Which actually is what happened next, just not to me. Someone up front tried to answer the skinny reporter’s question with what may have been the last shred of reason in the room. “No one is being evicted!” he shouted, but then there was a kind of swelling up and movement near the front door; one of the tenants was coming home, and those of us back by the elevators were getting shoved. Seriously, it’s not like there were a hundred people there—I don’t know how many were there, maybe thirty—but the foyer of the Edge is not a limitless space. That one extra person seems to have been the tipping point. Or maybe it was who she was, because suddenly all the reporters started to shout and turn their attention toward the doorway, where the beautiful Julianna Gideon was trying to make her way in.
I had seen her only a couple times, but this crowd was made up of the kind of society writers who know where you live and how much money you have and how old your family is and what parties you go to and what charity events you attend. In any event, they all knew who she was, and, more important, they cared. “Miss Gideon! Miss Gideon!” they shouted, which in the moment honestly sounded sort of obscenely polite, given that they were shoving around her like a crazed soccer mob and sticking their cameras in her face ruthlessly. “Can we get a comment about the controversy? Have you met any of the women who now claim part ownership of the building? Will you support the co-op board if they attempt eviction proceedings?”
I couldn’t even see Julianna at first, but then I spotted that beautiful head of hair, her face tucked down against her shoulder, as she gently tried to make her way through the swarm. She wore a soft rose-colored coat, which had been pulled open by her struggle with the crowd, and she carried a couple of expensive shopping bags that kept getting caught behind her, so she kept turning back to murmur, “Excuse me, so sorry, excuse me.” She would try to move forward, then get dragged back, people were shouting, and then she threw back her head, releasing her face from all those dark curls with an almost angelic despair. Her face went all white and her knees buckled and she started to go down.
Who knows what might have happened—she had fainted, no question, and people were being careless indeed. But Frank appeared out of the crowd and caught her. She fell into his arms, and he picked her up and shouldered his way through the mob, carrying her the last few steps to where I was standing in front of the elevators. Her head was tipped back, and her curls fell gracefully around the epaulets on his doorman’s uniform. I had enough presence of mind to swing the elevator door open for them and swing myself in behind. The reporters were closing in, and Julianna wasn’t the only one who needed to make an escape. “What floor is she on, Frank?” I said fast, reaching for the buttons.
“Eleven,” he told me.
Just then a hand reached in and stopped the elevator door from closing. “No no no no,” I begged, half under my breath. I actually smacked the hand, hard, and then tried to pry the fingers off the sliding panel as I shoved my body in front of Julianna and Frank so that no one could push their way in.
“Would you relax! Tina, Jesus, owww.” I looked up from the fingers still clinging to the edge of the panel to see who was blocking the crowd of reporters, which looked small and insignificant now, a bunch of society scribblers trying to make something out of nothing. “You gonna bite me?” Pete asked.
“I was thinking about it.”
“I’m sure. She dropped these.” He shoved in the two elegant shopping bags—pristine, with corded handles, one from Barney’s, the other from Bergdorf Goodman—which had slipped from Julianna’s grasp.
“Thanks,” I said.
“Wait wait, is this yours?” he asked. And he pushed in the bag I had been carrying—the brown paper shopping bag containing his mother’s Balenciaga dress and alligator clutch and her pearls. I felt myself turning red, but he didn’t know; how could he know.
“Go on, get out of here,” he said, tipping his head toward the call buttons. He turned his back to me and held up his hands, blocking access to the shouting reporters. “Back up, back up, you fucking piranhas,” he ordered.
“Is that one of the other heirs?” somebody asked, putting two and two together.
“I don’t know, is it?” he wondered. I didn’t hear anything further. The door closed, the elevator lifted, and we left him and the ensuing chaos behind.
23
HIGH ABOVE THE CITY, WITH SWEEPING VIEWS OF THE PARK SIMILAR to my own, the Gideon apartment was a haven of peace and light. Every one of the rooms had been “done,” apparently by some famous designer, in a palette of gold and white. You walked into the living room and felt like you were floating.
Frank was still carrying Julianna in his arms. She had revived to the point that she could insist he put her down, but not with any real force. “I’m fine, really, Frank, I promise, this is so silly,” she protested, as she leaned her cheek against his chest. I had opened the door with Frank’s master keys, which he tossed to me in the elevator with almost alarming speed and accuracy, as if he had been preparing for this moment his entire life. In any case, he tossed me the keys and I knew what to do with them. I grabbed her bags and he held on to Julianna and we brought her safely home, where he laid her on a milk white sofa in front of a bank of windows overlooking the world.
“I was so frightened,” she said, smiling up at him. Frank knelt beside her and pushed a strand of curling hair off her cheek.
“You’re all right now,” he said.
“I’m perfect now,” she said. “Thank you.”
She reached over and held his hand. Frank just stared at her, his face so full of wonder you truly thought the universe might stop. They had completely forgotten that I was back in the corner by the door; both of them were clearly so content just looking at each other. I almost shouted, “Kiss her! Kiss her!” but there was no time.
“What is going on here?” someone announced, behind us. Before I could even turn to say hello, Mrs. Gideon with the steely gray hair swept by me to join her daughter on that pristine couch. When Julianna lay on it, it looked like a bed, but as soon as her ferocious mother sat next to her it looked like a throne. It had strange paw-like feet that you noticed only when Mom was sitting there.
“Oh, mother, I’m fine,” Julianna began. Mother cut her off.
“You’re clearly not fine, someone just carried you into your own apartment. What happened?” Mrs. Gideon turned on Frank and me as if we were the problem here and not the solution. She was a fairly frightening person, truth be told. She kept asking questions, but they didn’t sound a bit like questions; every word out of her mouth sounded like a complete accusation. She was honestly no fun at all.
“There was a crowd down in the lobby, things were a little upsetting,” Frank explained.
“Yes, things are upsetting, people in the building are upset, my understanding is that it’s being handled, Frank, I don’t know what it has to do with you,” Mrs. Gideon snapped, standing. “And I don’t appreciate your bringing her into my home.” She barely flicked her eyes in my direction; I was beneath her, and besides, she was having too much fun giving Frank a hard time. “Surely you know that I would consider that inappropriate.”
Frank was completely mortified. “I … I … I …,” he began, but she was having none of it.
“You’ve done enough, now go,” she ordered.
“Mother. Please.” Julianna sat up, her cheeks turning the palest rose. I’m telling you, that girl knew how to blush. Her pink cheeks were just the slightest shade lighter than her rose-colored wrap. Sitting up on that white couch, she looked like a flower. “Frank took care of me, I don’t know why you would speak so harshly to him,” she said, laughing a little in a way that took all the sting out of her mother’s accusations. “I don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t been there, Frank. I was really frightened and it was so silly to faint.”
“You fainted? I’m calling the doctor.”
“I’m fine now, thanks to Frank. I am very grateful, Frank, really I am.” S
he stood up and held her hand out to him with a simple elegance. He took it in both of his own, too overwhelmed to speak. Honestly, if her hideous mother had not been there, I think he would have fallen to his knees in a worshipful daze. But Hideous Mother was there. And she was done with us.
“Well, I don’t know what happened,” she said. “But if you say Frank was helpful, I’m sure he was. Here, Frank, wait there for a minute so I can get you something.”
“Oh—no, please,” said Frank. But Hideous Mother had already stalked to the entryway, where I was standing and watching, and picked up her purse from a useless-looking sticklike table perched just inside the door. She smiled at me tightly as she turned, making sure I knew that even if I had fooled her pretty daughter, I sure wasn’t going to fool her. But she really didn’t have anything to say anymore; she was just ready to get rid of both of us.
“Here,” she said, holding out a five-dollar bill in Frank’s direction.
Frank’s face went white, then a deep, truly indescribable color seemed to pass over it like a wave. To give him his due, his expression did not change. But for a moment he seemed unable to speak or move.
“Mother,” whispered Julianna, completely mortified.
“What?” said Hideous Mother. “He’s the doorman and he was very helpful to you.” She twitched the five between her fingers in an insanely insulting breath of a gesture. “You just said so yourself, sweetheart. I think it’s completely appropriate to offer him a tip.” She took another step toward Frank and gave the bill yet another little flick. The whole performance was so shocking I couldn’t look away.
“You dropped your bags,” I said, holding up the Bergdorf’s and Barney’s bags with a sudden humble but loud goodwill. “I’m going to leave them here by the door, okay?”
“Oh—” Julianna started.
“Frank, you were going to let me into my apartment, remember? I am so sorry, I locked myself out. So stupid. What a great apartment you have, it’s so pretty, I didn’t at all mean to barge in, I just, Frank was going to help me with my keys and then your daughter fainted.” I reached out and grabbed Frank’s arm, to get him to move. With a quick, sharp shrug he pushed me aside, but at least it got him going. He strode past Hideous Mother, and me, with every shred of Latin American pride that was left in him and his uniform. As he clearly wasn’t going to pause, I scurried along. He did not give himself permission to look back even when Julianna called after him.
“Thank you, Frank, thank you!”
“If you want to thank him so much, I don’t know why you wouldn’t let me tip him,” Mrs. Gideon admonished her, behind our exit. “Honestly, Julianna, your affectations have gotten completely—” The door slammed her voice shut. Frank was at the elevator now, pressing the button with a fierce and uncompromising rage. Blessedly, it was right there, and we didn’t have to wait. We both stepped into the elevator, and I hit 8. Frank hit L. We traveled in silence for a moment.
“Boy,” I finally said. “What a witch.”
“Hopeless,” he whispered. “Hopeless.” He sagged then, leaning against the paneled wall as if it were the only way he could continue to stand. When the elevator dinged for my floor, I reached over and pulled him up, put his arm over my shoulder, and half carried, half walked him out at my landing. Then I let us into my apartment, using his keys.
He was mumbling to himself, some sort of protest, I think, but my Spanish is not all that good when someone talks fast. It sounded sort of like, you have to let me go I have to get downstairs and do my job, but it could just as easily have been a grocery list. In any case he was in no condition to face anyone down in the lobby, much less that crowd of howling society reporters who were most certainly still on the premises. So I shut the door behind us and pushed him into my sweet empty enormous front room, propping him up against one of the windows that have the really good view of the park.
“Here, wait here, Frank, I’m going to get you something to drink, okay?” I said. He just kept talking to himself. I headed for the kitchen, where I knew there was a nearly full bottle of vodka stashed in the freezer.
As I raced through the little TV room, a head popped up off the couch. “Hey, you’re home,” said Jennifer as she cheerfully set down a mystery novel. I had forgotten that she was planning to show up, so her sudden appearance sent my heart rate through the roof.
“Oh, Jennifer,” I said, holding my hand to my chest in an attempt not to die from the scare she gave me. “Oh.”
“You told me to come,” she reminded me, a little worried now.
“No, I’m really glad you’re here,” I said. “Oh. Really glad.” And I was. Even though my heart was still racing, it was not lost on me that finally, maybe, I had an ally. At the very least, for the first time ever in the Edgewood, I had someone to come home to. “Come on,” I said, heading for the refrigerator. “Frank’s in the front room. He’s a complete mess.”
“The doorman?” she said, following me obediently.
We took the vodka to the great room, and I poured Frank a stiff drink. He knocked it back without protest, and I poured him another.
“What’s wrong with him?” Jennifer asked.
“It’s complicated,” I started, but the vodka had brought vitality back to his spirit, and he started rambling again, in Spanish. “Frank,” I said, taking his hand. “Frank. Speak English, Frank.”
“No, it’s okay,” said Jennifer calmly. “He’s upset. He loves her, but it’s hopeless, she is a goddess and he is nothing. And his father, there’s some—que quieres compartir con nosotros tu familia, Frank?”
So it turns out that a private-school education in New York City is pretty thorough. Also, Jennifer was in the Spanish Club, so her comprehension didn’t fall completely apart when someone started talking fast.
“He lives with his father and his two brothers in a one-bedroom apartment in Queens,” Jennifer translated. “He came from the Dominican Republic six years ago and sent money to them faithfully, but they were never grateful, never—they became jealous. No matter what he sent, it made them unhappy and greedy for more and so they came here. He is here legally but they are not. He can’t, they use up all the money—they—” He interrupted her with a long explanation, and she asked him some questions before continuing. “He doesn’t blame them because the life they had in the Dominican Republic was nothing, there are no jobs there and they want to be men, but they cannot find work, and if the INS finds out that they’re staying with him he’s afraid he’ll be deported too. He told one of his brothers—como se llama tu hermano horrible—”
“Manuel,” Frank answered, trying to continue and contradict her about the “horrible” part, but she cut him off.
“He has a horrible brother who threatens him. He is supporting all of them, and this brother, Manuel, threatens Frank that if he doesn’t bring home more and more money he’ll have to turn himself in to the INS and they will all have to go back, even though Frank totally has his green card, I know he does because the building would never hire him if he didn’t, and my mom was on the committee that interviewed him. They love him here, they’d never let that happen. Frank,” she continued, turning her attention back to him. “Es impossible, lo que se dice su hermano. El es un mentiroso. Un mentiroso,” she insisted. He protested firmly, but I could tell he knew that whatever she was telling him was right. “Porque no ayudan?” she continued. “Porque no trabajan, todo su familia viven aqui en Nueva York, aqui nadie le importa si usted tiene una tarjeta verde! Aqui a la Edgewood, si, es importante, but muchas otras lugares no no no. Todos los restaurantes en la cuidad, nadie le importa!”
He disagreed with her. They argued back and forth. He finally started to cry. She put her arms around him and he wept about his hopeless situation, the trap of his family, his love for a woman who was so far above him that the only word he could use to describe her was diosa. Now Frank was drinking straight out of the bottle, and by the time we had the whole story out of him, he was stupefied with grief and
completely smashed, so there was really no way he could go back to work. I got him a pillow and a blanket from my bedroom, and he fell asleep on the floor, with the light fading from gold to blue all around him.
Jennifer looked up at the changing light and checked her watch. “I’ve got to go,” she said, nervous. “I left Katherine playing in her room and we locked the door and she knows not to open it? But she’s seven, she could just forget and open the door and then anyone could come in and then what would happen.”
I was following her back, through the kitchenette and the laundry room. As we moved, she quickly filled me in on what she had found out by just hanging around, hiding behind doors, and listening in on the flurry of phone calls that had come in and out of the Whites’ apartment over the past two days.
“People are really mad,” she said. “Mom told them she knows you and you’re okay. I told her she had to tell them that, because you are such a good babysitter and a godsend, but you know there’re a lot of rich assholes in this building, and they kept talking about you and your sisters and how this is such a famous apartment, that, um, you know—they can’t just let it go down the toilet, shit like that.”
“Oh that’s lovely,” I said. “Such swell manners they have here on the Upper West Side.”
“Oh, you know people say things like that, and you know.” She shrugged, not knowing how to say what came next. She decided to just say it. “You know, Tina, they didn’t like your mom.”
“Some of them did. Len did.”
“I don’t think you should trust Len, Tina,” Jennifer suggested cautiously. “Mom said, she was talking to him in the elevator? And he said he knew your mom, they had a deal where he kept some plants here, so he came by all the time, and he saw her and Bill together, and she kept Bill drunk so she could get him to sign things.”
Twelve Rooms with a View Page 28
