by Lorna Graham
“Yes,” she whispered against the headache that threatened to break her mind in half.
“What about you? I’ve never met anyone so inauthentic. Such a needy little people-pleaser. You spend years slaving for a father who doesn’t respect you, get a job writing things for other people to say, which they ignore. Understandably, too. You moon for weeks over insipid, spineless boys. You fret because that carnivore Vadis is annoyed at you. And you let everyone else—Mark, Giles, even De Fief—walk all over you.”
“What are you talking about? I captured the Stiletto! And then went on national TV and stood up for my colleagues and myself. I spoke up—and paid the price.”
“Only because you’re such a nervous Nellie! So concerned about what other people will think. After you were fired, you should have gone to the tabloids. You should have screamed bloody murder about what they did to you! But you didn’t do any of that. And why? Because you’re weak. Just like that poor mother of yours.”
“Don’t you dare talk about my mother!” Eve was free-falling into the blackness of anger. “And may I remind you that this nervous Nellie is the only prayer you have of your work ever being published? So how’s this for bloody murder?” She took a breath. “I’m moving out.”
Eve fetched her suitcase from the closet and threw it open on the bed. “To think I’ve been worrying about how to scrape together the rent for this place so I could stay with you.” She began stuffing clothes and dog toys into the case. The toys were grimy and belonged nowhere near her silks and wools, but she didn’t care. Highball wove around the floor in little figure eights, whimpering. “To think of all the times you kept me from doing work or getting sleep. To think of all the friends I haven’t been able to have over because of you. Not to mention the dates. How many people think I’m just plain weird because of you!” She threw in some books and her toothbrush. “You’re the strange one, you know. There’s something wrong with you. Something happened, I don’t know what. But I bet it was in 1964.” At this she felt something like a little whip of surprise inside her left temple. She pressed it hard, trying to make the pain go away. “I’m right, aren’t I? And whatever it was ruined you as an artist. And as a man.”
Eve put Highball’s food in a shopping bag and grabbed her coat.
“It’s time for me to live my own life—finally. To do what I want to do. To find an apartment that feels like a home, where I don’t have to tiptoe around some bully. I’ll be okay, you know. I have all the time in the world! But you—”
She found she couldn’t finish the sentence. She stood in the doorway with Highball, breathing hard, waiting for Donald to respond. She took in the apartment: the crown moldings, the tall, narrow windows, the black lacquer bar with its bottle of Kentucky Pride bourbon on top. The room seemed to shimmer in the fading light. She trembled, her eyes watering.
Why wasn’t he saying anything? Didn’t he realize this was it?
Oh, hell, she thought. She stepped into the hall and slammed the door.
Chapter 16
Eve used the pay phone at the laundromat to avoid the cold. She wanted to call Gwendolyn, but she’d gone upstate to spend Christmas with her parents and Eve didn’t have the number. She fumbled with shaking hands for the address book in her purse and flicked through the sparsely filled-in pages.
“Hello?”
“Vadis, great, you’re there.”
“Who is this?”
“It’s Eve.” Vadis didn’t hang up, which was encouraging. “I know we’re not on the best of terms, but I was wondering if I could ask you a favor,” said Eve. Silence. “I’ve had a problem in my apartment. The wiring blew and there’s no light. Or—heat.” More silence. “Could I possibly stay with you for a day or two? Just till I figure out something else.”
There was no sound for several moments save for the whirring of the dryers all around her.
“Gee, I’d love to help you out but I’ve got a problem in my apartment.”
“What’s wrong?” asked Eve.
“They’re fumigating. Yeah. And sanding the floors. And caulking the tile in the bathroom.” There was a pause. “Sorry.”
Someone came into the laundromat, and a shock of cold air hit Eve full in the face. She pulled her coat around her and looked down at Highball, who was licking something on her boot. So it had come to this. What had she been thinking? Donald was right: Everyone will disappoint you. And in the end, we’re all alone.
Eve pressed the phone very close to her mouth. “You know something?” she said. “When I got here, I was so lonely. I envied you so much: You could talk to anybody, you knew everybody. But you know what I think now? I think you’re the lonely one. You just don’t know it yet.” She hung up and rooted in her coin purse for another quarter.
• • •
Quirine lived in a tenement building on the Lower East Side. A narrow staircase led past landings with cracked, frosted-glass windows and metal doors painted green. Her apartment, on the third floor, was small but charming. There was no central lighting in any of the rooms, but floor lamps dotted the corners, throwing discs of light upon the sponged ruby-colored walls.
Victor had moved in, making things a bit tight, but Quirine said since she would soon be taking Victor to Paris to meet her family for the holidays, Eve could have the place to herself for a couple of weeks.
Waking up on the couch the first morning, she sighed and stretched. The house was quiet; Quirine and Victor were out Christmas shopping. Eve thought contentedly of her night’s sleep. It had been deep and full, with no one peeking at her dreams. The kind of sleep possible only in a place without ghosts.
She tensed, reflexively bracing for retaliation. But none came. Her head remained tranquil and completely her own, like her childhood playhouse at the back of the garden. She exhaled with relief, threw on her kimono, and looked around for Highball, who was sprawled contentedly across an orange cashmere pillow on the living room floor.
She found a note on the coffee table, next to the morning papers. “Coffee in kitchen.—Q.” Eve smiled. A roommate who could write for herself—a definite improvement. A roommate who made the coffee—absolute decadence.
Eve poured herself a mug and settled on the couch with the papers, flipping straight to the job and apartment listings. She ran her finger down the pages, but the paucity of work in which she could make use of her interview and writing skills was shocking. The only thing more upsetting was the price of apartments. She should have known this, of course; New Yorkers talked about it all the time. It was just that, until you needed one, you didn’t really pay attention. Finally she gave up and turned to the news pages.
A Daily News headline on page 3 leapt out at her immediately: EXCLUSIVE: STILETTO’S SHARP PAIN. Eve put down the coffee. She hadn’t thought much about the Stiletto since their fateful encounter. Somehow the drama of what had happened with Bliss and her subsequent firing had drowned out everything else. Now her breath came fast, bringing back all the fear and fury of the attack. She scanned the piece, her eyes moving so quickly they tripped over the words.
It turns out walking around in high heels wasn’t the first time the Stiletto (aka Matt Buntwiffel, 32) experienced pain. In a jailhouse meeting with his lawyer and criminal psychologist Dr. Shin Tang of Columbia Presbyterian, a law enforcement source tells the News, Buntwiffel disclosed a life of torment. The child of parents who drank heavily, his only source of love was his twin sister, Mary.…
When they were six, the two were play wrestling in a tree house at their home in Columbia County, New York, when Mary plunged to the ground, fatally breaking her neck. Matt was blamed by his grieving parents and began to blame himself … gradually slid into a life of drugs … their expense pushed him to steal.
Cut to the night Buntwiffel wore heels for the first time (experts say he may have been trying to “replace” Mary by sometimes wearing her clothing and shoes) … and walked up behind a woman on Grand Street who didn’t turn around … giving him an idea
for raising money to feed his drug habit … claims his attacks were “harrowing” and that the guilt is unbearable … now on suicide watch …
Eve inhaled sharply. Highball stirred, left her pillow and nuzzled Eve’s knee. Eve had never thought of the Stiletto having a real name before, let alone a childhood. But of course, everyone had one.
Even Donald, probably.
• • •
In the late afternoon of Christmas Eve, she ventured out for something to eat. On the sidewalk, parents carried presents and bottles of wine to family gatherings, young children skipping several yards in front. Laughter and music and cooking smells filled the streets. Eve ducked into the gourmet market, where she ordered a single serving of turkey, sweet potatoes, and green beans. The total came to more than fifteen dollars and she winced.
She trudged back to the apartment, body clenched against the gathering storm. Her hat blew off her head and danced away but she couldn’t summon the energy to chase it.
Back at Quirine’s, she stood at the counter, making unappetizing track marks through the potatoes with her fork, and thought for the thousandth time of Gin, the simplicity of home, and her easy job.
“Merry Christmas, Dad,” she said when he picked up the phone.
“It’s my girl,” said Gin. “Wish you were here today.”
“I know. Me, too,” said Eve. It was the truth. She had very much wanted to go home. But after De Fief’s letter, she needed to save every dollar. And she was too proud to ask her father to pay for the plane tickets, even though he’d have agreed without question. She was too old for such a thing, surely. So she’d told him she had plans. “What are you doing today?”
“Leaving to pick up Jennifer in about an hour.” Jennifer was Gin’s girlfriend. She was a divorcée, and a realtor. It had taken him years after Penelope’s death to begin dating, and even then he’d only attempted it sporadically, always keeping the women at arm’s length. But over the last few months, he seemed to be growing close to Jennifer, and Eve wondered if this might be because he no longer had his daughter to lean on. “We’re going over to Bryce’s. His new sweetie is supposed to be some cook.”
“That sounds really nice.”
“And you?”
“Going to be with my friends. All my friends,” said Eve. “Well, look at you. That’s terrific. And maybe at Easter we’ll see you back here?”
“Definitely,” she said. “If not sooner.”
She went back to her meal, lost in thought about what Klieg had said about interrupted narratives. Penelope’s story line, the one about the young girl finding herself in New York City, had been cut short, and she’d sunken into a state of distraction and melancholy that lasted until she died. Would Penelope be glad Eve was here, trying to carry on her New York story? Why had she abandoned her own in the first place? Eve wasn’t any closer to the answer than when she’d arrived, and could only speculate that it was something truly awful. Like being fired and lonely and exhausted.
She looked out the window at the couple fixing dinner across the airshaft and wondered whether Donald was as forlorn as she was. Of course, he had no idea it was Christmas. Dates, holidays, rituals—all irrelevant to him now. He was probably, as he’d once explained to her, in the limbo-like state that he was powerless to comprehend or control.
Much like she was.
Well, she wasn’t completely powerless, she thought, putting down her fork. She put the plastic cover back on the turkey, slid it into the fridge, and picked up the phone.
• • •
In the doorway, Klieg put his warm, smooth palms on Eve’s cold cheeks and pressed, smiling down at her. “What bad luck,” he said, referring to her story that she’d had to call off her dinner party because her pipes had frozen. He stepped aside so she could enter. “But as it happens, this works out very well.”
Eve let Highball off her leash. “It’s no trouble that we’re here?”
“Far from it. Günter was supposed to go to Germany to be with his parents, but his flight was canceled due to the weather.” He gestured at the snow blowing sideways outside, before closing the door.
“Weren’t you going as well?” asked Eve, shrugging out of her wrap.
“No. My brother, Henrik, and I are not on the best of terms.” It was clear he didn’t want to discuss it. “So it is just Günter and me this evening, and frankly, we could use the buffer.”
Eve had stopped on the way to buy Klieg a present, a new edition of Dawn Powell’s The Happy Island. “It’s one of my favorites. I hope you’ll like it,” she said, handing it to him.
“It goes on the top of my stack,” said Klieg, and led the way up to the drawing room, where the Christmas tree rose high into the air and glittered with white lights and tasteful silver drops. He poured champagne and after they toasted he smiled wanly at her.
Just then Günter entered. He’d shaved off the tips of his rather long sideburns since Eve had last seen him, and there was a tiny patch of very white skin just in front of each ear. As Eve reached out to shake his hand, she inadvertently swayed forward on her toes. “Excuse me,” she said, trying not to look foolish as she used his chest to brace herself.
“Hello,” he said, tightening his mouth slightly in what might have been a smile or a grimace. He dropped his hand to his blazer pocket, pulled out a rubber ball shaped like a Christmas ornament, and looked questioningly at Eve. When she nodded, he threw it for Highball, who skidded after it, up and down the highly glossed wood floor. They made small talk for a few minutes and watched the dog, Eve trying to assess relations between Klieg and his nephew. There seemed to be some kind of holiday cease-fire but still little warmth.
Marie served dinner in the formal dining room, which looked enchanting, with tapered candles at least two feet high running down the center of the table and the wainscoting draped with evergreen garlands. A roast goose held center stage on the sideboard along with a suckling pig. These were surrounded by silver bowls of jellies, white sausages, macaroni salads, and wire baskets of bread called Christstollen.
Klieg took a seat at the head of the table, Eve and Günter on either side. Klieg bowed his head and delivered a short prayer in German, and Eve was touched by the earnestness of his tone and the humility of his posture. She wondered what he prayed for.
Klieg poured them all big glasses of wine so dark it looked almost black. “How should we translate Dickbauch?” he asked his nephew.
“Fat stomach,” said Günter. Eve looked quizzically back and forth between them and Günter continued. “It is what the superstitious aspire to on the holiday. Tradition states that those who do not eat well on Christmas Eve will be haunted by demons during the night. Hence, enough food for an army, even for just three,” he said, cutting through a crispy piece of goose. “Of course, some suffer demons either way,” he said, under his breath.
Klieg did not seem to have heard the last part. In fact he appeared cheered by his nephew’s relatively lengthy speech. “Ah, yes,” he said, wiping his mouth. “We have many traditions and fables surrounding this day. Legend has it that in Germany on Christmas Eve the rivers turn to wine, the animals speak, mountains split open to reveal precious gems, and church bells can be heard ringing from the bottom of the sea.”
Eve smiled, thinking it sounded as magical as New York had appeared to her when she’d first arrived. And sometimes, despite everything, enchantment still revealed itself slyly through cracks in the everyday.
Klieg took a sip of water and continued, “Unfortunately, only the pure of heart can see these magical happenings.”
Günter nodded silently, just once, then occupied himself with his usual exercise in textbook dining while feeding Highball none too surreptitiously under the table.
Since she took a sip of wine at every awkward silence, by the end of dinner Eve was quite drunk. But afterward, when Klieg urged her, she accepted a glass of brandy by the fire in the drawing room. Highball curled up by the large window, the coolest spot in the room
, and Klieg went to the antique gramophone and put on what sounded like German folk music. He swayed to the lilting accordion melody. “Remember this dance, Günter?” he asked, his eyes twinkling slightly as he looked at his nephew in the flickering light. “You were quite good at it as a child.”
“Only because Louisa was such a good teacher.”
“How did Louisa come to be an expert at German folk dance?” asked Eve.
“It was the enthusiasm of the émigré, I suppose,” said Klieg. “We did not live in Germany very long but while we were there she was determined to become part of things. The dancing she kept up long after we left.”
Günter got up to poke the fire.
“While you are up, why not show Eve how it’s done?” said Klieg.
Eve wanted to crawl under one of the damask pillows on the Regency sofa. Günter might be behaving civilly but this was no reason to push it. Indeed, he said nothing, just busied himself scraping ash with a small, flat shovel.
“Günter. Es ist Weihnachten,” prodded Klieg.
“Yes, Uncle.” Günter straightened and came toward Eve. “It will be my pleasure.” He offered his hand and led her to the open area just in front of the hearth, where he faced her. “Frölicher Kreis,” he said.
“I’m sorry?” Eve couldn’t say she’d ever been a fan of the German language; its rasp seemed almost deliberately unpleasant. But there was something provocative about Günter’s particular elocution. Some months ago, when talking about an ex-boyfriend, Gwendolyn had used the term “sexy ugly,” and Eve thought this was as good a way as any to describe the sound of Günter speaking his native tongue.
“It means ‘the Happy Circle.’ It is supposed to be a dance for eight.” He held up his palms to face her and nodded for her to do the same. He took a step backward and she did, too, so their arms were fully extended. Then, waiting for the beat, they stepped in, and out again. In, then out again. Suddenly, he came around the side, put a stiff arm around her waist, and began to promenade her quickly in a small circle.