“I do. Thanks.” The cream barely affected the coffee, made with Café Bustelo. “And thanks for understanding.”
“I got a new lady myself,” she said after a pause. “I figured I couldn’t wait around for the Professor forever. A girl’s got needs.”
“That’s great!” My response was a bit too enthusiastic, so I toned it down. “Where’d you meet?”
“Déjà Vu,” she said. I had been to the bar once with Thea, right before my trip South. “Name’s Pauline.”
“I’m so happy for you, Vern.”
“Well, we ain’t done the deed yet,” she admitted. “We kissed and all, and she lets me hold her close when we dance, but that’s it. Pauline lives with her mama in Bushwick, and I didn’t know if Thea would want me bringing her home. But now I know about you—”
“Bringing who home?” Thea asked. Her clothes were dressy-casual, the kind of thing she taught in— tailored gray pants, a plum-colored turtleneck, strands of silver chains, and a serious-looking watch, not the Minnie Mouse one she usually wore. A member of the faculty would be picking her up at the bus station, she said, and she needed to look “professorial.”
“Vern’s got a girl,” I said with a wink.
Thea punched Vern on the arm. “You keeping secrets from me?”
“You should talk,” Vern muttered.
“Livvie told you?”
“I got eyes, man,” Vern said. “And ears.”
I flushed to my roots. In bed, Thea had pressed a hand over my mouth to stifle my guttural noises.
Out of gallantry, I offered to carry Thea’s suitcase to the subway, but she insisted on taking charge of it. Standing in the crowded car, our hands brushing on the pole, we didn’t talk all the way to Forty-Second Street, but traded shy smiles. As our train approached the station, Thea took my face in both her hands and kissed me full on the lips. I was nervous about a PDA in such a crowded place, but the other commuters either didn’t notice or pretended not to.
“Don’t spend your time worrying,” she instructed me, although she must have known that would be impossible. “I’ve got to get the job first.”
I wished her good luck, trying to make my tone upbeat and convincing, but as she stepped onto the platform my heart did a backflip in my chest. The feeling took my breath away, the impending loss of something I barely had.
• • •
“Would you be interested in starting up the salon again?” Gerri asked over burgers and mugs of beer in a wooden booth at Chumley’s. The historic speakeasy was a reliable hangout when it was too early for Ariel’s or we weren’t in a dancing mood.
When I didn’t answer immediately, Gerri continued, “I mean, at our old apartment.”
“You’re . . . moving back in?”
“Not yet, but soon,” she said. “We talked about it, but I think we could use a little more space.”
“Who would be in it this time around?” I munched on a fry, dodging Barb’s name.
“You, me, Renee, Thea, Vern,” Gerri said. “Jill said she’s interested.”
“Jill!”
“Well, she ditched You-Know-Who, so that shows she’s got sense. She told me Jenny’s back from L.A. and they’re trying to make it work. So maybe Jenny, too.”
The spinning of relationships in my immediate circle made me dizzy. Tracking who was on and who was off would soon require a scorekeeper.
“I have to admit I’m worried,” I blurted out.
“About Jill?”
“About trying to restart the old group. Honestly, I don’t know if I can take any more drama with y’all.”
Gerri’s mouth twitched, and I wished I could retract my words. We’d been getting along, and I didn’t want to slip back into the sticky mire we’d found ourselves in before Christmas.
“I didn’t mean ‘y’all’ as in you and Renee,” I added quickly.
She held her burger with both hands, poised for a bite, but then she put it back on the plate. “Well, you barely know Jill, and you never met Jenny,” she said. “So-o-o, process of elimination.”
“Look, it’s none of my business. I think I’m worried that we’ll all split up again. And it could be drama from my end with Thea, you know.”
“Already? I thought you two were good.”
“No, no, we’re fine. But . . . did you know she’s looking for a job outside New York?”
“Well, sure. I proofread her applications. Her CV was a mother!”
“And you didn’t tell me?” I knew I wasn’t anywhere close to the moral high ground, having kept information about Barb from Gerri over the months.
“That I proofread?”
“That she was applying.”
“Why would I?” she said. “You guys were just friends. If Thea wanted you to know something, she would have told you herself.” She paused. “Right?”
It was a strong point, and I stepped back from my indignation.
“She really needs a job, Liv. And she’s got three strikes against her— black, woman, dyke. I hope you’re being supportive and not moping around about it.”
“I’m the picture of support. I . . . Look, we just got started, and the end’s already in sight.”
“Hey, if you two really have something going, distance won’t take that away. Look at Jill and Jenny.”
“I don’t even know Jenny, remember?”
“Don’t get technical on me. It’s just an example.” She drained her mug and signaled our waitress for another round.
“Or here’s a thought,” Gerri went on. “You’re a small-town girl— maybe she gets the job and you go with her. Hell, I might even go with her! There are some awesome small publishing companies in that neck of the woods. We could start our own!”
The idea of having a future with Thea and Gerri made me feel feathery. “That would not be a bad way to live,” I said, and we toasted with two fresh mugs of beer.
• • •
My mood of hopefulness lingered until Melissa Pruitt got in touch. Eli had been living at his sister’s since before Thanksgiving. During that time, he and I had had a single terse phone call in which he’d groused about how Melissa had deprived him of the only thing he loved, his cat. Assuring him Remington was safe and well cared for pushed him to rumbling sobs that I listened to helplessly for several long moments.
When there was a break in his crying, I said, “Oh, Eli, I feel terrible. I’d bring Remmie to see you if I could, but the fur would be bad for you.”
“How would you know?” he hissed and hung up. And that had been our only contact in weeks.
Now Melissa’s voice was frayed. “Joe and I really need an evening alone,” she explained. “But for that to happen, Eli needs a babysitter.” There was an audible gasp through the line. “Oh, God, that sounds horrible. I’m sorry, I’m sorry! Listen, I need someone to visit Eli and give me a break, that’s all. Most of his friends are sick themselves or gone. I won’t ask you to take a weekend night, that’s not fair, but could you possibly come every Wednesday?”
I gulped. “I’m not sure I can commit to every week. There might be work stuff. Could we take it week by week?”
She said, “Yes, thank you,” in a polite but clipped way that suggested prior attempts to book a regularly scheduled visitor had also failed.
Melissa’s building was a glass-and-steel structure that towered over Third Avenue with upper-class swagger. The two white doormen on duty used formal-speak with the guests and residents who passed their polished mahogany desk. But then when the lobby emptied and I was the only person standing at the shiny elevator bank, I overheard them jaw with each other in New York accents as thick as calzones.
The elevator car had mirrors on three sides, and I spent considerable time smoothing down my cowlick on the way up to the fourteenth floor. When the car came to a noiseless halt and the doors slid open, I heard Melissa call out, “Hold it!” from the hallway.
“He’s so excited!” she said as she rushed in, her breathless voice s
uggesting she was pretty keyed-up, too. “You’re so sweet to help us out.” Before I could ask for instructions, like whether Eli had eaten dinner, she’d stabbed the “Down” button, and I had to hop off or ride down to the lobby again.
Melissa had left the apartment door ajar. Eli greeted me from a plush sofa with a half-smile and a rippling wave of his fingers. He lay reclining in a light blue flannel robe printed with dancing black cats, the creases from being packed in a box still visible.
“Birthday present,” he muttered when I complimented him on the robe. I was about to ask when his birthday was when he continued, “She actually thinks this makes up for Remmie! I should spite her and not wear it, but it’s warm and she keeps this place so damn cold.”
“Well, you look cute in it,” I said, even though he didn’t. His eyes were ringed with bluish-black circles, and the robe did little to disguise his gaunt frame. He’d shed more weight since the day he’d been whisked away to the hospital, and now looked as small as a prepubescent boy.
“I look like shit,” he countered. “Admit it. Go on.”
“I’m not playing this game, Eli,” I said, sitting down next to him, careful not to brush his extended legs and feet. Melissa had warned me that “just about everything hurts” and that he randomly moaned, “Ow, ow, ow” as he padded through the apartment.
“You’re no fun,” he said. “You’re as big a bore as Melissa and everybody else.” He sighed and inched a rainbow-socked foot closer to me. “Margo at the Art Students League actually called today to ask how I am! ‘How are you feeling, Eli?’” He mimicked a sickeningly sweet voice in a falsetto register that I doubted belonged to anyone he knew. “How does she think I am?”
Without turning my wrist, I glanced down slowly at my watch: Two hours to go. But Eli caught the eye movement anyway.
“You don’t have to stay till nine,” he said. “I don’t need a babysitter. I’ve got takeout menus and a remote control. My life is complete.” Despite his petulant tone, his feet were now nudging closer to my thigh.
“Eli, I get it,” I said. My instincts hovered between wanting to give him more space on the sofa and letting him put his feet right in my lap. “You’re mad at me.”
“Why would I be mad at you?”
“I haven’t been around.”
“Do you think I noticed? I’ve been kind of busy, Livvie.”
I stopped myself from asking “Doing what?” How did I know what he’d been up to? When I didn’t take the bait, he offered, “I actually did a sketch the other day.”
“Wow, that’s great!” It was maybe too enthusiastic, maybe too quick; his feet retreated a few inches back toward his butt. “I’d love to see it.”
He made a pfft noise out of the corner of his mouth. “It’s nothing. Just a dumb still life of a rotting banana on the counter. Melissa threw it out the next day.”
“Your sketch?” I asked in horror.
He smiled and stretched his feet toward me again. “She’s not that evil. I meant the banana.”
The talk of food, even rotten fruit, made my stomach groan.
“Hey, have you eaten?” I asked. “I’m kind of starving. Want to order some Thai?”
Steeled for a rude dismissal of the eating idea, I was surprised when Eli answered, “Oh, Livvie, I’d love that! That would make me feel so normal.” He slid his left foot onto my thigh. “My feet are so achy these days. Would you rub them?”
“I will. But only after we eat,” I said.
We ordered more than even two healthy people could possibly eat— several colors of curry, Pad See Ew, Pad Thai, spring rolls. As I was finishing the order, Eli called out, “Oh, and chicken satay, please, please, please!” and I added that to the list.
“You’ll have Thai food for a week,” I said as I unpacked all the cartons. I took generous servings of everything, and Eli helped himself to a spoonful of this and that, half of a spring roll. As we ate, Eli expressed interest in my job and my love life and finally wound the conversation around to Clio.
“I should have told you sooner. Clio’s the one taking care of Remington.”
His face glowed, like he was a movie star bathed in beauty lighting. “Clio has Remmie? Oh, God, Liv. That’s just . . . I mean, that’s too great.”
“And she just loves him, Eli. You should see them together. It’s like he’s right at home.”
That was one step too far. Eli’s bony chest sagged, and he put down his fork. “So he doesn’t miss me.”
“Oh, I’m sure he does!” I said. “But you want him not to be sad, right? And he isn’t sad, Eli.”
He nodded and picked at his food. “Maybe you could take a picture and send it? Or even, I don’t know, maybe bring it by? I have some shots of him when I first got him, but nothing recent.”
After dinner, I massaged his feet and he purred like Remmie. “I’m such a drag on everyone,” he said with a sigh. “I’ve become a bitch.”
“You do have this sort of dark, brooding thing going on,” I said, choosing the words carefully. He raised an eyebrow, and I continued quickly, “But so did Heathcliff.”
That made him laugh. “Yeah, I’m such a romantic figure.”
He fell asleep with his feet on me, knobby weights that bit into my thighs and made them go numb. Ignoring the discomfort, I put my head back on the sofa cushion and dozed off myself, until I woke to Melissa’s nudging.
We had a smattering of regular Wednesdays after that, and Eli’s brooding returned sometimes, but all in all he successfully curtailed the time his darker personality spent on stage. One Wednesday I couldn’t make our appointment, and the next he went back to the hospital for another stay.
And then one week, Eli, too— like Curt and all their friends— was gone. His was the first AIDS memorial I ever attended, and it wasn’t the last.
Chapter 23
Even though I’d assured Clio I would inform Bea about the revised schedule, I didn’t do it. Every time I tried, the words simply wouldn’t come. I worked on numerous variations in my head: Clio doesn’t think she needs as much help anymore. Clio needs a looser schedule right now. Clio feels more confident about being alone. Even the dreaded Clio isn’t working on her book anymore. No matter how I phrased it, the options sounded like I’d failed at my job. So I remained mum, and hoped Bea didn’t take heed of my increased presence in the office.
Unfortunately, Therese noticed, and she blurted it out during a staff meeting in Bea’s office. “Shouldn’t you be at Clio’s?”
Ramona chimed in, “Yeah, I thought I’d have to take notes.”
Nan joked, “Who are you again?” which brought a ripple of laughter from the other agents.
Bea didn’t even crack a smile. She simply looked up from her stack of contracts, waiting for my reply to Therese’s question.
“Clio is feeling more self-sufficient these days,” I said, measuring each word. “She doesn’t need me as much, so I guess all y’all will be seeing more of me!” My tone was light, and although everyone else took my explanation at face value, it didn’t fool Bea.
Bea adjusted her glasses, the better to glare at me. “Clio’s had a stroke. She is not self-sufficient.”
“It wasn’t a stroke stroke,” I said.
“Don’t split hairs. The woman isn’t well. How is she supposed to work on her story collection without help? It seems unlikely to me that she’ll make any progress if you aren’t there.”
“Well, I’ll still be there.” I paused as her eyes drilled into me. “Just not as much.”
Bea frowned and launched into the staff meeting, but as she drew the agenda to a close and we all rose to return to our respective desks, she said, “Livvie, a few words.” And then, as the agents filed out, “Close the door, please.”
I’d never been behind a closed door with Bea, and I knew it wasn’t good. It had been on Ramona’s list of tips on my first day: “Try not to do anything that makes Bea say, ‘Close the door, please.’”
“Sit,”
she said. I waited while she made some notes on a legal pad, presumably about the meeting. Then she leaned back in her chair, her lips set in a stern line.
“You know why you got this job, don’t you?”
I nodded.
“You remember how light your resume was when I took you on. Some internship or another.”
I nodded again.
“Now, just because I’ve questioned your extra hours— or you going to North Carolina for a whole week on my dime— that doesn’t mean I want you to let up on your hours with Clio. You understand that?”
Another helpless nod.
“Good. I hoped I hadn’t given you the wrong impression. You’re doing valuable work with Clio, even if you may feel at times like a glorified babysitter. And there will be rewards if it all works out as we hope.”
“Thanks,” I said, for want of something better. I shifted in my chair and fingered the worn edge of the notebook I’d brought to the meeting.
“So are you going to tell me what this cut in hours is about?”
I laid it out as best I could, careful to omit the part about my looking through Clio’s handbag. The picture I painted was mostly accurate— Clio becoming more pensive and quiet after our trip. Her brother in a worse way than she’d imagined. The spat with Ivy, and the upset of the ministroke. Memories of Flora that haunted and troubled her. I stretched the truth and said she’d shared Flora’s obituary with me, and that it made her more morose than I’d ever seen her.
The mention of Flora’s name made Bea wince. “It’s my fault,” she said. “I thought you resembling Flora might help Clio, but maybe somehow, unconsciously, it’s made it more painful. Though I honestly do not understand how you can pine for someone who’s been dead twenty-odd years.”
“It’s not about how I look,” I added quickly. “It was about being in the hospital. It brought back memories of Flora suffering from cancer—”
A confused look clouded Bea’s face. “Flora killed herself,” she said. “At least, the Montrose biography strongly hints she did.” I’d had an inkling of that from what Clio had said, but I hadn’t known for sure.
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