Halsey Street

by Naima Coster

  “Are you criticizing the art program at the distinguished Orchard School?”

  “I might be.”

  They smiled at each other, and Marcus asked what she would teach children Grace’s age.

  “Perspective.”

  “That sounds pretty advanced for nine-year-olds.”

  “The kids get it. They know an ant can be larger than a barn, if the barn is in the distance and the ant is close up, that the size of the moon changes depending on your point of observation.”

  Marcus looked impressed. “Your students are lucky; you have so much to offer them.”

  Penelope shrugged. “I spent a lot of time sweeping glitter off the floor today.”

  They went on talking about whether Penelope considered herself more of an artist or a teacher, what she had been working on lately. She explained that she was neither, really; she hadn’t painted for more than a decade, not since art school, but lately she had been drawing things she could see from her window. Art could never be her career, but drawing was an impulse, as recurrent, old, and automatic as breathing, except she had chosen to need it. It was as natural as wanting a drink of water, as instinctive as the urge to yawn, to have sex.

  “So, for you, drawing is somewhere between a glass of water and sex?”

  Penelope had wondered whether to say it aloud, but from the way Marcus looked at her, confused and expectant, she could see she’d made the right choice.

  “Exactly,” she said.

  Marcus lowered his eyes to his lap and blushed, and Penelope looked back onto the street. A tall cinnamon-colored man pushed an icie cart down the street. When he passed the yellow house, Marcus called out to him. He ordered a lemon ice for himself, and then asked Penelope what she wanted. She yelled “Coco!” down to the vendor. Marcus returned with their two paper cups, already wilting from the wet and cold. They focused for a while on the sweet ice.

  “Did you have a boyfriend in Pittsburgh?”

  Penelope did her best not to seem surprised, but she could feel her cheeks warm. He was working her now, too. When she mentioned sex, she had cracked open the door, but he was nudging it now, ever so slightly. He wouldn’t look at her and stared at his icie instead.

  “There was nobody there for me.”

  “I find that difficult to believe.”

  “It’s the truth.”

  They turned back to the avenue, although Penelope wanted to keep on watching him. She’d never had a thing for gingers, or for white men after RISD. She usually picked men based on how smitten by her they seemed, and the shape of their shoulders, whether they had bodies she wanted to look at, whether she thought they would want her to take command in bed. Occasionally, she was more impressed with herself when she could pull in a white man, if only because she knew they had no predilections to see her or want her. Marcus was very white: the thin bow of his lips, the green of his eyes. But there was much more to him than the question of whether she could win him: he was built beautifully, strong and lean, his skin weathered and freckled, lined more than made sense for a man his age. And he was out here, waiting on the stoop, for his child. He was a man who already knew how to love.

  “Does your job let you out early in the afternoons so you can be here when Grace gets home?”

  “Actually, I’m not working these days—well, not for money. I’ve been trying to write. A little late in life, I know. I wish I’d figured it out ten years and a hundred grand ago.”

  He went on to say he had published a few things in the Times, about one piece every six months. It had been nearly two years since he quit his job as an attorney.

  “I don’t want Grace to think her life needs to be as programmatic as ours have been—wedding, law school, baby. I want her to have adventures, hell, maybe drop out of college if she wants to.”

  “She should finish school,” Penelope said, although a girl like Grace would probably grow up to be the CEO of a Fortune 500 company even if she never finished college.

  “Grace is such a limited, cautious child. Don’t get me wrong—she’s lovely, and bright and sweet—but she’s afraid of everything.”

  “Does she get that from Samantha?” Penelope kept her voice even and light. Marcus probably wouldn’t like it if she criticized his wife.

  “Absolutely. But you can’t blame her. Sam’s had a rough go of it.”

  Penelope looked at Marcus, unbelieving. Nothing about Samantha and her polka dots and car service into the city seemed rough.

  “I think moving has only made things worse. Now that we own a house here, she’s always worried about bedbugs or asbestos or a break-in, or you know—”

  “Getting shot?”

  Marcus pursed his lips and looked ashamed.

  “Well, she picked one hell of a neighborhood.”

  The landlady reminded Penelope of her mother. Mirella had been terrified by stories on the news of children slashed in gang initiations, a toddler crushed under a garbage truck that failed to beep as it backed up. For years, she forbade Penelope to go out alone, and she wouldn’t accompany her anywhere, not even to the store to meet Ralph. Things happened in the neighborhood, yes, and there were kids she knew who got caught up, but there were others, too, who had taken their bicycles out on the street, or walked by themselves to the playground, and managed to survive.

  “If I could do it all over again, I’d stay in the Village,” Marcus said. “It’s not that we don’t like it here, but we’re just not a part of anything here. Everything we do is still in the city. We go to dinner there, see our friends there. Our daughter goes to school there. We didn’t mean to be such recluses, but now it’s probably too late anyway. We’ve been here so long without reaching out to anyone that everyone on the block has probably already made up their minds about us. They probably think we are the worst kind of white people.”

  There was a word in Spanish for what Marcus was doing—desahogarse—and Penelope didn’t want him to stop. Yes, he was desahogándose, and he had chosen to do it with her. And yet, it disappointed her that Marcus couldn’t see that other people on the block had their own lives, and no one was thinking about him, not really. They might have been thinking about white people in general or the rent or whether one of the neighbors might mistake their son for a burglar and call the police, but they didn’t know him, and they likely didn’t want to know him. He had the kind of nostalgia for the neighborhood that Ralph had—the vision of Bed-Stuy as a place where there were potlucks and block associations, and the man at the bodega knew your name. The neighborhood had never been anything more to Penelope than where she was from. She’d had no choice in the matter; it was her home.

  “If you really wanted to be polite, you wouldn’t have moved in at all,” Penelope said, and Marcus looked shocked. His eyebrows went up, and Penelope was glad. If they were to go on in this way, she’d have to be able to say what she thought. If she wanted to appease a man, she had her father for that.

  “But you’re here now,” she said. “And you still have time.”

  “That’s kind of you to say.”

  “Besides, have you seen this block? There are all kinds of white folks out here—I don’t think it will be that hard for you to smooth things over.”

  Marcus laughed, and she did, too, because he had thought her funny.

  “Thank you, Penelope,” he said and put his hand on her knee.

  Penelope didn’t move, observing his hand, unmoving, cupped around her knee. They heard the exhale of an engine, a black car slowing in front of the house.

  “Daddy!”

  Grace bounced out of the car, her school bag slapping against her back as she ran up the stoop. Marcus kissed her, and they rocked in each other’s arms, then Grace smiled at Penelope, still exhilarated from seeing her father.

  “You’re wearing real clothes this time,” she said.

  “We’d better get inside.”

  Marcus took his daughter’s hand and said something about homework and dinner, their afternoon rout
ines. He was pink behind the ears and jittery, so Penelope waved good-bye and let them go.

  Without the Harpers, the block seemed less golden and breezy than it had been a few moments before. She had been left behind on the stoop, along with the wilting paper cups they had used to eat their icies. She remembered that Samantha would soon be home, they were a family, and she was only the woman in the attic.

  Penelope pulled out her phone and called her father.

  “This is Ralph Grand.”

  “Are you ready for me?”

  “I thought you weren’t coming over till later. Didn’t you have to run?”

  “Well, I want to see you now.”

  “All right. I’ll call the Emerald. You want Chinese?”

  “Yes, sir. I’ll pick it up on my way.”

  “You be careful walking over.”

  “Pop, I’ll be fine. I’m not thirteen anymore.”

  “You just be careful, okay? Some things, they haven’t changed.”

  6

  REVITALIZATION

  “Rise and shine, Mr. Grand.”

  A stale smell filled the bedroom, but Penelope tried not to make a face. She shook her father gently. He swept off his covers and frowned at her.

  “You’ve got an appointment this morning with Freddie Elias. Everything is all set, and the car will be here in one hour.”

  “You already told him we were coming?”

  Penelope nodded triumphantly. She was confident that Ralph’s pride would get the better of him. He wouldn’t fail to show up now and leave himself open to rumor and speculation, least of all from a former friend. Penelope handed Ralph his bathrobe, then left to turn on the water to heat.

  When he was dressed, she returned to the bedroom with a tub of Vaseline. Ralph’s palms were cracked, and so was the skin on his feet. The appointment had given him at least an occasion to shower. So often when she came to see him, he was still in his pajamas, his teeth unbrushed, and yesterday’s dirty dishes still high in the sink.

  She started massaging the jelly into the skin of his hands, while Ralph tried with one hand to put on his socks. He had trouble keeping his foot steady on the edge of the bed for long enough to pull on a sock. His foot kept falling off, and his body tipping over, as if he’d fall over if Penelope weren’t there.

  “Could I have some privacy?”

  The car would be arriving soon, but she didn’t say that. He didn’t need the pressure. She nodded at Ralph, who was focused on his foot. He yanked on a sock as quickly as he could, before his foot fell off the edge of the bed again.

  An hour later, Ralph glared at Dr. Elias from the edge of the examining table. The pleasantries between the men had been quick, and Ralph seemed indignant that it was time for his friend to become his doctor. He looked insulted, small and hunched over the table.

  “You can take off your shirt now,” Dr. Elias said, but Ralph did not budge. “I have to listen to your heart.”

  Penelope nodded at her father to encourage him, but he ignored her, too.

  “I’ll give you a few minutes while I find your chart.” Freddie Elias made a face at Penelope and stepped out of the room. Penelope rose to help her father undress.

  “Does it look to you like my arms don’t work, too?”

  He turned his glare to her now, as he loosened the top button. His hands moved slowly down his shirt. His flat brown chest came into view, and the soft, small pile of flesh at his stomach. The muscles in his arms were undetectable, the skin loose at the shoulders.

  Ralph handed her the shirt roughly, and Penelope folded it carefully. She sat in a chair in the corner of the room to wait. Ralph stared at the floor, his skinny legs dangling off the table. His dress socks drooped at the ankles, revealing the little impressions they left on his skin. Penelope hated the marks, wanted to take off the socks and let his legs breathe, or pull them up so they covered him properly. But Ralph wouldn’t have wanted her to touch him. Penelope examined a chart on the wall about how one should properly wash one’s hands. It was a while before Dr. Elias returned with Ralph’s chart.

  “How are you feeling, Ralph?”

  “Just fine, just fine.” Ralph smiled. His mood had turned. Maybe now he would try honey with his old friend, to see if he could sweet-talk his way out of whatever the doctor would prescribe.

  Dr. Elias looked skeptical and hooked the stethoscope into his ears. He and Ralph were about the same age, but he looked at least a decade younger now. They used to be able to pass for relatives with the same dark sepia complexion and misty-light eyes, but Dr. Elias had broader shoulders, and he stood taller now, his back uncurved, the soles of his feet firm on the ground.

  He warmed the stethoscope against the hem of his white coat.

  “Take a deep one, Ralph.”

  Ralph was like a balloon that expanded too fast, then deflated and shot away. His shoulders heaved when he inhaled and slumped down immediately after, a theatrical shrug.

  “And another.”

  Dr. Elias moved the stethoscope around different points of Ralph’s chest and back. Penelope knew there was a science to what he was doing, but the movements looked random to her. She leaned in as if she could hear Ralph’s heartbeats, too.

  “Strong heart,” Dr. Elias declared. Then he went on to ask if Ralph was still smoking, if he drank, if he ate well, and Ralph smiled and lied about all his good habits, then looked at Penelope, waiting for her to agree. She felt her face begin to burn.

  The two men went on, and Penelope heard them through the hammering in her ears. She closed her eyes and tried to push herself away from the examining room, her mind opening just enough for her to slip away. She wasn’t gone for long.

  “My mood? What do you mean my mood?”

  “Beyond the physical. How have you been feeling?”

  Ralph cocked an eyebrow and leaned back on the examining table so that he could look Dr. Elias squarely in the face.

  “How else could I possibly feel?”

  “I don’t know, Ralph, that’s why I’m asking.”

  Ralph shrugged. “My daughter’s back. So things are looking up.”

  “You’ve been through a lot in the last year between the shop and the accident. Mirella.”

  Dr. Elias said her name Muh-ray-uh the way people who couldn’t speak Spanish often did. Their tongues tripped over the doble ele of her name. Ralph, who had never learned any Spanish, could seesaw over the vowels in her name, his accent perfect over those three syllables.

  “What’s Mirella got to do with my spine?”

  “I told you after the accident that you needed to keep up with your physical therapy, but you didn’t listen.”

  “If you recall, Freddie, Mirella left me. How was I supposed to get here to my appointments once she was gone?”

  “The bus still runs in Bed-Stuy, doesn’t it?”

  Dr. Elias was smiling, but it was clear he had lost his patience with Ralph.

  “If you had come then, right after the accident like I told you to, you might have been able to halt some of the deterioration. But a lot can happen in a year.”

  “You haven’t even examined me yet.”

  “I don’t have to, Ralph. I watched you walk in from the waiting room and get up on the examining table. That was enough.”

  Penelope willed herself to stay in the room while Dr. Elias said something about disuse and atrophy, Ralph being in a lot more pain than he ever let on. The spine, not being able to point his feet in the right direction. It was all so important. She should have been writing it down.

  “What happened to you wasn’t your fault, but your life is in your hands now.” Dr. Elias edged nearer and put a hand on Ralph’s shoulder. “What do you want to do?”

  “I’d like to put on my shirt.”

  Dr. Elias withdrew his hand from Ralph’s bare shoulder and pressed his lips together into a line.

  “I’ll give you the number of a physical therapist in the neighborhood. You decide whether to call. In the mea
ntime, there are some exercises you can do on your own. A few require you get down on the floor. You should do those only if Penny’s around to help you get up afterward.”

  “I can get up just fine by myself.”

  Dr. Elias removed a packet of papers from his clipboard and offered it to Ralph, but he didn’t move to accept them. Penelope stepped between them and took the exercises from Dr. Elias. He took her free hand in his.

  “You’ve grown up so beautifully, Penny. It seems like just the other day you were coming in here with your braces, telling me you had joined the track team.” He squeezed her hand again. “Good luck with him.”

  The men turned to each other to say good-bye. They clapped hands on each other’s backs but did not draw any closer. Then Dr. Elias left, swinging his clipboard.

  Penelope gathered her father’s shoes from the floor and placed them on the paper sheet covering the examining table.

  “You ready to go home, Pop?”

  “I need to put my shoes on first.”

  He leaned over, shakily, to draw the shoes onto his lap, and suddenly Penelope needed to leave. He began to loosen the laces, and though Penelope worried he might tip over, he wouldn’t forgive her if she offered her help, so it was better just to go. She muttered she had to use the bathroom, and she left him his shirt, loped out of the room and into the hall.

  The corridor glistened white and stank of disinfectant. Nurses rushed around her, the phones trilled, the doors to patient rooms opened and closed. Penelope couldn’t remember the way back to the bathroom; it had been so long since her last visit to the hospital. She raced past the waiting room and found an empty stretch of hallway where she could pace back and forth between the elevator banks. She stared at the linoleum and tried to catch her breath. She felt a familiar pressure in her chest, one that usually signaled she had run too fast and it was time to slow down, but she had been walking. Penelope lifted her hands to her scalp and gulped in the stale hospital air. She panted and paced, reshaped her curls. Eventually, her heart seemed to echo her footfalls: slower, quiet. She remembered what Dr. Elias had said about a strong heart. She straightened herself, her mind clear again. Penelope checked her reflection in the silver elevator door, then started back to the exam room.