Tolstoy Lied : A Love Story (9780547527307) by Rachel Kadish Read Free Book Online Page B

four years she’s lived in Manhattan, no man has lasted more than three months. The last serious guy, the one she dumped after she finished her theater degree in Boston, was a rabid Red Sox fan; cute, boisterous, and boring. He cried like a kid when she broke up with him. She moved to New York, traded him in for Yankees fans, and hasn’t kept a guy since. The Curse of the Bambino.
    I lift my face to the autumn brilliance shedding from the sharp river of sky onto the deep, shop-lined channel of Eighth Avenue. The air is cool, the periodic sidewalk-planted maples spangled orange. “I’m so sorry,” I say. “You deserve better.”
    She doesn’t speak.
    I lay my hand on her shoulder. “I sometimes think being shocked when romance lets us down is like joining the military and being surprised when people shoot at you.”
    She sighs. “Promise you’ll come to opening night?”
    â€œYou know I’m coming. I ordered my ticket last week.”
    â€œI’ll get you a seat in the front row. I’ll get you ten seats. I need you there.” She stops. We’ve reached her favorite health-food shop: terminus for our walk. “I’ve decided,” she says. “I’m going to be like you.”
    â€œCelibate?”
    â€œA hermit.”
    I follow her inside. “You wouldn’t last a week.”
    Yolanda greets the woman at the counter. “I’ll take an almond tonic with carrot juice,” she tells her. To me she says, “I wish I were gay.”
    â€œDo women do so much better with romance, left to our own?”
    â€œWomen don’t
do
this shit!”
    â€œSuit yourself.”
    She glares at the street.
    â€œI’m not a complete hermit,” I say.
    â€œYou’re a complete hermit.”
    I turn to her. “I met a guy. Tuesday.”
    â€œOh great.”
    â€œHe asked for my number.”
    â€œAnd you
gave
it to him?” She shakes her head. “The poor guy.”
    â€œWhat’s that supposed to mean?”
    She smirks.
    Behind the counter, the woman pours a viscous liquid out of the blender and into a cup. She hands it to Yolanda.
    I watch Yolanda count her change. “I think I’d like to go out with this one,” I say.
    Yolanda stops counting. “What, he’s a Nobel Prize winner
and
a Chippendales dancer? But you’ll still deduct points for bad grammar. Besides, he’ll never survive the fax test.”
    Yolanda believes I maintain my dysfunctional phone-fax setup to screen potential dates. I’ve never been able to convince her of the truth, which is that I landed in the situation out of sheer laziness. I have a fax machine that kicks in whenever the telephone line is silent for more than thirty seconds—a defect I discovered the first time I was put on hold without Muzak, when my relief at being excused from Manilow con maracas was fractured by a shrilling in my ear. I decided to take the fax machine back to the shop the very next day. But it snowed.
    After a month or so I rationalized: my fax machine provided an outlet for creative expression, a verbal challenge, an avenue for oral improvisation. It was, in any case, beyond the thirty-day return period. Having memorized more literature than I care to admit, I myself have no shortage of fodder for the gaping maw of my fax, no matter how long airline ticket offices keep me on hold. And when I’m forced to set down my phone midconversation to search for a piece of information or take my kettle off the burner, I advise my conversational partners to throw the silence a bone now and then until I return. People recite poetry, whistle, sing nursery rhymes. The less adventuresome count aloud or just clear their throats. I announce my return to the phone with a deliberate, noisy fumble of the receiver, fair warning for anyone confessing secrets into the silence. The conversations after I return are noticeably more fluid—the fax