by Warren Adler
"Long forgotten, Mr. Stern," Jenny said, sipping her coffee. He sipped his and watched her.
"I appreciate that, Mrs. Burns."
She paused for a moment and grinned. "I was just about to say, 'Call me Jenny,' then I thought, You know, this formality between neighbors is nice and wonderfully old-fashioned. I'd like your opinion on that, Mr. Stern."
"I like it, too," he said. "I feel very easy about it, even though you share the most important secret of my life. Yes, I like that." He put down his cup and cleared his throat. "Now about that money you lent me."
She was tempted to tell him about the troubles generated by that money, but she held off.
"I hadn't expected things to happen so fast, Mr. Stern."
"Well, they did," he said. "You know, Mrs. Burns, real estate people are true gamblers. I had planned to use part of the money for paying my back rent. I really did. But then I said, What do I do then? Then this building came on the block. Well, not exactly. I simply made the owner an offer he couldn't resist. Everybody who owns property in New York wants to sell. I used it as a good faith deposit on the purchase of this very building. A real flier, but the opportunity was there and I took the chance."
"Are you our new landlord?"
"Not quite," he said. "You see, I flipped the contract."
She had no idea what he was talking about, and apparently her expression showed it.
"That's when you find a buyer who is willing to pay more for the building than your contract calls for," he explained.
"And you did?"
"Yes," he said proudly, studying her reaction. She could sense his pride and felt happy for him. "We won't settle for another month, but I expect to make a nice profit."
"How absolutely wonderful."
"And," he said, pausing, focusing on her face as if ready to take a snapshot of her reaction, "I'm going to give you double your investment. That's nearly forty thousand dollars. You'll get a check when we settle."
"My God, Mr. Stern. Have you lost your mind?"
"Maybe so, Mrs. Burns, but you helped me find my life again. Mrs. Stern has stopped working. Doctor has prescribed lots of bed rest, and he's preparing her for a bypass in a few months. After that we're going to move to a place in the suburbs, let Teddy go to a public school."
"Sounds great, but really, you don't have to—"
"Yes, I do. That's the point. I do. It's very important to me. They say virtue is its own reward, but charity and kindness have a market value. That I now can understand."
"But—"
"No, I'm not finished. There's Teddy."
"Teddy!" Oh, my God, Jenny thought. He didn't tell his father about that!
"I now can resume my normal tolerance for gays and, of course, all other minorities. It may seem hypocritical and selfish, but I was looking forward to grandchildren. Also, I no longer mind one whit about Teddy's friendship with the folks downstairs."
She remained silent, waiting with some trepidation for the punch line.
"I think he's showing a healthy interest in females. It sounds bizarre, I know, but I've found a slew of girlie magazines under his bed, and he's told me he has a girlfriend, although I haven't seen her yet. Now I've got other worries, but I think I can deal with them."
"That's certainly a bonus for you, Mr. Stern." She was relieved that he hadn't thanked her for stimulating Teddy's knowledge of his own sexuality.
He finished his coffee, stood up, and put out his hand. "I've always been a kind of a hustler, Mrs. Burns," Mr. Stern said. "And I probably will continue to be. But, you know, it makes me feel good to see that you've sort of helped me stake out a piece of myself that can still be called relatively pure. You understand what I'm saying?"
"I think so," Jenny responded, suddenly remembering another of her mother's trite little homilies: Do good and it will come back tenfold.
Mr. Stern started toward the door, paused, and turned. "If that Senator Springer recovers and gets reelected, he'll owe you a debt of gratitude as well, Mrs. Burns."
She started to respond, but he waved her silent with the palm of his hand. His knowledge surprised her.
"I've known about it for quite a while. Nearly sold the information to the tabloids."
"You wouldn't."
"More like I couldn't, Mrs. Burns. Shows that somewhere deep inside there was some good stuff."
"That's it, Mr. Stern. There's good stuff in all of us."
"You're a regular Joan of Arc, Mrs. Burns."
"Not by choice, Mr. Stern. Not by choice."
"She didn't have one, either," he said cryptically.
When he left, Jenny tried to absorb all the events of the morning. Myrna had given her a sable coat that she had no use for, and Mr. Stern was promising to return double the value of her loan. It was all so confusing. And this business with Larry. Well, at least she hadn't become like him, paranoid, manipulative, distrusting, and defensive. Could such attitudes be reversed? Could Larry's faith in people be restored? Certainly she could not go through life with a man who thought of human beings as the enemy? She needed to find answers to these questions, to think about them long and hard.
Taking a leisurely hot bath seemed the only obvious course of action. She needed to reflect, to sort things out. She sprinkled her favorite bubble bath into the tub, then ran the water, adjusting the temperature to her satisfaction. When things got overly complicated, she could always look forward to a lovely warm soak.
While the water ran she decided she needed to hear her mother's voice. In a few short months her conversations with her mother had taken on a purely informational aspect, as if she were getting news from a foreign correspondent covering another planet. This conversation was no exception, but it was pleasant and reassuring to hear her mother's voice and listen to her comforting platitudes.
As usual, her mother ran down the happenings dealing with her immediate family, her father, brother, his wife, their children, the neighbors, and the usual hometown catalog of vital statistics. But the reportage was taking on more and more of an air of sentimental nostalgia, of a past life. She felt far removed from events and people being discussed.
"No housewife blues, Jenny?"
"None, Mom."
That phase, Jenny decided, was long over. Indeed, she found herself listening as she might listen to music. It was pleasant, familiar, comfortable, but, for her, uninvolving. In a few months she seemed to have made a very long journey to that place where the concept of home had become more of a comfortable and sentimental myth than reality.
"I love you, Mom," she said when the conversation had run its course. Of course, that. Always that. "And my love to Dad and everyone."
"And I love you, Jenny."
Comforted, Jenny removed her clothes and slipped slowly into the tub. It took her some time to get used to the water temperature. Steam clouds floated upward lazily. Immersed completely, she felt her buttocks and lower back slide over the warm porcelain.
Yet something in the feel of the surface didn't seem quite right. There was a kind of debris that interfered with the smoothness of it. In a number of places where her flesh touched the porcelain she felt an odd grating sensation, like pinpricks. Searching for the source of the discomfort, she felt with her hand along the surface. With her fingers, she grasped what seemed like a piece of wire and brought it up to the surface, where she inspected it.
At first she thought it was a curl of pubic hair, but on closer study it had a coarser feel, like a snip of thin wire. She reached down again, slid her hand along the surface until she found another, then another. These, too, had the same wiry feel as the others. It didn't surprise her that she hadn't noticed them when the tub was empty. They were thin strands, coarse but thinner than human hair.
The steam inhibited a more thorough inspection of the objects. She remembered that yesterday morning she had heard Larry run himself a bath. It had been out of character for him. He hated baths. Then, she remembered, she had heard him run the shower and
had assumed that he had rejected the bath and opted for his usual mode of cleansing.
But that would not have accounted for the little wiry strands of hair. What could they be? She rose from the bathtub and held the pieces up to the light above the medicine chest, rolling them between her thumb and forefinger. They had a kind of rusty color, and they had the feel of hair, but not really. They could not possibly belong to Larry. Rust, slightly orange under the light. If not Larry's, then whose? And yet they seemed vaguely familiar.
"Oh, my God!" she screamed.
She felt her insides congeal and a terrible nausea begin deep inside of her. Then she bent over the sink and vomited.
14
WHEN she got out of bed Monday morning, Larry had already left. She had heard him come in late Sunday night and, feigning sleep, managed to avoid any verbal or, for that matter, physical contact with him. Although she hadn't slept much, she had spent the night reviewing her present situation and reaching conclusions that would govern the near future. If everything in life was a learning experience, which was what she truly believed, then she was certainly eligible for a degree in higher education.
As she lay in bed, she found herself listening to the normal life of the building. She knew every sound by heart, and it was reassuring to be part of this familiar world. Teddy bounding off to school. Mr. Stern, resurrected now, off on his daily rounds. The Richardsons back from their brief vacation. She heard Terry clumping down the stairs, then Godfrey's familiar tread. Mrs. Stern, she knew, was no longer working and was probably also in bed at this very moment. There was some irony in that. Until the Sterns moved to the suburbs, Jenny would not be the only tenant at home in the building on a weekday. Myrna was in London by now. And Bob and Jerry, both with heavy hearts and a gnawing sense of anxiety and loss, would be off to their respective jobs.
Everyone in his or her proper place. "And all's right with the world," she said aloud, knowing, perhaps for the first time, where that myth ended and reality began.
She spent the greater portion of the day with her usual Monday household chores. She polished the floors, vacuumed the carpeting, dusted the furniture, changed the bedding, puffed the pillows, and, coping with the dry heaves but with great care, scoured the bathtub. That completed, she concentrated on a special chore that she had saved for last. By midafternoon she had finished the job.
The disposition of Myrna's coat occupied her mind for a time. She wondered if Myrna's assessment of any future with Senator Springer was correct. Only time would tell. How that situation turned out would determine the fate of the coat, which she had hung in her bedroom closet.
She went out during the afternoon, but not to do any food shopping. What she did do was go to a pet store to make certain inquiries, then she bought a newspaper and learned that Senator Springer was making an excellent recovery and would soon be able to face the press.
There was still some talk about the mysterious circumstances of his collapse, but it seemed to take a backseat to the basic issue of whether or not his health would preclude his running. His doctors assured the public that his condition was not serious enough to abort his political career. She wondered if they were telling the truth.
She was not sure exactly what time Larry would storm into the apartment, but she was fully prepared for the confrontation. She sat in the living room and waited, her mind empty of all distracting thoughts.
He arrived late in the afternoon. Through the front window she could see the lengthening shadows of early sunset. It was mid-September, and the leaves of the sycamore tree were almost fully turned to orange. Some had even floated to the ground.
He came into the living room, his face ashen, his eyes beady with anger, his lips curled downward in what was, she supposed, the exact opposite of a smile.
"Well, you did it this time," he said. She had turned over in her mind his various opening lines. It was reassuring to know that this had been one of them.
"Did what?" she said calmly, offering what she hoped was an innocent expression, wide-eyed, smiling benignly. Her hands were clasped on her lap, like an obedient schoolgirl.
"You blew the loan," he croaked. "Screwed me to the wall. How come you didn't tell me about that withdrawal?"
"Oh, that."
"All you can say, is it? We've made commitments. We've moved into our offices. We've already sent out press releases, and you blew the loan. It's more than just an embarrassment. Vince and Connie are fit to be tied and threatening to bail out. It's a disaster."
"You'll get another loan, Larry. You're a very resourceful man."
"And you are an idiot of a woman. A stupid lamebrained dumb-ass without a brain in your head. If I were you, I'd buy a one-way ticket back to Bedford. You haven't got the brains for the big city. What I bought when I got you was a fantasy."
"So were you," she said, but not without a tug of sadness. The fantasy, after all, had been wonderful and comforting.
He stood over her, menacing, his face red with anger and frustration. Then he turned away, and she calmly watched him pace the room. Suddenly he stopped and waved a finger at her face.
"You were a mistake, Jenny. A fourteen-karat mistake."
"That much," Jenny said.
"A housewife was all you were good for. I knew that from the beginning. I thought that's what I wanted. The little woman waiting at home to greet me with an apron, a smile, and a willing pussy. Damn, what a mistake that was. Thinking it was possible. I can't understand why I brought you into the business aspect of things. I was embarrassed in front of Vince and Connie, showing them what a dumb little bitch I married."
She listened patiently, having heard his words in her mind earlier, waiting for the moment, the right moment, the perfect moment.
"You're all ball busters, you and all the fucking sisterhood. And us poor guys are caught in the middle, between a rock and a hard place. You all want more than you can get. Not that any sane man can figure out what the hell you all want."
It didn't take much effort to maintain her silence. What was the point? Perhaps there was some truth in his point of view. His truth. Not hers.
"Do you know what that bitch upstairs accused me of? Forgery. Can you imagine that? All I did was sign your name. My wife's name. Is that forgery, I ask you? And you..." He turned to her again. Foaming spittle hung in the edges of his mouth. "Since when do I need to have permission to sign my wife's name?" He raised his arm in the direction of the ceiling. "You bitches are in league against us." He was a man obsessed, tormented. But she felt no compassion. It seemed the time. Now, she told herself.
"You killed Peter. Drowned him in our bathtub."
He stopped dead in his tracks and stared at her. If there was any hint of denial, it disappeared quickly.
"So what?" he said when he had recovered from the first shock.
"It was disgusting," she said, feeling the cap on her own anger loosen.
"It was only a cat, for chrissake. Besides, the damned thing was a pain in the ass."
"To you. Not to Bob and Jerry. They loved Peter. He was part of their lives. You can't go around arbitrarily hurting people. Not to mention the taking of a life."
"Oh, fuck," Larry said. "He had eight more." He chuckled at his little joke.
When she didn't laugh, he shook his head. "I told you not to get involved in other people's lives. Who cares about those fags downstairs, their fucking feelings? No law says I can't drown that little bastard. And that Davis bitch upstairs. And those goddamned Richardsons. People are out for what they can get out of you. And you're too fucking stupid to see it."
"If you're the norm, God help us all," she said, more with resignation than anger.
He squared his shoulders and looked at her with contempt. "You don't like it, go on back to jerkwater Bedford. Who needs you around here?"
She paused, watching him, gathering her thoughts, hoping she could say what needed saying without a tremor in her voice.
"I think you've got things a bit confused,
Larry," she said. "This is my home. I'm the homemaker, remember? I made this home, and I'm staying. It's you who are leaving."
He had been pacing again. Now he stopped abruptly, his face beet red. A nerve palpitated in his jaw.
"You dare..." he began.
She stood up and studied him. Whatever had motivated her to marry him was gone. She felt nothing, not even an emptiness where his love had been. He had become the enemy.
"Yes, I dare," she said.
"You won't last a week without me," he sneered. "You'll be an alien here. They don't teach street smarts in Bedford, and what marketable skills have you got? You weren't even a nurse, just a glorified receptionist. That's minimum wage stuff in this city. You're a goddamned dependent. You'll always be one. Couple of months you'll be screaming for me to get you out of here, ship you back home."
He stopped pacing, stood directly in front of her, searching her face, as if looking for agreement with his assessment of her and her chances.
"I've packed your things, Larry, like the good little housewife you wanted. Everything. Even your electric toothbrush. As soon as you're settled I'll send you your weights and any other possessions I deem personal."
"You've got to be joking," he sneered. "You..."
"Me, the little woman. Get out of my house."
"Your house?" He laughed, but it was hollow, more like a cackle. "You lousy little bitch," he cried. "I paid for everything in this place."
"We, Larry. We paid for it. And I earned the right to keep it."
"We'll see about that!" he shouted. He turned away from her, and when he faced her again he had adopted a completely different expression, as if he were trying to conjure up haughtiness and ridicule, complete with a patently false smile.
"You've got to be kidding yourself, Jenny. This is the Big Apple and you're just a stupid hick. You want a fight? I'll give you one. Except there's no contest. Face it, kiddo, you haven't got a pot or a window to throw it out of. You can't even afford the rent on this place. If I were you, I'd reconsider. Pack up and I'll take you to the bus stop. Would you like some time to think it over?"