Shadows, page 13
“Charmed,” the bartender said, “I’m sure.”
“JimBob wants to buy me another drink.”
“And you, too,” Alex said.
“Thanks. I don’t drink.”
Alex nodded in approval. “Very wise.” He swirled the ice in his glass. “I think I will have just one more. Then I’ve got to go.”
“So soon? We’re just getting to know each other.” Honey let one hand rest on his thigh.
The touch of her hand startled him. He felt the heat of her palm through the fabric of his trousers. The bartender returned with their drinks. He lifted his glass and swallowed some of the liquid. He could not detect the taste of the Scotch at all now and was vaguely aware that it might be a signal that maybe he had already had too much to drink.
“So whaddya think, JimBob?” Honey’s hand still rested on his thigh. With the other she sipped from her glass.
He looked at her mouth, which had lost some of its lipstick but was warm and inviting, the lips parted slightly, a glint of white teeth, a cave, a burrow to explore, a place to find comfort and unknown secrets. “About what?”
She whispered into his ear. “Do you want to come home with me?”
He took another swallow and then he was back in the synagogue, light flooding in from the skylight onto the book open in front of him. He could see the words on the page, they were wavering but he could make them out: “…We are encompassed by questions…Which is the right path to choose?…If I am not for myself, who will be for me?…”
“Did I tell you about my son?” he said.
“You have a son? That’s really nice.”
“He’s a good kid. Got problems.”
“Who doesn’t? I mean, who doesn’t?”
“He wants to be an actor.”
“Tell him to get in line.”
“That’s not all. It’s more serious than that. I think he’s gay.”
“You call that a problem? If that’s a problem, half the world’s got a problem.” She squeezed his thigh.
His head seemed to clear a little. He leaned over to her. “Are you…professional?”
“Of course not. But I have to live, you know? Surviving in this town is an art form.”
“I haven’t got much money.”
“Don’t worry about it. We’ll play it by ear.” She drained her glass and picked up her oversize purse. “Let’s go, JimBob. Let’s head out yonder and see what’s out there on the range.”
He swallowed what was left in his glass, at the same time took an ice cube between his teeth and crushed it, savoring the bits of ice melting in his mouth. He left what remained of his change for a tip and retrieved his briefcase from the floor. “So long, Toni,” he said.
“See ya,” Honey Bunch said.
They walked west toward the Hudson. The sun had set and the streets were darkening with shadows. Neither spoke. Nor did they touch. They crossed Ninth Avenue and went a quarter of the way up the block where she turned into one of a row of similar buildings. It had four steps leading to a small entrance. Inside, he slowly followed her up a staircase that seemed endless.
“I’m on the top floor.” She was breathing hard. “Great aerobics just to get up here.”
He was having trouble breathing himself. He knew he shouldn’t be doing this, but he gave himself the excuse that he’d had too much to drink.
She opened the door and he followed her inside. “Excuse the mess. I didn’t have a chance to tidy up.”
There wasn’t any floor you could see. Every scrap of available space was taken up by pillows, newspapers, magazines, dishes, cups, glasses, ashtrays. There were jackets, blouses, pants, skirts, all kinds of shoes. The wreckage extended to a chair, a couch, a coffee table, and in one corner, a bed.
“What mess?” he mumbled.
He moved forward and stepped on a boot, which made him lose his balance. He let go of the attaché case and threw his arms out to keep from falling. He managed to stay upright, but an extreme dizziness got hold of him. The room began to move haphazardly. He hoped he wouldn’t throw up.
“Are you okay?” Honey took his arm. “Come over here. Sit down. Take a load off.” She led him to the couch and made room for him by pushing everything onto the floor. “I’m not much of a housekeeper.”
“Couldda fooled me.”
He let himself sink into the softness of the couch. His mind briefly cleared. Oh God, he thought. What am I doing here? How did I let myself get into this? His head became fuzzy again and the nausea returned. His eyes were closing.
The dwarf from the synagogue was tugging at his arm. He woke up to see Honey Bunch shaking him. “Time to wake up, Sleepy Head. We can’t have you spending all night here.”
“I guess I fell asleep.”
“You went out like a light. I let you have ten minutes, but I got things to do too, you know.”
“I guess I had too much to drink.”
“You might say that. Want to use the john?”
“Good idea.” He pushed himself up and maneuvered into the bathroom. The walls were purple, the light a bare bulb hanging from a wire surrounded by a Japanese paper globe. He used the toilet, splashed some cold water on his face, and washed his hands. He was still feeling dizzy and nauseous. When he came out Honey held out a glass. “What’s this?”
“Cold ginger ale. Drink it. It’s good for you.”
Thirsty, he gulped it down. It was good.
She took the glass from him and placed it on a table cluttered with ashtrays. He sat on the couch and put his head back, his eyes closing again. He heard her moving about. She was humming a tune he had never heard before. After a while, he heard her approach and felt her leg next to his. The musky odor of her perfume slid up his nostrils. Then her hand was on his pants and over his fly.
“Whaddya say, JimBob.” Honey’s scratchy whisper in his ear. “Feeling a little better?”
“A little.”
“So whaddya say?” He could feel her getting at the zipper of his fly.
He opened his eyes and tried to sit up. “Wait a minute.”
“What’s the matter?”
“I don’t think I want to do this.”
She didn’t remove her hand but stopped trying to get at the zipper. “What do you mean?”
“I mean…I think I changed my mind. I don’t think I want to do it anymore.”
Honey peered at him. “You shittin me? I thought you were all hot to trot.” Her long earrings glittered as light from a lamp in the corner reflected off them. “What happened, JimBob, lost your nerve?”
He struggled again to sit up. He had to get out of this. He’d only been with a prostitute once in his life. The year Clarice died he’d quit school and was working out west on a ranch. The other ranch hands dragged him to a bar. The hooker they bought him was old and experienced. She had rolls of fat on her belly and smelled of sour beer.
But that wasn’t the real reason. It was because he felt dirty, ashamed that he’d allowed himself to sink this low. “I had too much to drink,” he said, hoping she’d accept that explanation. “I don’t really feel good.”
Her eyes became dull, and her voice was like Brando in The Godfather. “Let me explain something. We had a deal. I didn’t bring you up here for nothing, you know.”
He noticed a poster on the wall in front of him. It showed the bare behind of a man bending over and pulling his cheeks apart. In the place where his asshole should have been was a grinning mouth.
Honey was smiling again. With one hand she pushed back against his chest, with the other she was again at his zipper. “Trust me. Honey Bunch delivers what she promises.”
“No.” He pushed her away from him and got to his feet. “No. I mean it. I don’t want you to do anything. But don’t worry, I’ll pay you.”
“Well, that’s different,” Honey said. “In that case, whatever you want is okay with me.”
“How much do I owe you?”
“How about fifty?”
He pulled three twenty-dollar bills out of his wallet. She took it from him with the tips of her fingers as if she were accepting a flower. “A ten-dollar tip? How nice.”
She reached down, picked up his briefcase, and handed it to him. Then she took his arm and moved him toward the door. “Ready to go?”
He nodded and reached for the doorknob.
“JimBob.” Her long silver nails gleamed in the dim light. “Wait.”
He stopped.
“Before you go, I want to tell you something.”
He could not be sure, because she was not smiling, but he thought he could detect a glimmer of laughter in her eyes.
“What?”
“You know what, JimBob, or whatever your real name is? You’re no more from Texas than I’m from the moon. But this is real.” She took his free hand and guided it in a sudden movement to her crotch. Through the thin material of the skirt, he felt a familiar mass. He tried to pull his hand away but she held it firmly against her so there was no mistaking what it was he was feeling.
“Jesus,” he said. “Jesus H. Christ.”
Now she was grinning, white teeth showing. Her face was like a glow of neon, bright colors pulsing in front of his eyes. She opened the door and pushed him gently but firmly into the hall. “Have a nice day.”
The door closed behind him. He stood there, arms at his side, bewildered. He heard a loud click. Honey Bunch had locked the door.
Chapter 27
Miriam was glad Alex had gone to work. She needed to be alone. She had a lot to think about. But first, she had to deal with the pain. The incision they’d made in her breast hurt as if a fragment of glass had lodged there. She’d left the hospital full of painkillers but they were no longer working. The nurse had given her a couple of hydrocodone pills to take home and a prescription for more if needed. She swallowed them now with a glass of water. The problem would be solved, at least temporarily. If it got worse, she’d have to get the prescription filled.
Physical pain was one thing. What was going on in her mind was the real problem. The specter of cancer had come as a tremendous shock. It brought up all kinds of questions, none of which she had an answer to. Who was she, this Miriam Gunther? A forty-one-year-old woman, married with one child. What was she going to do with her life, at least with what she had left of it? Was she going to try to keep her marriage? Or was it already too late? What had she done thus far with her life? Not much.
She was too tense to stay in one place. She wandered through the house, going to all the floors, from the basement to the attic. Old suitcases in there, discarded furniture, unused picture frames she remembered buying a long time ago when she and Alex went antiquing in Connecticut. She went downstairs to the dining room. They’d had lots of good times here. Birthday parties, dinner parties, Thanksgiving. Maybe she should invite friends over for dinner? It might help to do that. The same moment she thought it, she knew she wouldn’t do it.
Upstairs, she paused at the door of Richard’s bedroom. She couldn’t believe it was almost a year since he’d left, taking one meager suitcase, and insisting he go to the train station alone.
“I’ll be fine,” he told them. “Don’t worry.”
Eighteen and wanting to go out on his own. And for what? To be an actor!
She went inside and sat on his bed. They shouldn’t have been surprised. He’d gotten involved with the theater group in his first year in high school. He helped build sets, and learned all about theater. In his second year, he began to perform.
“It’s the only time I enjoy being in school,” he’d told them. “The teachers don’t like me. I get picked on. If it weren’t for that, I’d drop out.”
The truth was that he was a mediocre student. His grades were just above passing. And he hated studying.
Nevertheless, they’d argued and argued trying to persuade him to go to college.
“They have theater groups in college.”
Richard shook his head. He had light brown curly hair that he’d let grow long. Where had the curls come from? She and Alex both had straight hair. But he had his father’s sea-blue eyes and those long eyelashes. “You don’t understand. I want to be an actor. What good would college do me?”
She’d sympathized with him because she’d had almost the same argument with her mother when she was that age. She hadn’t gone to college either.
Surprisingly, Alex gave in first. “If that’s what you want, we’ll help you as much as we can. With one caveat. If you don’t get anywhere in a year, you’ll go to college.”
Richard happily agreed.
The room was neat now, unlike the mess it had always been—bedding unmade, socks, underwear, shoes, books scattered all over. Three posters were still on the wall above his bed. David Bowie, Pink Floyd, Marlon Brando.
She remembered how many times she tried to get him to straighten up his room. “Later, Mom. I promise.” She’d given up and handled it by keeping the door to his room closed.
He wasn’t an easy child. When he was about five he’d become difficult about food. He wouldn’t eat hot cereal. For cold cereal he only wanted the sugared kind. Frosted Flakes, the worst. But she’d gone along. It was easier than having a battle every day.
About that same time, he began to wear her jewelry and clomp around in her high heels. Alex had been very upset about it. “He’s a boy. He shouldn’t be dressing up in girls’ clothes.”
“I think he looks adorable. He’s having fun, that’s all. Besides, how can I get him to stop? Threaten him? What good would it do?”
She still wasn’t sure if Richard was gay. He’d never said anything, nor would they ever ask. As far as she knew, he’d never had a lover of either sex. Perhaps he was still finding his sexuality.
She’d always given in to him. And why not? She didn’t care about anything but his happiness. Now he was in a play they were going to see at the end of the week. That was promising, wasn’t it?
She went back to the kitchen to make a cup of tea. She filled the kettle with water and set it on the stove. She took a bag from the box of Lipton tea in the cupboard and dropped it into a mug. When the kettle began to shriek she poured the boiling water into the mug and took it to the table. She added one spoonful of sugar. The ritual calmed her. She held the mug in both hands, enjoying the warmth. Face it, she told herself. You may be dead soon. Breast cancer can strike fast. She’d heard that one of her high school friends had recently died of it. Of course, she would have to wait for the results of the biopsy. But if what she suspected was true, what should she do? What could she do? She blew on the tea and took a sip. The house was very quiet. The only sound was the humming of the refrigerator.
When she’d had enough of the tea, she went to the phone and called her mother.
“How are you, darling? How are you feeling?” Her mother’s voice was like gravel rolled in honey.
“Not too bad. I just wanted to say hello and thank you for being there for me yesterday.”
“What? You’re thanking me for being a mother?”
“No. For being a wonderful mother. And it was nice of Henry to be there.”
“That’s a good one. You think he wanted to come? No way. I made him.”
“Why would you do that?”
“It’s good for men to be told what to do.”
“Is that what you did with Dad?”
Mabel laughed. “I didn’t have to. He was the sweetest man that ever lived. One in a million.”
“I’ll bet you still miss him after all these years.”
“Of course I do. I still dream about him. Funny, isn’t it?”
“I think you were a very lucky woman.”
“I know I was. But let’s get back to square one. What are you doing with yourself? Do you have any pain?”
“Just a little. Nothing to worry about.”
“Would you like me to come over? Is there anything I can do for you?”
“You already did it, Mom. Just talking to you has made me feel much better.”
When she hung up she thought of her father. He was only forty-eight when he had a heart attack and died. She was nine. Her memories had dimmed with the passing years but she still remembered holding his hand when they went on one of their Sunday excursions. He was an accountant for a large firm in the city and worked long hours, sometimes six days a week. But Sunday was their day. They would go out while her mother prepared a big dinner, usually roast beef with baked potatoes and creamed spinach. If the weather was nice they would often go to Prospect Park and the zoo. Sometimes they’d take a boat and row on the lake. Other days they went to the Botanical Gardens. In cold weather, they went to the Brooklyn Museum, or the library, where they had exhibits. Sometimes they took the subway into the city. The Museum of Natural History was her favorite place. There was so much to see. She especially loved the bird’s eggs and the butterflies. Sometimes her father challenged her to remember the names, a challenge she relished because she knew most of them. She could still remember a few: Monarch, Swallowtail, Zebra Longwing, Karner blue. Afterward, they would buy roasted chestnuts from a vendor on the street.
Miriam’s eyes filled. She patted them with a tissue and berated herself for becoming sentimental. Let’s get practical and stop drifting off into reminiscences. She wished she’d done more with her life. She’d been a good student, got better than average grades but for some reason had no desire to study further, no particular desire to do anything.
She thought she ought to do something practical at least. Her idea was to enroll in a secretarial school to learn stenography and typing. One of her teachers had said those were great tools for women. It meant they could always get a job. And indeed, it did. It led to her working for Larry Mitler. The work was fairly interesting but not satisfying. She wanted more, even though she had no idea what that was.
When she became aware that Larry was becoming interested in her, she wasn’t sure how to handle it. It was also just about that time she began seeing Alex. She knew Mitler was married. He wasn’t overly aggressive, no rubbing up against her or touching. If that had happened she would have told him off and walked out. But she had the feeling he was on the make all the time.
