Fresh Slices

by New York Tri-State Chapter of Sisters in Crime

  We clinked our bottles.

  The following April, Miranda called, all excited. The city was going to put some sort of 9/11 memorial in MacNeil, right by our sneaker tree.

  “You don’t think they’ll take down our sneakers?” she fretted.

  “We better be there, just in case.”

  WE were in MacNeil, bright and early, on a Saturday in late May, 2005. Plenty of bigwigs stomping around our hill, shaking hands, posing for pictures, and speaking in solemn voices to local folks, people we knew who’d lost family on September eleventh.

  The old resentment welled up inside me. Where were all these people when my mother died? Where was her memorial? She was just as dead as those killed in the Towers.

  Always able to read my mind, Miranda pulled me away from the crowd, closer to the sneaker tree. We listened to speeches about how this small circle of newly planted trees, some in bud, some in full flower, would bring healing to the neighborhood. The roll call of the locals lost on 9/11 was somber, more so for me. After each name was read, I whispered: Mary Catherine McDonough.

  That summer, lots of neighborhood people visited the Memorial Grove, some to say a prayer, most just to see what had changed in the park. Truth was, nothing much. A few scrawny trees, a bunch of flowering bulbs, and a typical Parks Department green, wooden sign, with the words “Memorial Grove.”

  By the following September, the grove was largely forgotten, except by a few 9/11 family members, who occasionally came to sit. Since the grove was right beside our sneaker tree, Miranda and I were probably there more than anyone.

  IN 2007, my brother Owen got engaged to a really sweet girl from Brooklyn, who asked me to be in the wedding party. I was describing the hideous bridesmaid’s dress, while Miranda and I leaned against the sneaker tree, sharing a bag of peanuts.

  We were laughing about the nylon flounces that rimmed the lilac taffeta, when Miranda asked if I ever thought about the kind of wedding I wanted.

  “Only since I was, like, six. We were in first grade, and the music teacher got married. Remember? My mother took me to the wedding. It was so glamorous. I started planning. All through grammar school, I kept a notebook. I designed dresses, picked bridesmaids— you made it on the list in third grade and never got crossed off. I chose songs, catering halls, the whole bit.”

  “Still got it?”

  “I tossed the notebook and the whole idea of marriage, in tenth grade. By then, I found out what a pain guys are.”

  “Ah, Denny Valasco. That was a mess.”

  “Not just Denny . . . Well, maybe.”

  “Well, I kept my marriage plan all these years. I have finally met The One.”

  I didn’t have to pull the details out of her.

  “I’ve been dying to tell you but, well, it’s complicated.”

  “Don’t tell me he’s married.”

  “I told you last year, I’ll never do that again. No. He’s a widower. With kids. And he’s older.”

  “Older? Like thirty-older?”

  “Scott’s closer to forty. He’s the guy that comes in to clean the spigots, you know, for the tap beer. Never on my shift. But one day, he came in to pick up money Izzy left for him. We got to talking. He’s The One. I just know it. So, will you be my maid of honor?”

  “Sure.” I grabbed her in a bear hug. “I can’t believe you kept this a secret from me. When’s the wedding?”

  “Not sure. Scott don’t know he’s getting married. I have to wait ’til he figures it out. Shouldn’t take long.”

  She was right about that. In less than a year, half of College Point gathered in St. Fidelis Church to watch Miranda and Scott say, “I do.”

  Scott’s son, thirteen-year old Jason, was the best man. If he hadn’t had that surly slouch some boys affect, right before they move into swagger, I would have been a little taller than him. With him slouching, I towered as we walked back up the aisle, side-by-side. His sister, Kerry, excited to be a junior bridesmaid, practically danced along behind us.

  I’d worried that Miranda’s marriage would crimp our friendship, but we stayed close, shopping, lunch dates, barbecues at her house, where I’d bring some guy or another. Afterward Miranda would telephone and say, “Keep looking. He’s not The One.”

  The first year she was married, Miranda was always distracted. I figured she had a lot on her mind, what with being newlywed and playing stepmom to two half-grown kids. If I asked what was bothering her, she’d plead exhaustion and talk about cutting back her hours at Izzy’s.

  September tenth rolled around, as it always does. We were at the sneaker tree. I cried for a while. My mother was gone for eight years, and I still ached for her. Miranda talked about how hard it was to be a mother. How lucky I was to appreciate my mom. Told me she’d never appreciated her own mother until she became a stepmom.

  She started to tell me how well Kerry was doing with her singing lessons and abruptly cut off.

  After a minute or two, she whispered to herself more than to me.

  “What do you do when you just can’t love someone like you want to?”

  I was stunned.

  “You don’t love Scott?”

  Miranda started as if just realizing that she spoke out loud.

  “I adore Scott. It’s Jason.”

  That I could understand. On Labor Day, at Miranda’s sister’s house, I’d seen Jason tease the smaller kids mercilessly, until Scott noticed and shooed him off. When Scott walked away, Jason aimed such a look of pure hatred at his father’s retreating back that I could easily imagine how he felt about his stepmother.

  “I can’t handle him. He’s a bully. A few weeks ago, he had a tantrum and deliberately pushed his schoolbooks off the kitchen table on top of the cat. Last night, I caught him on the back porch striking matchsticks and tossing them at fireflies. Tried to tell me it was a school experiment about light reflection.”

  “What does Scott say?”

  “He knows the kid’s wound tight. Took Jason to therapy after Margo died, and the therapist said he was fine. He’s a teenaged boy. What do I know about teenaged boys?”

  “There was a time . . .”

  We laughed, and then Miranda turned serious again.

  “I love Scott. Kerry is a joy, but I can’t handle Jason.”

  Christmas week, Miranda and I shared moo goo gai pan and shrimp rolls at a Chinese place in Flushing.

  We gossiped about our friends for a while, and then I asked lightly, “How’s Jason?”

  “Better.” Miranda nodded reassurance. “Scott is on top of him. Jason is polite to me, nicer to Kerry.” She sighed. “More than I hoped for a few months ago.”

  A few months later, I met Brian at a Saint Patrick’s Day party. Before the party ended, I called Miranda from my cell and said, “I met The One.”

  “Tell me.”

  “Can’t. I’m in the ladies room. He’s waiting outside.”

  “Meet me Saturday morning at the sneaker tree, around eleven.”

  “I’ll bring the coffee.”

  Miranda was waiting, sitting on a folded blanket, her back against the gnarled trunk of the tree. She looked worn, tired, with deep circles under her eyes. Her hair was unkempt, something I’d never seen before.

  I bragged about Brian’s perfection and babbled about the future we might have. I could see Miranda was working hard to show enthusiasm.

  At last, I asked what was wrong.

  “Nothing really. Scott and I had a fight. He doesn’t like the way I handle the kids, well, Jason, really. I do my best—”

  “He’s at a difficult age. And he probably isn’t sure how he feels about you.”

  “That’s it, exactly. Whenever we’re alone, he treats me like we’re equals. Remember Jon Vitone? How he used to look at us. All creepy, like we were naked and he was ready to do his thing? Jason gives me that same tacky vibe.”

  “Eew. You’re his stepmother!”

  “Makes it even creepier, right? I’m frazzled, trying to make
it go away.”

  That summer, my father hosted a big Fourth of July party to introduce Brian to all our friends and family.

  I was in the kitchen, filling the lemonade pitcher, when I felt someone staring. Jason was leaning against the dining room doorjamb, nibbling on the end of a wooden matchstick, his mouth fixed in a grubby sneer. He eyed me up and down. I decided to ignore him, and when I turned back to the lemonade, he moved closer whispering, “Fine, tight boo-ty.”

  My father stepped in from the yard.

  “Need help with the lemonade? Ah, you already have help.” Dad nodded to Jason, who instantly replaced the matchstick and sneer with an aw-shucks smile and picked up the heavy glass pitcher.

  Miranda dealt with this kid day and night. I guiltily said a prayer of thanks, glad that Brian had no children.

  On March seventeenth, 2014, the anniversary of the day we met, Brian proposed, and I accepted. Our engagement party, held in the Knights of Columbus Hall, was supremely lighthearted, with my father repeating to anyone who’d listen, “He’s a fine lad. Catherine’s mother is dancing in heaven tonight.”

  Near night’s end, I walked into the ladies room, and Miranda was at the mirror fussing with her makeup. One look, and I said, “Either you and Scott have been doing the nasty in the broom closet, or your allergies are really early this spring.”

  She burst into tears.

  I offered tissues and hugged her until she calmed down.

  “Scott and I were dancing. When the song ended, Scott went to the bar to get me some wine. I walked back to our table, empty for the moment except for Jason and Kerry. Most of the night, she’d been hanging out with your cousin Annie’s kids, but I never thought to wonder why she was back at the table.”

  “As I came up behind them, Jason said, ‘Now you sit here for the rest of the night or I’ll burn you again. And then I’ll burn your friends.’ Then he struck one of his stupid matchsticks on his thumbnail and leaned the flame toward her arm.”

  “I yelled his name so loud that people at the next table jumped. And the matchstick disappeared.”

  I cradled her in my arms.

  “You have to talk to Scott. Kerry, too.”

  “She won’t. She’s terrified of Jason. We both are.”

  There was no changing Miranda’s mind.

  FINDING a catering hall for our wedding, scheduled for the following Saint Patrick’s Day, was simpler than I’d thought. With that behind me, Miranda and I spent an exhausting summer shopping for my bridal gown. Toward the end of August, Miranda talked me into going for broke at Kleinfeld’s. I spent far too much for a plain spaghetti-strapped gown, which came with a long sleeved bolero jacket for the church.

  We were riding home on the 7 train, when Miranda told me that the city was planning a ten-year ceremony at the Memorial Grove. “Ten years for your mom, too. We’ll be there September tenth, just like always.”

  I ENTERED the park from 115th Street and spent some time watching the river lap at the edge of the promenade before I walked up the hill to the sneaker tree. I said a quick prayer to my mom and then looked around, expecting to see Miranda coming up the playground path. Someone was sitting on the grass propped against the Memorial Grove sign. I took a step or two. The person never moved. As I got closer, I recognized Miranda’s jacket. When she didn’t answer my call, I ran to her, but was far too late. Her hair was matted with blood, her face purple and swollen. I fell to my knees, screaming in agony. A couple of dog walkers ran to my aid, but soon realized there was nothing to do but call 9-1- 1. They tried to lead me away, but I wouldn’t leave Miranda.

  Two cops took turns questioning me. Finally, they let me make a phone call. It wasn’t long before Brian came rushing past the stretcher that the coroner’s crew was dragging up the hill.

  I think Brian was surprised at how composed I was, but while I stood waiting for him, I’d made a decision. I led him to the sneaker tree, just outside the yellow crime scene tape.

  “Boost me up.”

  He stood still.

  “Brian, I have to get her sneakers. They have to come down before Miranda leaves this park. She wouldn’t want them to last longer than she has.” He nodded, and I put my foot in the stirrup he formed with his hands. I grabbed the highest branch I could reach, and climbed toward the sneakers. Miranda’s pink laces had long faded, but her sneakers looked as though they’d been flung there yesterday. I dropped them to Brian, and began making my way down, more cautious now that I’d done what I needed to do. Suddenly my foot slipped, a branch snapped and I tumbled to the ground. I lay face down, doing a mental check of body parts. Most seemed none the worse for the fall. Then I opened my eyes. Scattered in the leaves, about two inches from my nose, was a half-dozen wooden matches. Some had been lit. The ends of the two or three unused matches were cratered, as if chewed.

  I pushed myself off the ground, and caught the eye of one of the cops who’d questioned me. I waved him over to the sneaker tree.

  TAKING THE HIGH LINE

  Fran Bannigan Cox

  THE drone of techno music nearly drowned the words she shouted across our table. They were accompanied by a smile, freshly licked with a flash of tongue. The promise of it seared any doubts I had. Later, up on the High Line, downtown’s innovative park, her promise would be delivered. In our special spot, two stories above Washington Street between Little West Twelfth and Gansevoort Street, screened by choke cherry trees, we would be alone, floating above the roar of yellow cabs rushing beneath our feet.

  Margot moved closer on the red banquette and slipped her hand into the waistband of my pants, proprietary. She sucked the olive from her martini. “Don’t look so intense,” she said.

  “You like it.” I knew she did.

  “Yeah. That’s true. But sometimes I think you live just next door to crazy.”

  “Crazy about you.”

  She laughed, scanned the bar and left me.

  When I got back from the men’s room, Margot was at the end of the bar, silky black hair grazing her bare shoulders, blue eyes intent, red lips whispering into the ear of that night’s conquest. No more than twenty-one by the look of him, barely legal, slightly drunk on tequila shots with beer chasers, leaving big tips on the zinc bar top. She sure could pick them. They were the ones who didn’t quite fill out their confident expressions, nervously fingered their power ties, twisted their leather wrist bands, and probably—I was guessing, my jealousy speaking—were thinking of having their hairy backs waxed.

  Ecstasy users find one another, effortlessly. They were crazy with love for the whole human race. That told you all you needed to know about the drug. The coke, on top of the ecstasy, made Margot imagine she was actually capable of loving the whole world. She’d still feel love for the night’s mark later, when she laughed at him and touched me the way she’d touched him, watching my face like a hawk studying prey.

  She’d drive him to kiss her. When his hands belonged to her and he was blind to the rest of the club, game over. She’d excuse herself and saunter to the ladies room, in charge, leaving him to fantasies of more. They always imagined they were in love with her. I did. I still do.

  There’s no denying I wanted Margot for myself. I wanted to tattoo my initials on her body, inside and out. Sick bastard? Yeah. You could say that. But we’re talking about real love here. In me, she’d met her match. It was time for me to settle with one woman. I was an easy kind of guy. If she needed that power trip of hers to love me, I’d watch. I’d never had it so hot. Never mind the acid in the pit of my stomach, next to the burn of desire. Bring it on.

  I wasn’t a day trader on the Street for nothing. That job honed my ability to tolerate tension, the stronger the better. If she could dish it out, I could take it. My martinis and a line of coke just added height to the spiral of desire as it tightened. The predatory game wouldn’t last forever. Once she accepted she was mine alone, we’d play only for nostalgia.

  Prearranged, I left the club five minutes after she
did, and followed her a block to the Fourteenth Street entrance to the High Line park. She always used the elevator up to the garden of native plants and trees, laid out along the elevated train trestle. The tracks used to carry freight cars— packed with sides of beef, lamb, and pork from the Midwest— to the meatpacking companies in the streets below. Carcasses used to hang from hooks on conveyer belts along here, bathed in the ether of bus fumes and cab exhaust. I remembered watching gruff men in black woolen caps and blood-stained aprons, hauling the weight of raw meat into the freezers and cutting rooms beyond the plastic strip doors. The sidewalk had been treacherous, slick with lard and pieces of offal. It was ten years ago, but I still looked on the sidewalk for greasy smears. Habit. Boutiques have replaced the meatpacking industry, and tourists, the butchers.

  IT was clean, where her high heels had passed. Even so, I knew I’d better watch my step.

  I kept a half block distance, so I could admire her round ass filling the black linen Armani suit. She was an outstanding dresser, cutting an elegant figure in court when she argued a case, which she did often. She was a prosecutor, who taught defense lawyers to be wary, even as she glad-handed them. She had learned from a master. Her father had been a legendary divorce lawyer. She liked to get him drunk and return his cruelties in spades. Trapped in a wheelchair, like she was once trapped in childhood, he was forced to listen to how stupid he was to have three wives take him to the cleaners, to have a son who was an alcoholic, and not to anticipate that she, the ugly duckling, would be his only success. When she described her visits to the assisted living facility, her smile was not pretty.

  Anticipation grew as I watched her legs disappear in the glass elevator that rose two stories above the surrounding neighborhood. I took the stairs. A good thing, too. That night I found a nickel on the third riser. It made $156.76 for the year’s found money total. Luck. I believe in it. I knew she’d taken her underpants off.