She whirled on him. She couldn’t help it. “Hey look, Andrew. I’ve been wanting to speak with you about Dharma for a while now. Let’s just get one thing straight, all right? As far as her life is concerned, don’t worry about propriety and whether or not you’re disturbing Johnny or me. If you want to see your daughter, even if it’s the middle of the night, don’t hesitate. I mean, the poor kid could use a little parental warmth right now. As much as we care about the kid, she’s still yours.”
A group of laughing teenagers from the high school ran by in a tight boisterous ball. Black kids in a relatively white neighborhood, small wonder they stuck together. Andrew waited for them to pass before he answered her. He blew on his hands and rubbed them, not unhappily, together. “Yes, well, that’s just it, you see.” They were drawing closer to the el and she had to lean toward him to catch his words. “She’s not my daughter, exactly.”
“You’re kidding! But I thought—”
“Look, when I married Theresa, she was already pregnant with Dharma. She just didn’t know it.”
“What?”
“Yes. It’s true. I don’t usually tell people this, but, well, in this case—I just didn’t want you to think I was neglecting my own child.”
“I see,” Claire stopped and hoisted her great sack more comfortably on her back. “So you neglected someone else’s.”
“Sorry?” he cupped his ear, old-man style.
“I said,” she shouted accusingly, “Dharma is still yours by marriage. By familiarity.”
The blast of the train clacketted off in the direction of Wood-haven. A sudden furry whip of wind around Claire’s legs gave her a fright. She was so startled, she grabbed Andrew’s hand to steady herself before she realized the wind was Floozie. She’d come all this way on her own. The little freshie had crossed three streets and run by who knew how many cars—maybe parked, maybe not. Floozie circled with admonishing yaps. She was right. Claire had had no reason to leave her behind. If anything, Floozie had proved time and time again that she was to be trusted, walking right beside her and a little bit behind with deferential devotion. Lying low in restaurants, unobtrusively still inside Claire’s ever-present camera bag so no overly conscientious waitress could come over to the table to snap “Outa-here.” Claire cocked her elbow and, true to form and not to disappoint Claire (who sort of got a kick out of Andrew’s astonishment—how many doggies had followed him through life?) Floozie helicoptered up and into her raincoat sleeve. Claire lowered Barnum eyes at Andrew. What a show-off she knew she was. Never mind.
Later, she would ask herself why she hadn’t asked Andrew whose child, then, Dharma was? She already knew why. Some people have magnetic power over you—and you can’t say just why. They have a way of never letting you get any further in processing your thoughts. They trick you, put you off, charm you with surprises. You can be standing there thinking, As soon as he finishes saying this, I’ll ask him. But then he says something else and that distracts you and before you know it, you’re walking off wondering what happened. Claire and Andrew walked together up Jamaica Avenue, a derelict place nowadays, but still blue and enclosed by the el tracks and memories of when it was all bustle. Shopkeepers lolled into work at eleven or noon these days, realistic, pessimistic. Only the bodegas left and right bustled with life.
They hurried by the hardware store. Stan, Claire’s father, came out from behind an enormous speaker, and both Claire and Andrew waved but Stan didn’t notice. He was utterly distracted. He laid the speaker in the gaping trunk of his car and went back in to get the other. A Korean boy stood guard so no one would walk off with the thing. All this was no surprise to Claire, who knew her father had found those speakers in a movie theater being demolished in Jamaica. He’d actually gone in and hauled them out while the demolition ball hovered (thanks to ten bucks in the operator’s pocket) in the air above him. He wasn’t going to let those Koreans keep those tweeters and woofers, by golly. No siree. No matter how much money was in that shopping bag of cash they’d paid for the hardware store with.
Inside, Mr. Lee was relieved. Was that guy kidding? Vivaldi at nine o’clock in the morning? Mr. Lee was too polite to correct his elders even if this was his store, but life would be an awful lot better with the portable Hitachi he’d replaced it with on the counter. If that one got too loud it went all tinny and they’d have to shut it off. Hee. Hee.
Neither Claire nor Andrew was anxious to talk to anyone else now. Andrew had committed a confidence to her and they couldn’t just leave off like that, so they stood, self-conscious but determined to communicate, alongside the five-and-ten, like any casual pedestrians who’d bumped into each other just like that.
“Andrew,” she began kindly. (The man had lost his wife, and whether Tree had cuckolded and trapped him once, they’d still stayed together for what, seven or eight years, right? That counted for something.) “What I don’t understand is how you can stay away from Dharma now? I mean, excuse me for being so personal, but I don’t know how to talk to you except directly.”
“I’m so relieved.” He shook his head. “I feel like I’ve been—hell, I have been avoiding you because I just didn’t want you to know how I feel. I don’t know why you should affect me in any way at all but, geez, this is so hard to say—”
Claire leaned toward him.
“The truth is, Claire, I feel no remorse. No remorse at all for Theresa’s death. I don’t know if she told you any of this before she died, I guess she did—” He searched her face.
“No, nothing. We never got to speak, never had the chance.”
Claire saw something in those eyes. Was it relief? He tilted his head back and opened his mouth to the filthy, sorry sky between the track and the building. What now? Was he trying to control himself? He didn’t seem to trust himself to speak. She looked politely away, into the window of the old yarn store, now an intergalactic tabernacle for the clairvoyant Mrs. Fatima. Been in the area fifteen years, the circular boasted. The storefront was all astrological murals, dream interpretations, and pink speckled light bulbs. She had it nice and comfy, did Mrs. Fatima, with sofas and bolster pillows and a fat recliner, everything done up in Gulden’s yellow and indigo. And she had one of those little dogs, a chihuahua—a male, from the attentive, mysterious disposition Floozie automatically assumed when she spied the dog in the window.
“I might as well tell you the truth,” Andrew said. “Not because I particularly want you to know, but because you’ll eventually find out anyhow. I drove her crazy. I wasn’t very nice to her,” he admitted. “Like she would get all dolled up and I would tell her she looked like she was ready to turn a trick. I did. She was so slutty. I used to insult her so she would leave me alone. I’d get her good and mad and then when I’d walk out she was glad to see me go. She would get all involved with that I Ching shit. You know—that book of changes where you throw down those Chinese coins and all. And all that Indian crap. Oh, she went for that big time. Her tastes were so bohemian. And the drugs that went with it. You know all about that.”
She did? Claire almost laughed. It was so long since she’d herself done drugs that it felt like another lifetime.
Andrew went on, unencumbered by facts or acquiescence from her. She could see how he had charmed the neighborhood with his disarming frankness. He was getting into his theme now. And then, confession was so warming. He was a Catholic, after all. So was she, for that matter. They were all Catholics here. She felt a headache coming on. She wished he would stop talking about Tree this way, stop talking altogether. This was her walk, her little breakdown.
“I have to tell you, Andrew,” she finally interrupted, “I can’t stand hearing this. I don’t want to hear the details of your life with my friend Tree. Really. I only am listening to you so you’ll maybe, just maybe, give me a clue as to why you’ve abandoned your daughter. And please,” she covered one eye with one hand, “I don’t care that it wasn’t your sperm from your loins that gave rise to her reality because, Buster,
it was you there on Christmas, and birthdays, and through all the childhood diseases and that’s what makes a father. So you still haven’t told me why you’ve abandoned your daughter to a neighbor you hardly—you don’t even know.”
He changed his tack. He dropped his head. “Dharma,” he said, “never, ever liked me.”
“Oh boo hoo.”
“She didn’t.” He looked at Claire wildly. “Even when she was a baby she would push me away. Push me away!” he cried, tears, small and hot came out of his dignified man’s eyes.
Claire looked around uncomfortably. The ladies from the Church Mini Second Hand House were passing by. It was sale day at the five-and-ten. To their credit, they never seemed to look at Andrew, just trotted by. They knew he’d lost a wife. Everyone knew. They wouldn’t embarrass him for all the tea in China. A good man. Took all those kids last year on that trip to Valley Forge.
“All right,” Andrew said. “I know you and John have been wonderful. Wonderful. I can’t keep imposing upon your hospitality.” He went to bite a cuticle in a nervous gesture. “Our problems are our problems.” He bobbed up and down. “I only wish I knew someone who could stay with us, someone reliable. A woman. You know, who Dharma could relate to—like—”
“Portia McTavish?”
“Say! No. No, she’s already done so much.”
“I’ll bet. Of course you know Dharma can’t stomach Portia McTavish.”
“Oh, right. But then, she doesn’t like anyone. She hates my mother.” He sighed. “Anyway, my mother is … sickly. She wouldn’t be up to helping out much …”
“She likes me. Sort of. I think. She certainly likes Zinnie.”
Andrew looked up at the Schenkers, a gray-haired couple walking arm in arm from the bakery. They’d had their colonial up for sale with Century 21 since Claire had moved in. The sign was still up and they were still here. Both they and Andrew knew they were ready to sign with another realtor and it might as well be him. He pulled himself together quickly enough, nodding at them handsomely. This was one slick canary. For a moment there she’d almost forgotten. She was tempted to ask him why a smooth operator like himself was content to live and work in Queens, but she could pretty much imagine what his reply would be. Better a big fish in a little pond, he would say. And of course he was right. With everybody moving away, someone had to stay around to make the money on the ones just moving in. Someone had to close those deals, and it might as well be him. She could certainly see why people trusted him, what with his breezy, take-charge way about him, his light brown hair and oxblood shoes. And now he was a widower. What could be better? She bet he had healthy green plants in his office, plants that flourished and grew burgeoning shoots under his sensual magnetism and charm. She could just see it. And old-fashioned oak swivel chairs behind good, timeworn desks. Not too hard to find around here, if you waited till some three-generations-old business finally collapsed—and made sure you were the first fellow standing there nice enough to pick through the remains and offer handy, heartfelt green cash. Andrew had, she noticed, beneath the camouflage of his expensive tailoring, a fat rear end. She had to snap out of this. What was he saying?
“… so I was looking through these advertisements for boarding schools someone gave me from the back of the New York Times color section. Good schools,” he frowned, “not just farms for bad kids or anything like that. Let’s face it, Dharma could use some discipline. It could be the best thing for her after all these years of Theresa’s dumping her off with whoever would watch her after school so she could get dolled up and … well …” (He was going to be a gentleman here.) “… and go have fun.” His tightened lips let loose and he looked, for once without his guard, betrayed.
Claire imagined the pretty room across from Anthony’s suddenly free. No more depressed morbid presence, heavy with grief to occupy her sunny house. It would be such a relief. Her own family without intrusion, complication. If that room were empty, you never knew, maybe Carmela would move in. What, and leave her husband, her fancy life? It was just a thought, she defended herself to herself. Just because Carmela looked drawn and, well, haggard, didn’t mean things were so bad for her. Still, she knew Carmela would never move back in with their parents again. Never. They’d all done that once already and Carmela would rather wallow in her misery than have to live with her parents’ kind pity again. One divorce was bad enough. Two divorces? They’d never be able to keep that look of martyred, baffled disenchantment from their eyes.
Of course, she could move to the city. SoHo. Yes, that was where Carmela probably would move if she ever left Stefan, though why she imagined Carmela leaving him was beyond her. Wishful thinking, probably. She wanted Carmela all to herself, the way it was when they were kids. Carmela might be a bitch, but she kept you guessing. She wasn’t fun, though. Zinnie was fun, but Carmela was ambiguous, bitchy, affected, unrelenting, exhausting, theatrical, costly, ornamental, artsy, and tarty—and in Richmond Hill, there weren’t that many around who were.
Another thing. If Dharma left, Anthony would have Michaelaen back. Claire had thought Zinnie and his staying would give the two boys a chance to grow as cousins, thought it would be magical for Anthony, but what had happened was that Dharma and Michaelaen had fallen into collusion. Of course—they were about the same age, whispering and secretive and closing Michaelaen’s door against “babies,” meaning Anthony. Her heart broke for her son, little waif alone again. At least Swamiji was there to insist the children be the best they could be. They would spend the rest of their lives benefitting from his holy influence. She stopped the ranting of her mind. Who was she kidding? She couldn’t let Dharma be conveniently shipped off to some fancy, cold-hearted boarding school. Just the thought of Swamiji had reminded her of what she had to do.
“So how’s this idea,” she looked up at him with what she hoped were her still relatively persuasive Siberian-husky blue eyes. “You give me enough money to pay for Dharma’s food and rent, a little extra for entertainment and clothes, and I’ll take her in. Like a foster mother.”
Mrs. Fatima, in her storefront, screwed up her eyes and her nostrils opened wide. She couldn’t stop looking out at Claire. She tapped the end tip of her finger with a rat-tat-tat-tat on the shiny Formica tabletop. She just couldn’t place her.
Andrew looked shocked. “I could never do that!”
“Why not? You’re ready to ship her off to total strangers for what would surely be twenty times what I would ask you. At least with me she’d have a chance—” She revised her wording. “At least if you knew she was with me, you could relax enough about her to go about your job, get the things done that a man has to do. I mean, I’m home anyway. I could help out and—” Here she remembered Johnny’s new hobby, of which she would also remind him, in case he defied her idea. “—make a little extra money. Besides, I like Dharma.”
Not love. Don’t say love. Remember that little boy in the orphanage over in Brooklyn. Remember promises that left kids trying to understand. Standing hotly by while other kids went off to movies and libraries and they got to stay home, dribbling no-bounce basketballs around broken bottles by themselves because one thoughtless pretty white girl had promised she would be there. That they could count on her, not to worry. So, one thing at a time here.
She looked up and could see the wheels turning in Andrew’s busy mind. No one in the parish could accuse him of neglect if he had his daughter with that nice policeman’s family across the street. The wife a faint bit screwy, but probably harmless. Couldn’t be too far off the mark if it was Mary Breslinsky’s daughter. Of course, he would let it slip that he was paying her. Wouldn’t want anyone to think he was using them. Not that Johnny would let him get away with that for much longer anyway.
“You are a saint,” he bowed to Claire. “How can I ever thank you?”
“Don’t thank me. Just let me figure out how much she costs me by the month and we can decide how much to add to it.” He waited long enough for her to think he was turning i
t over in his reluctant, bereaved mind. “Done!” He looked at his watch. “Oh boy! Gotta run. I’m showing a house up on Park Lane South fifteen minutes ago.”
Fleetingly, Claire thought to show him his wife’s letter, in this new air of agreement between them, but she didn’t. She put her left hand around its crumpled, folded form inside her pocket and she held it there. He shook her other hand and turned to go—then turned back. “Oh,” he said, “let me give you the key and you can run over there and go through her clothes, get what she’ll need.”
“Okay.” She pocketed the key.
“And then if you would just drop off the dry cleaning I left on the dining room table? I know it’s a lot to ask but you can imagine what a madhouse it’s been.”
“Accommodating I am. Subservient I’m not.”
Andrew blinked. His closed mouth drew back its corners. “Of course you’re not. How stupid of me to have thought you might be.”
“An oversight.”
“Not to be forgotten.”
“You bet.” They eyed each other.
“Your appointment.”
“Yuh. Till soon, then.” He made his pointed finger and his thumb into a gun and shot her … a friendly gesture.
“Oh,” she remembered. “You might also add on some money to supply her with paints. She really likes to paint.”
He rushed away, eyebrows up, to indicate he’d heard.
“Now that, Floozie,” she smiled after him and nuzzled the dog, “is what you call a real piece of scheisse.” The kind, noted Floozie, that doesn’t stink. Claire went into the five-and-ten and gazed distracted at the never-changing shelves of loose dusting face powder and My Pinky lipstick and Cutex nail polish. She congratulated herself. She had accomplished what she’d set out to do, what was the “right” thing to do. She shivered in the sudden overheated gloom. She couldn’t escape the nagging feeling that that was exactly the way Andrew Dover had intended her to feel.
Mrs. Fatima put on her wrap, turned the key in her store’s lock, and went in one of the five-and-ten’s doors just as Claire walked out the other.
Foxglove Page 19
