by Sharon Potts
She pushed open the door to the Black Sheep. Only a handful of people were at the bar and most of the booths were empty. She sat down on a barstool. The manager, a middle-aged guy named Doug with a shaved head and a body fine-tuned by Crossfit workouts, was working the front alone. “Everyone call in sick tonight?” she asked.
Doug laughed. “Yeah. My two bartenders claim to have the flu, but I think they just didn’t feel like going out in this cold. What can I get you?”
“A glass of cabernet and a vegan burger.”
“Want any tofu or bean sprouts on it?”
“Nope. I’ll take it straight.”
He put the order in with the kitchen and poured her wine. “You look a little strung out tonight.”
“Just tired.”
“I thought maybe you’ve been with Bill.”
She took a sip of wine. “Bill? Why do you say that?”
Doug wiped up the counter with a white cloth. “Well, he was pretty messed up himself when he came by earlier.”
“Tonight?”
“Yeah. He came in around seven looking like he was going to mow down the place.”
She sat up straighter. “Are you sure? Bill was making dinner for his son. Billy was spending the night.”
“Maybe that’s what was supposed to happen, but he told me when he went to pick up his kid, his ex-wife’s apartment had been completely cleared out. No furniture. No clothes. No kid.”
“But she can’t do that. That’s kidnapping.”
“Whatever,” Doug said. “Bill sure gave me an earful about it. He said she left a note. Called him a terrible influence and said she would make sure he’d never see his son again.”
“Oh no. He didn’t have a drink, did he?”
“Seriously? This is a bar.”
“But Bill has a problem.”
“I told him to go easy, but sometimes people just need to let loose.”
“He’s an alcoholic. He can’t handle it.”
Doug held up his hands. “Hey, I’m sorry, but it’s not my job to babysit everyone who comes in here wanting a drink.”
“When did he leave?”
“A little before you came in.”
“Was he going home? Did he say anything when he left?”
“He wasn’t making a lot of sense,” Doug said. “It sounded like ‘guilt’ and ‘absolution.’ And then he said, ‘Maybe the poor bastard just wanted to die.’”
The breath snagged in her chest. Oh god, Bill. Please don’t do anything stupid.
She slid off the barstool and ran out of the Black Sheep.
Ran down the frozen streets, slipping and scraping her hands on the rough sidewalk.
She picked herself up and ran.
Ran so fast she could barely fill her lungs with the frozen air.
Ran into Bill’s apartment building and up the five flights of stairs.
Gasping when she reached the top, she heard a loud meow. Woodward outside the apartment.
Please be all right, Bill.
The door was unlocked. She pushed it open and was hit by the smell of burnt meat.
For an instant, she was disoriented by the ransacked apartment. Chairs, tables, and the room divider thrown over. Books everywhere. Broken dishes. The walls splattered with potatoes and apples. A torn striped apron. Bill’s tortoise-framed glasses on the floor.
“Bill,” she shouted, stepping over the cracked framed Pulitzer certificate.
Then she saw him lying on the other side of the futon, mouth open, eyes glazed. An empty prescription bottle was on the shag rug.
“Oh, Bill. What have you done?”
She punched 911 on her phone and touched his neck. There was the lightest pulse. He was breathing.
“Please state your emergency,” said the voice on the phone.
“Drug overdose. He’s still alive. Just barely.” Annette gave the address. “Sixth floor. The elevator’s broken. Hurry. Please hurry.”
“Keep him on his side with his legs bent at right angles. If he stops breathing, administer CPR. Do you know how to do that?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Keep him warm and make sure he keeps breathing.”
“Keep breathing,” Annette repeated.
She rolled him on his side and covered him with a blanket. Then she sat down with his head in her lap and watched him breathe. So slowly. So shallow, like he wanted to give up.
“Keep breathing, Bill. Keep breathing.”
Tears rolled down her cheeks, splattering as they hit his short, graying afro.
She stroked his cheek. “Don’t die. Please don’t die.”
The tears came faster, the pressure inside her unbearable. She cried, harder than she’d ever cried in her life. Cried for her dear friend. Cried for her mother. Her grandmother. For Isaac Goldstein. She cried for herself. For loneliness and sadness and guilt.
She sat on the floor, surrounded by chaos and the smell of burnt meat, her dear friend’s head on her lap, and sobbed her heart out.
Because the world made no sense.
And she didn’t know what else to do.
CHAPTER 33
Annette sat in the ER waiting area, while somewhere deep in the bowels of the hospital doctors pumped Bill’s stomach and tried to save his life.
Maybe he wanted to die, Bill had said earlier tonight. She’d thought he was talking about Isaac Goldstein. She hadn’t considered Bill might have been thinking of himself. And she should have, but she’d been too preoccupied with her own problems to pay attention. Now, because of her, her dear friend might die.
The waiting area resembled a refugee camp with all the people stretched out on chairs or on the floor. Students from Columbia. Men, women, children from the surrounding neighborhoods—Morningside Park, Harlem. The huddled masses. A TV suspended from the ceiling showed the news, the sound barely audible over the coughing, crying, and moaning.
Annette had never felt more alone in her life.
Across from her, a pale woman clung to her sick child. Annette stared at her cell phone and thought about calling her mother. But that would only leave Mama worried and agitated.
Her finger hovered over Julian’s name, even though she willed it not to. He had called her a liar. He had lied to her. He had a girlfriend. It was a mistake to call him.
Her finger didn’t listen. It touched his name.
She almost hit ‘end’ when a sleepy voice said, “Annette?”
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have called.”
“What’s wrong?” His voice became alert. “Are you all right?”
“My friend. He tried to kill himself.”
“Is he going to be okay?”
“I don’t know.”
“Where are you? Is anyone with you?”
“I’m alone. At St. Luke’s by Columbia. He took pills and he’d been drinking. I don’t know if I got to him in time.”
“Stay there,” Julian said. “I’ll grab a cab. There won’t be much traffic.”
“I shouldn’t have called.”
“I’m glad you did. Just hold on. I’ll be there soon.”
She ended the call. A feeling of tentative calm spread over her and she clung to it like a life raft. Julian was coming. She wasn’t alone.
He came through the ER doors less than thirty minutes later, a wool hat pulled low over his ears, and searched the crowd until he spotted her.
“Hey,” he said, slouching down in front of her since there was nowhere to sit. “Any word?”
She shook her head.
“I’ll check. What’s his name?”
“Bill. Wait, no. He’s registered as William Turner.”
Julian went up to the admitting desk. She watched as he talked to a woman standing behind the check-in person.
Julian’s cheeks were shadowed. He probably hadn’t shaved since she’d seen him yesterday afternoon. With his pale skin and bloodshot eyes, he looked a lot like the first time she’d met him. When was that? Saturday? Only three d
ays ago? It felt like she’d known him forever.
She wondered what he’d said to the redhead when he rushed out of his apartment to be here.
She shouldn’t have called him. She had no business interfering with his relationship with that girl, whatever it was.
He was coming toward her, his face in a grimace.
Oh god. Bill’s dead.
Julian must have read the expression on her face. “He’s alive,” he said quickly. “They pumped his stomach, but he may be unconscious for a day or two. Hard to say at this stage whether there will be any long-term effects. The nurse said to go home. There’s nothing to do for now. They won’t let you in to see him. Family only. Does he have any?”
“Just his almost ex-wife who disappeared with their son.”
“Is that what set him off?”
She nodded. “I should have seen it coming. He was too happy. I should have known he’d crash.”
“We can’t predict what other people will do. We’re not that wise.”
“I suppose.” She took in a deep breath. “But I’m glad you’re here. I didn’t know who else to call.”
“You live nearby?”
“A few blocks.”
“I’ll walk you home.”
She knew she should tell him ‘no’ and that she was fine. He had a girlfriend. He had lied to her. They had lied to each other.
“Thank you,” she said. “I’d like that.”
It was incredibly cold outside. She pulled up her hood and shoved her hands into her pockets, but it hardly helped. The icy air numbed her face, and the aestheticized sensation seemed to spread through her veins. And then, she felt his arm around her, his body sheltering her from the wind, and she could feel her nerve endings thaw.
She told him about Bill as they walked huddled together. How fragile he was, and his guilt about being gay. Bill would have seen Kylie’s actions as having been his fault.
“He probably believed he deserves to lose Billy,” she said.
“But he’s done nothing wrong.”
“In his mind, he has.”
She led Julian up the stoop to her brownstone, then into her apartment.
He crisscrossed his arms and thumped his chest and shoulders. “Damn, it’s cold.”
“I can make chocolat chaud,” she said.
“Hot chocolate. That sounds good in any language.” He kept his hat and jacket on and sat on a kitchen stool while she heated milk in a saucepan.
She’d give him a cup of cocoa, thank him for coming, and then say goodbye. It was clear that was what he had planned, as well.
“I want to explain,” he said. “About Sephora.”
She added the bittersweet chocolate she’d bought the last time she was in Paris, and stirred, watching the melting dark brown swirl through the hot milk. Just like when Grandma Betty used to make it for her.
“She isn’t my girlfriend,” he said. “I’d already broken up with her.”
Annette poured a little brown sugar into the boiling mixture.
“I didn’t lie to you about that.”
She bit her lip. “But I lied to you.”
“Not exactly.” He took off his wool hat and turned it around in his hands. “I thought about what you said. You had a legitimate reason for using a cover story. You didn’t know anything would develop between us.”
She glanced over at him. So something had developed between them? It wasn’t all in her head?
“I probably would have done the same thing in your situation,” he said. “The problem is, once you start lying, it’s pretty tough to go back and undo things.”
She poured the cocoa into two mugs and put them on the counter. Was he saying it was too late for them?
“Thank you.” He unzipped his jacket, then held the mug with both hands. He looked like he was debating with himself.
“What is it?” she asked.
“I like you.” He put his hand over hers. It was warm from the mug. “A lot.”
She wanted to tell him that she liked him, too, but the words got stuck. She shouldn’t be thinking about such things while her friend lay close to death in the hospital.
He took his hand off hers and tapped his fingertips against the countertop. “I think we need to finish that conversation we started.”
“Conversation?” She was confused.
“About your grandfather.”
“Are you sure?”
“I think it’s what you want to talk about,” he said. “Or at least what you need to talk about.”
She sipped the cocoa. It went down warm and sweet. She would have to trust Julian or there could never be a future for them.
“Why do you believe he knew my grandmother?” he asked.
“They were together in old photos.”
“Seriously?”
“I’ll show you.” She went and got the album from the trunk, put it on the counter, and sat down on the stool next to his.
He turned the pages slowly. “Good-looking guy. He looks nothing like the Isaac Goldstein I learned about in school.”
“I know,” she said.
He paused at the photo of the Lowes and Goldsteins at the Laurels Hotel in December 1943. “My god. These are my grandparents. Nana has a honeymoon photo that was taken around the same time.” He turned to the next page and studied the photo of the two couples in dress clothes at the Starlight Roof restaurant. “They look like good friends.”
“It seemed that way to me. That’s why I wanted to talk to your grandmother.”
He continued going through the photo album, stopping at the last page. The two little blonde girls holding hands in front of a brick apartment building.
“That’s my mother.” His voice was filled with amazement. “Essie Lowe.” He scowled. “Is Sally your mother?”
“Yes.”
He rubbed his head. “So your mother and my mother were friends as children.”
“That’s right,” she said. Now what? Would he understand why she had to speak to his grandmother?
He turned back to the photo of his grandparents and hers at the restaurant and studied it. “What are you hoping to find out about your grandfather from Nana?”
“I think Isaac Goldstein was a scapegoat,” she said. “Maybe he was a communist or even some kind of low-level spy, but I don’t believe he gave significant atomic-bomb secrets to the Russians.”
“Is that what the spy book you had with you the other day said?”
“Yes. And my research supports that theory.”
“But it’s still a theory. No proof.”
“That’s right.” She took another sip of cocoa. “I was hoping your grandmother could tell me something. Maybe she knew one of the others in the spy ring and why they testified against my grandfather. Florence Heller or Albert Shevsky or Joseph Bartow. Remember, she told us how she went to an anti-war rally at City College. Shevsky and Bartow went to school there.”
“You’re ignoring the elephant in the room,” he said.
She felt herself flush. There were several elephants she was ignoring, and the biggest one was sitting so close to her that their elbows were touching. “What do you mean?”
“Nana’s practically come out and admitted she was a communist. Do you think she was involved in the spy ring?”
“I don’t think so,” she said. “Many people were communist-leaning at that time. That didn’t make them spies. And her name hasn’t come up in anything I read.” She hesitated.
“What?” he asked.
“Please don’t be angry, but I did wonder about your grandfather.”
“You think he may have been a spy?”
“As an economics professor at NYU, Aaron Lowe was very much in the heart of things. And he published a few articles on how central planning would work in the United States.”
“How do you know that?”
“I am a journalist. I didn’t lie about that.”
He gestured for her to continue.
“And when
I think about your grandparents and mine in those photos, isn’t the likely explanation that Aaron and Isaac were the friends?”
“Communists and friends. I guess that nails it then. They must have been in the same spy ring.”
“Please, Julian, don’t get upset. That’s not what I’m saying. I don’t know anyone’s true connection. All I know is that these four people had been friends. At least three of them had communist leanings. Your grandmother is the only one alive for me to talk to. I just want to find out the whole story.”
He gripped the mug of cocoa.
“Someone was passing atomic-bomb secrets to the Russians and I don’t believe it was my grandfather,” she said.
“And you think my Nana knows?”
“Je ne sais pas, Julian.” She got up from the stool and went to sit on the sofa. Her back hurt. Her head hurt. Her heart hurt.
Julian followed her and sat down near her, not quite touching.
“Here’s the thing,” she said. “I’m pretty sure my grandfather’s innocent, but unless I can prove someone else was the traitor, I won’t be able to clear his name. And I need to do this for my mother and for my grandmother’s memory.”
“And for you.”
“Yes.” She leaned back against the cushion and closed her eyes. “And for me.”
She felt a warm breath near her face, then the press of soft lips against hers. She kissed back, melting like chocolate in simmering milk.
His arms tightened around her, holding her so tight that she could feel the tension and fear of the last few hours dissolve. She dug her hands under his jacket, touching his hard muscles, feeling the heat come off him in waves.
Abruptly, he pulled away.
She opened her eyes.
He was breathing hard, a sheen on his face. “I’d better go.”
No, her mind shouted. Ne vont pas.
“This isn’t the right time,” he said. “We’re both overtired. You’re worried about your friend. There are things we need to work out first. Let’s not complicate the situation.”
He snapped up his jacket and pulled on his hat. “I’ll call you later, okay?”
So close to safety, and suddenly it had been jerked away. But he was probably right. Now wasn’t the right time.
He placed his hand against her heart, pressing so tightly she could feel his pulse pounding along with hers. Then he kissed her gently and left the apartment.
