- Matchbook 4: Chapter XX & Coda
CHAPTER XX
“Oh, Bob, what are we going to do without him?” Susie cooed into Bob Bawlis’ Bluetooth.
“I don’t know, my dearie. What are we going to do without him? I’m up here at Martha’s now most of the time. Betsy has joined a half dozen knitting or quilting clubs, so I can catch up on books I’ve claimed to’ve read.”
“You mean you don’t really read as much as you tell everyone? Oh, you? Bob Bawlis?” Susie cackled into the phone.
He chuckled back in answer.
She caught her breath. “I know everyone else is in lockdown because of COVID”—she stretched out the long vowel—“but you and I aren’t everyone. What are we going to do?”
Bob Bawlis laughed now. It was neither a nervous nor a lewd laugh—and neither jolly nor dour. It was just perfectly between a chuckle and a roar. “What do you mean we, Susie?”
“I mean you’re out of a job—since you left,” she said the word sarcastically, “FOX—and I’m out of a job, since the bitches Barry has surrounding Sam have decided nothing is ‘dignified’ enough for the elder stateswoman they’ve made me into, so we’re both out. Now what? What are we going to do? You know,” she continued, “you and I together would be quite a media property, get quite a lot of cachet, demand quite a contract as a duo.”
“What sort of duo did you have in mind?”
“You know, like Ken and Bob.”
“Or do you mean like Burns and Allen?”
“No, I don’t think I’d look good with a cigar. Too phallic. Too obvious!” She hooted. “Now if you play George…that might work.”
“Are you serious, dearie?”
“You bet a million I am.”
“Actually, it would probably be more like a hundred million.” He paused. “I like it. I think it might work. What’s the next step for this idea of yours? If I consent, that is….”
“Have your people call my people. Where I own three-quarters to your one. I’d give you some catch-up incentives, naturally.”
“Now, wait a minute, Susie! You can’t be owning twice as much as me. I thought we were a duo, partners, you said?”
A ripple of mechanical laughter, ricocheting in a tight loop, like a very fast guitarist but not sweet, not like Jerry Z. No matter what else, this laugher sounds bitter.
And America won’t buy bitter. Which is the real reason Susie never won.
When she caught her breath, she asked Bob Bawlis, rhetorically, “I wonder what old Nancy is doing in her retirement now?”
“I had ice cream with her yesterday. Virtually, of course.”
CODA TO MATCHBOOK 4
At our wedding, a month later, our first dance was “Stand By Me,” which was appropriate. I was still in a brace.
Leaving Rye, we partook of a glorious week’s honeymoon in Barbados, gratis of my wonderful new in-laws the Beans. Recuperating, Binky and I enjoyed each other even more than the sun and sand. It was there I bumped into the former Russian ambassador Vlad Klisisnikov. He’d lost some pounds, even developed quite a tan. He told me some story about how he’d be just as happy on some beach on the Crimea—if only they’d let him live there. He told it as if I would understand him, too!
Then we settled down to married life, to building our future in New York City, that desolate place of desecration. Even with its declining rents, neither of us could think of a greater challenge. And if there was a place that needed a lot done for it, we were there now. We could be useful. I applied for a concealed weapons permit, which I figured I’d skate through given my experience at the Castle.
And now again, winter draws darker and the sun in America’s City is blocked by clouds. Buildings, famous ones, are set on fire. And at Grant’s Tomb, a headless statue has been erected, lunging about with its shield pointed against the sky.
No one’s heard from Z for the longest time.
On quiet afternoons, thinking back on my four years with Michael Match, I see what mattered. For me, he was what I was looking for, maybe not what I wanted but what I needed, a chance, an opportunity, to be responsible, to be depended upon by someone else, a chance to do what was needed. And now Binky and I were going to make the next opportunity of our own making, grateful to be on our own, to make our own world, our own Golden Towers—for better or for worse. Maybe call it Moriarty Manor? Always loyal, I dream, but life must go….
Then the phone vibrates in my pocket. I reach down and pull it out. MATCH lights the screen. I hit the green button.
“Yes, sir? … Yes. … Yes, I can be there in twenty. … Absolutely. Yes, sir! Yes, sir—any time!”
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