Manhattan Is My Beat

uncomfortable. Though he kept the smile on his face. There were major explosions in her. Wanting to vaporize away, wanting to ease her arms around him and never leave. Mostly she wondered what the hell was wrong.
    Silence, as an elderly lady with a jutting, sour mouth walked her cairn terrier past, glancing disdainfully at them. Richard said, “So how’s the video business?” He looked her up and down. Didn’t say a word about the new outfit. Glanced at the earrings. Didn’t say anything about them either.
    “Good. Okay.”
    “Well, why don’t you come on in.”
    She followed him inside.
    Wait, she thought, looking him over. What’s going on? He was wearing a baby-blue button-down shirt, tan chino slacks, and Top-Siders. Ohmygod, Top-Siders! Nothing black, nothing chic. He looked like a yuppie from the Upper East Side.
    Then she glanced around his apartment. She couldn’t figure it—that somebody who wore black leather and tapped the tops of his beer cans with such elegant fingers could live in a place with white Conran furniture, rock and roll posters on the wall, and a metal sea gull statue.
    A copper sea gull?
    “Just let me check on something.”
    He disappeared into the kitchen. Whatever he was cooking smelled great. None of her girlfriends could get that kind of smell out of a kitchen. Lord knew,
she
never had.
    She was examining his bookshelves. Mostly technical books about things she didn’t understand. College paperbacks. Stacks of the
New York Times
and the
Atlantic Monthly
.
    He came back into the room. Stood with his arms crossed. “So.” Skittish now.
    “Uh-huh. So.” She couldn’t think of anything to say for a moment. Then she blurted out, “I thought, maybe, after dinner, you might want to go for a ride. I found a great place. It’s in Queens, a junkyard. I know the owner. He lets me in. It’s really radical, like a huge dinosaur graveyard. You can sit up on some of the wrecks—it’s not gross dirty, you know, like garbage—and watch the sunset over the city. It’s really wild. It’s your mega junk-yard…. Okay, Richard, come on. Tell me what I did to fuck up tonight.”
    “The thing is—”
    “Hi,” came the woman’s voice from the door.
    Rune turned to see a tall woman with long, blond hair walk through the open door. The woman was wearing a gray pin-striped suit and black pumps. She gave Rune a friendly glance, then walked up to Richard and hugged him.
    “Rune, this is Karen.”
    “Uhm, hi,” Rune said. Then to Richard, “Your message? About dinner?”
    Karen lifted a perfect eyebrow knowingly, took a bottle of wine out of a paper bag, and disappeared tactfully into the kitchen.
    “Actually,” Richard said delicately, “that was supposed to be Thursday.”
    “Wait. The message said tomorrow. And the date on it was yesterday.”
    He shrugged. “I told the guy I talked to—Frankie somebody—I told him Thursday.”
    She nodded. “And he thought
today
was Thursday. Goddamn heavy metal. It’s destroyed his brain cells … Shit, shit, shit.”
    Yo, Fairy Godmother! Yo! Wave your magic wand and get me the hell out of here.
    “Listen, you want to stay? Have some wine?”
    That’d be a pretty picture, she thought. The three of us sipping wine while he’s waiting for me to leave so he can put the Tantra moves on too-tall Karen.
    “No, think I’ll go.”
    “Sure. I’ll walk you to the elevator.”
    Oh, don’t argue
too
hard now.
    Richard continued. “Oh, wait, let me get you what I have for you.”
    “My surprise?”
    “Right. I think you’ll like it.”
    “So, Rune, how do you know Richard?” Karen was calling from the kitchen.
    Yeah. He picked me up the other night and’s been trying to fuck me ever since.
    “Met in a video store. We talk about movies some.”
    “I
love
movies,” Karen called. “Maybe we could all go sometime.
    “Maybe.”
    Richard appeared from his bedroom. He was carrying a white envelope.
    That’s
my present?
    “Be right back,” he said to Karen.
    “This sauce is
so
good,” she called from the kitchen. She stuck her pert head into the doorway. “Nice meeting you. Oh, love the earrings!”
    As they walked to the elevator Richard said, “Karen’s a friend. We work together.”
    Rune wondered: How does somebody work
with
you when you write novels?
    They got four doors down the corridor before he said, “This’s a little awkward but she and I
really
are just friends.”
    “W e
are
going out, aren’t we? You and me,