You Have To Kiss a Lot of Frogs. Laurie Graff

gold and nobody knew who the Sokoloffs were!”

      “I wonder if anybody still has the ones from my Bar Mitzvah?” Alan Cohen wondered aloud. “Oh. Did you use the coffee books?”

      “Yes! What is that about?” This was turning into a fun cab ride. “How appropriate is it that a coffee company publishes the most popular Haggadah! You read this horrific tale of the Jews fleeing Egypt with a picture of a piece of matzoh on the front of the book, and a cup of hot coffee on the back!”

      “Well, we as a people like to eat!”

      “No kidding,” I said, glimpsing a look at Alan’s back taking up a broad part of the front seat.

      “So, what do you do?” he asked me.

      “Well, Alan,” I said, feeling it might be a little personal to use his name, but also as if I knew the cloth from which he was cut. “Why don’t you guess?”

      “Drugs?”

      “That’s it! You got it on the first try. Amazing!”

      “Really? You’re kidding.”

      “Of course I’m kidding. Do I look like a drug dealer? Look, we’re here,” I said, pointing to the white doorman building on Eighth Avenue. “Stop. I’ll be just a second.” The cab stopped near 52nd Street. I ran in and picked up the yellow manila envelope that said FOR PICKUP—K. KLINE from the doorman.

      “What’d you get?” he asked when I got back into the cab.

      “I had to pick up a script.”

      “An actress!” he said, driving up Eighth Avenue.

      I received a last-minute call from a casting director asking me to fill in for an actress who wasn’t going to be able to do the reading. I pulled out the script and started to read. The play was a political farce about a presidential campaign that totally revolved around junk food. It was called Eat This. I flipped to where Mac, the campaign manager, and the candidate come into the diner where they always eat and come up with their campaign strategies. In this scene, Mac and the waitress, Addie—that would be me—try to convince the candidate to hold rap sessions at fast-food chains across the country and give the voters free food. The casting director said they hoped to bring the show to Broadway. It was a stroke of luck that I got in on the project.

      “I’m sorry,” said Alan, breaking the silence.

      I realized I had suddenly stopped talking after having that whole Passover conversation. Now I felt guilty. Well, that was ridiculous. I didn’t have to entertain the cabdriver. I was a passenger, he was doing his job and now I wanted to read my script.

      “Sorry for what?” I looked up at the back of Alan’s wavy head

      “For thinking you were dealing.”

      “Don’t worry about it. It happens all the time.” I held the script high so he would see me reading in his rearview mirror. I was way too involved in this relationship.

      “So… Uh… You’re an actress?”

      “Uh-huh.” I didn’t want to talk anymore.

      “What have you been in lately?”

      “Nothing. Really.” I always hated that question.

      “You have an audition?”

      “Uh-huh.” Here we go. Why was I so friendly before?

      “What’s it for?”

      I put the script down. It seemed easier to have the conversation than not to. I’d be home in a few minutes and I could read then. What could it hurt to talk a little more to Alan Cohen. I was sure I had known him all my life. He seemed like a boy who would have summered at my bungalow colony in the Catskills when we were kids. Someone a few years older than me, I would have looked up to for a while just because he was there and he was older. Someone who would have been a counselor at the day camp and led you in Color War when you were little, then put that stuff down, grew his hair long and tried to get you to smoke when you were big. Someone whose mother would say she didn’t understand him, as she played her Bingo card in the casino on Wednesday nights, and waited for her husband to come back upstate after working in the city all week, because she couldn’t handle Alan alone.

      “Do you do anything in addition to driving a cab?” I asked, curious to see if I did have him all cut out.

      “What do you mean?”

      “Anything particular that you aspire to do?” I figured him for a comic book collector.

      “Does anybody ever get what they want?” he said. “An actor, a musician. Even a doctor or lawyer. Does anybody really get what they aspire to in life? Does it really pay to even care?”

      “I’m sorry. Just making conversation. I didn’t mean to be condescending,” I said. We were gliding past 72nd Street, a few blocks from my apartment. “Driving a cab is great. Anything you want to do is great. Really.”

      “You think so?” he asked, turning the corner on my block.

      “Oh sure,” I said. “People should do whatever makes them happy.”

      “Do you have a boyfriend?” he asked.

      “YES,” I said. “Yes. Yes, I do!”

      He pulled up in front of my building. The meter clicked off.

      Alan Cohen turned and faced me. “You have a steady boyfriend?” he asked. His eyes looked vacant behind the dirty divider that was meant to protect the people in the front seat from the people in the back.

      “Very steady,” I said. I took a ten from my wallet, shoved it in the tray and dipped it toward the front. “Can I have back three dollars?”

      Alan Cohen didn’t move.

      “How about you keep your money and have a date with me instead?”

      “I really can’t do that. I have this boyfriend. I can’t. May I have my change?” That’s what you get for being friendly, I thought. The change wasn’t forthcoming, so I collected my bags and opened the door. Alan Cohen was standing in the gutter, blocking my exit from his cab.

      “Are you going to go out with me or not?”

      My eyes came level with his stomach. It was protruding through the buttons on his dirty navy-and-green flannel shirt.

      “I need to get out of this cab,” I said as calmly as possible.

      “Oh yeah?” he said, getting in the back seat and slamming the door behind him. He threw my flowered bag to the floor of the cab. It had been the only thing between us.

      “So, you think you could go for a guy like me?” he asked, leaning over me.

      “Alan…” I didn’t know what the hell to do.

      “I really like how you say my name.” Alan Cohen leaned in closer. I could tell he had consumed a few beers. “Say it again.”

      I inched backward against the other door, hoping I could open it behind me. He pulled my hands into his and gripped them tightly.

      “Say it again. You’re really hot. Say it again.”

      “Uh, Alan,” I said, trying to grasp what was happening. A few possible scenarios crossed my mind, none of them particularly appealing. “Alan,” I repeated, trying to appease rather than seduce.

      “Kiss me,” he said, moving closer toward me. I could feel his breath on my neck. I thought I would puke. “Come on…”

      “Stop it, Alan. Just stop! What’s the matter with you? Get off me. Leave me alone!”

      He didn’t move away, but he didn’t move closer.

      I tried to figure out how much trouble I was in. I didn’t know what to do when I found out, but I searched his eyes trying