Mitchell Smith

by Daydreams

  “-My husband has got to see this. Do you have anything else of hers-anything at all?”

  “Of course; she’s doing several things for us.

  Lying. He’d come to Roosevelt Island that evening-not even call, just talk his way past the night man and ring the bell-and not even come in, just stand in the doorway in his beautiful custard suit, and say,

  “Sweetie, you are lucky beyond belief-and you’d better turn in your badge and nightstick, or whatever, and get those pretty buns to hummin’, because Sarah Rothstein loves your work. -That means, sweetie, you’re going to be famous, and we both-thank God-are going to be rich.” He brought champagne with him-so he did come in, and they had that. He had a cat, too, a part-Burmese. And turned out to be nice, under that snottiness … had lost his lover to AIDS. “-Well, it nearly killed me. Jerry and I were a great deal more than lovers…. That was the least of it.”

  He became a really good friend, very close. They’d go shopping together, Ellie so rich she could buy anything. -That wasn’t important to her at all, anymore. She’d bought gifts for everybody. Bought Tommy and Connie a new car. -She and Sarah became friends, too. It was through Sarah Rothstein, at one of her parties, she met … the man who came to Anderson’s office to get her, who’d been in China. Stocky, handsome, hair bronze -and silver … Jack.

  At one of her shows, Klein would be there with a tired-looking girl.

  Ellie’d be with Jack, talking to somebody important. Klein would come up to say hello, talk about his cases and bore poor Jack to death, but Ellie would be very nice to him . gracious.

  The Donegal was a huge, quiet, slightly shabby apartment building built of streaked gray stone-the corridors twice as wide and almost twice as high as the halls in Ellie’s building on the island. Plaster molding running along the sides of the corridor ceiling. Old maroon carpets.

  -Susan Margolies’ door, like all the others, was painted nearly the deep worn red of the carpet.

  Ellie buzzed-then, after a while, buzzed again. She heard faint sounds inside. Then coming closer. Pause.

  Ellie smiled at the little peep lens. The rattle and clack of the Fox lock. Another lock, before the door swung open.

  “Oh, I think she was right!” Small bright blue eyes in a long, pale, wrinkled face. Some freckles. A really ugly dress, the wrong blue for her eyes-had green in it white floral pattern. Susan Margolies was almost elderly, very tall, a big-boned woman, lanky, big-hipped. Seemed to be in her early sixties … iron-gray hair to her shoulders. A big, plain old woman. “-You have to be one of the best-looking, at least.

  You are pretty . . .” She watched Ellie like a cop, the talking not interfering with the watching. Then she smiled. “Well, we can continue our inventories inside, can’t we?” and led Ellie in.

  “Where did you get that purse? -I’ve been promising myself a new purse forever. It’s too late to get myself a straw; but I’m determined to get a really good leather bag for autumn.” She was leading down a long high-ceilinged hall with small, elegant lamp tables right and left along the way, eighteenth-century engravings, little ones (German or Austrian, Ellie thought) low on the walls between the lamps. Music-room scenes.

  Guests and musicians.

  Then the woman walked before Ellie out into greater space, nimbused by the momentary sun in a living room twice the size of Ellie’s. This had high cream ceilings, plants in fine china pots in rows along the deep windowsills of four big windows looking out over the Hudson. A small white-marble fireplace … Ellie doubted that it worked. Tall, glass-front bookcases along the walls on either side of the fireplace.

  Plants up on top of those, too-hard to water. And a wonderful big rug-Turkish or Persian with a whole flower garden woven into it, the pile dark green on the borders, and deep as grass. -If the rest of the apartment was like the living, room, so big, airy, so perfectly done, then Ellie wished she had it. - Probably worth putting up with the trendy West Side to have it; it made hers, on the island, seem cramped.

  Shitly was the word.

  The woman patted the top of the back of a long brown corduroy sofa.

  “Here,” she said. “This is wonderfully comfortable. -Have you had breakfast?”

  “Yes,” Ellie said. The sofa was a deep bath of warm cloth and cushions.

  “Well, I don’t care; I’m toasting some bagels. We’ll have cream cheese and jam with them. You want coffee or tea?”

  “Whatever you’re having.”

  “Tea, then. Coffee’s just too harsh for me in the morning.” Susan Margolies said the “harsh” in a very Boston sounding way “haash.” She walked through a door at the other side of the room-another hall, Ellie supposed, to the kitchen-and said something as she went, but Ellie couldn’t hear it well enough.

  The apartment smelled faintly of some sort of potpourri., primrose …

  something woodsy. There was only one picture in the living room. A Hudson River School copy-probably a copy-over the fireplace. Green hills (looked like up past Tarrytown) rolling down very steeply to the river. The river was clear as glass. It looked from the sofa as though the artist had painted tiny fish under the water, near a skiff two men or boys in white shirts were fishing from. It was a pretty picture.

  -The sky not as good as the river. -As my river, Ellie thought. I could have streams of glassy clear threading through the white, off-white grays and charcoals….

  Susan walked back in carrying a wooden tray, set it down on the coffee table by the sofa, and sat on the other side in an armchair covered with the same brown corduroy. She’d put several toasted bagel halves on a big white dinner plate, most of a block of cream cheese with a butter knife on a smaller white plate beside it. And alongside that, a small stack of orange paper cocktail napkins. She’d forgotten the jam. Two teacups, pot, sugar and creamer in the same ornate pattern, gorgeous red, blue, and gold.

  “You like that? Isn’t that service pretty?”

  “What is it?”

  “Tobacco leaf-the store at the Met used to have it. I don’t know if they still do. -Would you rather have lemon?”

  Ellie would have, but didn’t want to send the woman off on that long walk to the kitchen. “No-this is fine.”

  “Well, have a bagel-don’t make me feel like a pig.”

  Susan Margolies leaned over and picked a bagel half, then smeared the cream cheese on thick, using the butterknife blade to sculpt the cheese around the toast’s edges.

  Then she put the knife down, and holding her bagel in her left hand, poured the tea with her right. “Irish Breakfast,” she said. Then: “I know it sounds stupid-but is there any chance at all there could be a mistake? You know, some other woman staying at her apartment, being killed … like in Laura?”

  “I’m sorry,” Ellie said. “The super knew her, and there were pictures of her in the apartment. I’m afraid it was definitely her.”

  “It’s just so ridiculous,” the big woman said, and put the teapot down.

  “She wasn’t the type of woman to have that happen … ! She was always so damn funny … so lively. -Not one of those mopey types looking for some sordid tragedy.” Susan Margolies’ tone was indignation, and controlled, but tears began to leak from her small blue eyes, and two or three slowly followed the paths of pale, shallow wrinkles down her cheeks. “It’s just a fucking farce—the whole damn thing. . . .” She picked up one of the cocktail napkins and wiped the tears away.

  “For one thing, she was beautiful.” The tall woman blew her nose.

  “-There, the human comedy-no tribute of tears, without snot to follow.”

  She wadded the napkin up and stuffed it into the left pocket of her dress. “Do you people know who did it?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Well, I don’t care what problem that bastard has-I hope he goes right into the electric chair. I hope they it a professional comment, I guess.” She took out the wadded napkin, fiddled it open, and blew her nose again. “Oh, hell,” she said, “let’s eat.”

&nbs
p; When Ellie had her bagel, her tea in her hands-hoping she wouldn’t spill on her skirt (she would have liked a bigger napkin)—Susan Margolies took two large bites of her toast in succession, then chewed her mouthful slowly, with satisfaction. She paused to sip some tea before she chewed again, then swallowed.

  “It’s fascinating, isn’t it?” she said, “to watch someone eat. You learn a lot, doing that. -Whether they’re enjoying at least that much of life, for openers. How aggressive they are? -That sort of thing.

  It’s surprising how many people really hate to share their food-a bite from their cake, a section of a tangerine they’re eating. Some people hold on to those morsels as if they’d starve without them. -Won’t give their own kids a bite.” She ate the rest of her bagel, filling her mouth full before she chewed and swallowed.

  “Well,-what do you think? Poor old bag, got nothing left but eating?

  Sort of greedy?” She laughed, showing an empty mouth, a still-coated tongue. “Dead right. -Not that I can’t get laid, but you should see the creatures that agree to do it!”

  Ellie smiled and finished her bagel-half-self-conscious, now, chewing.

  Had some tea. “You have a really beautiful apartment,” she said.

  “Thank you. -Would you like to see the rest? Well, after we talk? You wouldn’t believe it to look at it now, but it used to be the most awful hole. I’ve put a hell of a lot of work into it, and money. Money.

  Carpenters …

  painters. You wouldn’t believe the scenes I’ve had with those people.

  The cost of a love affair with rooms …

  hallways . She drank some tea. `-Apartment’s gotten prettier as I’ve gotten the reverse. Time”—she made a fdcem’and goddamn changes. I was never the handsome creature you are, but I swear there was a time men-at least in Massachusetts-found me attractive.”

  She leaned forward to spread cheese on another bagel. “I hate it. I hate having that power taken away from me. -You better brace yourself for that change-very severe when it comes to good-looking women. One year you’ll still be able to break their hearts, ‘go swimming in their dreams,’ as Ricki Misrahi puts it. -Have you read her?

  No? -Well, you should. One year, a heartbreaker …

  and the next year you’re only a person-and not much of a person at that, unless you happen to have money.”

  She took two mouthfuls, chewed and swallowed, and drank some tea.

  “You’re in for a real shock the day you realize even some desperate adolescent wouldn’t have ‘u on a plate in a peek-a-boo bra and black garter Felt. -That’s a loss, I think, a woman never really gets over.

  From then on, too often, it’s only scheming. Scheming or slavery-that’s what I see in my practice.” She finished her tea. “Of course, that’s what you see in your practice, too, I imagine-with occasional action-from desperation thrown in.”

  Ellie put her teacup down.

  “Some people know other people for a long time,” she said, “and they’re close-but not really friends. They don’t really trust each other, you know? -Which kind of friend were you to Sally?”

  “You have a pleasant style of interrogation,” Susan Margolies said.

  “You’d have done well in psychology.”

  She looked at the plate of bagels, but didn’t take another one. ‘—Sally and I were very good friends. I can’t imagine anything I couldn’t have told Sally. We’ve knownknew each other for years. . . . I met her through a patient of mine. And then I was able to recommend her to some other people.”

  “Kind of a sex therapist?”

  “Call me Susan,” Susan Margolies said. “-Can I call you Ellie? -It is Ellie?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well,” Susan said, “I might have to deny it in court, Ellie, if it ever came up. -It’s a shaky situation, legally, although, God knows, it’s done all the time. And you’re really better off not using a prostitute, if you can avoid it ‘ But, just between us-yes, I did send some people to her, and she was wonderful with them. A perfect little creature in bed, or so I was told.” She sipped her tea, then put the beautiful cup down carefully. “I have to ask you something I don’t want to ask you.

  Please be honest. -Please answer me honestly, if you can.”

  “O. K.”

  Susan Margolies sighed. “Was it as bad as the papers said? That awful?

  —She didn’t suffer that much… ?”

  “She had a very bad time,” Ellie said.

  “It couldn’t have been any worse, is what you’re saying.”

  Long pale face, mournful as a sheep’s.

  “That’s right.”

  “Oh, dear … oh, my God.”

  “I’m sorry. It’s a terrible way to lose a friend. She must have been very nice-but, you know, Rebecca didn’t like her.”

  “Poor Rebecca. -She only met Sally a couple of times.

  I think she had dreams of taking her on-you know, shopping for her, spending her money for her. But Sally wasn’t one of Rebecca’s usual dumb bunnies. -By the way, Rebecca told me of your involvement with that thing about her child. The death.”

  “She killed him,” Ellie said.

  “Oh, yes, I think so.” Susan Margolies nodded, considering, small blue eyes dreamily fixed and looking away to Ellie’s left. “-She certainly didn’t like him. Did you know that Rebecca was seeing a married man at the time? A rich married man-apparently one of the store people where she worked.” The sun had emerged from clouds again, and the room, flooded through wide windows, lightened from shade to bright cream yellow. Susan Margolies’ face, in this light, looked like fine vellum, creased. “-I think she felt it would be opportune to get rid of her child-of her husband, too. She had hopes, I suppose. Not that her husband didn’t help her do it. I don’t think he liked the child, either. -Surprising, the number of parents who don’t like their children.”

  “Would like to see them gone.”

  “That’s right. -You don’t have children, do you?”

  “No.”

  “I do. A son-who, by the way, got as far as possible from Mom as fast as he could manage it. Oddly enough, I love the son-of-a-bitch … like him, too.” She leaned forward to pour more tea into both their cups.

  “And I get angry if he doesn’t call at least once a week. And I don’t like his wife.”

  “I don’t call my mother, either.”

  “Well, daughters and mothers .

  “When did you see Sally last?”

  “Oh … I think about a week ago; I’m getting lousy on dates. We had dinner at her place . . . calf’s liver and bacon. -She was a darling, but she was a lousy cook.”

  “She might have kept some sort of an appointment book…. Did you ever see her writing anything down after she got a phone call, maybe?”

  “Well-she had a little note pad by the phone, I think.

  I really don’t know if she kept an appointment book. I doubt if she needed one; she didn’t see that many clients in a week, and she had an excellent memory-for which I envied her. It’s true, though, many of those girls did keep some sort of record……

  “Beside sending people to her . Ellie said.

  “Oh, I only did that a few times. We got to be too close friends for me to keep sending patients to her. -I’d be treating the patient, and going into the success or lack of it with Sally, and it simply got too damn incestuous.

  Then-just between you and me-I found a graduate student who was interested in working with me as a therapist in dysfunctions of that sort. -Well, the girl enjoys it, probably, though most women really don’t prefer multiple partners.”

  “Sally discussed her clients with you?”

  “Oh, yes-every now and then she’d have some really unhappy individual, someone who simply wasn’t capable of being pleased by her, or any woman.

  She’d ask me for suggestions, things to talk about with them, ways to make them more comfortable.”

  “Talking?”

  “God, yes!” The tall wom
an sighed, leaned forward, and picked up a bagel half, the butter knife. “-The damn things are cold, and I don’t care.

  I’m a fool for cream cheese. —God, yes. Talking … I know, you think it’s all screwing for these women. Well, so did I, before I began to know them. For a few years, I had quite a practice of call girls, though Sally was never a patient. -This is the last one of these things I’m going to have.

  Won’t you please have another one? -Share the guilt?”

  “I really can’t,” Ellie said, “-I just finished breakfast before I came over.”

  “Well, I saw a number of call girls for a while, had that practice for a while, then got terribly bored with it.” Two bites, then chewing. When she’d swallowed, she said, “Not only do call girls-mistresses, all expensive prostitutes, really-spend an inordinate amount of time talking to their customers, just being amusing company, listening to their troubles, giving them advice-more often than not, on how to get along better with their wives-but when they do have sex, they don’t much enjoy it. -Not that they don’t enjoy screwing-they do, most of them, orgasms and all, though that’s not popularly supposed to be the case.” She drank some tea. “It’s simply that there’s very little romance in their lives.

  Very little in the lives of most successful career women, truth be told.

  Doesn’t seem to be the leisure for it.” She put her teacup down.

  “-Listen, you want to see the apartment?”

  “O.K. Yes, I’d like to.”

  They stood together-Susan Margolies much taller than Ellie, then stooping to pick up the two plates. “We’ll leave the tea . - .” and started off to the door to the kitchen, Ellie following the long, narrow back, the ugly dress. Peek-a-boo bra and black garter belt … Hard to imagine. “-Very little romance. They’re bored … they read a lot of cheap fiction, and they almost never have anything really interesting to complain about.”

  This hallway was narrow, painted the same light cream as the living room. Ellie followed Susan through a swinging door into the kitchen, and felt less envious of the apartment. The kitchen counters had been done in butcher block; the cabinets were brushed chrome, and must have cost a fortune-and it should have been a beautiful kitchen.