19 Purchase Street

by Gerald A. Browne

  Leslie was pleased that Gainer knew exactly. To keep from showing so with a grin she kissed him. “You know,” she said, “in the heart of my heart I’d much rather stay and be with you—even if it is only part-time these days.”

  “I know.”

  “You need me.”

  “You need Rodger.”

  That wasn’t said resentfully by him, nor did she deny it.

  “You’re my love,” she said, and began massaging the back of his neck. With one hand and then with both, really going after his tension. And while doing that she said: “Sometimes I believe I could easily do without having a lot of money. After all, practically everyone does and I couldn’t possibly be all that weak. We could have children. It’s not too late for me to have at least one child. I wonder what it’s like to have sex trying to make rather than prevent. Must be marvelously fulfilling, don’t you think? Perhaps what I ought to do someday is to go to a shrink and get the monies treated out of me.”

  “Some day,” Gainer agreed, though they were words that he’d heard from her numerous times, a sort of litany that seemed necessary for her.

  It was time for Karen Akers.

  Gainer took off his shirt and Leslie her robe and on the couch she snuggled in the cave of his arm while their favorite singer was on Channel 13. Red, straight-to-the-shoulders hair that was banged to make her pale, very pretty, well-boned face incongruously diminutive. Wearing black smoking and a white silk shirt open at the collar as though the atmosphere she created around her was too warm for a tie. A long white silk scarf hanging left and right from under her lapels. Key-lighted and singing it right at everyone:

  … Oh, and she never gives out,

  And she never gives in,

  She just changes her mind …

  What would it be like, Gainer wondered, to be able to give someone—no, not just someone—to be able to give Leslie a new Rolls Corniche for her birthday, dark brown, initialed, a phone in it and an eighteen karat key for her to start it with. To be responsible for all the softest available gloves that she ever put her hands into, and all her shoes. Every inch of silk that would ever touch her. Walk into Harry Winston’s and say for her you wanted something better.

  … hot lips brushing,

  hot cheeks flushing,

  Strictly entre nous …

  Maybe, Gainer thought, it would be good for him to have her away for a while, give him a breather.

  But he doubted it.

  The Thursday morning Leslie wasn’t there he slept later than he’d been sleeping recently. He woke up with a very hard hard-on and an awful emptiness. He didn’t bother with breakfast, not even coffee, hastily washed and dressed, although there was no reason to hurry.

  The safety deposit key was inside its own special envelope among collar stays and other such things in a porcelain box on his dresser next to the Tiffany framed photograph. As Gainer removed the key and put it to pocket, he caught on that image of the mother. He hadn’t caught on her like that in quite a while. The old thought came back that it wasn’t much of her.

  Norma’s safety deposit box was in Manufacturer’s Trust, the big branch of that bank on Avenue of the Americas. Gainer had never been to it, although he had signed the signature card that gave him access, and Norma had reminded him every so often that in any case of emergency he should go and get into it.

  There wasn’t much there. Eight thousand dollars in hundreds with a rubber band around them. The deed to her United Nations Plaza apartment with Gainer named as owner. A moderately valuable art deco diamond and sapphire bracelet she’d bought at Parke-Bernet in response to an auction whim but had never worn because, as she said, it wasn’t enough to be killed on the street for. And a single sheet of white paper folded twice with 3L-18R-6L-5R-3L typewritten on it.

  Gainer took everything with him and went directly to Norma’s apartment, which actually was his.

  He had been putting off going there, but felt up to it today. He still wasn’t sure how he would respond to coming into touch with so many things that had been in touch with her. The dresses and blouses and … he was relieved to find all that had been taken care of. By Leslie, no doubt. The closets and dresser drawers and cabinets were empty and freshly lined with paper. All of what had been in them was packed in cardboard cartons stacked against the wall in the entranceway. Prominently scotch-taped to one were the telephone numbers of the Goodwill and the Salvation Army.

  One carton was open and set aside.

  It contained Norma’s various papers. Receipts, cancelled checks, records and such. Placed in on top of those was the purse Norma had taken to Zurich; left for him by Leslie to go through, he assumed.

  He wandered around, sat in Norma’s bedroom chair for a moment, looked into the refrigerator that was spotless and had only an open box of Arm and Hammer baking soda in it.

  Yes, Norma, I love Leslie.

  He went back to the bedroom, kneeled down and flipped back a corner of the rug and its rubber undercushion, used a quarter to pry up a square foot section of the parquet floor and uncovered a safe.

  Norma had once shown it to him. Not its contents, only its location. The series of numbers and letters on the sheet of paper from the safety deposit box were, of course, the combination. He opened it right up and removed a sheaf of letters bound by a lavender grosgrain ribbon. He noticed the Zurich postmarks, the Germanic handwriting, the name of Alma on the return address. There were also about ten old postcards, those from the mother, that Norma had preserved despite so many changes of place. Nothing else in the safe except Gainer’s and Norma’s birth certificates and an envelope containing an engraved business card:

  PRIVATE BANK WALDHAUSER

  BAHNHOFSTRASSE 12-24

  8022 ZURICH, SWITZERLAND

  On the back side of the card in Norma’s hand was written in ink the word Necco and beneath that SF-1259. Diagonally across the card in pencil, smudged and evidently written previously, was the notation: min. dep. 50.

  It was, of course, the private bank in Zurich that Norma kept her money in. She had once pointedly told Gainer that she did. A numbered account—SF-1259, access code Necco, he now knew.

  Gainer put the things he had gotten from the safe into the carton that held Norma’s other papers and her handbag. He took the carton home with him and placed it by his chair at the window. He opened the window, let in the harbor water smell, the spoil of the city, blended with the fresh of the sea. He drank a Heineken and didn’t answer the phone twice. His thought had been that someday soon he would tend to the carton of Norma’s papers, but he was drawn to it now, sat and reached into it.

  Her letters from Alma.

  Gainer tugged the ribbon loose. Hesitated. These were meant for Norma’s eyes only, he thought, and was about to retie the ribbon when something told him he should not feel like a meddler. Something outside himself, it seemed, invited him to look into the first envelope.

  He read all the letters, slowly, taking in as much as he could, the feeling, flavor of each sentence. Read them chronologically, one side of a tender history from which he was able to gather reflections of the other, lost side. Many of the amorous passages were so unashamedly direct they came off as defiant. In the lines and between them was the desperateness of lovers apart, victimized by distance and convention. Frequently mentioned was the eventuality of Alma and Norma being together permanently in New York, and in that regard Gainer seemed to be the obstacle, would first have to be dealt with, informed. Alma was understanding about that but, naturally, impatient.

  How simple it could have been, Gainer thought as he read the final “lovingly” of a closing and slipped that letter back into its envelope. Maybe if he hadn’t tried to make all those matches with men for her. It pained him to think that ever, even for a moment, he had stood between Norma and happiness.

  He put the letters along with the mother’s postcards in the top drawer of his dresser. Made room for them by removing some packets of off-track betting slips, losers that
a fellow had picked up from the floor day-by-day for Gainer to use to offset any income tax in case he happened to win a large triple or something.

  Then, after uncapping another beer, he got back to the box.

  Norma’s purse.

  It was a soft, roomy leather one from Bottega Veneta. In it, among the usual make-up implements and such was her Swiss Air ticket, the unused portion. Gainer read the face of it and would never cash it in. Also, Norma’s passport indelibly rubber-stamped with all her arrivals and departures. He noted the most recent and final Zurich entry.

  He removed everything from Norma’s wallet, examined each item as though it were a fragment of her. Her driver’s license, her L. E. Horton business cards, a merchandise credit receipt for $67.50 from B. Altman’s. A snapshot of him at age eight, sitting on the street steps outside that first Vicky apartment. Another snapshot of Norma and Alma taken by the rail of a boat, a large-looking boat under way. Norma squinting into the sun. Alma with a hand up shielding her eyes. Wisps of hair across their faces, fair hair and dark being whipped up and entwined by wind. Both wearing casual summer dresses. A charming photo for its candidness, Gainer thought, a loving picture. He would have it reproduced, enlarged. Alma would surely like to have one.

  Tucked in the smallest, tightest pocket of the wallet was a slip of paper. Gainer nearly overlooked it. A page from a notepad, cheap off-color paper like newspaper, folded twice into little more than a one-inch square. It had the Dolder Grand Hotel imprint on the bottom right corner. Scribbled in dull pencil above that was what appeared to be a date and a number and an initial that was either J.M.P. or G.N.B. All of it was almost undecipherable. It didn’t appear to Gainer to be anything important. He continued with his looking.

  He didn’t stop until he’d finished the entire box, sorted aside whatever papers might be important, threw nothing away. By then it was dark. His stomach let him know he hadn’t sent anything solid down to it all day. He didn’t feel like eating at home. He freshened up and changed into clothes more appropriate for night, went over to the city, overtipped the maitre d’ at II Monello so he got a table for four. Ate too much bread and butter before the pasta arrived, six kinds of pasta with six different sauces. Sipped away a half bottle of a 1971 Ruffino. Decided not to go home yet.

  At one o’clock he was at Xenon. Sitting on the perimeter of the dancing with some house wine in a highball glass. He wasn’t actually at a table, he had pulled a chair up to that vantage point.

  Gainer never danced. There was something about all those jerks and gyrations that didn’t appeal to him, at least not as a participant. But he enjoyed being the spectator, so there he sat, more or less passing judgment on the moves being made out on the floor. He began making composites of the girls. Mentally put that one’s great legs with that one’s spectacular ass. Those tits with that belly. That hair with … that face …

  He recognized that face. Did not know it personally but had seen it practically everywhere.

  Her name was Harrie. Short for Harriet, everyone assumed, and it didn’t seem her last name mattered. There was only one Harrie. She was currently the model who had it made the most. Every working hour of every day for four months in advance on her booking chart at the Ford Agency was filled in, and there were just as many secondary bookings in case a client cancelled. She was averaging three thousand a day including commercials and product exclusives. A certain facial expression had become her trademark. Her variations on it were slight: up a notch for arrogance, down a couple for sultry evil. She could do no wrong in front of a camera. Even the most blase photographers said she had a tremendous motor. She was, indeed, an extraordinary twenty-year-old creature. So beautiful she seemed an anomaly.

  That face.

  That body.

  Harrie danced them right to Gainer. She extended her hand to have him up and dancing with her.

  He shook his head no, left her hand stranded.

  She dismissed him with a flick of it, danced away.

  Gainer didn’t think much more about it until during the next number she came skimming and turning his way again, stopped abruptly and stood still, eyes to eyes with him about a reach and a half away. The music was so loud she resorted to charades.

  Pointed at Gainer.

  Held a make-believe phone to her ear.

  Pointed to herself.

  You … call … me.

  She conveyed her number by holding certain numbers of fingers up in succession, ran through them twice to make sure he got it.

  THE picture of Harrie doing that was in and out of Gainer’s mind around two o’clock as he walked to catch the tram over to Roosevelt Island. He admitted he was flattered, in a way. Harrie could have anyone. Maybe, he thought, it was what he needed, would do him good to crash against her. He clearly remembered her number.

  His legs kept going for the tram.

  Two minutes after he arrived home he was in bed reading a recently reissued Nabokov novel. Within twenty minutes he was asleep.

  His phone rang.

  His immediate thought was Leslie.

  Harrie’s opener was a complaint that it had taken her over an hour to get his private unlisted number.

  A sleepy grunt from Gainer.

  “Come over and fuck me,” Harrie said.

  That woke him more.

  “Just half dress,” she said. “I’ll send a limo for you. I’ve got one on standby.”

  “It’s three o’clock,” Gainer said instead of okay.

  “I thought it was four.”

  “I’ll call you tomorrow maybe.”

  “Can’t. Got a booking.”

  “Sleep,” he advised.

  A little protesting whine from Harrie. “Christ, have I ever got the wets for you. You should feel me.”

  He visualized those words coming from that face. She had him leaning, thinking he could easily put on jeans and shirt and slip bare feet into loafers. With the telephone receiver still held to his ear, not to miss whatever else she might say, he rolled over and cantilevered off the edge of the bed, located the telephone outlet on the wall behind the nightstand and pinched out the connector.

  LESLIE returned Friday morning early. She let herself in quietly, found Gainer in bed. She did not know he was so anticipating her key in his lock that he came awake with the first click, and while she was undressing he pretended sleep, watched through the diffusion of his lashes. She eased herself carefully onto the bed, fit lightly against him. Then he came awake all at once and it was obvious he’d been faking it. He practically attacked her. She couldn’t keep from giggling against his mouth.

  Everything was all right now.

  They were together again.

  A serious kiss with a lot of missing in it, followed by several around one another’s necks.

  Would he like some orange juice? Leslie asked, and without waiting for his “yes” went to squeeze it.

  The kitchen sounds were a joy to him because they were caused by her. She returned with the juice of ten oranges in two large glasses. “Mind the seeds,” she said.

  “How did it go in Boston?” Gainer asked.

  “About as I said it would.”

  “No fun.”

  “Croquet at the Myopia Hunt Club was the high point.”

  “Did you have to flash much?”

  “You mean often?”

  “Both.”

  “Only when it seemed the thing to do … or wanted to.”

  “Shame.”

  “Never. What have you been doing? Still got the walks?”

  “Not so much.”

  “Did you do anything exciting … meet anyone, or whatever?” She looked up to nothing in the corner of the ceiling to seem more offhand.

  Gainer took a long, slow swig of orange juice, got a seed.

  “Hmm?” she persisted lightly.

  Don’t answer. He could feel her intuition swarming about his head. “Does Rodger ever expect you to do more than flash for those people?” he asked.
/>   “What do you think?”

  “He might.”

  “No, he’s smarter than that. They’d put it on his plus side for a night and his minus side forever.”

  “They’re important to him.”

  “Apparently.”

  “Who are they?”

  “Just money. Tell me, who did you meet?”

  Her intuition closed in. “No one, exactly. I dropped by Xenon night before last.”

  “Oh?”

  “For about an hour.”

  A half-full, all-purpose model’s smile from her. “And you got hit on.”

  “Some.”

  “Hard.”

  “You might say that.”

  “But you walked away from it.”

  “If that’s what you believe, that’s what I did.”

  “Touché,” she said, not liking it but taking some of her own medicine.

  Gainer got another orange seed, put it in reserve beneath his tongue while he ejected the first one. He tried for the wicker wastebasket over beside the dresser. Missed. He’d pick it up later.

  “Who?” she asked.

  “Who what?”

  “Hit on you.”

  “No one you know.”

  “But someone you do.”

  “Stop cramping.”

  “It’s not cramping, it’s … caring.”

  Things wouldn’t get back to right until he told her, Gainer thought.

  “Didn’t you ask me what I did?” Leslie said.

  “Sort of.”

  “Well, fair is fair.”

  Gainer yawned twice and told her what had happened with Harrie, played down that it had been Harrie, and if a tinge of self-satisfaction came through it was at least unintended. He recited it in a monotone word-for-word and moment-for-moment so there wouldn’t be any gaps to fill in. But there were anyway.

  “What was she wearing?” Leslie asked.

  “A blue dress, light blue.”

  “Swishy?”

  “Just a dress, not much to it.”

  “How about her hair?”

  “She had it up but it was falling.”

  Leslie had a set to her mouth, her cheek muscles drawing the corners up ever so slightly. It was all she could do to keep from gritting, and was anything but pleased that Gainer remembered so much about the girl. Leslie knew who Harrie was, of course. Would have had to been blind not to. Just the night before, while watching television from a guest bed in a grand house in Hamilton, Massachusetts, she had seen thirty seconds of Harrie over and over. Harrie peddling some designer’s jeans, delighted to thrust her darling ass into the faces of half the country. Harrie selling slick lipstick, shaping her mouth into over-lubricated innuendoes.