A Week as Andrea Benstock

by Lawrence Block

“I can’t help it!”

  Until it was time, finally, to go to sleep. She knew this without literally knowing what time it was, because she had rather deliberately avoided looking at the clock once since getting out of bed. It couldn’t have been too late. It was still as dark outside as when they had gone to bed.

  She was drunk, of course, but not too drunk. She was sober enough to wash and dry her glass and put it away, sober enough to empty the overflowing ashtray, sober enough to return her robe to the hook in the bathroom, sober enough to swallow a couple of aspirin against the morning.

  Sober enough to get into bed without waking her husband, and to press her mouth briefly against his sleep-warm flesh, and then roll over onto her back and close her eyes.

  Drunk enough to sleep.

  Tuesday

  April 5, 1966

  SHE stirred when the telephone rang. When it sounded a second time she fumbled for it, but there was no phone on the table on her side of the bed. For a moment she was disoriented. Then she heard Mark saying, “Yes, thank you.” She lay still, getting her bearings, while he hung up the phone and swung out of the bed and padded across the carpet to the bathroom. A moment later she heard the shower running.

  In their house on Aspen Drive the bathroom was at the opposite end of a long hallway from their bedroom, past Robin’s room and Mark’s study. In their house an alarm clock woke Mark five mornings a week, not a telephone, and more often than not she was awake before him, the baby changed and fed and breakfast on the table by the time he had finished his shower.

  But she was in New York now. The baby was four hundred miles away. Mark had left a call at the desk for eight o’clock, so by now Andrea’s mother was probably parked in front of the television set giving Robin her bottle. And she, Andrea, was a lady of leisure, and it would be time to get up soon enough, but this bed was comfortable. Not as comfortable as her own bed, not as familiar, but comfortable enough.

  She must have fallen back asleep, because suddenly there was a hand on her shoulder, a voice near her ear. “Better get up, honey. The kid’s crying and I can’t do a thing with her.”

  “Just hold a pillow over her face. She’ll stop.”

  “Jesus!” The hand left her shoulder, and she rolled over, grinning.

  “I think you lose,” she said.

  “What a thing to say.”

  “Well, what a horrible way to wake me, I heard the phone and I tried to answer it but it was on the wrong side of the bed. So I managed to figure out where I was. It’s pretty strange not knowing where you are.”

  “Listen, I heard garbage trucks a few hours ago and tried to remember if I took the cans to the curb before we turned in last night. It took me a minute. Want to get some breakfast? I’ve got time, but just barely.”

  “I don’t know.” She blinked at him. “You’re all dressed already. What time is it?”

  “Almost eight-thirty. I’m supposed to meet Kramer and Lieberman at nine-thirty at their offices. It’s too far to walk but it’s just a short cab ride. I figured I’d just grab a cup of coffee around the corner but if you feel like breakfast—”

  “Let me think,” she said, and yawned. “I think you’re in a hurry,” she said, “and I think I am feeling very lazy. Why don’t you just grab your cup of coffee? But have a roll or an English muffin or something with it.”

  “Maybe.”

  “A toasted bagel, a piece of Danish. Something in your stomach.”

  “Well, I probably shouldn’t face those sharks on an empty stomach. You’ve got a point there.”

  “You’ll run rings around them. They won’t be able to take their eyes off your tie.”

  “Is it too loud? I wasn’t sure.”

  “No, it’s fine.”

  “I could change it.”

  “No, don’t. As a matter of fact it’s perfect with that suit. I was just teasing you a little.” She sat up in bed. The sheet dropped away from her and she saw that his eyes were drawn to her breasts. Her body still thrilled him, and not merely in intimate moments. Frequently she would turn while performing some routine chore, loading the dishwasher or putting away groceries, to catch him studying the curves of her flesh.

  “You’re so beautiful,” he said.

  “You could always skip breakfast.”

  “You’re tempting me.”

  “Of course you would probably want to take another shower. And Kramer and—I forget the other one.”

  “Joel Lieberman.”

  “They might wonder why you kept smiling all the time. But if you’re willing to chance it—”

  “Maybe I better take a rain check.”

  She nodded. “It’s important today, huh?”

  “It could be. It’s hard to say.” He picked up his briefcase. “Well,” he said.

  “You’ll be fine.”

  “Hope so. Will you find enough things to do today? I guess you can kill a whole day shopping without much trouble.”

  “And I might go to some of the museums.”

  “Want to get back here about five, five-thirty? If I’m late I’ll call, but I don’t think I should be late. We’ve got Fiddler tonight, and think about some place for dinner.”

  “Right now I can’t even think about breakfast. But you can. You’d better get going.”

  He bent over to kiss her, and his hand found her breast and cupped it. Her body responded automatically, the nipple stiffening against his palm. “If you don’t go now,” she said, “I won’t let you go at all.”

  “Threat or promise?”

  “Go on. And good luck, darling.”

  When the door closed behind him she settled her head on her pillow and closed her eyes. Almost at once she realized that she would not be able to get back to sleep. At first she resented this; it was one of her rare chances to sleep late and she was unable to take advantage of it. But at the same time it was an even rarer opportunity; she was in New York and she had a whole day to spend however she saw fit. It seemed almost sinful to spend such a day, or even a part of it, lying in bed.

  Robin was fifteen months old, and this was only the second time Andrea had been away from her overnight. The first time had been in June; they had driven up to Stratford with Barb and Jerry Singer for the Shakespeare festival, seeing a play Friday night, staying overnight at a motel, then attending a matinee before driving on back to Buffalo.

  That had been a delight—it bothered her a little how readily she had put her daughter out of mind as soon as she was out of sight—but it had been categorically different. On that trip she had been with Mark throughout, with no time at all to herself. Now she had a whole day, and she was in New York, and she wondered how she would go about spending it.

  She sat up in bed and smoked a cigarette. That sensation, waking up in a strange bed and not at first knowing where she was. For some reason or other it was bothering her after the fact and she wondered why. Had she become that thoroughly settled, so much a creature whose life revolved around her physical home? They had been living in the house on Aspen Drive for almost a year now, and she’d slept in the same bed for longer than that, ever since they returned from their honeymoon and set up housekeeping on Kenmore Avenue. In Stratford she’d known at once where she was, perhaps because of the way she had awakened. That morning she had been conscious of Mark’s body beside her before she was conscious of anything else, and she had pressed against his warmth and found him with her hands, stroking and exciting him while he slept, so that they had drifted into gentle languorous lovemaking before either of them was genuinely awake.

  When had she last lost her bearings this way? She couldn’t remember.

  After her shower she had a difficult time deciding what to wear. She had brought only a small suitcase, so her choice was limited, which should have made the selection process a simple one. But everything seemed too dressy or too dowdy. She had not yet defined how she would spend her day, yet she was able to sense that none of the clothes she had brought were quite right. She settl
ed finally on a green plaid skirt and a gold Shetland sweater. She had bought both in Stratford and had not had a chance to wear them.

  She ate breakfast in the hotel coffee shop, signed the check, left the room key at the desk in case Mark returned before she did. Outside, she walked over to Fifth Avenue. It was cool out, and although she knew the air was polluted it tasted crisp and clean to her. She stood for a few moments on the corner in front of the Plaza Hotel and looked at the row of horse-drawn carriages. There had been a time in her life when she had wanted nothing more than to be taken for a moonlight ride through the park in one of those carriages. She had had quite a few dates in New York while at Bryn Mawr, and one or two boys had suggested that a hansom ride was something they ought to try sooner or later, but somehow they had never gotten around to it. Later, when she lived in New York, it wasn’t the sort of thing she and her friends did. It was a tourist thing, like visiting the Statue of Liberty or taking the elevator to the top of the Empire State Building. When you lived in New York you didn’t do tourist things.

  After a moment she approached one of the drivers. He was a pug-faced man around forty, wearing a black top hat and an ancient cutaway morning coat. His horse was also wearing a hat, a straw with holes cut for its ears, and with a nosegay of flowers tucked into the hatband.

  “Pardon me,” she said. “Could you tell me how much a ride costs?”

  He smiled. One of his lower front teeth was missing and she tried not to stare at it. “Give you a nice long ride around the park for twenty dollars, ma’am.”

  “Do you just go through the park?”

  “Anywhere you like. Just like a regular cab except there’s no meter ticking away at you. And we don’t pollute the air. Horses smell a whole lot better than cars, don’t they?” He smiled again, and she returned the smile. “We’re licensed to operate throughout the five boroughs, just like any other taxi. ’Course in practical terms we don’t go outside of Manhattan. Imagine old Gypsy here clip-cloppin’ through the tunnel! But we got the right, according to the law. Where do you want to go?”

  She considered it, but only briefly. “Maybe later,” she said. “If my husband’s interested.”

  “You bring him around. Little ride through the park turns a man romantic all over again.” And he winked broadly at her, like a low character from Elizabethan comedy.

  She walked down Fifth Avenue toward Bergdorf’s. Twenty dollars—had it always been that expensive? No wonder none of her dates had made good on that particular promise.

  Would Mark take her? Certainly the expense wouldn’t bother him. Twenty dollars now was a far less significant amount to her than it had been when she had lived alone in the city. Their room at the Essex House cost almost twice that per night, and dinner last night must have run around thirty dollars with the tip. Of course the bulk of their expenses would be charged to Mark’s firm and ultimately paid by the client on whose behalf he was making the trip. But he was prepared for her to spend a few hundred dollars of real money on clothes today, and he certainly wouldn’t balk at indulging a twenty-dollar whim if she wanted to ride around for half an hour in a carriage.

  Maybe that night. Maybe after dinner and after the show. They could afford the twenty dollars, and they could afford to do tourist things. Because she did not live in this city now. She was a tourist. She could go to the Statue of Liberty, she could look down at the city from the top of the Empire State Building. These were not necessarily things she wanted to do, but she could do them if she wished.

  It was strange, the realization that she was indeed a tourist. She didn’t know whether she liked it or not.

  There was nothing at Bergdorf’s. She kept trying things on and couldn’t find anything she liked at all. She didn’t really need anything, but for some reason or other she felt determined to buy something, if only she could find something to buy. As if she needed something tangible in hand to justify how she was spending this particular day.

  She gave up finally and was almost out of the store when she thought to pick up something for Mark’s mother. She selected a box of monogrammed handkerchiefs. She wasn’t sure that it was necessary to bring a gift home for her mother-in-law but she guessed that it would be good family politics. Although they got along well enough, she was fairly certain that Adele Benstock did not like her very much. That was fine with Andrea, who did not like Mrs. Benstock at all. There was no need for them to like one another, but there was every reason why they ought to get along well together, and she found it effortless to get on with her mother-in-law. Mrs. Benstock might never like her, but she would nonetheless feel that Andrea was an excellent wife for Mark, a superb mother for Robin, and, all in all, an eminently satisfactory daughter-in-law.

  Why didn’t she like Mark’s mother? Not because the woman was narrow-minded and stupid and uncultured. She was all of these things, but that didn’t explain Andrea’s feeling toward her. Harry Benstock was at least as objectionable in all those areas; if he was not precisely stupid, the lout animal cunning he possessed was no more endearing than his wife’s stupidity. Harry Benstock was, in almost every respect, a genuinely despicable man. And yet, although Andrea did despise him to an extent, she could not help somehow liking him in spite of himself. There was a toughness, a feisty quality to him, and she responded to it, even admired it.

  Of course now that she had bought the handkerchiefs for her mother-in-law she was locked; she would have to buy presents for her own parents, and for her father in-law. Perhaps it would be simpler all around to throw the handkerchiefs away. For that matter, she could keep them herself; there was that to be said for having the same initial as one’s mother-in-law.

  She wandered on down Fifth as far as Saks, taking her time along the way, examining store windows and passersby. Everyone seemed to be in a hurry, and she realized that she herself was walking quite slowly.

  How long had it been since she had done any real walking? She drove almost everywhere these days. She occasionally took Robin for walks in the neighborhood, but walking as a means of getting from one place to another was no longer a part of her life. No one walked in the suburbs. Everything was too far away, with nothing to look at en route but other people’s houses. It was much easier to pop the baby into his car seat and drive wherever she was going. She hardly ever went downtown, and all the stores in her area were either situated on shopping plazas or had their own parking lots.

  People in the suburbs only walked behind things, she thought. She walked behind a carriage or stroller, or behind a shopping cart. Mark walked behind a lawnmower during the warm months and a snow thrower in the winter.

  She tried on three dresses at Saks and found one that would do. It was a navy sheath, cut low in front but not too low. She could have found the same dress in Buffalo but decided to buy it anyway. She told the salesgirl she would take it with her, then changed her mind. “I’m sorry,” she said. “It’s just something extra to carry. Would you mind sending it? And—” handing her the hankies— “could you possibly tuck this into the package? Thanks.”

  She stopped for lunch at a delicatessen on Forty-ninth between Fifth and Sixth. She ate a corned-beef sandwich and drank a bottle of celery tonic. The corned beef was no better than what she bought regularly at Mastman’s, but the celery tonic was a beverage she had had only in New York. Was it available in Buffalo? She didn’t know, had never looked for it, had never heard of anybody buying it.

  After lunch she signed a petition. She had returned to Fifth Avenue and was heading uptown toward the Museum of Modern Art. At the corner of Fifty-first street a boy with an embryonic beard was exhorting people to help stop the war. She had passed him before without a second thought. Now, for some reason, she stopped.

  “LBJ’s sending fifty thousand more,” the boy was chanting. “Help us tell him how we feel. LBJ’s sending fifty thousand more. Help us tell him—”

  Two girls about the same age as the boy sat on folding chairs behind a card table cluttered with clipboards
and leaflets. Both had long straight hair and both wore jeans and loose sweaters. They looked impossibly young. She wanted to talk to them but could think of nothing whatsoever to say.

  “I don’t have a pen,” she said.

  One of the girls handed her a pen and passed a clipboard to her. The piece of paper on the clipboard had spaces for a couple of dozen signatures with nothing at its top to indicate precisely what she was signing. She decided it didn’t much matter.

  “Andrea Beth Kleinman,” she wrote. “47 Jane Street, N.Y.C.”

  “I wonder what she really looked like.”

  The voice startled her. She turned, and a man smiled at her. “I’m sorry,” she said. “Were you talking to me?”

  “Thinking aloud, actually. But don’t you wonder what she looked like? Modigliani obviously distorted faces. He couldn’t have encountered an endless parade of long-necked women, could he?”

  “I suppose not.”

  “I often think it would be interesting to have photographs of the subjects of portraits. So that one could know to what extent the artist pays homage to reality. And what he finds with a brush that the camera couldn’t capture.”

  “I never thought of that.”

  She turned toward the picture, imagining what Modigliani’s model might have looked like, trying to recall the Modigliani at the Albright-Knox in Buffalo. The man moved alongside of her and they looked at the picture together.

  “I’d love to know what Rembrandt’s models looked like. Or Hals’s. Of course they didn’t have cameras at the time, did they? But do you know Picasso’s portrait of Gertrude Stein? I’ve seen photographs of the woman taken at about the same time, and Picasso’s portrait is surprisingly authentic. And yet he invests the woman with so much more character than the camera lens picks up.”

  They moved on together to the next picture. She generally preferred to be alone in museums and art galleries, but now she found this man’s company engaging. He was about thirty-five, she judged, with a not unattractive wedge-shaped face. His hair was dark brown and shaggy, his moustache a fighter brown with red highlights. He wore a tan corduroy jacket over a dark blue shirt open at the neck.