Donna patted her arm. “It’s been wonderful having you, dear. We’re so glad Matthew brought you over to meet us.”
That sounded funny. What was Donna thinking? Ceinwen tried to work out a pithy way to clarify, and came up with, “Matthew’s nice.” Then, “Have you met Anna?”
“Oh yes. She’s lovely.”
Donna didn’t like her either. So that was why they didn’t mind Ceinwen coming to dinner.
Matthew wanted to carry the books as Harry had instructed—“Bring them back anytime, I’ve read them already”—but Ceinwen wanted something to do with her hands and she flat-out refused to hand them over. She clutched the books and tried to figure out the right walking space—arm’s length? Half an arm?
“You’re a hit,” said Matthew. “I haven’t seen Harry that animated in yonks.”
“He’s wonderful,” she said. Harry made her feel normal. “He’s really famous?”
“Invented half the things we’re working on.”
“Funny how brains work,” she said. “He’s a genius, but he couldn’t remember the title of Alien.”
Matthew let out the biggest laugh she’d heard from him. “Of course he remembered. He was taking the piss.” She hadn’t heard that expression before, and she didn’t think she liked it. “Harry was a child prodigy. He could read the front page of the New York Times once and recite it back almost word for word. His parents used to have him do it at parties.”
“Did Anna like him?”
That was a mistake. “Yes, she did.”
She’d already messed up, might as well do it big. “What does she do, is she a mathematician too?”
“Economics.”
Mathematics and economics. Fun couple.
“The two subjects do rather go together.” Damn, she’d said that out loud. She really was drunk. And here was Washington Square Village. “How much further do you have to go?”
“A few blocks that way.” She jerked her head east. She didn’t want to have the Alphabet City safety discussion, especially not with him mad at her.
“How many is a few?”
“Three,” she lied.
“What’s that, near Third? Not Bowery, surely? I’ll walk you there.”
“It’s a little past Third …”
“Ceinwen. Is there a reason you don’t want to tell me where you live? I’m not going to mug you.”
She never got away with anything. “I’m on Avenue C.”
“Avenue C? First of all, that’s quite a bit more than three blocks.”
“It isn’t that far.”
“Second, isn’t it dangerous at this hour?”
“Of course it’s not dangerous.” She drew the books close to her chest and stood tall. “I,” she announced grandly, “am friends with all the derelicts.”
“What does that mean? Do you buy their beer?”
“They say hello to me. Every day.”
“Lovely. And that doesn’t worry you.”
“It does, a little,” she confessed. “Like, I worry one day there’ll be a derelict who doesn’t like me.”
“You’re taking a taxi.”
“I walk home all the time.” Because I can’t afford a taxi. Why do you think I put earrings on hold?
He was already out on Third Street looking down the road. He got a cab almost immediately and opened the door for her. She thanked him for inviting her, he said, “Pleasure” and “I’ll stop by the store again” and then they were pulling away. She shoved the books to the other side of the seat and felt around in her bag for the first cigarette she’d had since leaving Avenue C hours ago. She’d insulted his girlfriend and strongly implied that mathematics was boring; she might as well have smoked all night.
5.
HER STOMACH WAS BURNING AND HER HEAD SWELLED WITH PAIN every time she turned it on the pillow. She threw on her slip and headed for the kitchen, but paused near the door.
“I was snarfing all night. I’m still congested.” Talmadge was blowing his nose, but even from the door he didn’t sound that bad.
“So wash your hands,” Jim said evenly, “and cover your mouth.”
“But you know the guy from the Crisis said it wasn’t safe.”
“He said it wasn’t safe if you had flu or something. Are you trying to tell me you’re feverish?”
“I don’t know, I can’t find the thermometer.”
“You broke the thermometer two weeks ago when you took your temperature to try and get out of going that time. Will you stop?”
They were arguing about going to see Stefan. This was another one of Talmadge’s rituals, and Ceinwen always tried to let it play out without her in the room. She leaned against the wall and waited quietly; it wouldn’t take long.
She had met Stefan only twice, at the store, a tall man with a shock of blond hair and a wide mouth. He had been polite, but he was nothing like Jim and Talmadge, who had started flirting and cracking jokes within minutes of meeting her. “He likes you,” Talmadge apologized, “but Stefan isn’t all that crazy about girls.” He was Talmadge’s oldest friend, the first friend he had made in New York. Talmadge was always vague about exactly what he did when he went out with Stefan in the early days, and she never pressed him. “I don’t ask him either,” said Jim.
But the early days ended when Stefan joined AA, at which point Talmadge started to see less of him. Talmadge wanted to keep drinking, and did. “I loved him, but I’d never have moved in with him then,” said Jim. “Never. Drunk he was doing Marlene imitations and coming on to everything but the swizzle sticks. Hungover he was Baby Jane Hudson.”
Talmadge might have kept on forever had he not fallen asleep one night on the Q train, which wasn’t even his line, and woke at dawn in Brighton Beach, still a bit drunk, his wallet and big topaz ring missing and, he told Ceinwen, “it took me half an hour to figure out why the fuck everyone was speaking Russian.”
He called Stefan and they went to a meeting, but Talmadge didn’t take to the process. “Oh god, sweetie, it was brutal,” he told her. “Brutal. I don’t know what to compare it to. Sunday school. Or Lily telling me about one of her dates.” Stefan argued, but Talmadge objected to everything—the endless talking, the chairs, the lighting, the insufficient number of sufficiently attractive men.
Most of all, he objected to the Higher Power business, which wasn’t something you got to skip. “Everybody insisted, and I finally came up with one,” said Talmadge. “Marlene Dietrich. Especially The Scarlet Empress. I thought that was a great idea. That’s power.” She gathered that despite Talmadge’s sincerity—he really did think Marlene would have been happy to help him out—his bad attitude remained. After about a half-dozen meetings he stopped going, and no amount of Stefan’s pleading could get him to return. Instead of going to AA, he’d call Stefan, and they would go out for macrobiotic food, and Stefan would talk him down.
Bit by bit Stefan made Talmadge go through the steps, eventually getting to all of them, or so Talmadge claimed. “Even Marlene?” she’d asked. “Especially Marlene,” said Talmadge. “She’s very understanding.”
He tried to make amends with Jim. “He wanted to tell me all about how sorry he was for leaving me in the men’s room at Limelight when he met some dockworker, and that he was sorry for all the times he stole my customers,” said Jim. “Be glad you didn’t know him while this was going on. It took days. He kept coming back with stuff he’d blacked out, like the time I left a big tip for a cute bartender, and when I turned my back, he used it to buy another couple of margaritas. I hadn’t even realized how often he screwed me over. And then he went back to Stefan, and Stefan told him that he knew damn good and well he’d done bigger things to me than that, and Talmadge started apologizing to me about those, and I told him to tell Stefan that Marlene understood and so did I.”
Talmadge hadn’t had a drink in three years, but now Stefan was sick. The conversation in the kitchen had paused, and she needed coffee in a bad way, so she walked in.
&n
bsp; “Good morning, starshine,” sang Talmadge.
Jim peered at her. “There’s still some coffee. Talmadge and I are just leaving.”
“I want to hear how everything went!”
“My head hurts,” said Ceinwen. “I guess professors drink a lot.”
“You’ve had NYU students in the store. Do you blame them?” said Jim. He was pouring coffee for her.
“Which professor was drinking?” said Talmadge. “The old one or the one you like?”
“They both were. The old one is sweet. The other one’s okay. Kind of annoying at times.” She tasted the coffee and wrinkled her nose. “Cafe Busted?”
“It was all I could get last night,” said Jim. Cafe Busted was Cafe Bustelo, a lethal Cuban coffee that none of them liked, but which was cheap and effective.
“All right, the annoying one you wore your best dress for. Is he going to call?”
“I didn’t give him my phone number,” said Ceinwen. “He has a girlfriend.”
“Talmadge,” said Jim, “get your jacket. We’re leaving.”
“Ceinwen looks all in,” said Talmadge. “We should get her some breakfast. Something good and greasy.”
“Talmadge,” said Jim. “We’re leaving. So get your fucking jacket.”
When Jim swore, you moved. Talmadge edged toward the kitchen entrance, then stopped.
“You didn’t do anything dumb like ask about the girlfriend, did you?”
“I mentioned her at the end of the evening,” she admitted.
“No, no, you didn’t! Oh, sweetie …”
Jim threw up his hands. “Why shouldn’t she mention his girlfriend? He’s gonna have one whether Ceinwen brings up her up or not. We’re leaving. You know the earlier we make it there the better he is.”
Talmadge went to get his jacket. Jim said, “He’s really pushing it this morning. If you ask me, he should give those meetings another try.”
“He always goes in the end, you know that. This is his way of psyching himself up.” Jim was picking at something stuck to the kitchen counter. “I could come too,” she said, “before work. Maybe he’d like seeing someone different.”
“That’s sweet, honey, but right now I’m not sure he’d even remember you.” Talmadge reappeared, clutching a tissue to show he wasn’t dropping the cold-in-an-AIDS-room issue. Jim kissed her and headed for the door. Talmadge kissed her too and said, “I bet you anything he shows up at the store today. You just watch. Now go get some eggs and bacon.”
She got her eggs and bacon at the tiny coffee shop two blocks away, as well as a Coke that settled her stomach and cleared her head. But Matthew never appeared that day, nor the next. The books, at least, kept her occupied.
At work she kept looking toward the front door whenever she wasn’t helping anyone, until Lily caught her and remarked that it was no wonder her sales were down, since she spent all her time in a trance like this was a fucking ashram. Talmadge was still working the early shift so Ceinwen often went to lunch with Roxanne. Roxanne had been her first friend at the store. She was from Trinidad, a stunningly good-looking girl who was also very good-natured, but she really only wanted to talk about her boyfriend, and also apartments.
About a week after the dinner she went to the benches in front of Courant to smoke her cigarette after lunch, and she watched the people filing in and out. A lot of Asians. Not a lot of women. A lot of men, young and old. None of them Matthew. As she ground out the cigarette she reflected on how embarrassing it would be if he found her there, looking at the building like Edward G. Robinson keeping vigil for Joan Bennett in Scarlet Street, and she resolved not to go back.
Tuesday afternoon she trekked uptown to a silent movie at the Thalia, Greta Garbo and John Gilbert showing off their love affair in Flesh and the Devil. When the ladies room cleared out, she took a stab at a Garbo smolder for the mirror. Only Garbo, she thought, could smolder while she was taking communion. She wished she didn’t always have to go to the movies by herself.
That evening it was her turn to buy coffee, and she had enough money to upgrade from Cafe Busted. She was about to turn into the bodega when she spotted Miriam, carrying a pocketbook and walking down the avenue. Ceinwen paused a moment, then followed.
Now here was behavior Talmadge could justifiably call obsessive, but maybe she’d spot Miriam meeting someone and get an idea of where she was always going. She kept following until Miriam turned into the Key Food near Fourth Street. Ceinwen stood on the sidewalk, dumbfounded. Grocery shopping. How’s that for boring. Served her right for being so nosy. She was about to turn and go back to the bodega, when it occurred to her that while she’d always been afraid of the big, ill-kept, funny-smelling Key Food, the coffee selection might be worth the risk.
She didn’t know how she was going to translate groceries into a conversation about Jean Harlow’s underwear, but she’d at least get a chance to try. And what else did she have to look forward to? More books. Recording more movies off the TV. More cigarettes, more planning her outfits. Tomorrow maybe lunch with Roxanne and a long talk about how Roxanne’s boyfriend never wanted to go out anymore because he was studying for the bar. She pumped on her toes in front of the automatic door for a minute, trying to get the sensor to sense her and thinking, I’m not that short, when a man swept around her and pushed it open. She followed.
How did Miriam find anything here, wondered Ceinwen, as she surveyed the sad-looking produce and the large, malformed root vegetables she’d never seen or even heard of before. She turned to walk down the back, checking each aisle for Miriam. Lots of mothers with fussy kids, a number of tired-looking men, nobody her age. She turned into the coffee aisle and grabbed a can of Melita, then walked back again and checked another aisle. Back in Yazoo City the Winn-Dixie was huge and spotless, and the aisles were so wide you could fit four or five carts across each of them. Everything in this place was narrow and dirty. So was the bodega, but at least it was manageable: you didn’t have to waste all this time trying to figure out where everything was.
There was Miriam, a basket over her arm, running her finger down a row of canned goods. Ceinwen checked the aisle sign to prepare her make-believe shopping mission. Soup. She hadn’t bought canned soup since she’d cooked for Granana, but it wouldn’t kill them to have some around the apartment. She breathed out, which was what Talmadge always told her actors did to warm up, and walked behind Miriam.
“Hey, Miriam.” Miriam didn’t jump. It was a good question as to what would make her jump. She turned and gave the slightly friendlier look she’d been giving for a couple of weeks now, the sides of the mouth almost going up, but not quite.
“Hello,” said Miriam. And went back to the shelf. Ceinwen checked the cans beyond Miriam’s arm.
“Excuse me, I’m trying to reach the”—she scanned—“minestrone.” She hated tomato soups.
“Please,” said Miriam, and stood aside. Then, “I’m trying to pick out a stock. Do you have a favorite?”
Stock? What—wait, that was a cooking word for broth. She’d heard Jim use it.
“I always get what’s cheapest,” said Ceinwen. “My grandmother used to say they were all the same.”
“She’s probably right,” said Miriam. She took two cans off the shelf and put them in the basket, next to a quart of milk, onions, and greens. An old lady shouldn’t have that much on her arm.
“Let me carry that for you,” said Ceinwen.
“Thank you, but I’m fine.”
“No, really,” insisted Ceinwen, putting her hand on the handle, “we’re going the same way, and all I needed was coffee. And soup,” she remembered to add.
Miriam hesitated, then handed it over. “That’s very kind of you.” Ceinwen tossed her coffee and soup in the basket—maybe Jim liked minestrone—and they started toward the checkout line.
“I was talking to my roommate Talmadge the other day.”
They’d reached the line, which wasn’t long, but the lady ahead of them had a full cart.
Miriam turned her head, looking interested for the first time. “Talmadge, did you say? Is he the blond?” Ceinwen nodded. “There were a couple of silent movie stars with that name.”
“Norma and Constance,” she said. Miriam didn’t look impressed. If Ceinwen had brought up Norma and Constance at dinner, Harry would have been floored.
“Yes.” It didn’t matter that Ceinwen had learned of the Talmadge sisters only a week ago from one of Harry’s books—she wasn’t getting nearly enough credit here. “Is your roommate related?”
“I asked.” Last week, but still. “He doesn’t think so. It’s just his middle name. He likes it better than Albert.” They were close enough now for Ceinwen to start unloading the basket. “Anyway, Talmadge and I were wondering if you knew Jean Harlow.” She concentrated on piling Miriam’s groceries so they wouldn’t get mixed up with the other lady’s items. “Because you were telling me about what she wore.”
“Yes, I knew her.”
How could someone say “I knew Jean Harlow,” then, silence, as if that was all the information a normal person would want?
“Did you work with her?”
“In a manner of speaking. I worked on her clothes.”
At last, the motherlode. “You were a costume designer?”
“I was a seamstress. At MGM. No, that’s separate.” The cashier was about to ring Ceinwen’s coffee in with Miriam’s groceries.
She better not ruin things by blurting out a bunch of questions. Better to ask bit by bit. She’d start easy. “Nice woman?”
“Who, Harlow? Why yes, very. She was always playing tramps, but she came from a good family, and she’d been well brought up.”
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