My Mrs. Brown

by William Norwich

  A luggage cart with so many Louis Vuitton suitcases of various sizes they could fill a small store was wheeled past by a porter.

  “Actually, I’m here to pick up the keys to a car. Not under the happiest of circumstances, however. A great client of my family’s died and left me his 1970 Mercedes convertible,” Anthony said. “His lawyer left the keys for me here because the car is in a garage around the corner,” he explained. “It was one hell of a shock when I got that call. Oh, ma’am, excuse me for swearing.”

  Mrs. Brown took no offense.

  “Hey, why don’t you come with me for a ride?” Anthony said, seeing his chance to spend time with Rachel.

  He was an enthusiastic fellow most of the time, but this sounded too enthusiastic, even to him. He tried to take the temperature down by acting a bit cooler.

  “I mean, excuse me, you know, if you want?”

  Mrs. Brown and Rachel exchanged glances, not knowing what to answer.

  It wasn’t in Anthony’s constitution to hide his light for very long. “Or, tonight, even better, we can go to dinner if you like,” he said.

  The lobby bustled with people coming and going. An elderly guest in a wheelchair, young newlyweds on their honeymoon, string musicians carrying their instruments to set up in one of the reception rooms for a cocktail party, a nurse escorting to the elevator a woman whose head was wrapped in surgical gauze like a mummy, her nose red, her mouth puffed out, and her eyes black and blue.

  This was an upsetting sight for Mrs. Brown, but Rachel explained that the cause was elective, not an accident. “She’s had a face-lift of some sort today,” Rachel said. She looked at her watch. “Four thirty. Time to go home after surgery.”

  Anthony pitched in. “That’s right, ma’am,” he told Mrs. Brown. “This neighborhood is filled with plastic surgery clinics, and if you are on the Upper East Side at this time of day, as many men as there are women, you’ll always see people with their heads all wrapped up, looking like mummies, being escorted home or to a hotel . . .”

  “Which is where some people prefer to recover for a day or two to not upset their families and loved ones with their frightening bandages. Not that I’d know firsthand—yet.” Rachel laughed. “It’s just that I live in the neighborhood.” She paused. “How ridiculous I must sound.” Rachel looked apologetically to Anthony.

  Anthony smiled. “You don’t sound ridiculous to me.” He’d gone from steed to colt in love, and he was nearly blushing. “We just want you to know, ma’am, that you shouldn’t be scared,” he told Mrs. Brown. “That the bandages aren’t bad news. They’re good news. I think. It’s proof of scientific progress.” He laughed. “Or at least a sign of good news for the economy, people are spending their money. So will you ladies honor me and come for a ride in my new car? I mean, my old new car?”

  Rachel was surprised when she heard herself saying yes.

  “I think it is such a fun idea, especially because Mrs. Brown has never been to New York and what a great way to see everything, from a convertible on a beautiful night.”

  “Your first time in New York?” Anthony exclaimed. “We must do this! There’s a wonderful new restaurant in Harlem. It is almost impossible to get a table, but we did the flooring, so I think I can swing something.”

  Mrs. Brown wondered how to respond. A part of her wanted to explore the city and all its lights and glory. Another part told her that Rachel and Anthony were a love match and just an evening alone together now could lead to wedding bells in their future.

  “Thank you so much, but I should stay in tonight. I am tired after a long day, and Rachel has been kind enough to let me spend the night,” Mrs. Brown said. “You two should go, though. You must. I insist.”

  But Anthony felt so undeserving of Rachel, and Rachel felt so uncertain about Anthony despite the attraction, that they hemmed and they hawed and said things like “Oh, well, perhaps another night,” and “Oh, yes, it’s a busy week. Maybe when things slow down a bit.” Mrs. Brown knew if she didn’t change her mind, Rachel and Anthony might never see each other again.

  “You’ve convinced me,” Mrs. Brown said. “I would like nothing better than to see New York with you tonight.”

  IT WAS JUST PAST five that afternoon.

  By the real estate standards of New York, where every square foot is worth a princely sum, Rachel’s apartment was both simple and deluxe.

  Located on East Seventy-fourth Street between Madison and Park Avenues, it was on the tenth floor of a doorman building, two apartments on the floor sharing a foyer and an elevator entrance.

  Inside Rachel’s apartment there was a long entrance hall and a black and white floor. The first thing Mrs. Brown noticed was the lush arrangement of white roses in a crystal vase on a mahogany credenza.

  All the rooms in the apartment were off this reception hall: the living room, with two gray silk sofas and two blue and white upholstered chairs. The dining room, painted a high-gloss casino green with a round mahogany table and eight chairs with zebra-print needlepointed seats. The kitchen was L-shaped and not very large, a small table squeezed into the corner with a banquette for seating.

  The bedrooms were at the other end of the hallway. There was a walk-in closet for Rachel’s clothes, shoes, and bags, colorful as a paint box and big enough to be another bedroom.

  “I’m going to dash down to my office and be back by seven to get ready for tonight,” Rachel said after she showed Mrs. Brown the apartment and the guest room. “Here is my cell phone number. Call me with any questions, if you want something, or if you don’t see how something works.” Rachel scribbled her number on a pad embossed with her initials.

  “You’ve really been too kind,” said Mrs. Brown. Her eyes filled with tears.

  Rachel said: “By the time you are on the train back to Ashville with your new dress tomorrow, I hope you will know that the kindness you speak of was entirely mutual. Meeting you, I mean, meeting you again was just what the doctor ordered.”

  Rachel paused. She took visual inventory of what Mrs. Brown was wearing. Since they were going to dinner at the Great Blue Heron, something was needed to perk up Mrs. Brown’s outfit.

  It wasn’t a problem to bring some Oscar de la Renta pieces home for her later, but no. That could hurt her feelings. As if Rachel was suggesting that Mrs. Brown was lacking or not belonging in some way.

  Rachel remembered that she had just the thing, vintage Hermès scarves that her grandmother had given her before she died several years ago. This was a collection of colorful, sportif silk scarves the grande dame had worn when she was “motoring,” as she called it, around Newport in the 1960s.

  All it would take would be one Hermès scarf loosely tied at Mrs. Brown’s collar and she’d look like a New England matron, the WASP way, never fancily dressed. The last of a breed that is resolutely suspicious of every expensive fabric except mink.

  Rachel would introduce the scarf before dinner.

  “Okay, Mrs. Brown, I’m off,” she said. “Please rest and enjoy the apartment. We’ve got a big night ahead of us. And please feel free to use the telephone.”

  Rachel remembered that women of Mrs. Brown’s generation had grown up at a time when long-distance telephoning was expensive.

  “You’ll get much better reception than you will with your cell phone. Don’t worry about the cost,” Rachel said. “I pay a flat monthly rate, and even if you talked until morning you won’t exceed it.”

  In Rachel’s guest room, Mrs. Brown sat enveloped in an enormously comfortable Queen Anne chair covered in a chintz field of faded cabbage roses.

  There were two phone calls she needed to make right away. The first was to Alice, who would be worrying about her. The second was to Bonnie. Mrs. Brown could not predict how her boss would take the news that she was not coming to work tomorrow.

  Let me not think about that for a few more minutes, she told herself. Let me just sit here and breathe in all this goodness.

  What an extraordinary twe
lve hours! Don’t people often say that their first trip to New York was like stepping into a movie, a movie about New York? That’s certainly how Mrs. Brown felt this afternoon.

  Mrs. Brown expected that for the rest of her life she would be deeply embarrassed when she remembered making a scene at the Oscar de la Renta boutique. But although she might always be embarrassed because of that, she wouldn’t be ashamed. Her days of being so hard on herself were coming to a close. This trip had boosted her self-esteem tremendously.

  Mrs. Brown sat in the chintz-covered Queen Anne chair, her feet up on the ottoman covered in the same fabric.

  She closed her eyes. Images of her day sped by. The train ride, then Pennsylvania Station, the exotic fashion show at Lincoln Center, the good soldier on the bus. She saw her cat, Santo, waiting for her in Ashville, and Alice, and Mrs. Fox worrying about her far away in Vancouver. She remembered her husband, Mr. Brown. How much they had enjoyed their early married days, all embraces and companionship before his drinking went too far, then fighting about his drinking. Praying so hard that he’d stop. Her mother’s voice, telling her to “pray with a feather not a pickax!” The only time Mr. Brown stopped drinking was when he died. He always said he wanted to be buried with a bottle of Old Grand-Dad, 114 barrel proof.

  “Hell freezes over, and I know where I’m going it’s going to be dark and cold, lovey, and I’m going to keep as comfortable as I can for as long as I can,” he said. “Old Grand-Dad, 114 barrel proof. You won’t forget?”

  Mrs. Brown didn’t forget. It was unlikely that she ever would. Even though Mrs. Fox had offered to do it, she bought the bottle herself at Ashville’s village liquor store and gave it to the undertaker to put in her husband’s coffin.

  Mrs. Brown fell asleep in Rachel’s Queen Anne chair. It was unusual for her to nap like this during the daytime. Only if she was ill, with flu or a cold, might she sleep during the day.

  She woke up with a start some forty minutes later. It was nearly 6:30. Mrs. Brown had to make her calls. Bonnie would still be at her salon, but closing up soon.

  What was Mrs. Brown frightened of ? Did she really think that Bonnie would fire her? She did. Do you know how hard it is for women of a certain age, or a man for that matter, to get a job? Mrs. Brown couldn’t afford to not work.

  Mrs. Brown picked up the receiver of the white Princess phone in the guest room, held her breath, and dialed. Bonnie answered after three rings. With all the courage that she could muster, Mrs. Brown explained that her business in New York City was delayed. With great apologies, she said she would not be able to come to work tomorrow but would return the following day.

  There was nervous-making silence at the other end of the phone.

  “Well, please hurry back, Mrs. Brown. You’ve no idea what’s happened here today,” Bonnie said. “And I need you.”

  Mrs. Brown didn’t know what to say. It was the first time Bonnie had ever said she was needed.

  “I fired them all. The whole stinking, rotten bunch.”

  “You did what?” Mrs. Brown asked.

  Bonnie had just discovered what Mrs. Brown had strongly suspected for some time. That Georgie and Francie and the other beauticians were stealing from the till.

  They were taking tens and twenties here and there when Bonnie wasn’t looking. When they knew Bonnie wouldn’t be in the salon, they were doing clients’ hair “off the books,” not registering the appointments in the computer and then pocketing the money the customers paid them instead of putting it in the cash register.

  Mrs. Brown had never said anything. How could she? It would be her word against theirs, and she thought Bonnie would never believe her, and probably fire her for telling the truth.

  “I should have said something, but I didn’t have any real evidence,” Mrs. Brown said, and apologized.

  Bonnie said there was no need to apologize. She understood the dilemma Mrs. Brown was in.

  “They tried passing the blame on to you, Mrs. Brown,” Bonnie said. “I am sorry to have to tell you this, but that’s what they tried to do. But I knew better. It got plenty ugly here today with those fucking bitches. I had evidence. Mrs. Malvern”—she was one of Francie’s regulars—“showed me seven—seven!—canceled checks she’d written for having her hair done seven different times without an appointment, without paying the salon directly.”

  Bonnie paused. “But enough about me. I was going to ask you first thing in the morning when you got here, so let me ask you now. How would you feel about getting your beautician’s license? You’re not too old, not really. I’ll pay. I’ve seen that you have a great instinct for doing hair, and with just a bit of formal training, you will be my number one hairdresser. Hell, right now you’ll be my only hairdresser.

  “Please? I know I’ve been ratty to you when I should have been kind.” Bonnie cleared her throat. “I’ll turn over a new leaf, I promise. I even won’t swear so fucking much in the salon.” She added, “I mean, as much.”

  Mrs. Brown appreciated the effort.

  “And your salary will be more, not to mention you keep all your tips,” Bonnie said. She mentioned a number that was more than Mrs. Brown would ever have expected.

  When Mrs. Brown hung up the telephone, she was stunned. What a day this had been! Wait until Mrs. Fox heard the news. She wouldn’t write to her, she’d telephone her as soon as she got home tomorrow. In the meanwhile, she’d call Alice and explain that she wasn’t coming back tonight.

  THE 1970 MERCEDES-BENZ CONVERTIBLE was ruby red. It shone like a Christmas ornament, waxed and polished this afternoon in time for his date tonight.

  Anthony got to East Seventy-fourth Street twenty minutes early. He tipped the doorman twenty dollars so he could stay parked in front of the awning of Rachel’s building.

  If he was going to impress Rachel, he believed it absolutely essential to act as cool as possible, but he was so nervous around her! Whether they were hipster kids or Social Register dowagers, the people in Rachel’s society were the cool and aloof type. Sophisticated people suspicious of enthusiasm and trusting only that, and those, vetted and verified by some indecipherable code.

  Here were Rachel and Mrs. Brown now under the awning.

  “Your coach awaits, ladies,” Anthony said.

  His eyes were sapphire blue, his eyebrows brown as sable, his lips full, his smile, earnest and kind, demanding nothing in return. Must be the navy blazer he is wearing that’s bringing up the blue of his eyes, Rachel thought, trying to think of something, anything, critical to mitigate her attraction to him. And there was the slightest hint of cologne, something wonderful. What was it? It was the smell of cedar after a summer rain.

  It was unsettling to feel love’s gravitational pull, and so soon.

  “Rachel, the trouble with you, dear,” her mother had told her when she was a bit too enamored of her high school French tutor, “is that you’re the sort of girl who falls in love the way puppies slip in the mud. Which is constantly. Slip, and love will make you crazy, dear. Steady yourself. Develop some spine. Get a grip, girl.”

  When it came to men, Rachel got her grip. But she had taken her mother’s caution too much to heart. She became very hard to get, and very few had gotten her. But how lonely she felt nowadays, something that her pride made hard to accept. In her mistaken estimation, only weak people admitted they were lonely.

  “How could I be lonely,” Rachel once asked her boss when he inquired about her plans one weekend. “With all the great books I’ve still to read?”

  Mrs. Brown insisted she sit in the backseat despite protests from both Anthony and Rachel. Especially Rachel, who believed her guest would see the city much better sitting up front next to Anthony.

  “Never mind,” said Mrs. Brown, getting into the backseat of the convertible. In her capacity as the evening’s cupid, she knew what she was doing. Rachel sat in the front seat. Did Mrs. Brown just see Rachel blush? She certainly hoped so.

  There were beige blankets folded perfectly
on both seats.

  “In case you get cold while we’re driving,” Anthony explained.

  Mrs. Brown remembered seeing photographs of the Queen in her carriage, as well as in her limousine. Even in the warmer months, the monarch kept a blanket on her lap and over her knees. She must be susceptible to the cold, Mrs. Brown assumed. We all feel it more easily when we are older. (Fact is, the blanket is so that paparazzi do not capture any unladylike portion of royal leg or thigh.)

  Horns, buses, taxis, adrenaline, bright lights, and a violet-blue September sky, it was a glorious night for a drive in the city. Mrs. Brown caught a glimpse of herself in the rearview mirror. Hardly her own greatest admirer, she liked what she saw. Mrs. Brown thought she’d never looked better than she did tonight.

  Rachel turned around to Mrs. Brown and mouthed the words “our hair.” She, too, had brought an Hermès scarf that had belonged to her grandmother. She tied it over her hair to hold it in place in the convertible. Mrs. Brown did the same.

  Anthony described the route he had planned. He would drive east to the FDR Drive because it offered a terrific view of Manhattan from the vantage point of the East River, and then he’d drive southwest to catch the last of the sunset from the Financial District—did Mrs. Brown want to see where the World Trade Center had stood? She did—and then they would drive up to Times Square, and then up Eighth Avenue through Columbus Circle, and up Central Park West and Frederick Douglass Boulevard to the Great Blue Heron on 125th Street, where they had an 8:30 reservation.

  After dinner, they’d drive down Fifth Avenue. Mrs. Brown had to see the Metropolitan Museum, “lit up at night, it looks like a huge white lion asleep,” Anthony said, and then home by midnight if that wasn’t too late?

  “When we were kids, my father would take us for walks along the East River. We’d look for the seagulls,” Anthony said, steering toward the East River now. “My father told us that New York City seagulls aren’t just flying when they fly, they’re also dancing. Man, did he love New York. When we got a little older, we realized most of the seagulls he was talking about were pigeons. We never asked him if he knew the difference. We didn’t want to hurt his feelings.”