I saw Kathy pushing that monster of hers in a red Stroller. I hadn’t seen her in a long time and like an idiot I waved to her and she turned the stroller on a dime and charged across the street, with her kid out front pointing at me like a rhino’s horn. No: “Hello, how do you do” from an old Kathy. She just lit right into me, “What the fuck is wrong with your friend Ivan?”
“Ivan? Nothing. He passed the bar… moved back into Manhattan. You know, he got that job… ironically, he’s turning out to be the only one of us who’ll make any money… so much for saving the world..”
“That’s not what I mean and you fucking know it. Why is Ivan Sending Two dozen roses to my house on Valentines Day?”
“He actually got up the nerve,” I said under my breath.
“Some Nerve,” she said.
“Ivan came out for lunch last week and we saw” (and the kid’s name fell out of my head, because I always called it the little monster to every and anyone, but Kathy… the kid was a screaming terror who even in his present state of sleepy, slack jawed drooling, was only storing energy for his next violent fit)…”We saw YOUR CHILD,” I offered. “With his nanny. Ivan was quite smitten by her. You know how he always loved French girls.”
“Marguerite? She’s not fucking French. She’s Haitian.”
“Well she speaks French,” I said. “She has that charming patois… and let’s face it… She’s soft on the eyes.”
I found myself speaking like I was stuck at the turn of the century… I mean the last one. I can never talk to women and especially mothers in my own voice.
“Well that explains why the card was in French,” Kathy muttered and I could see her storing the energy up for her own fit. I got nervous and fished in my coat for the cigarette I’d bummed from Danny two days ago. It was bent and shedding its innards, but I lit it and smoked like a man on the proverbial firing line. I remembered now why I was out of touch with Kathy.
“Do you have to do that?,” she asked.
“What?” I said stalling as I quickly inhaled the cigarette.
“Smoke in front of my baby.”
“Who him?” I said pointing.
“I thought they were from … maybe John.”
“But it said Marguerite on the card.”
“I don’t speak French,” she said. “I studied Spanish.”
“What’s that got to do with it?”
“I thought he was being Surrealist. I thought it said Magritte. I don’t speak french. I thought it was a reference… a poem.”
“Is John often surrealist around Valentines day?” I asked, thinking he most likely had to be if he was Dada to that little Minotaur. “Besides, the card was signed Ivan.”
“That’s not the fucking point… Why would he send flowers to MY house. John flipped out when he saw them.”
“We figured she’s always there… she’d be there on Valentines day too… We didn’t know where she lives… He was just smitten that’s all. We figured you’d both be at work and it would make her day.”
“We? You fucking told him where I live! Didn’t you?”
“Me? No. I might have walked him by your apartment… Why? Was it a problem?”
“How could you? She’s my nanny.”
“She’s a peach.”
“Don’t send fucking flowers to my house, get it.”
“Okay,” I said defensively. “I was just trying to serve love… you know… like cupid. It was the holiday. In the future I’ll stand in the way of love. I’ll be an impediment to love from now on, Kathy. I’m a brick wall.”
“Grow up,” she said.
“Did she get the flowers, at least?” I asked.
“I hate you,” she said and turned red and turned the red stroller and charged off, “I thought the flowers were for me.” she said to no one and the little monster started to scream and scream down the street.