What’s your biggest worry about him?
That he’ll always be angry, but won’t know why.
I think he has a pretty good idea why. While we were eating lunch today, he told me something about what happened in the gym.
Roy put down his fork.
Really?
Yeah. He said, you know that person who was there, when I fell?—I think she was mad. Mad at what, I asked. I don’t know, he said. Then I asked, do you mean mad at something you said or did? And he said no, at something else. Plus she was sad, too. Sad about what, I asked. Same thing she was mad about, he said. I asked why he thought that, and he said, because I know how most bad things happen—they happen by accident.
Did he say more after that?
Nope. Changed the subject. What do you think was going on?
I can only guess . . . it sounds like right before he fell, he must’ve been thinking about Renzo’s accident. And I bet he told you what he did because you didn’t actually know Renzo. So he didn’t have to worry about your reaction. You’d just listen. It felt safe for him.
He walked around the table and crouched by her chair, resting his palms lightly on her knees.
For Ennio, you are a kind of Blue Fairy, he said.
His gaze was steady, not pleading.
Look, Roy. Please don’t expect things from me that I can’t promise to deliver. Things I don’t even know if I want to deliver.
It’s fine. You’re not supposed to deliver anything. I’m just struck by how much Ennio trusted you.
Of course I was glad—am glad—he talked with me. But I have to say it was unsettling. Like maybe I wasn’t the right audience for it.
No right or wrong, dove. Thanks for being with my son today. For listening to him.
3
Saturday, 7:00 p.m., Tenth Street in the West Village. Midsummer early-eve sunlight burnishing the sidewalk, its color now pale gold.
They’d been in town all day. Roy had proposed the plan at breakfast: How about we divvy things up? You figure out the morning, I’ll take care of the afternoon, and we’ll improvise dinner.
Off they’d gone. The morning’s entertainment was an exhibit of Gabriel Orozco’s work at MOMA. Orozco used his notebooks as his studio—evidence of process, he’d called the notebooks. That phrase had charmed Roy. So if I get you a notebook, he’d asked, will you scribble something in it every day? Doesn’t matter if it’s poems or not.
Uh, she’d answered, it’ll depend on the quality of the notebook.
I’ll make it nice, trust me.
The start of the afternoon’s entertainment was a brief nap in Central Park.
They’d sat on a bench near the Belvedere, propped shoulder-to-shoulder for a restorative half-hour. Then they’d strolled across the park to the C train, taking it south to Fourteenth Street for coffee and cake at Café Loup. After that, they’d meandered down Seventh Avenue.
And now, Mr. Organizer, she’d asked, what next?
Follow me.
At Tenth Street in the West Village, he’d stopped in front of a short, steep stairwell to a basement—Smalls, the place was called, a jazz club. There’s a trio playing here tonight, he said. Let’s take a chance on it. I’ll see if I can get us tickets for the first set.
A few moments of solitude while he went down below.
Across the street an elderly man in jeans, sneakers, and gold-rimmed glasses walked slowly, his white T-shirt warmed by the sun’s low rays. He looked absorbed, as though he were writing a poem in his head. What was it, the poem? Could she steal it from him, take it telepathically somehow? An hour earlier, holding her hand as they’d walked down Seventh Avenue, Roy had said quietly: This whole thing feels good. She’d offered nothing in response, though she’d had the same thought in that same moment. Yet it was easy, now, to embrace him as he emerged from Smalls waving two tickets in the air. Easy to slip a hand under his shirt at the base of his back and pull him toward herself, letting her body speak on her wordless behalf.
Evidence of process. Of moving in what felt scarily like the right direction.
Buy Me Love
1
Forgetting took practice. So did remembering, now that she’d gotten good at forgetting. It was a question of focus.
Now what was the guy’s address . . .
Standing at the entrance to the R train at Fourth Avenue, Blair closed her eyes. She’d taken the R train. The guy’s street was Eighty-Sixth—he lived right around the corner from its subway stop. But the apartment building, what was its number?
She closed her eyes. Yes: 345. And the apartment number was 7—the missing numeral in the sequence.
Good thing she’d picked a Monday morning. Everyone would be at work, the neighborhood quiet.
She walked down the side alley to the building’s rear. The guy’s apartment was on the third floor, she recalled; she’d taken the elevator up. The back of the building was partly ivy-covered, the windows fairly old. An external iron fire escape ran from the top floor down, ending about four feet above the ground.
A minute later, she was on the third-floor landing—an easy climb. The guy’s kitchen window was open a few inches. She peered inside, listening. No sounds. Levering the window gently upward, she waited a minute, then removed her sneakers and slipped inside. Still no sounds.
As she sidled over to the hall leading to the front of the apartment, two dogs appeared. She remembered them from her first visit; they’d made a brief appearance, then retreated to the bedroom. Their ears were up now, alert.
Kneeling, she held out a hand. The dogs approached, nostrils flaring delicately—a male and a female. The male nosed her hand, the female her wrist. Were they siblings? During the first visit they’d sat quietly as she spoke with the guy, tracking her movements.
Good, she murmured. Good pups.
She stood slowly. The dogs’ tails wagged a little as she made her way to the living room. As she’d expected, the painting wasn’t heavy. It fit neatly into the gallery wrap-bag she’d brought with her—another item her supervisor at work would notice had gone missing.
Putting her sneakers back on, she moved to the front door. Anyone seeing her on the fire escape with the wrap-bag would be suspicious, but if she went out the front of the building like a resident or a visitor, there’d be no problem. Opening the door a few inches, she checked its lock to make sure it would shut behind her. Returning to the kitchen, she closed the window most of the way, as it was when she came in.
The dogs stood in the hallway, staring. She knelt again, both hands extended. The dogs came up and nuzzled her, then sat on their haunches, tongues lolling.
Happy, they seemed. Happy pups. But not free. Not with those things around their necks.
Removing each dog’s collar, she slid them into her sweatshirt’s pouch. Then she picked up Nadine’s painting, opened the front door, checked the corridor, and headed for the stairwell. In under a minute she was on the street. There was a trashcan by the entrance to the subway; she chucked the dogs’ collars into it.
2
An X-Acto knife was the best tool for the task, lightweight and sharp.
The canvas wasn’t too thick. Carefully, Blair excised the dove. A gift for Keith, when he turned up.
She hacked at the rest of the canvas til it was fully shredded, then made a small pile of even smaller shreds. They were in shades of green, from forest to near-yellow: the colors of the ten-dollar bill in the painting. She tucked the shreds into the pouch of her sweatshirt.
The artist had died, and the rest of her work was gone. How or why didn’t matter. Now Buy Me Love belonged to another artist, an absurd creator who’d make something new with it—the only person who could. The absurd creator who accepted that no creation could have a future. To see one’s work destroyed in a day while being aware that fundamentally this has no more importance than building for centuries: Camus called this a difficult wisdom.
Traces: what the absurd creator’s work would leave. To
give the void its colors, said Camus. That would be enough.
End Game
1
The green suede clutch, of course. What better bag for the purpose?
Especially since she was wearing a chic pair of Armani flats and a handsome linen shirtdress, brand new, found in a secondhand shop on the Upper East Side—some rich woman’s careless purchase, tossed in a closet and never worn.
Cool shoes, a new dress: all set. It never hurt to look like a million bucks, especially when retrieving a check for a hundred times that amount.
Unsnapping the front flap of the clutch, Ellen slipped a neatly folded hanky into its interior pocket.
The pocket’s zipper was broken. Another thing for the to-do list, after the lottery-storm blew over. When she’d be able to luxuriate in time as though it were a bubble bath.
She snapped the flap of the purse shut, waiting for a bout of dizziness to pass.
The clutch would transport the ticket. Only the ticket, though. Nothing else, except for that cheerfully striped bit of silk Dale had gifted her a while ago—the hanky in which the ticket was folded. At lunch with him, she’d open the bag and pass him the hanky. The ticket would be cuddled inside, by that point merely a scrap of paper. A souvenir.
Daley, she’d say, what do you want for your housewarming? The sky’s the limit . . .
2
At the Lottery Commission there’d be all sorts of forms to fill out—legal, financial, technical. They would let her retain the little scrap of paper as a keepsake, though? It was hers, after all. Bought and paid for.
Once signed, all the legal documents would go in her old brown shoulder-bag. That bag had a nice wide strap, good for comfortable carting. It was important to keep things separate—to mark a line she’d be crossing, between the old life and the new. Hence two bags: one for her usual stuff, the other just for the ticket.
How to get there? The R was the best train; its City Hall exit was closest to the Commission’s offices. Or she could take the F, switch to the A, and get off at Chambers.
No, make this a direct flight. Take the R.
On the Fourth Avenue platform, a father was berating his teenaged son. Something about wearing dirty jeans to visit his grandmother.
What on earth were you thinking, the father kept asking.
I wasn’t, the son kept answering.
Good lord, how did the kid manage that unruffled tone? Some people had a talent for not feeling shame. And what about the latest winner of the Pick Seven lottery: would she prance proudly home after collecting her prize, or would she slink back? Would she exult in her fortune and all it’d allow her to do, or would she stew her millions into a thick broth of self-recrimination? Would shame become for her like Win’s tinnitus, shrieking in her head for the rest of her days?
Every jackpot winner was feckless. They all committed errors of judgment or action. She’d botch it somehow, too; the only question was how.
3
A train pulled into the station.
How strange—a D, pressed into service on the R line. And with lateral benches, too, rather than the R’s paired seats. The interior was pretty clean, though. But this car was jammed cheek to jowl, even though it was already 9:00 a.m. Some signal-switch problem, no doubt.
Well, at least the air conditioning was working.
Entering the car, she used her elbow to pin her brown bag to her side. A schoolkid sidled past, bumping her with his knapsack.
C’mon, people, ordered the conductor, step lively!
The D’s doors closed with the usual ding. On the bench opposite her was an empty seat. Another passenger headed toward it, a woman in her early thirties, dressed for an office. Pantsuit and blouse, pearls, lipstick the color of cotton candy.
Ah, let her take the seat. The poor girl’s carry-all looked pretty heavy, as did her eyelids. Must be too stressed out to get some decent shuteye.
Nodding thanks, the young woman sat, sliding her bag behind her calves. Adjacent to her, an older guy glanced upward, then stood.
Here, he said to Ellen, gesturing, take my seat.
That’s okay, you don’t have to—
—it’s fine, I’m getting off at the next stop.
Okay, thanks.
She inserted herself between the younger woman and a plump, rosy-cheeked man.
Packed like proverbial sardines.
At least nobody stank. Everyone was sitting quietly, too; reading, or gazing into space. After a minute, the younger woman pulled out her cellphone and began scrolling through emails. The plump guy was having his own version of a hot flash, his pudgy biceps pressing damply against Ellen’s own.
She shifted a little, both hands on the green suede clutch on her lap. Her elbow connected with that of the younger woman on her other side.
Oh—sorry . . .
No problem, murmured the younger woman, her thumbs dancing across her phone’s keyboard as she shifted in turn.
4
Elbows tucked, spine straight. Like a prim schoolmistress. The only position possible, really, given the tight seating. And no clutching of the clutch! Why leave sweaty fingerprints on that nice soft suede? Just perch the thing on her knees like a docile kitten.
Seeing her so upright, Roy would laugh. And Ennio, what would he make of all this? Of course if he knew about the ticket, he’d want to come with her to redeem it. He’d squiggle next to her like an excited eel. As for Roy, he would sit on the other side of her with his eyes closed, working to steady each breath. Very still, he’d be, thrill and unease churning in his belly just as in her own.
At some point he’d open his eyes. They’d smile at each other like two bewildered climbers advancing toward the seat of happiness. About to get hit by—by what? An avalanche of cash, and what else? But wait . . . if he were sitting here with her now on this train, Roy would’ve already realized his privacy was about to drain right down the tubes. Sooner or later her name and face would be in the news, and if he were seen with her, his would be, too. So how would he react?
He’d reach for her hand. She’d take it. Seeing their clasped hands, Ennio would relax a bit. He’d lean into her shoulder, letting his legs dangle. The three of them would sit quietly as the train slipped through the tunnel.
Now the pudgy-biceps guy was really starting to sweat . . . was he gonna pass out? If he did, everyone would start flapping newspapers around his face. Maybe somebody would even pour a bottle of water on his head.
Ah, that’d feel good. Easy to imagine doing that to herself, but not with water. Instead, with a glass of chilly prosecco, which she’d buy as soon as she left the Lottery Commission.
5
This car on this train, what did it remind her of? The setting for a fairytale?
No, for a play—Prospero’s island in The Tempest. What was Prospero’s daughter’s name? It started with an M . . . Mel, Maria? No, Miranda. Trapped on that island her whole life, Miranda was clueless about the mainland. Did Shakespeare think about alternative destinies for her, run a few ideas up his mental flagpole? What if, say, Miranda had been spirited off to Naples and installed in some opulent palazzo, where she’d hang out with dukes and princes?
Nope, that wouldn’t have worked. In Naples she’d be thinking all the time about Ferdinand, the man who’d washed up onto her shores so unexpectedly. She’d want to return to the island.
After Court Street, the train began swaying slightly. It descended below the Hudson, steadied, gained speed, then slowed for the rise to the other side.
At Whitehall, a bunch of commuters got off and another group boarded. Ferry-riders, judging from the look of them—sunglasses propped on their heads, cheeks reddened by the wind. Now the train slithered more slowly. Christ, this stretch of track between Whitehall and City Hall had to be the twistiest in the whole system! The car’s wheels made horrid screeches on each curve.
She covered her ears, pressing out the sound. This noise would kill Win, for sure. Thank God he was safe at home. And p
erhaps not alone. Not—go on, hope for it—without Maria.
At Rector the plump man got off and a young woman took his place.
Neither white- nor blue-collared. Not a professional, this girl. Artsy. Maybe self-employed, or out of work. In her mid-twenties. Wearing faded jeans and a sweatshirt with a kangaroo pouch—rather warm clothing for a day like this one, but with the air conditioning on these trains . . . her face was the blankest of slates. A bit tense, she seemed—hands on thighs, fingers slightly beaked, like she was readying to bolt. Maybe one of those people who hated being underground. Odd that she wasn’t carrying a bag or knapsack. Actually, that wasn’t so strange—plenty of people carried nothing but their keys, wallet, and cellphone. They just shoved stuff into their pockets. Purse-averse, was that a word?
More shrieking as the train slid toward Cortlandt Street.
Just two more stops. A major wave of dizziness. Wait it out; it would soon become an instant of the past. And the future? Right now, it looked like a mountain of dough.
6
Eyes closed, she uncovered her ears as the screeching and vertigo subsided.
Inhale, exhale.
Not so bad, this enforced sitting position—fingers entwined over tummy, knees together, eyes closed . . . better than sitting cross-legged, which was hard on the hip joints. Did the Buddha ever sit in meditation with an old leather bag strapped over one shoulder, or a suede clutch perched on his lap? Of course not. The Buddha needed none of that. The Buddha was whole and empty and fine with himself as he was, unlike people who were never whole and never empty and almost never fine with themselves, except in those brief instants when, unaccountably, they were.
As she herself was, right now.
Breathe. Just keep breathing.
A breath thou art, servile to all the skyey influences . . . What the hell, Shakespeare—if skyey could be a word, then couldn’t purse-averse be one, too? Sure, why not.
Buy Me Love Page 23