“Ten—”
“I kid you not. Ten bucks I loaned her. Jeez! Ain’t you put one over on her, though! Jeez! Here, you take ten of this.” Alfred slid it across the table toward Harley. “Jeez! Ain’t that something, putting a good one over on her like that! Getting my money back and more! What a Christmas! And me Jewish!”
Harley scratched his head. “I guess we did, didn’t we. Put one over on her. Uh, I wouldn’t say anything to the other tenants. They might think they had some of it coming to them.”
“Nah! I won’t say nothing. Nah.”
Harley grinned to himself. Well, what the heck. Besides, like Alfred said, it was Christmas.
Chapter 37
Sherylynne
SHERYLYNNE, CARRYING LEAH in her arms, came out of the arrival tunnel with the first-class passengers. It was the loose-gaited walk, each motion of her body having its counter-motion—an arm out, a shoulder up, a leg forward, a hip back, all to her own inner music—that after two months, sent a thrill of recognition through him. It was only then that he became aware the new haircut, the fur coat, the red cowboy boots.
He saw she was scanning the crowd for him. She said something to two men in business suits and laughed. They laughed in turn and waved good-bye. She spotted him and a big smile broke over her face. Then they were holding each other and kissing once again, and he was smelling the light woman smell of her, his heart and mind filled with love. Leah leaned back, watching him, solemn. When he tried to take her in his arms, she whimpered and locked her arms around Sherylynne, watching him with her big amber eyes.
“Hey, what’s this?” he said softly. “Don’t you even remember your own dad?”
“Sure she does,” Sherylynne said, wiping at her own eyes with a tissue. She tried to hand Leah to him but Leah held tight, watching him over her shoulder.
“Don’t that just beat all,” Sherylynne said.
“I can’t believe how much she’s changed in two months.”
“Almost three months,” Sherylynne said.
He stood back and gave Sherylynne the once-over. Her hair was cut high in back, sloping toward her chin. The fur coat was thick and silvery-white, open down the front, showing off a dazzling necklace on a black sweater. She wore black pants, the cuffs stuffed into red lizard-skin cowboy boots.
“You’ve changed some yourself,” he said, feeling a little unsettled.
She pushed her hair up in back. “Like it?”
“Yes. Very nice. So where did you get the money for all of this?”
Her smile fell a little. “You sent me a thousand dollars. Remember?”
This wasn’t exactly how he expected she would use the money.
“Let’s get your luggage,” he said.
Sherylynne followed him, swinging and swaying down to the baggage claim. She pointed out each piece as it moved around the conveyer. A whole new set. A redcap trucked it up to the taxi stand, and Harley tipped him. Sherylynne seemed a little disoriented as they waited, briefly, for the next cab in the queue. The cabbie loaded Sherylynne’s luggage into the trunk and they got in.
It was cold out, a colorless day, a low cloud cover with a brown slush of snow edging the walks and pavements.
“You okay?” Harley asked as the cab moved out.
Sherylynne laughed. “They’ll get you plumb drunk on those airplanes, all the free drinks they give you in first class.”
“First class?”
“Oh, you know Wendell.”
“Wendell? I told you to get those tickets.”
“Well, you know how he is.”
Harley looked at the coat. “He buy that too?”
Sherylynne took his hand and held it against the fur. “Shadow fox. Isn’t it beautiful?”
He nodded without spirit.
“What? You don’t like it?”
“I don’t like taking anything from him. You know that.”
“Well, you know how he is when he makes up his mind to something. Besides, it was a Christmas present. How can you not accept a Christmas present?”
“The boots too?”
“Mavis bought you boots.”
“For my birthday.”
“These were for Christmas, so what’s the difference?”
Leah watched him with big somber eyes. He winked and she hid her face in Sherylynne’s neck.
“Speaking of Mavis, did you see this necklace?” Sherylynne fingered the glittery strand at her neck.
He squinted at the little glints of blue light. “Those aren’t real…”
“Can you read it?”
He saw now that the little flickers of light spelled out OILFIELD TRASH.
“Wendell, he had it made up special for Mavis but she wouldn’t never wear it. He said I might as well have it. Wasn’t that nice?”
“You mean…those are real?”
“You know Wendell wouldn’t buy none of that rhinestone junk for Mavis.”
“He gave you that?”
“Why’re you looking at me that way?”
“You don’t see anything fishy about this? Him, giving you all of this stuff?”
“Fishy? Shoot, he’s got so much, it don’t mean nothing to him. What else is he gonna do with it?”
He looked out the window, wondering if Sherylynne was really that naïve, or, if he accepted that she was, maybe he was the naïve one.
“I figured I might as well take it since it wasn’t doing anybody any good anyhow. I don’t know why Mavis wouldn’t wear it. I think she was kinda weird, y’know?”
“Maybe she thought it was…well, a little tacky.”
“Tacky?” She frowned. “These are real diamonds.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Well, I think they’re real pretty. The people on the plane, they thought they were pretty, too.”
“You wear those on the street here and somebody’ll take your head off for them.”
Sherylynne sighed. “We ain’t seen each other in nearly three months and you’re already mad.”
“I’m not mad, I’m just—” He struggled for the right word but gave up with a sigh.
She touched her fingertips to the necklace. “Shoot, Harley Jay, I hoped when you come up here to New York you’d loosen up a little. You just can’t understand that sometimes it makes people happy to give other people stuff.”
“Well, he oughta be damn happy, all the stuff he’s given you.”
Leah clung to Sherylynne, watching him.
“He can’t hardly stand it ’cause we’re all moving up here. He said he’d give you your job back.”
“Listen,” he said, “if you’re so big on going back, we’ll turn this damn cab around right here!”
Sherylynne stared. “Harley Jay, are you crazy?”
“Then you can take everything he wants to give you!”
Her eyes teared up. “You think that every time someone does something nice for you, they have an ulterior motive!”
They rode in silence, Leah watching him from the safety of Sherylynne’s arms.
When they turned off the Van Wyck Expressway, Sherylynne had her nose to the window, gazing out. “My goodness,” she whispered, “don’t this just beat all.”
“I hope you like the place,” he said after a moment.
“I bet it’s real cute.”
“Cute? Well, I don’t know about cute. It’s not the best neighborhood, but you learn to judge places a little different here.”
Sherylynne regarded him a moment. “Harley Jay you look plumb tired out. I’m gonna make you a big old pot of chicken gumbo, first thing.”
“Chicken gumbo?”
Sherylynne’s eyes lingered on him a moment before she looked back out the window, looked at the miles of empty-windowed, graffiti-sprayed tenements crumbling into the distance. “My goodness, just lookit them old buildings.”
The cab’s tires hissed on the wet pavement, dodging in and out of the traffic; then they crossed the Queensboro Bridge into Manhattan’s East Side. Walls of concr
ete and glass rose before them. Taxis raced past on either side, banging through potholes, clattering over manhole covers, blowing horns, weaving in and out. Sherylynne held tight to the armrest with one hand and cradled Leah close with the other, gazing out at the city blurring past. “My goodness.”
Harley smiled for Leah and held out his hands, but she slipped down in her mother’s arms again and hid her face.
He pointed out the United Nations, the Pan Am, the Chrysler, the Empire State buildings.
“Do they all drive like this?” she whispered.
“They think the wheels won’t turn if the horn’s not blowing.”
“If this don’t just beat all.”
“This is Greenwich Village, home of the beatniks.”
“Where do we live?”
“Farther downtown.”
“We’re not gonna live around the beatniks, are we?”
“Uh, no, we live down below Canal Street. This is one of the better parts of town here.”
Sherylynne gazed out the window. “You mean where we live is worse than this?”
“Well, New York’s different. I told you.”
A frown replaced some of the wonder on her face. They turned onto Canal, then onto White.
“Just around the corner here.”
Sherylynne was solemn, lips drawn tight to her teeth.
They turned onto Franklin and he could see it the way she must be seeing it—the dingy buildings with their iron doors, their black fire escapes and graffiti, the grimy slush of old snow and garbage cluttering the streets.
The cab stopped in front of the loading ramp.
Sherylynne turned and stared at him, freckles standing out on the hot sheen of her face. She climbed out of the taxi in silence. The driver helped him put her luggage on the loading dock. Harley paid and tipped.
Across the street two men stood huddled in a doorway, sharing a bottle in a brown paper bag, a yellow piss hole in the snow banked against the wall behind.
Harley opened the front doors, then unlocked the door to the elevator. Sherylynne, carrying Leah, followed as he raised the door on the cage and moved the luggage inside. Sherylynne looked all about as they bumped up to the third floor.
He was keenly aware of how out of place she was here in this freight elevator on Franklin Street in New York City in her white fox-fur coat and her lizard-skin boots and her diamond necklace that spelled out OILFIELD TRASH. He could see the oddness of it, wondering if to a more sophisticated eye he looked just as misplaced as Sherylynne. At the same time, he was aware of himself, his poverty, in comparison to Whitehead’s affluence.
He dragged the luggage off the elevator, unlocked the deadbolts, swung the door open, and stood back.
Sherylynne eased into the big empty space with Leah. He followed with the luggage and pulled the door closed behind.
He was relieved that the loft looked almost as good as he remembered. The city, the streets, everything else had looked so much worse when he saw it through her eyes. But here, inside the loft, the walls and ceilings were a spotless, creamy white, the oak floors a rich golden yellow.
A miniature Christmas tree—a Scottish pine in a white canister—blinked tiny white lights against the far wall. The aroma of pine tempered the smell of new paint, floor wax and roach killer.
A poster board with WELCOME HOME hand-lettered on it stood propped against the kitchen cabinet. There were balloons and crepe-paper streamers. A large stuffed duck with a big bow around its neck nested on a chair. A bottle of champagne chilled in a bucket of melting ice, a small gift-wrapped box nearby.
Sherylynne eased out into the space, looking about.
“I didn’t get much furniture,” he said. “I thought we’d pick it out together.”
She looked toward the balcony, where most of the things she had shipped were packed away behind the banister.
“Our beds are up there,” he said.
Her gaze wandered to the kitchen area.
“That’s the bathroom over there. It was out in the open, but like I told you, I walled it in.”
Sherylynne moved to the bank of windows and stood looking out.
“Those little trees,” he said of the three ficus trees in white canisters, “I got one for each of us, the little one there for Leah. Those are called weeping figs.”
Sherylynne’s gaze moved slowly over the table and the decorations.
“It might not look like much now, but try to picture it with furniture in it. We’ll fix it up any way you like.”
Sherylynne took tissues from her pockets and blotted her eyes. “It seems like a funny place to live.”
“It’s not an apartment, but it’s a great place to live and work. These places are at a premium, hard to find.”
He handed the toy duck to Leah, but she was more concerned with him, watching his every move, her big serious eyes.
“Sit down there at the table. I’ll pour you some champagne.”
Sherylynne eased into one of the chairs at the dining table, but ignored the champagne, eyes fixed on the kitchen area. He spooned up a bowl of ice cream for Leah, but she barely tasted it before her eyes closed and she slumped down in the cradle of Sherylynne’s arms, asleep.
“You want to put her to bed?”
“My arm’s falling off.”
He took Leah from her, and it was an oddly wonderful feeling, holding this little human being in his arms again, feeling the innocent heat of her life, her sleeping breath against his chest, fragile and vulnerable and dependent. He loved Sherylynne and Leah, and in that moment he determined that he would make this marriage work, no matter what.
Sherylynne followed him up the stairs and stood looking about as he placed Leah in the baby bed and covered her with a blanket.
“She sure is a beauty,” he said. “I could just hold her all day.”
Wordless, Sherylynne followed him back downstairs.
“You must be tired, too. Let’s have a glass of that champagne; that should relax you a little.” She seated herself. He popped the cork, caught the overflow in a glass and then poured. “To us,” he said. “I hope you’ll get to like it here.”
They clinked glasses.
“Ah. That’s good,” she said.
“I can’t believe you’re finally here,” he said hopefully.
Her eyes shifted downward, a thin artificial smile.
“I missed you,” he said.
“I missed you too.” Her gaze lifted and strayed out to one side, moving up and around the room again.
“Can you believe it?” he said, trying to generate cheer. “All that work and planning, and here we are.”
She nodded, her eyes moist.
“I got you something,” he said.
Sherylynne looked at the gift-wrapped box he held out.
He pushed it across the table, and poured her another glass of champagne as she slowly, methodically untied the ribbon and removed the paper.
“Oh,” she mumbled, holding up a ring box.
“I thought it was high time I got you an engagement ring.”
Sherylynne flipped the lid up. “Oh,” she said again.
He could see she was disappointed, could see now that the little diamond was not much bigger than any one of the chips in the necklace around her neck.
“It’s nice,” she said. “Really.” She took up the glass of champagne and killed it off.
“I guess it is pretty small,” he mumbled.
Sherylynne set her glass down. Her shoulders drew up. She clutched the ring box in one hand and pressed the oilfield-trash necklace to her breasts with the other. Her face began to break apart. She bent forward over the table. Sobbing, shaking to the bone.
Chapter 38
Ides of March
SPRING CAME. With March, the sun warmed and the snows melted. Pale, red-eyed men clutching pint bottles in brown paper bags came oozing out of hibernation and stood pissing on the walls. Here and there a few captive flowers were let out on the fire escapes.
Sherylynne appeared to be, if not enthusiastically happy, at least resigned. She had gotten to know Vanita, the Indian woman, on the floor below. Vanita wore saris and had a red dot on her forehead, and seemed an unlikely candidate for a friendship with Sherylynne. But Vanita had a two-year-old son, Badri, and the babies entertained each other while their mothers talked and watched daytime TV, sometimes at one place, then the other. Sherylynne was both fascinated and appalled by the idols and shrines in Vanita’s home: “…a goddess called Durga with a whole bunch of arms,” she said, “and a fat elephant with a human body and human arms and legs.” In turn, Vanita was puzzled by Harley’s paintings.
Sherylynne made shrimp gumbo for Vanita and her family, and Vanita sent up spicy dishes of tandoori chicken and curried chickpeas and potatoes with fried flatbread. Sherylynne learned to like hot tea.
Leah had gotten used to Harley again and toddled after him wherever he went in the loft. They had improvised a gate at the foot of the staircase. He gave her crayons, and she kept up a rambling semi-coherent conversation, scribbling up sheets of paper on a table at his side, showing him the results with exuberant pride.
He went to work five days a week at JCPenney, where he had been promoted to senior layout artist with a decent raise. He attended the School of Visual Arts two nights a week.
Except for Vanita, Sherylynne was as isolated as she had been back in Midland. However, she made no effort to cultivate new friends and seldom accompanied him to museums or galleries. She sometimes showed interest when he passed on a bit of gossip he’d picked up—the Judson Dance Theater was attracting large audiences and stirring up a lot of flak with nude dancing in the Judson Baptist Church on Washington Square. Needless to say, shocked Baptists around the country were pitching a fit. As well they should, Sherylynne said. In other news, Alan Solomon resigned from the Jewish Museum and he, along with Jim Dine and Claes Oldenburg, were trying to revive interest in “happenings,” which, Harley told Sherylynne, had all but died out a few years earlier. Sherylynne didn’t know what a “happening” was and when he told her, thought it was “dumb.” He pretty much agreed with that, too.
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