Following Polly

by Karen Bergreen

  “Do you realize that this is the fourth time you’ve been here to get the police to take action against the same individual?”

  “Yes, sir.” She’s looking in her lap.

  “Do you know that every time you file a report, the District Attorney’s Office expends a considerable amount of time and resources following through on your request?”

  “Yes, sir.” She doesn’t look up.

  “And you must know that you always drop the charges?”

  No response.

  “You probably don’t know how difficult this is for the District Attorney’s Office. Do you?”

  No response.

  “And demoralizing, too,” he adds.

  She’s crying. No—she’s not the one crying. She has a baby in her lap.

  I turn my head. There are NO SMOKING signs everywhere and yet the room smells like a bar.

  Police officers keep walking by me. They don’t look at me; they don’t know I’m being questioned for the murder of Polly Dawson. It’s amazing how different they look from each other in spite of their uniforms.

  They all have guns hanging at their waists.

  I hear a familiar voice from across the room. It’s loud enough so I can hear it and atonal enough so I can identify it. The voice belongs to Officer Bristol.

  “Positive ID on the Dawson murder weapon. It’s Teakle’s.”

  Then I hear, “Let’s do it.”

  It’s Kovitz.

  These people believe I killed Polly Dawson? I thought they were giving me a hard time because they thought I was a witness or a weirdo. But they think I did this? It makes no sense, and yet they’re certain. The police always make mistakes on Law & Order. Usually, they figure out where they went wrong during the trial, but occasionally an innocent party ends up in jail.

  Could that happen to me? Jail for the rest of my life? Because of a museum pin, some video footage, and hatred-slash-stalking of a former dorm mate?

  Jail looks pretty crappy on TV.

  I’m not an ambitious person, but I have recently—in the past second or so—developed a new lifelong dream: no prison.

  And I know how to achieve it.

  Bristol and Kovitz are talking, laughing even.

  There’s an EXIT sign across from me. So I do what I do best: I sneak out unnoticed.

  I’m on Canal Street. The precinct house is two blocks from me, but it feels as if I’ve crossed the Iron Curtain. There are no cops out here. The air smells delicious—a mix of coconut from the Chinese bakery behind me and the lamb kebab from the food truck across the street. It’s still snowing, but all I’m wearing is my T-shirt and suede jacket. I think I’m freezing, but I’m grateful for circulating air. I can’t go home. The police are in my house. I can’t go to Mother’s. The police are probably there questioning her. If they checked all that stuff on my credit card, they would most certainly have staked out my family. It’s probably too risky to contact Jean right now. Even if the police have not spoken to her, I don’t want to get her in trouble with her law firm. Just think, if Charlie’s firm ousted him because his father is a suspect in a prostitution ring, who knows what Jean’s firm could do when her best friend is a murder suspect?

  A murder suspect. And probably not just a murder suspect. The murder suspect.

  Me.

  Of course it’s ridiculous and yet I almost think I am guilty. I followed Polly to Otto & LuLu’s. And I have no credible explanation for it.

  Then, of course, there are the museum receipts.

  And the restaurant receipts.

  And Silvercup.

  And the mayor’s party.

  But I threw out my museum pins; I never took matches from the Four Seasons and Lever House. And I didn’t even know Denis G. was doling out hair wax samples. I certainly never touched the murder weapon.

  Someone has been following me.

  I do the only thing I can think of.

  I look up Charlie in the phone book. He’s easy to find. He’s the only Walter Redwin in Manhattan. Walter Redwin. That’s Charlie’s real name, but he’s way more of a Charlie than a Walter.

  Charlie lives in a town-house apartment on East Sixty-fifth Street between Park and Lexington. I take the subway to Hunter College on Sixty-eighth Street. I emerge from the station. The light blinds me, but the sun is devastingly deceptive. It’s freezing, and I’m still wearing only my suede jacket and a filthy T-shirt. I curl my hands up into my jacket sleeves to walk the three blocks. It’s odd; this area is usually packed with college students hanging around outside the buildings and the subway station, but today it’s completely deserted. I pass a church. I look across the street; there is a store that sells only white wicker.

  Suddenly I see about fifty police cars. Have they been tracking my movements underground? No. They’re parked. There’s a police precinct on Sixty-seventh Street, but no one seems to be tailing me. I get to Sixty-fifth Street and I walk in front of Charlie’s building. The residential block is completely isolated except for a small booth. I look across the street and I notice a small house, the size of a phone booth, with a huge POLICE sign on top. There’s a uniformed officer inside reading the New York Post. He doesn’t realize that he’s in the presence of a murder suspect. This could be the big break he has been waiting for; they could finally let him out of that microscopic booth into the big city. But no! He isn’t looking for a promotion at this moment. I know that I can’t take his complacency for granted. If I remain on this block too long, he may notice me and start poking around. On the other hand, if I want to make contact with Charlie, lying in wait at his apartment is probably my best bet.

  I remember that it’s New Year’s Eve. Charlie may be away for the holiday. I’ll stake him out another time. The sun is starting to sink and it’s bringing the temperature along with it. If I want to survive the night, I need to be inside. I run five more blocks downtown and push myself through the by-now-familiar revolving door at Bloomingdale’s, one of Polly’s favorite hangouts. It’s packed with people returning Christmas gifts and people desperate to find something perfect to wear tonight. I’m one of the latter.

  I go to the ladies’ room to freshen up. After I wash my face and run my fingers through my hair, I don’t look so bad. I improve myself at the Clinique counter, where three women in lab coats give me a makeover. I make it clear to them that I’m not going to buy anything. They enjoy my honesty and tell me that I have a lot of potential in the beauty department.

  Hardly flattering, but I’m completely dependent on their kindness. They wash my face with two kinds of soap and then they massage my head a little before dabbing me with toner. Then we get to a base cream, a base powder, and a base mix. A crowd begins to circle me. The women are using my head as a demonstration. No one is looking at me as a dangerous killer. I am, after all, only a learning tool.

  After twenty more minutes of eye artistry and lip work, the Clinique scientists release me. But not before they thrust a mirror in my hands. I must admit, I look pretty marvelous. I bet I’m the best-made-up murder suspect in the greater New York area.

  I head up the escalators to the fourth floor. The shoppers have incredible focus.

  “I need something midnight blue with one percent spandex,” a customer tells a salesgirl as she maintains one eye on the rack. “That’s my look.”

  I too have focus. I go through the stock with tremendous speed. Two salesgirls ask me if they can help.

  “I’ll know it when I see it,” I tell them.

  Of course, I can’t tell them I’m looking for that one item of clothing that lacks a security tag.

  I find something. It’s a deep purple wool dress: a turtleneck that falls just below the knees and is four sizes too big. Not exactly right for a New Year’s Rocking Eve, but at least it’s not too small. I take off my suede jacket and go to the dressing room and I pull the dress over my head. I pull my jeans above my knee. I’m wearing my orthopedically friendly, therefore ugly, shoes and argyle socks; I’ll have to l
ift some tights on the way out. If the regular cops don’t get me, the fashion police are sure to put me in lockup.

  I walk by the salesgirl who had offered me her help. She doesn’t notice that I’m wearing a completely different outfit.

  Or that it’s four sizes too large.

  Even with my makeover I’m invisible.

  I go to the coat section. At first I think my only option is a white ski jacket with rabbit trim; I decline to take it. I may be a thief and a murder suspect, but I don’t wear fur.

  I have an idea. I grab the ski rabbit thing and I go back past my salesgirl into the dressing rooms. I find a Prada purse sitting on top of a sensible navy wool coat. The coat does not have a security tag; it is not for sale. It belongs to a customer. Well, not anymore. I put it over my new outfit. I dig into the Prada purse and learn that Diane Paynter will be going to her Park Avenue apartment sans coat. I memorize the address; I will send her a fruit basket and a check when this whole mess is straightened up.

  I realize that my moral center has taken a turn for the worse. The following was strange, but at least it wasn’t illegal. But I have crossed over from quirky to outlaw. I didn’t report Polly’s death, I escaped police custody, and I have committed two thefts (three if you count the tights I plan to steal on my way out). With the exception of stealing Diane Paynter’s coat, which I agree is deplorable, I really didn’t see a way out of my situation with law enforcement. I have to prove them wrong, and I need to be warmer to do it.

  I leave Bloomingdale’s with the tights. No need to return to Charlie’s street. I have to approach my stakeout parsimoniously if I’m going to avoid the policeman noticing me. I’ll wait elsewhere.

  I hang out at a Starbucks two blocks from Bloomingdale’s. It’s fairly warm and comfortable, and no one seems to care that I’m not buying anything in exchange for this temporary shelter. In fact, there’s a man who has taken over the back of the store; he has a laptop computer on one table, five enormous textbooks on another, and some legal pads on a third. He doesn’t appear to be eating or drinking anything. He gives me a dirty look, so I stop looking at him.

  The barista announces that due to New Year’s Eve, Starbucks will close early tonight: only fifteen more minutes.

  “Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.” The laptop guy says it—not me.

  I leave Starbucks. Diane Paynter’s coat is not warm enough for me to stay outside indefinitely. Any other day, I could probably hop from store to store for twenty-four-hour shelter, but this is New Year’s Eve and everybody seems to be itching to go home. I head over to the Fifty-ninth Street subway station. It seems especially grim tonight, but there’s a Downtown Local 6 train approaching. I get on.

  I like the subway less when I’m not following Polly. When I was with her, there was a certain level of suspense involved. I’d ask myself, Is this the stop? What will we do once we get there? Now there’s no suspense, unless of course you take into account that the fifth precinct is after me. But the decision-making is more or less in my hands, and that makes me uncomfortable.

  I get off at Spring and Broadway. This may be a stupid decision, as I’m only seven blocks from the precinct, but I’m in the heart of SoHo, which will make for more activity. I pass a Victoria’s Secret, where I pity the mannequin displayed in the window wearing nothing but tap pants and a padded bra in this brutally cold weather. I pass a Sephora. They advertise free New Year makeovers. I almost go in until I remember that I had the Clinique makeover a few hours ago. I can’t take my eyes off the window display. The packaging of jars, tubes, and compacts looks like a candy display. I’m salivating over lip gloss. I espy a Dean & DeLuca across the street and confirm that I’m starving.

  Alas, I’m penniless. Not a single sou in Diane Paynter’s coat.

  I go in. My mouth is watering. I haven’t eaten for days and their presentation is inviting. The vegetables are so abundant and bright, they look unreal. The string beans are tumescent. They have six different kinds of oranges and fourteen species of pear. I walk past the vegetables by the prepared foods hoping for a little sample. There’s nothing to taste, but there’s a huge selection of goodies for sale: chicken pot pies, flavored hummus; platters of ribs are being advertised as TODAY’S SPECIAL. I see a jowly, aproned man hawking all sorts of hams and meats. He’s slicing prosciutto with one hand and giving it to customers with another. One is saltier than the other, he tells a customer who by now must be on her tenth slice. He looks at me.

  “Can I help you?” he asks.

  “What is so special about Prosciutto di Parma?” I’m hinting for a free taste.

  “It is all in the breeze,” he tells me, not offering me a slice.

  “The breeze?” I ask, staring at the carcass.

  “The breeze from the Apennine Mountains. It makes for perfect drying conditions of the ham.”

  He still doesn’t offer me anything.

  “May I have a taste?” I ask rather meekly.

  “No.”

  I leave Dean & DeLuca, hungry and outraged.

  I open the door for myself and keep it open for a couple behind me. The woman is holding a bundle of dark orange flowers and the man is holding a very large cake box.

  “Do you think this is enough?” she asks him.

  “Enough? We go to this party every year with food and flowers and every year the food sits in the kitchen unopened. I keep telling you, Kirsten, you don’t bring food to a catered party.”

  “I know, Toby, but I feel so stupid going empty-handed.”

  “It’s a waste of time. Why don’t we give the cake to some homeless person?”

  Like me, I want to say. Coat by Anne Klein. Makeup by Clinique.

  “Let’s just go to the party, and we’ll give them the cake and tell them they can spend all day eating the cake in bed.”

  I’ve been following Kirsten and Toby for several minutes now.

  “I wish we could find a better New Year’s Eve party.” Toby’s voice has a distinct whine that makes me feel almost sorry for Kirsten.

  “It just goes to show that you can have all the food and all the booze in the world, and still throw the worst party ever.”

  “On the bright side, the food is good.”

  “And there’s so much of it.”

  “I think that Justin and Felisha must expect more people than actually show up. And the only people who show up are the losers who didn’t get invited anywhere else or have the self-esteem to stay home on New Year’s Eve.”

  “Toby, you just insulted me.”

  “No. I insulted us. And the Siskins.”

  “That’s okay. More lamb meatballs for me.”

  “And more Peking duck for me.”

  Lamb meatballs! Peking duck! I don’t care how boring the Siskins are. I’m going to their party.

  I follow Toby and Kirsten around for two and a half hours. It turns out that they live in Greenwich, Connecticut, but they wanted to get to Manhattan early enough to park their car and to avoid drunk drivers. So I guess we all have to kill time before going to the Siskins’ for lamb meatballs and Peking duck.

  I enjoy following Toby and Kirsten. They don’t skulk around like Polly did; they announce their destinations to make it easy for me. We just went to a Duane Reade so they could buy gum, and then we go to the Angelika theater to see a Czechoslovakian film. Well, I don’t see it. I don’t have the money. I probably could slip by the ticketers, but I don’t feel like committing another crime, especially within walking distance of Kovitz. Besides, the movie poster brags that it is “a tour de force—albeit a depressing one.” Maybe this isn’t true for Kirsten or Toby, but there is enough depressing tour de force going on for me without having to read subtitles.

  So I wait for them right inside the Angelika. No one bothers me. I pretend to peruse the New York Press while I fantasize about the menu at the Siskins’ New Year’s Eve party. Like Toby and Kirsten, I typically dread the pressure of the New Year’s party—of any party, really. But my hunger is so
powerful that I find that I’m more excited about going to this party than to any other party I have been to in my entire thirty-two years.

  Toby and Kirsten disagree about the movie. He tells her that his seat was too uncomfortable for him to sleep in and she tells him that his inability to appreciate anything other than overly produced Hollywood garbage sickens her. They don’t speak for several blocks. He asks her if she still has the cake. She holds it up for him. She asks if he has the flowers, and he lifts them up, pulls out an orange lily, and gives it to her. She rips off the stem and pockets the flower.

  “So the Siskins don’t find out,” she tells him, and kisses him on the cheek.

  We get to Broome Street and walk about halfway down the block.

  “I always forget the building,” Kirsten says.

  “There it is,” Toby tells her without pointing anyplace in particular.

  “You know, Toby, if you really hate this party so much, we can go back home or go out to a restaurant.”

  Please, Toby. Don’t say yes. I need to eat. Just get me in the door.

  “Kirsten, that is so sweet of you, but we’re almost there already. I think we should show our faces. Let’s at least get a little credit.”

  Toby heads to the door and looks for the Siskins. A buzzer rings and they head upstairs. I decide to wait for the next guest before I poach entry. I’ve been with Toby and Kirsten long enough, and I know that the lamb meatballs are minutes away.

  I wait fifteen minutes or so, and three women walk to the door.

  “Here goes nothing,” one says, and we are buzzed in. We walk up one really long flight of stairs. I hear music and I smell hot food.

  “I’m giving this one hour,” one of them says to the other two.

  A head pops out the door.

  “Hiiiiii,” the head and three guests scream in unison. There’s a lot of simultaneous hugging and coat removal.