Heat Wave

By noon, the temperature had already reached seventy degrees outside. From the southeast window of our office, I could see a sizable lunchtime crowd gathering in Bryant Park behind the public library, much the same as they would on any hot July afternoon. But this wasn't July. It was January. And the average temperature for this time of year in New York City was generally in the mid to upper twenties. On this particular day, Global Warming naysayers were difficult to find.

Out in the park, people sat on folding chairs around the ice skating rink, eating sandwiches and take-out salads from plastic containers, as a handful of reluctant skaters left V shaped streams of water behind them. A Mr. Softie ice cream truck sat behind the old telephone company building where a restless line of about twenty customers stretched all the way back to the corner of Forty-first and Sixth. I stood at my window overlooking the park, feeling bored and claustrophobic, and maybe just a little jealous of this guy near the fountain down below who had his arms around two gorgeous women while another one took their picture. It had been exactly six months, two weeks and four days since I had so much as grazed against a female human, and even though that affair ended just as badly as all those that had preceded it, the memory of her warm scent still bounced around in my head like a hot pinball.

At one p.m., I grabbed my blazer from the closet and went out for a stroll down to Thirty-fourth Street. I had nothing special in mind, just looking to kill the better part of an hour, and maybe clear my sinuses with some fresh air. After grabbing a slice of pizza, I found myself standing in front of one of those glitzy, tourist trap electronics stores, staring at a bunch of overpriced guy toys when Caroline's reflection came up in the window like a haunting apparition. She was straddling the yellow dividing line in the middle of Thirty-fourth Street, grinning foolishly as cars whipped by on both sides. Her auburn hair danced wildly across her shoulders like fire skittering over a burning log. The man beside her was slightly shorter, sporting a narrow brown mustache that bled down into a salt and pepper chin beard. He was broad shouldered, thick in the hips, and with his road map of facial creases and receding hairline, he looked at least twenty years older, old enough to be her father. They held hands while standing side-by-side, his balding pate gleaming with a thin coat of perspiration that made his head look like a shiny egg in a nest underneath the warm glare of the midday sun. A corner traffic cop eyed them with stern disapproval, but didn't say anything.

Caroline wore a baggy black Hard Rock Cafe sweatshirt and snug fitting cream colored jeans with matching flats. She tossed her head a few times, trying to keep the hair out of her eyes, which reminded me of cat eyes, fierce and intense, discreet yet calculating. They smiled at each other while waiting for a break in the traffic. They looked perfectly wrong together, and if I was right about the twenty year age difference, they had missed each other by twice that much in every other respect. Naturally, this made me happy. We had broken up just over a year ago. Last I heard she was taking acting lessons from some guy uptown who claimed he had been nominated for a Tony Award.

A bus pulled out from the corner, momentarily blocking the flow of cars on the street. Caroline shouted, "Now!" as they began to make a run for it, still holding hands, laughing like kids who had just busted out of school early.

I thought about letting them pass, continuing on my way, which would have been the right thing to do, the sensible thing, but the left shoulder demon who has always been the instigator of so many unnecessary confrontations in my life just couldn't resist.

"Hey!" I waved at Caroline as they hit the sidewalk.

"Oh my," she said, immediately slipping into her role as bad actress. "Well look at you," she added. "Small world, huh?"

"How are you?" I said.

"I'm fine. I'm doing just great. Graham, this is Michael."

"Hi'ya doin'." Graham exhaled heavily, trying to catch his breath, then shoved a pork chop right hand at me. He gripped mine high in the web, applying some light but firm pressure. A psychological game of mine is bigger than yours. "Nice to meet you, Mike," he said, a gruff baritone, a thoroughly insincere smile. "I've heard a lot about you."

"Graham's a theatrical producer," she said. "He believes I have talent."

I looked at Caroline and smiled.

I'm sure he does.

I glanced down at Graham's monogrammed gold bracelet entangled in a dark web of gray fuzz that reminded me of Brillo. On the other hand, a gold Tourneau watch with diamonds for numbers winked under the Sun's glare. He held onto my hand about three seconds longer than necessary. I thought about hitting him in the throat with my left, then head butting him across the bridge of the nose. I could have had him on the ground in a matter of seconds, crushed his collar bone with both knees and been long gone before that traffic cop on the corner ever knew what happened. Suddenly, Graham released my hand and stepped off to the side, as if to afford the two of us some privacy. I motioned him back over. I had nothing to say to her that he wasn't welcome to hear.

"Juliette misses you," Caroline said.

The opening salvo. Juliette was her seven year old daughter who I had helped raise for just over three years, an innocent casualty of the emotional H-Bomb that fallen between her mother and I. She was an adorable little girl who I had loved as though she were my own. I hadn't seen her in just over a year now, not since the break up, and on my end, there was a fair amount of guilt where she was concerned. I had sent her birthday presents and Christmas gifts over the last year, but even if I had tried, Caroline would have never let me near her. The day that I left her place, the child become a weapon to be used against me.

"Tell her I miss her too," I said.

"Sure. I think she knows that."

I didn't think so. After all, she was only seven years old, and for the last three I had been the only male figure in her life. In spite of the circumstances, I knew that the kid believed I had abandoned her, and Caroline had done everything in her power to reinforce that idea.

"Maybe one day I can come by and take her to the movies or something," I said. "That's if you don't mind."

"You don't have to do that, Michael. She's a bright girl. She understands these things."

"No one said I had to. It's something I want to do."

"Well, don't say it if you don't mean it. She'll be disappointed."

A couple of young guys came out of the drug store behind us. One of them slipped between Caroline and I, turning briefly to make a quick appraisal of her ass as he continued down the block. Graham frowned, annoyed. I heard the first few bars of The Stones' "I Can't Get No Satisfaction" coming from Graham's jacket pocket. He reached in, pulled out a silver flip open cell phone, stepped back a few yards and began speaking.

"So, how are you doing otherwise?" Caroline said, folding her arms across her chest. A quick change of topics. "You seeing anyone?"

"Me? I'm all right." I nodded toward Graham and grinned. "Where'd you dig him up from?"

"Oh fuck you, Michael." Hot rage colored her face. "He's a nice man, and he loves me. Which is more than I could ever say for you."

"Right."

"It's nice to see that some things never change where you're concerned." Then, looking in Graham's direction, "I think we should get going."

Graham stared at me as Caroline took him by the arm, leading him off in the other direction. He was still speaking into the cell phone, and in my mind they seemed so comically mismatched that I almost laughed. Their relationship wasn't difficult to figure out. In spite of her confident demeanor, Caroline was a psychological wreck. Emotionally, she was as needy as a three year old, and anyone who showed her the smallest degree of concern ended up wearing her self-serving friendship and misdirected love like cotton balls on a Velcro overcoat. She had started off working in the accounting department at our place about five years earlier, but eventually bombed out due to excessive lateness and rampant absenteeism. She shrugged it off and gave her supervisor the finger when they fired her. She didn't need the job. Money wasn't important. She was the youngest of four children, the only girl in the family, and her daddy was wealthy. She took a job because she was bored. A few weeks after they canned her, she called me on the office phone, asking if I'd have dinner with her after work. Up until that point, we had been casual acquaintances, but since women who look like Caroline are never interested in guys like me, I immediately fell for the trap. Within three months, I had moved in with her and Juliette. After six, we were talking about marriage. And by the end of the first year, we had already had a series of wild shouting matches, one of them so intense that a neighbor overheard the ruckus and called the police.

Eventually, things chilled out and we settled into a somewhat normal existence, but it was never what it could have been, and I was never delusional enough to believe that she actually loved me. I was a step down for her. She overshadowed me in just about every category. But there were times when I thought, foolishly, that it might work, and that I might somehow persuade her to look beyond the physical, social and economic valleys between us. That never happened, and when the passion disappeared there was only rage. At one point, I suspected that she might have had someone else on the side. Fortunately, that turned out to be the projection of my own anxiety. But even when things weren't going well, Juliette was always the center of our attentions. The little girl's father was some unknown dude that Caroline had evidently used as a sperm donor. She never talked about him and refused to respond even when pressed on it by her overbearing parents.

I stood there on the corner watching Caroline and Graham stroll up the block arm in arm. The idea that this Graham character had access to Juliette while I didn't really pissed me off. The idea that I would not get to see her grow up and develop into the beautiful young woman that I always knew she would become left me feeling cheated and hurt. The left shoulder demon laughed hysterically over yet another mission accomplished.

I checked my watch and started off in the opposite direction. Suddenly, I heard Caroline shouting, and as I turned quickly I saw Graham rushing at me from about ten yards away, fists clenched, wild eyed and snarling through a row of uneven teeth.

I stepped off to the side and planted myself in place. He came up on me, drawing to a halt about three feet away, mouth open, puffing with anger.

"You know, you seem to have some kind of problem with me," he snapped, pointing a beefy finger at my chest.

I stared at him for a moment, without backing away, as he had probably expected. Instead, I moved up a foot or two until we were eye to eye and continued looking at him. He was all noise and air. He didn't know how to fight. I could tell by the way he stood, by the way he held his hands in front of himself, and by the lack of callouses on his knuckles. Plus, he was standing there waiting for me to make the first move, which is a really stupid strategy if you're planning to start a fight. If I kicked him hard in the front of his knee, I could have hyper extended it, shattering the knee cap while tearing some major ligaments.

Caroline came up behind him, quickly grabbing him by the arm. She tried to pull him away but he wasn't budging.

"I can make sure that you get an adjustment to that attitude of yours, if you like," he said.

"Graham, let's go," Caroline said. "It's nothing. I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said anything."

"And I can make sure that you're walking around on crutches for the next three months," I said.

"Stop it! Now!" Caroline shouted. "Both of you!"

"It's your move, brother man," he said.

"Go for it," I said, arms extended, palms up like a priest delivering Sunday mass. "Three weeks in traction, eight more on crutches. Don't say you weren't warned."

"Yeah, right."

"Go for it then."

A couple of people stopped nearby anticipating a show. Caroline got right up in my face and hollered, "Michael, I swear! If you touch him, I'll get that cop over there and have you arrested!"

"Hey, he started it!" I said loudly. "I was all ready to leave."

More people stopped to watch, the crowd growing to about twenty or so. Graham finally gave in, allowing Caroline to pull him away by the arm. They looked even more absurd than I thought originally.

I looked around at some of the people in the crowd. They were obviously disappointed now that they wouldn't get to see two grown men fist fighting over some screwy broad on one of the busiest streets in Manhattan.

I looked up just in time to catch Caroline shooting me the finger as they crossed the traffic island at Herald Square. I took this to mean that I would not be taking Juliette to the movies that weekend.

An hour later, I was still annoyed when this guy named Donald from the Accounting Department popped in on me.

He said, "Hey, was that Caroline that I saw you talking to down near Macy's at lunchtime? She looked great!"

I kept working, and without looking up at him, I said, "I wasn't near Macy's at lunchtime, Donny." Dead serious.

He started to say something but quickly changed his mind.

"It must have been someone else," I said. Then I got up and left the room.