Read Online Falsely Accused by Robert Tanenbaum - Free Book Online

happens to me a lot. I’m dying of curiosity. So I try to pump him on the ride up, what does he do, where does he live, what’s happened since high school. He’s not saying. What does he do? A little of this, a little of that. He lives ‘uptown.’ Actually, it turns out he only wants to talk about me, and what happened to the people in my crowd back then. So I perform, I bullshit away, but meanwhile, I’m thinking, uh-oh, please let this guy not be in the dope business, because that’s all my ex needs to hear, I’m keeping company with Mr. Coke, it’s court again and maybe good-bye, Miranda.”
    â€œWhere did he take you?”
    â€œElaine’s. Where else? Of course, there’s a line outside, and when our limo pulls up, they’re all gaping. The doorman looks at us funny, but he lets us past— I guess a limo is a limo. Also the geek’s got reservations, which means he’s not a regular, but we go up to the maitre d’ and Rob says he wants us to have a banquette table, where all the celebrities sit. The guy smiles and shakes his head, and then Rob pulls out a roll of bills, Marlene, I swear it was the size of a pastrami sandwich and solid twenties, and he starts peeling them off one by one onto the maître d’s little lectern. And the guy’s embarrassed, you can tell, but all the same, he can’t take his eyes off the pile of bills.”
    â€œSo you got the good seats?”
    â€œOh, yeah, the best. Burt Reynolds was at the next table. And we saw Bill Murray and a bunch of people from Saturday Night Live. I was looking for Woody and Mia, but they didn’t show.”
    â€œPoor you,” said Marlene. “Let me understand this: you are running away from this guy? This is your problem ?”
    â€œOh, God!” Carrie wailed, “I knew you were going to say that. Okay, listen to the rest of it. There we are, and, to be frank, I’m pretty excited. I mean, the Bread Shop on Duane Street is my usual speed since the divorce, and I’m trying to get a conversation going. But there’s nothing coming from him. Zip. He’s not looking around. He’s barely interested in his food. He’s just looking at me, as if he’s finally achieved this big dream and I’m just some kind of trophy. The geek bagged the prom queen? Right about then the little buzzer started to go off: wronggg! wronggg! And after that all I could think about was, this guy must have blown a grand tonight, he’s going to expect his money’s worth, being, as I now realize, the same old geek but with money, and how the hell am I going to keep him out of my panties?”
    â€œAnd did you?”
    â€œOh, yeah. As it turned out, that wasn’t a problem. We get back here. I turn to him, grab his hand, give it one shake, say ‘thank you very much for dinner, Rob,’ and I’m gone. And he took it, didn’t say a word. So, I pay the sitter, have a bath, go to bed. Around three a.m. the phone rings. I let the machine take it. In the morning, I see the blinker and I play the tape. It’s him, and it’s weird. In this voice, ‘Hi, it’s me.’ Like we’ve been married for six years, and then he starts talking about what a great time we had and how he’ll be around to pick me up at eight, and a lot of other crap about how he always knew I liked him in high school but he had to get his shit together before he was worthy of me, and how, way back when, he was in this place, this joint we used to hang out at in high school, Larry’s, and somebody played ‘Twist and Shout’ on the jukebox and I looked at him and he knew that our love was real. It was incredible. It just went on and on like that, and then he played the song.”
    â€œWhat did you do?” asked Marlene.
    â€œI got out of town is what I did. I called up my friend Beth in Southampton and said it was life or death, and I grabbed