Faithful

by Alice Hoffman

  “And Dad’s okay with all of this?” she asks. “What about the family legacy and all that?”

  “Did you want to run a men’s clothing store?”

  “No,” Shelby says.

  “Take the money,” Sue tells her. “That’s the legacy.”

  So Shelby does. She leans over and kisses her mom. “It will be good for emergencies. Like if I ever have to leave Ben.” She’s said aloud what she’s been thinking about for a long time. They’re not suited for each other. They’re like strangers on a train, only they live in the same apartment and sleep together, but they don’t know each other in any deep way. How would you want to die? What would you do for love?

  Sue studies her. “Is something wrong between you two?”

  The tables are jammed together, ensuring that customers have zero privacy. There is an older couple sitting next to them who have suddenly stopped talking. Obviously, Shelby’s conversation with her mother is more interesting then anything they have to say to each other.

  “It’s a what-if situation,” Shelby says. “Like if I catch him having an affair.”

  “Your dad’s having an affair,” Sue says.

  “What?” Shelby’s ears are ringing. She must have heard wrong.

  Their onion soups are delivered, so Sue doesn’t speak until the waiter leaves them more or less in peace. The couple next to them are rapt. They don’t say a word.

  “Someone at Macy’s. She got him the job.”

  “How do you know this?”

  Sue gives Shelby a look. “You know these things, Shelby. Plus Sheila Davis next door told me. She saw them walk out of the store and get into your dad’s car and drive away. Anyway, it’s nothing new.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  Sue shrugs. “It’s been going on, Shelby. He considers himself to be a ladies’ man. I think it makes him feel better about himself. Do you think he wanted to take over his father’s store?”

  “What the hell did he want?”

  “He wanted to be a singer.”

  “Seriously?”

  “I thought he looked like Paul McCartney.”

  “Dad?” Shelby can’t help but laugh.

  “Before he was bald.” Sue is laughing as well.

  The couple beside them order the onion soup. They tell the waitress it looks good. “It is, isn’t it?” the woman asks Shelby.

  “First-rate,” Shelby says to her. “Like it’s from Paris.”

  “Oh, and you got this.” Sue opens her purse and hands over a postcard. “I’m forgetting everything today.”

  “Great. My stalker.” Shelby’s started to wonder why this person has never come forward. Lately it feels like someone is playing a game with her. He knows everything about her and she knows nothing about him.

  “Your angel,” Sue says. “This time I saw him. He drives a black car.”

  “I doubt he’s an angel. Probably just some lunatic who read about me in the paper.”

  On the postcard there is a drawing of a woman wearing a blindfold. It’s a beautiful little drawing actually, something worth framing. The message is See something.

  It’s then Shelby notices that her mom’s hand is shaking. Just the way Shelby’s hand tremors when she’s anxious and upset. Shelby has been so busy feeling sorry for herself, she hasn’t seen what her mom is going through. Her mother is truly unhappy. Shelby reaches to take her hand. “I’m sorry,” she says. “Dad is a shit.”

  “We just got stuck in a marriage that is sadder than being alone. If you don’t love someone, don’t stay. I mean it, Shelby. Even if you need more than five hundred dollars to get your own place. Even if you hurt Ben.”

  What Shelby sees is that her mother loves her, that she’s driven in from Huntington to have onion soup that is not particularly good, and that she’s bold enough to ask the waitress if she can put a candle in the éclair they share for dessert. No one else would sing “Happy Birthday” to Shelby in a restaurant on Ninth Avenue or tell her that, despite everything she has been led to believe, love is the only thing that matters.

  One bright day, when the leaves on the plane trees have turned green in Union Square and Shelby is on her way to work, the crowd in front of her swells, then moves aside. Shelby has been keeping her eyes open. She sees that a man has collapsed in the crosswalk, hitting his head. Blood sends people skittering away. Shelby should keep going like ­everyone else. Instead, she runs over to the fallen man.

  She isn’t the sort of person who gets involved. She’s never been a doer of good deeds. But she thinks of the last postcard on her birthday. See something. And she does, she sees the way this man is splayed out on the concrete. She can’t help but think of Helene trapped in the car, her face pale, her lips the color of hyacinths. Shelby dreams of ice on cold nights, it’s blue or black or red with blood. She dreams she is down on all fours, fingers freezing, the cold going up through her bones until a black coat is covering her.

  “Call 911,” Shelby tells the person next to her in the crowd of onlookers. She sounds as if she won’t take no for an answer, and even though the stranger she barks orders to is on his way to work, he does as he’s told. Shelby kneels on the concrete. There’s a pool of blood from a gash in the fallen man’s head that she tries her best to avoid. “You’re going to be okay,” she tells him. The concrete feels cold, like ice.

  She knows it’s the right thing to say. She learned this from the nurses when she was in the hospital. They told her they had a list of steps when dealing with new patients. Be calm. No matter what. Even if someone is in a psychotic state and threatening to jump off the roof. No need to worry. No need to shout. Tell them they’re going to be okay.

  The fallen man has a long dark beard and knotted hair; he’s wearing a gray overcoat, faded corduroy slacks, army boots. For an instant his eyes flicker.

  “Talk to me,” Shelby says. “What’s your name?”

  The fallen man mumbles something, but not in English.

  Shelby turns to the stranger who dialed 911. He’s a good-looking young man who’s stayed on to wait for the EMTs. “What language is he speaking?” Shelby asks him.

  “He’s speaking Russian.”

  They’re in this together now and they know it. They can hear sirens, but the morning traffic is heavy, sure to slow down the ambulance. The young man crouches so he can take the fallen man’s pulse, then he unbuttons his coat and listens to his heart. Shelby notices the fallen man’s nails are long and curved, a dull yellow color.

  “Malnutrition and nicotine,” the stranger says when he sees her staring at the long, misshapen nails. “They need to be clipped.”

  “Are you a doctor?” Shelby asks.

  “A vet.”

  “Seriously?” Shelby’s secret dream for herself. She looks at the stranger with newfound respect. He grins and introduces himself as Harper Levy. “Your name sounds like a folk song,” Shelby tells him.

  Harper gently raises the fallen man’s eyelids. “This is strange. The white film looks like a third eyelid, which is what canines have. I would guess he had a seizure. The fall is probably a by-product of that.”

  Shelby’s falling for him as he speaks. The ambulance pulls up, and the EMTs immediately fit the fallen man with an oxygen mask. They ask Shelby and Harper Levy questions neither can answer. There’s no ID in the fallen man’s pockets.

  “We don’t know him, but we think he’s Russian,” Harper Levy says.

  Shelby is pleasantly surprised to be included in a “we.”

  Harper talks to one of the EMTs as the fallen man is lifted into the ambulance. When he comes back to Shelby, he says, “We have to get tested for HIV and vaccinated for hep and tetanus. My grandpop always said no good deed goes unpunished. It will probably take hours.”

  Shelby realizes they both have blood on their hands and clothes.
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  “They’ll survive without me at the pet store,” she says. “Since I’m the manager, I can’t fire myself.”

  “Is that what you do?” Harper seems surprised. A smart girl in a shop.

  “For now,” Shelby says.

  “Well, we’ve got to go to Bellevue. That’s where they’re taking him.”

  Harper phones in to the animal hospital where he works to cancel all of that morning’s appointments. As they walk uptown, people edge away from them. Shelby decides to take off her bloody sweatshirt and throw it in a trash can. Harper takes off his jacket, a really nice one he reveals that he got on sale at Barneys, and dumps it in the trash as well. They’re both wearing white short-sleeved T-shirts.

  “Twins.” He’s staring at her in a way that makes her forget where they are. “What are the odds?”

  On the way to the hospital Shelby tells him a few basic facts. She’s a student at Hunter College and her favorite food is Chinese, so much so that Shin Mae, the owner of her local takeout shop, knows her order by heart. Shelby leaves out the fact that she lives with Ben Mink. She tells herself that would be too much personal information. But she knows this isn’t exactly true. She wonders what her father tells the women he meets. That he’s single, or unhappily married, or filing for a divorce? That he’s misunderstood, sex-starved, a selfish bastard who can only think of his own needs?

  “I just finished a Chinese cooking class,” Harper informs her. “I make fantastic wontons.”

  He cannot be as good as he looks. So Shelby gives him her ultimate test question for a man she might consider. “Do you have a dog?”

  “Two pit bulls. I adopted them when their owner went to prison.”

  Is it possible the perfect man can be found on the street beside a pool of blood?

  “Those dogs are loyal,” Harper says. “Even though their owner treated them like shit, when I say his name they still jump up and run to the door looking for him.”

  They arrive at Bellevue and wait for the triage nurse. By now Shelby is head over heels. Why did she never feel this way with Ben? She is light-headed, walking on air.

  “What do you put in the wontons?” she asks Harper, so intent on his answer it’s as if he’s invented the cure for cancer.

  “Water chestnuts, spinach, mushrooms, carrots.”

  “I hate water chestnuts.”

  “I could use bamboo shoots instead.”

  Shelby feels little sparks of energy in her chest, her throat, her heart. Her head has nothing to do with this.

  At last, it’s their turn. Their names are called together, as if they’re a couple.

  “Do you think he’ll live?” Shelby asks Harper as they head down the hall. There are sick people everywhere, in wheelchairs and on benches. Shelby is embarrassed to be so healthy.

  “Last week a Rottweiler who’d been hit by a car was brought in,” Harper tells her. “His breathing was so shallow I thought for sure I’d lose him during the surgery. But he came through just great. He tried to bite me the next day.”

  After the triage nurse takes down their information, Shelby and Harper Levy go their separate ways to be tested and inoculated. Shelby and the nurse discuss communicable diseases and the upsurge in measles.

  “Next time, wear gloves,” the nurse suggests when she reads the report. “The old man is up on the third floor. They’re checking for seizures.”

  “There won’t be a next time,” Shelby assures her.

  “I thought you were a med student,” the nurse says.

  “Me?” Shelby laughs. A big bruise is forming where she’d been inoculated against tetanus and hepatitis. “I’m nothing.”

  After the nurse is done with her, Shelby scans the ER for Harper. When she doesn’t see him, she feels a wave of disappointment. She decides to check in on the fallen man. Near the elevators, two orderlies are speaking Russian. Shelby goes over to them. “I need a translator.”

  “Med student?” the younger of the two asks.

  Shelby shakes her head. “I just need help to talk to a Russian patient.”

  The older orderly says something in Russian, then both men look at Shelby and laugh.

  “We can’t help. We’re working,” the younger one tells her.

  “Five minutes,” Shelby says. “You’d be doing a good deed.”

  “I do good deeds all the time,” the younger orderly tells her. “All day long, that’s my business.”

  Shelby follows him into the elevator. Two elderly women in wheelchairs are in there with them, along with their caretakers. Shelby taps the button for the third floor.

  “What did the other guy say that was so funny?” she asks.

  “He said you’d be cute if your head didn’t look like an egg.”

  “I’ll pay you ten bucks to help me,” Shelby says. They’ve reached the third floor. The door opens. “Okay. Twenty.”

  “I don’t want money. I’ll tell you what I want.” The orderly grins at her. “Grow your hair.”

  Shelby is mortified. She feels like slugging him. “What do you care about my hair?”

  The orderly shrugs. “That’s my price. I want to do a good deed. For you.”

  They stare at each other. One of the women in a wheelchair starts to complain that she’s hungry. They can’t hold up the elevator forever.

  “Okay, fine,” Shelby agrees.

  They step out and head down the hall, peering into rooms. No fallen man.

  “Maybe he doesn’t exist,” the orderly suggests. “Maybe he died.”

  At last they find him at the far end of the hall. They approach the bed, and the orderly reads the chart.

  “This lists all the tests they’re going to run. He’s got a broken wrist and a fractured shoulder. So far he’s stable even though his vitals don’t look great. They think he might have rabies. That could have caused seizures.”

  “Is that spread through blood?” Shelby doesn’t want rabies.

  “Saliva. You’re fine as long as you don’t let him bite you. You’re a good-deed doer too.”

  “No.” Shelby shakes her head. “I’m not.”

  The fallen man is tied to the bed with restraints.

  “Ask him how he’s doing,” Shelby instructs the orderly.

  “I can tell you just by looking at him. He’s not doing too good.”

  “Talk to him in Russian. That’s why you’re here.”

  The fallen man appears to be unconscious, but when the orderly speaks a few words in Russian, his eyes flutter beneath his closed lids.

  “He’s responding,” Shelby says.

  “What do you care?” the orderly asks.

  “I don’t.” But the truth is, Shelby feels the same about this stranger as she did about her dogs when she rescued them. “Keep talking.”

  The orderly continues speaking, and the fallen man groans, then mutters something. The orderly signals Shelby to follow him from the room.

  “It’s better to leave some things alone,” he tells her. “Go have lunch. The burritos in the cafeteria are good. Ask for the chicken.”

  “What did he say?”

  “He said he’s a wolf, let him die.”

  “He’s not a wolf.” Shelby is currently taking a class in comparative zoology along with advanced biology.

  “He says he’s a wolf. Let him die. You wanted to know? Now you know. He asked me to shoot him, as a matter of fact. I told him we’re in New York. We don’t do things that way.”

  “He’s delusional.”

  “Maybe. But now you have to let your hair grow. You promised you would. Then you’ll be beautiful, Miss Egghead, and you’ll have me to thank.”

  “How do you say wolf in Russian?”

  “Volk.”

  After the orderly leaves, Shelby goes back into the room. She can hear the fallen man’s
ragged breathing. She knows she’s not supposed to get involved. But the idea that he’s something other than human, that he’s a wild animal, makes her go closer. She thinks about how it feels to rescue something, how fast she ran when she took Blinkie and the General, how her heart was pounding when she freed Pablo. She is a do-gooder and she didn’t even know it. She sings the song her mother sang to her long ago. “Over the Rainbow.” She sings until she realizes the wolfman has fallen asleep.

  Outside the hospital, Harper Levy is waiting on the sidewalk. “You disappeared,” he says.

  “He said he was a wolf.”

  “I could have helped him if he had been. Canidae, same family as the domestic dog.”

  They walk toward Union Square, but they won’t go to work. Instead they’ll have coffee and sit in the park. They don’t want to go their separate ways. They hang on, as if the day is a dream and they don’t want it to end. When Shelby does get into bed beside Ben later that night, she dreams of wolves and of a white world of snow and ice. She dreams her hair is so long it reaches her waist, and every morning when she wakes she brushes it a thousand strokes, all because of a promise she made to a stranger.

  CHAPTER

  5

  It takes months to break up with Ben. He just doesn’t take a hint. Shelby stays out late, she spends nights at Maravelle’s, she stops talking to him for days on end, and he still doesn’t get it. By now Shelby’s hair has begun to grow out. It’s short and spiky, and she looks fierce, like a terrier. She’s afraid to tell Ben the truth. She thinks about the nights they walked through Huntington in the snow. The way he was there for her when they first moved to the city and how generous he’s always been. She waits until his graduation, which is probably a terrible idea, but she doesn’t want to disrupt his studies. They have been together for more than four years. They’re at the point in their relationship when most couples would be making a permanent commitment, but instead Shelby tells him it’s over at the restaurant on the Upper West Side that his mother chose to celebrate his graduation. He is a full-fledged pharmacist now, and his parents are proud. The restaurant is called Coral Reef, and everything inside is dark, as if they have fallen to the bottom of the sea. As soon as they’re seated, Judy Mink takes Shelby’s hand and says, “So. You two. What’s next?” Clearly she’s hoping for a daughter-in-law. Ben’s father, Arthur, immediately suggests they order drinks. He never looks at Shelby. She doesn’t blame him for disliking her. By the time the day is over, he’ll probably hate her.