Dream Girl(57)

Gerry Senior had to want something. But what?

Not an autobiographical book. He didn’t even have the decency to buy a copy. But he lingered as Gerry signed books for the hearteningly long line of customers. Gerry’s media escort, a busty divorcée who had been dropping hints about sleeping with him—lots of jokes throughout the long day about how hilarious it is that she’s called an escort, etc., etc.—pegged his father, lingering at the back of the room, as trouble. He could sense it in her body language, how she made sure to stand in what would be Senior’s direct path, should he try to approach. But his father remained where he was, his back against the science fiction section. Did anyone see the resemblance? It killed Gerry how much he looked like his father. The Andersen genes were strong—in the rare photos that show him with his father’s family, you could always pick out who married into that tribe of blue-eyed blonds. His mother appeared outlandishly petite and dark in the family holiday photo taken when Gerry was not quite two. Legend had it that Grandmother Andersen had leaned over and hissed to her son: “Is she a Jewess?”

Books signed, stock signed, chairs folded, time for Gerry to make his getaway and, lord knows, the escort seemed eager to escort him. He didn’t really have the energy for much, but if she wanted to do a little something in the car, that could work for him. He was a single man, unencumbered, a consenting adult.

He was about to slide through the bookstore’s rear exit when he felt a tap on his shoulder.

“I guess you’re surprised to see me.”

Gerry shrugged.

“You seem to have done pretty well for yourself. How many copies of this book have you sold?”

A question Gerry hated, although at least the number was finally respectable. It seemed to him that only novelists were asked, in this indirect way, how much money they made.

“I’m doing fine,” he said. “What do you want?”

“To see my boy, of course.”

“I’m not your boy.”

“How’s Ellie?”

“Fine.”

“I bet she’s bursting with pride.”

“She’s always been proud of me, yes.”

“Yeah, once you came along, she didn’t really have anything left for me. When I would come home from being on the road, I felt like an interloper, like you two were the couple and I was the kid.”

Interloper. Gerry’s father had always liked to show off his vocabulary, much of it learned from the old Reader’s Digest feature Build Your Word Power. He took the quiz very seriously and woe to anyone who dared to mark it up before him.

But had his mother treated his father like an interloper? Gerry didn’t think so. His mother had lit up when his father walked into a room. She was a young, still quite beautiful woman when he left, yet she never dated again, and it wasn’t for lack of opportunities. It was always clear to Gerry that Gerry Senior was the only man his mother ever loved. He considered that unrequited, undeserved devotion the singular tragedy of her life.

“What do you want?”

“I’m going to be leaving Colleen.”

“Who?”

“My second wife.”

“Down from two wives to one to none. That will be different for you.”

“Maybe I’ll swing by Baltimore, pay your mother a visit. It’s not like I haven’t done it before.”

Gerry’s right hand was sore from signing, but he felt his fingers clench and unclench. God, it would be satisfying to punch him, just once. “Why would I care that you’re leaving Colleen? What does that have to do with me? What do you have to do with me?”

“You’ll never be rid of me,” his father said, pointing to Gerry’s head. “I’ll always be in there. You’re my boy.”

It was like a curse in a fairy tale. Gerry didn’t believe in fairy tales. He took the escort by the elbow and piloted her into the parking lot. Unfortunately, his decision to touch her, even if it was only an elbow, ended up committing him to far more intimate and intensive acts than he had planned. Ah well, he wasn’t married and if he noticed, when she plunged her hand inside his pants as they necked outside his hotel, that this “divorcée” wore a ring on the fourth finger of her left hand, what business was it of his?

“Who was that man?” she asked later in his bed, after he had tried and failed to fuck her into silence. “Back in the bookstore.”

“Some run-of-the-mill crazy.”

“Yeah, we see those a lot. I would have thought you were more likely to be a magnet for the female crazies. Those sex scenes in Dream Girl—they’re pretty hot.”

Were they? Gerry had intended them to be more comic than erotic. She was probably saying what she thought he wanted to hear.

“Gosh, I hope I’m not in your next book,” she added in a tone that implied she yearned for just that.

“Who knows,” he said, wondering what other novelists she had slept with, and if he would consider any of them more accomplished than himself. “Anyway, I have a very early wake-up call.”

“I’m the one taking you to the airport. Should I call you or nudge you?” To her credit, she gave the old joke a curlicue of self-aware irony.

“Call,” Gerry said.





April 1