Melancholy Baby

Spike looked at Rosie, and then at Miranda, then back at the woman.

“Oh, of course, ma’am. I see your point completely.”

He stood up.

“I’ll take care of it right away.”

Spike walked to the hostess stand and reached behind it and opened the drawer. All of his movements were as graceful and precise as if he weighed half of what he weighed. He took a black felt-tipped Magic Marker from the drawer, bent over, and carefully, after the part that said except seeing-eye, wrote in a neat hand: and Rosie Randall. Then he put the Magic Marker back in the drawer, stepped back, and looked at the sign. Nodded with satisfaction, and returned to his chair.

“Thanks for caring,” he said to the lady in the harlequin glasses.

“But you... you... you can’t just change the sign and allow dogs to eat off the table in a restaurant.”

Spike looked at them, puzzled for a moment. I knew he was struggling with his attitude adjustment.

“Perhaps if Miranda got you a better table,” Spike said.

“It’s not a question of a better table,” the mature woman said. “It’s a question, if I may say so, of hygiene.”

The adjustment was sliding.

“Rosie’s had all her shots,” Spike said. “I don’t think you’ll infect her.”

Miranda had been hovering near, knowing how tenuous Spike’s hold on civility was.

“Ladies, if you’ll come with me,” Miranda said. “There’s a lovely table by the window. I’ll have your server move everything... and lunch will be on me.”

It was a chance to finish lunch, preserve their dignity, and save a few bucks. They took it. In maybe a minute they were reseated, their plates were transferred, and they were eating again, though all of them glared occasionally at me and Rosie and Spike.

“Never fire Miranda,” I said to Spike.

“God no,” he said. “I’d put myself out of business in a month.”

We were quiet. Spike looked at me. Then he got up and came around and sat on the banquette beside me.

“Something bad is bothering you,” he said. “And I want to know what.”

4

I started to tear up again as I told him, and when I got through, he put his arms around me and pulled me against him. This made Rosie vaguely uneasy, until he scooped her in, too, and the three of us sat in close embrace while I cried a little.

After a while I stopped, and with my face still against his chest said, “I don’t know what to do.”

“Of course you don’t,” Spike said.

“I know we were divorced,” I said. “I know he slept with other people and God knows I did, too.”

“But sometimes you slept with each other,” Spike said softly, “even though you were divorced, and you still loved him, and you were pretty sure he loved you, and you sort of knew that someday it would work out, and you’d be together again, in some way or other.”

I nodded against his chest. It was like snuggling a sandbag.

“And now the sonovabitch is getting married and you can’t think that anymore.”

I nodded again.

“Even though you divorced him originally.”

“Yes.”

My voice sounded small and muffled against him. He didn’t say anything else, just kept his arm around me and patted my back gently. With his other hand, he gave Rosie a piece of her dinner roll. I got my breathing under control after a while, and he let me go and I sat up straight. Spike handed me a napkin and I blotted my eyes dry, trying not to make too much of a mess of my makeup.

“For what it’s worth,” Spike said, “this is as bad as it’s going to get. In a while it will get better.”

“It doesn’t feel that way.”

“It will get better,” Spike said.

“What the hell is wrong with me?” I said. “I can’t live with him, but when he finds somebody that can, I have a breakdown.”

“Because the first time you left him. Now he’s leaving you.”

“You think I’m that childish?”

“Sure,” Spike said.

“I can’t live with anyone,” I said.

“I know.”

“But why can’t I?”

“I don’t know.”

Rosie had settled in comfortably between us now that there was no more hugging and crying, and kept her eyes on the roll. Spike broke off another small piece and fed it to her.

“I don’t know, either,” I said. “That’s the awful thing.”

“Weren’t you seeing a shrink a while ago?”

“Dr. Copeland, yes, but that was business. I was consulting on that Melissa Joan Hall thing.”

“But didn’t you go see him for a while afterwards?”

“Just a couple of times,” I said. “I didn’t see any reason to go really.”

“ ’Cause Richie wasn’t getting married, and neither were you, so you and he could be whatever you and he were.”

I nodded.

“And, as I recall, you were bopping that guy from LA.”

“Spike!”

“Which made it easier to feel like you were happy,” Spike said. “Right now you feel badly alone.”

“Except for you,” I said.

“And as we both know, I’m gayer than three humming birds,” Spike said.

“Doesn’t mean I don’t love you,” I said.

“Doesn’t mean I don’t love you, either. But that’s not what we’re talking about.”

“What are we talking about?”

“You need to see a shrink.”

“Oh, God,” I said.

“We need to know what’s wrong with you.” He grinned at me. “I can only take you so far.”

“That seems so long a hill to climb.”

Spike nodded.

“I mean, do you think I’m crazy?”