“I’ll ring you up in a couple of hours to see how things are going.”
I don’t think he heard me mutter, “Terrific” as I clicked off. I couldn’t wait to spot Janet and get the hell out of there. I drove around the block, parked in front of a Greek coffee shop, and got two large coffees, three cheese Danishes, a couple of chocolate bars, and a large hamburger and fries to go. I paid with a fifty.
“Don’t you have anything smaller?” the guy behind the counter growled.
“No.” I’d forgotten that no one in New York City likes anything larger than a twenty.
He rolled his eyes and slapped my change down. I counted it. It came to $31.13. I checked the receipt. If I lived down here again, I couldn’t afford to eat.
The counterman was scowling at another customer when I walked out the door. I drove back to 81 st Street, double-parked diagonally down from the building, and settled in to wait. By now it was three o’clock in the afternoon, and the schoolkids were coming home. I ate my hamburger, which was lousy, and munched on my French fries while I watched them, some walking in groups, others walking hand in hand with their mothers, others with their maids.
Everyone was walking hurriedly, heads bent down, sheltered under umbrellas, anxious to get out of the rain. Then I watched people walking their dogs. My mother wouldn’t let me have a dog. I’d begged and I’d pleaded, and finally I wore her down and she’d relented.
I’d come home one day from school to a tired-looking, splay-backed Springer spaniel that had been kenneled way too long. Her name was Cindy, and I loved her anyway. I loved her even though she wasn’t a puppy. I loved her even though she was too tired to play. Six months later I walked in the door after school and Cindy was gone. Just like that. Banished back to the kennel. Too much trouble, my mother had said.
I took a sip of coffee and wondered what had happened to her, as I watched a woman drag an unwilling poodle down the street. And then I wondered what my mother was doing. How she was doing. I should call her. Drop by. I was thinking about that when my cell rang. It was Calli telling me Tiger Lily had gone into labor and she’d called the vet. I told her to keep me updated and she signed off before I could ask how much she was asking for the puppies.
Two minutes later the phone rang again. This time it was Wilcox.
“Have you seen her?” he demanded. “Have you seen my wife?”
I told him I hadn’t.
“Are you sure? Are you sure she’s staying there?” I pictured him rubbing his hands through his hair. “Maybe I should have gone with someone else after all.”
“Maybe you should have. It still isn’t too late.” I powered off. If it came to that, I’d deduct my expenses and give Paul back the rest of the money.
The phone rang again. Wilcox.
“I’m sorry,” he blubbered. “I’m just upset. You understand.”
I understood that he was falling into the abyss.
“You should get yourself some help.”
There was a moment of silence then Wilcox said, “Pardon?”
I didn’t say anything.
“How come you can do twenty good deeds and one bad one and it’s the bad one that counts?” Wilcox asked.
“I don’t know.”
“My minister doesn’t know either.”
“I’ll call you when I have something to tell you.”
“Please. I’ll be waiting.”
I turned the phone off and slipped it into my backpack.
Twenty minutes later, someone pulled out and I got a parking space a little way down from the building. I spent the next three hours finishing off the cheese Danishes, the chocolate bars, and the coffee, and trying to stay awake. Which was difficult. My eyelids kept closing and my head would start to drop. If it hadn’t been as cold as it was in the car, I would have dozed off.
I was rubbing my hands together, trying to warm them up, when I noticed a man and a woman going into 201. I leaned forward and squinted, trying to get a better look at them. The woman looked vaguely similar to Janet Wilcox except her hair and makeup were different. But the man was an exact fit for Quintillo.
Looked as if it was time to move. I got out of my car and headed for the door. The woman I made for Janet Wilcox and the man I was now certain was Quintillo were still in the outside hallway. Quintillo was struggling to get a large manila envelope out of his mailbox while the woman was fumbling around in her bag. Probably for the keys.
“Jesus,” he was complaining to no one in particular. “Fucking mailman. He does this every fucking time.”
He had just opened his mouth to say something else when the woman saw me. Her head snapped up. Quintillo’s gaze swiveled in my direction. I moved toward him.
“Maybe you can help me.”
Quintillo’s eyes flicked back and forth, as if he was expecting something bad to happen and he wanted to be ready for it. “Maybe. What do you want?”
Now that I was closer, I could see that the woman was indeed Janet Wilcox. The eyes, the mouth, and the chin were all the same. Only she’d reinvented herself. She looked twenty years younger. Her hair was blond and blunt cut. She was wearing bright red lipstick and black eyeliner. She had on a black microfiber raincoat that her daughter would have found acceptable and boots with high heels.
“Sorry to bother you.” I gave them both my brightest smile. “I’m looking for a Patricia Hagerd in 5F.”
“There is no 5F here,” Quintillo told me.
“Are you sure?”
“Positive.”
“Is this 222 East 81st?”
“No. It’s 201.”
I laughed, apologized, and left. The moment I got back to my car, I called Wilcox.
I expected he’d answer on the first ring. He didn’t. His answering machine picked up instead. I left a message.
“Walter, this is Robin Light. I’ve found your wife. Ring my cell phone and let me know what you want me to do.”
I called Paul next. He didn’t answer either. I left the same message on his machine that I had on Wilcox’s. Great. Now what? Stay? Go?
A moment later, Quintillo came out the door and decided the question for me. He looked up and down the street as if he wanted to make sure no one was keeping tabs on him. I ducked my head, but not fast enough. I could tell from the slight stiffening of his body that he’d spotted me.
I waved and pulled out. “Just looking for the address,” I yelled to him.
By the time I’d reached the corner, he’d headed back inside. I drove around and called Wilcox again. No answer. I left another message.
“Are you coming down? Do you want me to go up?”
I tried Paul again. Nothing. Now I was getting annoyed. Wilcox was probably passed out somewhere leaving me holding the bag.
I drove around aimlessly while I tried to decide what to do. Undulating lines of yellow taxis, call lights flickering in the rain, snaked in and out, picking up and letting off people. Buses, lit from the inside like a Hopper painting, stopped at corners. Women in high heels and tight cloth coats scurried along holding tiny black umbrellas.
I went through the park and saw the blaze of trees around Tavern on the Green dressed up in their hundreds of white lights. Murphy and I had eaten there our last night in New York City. I went down Fifth Avenue past the Metropolitan Museum of Art, with its grand façade and kept on going. Around 59th Street I turned onto Madison Avenue and cruised up it, looking at the fancy shop windows. It was hard to believe, but there’d been a time when I’d worn stuff like that. And looked good in it too.
My instructions had been to find Janet Wilcox. I’d done that. I had no idea what Wilcox wanted me to do next. Stay in the City overnight? Talk to his wife? Start back upstate? Which was when I realized that somehow or other in my meanderings I’d contrived to drive by my mother’s building on 74th Street off Park Avenue.
I stopped on impulse and got out of the car and walked under the canopy. The doorman came out of the building to greet me. He was younger, instead of one of the
usual gray-haired brigade. Someone I didn’t know. I don’t know why I was expecting someone I did.
“Can I help you?” he asked.
There was a slight brogue in his voice. My mother’s co-op always had Irish help. They were considered classier. I had to admit this one looked good enough to eat in his uniform with the gold braid on his shoulders and his hat, not to mention the white gloves.
“Yes. I was wondering if the Browns are in.”
“I’m sorry. They’ve stepped out. Would you like to leave a message?”
“No, thanks.”
“Are you positive?”
“Absolutely.”
He watched me get back in my car and drive away.
I felt relieved and sad all at the same time. I turned onto Park Avenue and drove uptown. The traffic had thinned. Park was one of those streets where the traffic always moves. Maybe because it’s mostly apartment buildings. I remembered how much I’d enjoyed looking at the flowers in the dividers in the summer and the Christmas trees in the winter when I was a little girl. I thought I owned the City then, that I’d always be here.
I was going to live in a brownstone by Central Park and have dinner parties for interesting people and be a great writer. Of course the brownstone would have a working fireplace. The place would smell of lilacs in the summer and spruce in the winter.
Then, when I met Murphy, the fantasy changed. We were going to buy a farm and raise goats—never mind that neither of us had ever lived in the country, much less farmed.
I was thinking about that when I realized that I’d been driving up the FDR Drive and was turning onto the Third Avenue Bridge and going out of the City.
I reached for the phone and called Walter.
“Last chance,” I told his machine. “Talk to me or I’m out of here.”
There was no answer.
I told myself fine. For all I knew, he could be on his way down here. Or he could be out cold.
I could have turned around and checked into a hotel. It would have been the smart thing to do. I was really too exhausted to drive. But I didn’t want to.
I wanted to get out of the City and away from the people and the noise and the memories. I wanted to go someplace quiet. I wanted to go home.
I called the house and got Bethany and told her I’d be back up in Syracuse in about five hours.
I’d fulfilled my part of the deal. The rest was up to Wilcox.
Chapter Fifteen
I took the Thruway back. There weren’t many cars on the road and I spent the time rocketing through the night, trying not to think about my mother and what had gone wrong between us.
It seemed to me as if she’d wanted someone else as her daughter, someone I could never become. Somewhere along the way, I’d quit trying. Sad for her and sad for me. Then I thought of Murphy and George, which wasn’t much better, so I reached over and turned the radio all the way up and put my foot on the gas and didn’t think of anything at all.
It had been drizzling when I left the City, but now it had stopped raining. The sky was black with patches of gray. A sliver of moon looked as if it was suspended by a string. Once in a while, I spotted the twinkling lights of a plane flying overhead. After Albany, the mounds of snow on the sides of the road grew bigger as I headed farther upstate.
The roadway was cleared and salted. I did a solid eighty-five to ninety all the way back to Syracuse. Around Utica I got a call on my cell from George.
“I don’t know what to do,” he said.
I took a deep breath. I could feel the heaviness in my chest expanding.
“I can’t help you.”
“Please, Robin.” He sounded as if he was crying.
I started to cry too. I couldn’t talk because words wouldn’t come. I clicked off the cell and threw it on the seat. By the time I reached home, I’d gotten myself back under control. Bethany, Manuel, and Zsa Zsa were waiting for me when I pulled in. I almost felt as if I had a family.
Bethany took my jacket when I walked in the door and handed me a bowl of soup.
“Minestrone. You look as if you could use this,” she said.
I sat in the living room and devoured it.
“It’s good, isn’t it?” Manuel asked me.
“Very.”
Manuel put his arm around Bethany. They were sitting on the sofa next to me.
“She made it. From scratch.” He sounded so proud. Bethany beamed.
“You find the person you were looking for?” she asked.
“Right where she was supposed to be. Did Wilcox call?”
Bethany shook her head. “No one did.” She took the bowl from my hand. “You should go to bed. You look exhausted.”
“I am.” And I went upstairs.
I kicked off my shoes and stretched out on my bed. It felt wonderful. I closed my eyes. I knew I should get up and take my clothes off, but I was too tired to do it. The next thing I knew I was asleep.
Zsa Zsa woke me up at eight in the morning by cleaning my ear. I told her to cut it out and buried my face under the pillow, but she sat there growling and tugging on my sleeve with her teeth until I finally sat up.
“There. Are you satisfied?”
She wagged her tail, stretched out on the bed, put her head between her paws, and watched me crawl out of bed. I stripped off my clothes and stood under the shower until the hot water gave out. I dried my hair and braided it; then I found some clean clothes, jeans and my old black cashmere turtleneck sweater buried in the back of the drawer. I’d forgotten how much I loved wearing it, it was so soft, until I slipped it on.
As I went downstairs I could hear Manuel’s alarm clock going off. I let Zsa Zsa out, made myself a pot of coffee, and toasted two slightly stale bagels and ate them with some honey and cream cheese. By this time it was a little after nine and I was feeling marginally better.
“You want me to open Noah’s Ark?” Manuel asked as he came into the kitchen. His eyes were full of sleep.
“If you wouldn’t mind. I want to wrap up the Wilcox thing.” I looked around. “Where’s Bethany?”
“She went back to my mom’s house. It’s easier for her to go to school from there.”
“I’ll be in the store around twelve.”
“Good.” Manuel took a cereal bowl out of the cabinet, opened the refrigerator door, grabbed the milk, and put both of them on the kitchen table. “Because Bethany and I have an appointment with the lawyer at two.”
“Manuel . . .”
He raised his hand. “Her parents don’t give a shit about her, but they won’t let her go either. At least this way she can do what she needs to.”
“This is an awfully big step.”
“I know. But she’s got me to help her.”
I looked at Manuel. All of a sudden he seemed like an adult. I don’t know. They needed each other. Maybe it would work.
“It’ll be all right, Robin. I know it will.”
I gave Manuel a brief hug. “I hope so.”
“I do too,” he said softly.
I dropped my arms and he grabbed the box of Frosted Flakes off the kitchen table and began pouring it into his cereal bowl.
“See you soon.” I put on my boots and my parka and went out to start up my car. First I turned on the heater and the rear-window defroster and then I got the scraper out and cleaned off the windows. Ah, winter in Syracuse. You gotta love it.
I was pulling out of the driveway when Calli called. “I just wanted to let you know. Lily had six puppies.”
“So how does it feel to be Grandma?”
“Great. It was so exciting watching them being born. They’re so ugly, like little rats, but I love them anyway. I’ve already used up two rolls of film. Will you be their godmother?”
“Godmother?” I laughed. “Are you having them baptized too?”
“I’m having their christening robes made now.”
“Good. I’ll get a new outfit”
“What? Another pair of jeans?”
�
��For you I’ll wear black leather.”
“So you will?”
“I’d be honored. When can I see them?”
“How about this evening? And Robin, Lily’s being so good. I’m so proud of her. When I think that if it wasn’t for you . . . I just get the chills.”
“Don’t, Calli.”
“You’re right. You’re right. Stay in the present moment. The past doesn’t matter. We create our own truth.”
If I could, I would take all of Calli’s self-help books and consign them to the garbage can.
“I wouldn’t go that far.” It has been my experience that if you don’t pay attention to the past, it’ll come around and bite you in the ass.
“You know what I mean. And Robin.” Calli lowered her voice, “You were wrong about Dirk. He’s being wonderful. He didn’t even care that I spent the night sleeping with Lily. He said he understood.”
“I’m glad.” I tried to sound sincere. I wanted to be wrong. God, did I ever. I just knew I wasn’t.
Calli and I talked for another couple of minutes about the pups. After she hung up, I tried Wilcox’s house again. Still no answer. I phoned his office. According to the message on the answering machine, no one came into the office until nine-thirty. Of course, I could leave a message if I wanted, and Mr. Wilcox would get back to me as soon as possible. Great.
By now I was beginning to feel a little uneasy. How drunk could Wilcox have gotten? First, I couldn’t get him off the phone and now I couldn’t reach him? I lit a cigarette and headed over to his house. It was closer than his office. I figured I’d check there—who knew? Maybe he’d gone on a bender and was passed out on the bathroom floor—and then I’d run by Paul’s office and slip my report under his door.
The streets I traveled through were all shoveled. Fresh snow piled on top of the old, hiding the trash and the slush. Everything looked clean and white. Little drifts of snow blew off the fir trees and the wires. Flakes danced in the clear blue sky. Very charming. A regular Currier and Ives print. As long as you were on the inside looking out.
It took me ten minutes to reach Wilcox’s house. I parked on the road and waded through a foot of snow to get to his door. If he’d gone out, he’d done it in someone else’s car, because his was still in the driveway. No one had plowed it out.
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