I forget, too. I didn’t like that music anyway.”

  “What music do you like?” Diego asked, realizing he’d never had this long a conversation with her before. He’d always thought she was pretty. But she usually was distant. Now here she was chatting with him. He moved some of her long dark hair forward onto her shoulder. “Girl, you need to lighten up. Laugh a bit. Enjoy.”

  “Yes,” she said, taken aback. “What kind of music do I like? Modern classical.”

  That’ll keep him quiet, she thought.

  “Oh wow. You need help,” he laughed.

  She smiled. Then she looked round the room. “Anyone I should talk to?”

  “Yup,” Diego said. “Me. No. I’m serious, man. Spanish press is important. 51% of New York is Spanish.”

  “They’re going to like this music?”

  “No,” he said. “They’re not going to like it at all.” He looked at his watch. “Let’s go dancing at Gonzales Y Gonzales. On Broadway. Down the street. They have a live Latin band. You know how to salsa?”

  “I can fake it.”

  “I hate when women say that… but come on. Let’s get out of here. It feels too much like a press party.”

  She laughed. “Okay.”

  They grabbed a cab and a full band was into their second set at Gonzales y Gonzales. Old couples, young couples, women together were dancing and swinging each other around. Diego got them both a sangria – “Girl you’re going to get thirsty,” he said – “I’m a killer dancer.”

  She took a sip and then he was pushing her through the crowds toward the floor. She smiled. So was she. Let’s see what he thinks about that.

  So he stood straight, he was just about her height, grabbed her left arm, “Bring it up,” he said, and as the horns started blowing and the percussion, the wonderful congas began, she and Diego started to move. “Hey you know how to do it” – he laughed and then he was twirling her and speeding up and slowing down and couples were smiling at them, because Diego and Duet were dancing well together and he said, “You must be good in bed, girl.”

  “Not at all,” she said.

  He shook his head. “White girls. Why would anyone want to go out with you people?”

  That made her relax. “You don’t like white girls?”

  “A lot of work,” he said, moving her round the floor. “A lot of work.”

  “Aren’t all women?”

  “You got a point.”

  They danced and she found herself having a good time. He kept pulling her closer and one time she playfully slapped his face, to tell him, not THAT close, and he looked at her angrily. And then she remembered, Latin men. Macho. He’s worried what other people think. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I was just kidding.”

  “Okay,” he said.

  “Diego!” a woman’s voice screamed.

  “Ramona – what are you doing here?”

  Duet saw a woman with long dark curly hair, glasses, a warm smile, waving vigorously at them. Diego said, “That’s my sister.” Ramona and a tall, sweet man with a bit of a chipmunk smile came up to them. “This is my friend, Camilo,” Ramona said and Diego introduced Duet, “Duet works with me but who knew she could dance?” And then they all left each other because the music was too loud to talk over anyway.

  Duet and Diego focused on their movements and laughed in embarrassment when they missed a step, and she liked it when he took control on the floor. It felt so good to move her body, to even be held. She hadn’t allowed it in so many years. At the end of the night, he handed her another sangria so they could cool down and he looked at her intently with his shining brown eyes and said, “Why don’t I sleep at your place?”

  “No,” she said.

  “Why not?”

  “Why should we sleep together so fast?” she answered. “Anyway I have to get up early.”

  “Who doesn’t?” he argued a bit lamely.

  That’s when Camilo asked Duet to dance. Diego looked annoyed but his sister began talking rapid fire in Spanish to her brother, seemingly admonishing him for something, Duet didn’t know, maybe Diego had a wife. Camilo was more elegant on the dance floor than Diego and Duet felt a little more female with Camilo and began g
iving him flirty looks, swirling just a little more seductively, just having a good time, but then she thought about Ramona and her generous smile and she didn’t want to upset Ramona, so Duet broke off, and yelled into Camilo’s ear, “I have to go” and he smiled benignly and Duet realized he didn’t speak a word of English.

  They returned to Diego and Ramona and Ramona explained Camilo was from Colombia and Duet said she needed to leave, that she hadn’t had so much fun in ages, and they all agreed maybe this was a good time to go so they began getting their coats in a quartet, and it seemed, almost within minutes, they were out on the street, because Duet had accelerated the evening’s closing out. She wanted to get away. She saw a cab, with that welcome shining light on top, coming down Broadway to rescue her. She turned to Diego, “I had a great time but sometimes going to bed so fast is just a way of avoiding intimacy. You don’t wait to get to know the person.”

  “I’ve known you a year,” he answered.

  “Not as dates,” she said. The cab spun up to them and she yelled to all of them “Great meeting you -- See you tomorrow, Diego,” and she rushed into the cavernous darkness of the back of a taxicab. As the car raced down Tenth past the old brownstones toward her apartment , she thought she should have offered them a lift. I’m always, I’m always too much on the run.

  When Duet got home, she, unbelievably, had three messages on her cell phone. One was a guy she had met weeks ago when he was at the office pitching the office manager to look at additional space for the PR agency. Duet had run into him on the elevator and he had badgered and teased and cajoled her for her number. He had tried so hard to make her laugh, telling her some silly joke about two egoists bumping into each other and it was an I for an I and she had thought, Oh I don’t want to appear rude.

  The next call was from a handsome psychoanalyst she had met when he was sitting reading a book at an outside café near her apartment. She was walking by and her heel broke. He commiserated with her as she got flustered, and they got into a silly conversation about women’s shoes; he seemed to know a lot about them, and he invited her for a drink. She had enjoyed talking with him, his theory that women couldn’t resist men who gave them shoes or lipsticks. She didn’t know if it was true but maybe it was because she ended up giving him her number. Now, he said, he was curious to see if she had a working pair of shoes so they could meet.