The Safe List
There was no doubt about it: Jasper Martins was in love. Undeniably, hopelessly, bone-crushingly in love with Summer Bohling, his downstairs neighbor. The very mention of her name made him think of valentine hearts … and orange and green shoes with size 7 written on the back.
Jasper — Marty to his friends — had been smitten since the day she arrived in the corner apartment on the floor below his own studio.
Having bumped into her in the elevator, he abandoned his laundry basket to help the new girl move her ukulele, snow globe collection, BarcaLounger, washer-dryer and seven-piece dinette set — in solid oak — into her new digs.
“Are you sure it’s not too much trouble, Marty?” she purred.
“Not at all,” he wheezed, bearing the weight of the matching sideboard on his back. “My laundry was mostly socks.” (And most of those had holes in them.)
When Marty rang for the elevator the next morning, a man wearing corduroy shorts, a turtleneck sweater and trilby hat was just getting off with his beach cruiser bicycle. As the car descended, it stopped on the floor below, the doors opened, and it was her … Summer.
Somewhere, Marty thought he heard a choir of angels singing “Never My Love” as radiant beams of sunlight shone round about her. Or maybe it was just the Muzak in the elevator.
“Oh, Marty,” she said, her long brown hair brushing her creamy shoulders and the straps of her floral print sundress. “I was hoping to bump into you.”
And then she did, stumbling on her cork wedge sandals. Marty gulped and instinctively grabbed her elbow as they jostled in the elevator car, little “ooo’s” and “oh’s” yipping from Summer’s lovely throat.
Her Mini Cooper wouldn’t start and she was late for her job socializing cats at the Humane Society, she said. Would he mind giving her … a lift?
Marty, straightening his knit tie and smoothing his nubby tweed jacket, readily agreed.
As they drove along in his Volvo 240 wagon, Summer confided that she had moved to Marty’s building to make a fresh start after breaking up with her boyfriend, a former competitive shooter who worked in a sporting goods store.
“Trig looked sooo hot in those tight compression shirts and his USA Shooting jacket,” she said, “but all he ever talked about was guns and ammo — about bullets and loads, getting the cartridge into the chamber and terminal performance, things like that.
“Seriously, I didn’t know which he loved more — his gun or me.”
“He certainly sounds mixed up,” Marty said, “and all that talk about guns and shooting must have been upsetting to an animal lover like you.”
“That is sooo thoughtful of you,” she said as she hopped out of the car, blew him a kiss and ran into the animal shelter.
That evening, Marty returned home from his job editing books for the religious, educational and furry animals division of a major publishing house, walked across the lobby and pressed the button for the elevator. The doors parted and out trotted a man with a walrus mustache walking a Scottish terrier on a lead.
Walrus Mustache nodded to Marty as he gaited the pooch across the lobby to the revolving door.
Marty went up to his tiny apartment, unlocked the door and dropped his briefcase on the sofa. He pulled his handkerchief from his pocket and looked at the mascara stains from the 90 minutes he spent consoling a tearful writer whose biography of Drogo of Sebourg, the Patron Saint of Unattractive People, had been rejected for the third time.
“It’ll take a miracle just to get this clean again,” he thought. “Perhaps I should ask old Drogo for some saintly intercession.”
The entire time the would-be author was dabbing her eyes and wringing Marty’s hanky in her hands, all he could imagine was Summer’s long, slender fingers lacing around his tie and playfully pulling him close for a kiss.
He was still absentmindedly fiddling the tie in his own hands when there came a knock on the door.
“Marty, do you have a tin of anchovies I could borrow?” Summer asked as he opened the door. She now wore a flouncy white outfit with bell-bottoms and giant bell sleeves that made her look like an angel on its way to a discotheque, or so Marty thought.
She had invited a new boyfriend — Flex, a parking lot attendant and amateur bodybuilder — over for dinner.
“I want to make him a Caesar salad to get him to try something new,” Summer said. “All he ever eats is whey powder.”
Marty hurriedly scrounged through the meager cabinets of his kitchenette.
He said, “I’ve got a couple cans of tuna, salmon and …,” blowing dust from a flat tin unearthed in the back, “one of sardines from when my Uncle Horace stayed with me after his third divorce.”
“I’ll take the tuna,” Summer said. “Maybe I’ll make tuna salad instead.”
Summer handed him a flyer with a picture of herself wearing a black lace off-the-shoulder mini dress and holding a ukulele.
“Will you come hear me play at the coffee shop on the corner Saturday night? Oh, please, please, pleeeeease!” Summer begged. “It’s my first professional gig!”
When Marty agreed, she kissed her finger and pressed it to his lips.
“Oh, Marty, you’re such a sweetie!” she said. “Bye-eee!”
And with a flutter of her disco wings, she was out the door and gone.
On the appointed night, Marty arrived at the venue — Coffee in the House — ordered an Americano and a piece of carrot cake and settled in at a table near the 8-by-10-foot stage. Of course, all the tables were near the 8-by-10-foot stage.
Summer was a vision perched on a stool in her black mini dress and bathed in the cool glow of a blue spotlight as she opened her set with Mindy Gledhill’s “I Do Adore.”
“I couldn’t agree more,” Marty said dreamily to no one in particular. By the time she had moved on to Jason Mraz’s “I’m Yours,” Marty could swear Summer was looking directly at him. When she got to the line that says, “Scooch on over closer, dear, and I will nibble your ear,” he thought, “That’s an excellent suggestion.”
But as Summer strummed the opening chords of “Over the Rainbow,” Marty’s daydreaming was interrupted by a loud voice behind him shouting things like, “Woohoo!” and “Go, baby!” He looked over his shoulder and saw a bulky man in a crew cut and plaid sport coat pumping his fist in the air like he was at a Def Leppard concert.
Marty tried to ignore the side of beef as Summer wrapped up her performance with “Can’t Help Falling in Love.”
After the show, Marty approached Summer to present her with a gift in celebration of her first paid gig, a book he had edited titled, “How to Talk to Your Cat (and Get a Response).” But the beefy man pushed him aside, grabbed Summer and planted a kiss on her so forcefully that she nearly dropped her ukulele.
“That was awesome, baby, but why don’t you work in some Metallica next time?” he said. “Gotta go! Team meeting!”
“Who was that?” Marty asked.
“Oh, that was Biff,” Summer said. “He plays part time for the indoor football team, but his day job is selling used cars. We go out sometimes.”
“You seem to go out with a lot of guys,” Marty said as he walked Summer back to their apartment building.
“Uh-huh. It’s almost more testosterone than one woman can stand,” she said. “I mean, a girl needs a break sometimes — to take a shower or wash out some panties, things like that.”
“By all means,” Marty said, “my mom was always saying, ‘Be sure to wear clean underwear.’”
They rang for the elevator, the doors opened and out stepped the man with the trilby hat. But this time he was wearing a helmet, leather jacket, leather gloves, leather chaps, leather boots — and was pushing a moped.
As they stopped at Summer’s door, Marty said, “I’d like to take you out sometime, when you’re not busy showering or washing … something.”
“Oh, Marty, I’m so glad you’re my friend,” she said, giving him a hug, “but I don’t think so. You’re not like those other guys. You make me feel safe.”
Then she shut the door in his face.
Marty just stood there, feeling the word like a dagger in his chest.
“Safe,” he repeated with dread. With that single word, Marty had been relegated to … the safe list.
Marty pressed the button for the elevator, and the door opened to reveal the man with the walrus mustache holding the leash to an English bulldog. Marty looked down at the stocky dog’s droopy face and said, “I know just how you feel.”
The safe list meant Summer saw Marty as not so much a red-blooded man but an asexual blob — someone to do favors and listen to her troubles. He was “safe” because he would never make a pass at her, she thought, and she would certainly never make a pass at him.
Oh, there might be the occasional hug, but the rest of the time, he would be gathering dust in the corner like some forgotten stuffed animal given to her by another suitor.
As he lay in bed — alone — Marty wondered how to get off the safe list. Had any man successfully made that journey? It was terra incognita, he thought as he drifted off to sleep.
The next morning, Marty was awakened by the sound of shouting. Still in his pajamas, he rushed into the hallway to find the man in the trilby hat — wearing a lime green spandex workout suit and carrying a pogo stick — shouting at the closed doors of the elevator. “Hang on! I’ll try to get some help!” he was saying.
Trilby explained that the elevator had stopped between floors, trapping a French au pair named Esmée in the car with three small children. The children were beginning to panic.
“Call 911,” Marty said as he raced down the hall to retrieve the ax stored next to the fire hose. Wedging the blade between the elevator doors, Marty used the ax as a lever to pry the doors open. Then he stepped onto the ladder on the side of the elevator shaft, carefully made his way down to the car and opened the small door in the car’s roof.
“Dieu merci!” Esmée shouted. “We are saved!”
One at a time, Marty tied the fire hose around the children for safety, helped them up the ladder and handed them off to the man in the trilby hat before going back for Esmée herself.
Once she was through the elevator doors and safely in the hallway, the au pair exclaimed, “Tu es magnifique,” placed her hands on either side of Marty’s face and gave him a big kiss.
“Magnifique, indeed!” Marty thought as the gathered crowd erupted into cheers.
Later, on his way to work, Marty spotted some commotion in the street ahead of him and slammed on the brakes of his Volvo. A police officer was confronting a man who was fleeing the bank as bills spilled out of his duffel bag.
“Halt! Police!” the officer shouted, but the robber turned, raised his gun and fired! The shot to the shoulder spun the officer around, and he dropped his pistol.
On instinct, Marty leapt from his car and raced to the wounded officer’s side. As the bank robber aimed his handgun to fire again, Marty raised his briefcase, stopping the bullet dead in its tracks! As the dumbfounded thief stared at his weapon, Marty dashed up and coldcocked him with the case.
Marty observed where the bullet had passed through one side and, opening the briefcase, found the projectile wedged in the pages of a manuscript for a book he’d been editing, “How to Defend Yourself in Any Situation — No Matter How Dangerous.”
Using a clean handkerchief, Marty was applying direct pressure to the officer’s wound when the ambulance and TV news vans arrived.
“Thanks for saving my life, pal!” the policeman said. “You’ll get the mayor’s commendation, for sure!”
After work, Marty and some co-workers were headed for the parking lot when they heard the screech of brakes and a loud crash. A truck and trailer from the zoo had turned over, letting a lion loose on the street.
“Get a whip and a chair!” someone shouted.
“Nobody move!” Marty said. “Everyone stay right where you are, and whatever you do, don’t run!”
Remembering the final chapter of “How to Talk to Your Cat (and Get a Response),” Marty raised his hands over his head to make himself appear larger. Then he spoke to the jungle beast in a calm, firm voice.
“See here, fella, I’ve had enough excitement for one day, and I’m not going to put up with any of your guff — and neither will my friends. So you just calm down and take it easy.”
Sensing that Marty was going to stand his ground and, therefore, wasn’t prey, the confused lion retreated into the toppled trailer and waited until the handler, now freed from the wreckage, could secure the door.
Marty breathed a sigh of relief and put down his arms to shake the zoo employee’s hand.
“A lot of people would have played it safe rather than protecting their friends like that,” the handler said. “You did exactly the right thing! How did you know?”
“You have to learn a lot of strange things in my line of work,” Marty said.
When Marty got home, the apartment building was abuzz with talk of his exploits that day. He rang for the elevator, the doors opened, and out stepped the man with the walrus mustache, walking an Irish wolfhound.
“Good show, Jasper!” Walrus Mustache said. “Jolly good show!”
The Irish wolfhound rose up on its hind legs, placed its front paws on Marty’s shoulders and licked his face.
“You see? Séamus approves, too!” his master said, and man and dog trotted toward the revolving doors and out of the building.
Marty rode up to Summer’s floor, listening to “The Girl From Ipanema” playing in the elevator. “Each day as she walks to the sea, she looks straight ahead, not at me,” the voice sang wistfully.
Summer answered the door in a silky black robe with hot pink trim. She held a bottle of pink nail polish in her hand and had her hair piled up on top of her head like Audrey Hepburn in “Breakfast at Tiffany’s.” Even painting her nails, she was a knockout, Marty thought.
“Oh ... Marty,” she said. “It’s you.”
“Wow! I love your hair that way,” Marty said. “Summer, I’d like another chance to ask you out. How about we …”
“Did you really do all those things everyone’s talking about?” she interrupted him. “Rescue those people from the elevator? Disarm a bank robber? Face down a lion?”
“Yes,” Marty said. “Maybe it gives you a little different opinion of me. Maybe you don’t think I’m ‘safe’ anymore.”
“Safe? A girl could get herself killed running around with you!” Summer blurted. “I don’t think you’re safe! I think you’re crazy!”
And this time, she slammed the door in his face.
Once again, Marty felt the dagger in his chest — only, this time, it had “crazy” written on it.
He was off the safe list.
Marty walked back to the elevator and pressed the button. When the doors opened, there was the basket of laundry he had abandoned the week before. Marty just shrugged.
He carried the basket back to his apartment and went inside, took out a needle and thread and began to darn his socks.
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