Girls in White Dresses - JENNIFER CLOSE [87]
“Oh,” Lauren said. “Thank you. I guess I should put these in some water.” Mark didn’t laugh. Either he didn’t get the joke or he didn’t think she was funny. She couldn’t decide which was worse.
Mark stood by the door while Lauren looked in her cabinets for an appropriate fish bowl. She finally settled on a glass mixing bowl she never used. Was the water supposed to be lukewarm or cold? She didn’t know. She settled on lukewarm so that the fish wouldn’t be chilled, and dumped him into the water. It smelled.
Lauren had won her other fish at the Pumpkin Festival when she was seven, and named her Rudy, after Rudy Huxtable from The Cosby Show. Her parents were annoyed. “You won a fish?” they asked when she came home. They rolled their eyes and warned her that it would probably die soon. They dug up an old fishbowl from the basement and bought fish food. “Don’t get too attached,” they told her. But little Rudy raged on. She swam fiercely year after year. When they finally found Rudy floating belly-up at the top of the bowl, the whole family was shocked. It was as though they’d expected her to live forever; as though they’d forgotten that her dying was even a possibility.
Lauren watched the new fish swim around. He looked weak. Not like Rudy at all. “I guess I’ll need to stop and get fish food,” she said.
“Just give it some bread crumbs,” Mark said. He sounded like he wasn’t the one who’d brought her the fish in the first place.
“I’m not sure that fish can eat bread,” Lauren said. Mark just shrugged.
“What are you going to name him?” he asked.
Lauren considered this. Should she name the fish Rudy as a good-luck gesture? Maybe it would help strengthen the little guy.
“Willard,” she finally said. “After Willard from Footloose.”
“Where?”
“Footloose. The movie?”
“Never heard of it,” Mark said. He looked at his watch and then back at Lauren.
“Well then, we’ll have to watch it,” Lauren said. “It’s amazing.”
“You ready?” Mark asked. Lauren nodded and put her coat on.
“Good night, Willard,” she said to the bowl. She left the light on in the kitchen so that he wouldn’t be disoriented.
Mark was odd. Lauren knew that. She knew from the time that he approached her in the deli that he was not normal. He interrupted her while she was putting Equal in her coffee. “Hello,” he said, and she jumped in mid-stir.
“Hi,” she said. She was running late to meet a client and didn’t have time for pleasantries with a stranger.
“I’ve seen you here before,” he said. “Every morning around this time, I see you here getting your coffee and sometimes a bagel.”
Lauren stared at him. She had never noticed him before. “Really?” she asked. It didn’t occur to her until later that she should be nervous.
“Here’s my card,” he said. “Call me. I’d like to take you out.”
Lauren took the card, but didn’t look down at it. “Okay.”
“I look forward to hearing from you,” he said. Then he turned and walked out.
Lauren thought that was sort of cocky. He was very handsome. She could give him that. But still, people didn’t just approach other people in the middle of their morning coffee to ask them out. Did they? No, they did not.
Lauren thought about him all during her appointments that day. She was escorting a young Kansas City couple around. They were relocating to the city and wanted to find a place immediately. The wife had blond hair and wore a pastel minidress. She complained about every place they saw.
“I don’t know,” she kept saying. “It’s so small. It’s just so small.”
“This is pretty standard for a one-bedroom in New York,” Lauren said. The wife glared at her.
“We want to have children soon. Babies,” the wife said. Lauren nodded.
“Right. Well, a lot of people in this building put up a wall for a second bedroom. It’s a pretty nice size, so you wouldn’t feel so tight for space.”
The wife looked at Lauren’s hand. “Are you married?” she asked.
Lauren shook her head. She reminded herself to be nice so that she