by Lori Weber
Then I turn and head back to my cousin Jack’s house.
PINK LADY
Amanda is kneeling on the floor of the hotel room, her elbows on the dusty sill, her nose pressed against the yellowish glass, trying to get a glimpse of New York City at night. She wants to see lights, rows of them strung like sparkling ornaments in the sky, but all she can see is the brick wall of the factory across the street. In the little space of sky that’s visible above it, the silver tip of the Chrysler building peeks out. But even that disappears when she stands up, reminding her that she should never have left her father alone yesterday when he checked them in. If she’d been with him, she would have insisted on a room with a view.
“Let’s go downstairs for a drink,” Amanda says suddenly, holding her bathrobe closed. Her just-washed hair is wrapped in a towel that sits, turban-like, on her head. Her father and her cousin, Franz, refused to use the hotel towels, claiming they smelled musty, but Amanda wants to take in every bit of the New York experience, even the smelly parts. This morning, right in front of them, she drank a glass of cloudy tap water from the bathroom sink, just to prove it.
“Anyone?” she asks again.
Her father and Franz are lying on their twin beds, tired after a long, hot day of walking around Manhattan. Amanda dragged them from one end to the other, from the Village in the south, to the Metropolitan Museum eighty blocks north. They lagged behind, stooped and sweating, while she paraded ahead, calling behind to them every now and then, as if they were lost dogs. All day she had wondered how anyone could not be pumped up in Manhattan. The pulse of the city was like the beat of a drum that kept her moving, but her father and Franz seemed oblivious to its rhythm.
“Come on, Franz. You can watch that dumb show any day. This is New York.” Franz is watching Law and Order SVU, thrilled to see it in its original language and not the dubbed German version he gets back home. She thinks how incredible it is that both she and Franz are eighteen. At times, he seems years younger, and other times way older, as old as her father.
“Come on, Franz.” She kicks his feet, which dangle over the edge of his bed, but he still doesn’t respond. Amanda finally waves her hand at him, wishing him away. She’s beginning to wonder whether she made the right decision to join them on this three-day trip. She’d only said yes because she felt bad for her father. He had just recently moved into his small apartment after he and her mother split up, and two weeks later his German nephew had landed on his doorstep, expecting to be entertained.
“Oh, come on, you guys. What a couple of bores. We can sit home any night and watch TV.” Amanda raises her hand into a fist, posing like the Statue of Liberty, a landmark they plan to visit tomorrow.
Suddenly, her father swings his short legs over the side of his bed. “Yeah, okay, you’re right. I’ll go get washed up,” he says, his feet fishing around for his slippers. He slips them on and shuffles into the bathroom.
Amanda is surprised by her father’s response. She wasn’t expecting him to come, and she isn’t sure now that she wants him to. Sitting in a bar with her father might be a little strange. It was really Franz she was trying to motivate. She dresses in the large closet that doubles as her dressing room, putting on the sleeveless, purple dress she bought earlier today at Macy’s. A long brass zipper, which she now pulls to just above her breasts, runs up the middle. The material is soft, a kind of fake velvet that turns darker or lighter, depending on how she strokes it. Outside, she tries to capture her reflection in the mirror that hangs on the back of the bathroom door, but the room is so cluttered, with her cot sandwiched between the twin beds, that no matter how she poses, some part of her body is chopped off. When her father comes out of the bathroom, dressed and shaven, her image bangs against the wall, disappearing altogether.
Amanda shifts impatiently from foot to foot as the elevator stops on every floor to collect passengers, the air heavy with perfume and aftershave. She hopes she’ll have some kind of adventure, even if it is a small one. After all, how much excitement can she have with her father in tow?
At the lobby everyone files out. Amanda envies the people spinning out through the revolving doors into the glittering Manhattan night. With a sigh, she turns toward the hotel lounge, her father following close behind. The bar is pitch-black, except for a circle of light that catches the crystal glasses that hang upside down around the bar. A dozen round tables are scattered around the room and, from somewhere off in a dimly lit corner, the sound of a woman’s voice singing a bluesy song fills the air.
Amanda watches her father flop into a chair before sitting down herself. Over the years, his once athletic body has grown pudgy. His face, since the breakup, wears a dull gaze that doesn’t penetrate anything further than two feet away. He sits nervously, elbows on the table, thumbs circling each other. When he nibbles his nails, Amanda looks away. She imagines her father’s future as a long and lonely one. She sees him grow fatter and duller year by year, eating nothing but take-out in front of the TV in his undershirt.
Their waiter approaches, wearing a black waistcoat, white shirt, and red bowtie. Amanda smiles, letting her glance linger on his face as he sets napkins before them. She’s praying he won’t ask for I.D. Eighteen may be legal drinking age at home, in Montreal, but she’s not sure if it is New York.
“What will you have?” he asks, fixing his glance somewhere between them.
“I’ll have a Pink Lady, please,” Amanda responds quickly, wanting to be first. She’s never had one of these before, but she remembers someone ordering one in a movie. It was served in a tall, elegant glass and that’s how she feels tonight, tall and elegant, even if she is only with her father.
“And you, sir?”
Amanda’s father stops biting his nails and mumbles, “Umm, give me a …”
Amanda straightens in her chair. Her father’s shy-ness makes her want to squeeze his neck to pop the words out. “Bring him a Singapore Sling,” she answers for him. She gives the waiter a sharp look and he smiles back, obviously amused.
Two men are sitting at the bar, hunched over their drinks. Occasionally, one rotates his head from side to side to scan the mirror, as if he’s expecting someone to materialize behind him.
The waiter returns with the drinks. “Do you want to pay now or should I let it run?” he asks.
“Oh, let it run,” Amanda blurts out. She looks back at the bar and thinks she recognizes one of the men as the chauffeur on their bus tour yesterday. She leans back and stretches her neck but can’t see his face properly. In the mirror that runs behind the bar, his face is doubled and distorted in a bottle of Canadian Club.
Amanda starts to point him out to her father, but he’s completely absorbed in the music, swaying his head from side to side. Amanda scans the room, looking for the source of the music, and finds a woman sitting at a white grand piano. She has long black hair that falls over bare shoulders, and her dress must have sequins or rhinestones sewn into it because she sparkles when she moves.
Amanda suddenly wonders if her father has spent much time in hotel bars. After all, he does travel a lot for work. In fact, he was away more than home the whole time she was growing up. She has always pictured him sitting alone in cramped motel rooms, ones where the sheets are worn thin and the TV sets play nothing but static.
“Do you like the drink?” She shakes his glass in front of his face to catch his attention.
“Hmm? Yeah, it’s good.” He takes a long sip, his mouth gripping the side of the glass where the yellow umbrella floats. Amanda chuckles at the way he doesn’t know that he’s supposed to take it out first. A minute later, he bangs his glass on the table and, to Amanda’s surprise, says, “So, what should I have next?”
Amanda leans forward, drawing her legs and arms together. “Next? Well, let’s see. How about a Bloody Caesar?” She raises her long, slender arm, liking the way her silver bangles tingle as they slide toward her elbow. As the waiter approaches, she decides he’s definitely handsome, in sp
ite of the wrinkles and gray sideburns. She imagines he lives in an apartment bordering the East River, the kind with an outside terrace, like the ones they drove by yesterday on the tour.
“Could we have a Bloody Caesar, please?”
Amanda’s father is smiling to himself, staring at his clasped hands. Then he turns his head toward the piano player, slouching down even further in his chair. The music stops and the woman stands up. Now Amanda can see that a thick silver belt gathers her long, black dress around a very slim waist. At the sound of applause, the piano lady bows slightly. Amanda’s father pulls himself straight and claps loudly, continuing long after everyone else has stopped and the piano lady has stepped off into the shadows.
“Dad, you don’t have to go haywire,” Amanda says, glaring at him.
“Why not? She was great,” her father replies. Amanda can’t remember her father ever showing any musical appreciation before.
The waiter brings the new drink, which is the color of blood. The man whom Amanda thinks was the tour bus driver moves a few stools closer. She sees him clearly now in the mirror over the sink. His eyes are deep brown and his lips are full, and wet with drink. She catches his eyes but can’t tell if he’s looking at her because the mirror is bumpy and it looks as though each eye is staring off into a different direction. Amanda recalls the streets they’d driven through near the docks yesterday to get back to the hotel, blocks of dilapidated buildings and empty lots where girls in mini-skirts leaned against poles and fences. Some of them were so young they were still flat-chested, and they walked slowly on their five-inch heels, as if angered at having to move.
Amanda’s father couldn’t believe the driver had chosen that route. “Surely there are better sights to see,” he said. But Amanda defended the driver. “It’s all part of the city, Dad. You can’t just pretend the ugly parts don’t exist.” Franz, for his part, was too busy retracing their route on his map to take in any of the details.
Amanda’s father is ready for round three.
“What should I have next?” he asks.
She doesn’t know what to say. Why is he asking her? Why doesn’t he order himself? When the waiter reaches their table, Amanda has a sudden inspiration. She straightens up and asks, “Do you have any Zombies here?”
“Certainly, Miss,” the waiter responds, grinning. Even her father chuckles. She had meant to sting him, but he’s smiling instead.
When the drink comes, Amanda stares at the slices of orange and lemon that hug the lip of her father’s glass. Then she watches him down the entire Zombie in a couple of easy gulps. Her Pink Lady is still half full. There’s no way she can keep up.
The piano player returns and plays with even more intensity, swooping so low over the keys she’s almost kissing them. Amanda turns to make sure the bus driver is still there and he tips his glass to her in the mirror. Amanda wishes she could find a delicate way of asking her father to leave, but when she looks at him she sees that he’s completely enraptured by the music. His eyes are glued to the piano player, the way Franz’s are probably glued to the television set seven floors up. Finally, the music stops, but this time Amanda’s father doesn’t clap. He gets up instead, much to Amanda’s relief.
“I’m going to go now,” he says without looking at her. He tries to push his chair in behind him but it keeps banging into the table legs. Amanda stifles a giggle, thinking of the odd mixture of drinks he has consumed. She pictures him and Franz upstairs, passed out on their narrow beds. Finally, he abandons the chair and throws Amanda two twenty-dollar bills. “This should be enough. I’ll see you later,” he says, walking away into the dark.
The table is suddenly too big for one person. Amanda takes a long sip, finishing off her Pink Lady. Then she moves over to the bar, centering herself on a stool so that her cheeks are not deformed and bloated in the bumpy mirror.
“Hi,” the bus driver says, nodding.
“Hi,” she says back. “I think I was on your tour bus yesterday.”
He keeps staring, his face blank. “Oh, yeah, sure,” he says finally, sucking an ice cube. “You staying in this hotel?”
“Yeah.”
“What were you drinking?”
“A Pink Lady.”
“A Pink Lady? Very fancy, huh?” He laughs and Amanda smiles nervously. “Another scotch and a Pink Lady, Sam.” When she turns to look at him, a loud hiccup escapes her lips.
“Too much to drink, huh?” he says. She half smiles and hiccups again. “Here, have another one.” As he passes her the drink, his hand brushes the skin above her breasts, where the zipper ends.
The waiter who served them all evening carries a tray of dirty glasses behind the bar. He nods to the bus driver and Amanda is sure he’s smirking as he bends under the counter.
“You here alone?” the bus driver asks her.
“Yes.” The second Pink Lady seems more potent than the first. Amanda pivots her stool to face the driver.
“A young girl all alone in New York City,” he says, his breath heavy with the antiseptic smell of scotch. Earlier in the day, such a title would have thrilled her. Now, she isn’t sure.
“Who was that guy you were with before?” he asks. This time when he speaks she notices the black holes in his front teeth.
“Oh, nobody,” she says, dismissing her father with a casual wave of her hand. The waiter walks by wearing jeans and a brown checked shirt. He waves at the bus driver who nods back and says, “Night, Sam.”
“Where’s he going?” Amanda asks. It seems incredible that he would just change in the middle of an evening and walk out.
“Home, I guess?”
Amanda thinks of the elegant terraced apartments by the East River. “Where’s his home?” she asks.
“I don’t know. Somewhere in the Bronx, I think. Why?”
“The Bronx!” Amanda has never been to the Bronx but she can’t associate it with anything glamorous or exciting.
“Who cares where he lives anyway, babe. How about you coming home with me? That’s more interesting, don’t you think?”
Amanda watches him grin. It’s the same grin he wore as they drove through the run-down blocks, the same grin that swept over the young hookers. For some reason, Amanda pictures the waiter sitting on the dirty subway on his way home to a cramped apartment in the Bronx, and her spirits dampen. She has heard the bus driver’s question and doesn’t know what to say. Of course she can’t go off with him. What does he think? But she doesn’t want her hesitation to show. She doesn’t want him to know that she has never handled an offer like this before. But, what if he becomes insistent? What if she can’t get away from him? Suddenly she remembers that her father has returned to their hotel room. Surely he’ll look at his watch and realize how late it is. He’ll force Franz to tear his eyes away from the television set and come get her. He wouldn’t just forget about her down here. He always keeps in touch when he’s on the road, even now, even if it’s just a quick text to say good morning or goodnight. Amanda thinks of pulling out her phone to see if there’s a message but how could she explain it if the bus driver asked her what she was looking for?
The man snaps his fingers near Amanda’s nose, pulling her back to the present. She feels him poised on the edge of his stool, awaiting a reply, but when she looks at the mirror she realizes that he’s facing the front entrance. Slowly, his face breaks into a smile. The blacks of his teeth really show now, like two dark pits. He’s staring across the room at the open door. Two figures, lit by the light of the lobby, are caught in the frame.
“Hey, isn’t that the guy you were with before?” he asks, nodding in their direction.
Amanda’s Pink Lady slips from her hand, the long stem sliding between her fingers. Cold liquid pours between her breasts as she looks over to see her father, his pudgy arm secure around the slender waist of the piano lady.
SMART ALECK
The back door clicks open and the sound of peanuts hitting the patio reaches Ruth where she’s lying in her
bedroom. She kicks off her blanket, swings her legs over the bed, and leans over her bureau to look out the window. Four fat squirrels are gathered around a cluster of peanuts. Ruth listens to her mother call to the squirrels, making a clucking noise with her tongue that sounds like te-te-te. Ruth shudders, thinking how her mother always manages to make herself appear naive. In her mind, she sees the way her mother would now be shaking her head from side to side, her long reddish hair flopping in her face.
Ruth has tried to make her mother hate the squirrels by telling her they’re rats, nothing but rats with tails. They have the same instincts, and as far as she’s concerned, they all belong in sewers. But Ruth’s mother still treats her as though she should care about the creatures. She’ll even call Ruth over to the window to watch the squirrels eat.
“Hurry, they’re leaving,” she’ll say. Ruth walks slowly, to emphasize that she couldn’t care less. When the squirrels’ soft brown eyes look up at her she always says, “Rats” and walks away.
Ruth watches as more squirrels scurry down the trees to gather nuts. A white plastic bird bath sits on the patio and several sparrows are perched on the edge, dipping their beaks into the water. Ruth’s mother sent her to the hardware store at the shopping mall to buy the bird bath last week. Ruth cursed the whole way there and took the quiet streets home so that no one would see her carrying the bird bath, which was too big to fit in any shopping bag.
Ruth throws her arms into the sleeves of her yellow bathrobe and ties it around her large frame as she stamps down the hallway to the kitchen.
“What are you doing?” she snaps at her mother.
“Nothing, honey. Just watching the squirrels. Some of them are turning white already,” her mother responds, as though Ruth cares about their color.
