One More Stop by Lois Walden Read Free Book Online Page B

She’s back east. Livesin Park Slope. Lives with an antique-furniture maker named Steve.’
    â€˜Goodman?’
    â€˜No. Feingold.’ Pause.
    â€˜Sorry that we’re not going to meet today. Bend your knees.’
    â€˜What?’
    â€˜Your back. Shoveling. Bend your knees.’
    â€˜I always do. How’s your room?’ Before I can answer she shouts, ‘Bruno! Get in here! Damn dog. Call you tomorrow.’
    For three consecutive mornings, Bobbi does not call. Phones are dead, cable’s out, Denver is completely shut down. No external distractions. An array of internal disturbances.
    I dine on undetectable, inedible hotel rations for a record-breaking seventy-two hours. I finish off my last lemon zest bar, steal apples from the front desk, and convince myself that as long as I eat the bristles on my toothbrush I will have enough fiber in my diet to survive. I read whatever’s in the hotel’s lending library; no comment.
    Finally, on Friday, the snow stops. Bobbi calls. ‘You won’t believe it!’
    â€˜What?’
    â€˜No school.’
    â€˜Why?!’
    â€˜They’re afraid the roof might cave in. It’s flat.’
    â€˜Hope you and the kids get to see the show next week.’
    â€˜We will, if I can get the parents to sign the waivers. Most of them don’t read English.’
    â€˜They don’t?’
    â€˜No. This is an English as a second language class. Almost all of the parents don’t speak it at all.’ Thank God for the blizzard. ‘Are you busy tonight?’
    â€˜Yeah. My friend Saul Rudman’s in town.’
    â€˜Saul? From Wyoming?’
    â€˜Saul from Wyoming.’
    â€˜I went to one of his Halloween parties. Tell Saul, Bobbi, the dominatrix, says hi.’
    â€˜Sure will.’ Another missed opportunity.
    â€˜Come back soon.’ Click.
    At eight p.m. Saul Rudman, the dearest man I know, picks me up in his Cadillac SUV. I pole vault up, over, and down into the passenger seat. We hug, howl and get high. We drive through a snowy Denver, pull up in front of a trendy nouveau restaurant.
    Saul orders a gin martini. I order a vodka martini. They are cowboy drinks, bigger than the state of Texas. Saul downs his in a blink of an eye. I take one sip of my martini and spit it out. I hate gin. Saul grabs my glass, downs my drink, orders another. I get my first. He drinks his third. He regales me with stories about his audience with the most famous back specialist in the world; who is, of course, located in Santa Monica, California. Dr Painfree has Saul on a cutting-edge medical protocol. Yes, Saul is on the muscle-relaxant, raw-juice diet. The boy hasn’t eaten solids for three days.
    His eyes cross. He sways like an American flag on a windy night.
    I shout. ‘SAUL, CAN YOU HEAR ME!?’
    â€˜What? What’d you say?’
    I slap my hands in front of his face and talk deaf talk to him. ‘CAN … YOU … HEAR … ME?!’
    â€˜I better break my juice fast.’ With his right hand, Saul reaches for a piece of bread. It drops onto the floor. With his left hand, he places something into his mouth. ‘Bite, crunch, crack, yech.’
    â€˜Saul, what the hell are you eating?’
    He spits out little pieces of plastic and wire into his right hand. ‘My hearing aid. My two thousand dollar hearing aid.’ Saul has one more Martini for the road. I take a cab back to my hotel.
    Late the next morning I hear from Saul. ‘I am so sorry.’
    â€˜Don’t be. How’d you get home?’
    â€˜I hitched a ride.’
    â€˜Are you crazy?’
    â€˜No. He’s in the kitchen making me coffee.’
    â€˜I can’t believe … Guys. Can’t keep it in their pants.’
    â€˜You’re just jealous.’
    â€˜I probably am.’
    â€˜Did I make a fool of myself last night?’
    â€˜Absolutely.’
    â€˜Don’t tell