Best Intentions, Page 2

shoulders.

  “I really do think that babies are cute. Remember when Dr. Redmond told you that you needed to allow other people room for their own opinions, that they’re not just trying to contradict you? This is one of those times. I’m not just trying to contradict you. It is how I really feel. Before ever even meeting you I felt that way.” He lightly caressed her back like he was cautiously dismantling a bomb.

  “Fine. Whatever you say, Marvin. I give up. You win.” She sighed.

  “Can we be done with this topic now?”

  “I said fine, Marvin. Whatever.”

  “Good. Thank you. Now, what do you think about going into the city for the weekend?”

  “Oh?” She brightened up. “You still want to go into the city? I thought that was just one of your sneaky change-the-subject tricks.”

  “Nope. Not this time.” He grinned and winked. Her face wrinkled like she just smelled something bad.

  “I thought that you said that we were low on money until the end of the month.”

  “I took another look at our finances and it’s not too bad really. We’ve got about six hundred dollars until payday.”

  “I love you so much, Marvin.” She hugged him hard enough that she momentarily stole his breath.

  “We’ll leave as soon as you’re ready.”

  “What did you have in mind, Marvin? Staying a night at the Hilton after seeing a show? Something like that?”

  “That would be fun. But you decide, Beatrice. It’s your weekend. It’s a Beatrice weekend.”

  “Well, how do I know what to do? You always do this. Why do you have to put the pressure on me?”

  “Okay. Would you like me to decide?”

  “Okay.”

  “Then a show and a night at the Hilton sounds like great fun.”

  “No. That’s so boring. We’ve done that lots of times. What else?”

  “Catch a baseball game and go to a nice restaurant afterwards?”

  “No, Marvin! Are you serious? Why would you say that? That’s just fun for you! I hate baseball! Why would I want to do that, Marvin? I thought you said that this was my weekend. You said it was a Beatrice weekend.”

  “Don’t get angry, Beatrice. We don’t have to do that. I was only making a suggestion. We’ll do something else.”

  “What?”

  “Some shopping?”

  “What would I get? I’ve already got lots of stuff.”

  “I don’t know. Whatever caught your fancy. A new dress. Maybe a hat or a pair of shoes.”

  “No. I don’t want anything right now. Your suggestions are just getting worse. “

  “Then you’re just going to have to decide, Beatrice. I’m not sure what you want to do. We could just stay home if you’d rather.”

  “I knew it! You’re still mad at me about the whole baby thing, Marvin!” She pulled out of his arms. “Fine! Babies are unbelievable looking! They’re all I ever want to look at again! If I ever have to look at anything else in my life I’ll gouge my own eyes out!”

  “Beatrice, please.” He grabbed her and pulled her close again. “I’m not mad and we’re not still fighting.”He caressed her back. “Besides, I prefer you having eyes. I don’t want you to gouge them out. Yours are very pretty.” He kissed her forehead. “Why don’t you just think about it for awhile and let me know what you want to do when it comes to you? Whatever you want to do, we’ll do it. Okay, sugar pie?”

  “It almost seems like you love babies more than you do me. And I really don’t know how you possibly could, Marvin. They’re so…lazy.”

  Marvin almost asked her about babies being lazy but snatched his comment by the tail and dragged it back before he got bogged down in another strange argument. “Just take a little time to think, sugar pie, and then let me know what you want to do.”

  “Fine.” She sighed and picked her magazine off the couch. “I’m going to read in the bedroom for a little while.”

  He nodded. “Okay, sugar pie.” He winked at her.

  “What? Why did you wink at me?”

  “Because I think you’re great.”

  “You’re so weird sometimes, Marvin.” She left the room. He sat down at the desk again.

  About an hour later she came out of the bedroom, carrying her magazine open, pages toward him, as she walked.

  “I’ve decided what I want to do, Marvin.”

  Marvin looked at the magazine page that featured an advertisement for a clinic that specialized in enlarging male genitalia.

  “I’m willing to do just about anything for you, Beatrice, but you’re really asking too much this time.”

  Her face wrinkled. “What?” She turned the magazine around and examined the page. “Not that, Marvin! Don’t be disgusting!” She shook her head angrily. “Those doctors make those penises larger by using tissue from dead people. I saw it on Oprah. Who the heck wants a husband with some kind of Frankenstein corpse penis? Not me. It could even end up being haunted or something.”

  “A penis haunted by a ghost?”

  “You saw that movie, Marvin. The one where the girl got the dead person’s eyes.”

  “That was just a movie though, Beatrice.

  “The thing would probably smell bad too.”

  “Huh? Why would-”

  “Forget about your penis for a moment, Marvin. I was actually talking about the article on the other page.” she held the magazine up to him again and pointed.

  “Dog saves confused old woman from car wash?”

  She moved her finger over. “Not that one, Marvin. Stop being stupid.”

  “A hooker with regrets?”

  “Yes.”

  “What? You want to get a hooker this weekend? I’ve never suspected that you had such a dark side, Beatrice.”

  “Stop it, Marvin. I want to help a hooker this weekend.”

  “Help her what, Beatrice? Helping a hooker while she’s working usually just makes you another hooker?”

  “I want to help her get off the streets and get a real job, okay? We could help her stop hooking.”

  “You can’t get hookers to stop what they’re doing. They have drug habits and pimps. You know nothing at all about that world, Beatrice.”

  “I’ve seen plenty of hookers on TV. I’ve read lots of books. Those women were usually abused when they were young and fell into prostitution out of desperation and coercion. It’s the last thing that they really want to be doing.”

  “Beatrice, please. Why do you always make everything so complicated and weird? What was so terribly wrong about just seeing an off Broadway play again?”

  “Come on, Marvin. We’ll buy her a nice expensive dinner and have it set up on a table with candle light and roses in our hotel room. We’ll get her some candy. Please, Marvin. I’ll do all of the talking. Please. It’ll be great. We’ll have made a difference in someone’s life. Think of her as a damsel in distress. Wouldn’t you help a damsel in distress, Marvin? I know you would. We’ll make her happy and comfortable and then we’ll just ease into the conversation.”

  “Sure. Right over the salmon in black butter. Something like this, Beatrice? So, you’re a hooker? That doesn’t seem very fun. Ever think about being a computer programmer? Is that really how you see it going, Beatrice?”

  “Yes, Marvin. Something like that.” Beatrice folded her arms.

  “What if we get picked up by police, or worse, stabbed and shot by her pimp and left in a gutter?”

  “You said that this was my weekend, Marvin, and you asked me what I really wanted to do. Remember when you called this a Beatrice weekend? So I thought hard about it and I told you. And this is how you respond.” She threw her hands up.

  “I’m sorry if it upsets you but no, Beatrice. We’re not picking up a hooker. Not a chance. If you don’t care to go into the city to see a play and have a nice dinner with your husband then we’ll just stay home. My answer is no, and I mean it this time.”

  “You said, whatever you want to do, Beatrice. That’s what
you said to me. Your exact words.”

  An hour later they were slowly cruising the city streets looking for hookers in the red light district.

  “So, we’ll try to convince one hooker and if she tells us to stuff it we’ll politely excuse ourselves and go find a scalper with tickets to The Wren. You’re sticking to our agreement, Beatrice. Remember.”

  “I know. I will.” She rummaged through her purse. “I brought this along, just in case we need it.” She reached in and pulled out a plastic freezer bag that contained something that sort of resembled a gun. She opened the bag, filling the car with the odor of shoe polish. Then she grabbed a couple of napkins from the glove compartment and lifted the homemade weapon from the bag with the napkins cautiously. “Darn, it’s still not dry?”

  “What is that, sugar pie? And why does it smell like my bowling shoes?”

  “It’s a gun. I formed it out of a couple of bars of soap and painted it with shoe polish like the cons did in that movie where they escaped from prison. It looks pretty realistic.”

  “No, it doesn’t. I couldn’t even tell what it was. Leave that thing in the car, sugar pie.”

  “You never can tell when you’re going to need a gun, Marvin.”

  “We don’t need it, Beatrice. Trust me.”

  She slipped it back into the sandwich bag and under the passenger seat.

  “Right there, Marvin.” Beatrice pointed. “Pull over and park. See her? The brunette walking by herself. Go talk to her.

  “How do you even know that she’s a hooker?”

  “Look at her boots, Marvin. Look at the way she’s dressed. Regular women don’t wear thigh high boots like those. Those are the boots of a pro. Now go. Go talk to her.”

  “That’s our girl tonight?”

  “That’s our