I wanted to bring the conversation back to him. “So who’s directing?” I asked. “Some young turk?”
But he didn’t answer. “How did your friend . . . ?”
“She went off an apartment terrace. Twenty-three stories up. Or was it twenty-five? I forget.”
He took in a sharp breath and covered his eyes. “Jesus, Swede. Did you see her . . . afterwards?”
“No, no. I didn’t.” The smell of frying meat drifted across the little booth. I swallowed a couple of times before going on. “The problem is, Tony . . . it just shouldn’t have been Barbara. Anyone else, but not her. Do you know what I mean?”
“No, I’m not sure I do.”
“I mean, not her. I just can’t stand that it was her.” My voice broke suddenly, and he sat there, letting me cry as long as I needed to.
Tony had long ago finished his second vodka and Coke. It was time for him to leave. He wrote a telephone number on a slip of note paper and handed it to me. “That’s where I’ll be in Connecticut. I’m there for you. If you need me, just call.”
We walked outside and stood together in the warm afternoon sun.
“Life is sweet,” he said, “but it sucks. Right, sweetheart?”
I had to laugh at that.
He squeezed my hand, turned, and headed uptown. I watched him go, then began to walk east.
***
The moment I was inside the apartment door I kicked off my shoes. Bushy walked by me casually—a sure sign I’d interrupted some mischief. I greeted him warmly just the same.
Ah, Tony. He had turned out—as mercurial as he was—to be a sort of rock for me, a real anchor in life. When he was as understanding and lovely to me as he had been today, I tended to lose sight of why I’d broken off the sexual end of our relationship. As I took off the rest of my things, I thought of all the men with whom I’d once been in love, or what passes for it, and how sooner or later they’d all become just amiable luncheon or cocktail companions. What does that say about me? I wondered. “Oh, well,” I leaned down and confided to the cat, “you know they’re in love if they take you to dinner.” It sounded like the hit song from a very bad musical.
Perhaps when all is said and done, I really am a cockeyed optimist, speaking of musicals. It was as though I were determined to extract something light and good out of what was decidedly a downbeat day. I felt the aching need for a few laughs and some honest girl talk with a friend, so, standing in my stockinged feet, I picked up the phone and started to dial—incredibly, insanely—Barbara Roman’s number. I slammed down the receiver before reaching the last digit.
Oh, Lord. The sense of loss was as fresh as ever, the stunning, uncomprehending grief, the just plain missing her.
It was at that moment, sitting on the sofa with my head in my hands, that I thought of Tim Roman’s ridiculously bizarre gift to me. I hurried to the closet and retrieved the cardboard box. As I sat examining the things inside it, Bushy leaped up for a cursory inspection, then just as quickly decided he wasn’t interested. Barbara might well have appreciated the absurdity of the memento of her that Tim had passed on to me—the wild inappropriateness of it—or she might simply have been appalled at his lack of taste and sensitivity.
I unfolded the jogging outfit. It was a satiny one-piece affair that zipped up the front, neither old nor new. It had been laundered a few times, clearly, but had none of the well-worn softness of the gardening overalls and smocks that Barbara wore so frequently. There were no pulled threads, no fraying at the cuffs, no discoloration from sweat. I ran my hand over the fabric again and again, almost as if I might bring forth some spark of energy.
Then I took one of the shoes out of the box. The label on the back read ADDIDAS. A blue lady’s sneaker with sky-blue laces. I turned it over in my hand. That was odd: The tread on the bottom of the shoe was not worn down at all. Again, not a new item, but obviously not a much-used one, either.
I pulled out the other shoe, delaying for just a few seconds my inspection of its heel and sole, making a little routine of the suspense. Same deal.
I sat there thinking, the things still in my lap. How do you go out running every morning for months and not wear down your shoes? How do you manage to keep the clothes you jog in looking almost pristine? You don’t. It would be understandable if the suit and shoes were new and there simply hadn’t been time enough to break them in thoroughly. But these items weren’t new. . . . Well, they were and they weren’t.
I got up and went over to the window, the pace of my thoughts as quick and ragged as the steps of the people on the five o’clock street below.
***
By the time I found myself standing at the sink, washing spinach leaves for supper, the sundry speculations I’d been turning over in my head had cohered into absolute certainties. As far as I was concerned, there were no more could-be’s or maybe’s—I had settled on the cold, hard facts.
Those “facts” were these: Barbara Roman left the house at about six each morning dressed for an invigorating run, and she returned home a few hours later. And every day that she put those clothes on and walked out the door, she was lying to her husband.
Why would she have told Tim that she was out jogging, when she was not? Answer: Barbara had had something to hide. The obvious was obvious. Facts were facts.
So Barbara had had a lover. Why did that so astonish and shock me? I didn’t think of myself as a prude, but perhaps the farm girl in me was coming to the surface here, where Barbara was concerned. Loads of married women have affairs—not to mention married men. Why was the thought of Barbara doing what millions of others had done so unacceptable? Had I not only admired and loved her but enshrined her? Granted her sainthood? Yes, of course I had. The fact of the matter was that I had put her up on all kinds of absurd pedestals. Maybe we all had idealized her, paying so much homage to her specialness that we wouldn’t allow her to be normal. Except that she was special; she was different; we hadn’t been wrong.
A seamy image came to me then: Barbara in the arms of some well-built young man in a dumpy hotel. Or maybe it wasn’t like that. Maybe he was a debonair millionaire with an East Side townhouse. Sure . . . Barbara trotting delicately down the street in her little pink outfit and shoes, turning the corner onto Second Avenue, jumping into a waiting taxi, and speeding to his place each morning. Him watching for the car from a high window, and then the two of them spending the early-morning hours making love in his spare white bedroom.
This sort of thing may have been the stuff of dreams for some middle-aged women, but I was neither titillated nor amused by it. I was, however, angry. I recognized suddenly that I was angry as hell at Barbara. I couldn’t think of a single thing about my life that I wouldn’t gladly have told her. But she, on the other hand, had kept this enormous secret from me. Enormous and vital secret, obviously. She’d jumped to her death because of him, hadn’t she? He—whoever he was—had left her, and so she’d killed herself. No. Impossible. I was in Soap Opera Land. Nobody in this day and age commits suicide over something like that.
Perhaps the lover was dead, then? And she’d acted out of grief for him?
Or perhaps the fact of her lover was the least of her secrets. He was only the tip of an iceberg. Barbara had another life altogether—one hidden from family and friends—and the lover was only one part of it. And something in that second life had driven her to destroy herself. Was the soap opera taking over again? Was any of this possible?
One thing I wasn’t making up: Barbara was dead. So, double life or no, who was going to benefit from my finding out why she jumped off that terrace? Why should I bother to find out why?
***
Because.
I had finished my instant coffee, and after washing up the dinner things I went after a brandy. Sitting there, feeling all alone in the dark city, I knew I was committed to getting answ
ers to all the whys about Barbara’s death. Even if I had to repress the distinctly uncomfortable feeling that I was invading her privacy, trampling on her rights, maybe even defiling the grave of a saint. I had to know, it was as simple as that, even if I never told another soul.
Because, I thought, as I checked to make sure that the front door was bolted. And as I felt a few tears stinging behind my eyelids, even I realized what a petulant, childish kind of nonanswer that was.
I switched off the lamp. Making my way toward the bedroom in the dark, I heard the cats, who’d been roosting god knows where, fall into step behind me.
I had never been a soap opera fan. I was as grounded in reality as the next actress. And I knew with total certainty that I had not merely imagined that Barbara Roman loved and trusted me.
I drifted off to sleep knowing that I had my work cut out for me, and thinking also about Basillio’s earlier flippancy. Life is sweet, but it sucks. And vice versa.
Because!
Chapter 5
I rose very early, with the sky just beginning to lighten over the top of the high-rise across the way. The cats of course thought nothing of the earliness of the hour—as soon as my feet had hit the floor, they wanted to be fed.
There was still some of Pancho’s favorite snack in the refrigerator—saffron rice—so I mixed it liberally with his regular food and watched him feast—even though I was on a tight schedule.
It was always a joy to watch Pancho in one of his rare moments of repose. As for the saffron rice, I admit that it’s a very strange taste for a cat. Since I had obtained him from the ASPCA, which was located on the fringes of Spanish Harlem, I always thought of it as meaning that Pancho had spent his childhood with a Hispanic family. Hence the liking for saffron rice. But saffron is an Indian seasoning for the most part, so I never could be sure. A scientific inquiry would have demanded that I give him rice without saffron and then a saffron-flavored food other than rice, to see which element in saffron rice he craved. But I never experimented.
While Bushy ate leisurely, Pancho ate warily. He was tense. His long gray body, with the large ugly scar on the right flank from some ancient wound, was poised to escape if his nonexistent enemies came too close. His strange yellow eyes flicked back and forth. His rust-colored whiskers twitched ever so slightly.
“Good, isn’t it, Pancho? You must admit I take care of you,” I told him. Did I detect a slight movement of what was left of his tail in response? Maybe. Poor Pancho. The loss of his tail had probably happened when he was a small kitten. He had obviously led a very difficult and a very dangerous life.
“No one will ever hurt you here, Pancho,” I assured him for the millionth time.
Time was fleeting. I had to dress. But something about Pancho that morning kept me glued there. Something odd.
I studied him as he ate. And then it dawned on me: He had grown gaunt again. Once again his ribs had begun to show. Just like when I had brought him home from the ASPCA.
“Your ribs are sticking out again, Pancho!” I exclaimed. I was just about to stroke him when I caught myself, realizing it would be cruel to interrupt his feast.
In the first three months of living with me, after I had rescued him from the gas chamber, Pancho ate voraciously. I mean he ate anything and everything—like a feral cat.
But as time passed, I realized that something was very wrong. No matter how much he ate, he didn’t gain any weight. He stayed gaunt. His ribs continued to stick out. So when I took him to the vet for some shots, I mentioned it. They did some blood tests on Pancho. Lo and behold, Pancho was diagnosed as having a pancreatic insufficiency. His pancreas didn’t produce a sufficient amount of digestive enzymes. So for the longest time I had to give him supplements, and finally the gauntness vanished.
“Pancho,” I informed him sadly, “sooner or later you’re going to have to visit the vet again. Sorry.”
He didn’t appear concerned. And I had other work to do.
By five thirty I was out of the apartment and flagging down a cab. I took it up to the corner of Sixty-Seventh Street and First Avenue.
Manhattan is most strange at that time of morning. All the hustle and energy has gone underground, all the threats are hidden. Everything is kind of clamped down.
I had pulled my long hair back into a basic spinster’s bun. I was wearing sneakers, a pair of brown slacks, and a tan turtleneck. No jewelry, no scarves, no handbag. The lack of womanly hindrances gave me the desired aura of sleek, pared-down efficiency—a woman geared up for the task at hand.
But even with the tough lady-detective image put to one side, my purpose was indeed focused: to find out, somehow, where Barbara Roman had gone and what she had done after leaving her apartment building each morning around six dressed in a jogging outfit. For a moment, standing there alone on the deserted street corner, I felt not just peculiar but utterly silly . . . and not a little guilty. I knew that I was prying into things, in the wake of Barbara’s death, that she, in life, had chosen to keep secret. But the mind of Alice Nestleton, girl detective, was made up. Okay, I couldn’t bring my friend back to life, but I was going to discover the truth behind her suicide.
I patted the back pocket of my corduroy slacks. The snapshot was there, a Polaroid one of the East Village neighbors had taken of the five of us in the first days of the herb garden. In the picture, four of us—Ava, Sylvia, Renee, and I—all held up garden implements so that they formed a kind of wreath over Barbara’s head. She beamed out at the camera, looking like a happy, be-laureled child. Yes, I think that was Barbara’s special grace: to seem both innocent and very wise, sophisticated yet guileless.
The Romans had lived in the hulking old redbrick building just off First Avenue. It had been their home for most of their marriage. I waited on the corner for a few more minutes, my eye on the red building.
At ten past six a dark-skinned man emerged from one of the side entrances, pulling an immense plastic trash bag behind him. He lugged it to the curb and left it there. He went back into the building and a few minutes later appeared with another bag, repeating the activity again and again until there were seven parcels lined up curbside for the sanitation men to pick up. He stopped to rest, lighting a cigarette.
I walked swiftly over to him. “Excuse me.”
He looked up, startled, his eyes boring out of a sweat-stained face. The man was swarthy and much shorter than I.
“Excuse me,” I repeated. “I was wondering if you knew Barbara Roman? She was a tenant in your building.”
“Yeah,” he answered. “Yeah, I knew Mrs. Roman.” He spoke with a slight Hispanic accent. “Some nice lady,” he added. Then the inevitable cynical New York shadow crept across his face. “What do you want?”
“I was a good friend of hers,” I said quickly, struggling for a coherent story. The man’s obvious regard and affection for Barbara had thrown me. “We’re putting together a little memorial service for her, and I wanted to talk to people in the neighborhood who knew her. You know, how she spent the day, where she shopped, all that sort of thing.”
He wasn’t following my confused cover story, and with good reason—it made little sense. So I went on talking: “She jogged every morning, didn’t she?”
“Jogged?”
“Yes, running, you know.”
“Oh, sure. I see her . . . saw her . . . every morning. About this time.”
“And which direction did she run in?”
“Well, you couldn’t really say she ‘ran.’ She would walk to Second Avenue and then go uptown. I figure she was heading for the park and would do her running there. I used to tell her, ‘Be careful, be careful. You don’t know what kind of crazy people in that park.’ But every day, she went. Nothing ever happened, I guess.”
He finished his cigarette and flicked the butt out onto the street.
“
Lady,” he said, not meeting my eyes, “let me ask you one thing.”
“Yes?”
“You know Mrs. Roman well, right?”
I nodded.
“Did she really . . . jump? Off a building?” He asked it slyly, as if he were curious but also afraid, ashamed.
“Yes, she did,” I said. “And thank you.”
I walked to Second Avenue and turned north. Now what?
I decided to take the east side of the avenue first. Not many stores were open at this hour—a few luncheonettes, the dry cleaner, the newsstand, the all-night Korean green market.
I walked into each of the stores, showed the snapshot of Barbara, supposedly identifying her as a missing person, and asked if the proprietor knew her or could recall when he’d last seen her. I was trying to see the pattern of her neighborhood routine, trace her steps. I stopped in at every open establishment up to Seventy-Second Street, then crossed over to work the west side of the avenue. This was a long shot and really tedious work—especially since I’d have to come back at another time to interview everyone whose shop was not yet open—but it was the only way I could think of to proceed at six o’clock in the morning.
In a place called the Healthy Bagel—a little breakfast restaurant with a counter in the back and a few spindly tables near a front window that could have used a good washing—I found my first reward. Perhaps the long shot was going to pay off after all.
The Asian man behind the counter actually took the photograph out of my hands, saying, “I was wondering where she been.”
“Then you’ve seen her here?”
“One egg over,” was his answer. “Bagel toasted no butter schmeer scallion cream cheese on the side black coffee. Every day.”
Every day. He knew her order by heart.
“Hope she turns up okay,” he added. He had no reason to question my story that she was a “missing person.”
I took the cup of coffee I’d ordered and went to one of the tables in the front. So, obviously, my scenario had to be at least half right. No cab waiting to whisk her off to the rich guy’s townhouse, but she hadn’t been out jogging, either. No one about to take a two-hour run would breakfast on food like that. Maybe she would have a leisurely breakfast and then walk to the park, where he was waiting for her?
Cat by Any Other Name (9781101597729) Page 3