by A. J. Finn
A peach was mixed in with my Granny Smiths in this morning’s FreshDirect delivery. I wonder how that happened.
The night we met, at an art-house screening of The 39 Steps, Ed and I compared histories. My mother, I told him, had weaned me on old thrillers and classic noir; as a teenager I preferred the company of Gene Tierney and Jimmy Stewart to that of my classmates. “Can’t decide if that’s sweet or sad,” said Ed, who until that evening had never seen a black-and-white movie. Within two hours, his mouth was on mine.
You mean your mouth was on mine, I imagine him saying.
In the years before Olivia, we’d watch a movie at least once a week—all the vintage suspense flicks from my childhood: Double Indemnity, Gaslight, Saboteur, The Big Clock . . . We lived in monochrome those nights. For me, it was a chance to revisit old friends; for Ed, it was an opportunity to make new ones.
And we’d make lists. The Thin Man franchise, ranked from best (the original) to worst (Song of the Thin Man). Top movies from the bumper crop of 1944. Joseph Cotten’s finest moments.
I can do lists on my own, of course. For instance: best Hitchcock films not made by Hitchcock. Here we go:
Le Boucher, the early Claude Chabrol that Hitch, according to lore, wished he’d directed. Dark Passage, with Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall—a San Francisco valentine, all velveteen with fog, and antecedent to any movie in which a character goes under the knife to disguise himself. Niagara, starring Marilyn Monroe; Charade, starring Audrey Hepburn; Sudden Fear!, starring Joan Crawford’s eyebrows. Wait Until Dark: Hepburn again, a blind woman stranded in her basement apartment. I’d go berserk in a basement apartment.
Now, movies that postdate Hitch: The Vanishing, with its sucker-punch finale. Frantic, Polanski’s ode to the master. Side Effects, which begins as a Big Pharma screed before slithering like an eel into another genre altogether.
Okay.
Popular film misquotes. “Play it again, Sam”: Casablanca, allegedly, except neither Bogie nor Bergman ever said it. “He’s alive”: Frankenstein doesn’t gender his monster; cruelly, it’s just “It’s alive.” “Elementary, my dear Watson” does crop up in the first Holmes film of the talkie era, but appears nowhere in the Conan Doyle canon.
Okay.
What next?
I flip open my laptop, visit the Agora. A message from Mitzi in Manchester; a progress report courtesy of Dimples2016 in Arizona. Nothing of note.
In the front parlor of number 210, the Takeda boy draws his bow across the cello. Farther east, the four Grays flee the rain, charging up their front steps, laughing. Across the park, Alistair Russell fills a glass at the kitchen tap.
8
Late afternoon, and I’m pouring a California pinot noir into a tumbler when the doorbell chimes. I drop my glass.
It explodes, a long tongue of wine licking the white birch. “Fuck,” I shout. (Something I’ve noticed: In the absence of others, I swear more often and more loudly. Ed would be appalled. I’m appalled.)
I’ve just seized a fistful of paper towels when the bell rings again. Who the hell? I think—or have I said it? David left an hour ago for a job in East Harlem—I watched him from the study—and I’m not expecting any deliveries. I stoop, cram the towels against the mess, then march to the door.
Framed within the intercom screen is a tall kid in a slim jacket, hands clasping a small white box. It’s the Russell boy.
I press the Talk button. “Yes?” I call. Less inviting than Hello, more gracious than Who the hell?
“I live across the park,” he says, almost shouting, his voice improbably sweet. “My mom asked me to give you this.” I watch him thrust the box toward the speaker; then, unsure where the camera might be, he slowly pivots, arms orbiting overhead.
“You can just . . .” I begin. Should I ask him to deposit it in the hall? Not very neighborly, I suppose, but I haven’t bathed in two days, and the cat might nip at him.
He’s still on the stoop, box held aloft.
“. . . come in,” I finish, and I tap the buzzer.
I hear the lock unbuckle and move to the door, cautiously, the way Punch approaches unfamiliar people—or used to, back when unfamiliar people visited the house.
A shadow piles up against the frosted glass, dim and slim, like a sapling. I turn the knob.
He’s tall indeed, baby-faced and blue-eyed, with a flap of sandy hair and a faint scar notching one eyebrow, trailing up his forehead. Maybe fifteen years old. He looks like a boy I once knew, once kissed—summer camp in Maine, a quarter century ago. I like him.
“I’m Ethan,” he says.
“Come in,” I repeat.
He enters. “It’s dark in here.”
I flick the switch on the wall.
As I examine him, he examines the room: the paintings, the cat spread along the chaise, the mound of sodden towels melting on the kitchen floor. “What happened?”
“I had an accident,” I say. “I’m Anna. Fox,” I add, in case he goes in for formalities; I’m old enough to be his (young) mother.
We shake hands, then he offers me the box, bright and tight and lashed with ribbon. “For you,” he says shyly.
“Just set that down over there. Can I get you something to drink?”
He moves to the sofa. “Could I have some water?”
“Sure.” I return to the kitchen, clear up the wreckage. “Ice?”
“No, thanks.” I fill a glass, then another, ignoring the bottle of pinot noir on the counter.
The box squats on the coffee table, next to my laptop. I’m still logged in to the Agora, having talked DiscoMickey through an incipient panic attack a little while ago; his thank-you note is writ large across the screen. “Right,” I say, sitting beside Ethan, setting his glass in front of him. I snap the computer shut and reach for the gift. “Let’s see what we’ve got here.”
I tug the ribbon, lift the flap, and from a nest of tissue remove a candle—the kind with blooms and stalks trapped inside like insects in amber. I bring it to my face, making a show of it.
“Lavender,” Ethan volunteers.
“I thought so.” I inhale. “I lav lovender.” Try again. “I love lavender.”
He smiles a bit, one corner of his mouth tipping upward, as though tugged by a string. He’s going to be a handsome man, I realize, in just a few years. That scar—women will love it. Girls might love it already. Or boys.
“My mom asked me to give this to you. Like, days ago.”
“That’s very thoughtful. New neighbors are supposed to give you gifts.”
“One lady came by already,” he says. “She told us that we didn’t need such a big house if we’re such a small family.”
“I bet that was Mrs. Wasserman.”
“Yes.”
“Ignore her.”
“We did.”
Punch has dropped from the chaise onto the floor and approaches us gingerly. Ethan leans forward, lays his hand on the rug, palm upward. The cat pauses, then slithers toward us, sniffing at Ethan’s fingers, licking them. Ethan giggles.
“I love cats’ tongues,” he says, as though confessing.
“So do I.” I sip my water. “They’re covered in little barbs—little needles,” I say, in case he doesn’t know the word barb. I realize I’m not certain how to speak to a teenager; my oldest patients were twelve. “Shall I light the candle?”
Ethan shrugs, smiles. “Sure.”
I find a matchbox in the desk, cherry red, the words the red cat marching across it; I remember dining there with Ed, more than two years ago now. Or three. Chicken tagine, I think, and as I recall, he praised the wine. I wasn’t drinking as much then.
I strike a match, light the wick. “Look at that,” I say as a little claw of flame scratches at the air; the glow blossoms, the blossoms glow. “How lovely.”
There’s a soft silence. Punch figure-eights around Ethan’s legs, then vaults to his lap. Ethan laughs, a bright bark.
“I think he likes you.”
>
“I guess so,” he says, crooking a finger behind the cat’s ear and gently niggling it.
“He doesn’t like most people. Bad temper.”
A low growl, like a quiet motor. Punch is actually purring.
Ethan grins. “Is he an indoor-only cat?”
“He has a cat flap in the kitchen door.” I point to it. “But mostly he stays inside.”
“Good boy,” Ethan murmurs as Punch burrows into his armpit.
“How are you liking your new house?” I ask.
He pauses, kneading the cat’s skull with his knuckles. “I miss the old one,” he says after a moment.
“I bet. Where did you live before?” I already know the answer, of course.
“Boston.”
“What brought you to New York?” I know this one, too.
“My dad got a new job.” A transfer, technically, but I’m hardly going to argue. “My room’s bigger here,” he says, as though the thought has just occurred to him.
“The people who lived there before you did a big renovation.”
“My mom says it was a gut job.”
“Exactly. A gut job. And they combined some of the rooms upstairs.”
“Have you been to my house?” he asks.
“I’ve been a few times. I didn’t know them very well—the Lords. But they had a holiday party every year, so that’s when I’d come over.” It was nearly a year ago, in fact, that I last visited. Ed was there with me. He left two weeks later.
I’ve started to relax. For a moment I think it’s Ethan’s company—he’s soft-spoken and easy; even the cat approves—but then I realize that I’m reverting to analyst mode, to the seesaw give-and-take of Q&A. Curiosity and compassion: the tools of my trade.
And in an instant, for a moment, I’m back there, in my office on East Eighty-Eighth, the small hushed room sunk in dim light, two deep chairs opposite each other, a pond of blue rug between them. The radiator hisses.
The door drifts open, and there in the waiting area is the sofa, the wooden table; the slithering stacks of Highlights and Ranger Rick; the bin brimming with chunks of Lego; the white-noise machine purring in the corner.
And Wesley’s door. Wesley, my business partner, my grad-school mentor, the man who recruited me into private practice. Wesley Brill—Wesley Brilliant, we called him, he of the sloppy hair and mismatched socks, the lightning brain and thunder voice. I see him in his office, slouched in his Eames lounger, long legs arrowed toward the center of the room, a book propped in his lap. The window is open, gasping in the winter air. He’s been smoking. He looks up.
“Hello, Fox,” he says.
“My room is bigger than my old room,” Ethan repeats.
I settle back, fold one leg over the other. It feels almost absurdly posed. I wonder when I last crossed my legs. “Where are you going to school?”
“Home school,” he says. “My mom teaches me.” Before I can respond, he nods at a picture on a side table. “Is that your family?”
“Yes. That’s my husband and my daughter. He’s Ed and she’s Olivia.”
“Are they home?”
“No, they don’t live here. We’re separated.”
“Oh.” He strokes Punch’s back. “How old is she?”
“She’s eight. How old are you?”
“Sixteen. Seventeen in February.”
It’s the sort of thing Olivia would say. He’s older than he looks.
“My daughter was born in February. Valentine’s Day.”
“I’m the twenty-eighth.”
“So close to leap year,” I say.
He nods. “What do you do?”
“I’m a psychologist. I work with children.”
He wrinkles his nose. “Why would children need a psychologist?”
“All sorts of reasons. Some of them have trouble in school, some of them have difficulty at home. Some of them have a tough time moving to a new place.”
He says nothing.
“So I suppose that if you’re homeschooled, you have to meet friends outside of class.”
He sighs. “My dad found a swim league for me to join.”
“How long have you swum?”
“Since I was five.”
“You must be good.”
“I’m okay. My dad says I’m capable.”
I nod.
“I’m pretty good,” he admits modestly. “I teach it.”
“You teach swimming?”
“To people with disabilities. Not, like, physical disabilities,” he adds.
“Developmental disabilities.”
“Yeah. I did that a lot in Boston. I want to do it here, too.”
“How did you start doing that?”
“My friend’s sister has Down syndrome, and she saw the Olympics a couple years ago and wanted to learn to swim. So I taught her and then some other kids from her school. And then I got into that whole . . .”—he fumbles for the word—“scene, I guess.”
“That’s great.”
“I’m not into parties or anything like that.”
“Not your scene.”
“No.” Then he smiles. “Not at all.”
He twists his head, looks at the kitchen. “I can see your house from my room,” he says. “It’s up there.”
I turn. If he can see the house, that means he’s got an easterly view, facing my bedroom. The thought is briefly bothersome—he’s a teenage boy, after all. For the second time I wonder if he might be gay.
And then I see that his eyes have gone glassy.
“Oh . . .” I look to my right, where the tissues should be, where they used to be in my office. Instead there’s a picture frame, Olivia beaming at me, gap-toothed.
“Sorry,” Ethan says.
“No, don’t be sorry,” I tell him. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” He scrubs his eyes.
I wait a moment. He’s a child, I remind myself—tall and broken-voiced, but a child.
“I miss my friends,” he says.
“I bet. Of course.”
“I don’t know anyone here.” A tear tumbles down one cheek. He swipes at it with the heel of his hand.
“Moving is tough. It took me a little while to meet people when I moved here.”
He sniffles loudly. “When did you move?”
“Eight years ago. Or actually nine, now. From Connecticut.”
He sniffles again, brushes his nose with a finger. “That’s not as far away as Boston.”
“No. But moving from anywhere is tough.” I’d like to hug him. I won’t. local recluse fondles neighbor child.
We sit for a moment in silence.
“Can I have some more water?” he asks.
“I’ll get it for you.”
“No, it’s fine.” He begins to stand; Punch pours himself down his leg, pooling beneath the coffee table.
Ethan walks to the kitchen sink. As the faucet runs, I get up and approach the television, haul open the drawer beneath the set.
“Do you like movies?” I call. No answer; I turn to see him standing at the kitchen door, gazing at the park. Beside him, the bottles in the recycling bin glow fluorescent.
After a moment, he faces me. “What?”
“Do you like movies?” I repeat. He nods. “Come take a look. I’ve got a big DVD library. Very big. Too big, my husband says.”
“I thought you were separated,” Ethan mumbles, crossing toward me.
“Well, he’s still my husband.” I inspect the ring on my left hand, twist it. “But you’re right.” I gesture at the open drawer. “If you’d like to borrow anything, you’re welcome to it. Do you have a DVD player?”
“My dad’s got an attachment for his laptop.”
“That’ll work.”
“He might let me borrow it.”
“Let’s hope so.” I’m starting to get a sense of Alistair Russell.
“What sort of movies?” he asks.
“Mostly old ones.”
“Like, black-and-wh
ite?”
“Mostly black-and-white.”
“I’ve never seen a black-and-white movie.”
I make full moons of my eyes. “You’re in for a treat. All the best movies are black-and-white.”
He looks doubtful but peers into the drawer. Nearly two hundred slipcases, Criterion and Kino, Universal’s Hitchcock boxed set, assorted film noir collections, Star Wars (I’m only human). I inspect the spines: Night and the City. Whirlpool. Murder, My Sweet. “Here,” I announce, prying loose a case and handing it to Ethan.
“Night Must Fall,” he reads.
“It’s a good one to start with. Suspenseful but not scary.”
“Thanks.” He clears his throat, coughs. “Sorry,” he says, sipping his water. “I’m allergic to cats.”
I stare at him. “Why didn’t you say so?” I glare at the cat.
“He’s so friendly. I didn’t want to offend him.”
“That’s ridiculous,” I tell him. “In a nice way.”
He smiles. “I’d better go,” he says. He returns to the coffee table, sets his glass on it, bends to address Punch through the glass. “Not because of you, buddy. Good boy.” He straightens up, shakes his hands over his thighs.
“Do you want a lint roller? For the dander?” I’m not even sure I’ve still got one.
“I’m okay.” He looks around. “Can I use your bathroom?”
I point to the red room. “All yours.”
While he’s in there, I check the sideboard mirror. A shower tonight, for sure. Tomorrow at latest.
I return to the sofa and open my laptop. Thanks for your help, DiscoMickey has written. You’re my hero.
I rattle off a quick reply as the toilet flushes. Ethan emerges from the bathroom a moment later, rubbing his palms on his jeans. “All set,” he informs me. He treads to the door, hands stuffed in pockets, a schoolboy shuffle.
I follow him. “Thanks so much for coming by.”
“See you around,” he says, pulling the door open.
No, you won’t, I think. “I’m sure you will,” I say.
9
After Ethan leaves, I watch Laura again. It shouldn’t work: Clifton Webb gorging on the scenery, Vincent Price test-driving a southern accent, the oil-and-vinegar leads. But work it does, and oh, that music. “They sent me the script, not the score,” Hedy Lamarr once griped.