Based Upon Availability

by Alix Strauss

  “Maybe we could go away for a long weekend?” she suggested, as his finger inched toward her other breast. “Take the train out to Connecticut or Boston?”

  “You know weekends are impossible.” He leaned over and sucked on her nipple.

  “Okay, how about the theater and dinner, or a jazz club at an after-hours piano bar?”

  “Honey,” he said laughing, “I can’t just come home at three in the morning.”

  “Please. I want us to do something other than stare at four walls.”

  “You know that’s not possible.” He was sitting up now, the floor plan temporarily on hold.

  “Why? You’re not happy with her. You said you don’t love her anymore. Why are you staying with her?”

  “Because…” he stopped, seemed to be searching for something to say that would appease her and sound honest at the same time. “I’m not ready for that kind of change right now.”

  “Does that mean you will be in the future? In a few months? A year?” She was sitting up now, too.

  “You’re projecting,” he said.

  “And you’re avoiding.”

  He smiled at her, impressed she was using his jargon.

  A month ago she began looking at apartments, something that wouldn’t remind Marty of the one he lived in. Her broker, Robin, is a young woman with an eagerness to please and an eye for detail. She’s always waiting for Sheila with a cold bottle of water and a folder filled with glossy photos of the future. Of the twenty dwellings they’ve seen, only three meet Sheila’s requirements: that it’s affordable on her teacher’s salary, and that it doesn’t look like the one she lives in now.

  “The further east you go, the more space you’ll get for your money,” Robin tells her as they stand in a cookie-cutter one bedroom off of First Avenue.

  The floors are overly shellacked and the fire escape has three locks on the large grate that covers the window. She tries to picture Marty walking up four flights of stairs after he’s already walked several long blocks east from his office.

  “The rent isn’t terrible, and there’s a lot you can do with the space,” she says looking at her notes. “I know it’s not much now, but when furnished, it might be very charming.”

  Robin is too honest. Her voice and lack of eye contact betray her, causing Sheila to feel even worse for wasting her time. Truth be told, Sheila has the best deal in town. The building she lives in now is rent-controlled and specifically caters to low-income people: teachers, hospital interns, residents, and graduate students.

  She’s told Robin very little except that she and her doctor boyfriend are looking for something a bit larger than what they live in now. Robin has been an angel, easy to work with, doesn’t ask a lot of questions, and uses the term “we,” which makes Sheila feel less alone. And hopeful, as if she and Marty really could be together.

  “Perhaps it would help to bring your boyfriend with us next time,” Robin suggests as they exit the building. “Maybe a new set of eyes is just the thing we need.”

  On Tuesday a miracle happens. Marty concedes to look at apartments. Sheila has only said she needs a change, and the idea of moving might help her feel unstuck. Then she stroked his ego adding, “You’ve got such a great eye and logical mind that it would be extremely helpful.”

  At 7:50 p.m. the three stand in a living room in a high-rise off of Lexington Avenue in a doorman building that everyone knows Sheila can’t afford. Still, Shelia has talked both Robin and Marty into looking at something seductive. The two bedroom, two bath is truly stunning. And the second room could be a study for Marty. The closets are spacious, the living room massive, the kitchen is newly renovated. She reaches for Marty’s hand as they look out the window that overlooks Park Avenue. The night is crisp and sharp. The city sparkles with possibility.

  “How much is it?” Marty asks Robin.

  “Four thousand per month. Or forty-eight thousand for the year. That includes electrical and there’s a storage unit and garage. Both are extra but available to residents. There’s also a roof deck. All things considered, though it sounds like a lot, it’s actually a very good price.”

  “It certainly is,” he says, dropping Sheila’s hand. He walks over to Robin, who hands him a spec sheet of the building. The two stand inches apart.

  “What’s most interesting and unusual about this apartment is that the owners are willing to sublet it for a year with an option to buy. If, after six months, you decide to purchase the apartment, your maintenance is only two thousand dollars a month. Of course the apartment is 1.8 million, but again, given the location and everything the building has to offer, it’s an amazing deal.”

  Sheila watches Marty take another step closer to the realtor. She watches the way he puts his hand on her shoulder as he tells her how informative she is. How well she does her job. That a few more moments here with both of them, and he’d be ready to take out his checkbook, and perhaps they should leave before he is overcome with a case of “real estate envy.” And though he’s a talented shrink, he might not be able to cure a New Yorker’s need for a larger apartment.

  And then it hits. She wonders for the first time if she’s the only woman he sees. A line of faceless women appear, some his patients, others random women he might meet in the elevator here, or at a bar, or in the park, even at their Starbucks. If her apartment really mirrors his or if that’s just a line he uses.

  Today, Marty is midsentence, something about not being able to see her on Thursday, when Sheila realizes he’s ending their relationship. Though he hasn’t said it, she just knows. She can tell by the stiff way he clenches his fedora hat, by the coat draped over his arm, even in his posture as he leans against the hotel’s bedroom door, his body half in, half out, that he isn’t coming back. No more weekly dinners, no more sex in expensive hotel rooms, no more Marty. What kind of therapist is he to be so easily readable? His intention is so specific and clear to her, a novice, someone who had never been in therapy. He won’t look her in the eyes. He does this sometimes when they’re in bed, their fingers intertwined as she looks at him and he stares out the window.

  It’s in this hotel room, tangled up in what she hopes are clean sheets, that the idea of killing him seeps into her mind. She could offer to make him dinner, a last encounter, a fine food farewell she would tell him.

  She pictures him standing in her hallway mirroring the position he encompassed minutes ago. His coat draped over his arm, fingers gripping his hat, eyes not really looking at her, rather focusing somewhere just above her brows and yet not over her forehead. She bets he does this with his patients when he’s bored. And only after he had eaten, and they had said their good-byes, and she lingered in her hallway waiting for something to happen, giving him one last chance to change his mind, leave his wife, be with her instead, would she reach for the metal vase on her mantel. She pictures him leaning in for one last kiss, or maybe she would ask, say she needed it for closure. Conceding to her request, he would bend forward and then she would grasp the metal piece and smack him in the back of his head. He would stagger, stumble at first, look confused, raise a hand to the sore area, maybe the same hand that held his hat, and when he brought it back down that hand would be bloody. Maybe his eyes would roll back, maybe he’d drop to the floor, first on his knees, then on his face, like in the movies.

  Sheila takes her fantasy one step further, envisioning Marty lying on her floor, blood oozing from his head. She can see herself kneeling down next to him, turning his body over, pulling back the left side of her hair, wrapping it around her ear and bending close to his mouth to see if he’s breathing. If hot air is pushing out from his nostrils. She conjures up a mental image of how surprisingly peaceful he would look: a relaxed calmness on his face, his skin warm and slightly pale.

  She sees herself as a Lucille Ball waiting for her Ethel Mertz to come barreling through the door, trying to move Ricky’s boss, who’s fainted, out of her apartment before Ricky comes home. Sheila can almost hear the Cuban
accent, “Lucy, you got some splaining to do.”

  All of this ridiculousness and the dark thoughts are dismissed as she showers, dresses, and leaves the hotel. She’s being paranoid and silly and rather than kill him, she decides to confront him instead. En route to his office she pictures the padded chairs and matching couch, the layout of his belongings and his waiting room. The plants, the photos, the framed diplomas, even the way his officemates have their work space configured. If she closes her eyes, she can see Marty mapping it out on her that time they were lying naked and both were in love with each other. If she tries hard enough, she can visualize his patients. God knows she’s heard enough about them: faint-looking women who hang on his every word and drink too much, married women who long to leave their husbands and have sex with strangers, others who wished they didn’t have children, men with addiction problems who hate their bosses, don’t love their wives, feel misunderstood by the women in their offices—and on and on. Even the shopa-holic who buys Marty monthly gifts he couldn’t care less about.

  Years of hurt and abandonment, first by her father, then by Leo, and now by Marty have led her to this very moment, standing in the lobby of his office building looking at the large board that lists the names of the firms and the people who reside in the building.

  She will not be left. If need be, she’ll leave him first.

  Marty, who shares his office with three other shrinks, is on the sixteenth floor. She thinks this is funny since their hotel room is also on the sixteenth floor and wonders if Marty does this specifically so he won’t forget where he’s going. She wonders if he lives on the sixteenth floor in the apartment he shares with Faye. Beautiful, wistful Faye, who may or may not know about Marty’s infidelity.

  She gets in the elevator with others and as they ascend higher and higher, Sheila has second thoughts. Rather than confront him, perhaps she should just take the elevator back down. Maybe she’s pushing too hard. Maybe if she acted more distant, that would make him want her. Want her back.

  But it’s too late. The doors open and as she steps onto Marty’s floor, he’s already standing there. A hat is in his hand, a coat draped over his arm, a waiting-to-be-smoked cigarette held in between his index finger and thumb. Caught off guard, she’s as shocked as he appears to be.

  “What are you doing here?” He looks around the deserted hallway, seems momentarily relieved. “Did we have plans? Did something happen?” He takes a step closer. “Are you okay?” It’s not concern that registers in his eyes. It’s panic. “You’re not pregnant are you?”

  She could lie right now. Tell him she is, give him a reason to leave Faye.

  “I’m not. I just wanted to talk. I wanted to know why you seem so distant. Why you’re going to leave me.” The words are hard for her to say, even now, almost twenty-six years since the man dressed in the dark navy suit knocked on her door. She was only nine, home alone, her mother at a weekly support group the air force base provided. He asked where her mother was and after she told him, the two walked to the meeting in silence. She was standing in the room filled with ten or so women, whose eyes were red and tissues were in their hands. They turned around at the interruption, all with the same look of horror on their faces. Her mother was the one to stand up before she was asked or her name called.

  Leaving the air force base was hard, but living with her grandmother was worse. Only after two years of sharing a room with her mother in the very house her mother had grown up in were they able to move out and get a place of their own. Two years later, when her mother remarried, she was sent away to boarding school. Her new father was nothing like the first. He was mean and cranky, didn’t have time to talk to her, or play cards or do the crosswords. He merely shoved some money into her hand when she came home from school, or wrote her checks after college so she could afford to live in Manhattan while searching for a teaching job. Even now, years after her mother has died, she still gets a check for one hundred dollars each month with a note that reads, “Hoping you are well.”

  “How did you know it was over?” Marty asks, his hand on the elevator button, which he presses.

  She watches it light up in yellow and shrugs. “I just did.”

  “I think you went into the wrong line of work. You’d have made a great shrink.”

  He starts to pace.

  “So I’m right?”

  He nods, “I’ve been trying to tell you for weeks. I know you want more but I can’t.” He stops moving and faces her. “I never meant to hurt you.”

  “But you did,” she says. “I guess I’m just a vice? I’ve not made it to compulsion status.”

  “Don’t do this. Please. You’re not either. You were”—he corrects himself quickly—“are very important to me. I just need a break. I need to figure things out.”

  “What’s to figure out? I love you. You feel the same about me. You’re not happy at home…”

  “Christ, people think shrinks know how to handle everything, but we don’t.”

  She stares at him. “I just expected some honesty.”

  “I am being honest. I’m honestly confused. I’m honestly fucked-up. I’m honestly sorry we did this and I’m sure as hell honestly sorry you came to my office. How’s that for honesty?” He’s shouting now. His face red and his teeth clenched. “Jesus, everyone wants a piece of me.”

  And then Marty is on his knees. His tan coat cleaning the dirty floor. For a moment she thinks he’s going to apologize. Maybe beg her to forgive him. She bends down to meet his face, wants to share this moment with him, and notices his face is wet with perspiration. Upon further inspection, Sheila can see all the color has drained out of him.

  “Are you alright?” Panic floods her voice.

  The elevator finally comes. The doors open harshly, the sound filling the small hallway.

  “Go on,” he barks. “Get in.”

  The elevator is empty. She doesn’t want to leave her once lover, who seems crumpled up in a ball on the floor. She reaches for his hand to hold in hers. It’s warm and soft. She stares into his pale, terror-stricken face. His eyes are intense, his lips pressed together. The rustic smell of his aftershave engulfs her. Even in this position, Marty is handsome. She could almost love him all over again.

  She turns and moves toward the elevator, hoping to catch the closing doors, hoping to bring Marty with her. Drag him in and get him the help he clearly needs. But he refuses to budge.

  “Just go. I’m fine. I’ll be fine.”

  Her lower body is in the elevator, her upper half leaning far forward, still gripping him. Her hand is wet with sweat and it slips as she tries to hold on. Slips more as he pulls away.

  The elevator starts making a horrible ringing sound and the doors are opening and closing on her arm, which is still extended, grasping Marty’s hand as if he’s the most important thing. They stay like this, their fingers intertwined, until she feels him slip away. Until the elevator swallows her whole.

  Chapter 13

  Robin

  Suite 1512

  It’s twoish on Friday as I wait for my sister’s plane to arrive. LaGuardia is unusually, eerily calm. The morning traffic, the people racing to catch their flights, the red-eye victims have all scattered. Only a handful of layover people and anal travelers who adhered to the two-hour early arrival rule remain.

  And me.

  Fifteen minutes later a clutch of people have formed a small circle and we wait for flight number 8756 to land safely. Within minutes, a fistful of first-class passengers make their way down the long corridor looking like returnees from an alien abduction. I would have bet Vicki had finagled her way into a first-class seat, but nothing. After a momentary break in the swarm, the next series of faces emerge. I think perhaps she’s taken a later flight and forgotten to call. A number of scenarios play in my mind until I catch her, see her from afar. Her hair is surprisingly long and colored a rich brown, a new shade for her. She’s dressed in tan pants, a sleeveless black mock turtleneck that makes her sh
oulders look lean and her breasts perky, and a matching jacket, which is folded over her arm. She’s carrying a Coach briefcase and looks like the political lawyer she is rather than a person who’s here to celebrate our cousin’s shower. A weekend in New York, her hometown that she never visits and rarely calls home. The town she’s from now is Washington, DC.

  Our older brother fled to Israel. My parents sent Michael there for his twentieth birthday. Six weeks later he returned as Scholmo, an orthodox Jew. He married a virgin just like the Bible commanded, and the two reside in the Promised Land on a kibbutz. They have several children and seldom see us.

  Last time I saw Vicki was two years ago. I’d just turned twenty-four. It was a brutal time to be in DC in terms of the weather and because it was an election year. She was working for a senator, hating her job, and depressed with life in general. I thought spending a few days together might give us a chance to connect. I took the Acela Express and when I got to the station waited for twenty minutes before phoning.

  “Not to worry. The hotel’s just a few blocks away,” she said, still in her office. “Take a cab there and I’ll leave work early and meet you. We’ll have dinner someplace nice.”

  “I thought I was staying with you?”

  “Robin, you’re the only one I know who’d be unappreciative they were staying in one of the best hotels in DC. If it’s about the money”—her voice became softer—“I’m not paying for it, so don’t worry.”

  Then I heard someone call for her. It sounded distant and planned. I could visualize my sister cuing a co-worker to beckon her into a nonexistent meeting. “I gotta go. See you tonight.”

  I checked into the Four Seasons, a nice man escorted me to the room that my sister had reserved. A fruit basket greeted me when I entered, the note, scribbled in someone else’s handwriting, read: “Welcome to Washington. See you at 6:30 for drinks in the lounge. V.” The clock on the table said noon. I remember this as I wait for her now when I could be showing prospective buyers apartments in the better part of Manhattan. I could be telling a lovely, recently married couple that the sun gleams brightly in the morning. That the co-op board is flexible and both a washer/dryer, not to mention a half bathroom, are allowed. Or reconnecting with the schoolteacher and therapist who looked at the two bedroom last week, and gently suggest they reconsider buying, that they would be a board’s dream team.