Boy - The Boy Next Door Part 10

Mel

To: Mel Fuller From: [email protected] Subject: Dinner

You got it.

I'll make reservations for 8. I hope you know what you're doing, however, letting me choose the restaurant. I am very partial to entrails, you know.

J.

To: [email protected] From: Mel Fuller Subject: I don't believe you

You're just trying to scare me. I grew up on a farm, you know. We had entrails on toast every morning for breakfast.

M To: Mel Fuller From: Subject: Now you're scaring me. See you at 6.

J.

To: John Trent From: Sergeant Paul Reese

Subject: Last night

Trent--

Look, man, I can't apologize enough. I don't know what's going on between you and the red-headed broad, but I didn't mean to blow it. I was just so surprised to see you there!

I mean, John Trent, at the Animal Medical Center? What kind of crime could he be following up on? Certainly one of a fowl nature....Sorry. Couldn't resist.

Seriously, we were just there to check on Hugo, the precinct's bomb-sniffing pooch.

Some clown fed him a bunch of KFC left over from lunch, and you know what they say about dogs and chicken bones.... Well, it turns out to be true. Although Hugo is expected to make a full recovery. What were you doing there, man? You looked strung out. Well, for a guy with a hot babe like that on his arm. Let me know if there's anything I can do to make up for it....Fix some parking tickets, maybe? Have the redhead's husband held without bail for the weekend. Whatever. Anything, anything to make it right again--

Paul

To: Sergeant Paul Reese

From: John Trent Subject: All is forgiven

At least now. Last night, I could easily have throttled you.

Not that it was in any way your fault. I mean, you saw me. You said, How's it going, Trent? as any normal person would. How were you to know I am currently living under an a.s.sumed name? But what started out as the most disastrous evening of all time--Who knew cats eat rubberbands? I certainly didn't. How have these animals lasted as long as they have, eolutionarily speaking? They seem to be dumb as rocks--turned out better than I ever

could have imagined. So consider yourself forgiven, my friend.

And as for the redhead, well, it's a long story. Maybe I'll even tell it to you someday.

Depending upon how it turns out, of course. Right now, it's back to the Animal Medical Center for me. I have to bail out the cat, who has supposedly recovered nicely from his intestinal surgery. And on the way home from the animal hospital, I am going to buy that cat the biggest, smelliest fish you ever saw, as a thank you for his kind thoughtfulness in ingesting that rubberband.

John

To: Mel Fuller From: Nadine Wilc.o.c.k Subject: Well????

What did you wear? Where did you end up going? Did you have fun? WHAT HAPPENED????

Nad To: Nadine Wilc.o.c.k From: Mel Fuller Subject: It happened I wore my short black Calvin Klein wraparound skirt, with my vee-necked light blue three quarter sleeve silk sweater and matching blue ankle strap sandals with the three inch heels.

We didn't end up going anywhere. Not for dinner, anyway.

YES.

.

It did.

Okay, well, not really, but almost. What happened was, I was just applying my final layer of lipstick when there was a knock on my door. I went to answer it. It was John. He actually had on a tie! I couldn't believe it. He looked great--only really worried. So I was all, What's wrong?

And he went, It's Tweedle-dum. Something's the matter with him. Would you mind coming to take a look? So I went and took a look, and sure enough, Tweedle-dum, who is quite the more active and affectionate of Mrs. Friedlander's two cats, was lying underneath the

dining room table looking like a little kid who had eaten too many of those Neco Wafers. He didn't want anybody touching him, and growled when I tried to.

Anyway, I suddenly remembered something, and I went, Oh my G.o.d, have you been removing the rubberbands from around the Chronicles when you bring them in? Because you know the Chronicle thinks so well of itself that it always come bound in a sing rubberband, to keep the sections from falling out, since its customers would freak out if one single part was missing and they happened not to get their financial news or whatever. And John went, "No. Am I supposed to?" And that's when I realized I had forgotten to tell him the most important thing about cat and dog sitting for his aunt: "Tweedle-dum eats rubberbands. So did his brother, Tweedle-dee. Which is why Tweedle-dee is no longer with us. We've got to get this cat to the hospital right away!" I cried. John looked stunned. "You're kidding, right?" No, I'm serious. I went and got the cat carrier down from where Mrs. Friedlander has always kept it, on the top shelf of her linen closet. Wrap him in a towel. John just kept standing there. "You're actually serious." "I am totally serious," I said. We have to get the rubberband removed before it perforates something.

Actually, I have no idea if a rubberband could perforate something, but you could tell just by looking at Tweedle-dum's glazed eyes that he was one sick animal. So John got a towel and we bundled Tweedle-dum up (John sustained several evil-looking scratches before he accomplished this) and took him to the Animal Medical Center, which is where I know Mrs. Friedlander took Tweedle-dee when he had his fatal encounter with the rubberband off a copy of the Chronicle. I know because she asked mourners to send them a donation in lieu of flowers after Tweedle-dee's demise. The minute we walked in, they took Tweedle-dum and rushed him off to x-ray. Then there was nothing we could do but wait and pray. But it was kind of hard to sit and pray, you know, when all I could think about was how much I hate the Chronicle , and here it was, ruining my big date. At least, I thought it might have been a date. I just kept thinking about how the Chronicle is always scooping us, and how they get to have their Christmas party at the Water Club, and ours is always at Bowlmore Lanes. And how their circulation is like a hundred thousand more than ours, and how they always win all the journalism awards, and their style section is in color, and they don't even have a gossip page. Well, it just started making my laugh. I don't know why.

But I just started laughing about how once again, the Chronicle had managed to ruin something for me. Then John asked me why I was laughing, and so I told him (not the part about how the Chronicle had ruined our date, but the rest of it). So then John started laughing, too. I don't know why he was laughing, except, well, he doesn't exactly strike me as the praying type. He kept laughing in these little bursts. You could tell he was trying not to, but sometimes it would come out. Meanwhile the weirdest people kept coming in, with the strangest emergencies! Like one lady was there because her golden retriever had eaten all of her Prozac. Another one was there because her iguana had taken a flying leap from her seventh story balcony (and landed seemingly unscathed on the roof of the deli below). A third lady was worried about her hedgehog, which just wasn't acting right. How, John whispered to me, is a hedgehog supposed to act? It really wasn't funny. Only then we really couldn't stop laughing. And everyone was giving us these mean looks, and that just made me laugh harder. So we were sitting there, the dressiest people in the place, pretending to be comfortable in these hard plastic chairs and trying not to laugh, but doing it anyway-- At least until all these cops came in. They were there to check on one of their bomb squad dogs, which had choked on a chicken bone. One of them saw John and went, "Hey, Trent, what are you doing here?" That's when John stopped laughing. He got very red all of a sudden and went, "Oh, hi, Sergeant Reese." He put a very hard stress on the word Sergeant. Sergeant Reese looked quite taken aback. He started to say something, but right then the veterinarian came out and called, "Mr. Friedlander?" John jumped up and said, "That's me," and rushed up to the vet. The vet told us that Tweedle-dum had, indeed, swallowed a rubberband, and that it was tangled in his small intestine, and that surgery would be necessary, or the cat would definitely die.

They were willing to do the surgery at once, only it was very costly, $1500 dollars, plus $200 for the overnight stay at the hospital. $1700! I was shocked. But John just nodded and reached for his wallet and started to pull out a credit card-- And then he put it away really fast and said he forgot, all his credit cards were maxed out, and that he would just go to the bank machine and get cash.

Cas.h.!.+ He was going to pay in cas.h.!.+ $1700 in cas.h.!.+ For a cat! Only I reminded him that you can't get that much cash from a bank machine in a single day. I said, Let me put it on my credit card, and you can pay me back later. (I know what you're going to say, Nadine, but it isn't true: he would have paid me back, I know it). But he absolutely refused. And next thing I knew, he'd gone over to the cas.h.i.+er to arrange a payment plan, leaving me alone with the vet and all of the cops, who were still standing around staring at me. Don't ask me why. Undoubtedly my too-short skirt was to blame.

Then John came back and said it was all taken care of, and the cops left, and the vet suggested we stay until the surgery was over, just in case there were complications, so we went back to our seats and I went, Why did that policeman call you Trent?

And John went, Oh, that's just how cops are, they always make up their own nicknames for people.

But I definitely got the feeling there was something he wasn't telling me.

He must have realized it, too, since he told me I didn't have to stick around and wait with him, that he'd pay for a cab home for me, and that he hoped I'd take a raincheck on dinner.

So I asked him if he was crazy, and he said he did not conscientiously believe so, and I said anyone with as many nicknames as he apparently has definitely has some major problems, and he agreed with me, and then we argued pleasantly for about two hours over which serial killers throughout history were the most deranged, and finally the vet came out and said Tweedle-dum was recovering and we could go home, and so we left.

It wasn't too late to get dinner by Manhattan standards--only ten o'clock--and John was all for it, even though we'd missed our reservation at wherever he'd planned on taking me.

But I wasn't up for battling the late-night supper crowd, and he agreed and said, Want to order Chinese again or something? And I said it would probably be a good idea to comfort Paco and Mr. Peepers, who were surely unsettled by their missing feline brother.

Plus I had read in the TV Guide that The Thin Man was showing on PBS.

So we went back to his place--or his aunt's place, I should say--and ordered moo shu pork again, and the food arrived just as the movie was starting, and so we ate it off Mrs.

Friedlander's coffee table, sitting on her comfy black leather couch, on which I dropped not one but two spring rolls smothered with that orange stuff. Which was, incidentally, when he started kissing me. Seriously. I was totally apologizing for getting that sticky orange stuff all over his aunt's couch when he leaned over, stuck his knee in it , and started kissing me.

I haven't been that shocked since my Algebra tutor did almost the same thing my freshman year in high school. Only there wasn't any orange duck sauce and we'd been talking about integers, not paper towels. And let me tell you, Max Friedlander is a way better kisser than any Algebra tutor ever was. I mean, he has got the kissing thing down pat. I was afraid the top of my head was going to blow off. Seriously. He's that good of a kisser.

Or maybe he isn't that good of a kisser. Maybe it's just been so long since anybody has kissed me like he meant it--you know, really meant it--that I forgot what kissing is like.

John kisses like he means it. Really means it. Still, when he stopped kissing me, I was in such a state of head-spinning shock that all I could do was blurt out, What did you do that for?

which probably sounded rude, but he didn't take it that way. He went, Because I wanted to.

So I thought about that for like a split second, and then I reached up and put my arms around his neck and said, Good. Then I did some kissing of my own. And it was really nice because Mrs. Friedlander's couch is very cushy and soft, and John kind of sank down onto me and I kind of sank down into the couch, and we kissed for a very long time, in fact we kissed until Paco decided he needed to go out, and stuck his big wet nose between our foreheads.

That's when I realized I better get out of there. First of all, you know what our mothers always said about kissing on the first date. And second of all, not to gross you out, but there was some very interesting stuff happening downstairs, if you know what I mean.

And Max Friedlander is definitely NOT gay. Gay guys do not get full-on stiffies from kissing girls. This much even a small-town girl from the Midwest knows.

So while John was cursing Paco out, I was all straightening myself out and saying primly, Well, thank you for lovely evening, but I think I have to go now, and then I tore out of there, while he was still going, "Mel, wait, we have to talk."

I didn't wait. I couldn't. I had to get out while I still had control over my motor- functions. I am telling you, Nadine, this guy's kisses are enough to numb your brain stem, they're that good. So what's to talk about? Well, there's one thing: Nadine, I'm letting you know right now. I am bringing a date to your wedding. Gotta go. Fingers are cramping up from writing too much, and I still have tomorrow's column to do. Things are looking up for Winona and Chris North. I hear a vacation in Bali is in the works. I can't believe Winona and I have both found guys at the same time! It's like when she and Gwyneth were going out with Matt and Ben--only better! Because it's me!

Mel

To: Mel Fuller From: Nadine Wilc.o.c.k Subject: I hope at the very least

you let him pay for the Chinese food.

Nadine To: Nadine Wilc.o.c.k From: Mel Fuller Subject: Well of course he paid for the Chinese food. Well, except the tip. He didn't have any singles. Why are you being this way? I had a great time. I thought it was sweet.

And it's not like I let him feel me up or anything, for G.o.d's sake. Mel To: Mel Fuller From: Nadine Wilc.o.c.k Subject: I just think

that this is all happening too fast. I've never even met this guy. No offense, Mel, but you do not have the greatest track record where men are concerned--Aaron being only example Number One. I mean what about that Delta Upsilon and the sock thing, which you yourself mentioned only the other day? I'm just saying I might feel more comfortable about all of this if I had actually met the guy. We've heard some pretty sketchy things about him from Dolly, after all. How do you expect me to feel? You are like the baby sister I never had. I just want to make sure you don't get hurt. So could you get him to come over to pick you up for lunch or something one of these days? I'd be more than willing to forego spinning cla.s.s.... Don't hate me.

Nadine To: Nadine Wilc.o.c.k From: Mel Fuller Subject: You are such a mother hen. But yes, if you insist, I suppose I could arrange for the two of you to b.u.mp in to one another somehow. G.o.d, the things we do for our friends.

Mel

To: John Trent From: Genevieve Randolph Trent Subject: Your recent behavior