by Lisa Unger
“Hi, Victoria. Good morning,” I said, heading toward the stairs.
Victoria was as thin and pale as a slip of paper. Her inevitable flowered housedress hung off her as if it were still on the hanger. At some point, her hair had been replaced by a slate gray wig that looked as if she’d been at it with a pair of scissors. The skin on her face was deeply lined and sagged like melted wax. She claimed proudly, at least once every time I saw her, that she still had her own teeth. Unfortunately, she only had five or six of them. She whispered rather than spoke, as though she was afraid others were waiting at their doors the way she did. I always liked Victoria, though we generally had the same conversation every day and she never from day to day remembered who I was. She’d tell me of her three brothers, all police officers now dead. She’d tell me how she never meant to stay in the apartment that she once shared with her mother, also now dead, but she somehow just never got around to moving.
“Oh, if my brothers were still alive…” she said this particular morning, her voice trailing off. “They were police officers, you know.”
“They must have been very brave,” I answered, looking longingly at the staircase but walking toward her instead. Of all the responses I’d given her over the years, she seemed to like that one the most.
“Oh, yes,” she said with a widening smile. “Very.”
I could just see a sliver of her through the door she had opened only a few inches, her housedress with tiny purple flowers, her stockinged leg, her gray orthopedic shoe.
Victoria lived in a time capsule of antique furniture and drawn shades. There was not an item in her apartment that wasn’t older than I was by at least fifty years, everything worn with time and wear, most of it covered in dust, all of it so heavy, so rooted that it seemed never to have been moved. Heavy oak armoires and bureaus, brocade couches and wing chairs, gilded mirrors, a baby grand topped with a clutter of yellowed photographs. I went in only when I’d gone grocery shopping for her or to change her lightbulbs. I couldn’t leave there without carrying out some of her sadness and loneliness with me like a cloak. There was a smell that I’ve come to think of as life rot. Where a life has spoiled, gone bad through lack of use.
I used to wonder what choices she’d made in her life to wind up with no one at the end. It’s something I think about now more than ever, like I mentioned: choices. The little ones, the big ones. Maybe once, like me, she had a perfectly wonderful man in love enough with her to propose marriage; maybe she, like me, had turned him down for reasons unclear even to her. Maybe that was the first choice that led her to this life.
She had a niece who came in occasionally from Long Island (feathered hair, three-quarter-length red wool coat, sensible shoes), an in-home caregiver who came three times a week (different people all the time, carrying themselves with as much energy and enthusiasm as pallbearers), and a couple times I’d seen people from Meals on Wheels. I lived in that building for more than ten years, and I’d never seen her leave the apartment. To me, it seemed as though she couldn’t leave. That if she stepped out of her apartment and onto the tile floor of the hallway, she’d crumple into a pile of dust.
“Well, if they were still alive, they certainly wouldn’t stand for all the noise coming from upstairs,” she warbled, her voice sounding like a top that was about to lose its spin.
I’d heard him, too, the new guy moving his things up the stairs the night before. I hadn’t been curious enough to poke my head out.
“He’s just moving in, Victoria. Don’t worry. I’m sure he’ll quiet down soon.”
“Did you know I still have all my own teeth?”
“That’s wonderful,” I said with a smile.
“You seem like such a nice girl,” she answered. “What’s your name?”
“Ridley. I live right next door if you need anything.”
“That’s an odd name for a pretty girl,” she said, baring her gums. I waved and went on my way.
Gray stone stairs and walls, a red banister, and black-and-white tile floors led me downstairs. On the second floor, the fluorescent light overhead flickered and went black, then came back to life. All the building lighting did this; it was a major electrical problem that my landlord, Zelda, appeared to have no intention of fixing.
“What? You think I got money to have the goddamn building rewired? Want me to raise your rent?” she said when I complained. That pretty much put an end to that; I just made sure nothing in the apartment blocked my way to the fire escape.
On the ground floor, in the narrow hallway that leads to the gated vestibule, there was a note on my mailbox, which I hadn’t visited since Friday out of sheer laziness. Too many magazines! chastised the red angry scrawl from my mailman. I could barely open the box because it was stuffed full of envelopes, bills, junk mail, catalogs, copies of Time, Newsweek, New York magazine, and Rolling Stone. With effort I pulled everything out and ran back up the three flights to my apartment, unlocked the door, and threw everything inside, then locked the door and left again.
You’re saying to yourself, Do I need to know all of this, all the minutiae of her leaving the building? But these two encounters, the tiny choices I made heading out to the street, changed everything. If I was a different kind of person, I might not have paused to talk to Victoria. Or perhaps I would have paused longer. I could have walked right by my mailbox, not seen or ignored the note from my mailman. It’s all these choices that we could have made, the things we might have done. We see them with perfect clarity only long after the moment has passed. Just thirty seconds either way, and I wouldn’t have this story to tell you. I wouldn’t be the same person telling it.
More small decisions on the street. I was running late, so instead of making a right and walking to TriBeCa (admittedly a long walk, but definitely doable if you have enough time), I walked to the curb to hail a cab. It was there that I saw them. A young mother with auburn hair pulled into a tight, high ponytail, one baby in a stroller, the other, a toddler, held by the hand, waiting at the light. There was nothing unusual about them really, I mean nothing that most people would notice. It was just the contrast to Victoria that struck me, the beauty and energy of these young lives compared to the sad and lonely twilight of the other I had just encountered.
I watched her. She was a small woman, but there was that strength about her that young mothers seem to possess. It was the ability to push and carry, hold tiny hands and monitor a million needs and movements, the Zen calm of producing a Ziploc bag of Cheerios from the front pocket of a diaper bag just as a little face starts to crumble, the way of molding an expression to communicate compassion and understanding to a toddler who could barely talk. It was musical, a symphony, and I found myself rapt for a moment. Then I turned my attention to the sea of cabs approaching…eight-thirty on a rainy Monday morning. Good luck. Not one light signaling availability, and a few anxious commuters looking for the same cab standing on corners all around. I resigned myself to being late, decided to grab a coffee. But as my eyes returned for a moment to the small family across the street, I felt a jangle of alarm. The mother was staring into the stroller, and the toddler, forgotten for maybe a second, had wandered into the street. There had been a brief lull in the flow of traffic, but the little boy, in his faded denim pants, red puffy overcoat, and little black stocking cap, was now directly in the path of an approaching white van. A glance to the van revealed a driver talking heatedly into his cell phone, seemingly oblivious to the road in front of him.
Everyone always says, “It’s all a blur.” But I remember every second. I was a shot fired from a gun, unthinking and with only one path available to me. I ran into the street. I remember the young mother glancing up from the stroller as people started to yell. I saw her face shift from confused to terrified. I saw the people on the street turning to stare; saw the little boy oblivious, toddling along toward me. I felt the hard concrete beneath my feet, heard the blood rushing in my ears. I was completely focused on the kid, who looked at me suddenly
with a confused smile as I bent, arms outstretched, reaching for him as I ran. Everything slowed down but me; time warped and yawned but I was a rocket. I felt the warmth of his body, the softness of his coat as I scooped him up in one arm. I saw the grille of the van, felt the metal of the fender nick my foot as I dove both of us out of its path. I watched the van continue up First Avenue, never slowing, as if the whole drama that had played out before it had gone completely unnoticed by the driver. My body was tense, my teeth gritted with determination and fear, but I relaxed when I heard the little boy cry, saw him looking at me with terror. His mother ran over and grabbed him from me, sobbing into his little jacket. His tears turned from whimpers into a howl as if something primal told him that he’d just averted a great darkness. At least for now. People surrounded me, looked on with concern. Was I all right? Even then the answer still would have been yes.
So you’re thinking I did a good deed. Everything turned out all right. Not that big a deal. And I agree. Anyone with half-decent reaction time and a heart would have done what I did. But it’s those little things I was talking about. Standing behind me on that corner of First Avenue and Eleventh Street was a photographer for the New York Post. On his way back from shooting some high-profile thug’s “walk of shame” from the Ninth Precinct, he’d come over to Five Roses to see if they were open, which naturally at 8:30 A.M. they weren’t. He’d popped into the Black Forest Pastry Shop on the corner for a coffee and bear claw. These items were now lying on the ground at his feet where he’d dropped them in his haste to get to his camera. He got the whole thing on film.
three
It must have been a slow news week. And, okay, that action shot the Post photographer captured was pretty sensational, if I do say so myself. The combination of those two things, and I got my fifteen minutes. What can I say? I lapped it up. I’m not a shy person and I do like to talk, so I did all the interviews: Good Day New York, The Today Show, the Post, the Daily News. My phone was ringing off the hook and it was pretty fun. My parents even got some reflected glory in the New Jersey Record. They’re not shy, either.
By Friday, my image had been on every local television show and in every newspaper in the tristate area. There was even some national pickup because of a sound bite on CNN. People were stopping me on the street to hug me or shake my hand. New York City is a quirky place in general, but when you’re the “New Yorker of the Moment,” it’s absolutely surreal. A city that can seem bitterly lonely and aloof even with its throngs of people suddenly seemed to turn its face from the sidewalk and smile. I think when someone does a good deed in New York City, it makes the rest of us feel as though we’re not alone, that maybe we are looking out for one another in spite of evidence to the contrary.
“I can’t believe you, Rid,” said Zack over drinks at the NoHo Star. The echoes of a hundred conversations rose up and bounced off the high ceilings of the restaurant, and the aromas of Asian-infused cuisine mingled with the scent of the warm breadbasket on our table. I looked at my good friend, because he had always been that, and was grateful for him.
“What? You didn’t think I had it in me?” I asked with a smile.
He shook his head. There was that look again, that mingling of longing and regret and something else I just couldn’t put my finger on. I averted my eyes; it made me feel like such a heel.
“Believe me, I know you have it in you. You’ve been like that since we were kids—defender of the weak, cheerleader for the underdog.” Was there the slightest shade of resentment in his voice?
“Someone has to do it,” I said, lifting my Cosmo and taking a sip.
“But why you?” he asked. “That woman should have had a better eye on her kid. You both could have been killed.”
I gave a shrug. I didn’t see the point of judging and analyzing a single moment in someone’s life. I was just glad to have been there to mitigate the consequences. He went on, as he was prone to do.
“And all those pictures of you…forget it. You’re going to have psychos crawling out of the woodwork. You should have just stayed out of it.” He shook his head disapprovingly, but I could see the caring and the respect that was behind it. He was a good guy, worried about my well-being above all things.
“Oh, yeah,” I said with a laugh. “And let a little kid get mowed down by a van.”
“Better him than you,” he said with eyebrows raised.
“You’re so full of it,” I said with a smile. He would have been the first one diving in front of the van to save that kid—Justin Wheeler, by the way. Three years old and counting. Did I mention that Zack was a pediatrician like my father? (And yes, they worked together at some of the clinics where they donated their time. See how complicated this whole breakup was?) He dedicated his whole life to the care of children, and I’d never met anyone, other than my father, who was so passionate about his work.
“Seriously,” he said, softening, returning my smile. “Watch out for yourself until all this dies down.”
I touched my glass to his.
“To the hero. To my hero,” he said.
Things did die down, of course, and my life returned to its natural rhythm. By the following Monday, a week to the day since I’d plucked Justin from the path of the van, my phone had stopped ringing for interviews, I noted. I got a call from the features editor at Vanity Fair regarding the article I wanted to write on Uma Thurman. We made an appointment to get together on Tuesday afternoon. I went to bed that night still flushed with my fifteen minutes but happy that everything was settling back to normal.
The following day, I got dressed like a grown-up and took a cab uptown to the Vanity Fair offices. I had a brief meeting with the features editor, a busy, somewhat tightly wound, impossibly chic older woman who I’d worked successfully with before. Provided that Ms. Thurman agreed to the article, we settled on a fee and a deadline and we were good to go. I took the train back downtown and dawdled some at St. Mark’s Bookshop and toyed with the idea of starting a novel. I strolled toward home, picked up some sandalwood incense from a street vendor, and as I passed it on my way back to my apartment, lamented the Gap on the corner of St. Mark’s (the mecca of my gothic youth) and Second Avenue. I’m sorry; the Gap has no place on the same street as Trash and Vaudeville.
By the time I got back to my apartment, the afternoon was darkening and I was freezing in my black wool gabardine Tahari suit, my feet screaming in protest of my gorgeous but painful Dolce & Gabbana leather pumps. But I figured I deserved to be uncomfortable in these shamefully expensive (but so fabulous) items. It’s only right to suffer for fashion. I wrestled another unwieldy pile of mail from my box, took off my shoes, and jogged up the stairs to my apartment.
My apartment was small—okay, minuscule—with a bare minimum of storage space. Actually, it had only one closet at the end of a hallway that ran parallel to my bedroom but went nowhere. But I liked that it kept a limit on the amount of clutter I allowed to accumulate in my life. I had a sense that if I needed to pack up and move in a day, I could, and that thought gave me a significant amount of comfort. Which was strange because I had been there for more than ten years and had no desire to leave. There was something about that apartment that made me feel rooted and free at the same time. It was exactly the way I wanted it, with comfortable, plush furniture, and area rugs to soften the hardwood floors. The walls were freshly painted a subtle cream. It was cozy, familiar…my space. And yet at the same time, I had no attachment to anything there.
That night I changed into my most comfortable pair of black yoga pants and sweatshirt, pulled my hair up, and settled onto the chenille sofa with my stack of mail to sift through. I made piles: one for magazines, one for garbage, one for bills. And I began to sort.
It was relaxing in its mindlessness, the simple act of sifting through, putting items into their place. Then I came across an eight-by-ten envelope with my name and address handwritten in a black scrawl, no return address. There was something about it, even though it was an utter
ly innocuous manila envelope. In retrospect, it seemed to radiate a warning, to throb with a kind of malice, which I naturally ignored. I sliced the top open cleanly with a letter opener and removed three pieces of paper. Even now I still find it amazing how these simple items were able to challenge everything I ever thought I knew about my life.
In the envelope there was a clipping of the Post article that featured a picture of me. There was also an old, yellowed Polaroid photograph. In it, a young woman in a flowered dress held a little girl on her hip. The woman looked stiff, her expression drawn. The child looked at her with eyes bright with laughter, mouth smiling. A man stood behind them, tall, broad shouldered, incredibly handsome with chiseled features and sharp, intelligent eyes. He had a possessive hand on the woman’s shoulder. And there was something about his expression that wasn’t quite benevolent, though I couldn’t put my finger on it. I couldn’t explain the constricting in my throat, the adrenaline suddenly pumping through me, causing my hands to shake. The woman in the photograph bore such a striking resemblance to me that I could have been looking at my own portrait. The child in her arms resembled pictures I’d seen of myself, though at that moment I realized I’d never seen images of myself that young.
And there was a note including a phone number and a question.
It read simply: Are you my daughter?
four
It takes only a moment to bring myself back into my childhood completely. I can close my eyes and be overcome with the sense memories of my youth. The aromas from my mother’s kitchen, the scent of Old Spice and rainwater on my father when he returned from work in the evenings, my cold fingers because my father’s body temperature always ran hot and the house, as a consequence, always cold. I can hear my parents laughing or singing, sometimes arguing, and later outright yelling when things really started to go wrong with my brother, Ace. I can remember my green shag carpet and Laura Ashley wallpaper, tiny pink roses with mint-green stems on a white background. And in all the memories I had of those years, that night with the picture in my hand there was one that stood out vivid and terrifying among all the innocuous and happy ones.
