She noticed that her square of pizza was disappearing virtually as quickly as his. She was anxious about this because it meant that soon she would have nothing in her hand to eat.
“Do you hear from that woman you had in the ambulance?” she asked.
“Her? She lives for the next twenty-five years. And she’s not the star. You know what we just had to do? In East New York, we had this one family who kept calling us all last weekend for a grandfather who had a toothache. A guy from Haiti. They want an ambulance for his toothache. So we said to the family, ‘It costs you two hundred dollars out of your welfare check if we pick up your father and take him to the emergency room for a toothache.’”
“They must have loved that.”
“What did they say, they said, ‘My grandfather is a baby when something hurts him. We don’t need any ambulance. He can just sit and let his tooth hurt him.’”
The two of them laughed. She found his laugh pleasant and his open face appealing. The eyes were heavy and tinged with red from the long day, but she thought there was friendliness kindled in them.
Later, when she got home, she went directly into her aunt’s apartment. “Wake up, Virginia,” she called.
“She’s in the shower,” Aunt Grace said. “Been in there half the night. I call her, she won’t come out. How come you’re so late?”
“I stopped off for pizza. Where is that girl?” Dolores went into the bathroom and found Virginia sitting in the bathtub with the shower raining water on her. Virginia had her head hanging.
“What do you call this?”
“I’m so depressed I could kill myself.”
“What happened?”
“Nothing.”
“No, what happened? Something must have.”
“I said nothing. And that’s the reason I’m depressed. Nothing happens in my life.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“I want a man.”
“What do you want one of those for?”
“Because nobody else in the whole city has one, either. There isn’t one girl I know has a man. They’re either married or gay. Where the fuck are they?”
“I know where one is. I found him for you tonight.”
Virginia’s head snapped up. “Where? What did you find?”
“I think he’s a terrific guy. He’s at school.”
“Is he married?”
“No.”
“What is he, the janitor?”
“No. He goes to school.”
“How old is he?”
“Your age exactly.”
“He’s white?”
“Absolutely.”
“You’re lying. He’s a big black, scare my mother to death.”
“Nope.”
“If he’s a spic, it’s all right. I’ll meet him outside the house. He doesn’t have to come here. Maybe if he’s a black that’s all right, too. As long as they don’t want to come home.”
“He’s all white.”
“Then he’s some crip. That’s what he is, right? A crip in a wheelchair. Roll right up to the door and then he can’t even climb my stoop.”
“He is a good-looking guy who works for the Emergency Medical Service. He’s an ambulance driver. He wants to be a doctor. I don’t know about that. I do know that he’s appealing and he’s fun. And he doesn’t drink.”
“Well, get him for me.”
“I’ll have to talk to him a little.”
“I’ll talk to him myself. Show me where he is. I’ll come to school with you.”
At the start of the long class on Tuesday night Professor Steiner appeared to be particularly annoyed when one of the young women used the wrong term. Flustered, she corrected herself, but this did not seem to satisfy him. “Nomenclature,” he growled. “We have to be careful of nomenclature.” When he used that word for the third time during the night, Dolores looked at the faces in the room and was amazed to find that the point apparently failed to register on them. After class, she said to LaVine, “You heard the key word, didn’t you?” His answer was a vague look and then embarrassment that he had not grasped something so obvious. “I can’t make it. I can’t work and do this right. I’m a dead man.” He refused to listen to encouragement.
Out in the hallway, Dolores called to Marissa, who waved. “I can’t wait to talk to you. I’ll miss my ride. I’ll call you when I get home tonight. No, it’s easier in the morning. Bye.” She ran out the door.
When the phone rang the next morning, Dolores was still in the shower and she called out to her mother to tell Marissa to call back and the mother said, “She says you got to come right away.” Dolores protested and then, wet, wrapped in a towel, got out, and on the phone Marissa said, “Dolores, you think I could wear red hot pants to school? Then a nice pink shirt. You think so?” When Dolores thought about this aloud, and seemed to be leaning toward something more student, Marissa said, “I like them,” and Dolores said, “Then wear them,” and Marissa said, “Maybe you don’t like them for school, but they drive Harry crazy, I think. Sees everything moving on me.”
“Harry?”
“Yeah, Harry, the man from the railroad station in the morning.”
“So now he’s Harry?”
“Harry likes me. He wants to take me to Colorado.”
“What’s out there?”
“He likes to look at mountains.”
“I guess it’s a nice place.”
“I don’t know how to go there. What am I going to tell my mother, ‘Ma, I want to go to Colorado with a guy twenty years older than Daddy.’”
“Don’t ask me to help you make up lies,” Dolores said. “Why don’t you just try dinner in Nassau County first. See if you can even stand him through a salad.”
“I need Colorado.”
“Why?”
“Because in a couple of years, when I don’t need a sugar daddy anymore, I’ll take him to Colorado and instead of looking at mountains I’ll make him climb them. He’ll die trying to get on a rock that juts out over his head.”
“Where do you get these things from?”
“I saw that on Wide World of Sports. Guys climbing mountains. I always think when I watch television. I don’t just sit there like a chair. I watch so much television. I keep what I want. I don’t keep every single thing I see. I don’t keep every little fact. I got to remember the nomenclature, you know.”
“Oh, why would you do a thing like that?”
“Because he used the word so much last night that it went off in my ear like a bank alarm.”
Over the last weeks of the term, Dolores worked late in the library many nights and returned to find, on an average of twice a week, Owney sitting in the living room with her mother and sometimes the baby, and his face seemed to have its old energy spilling out of it. He made a point of saying that on the nights that he did not stop around to see the baby, he was attending AA meetings and had resumed his labor courses. “What have you told them at the meetings?” Dolores said.
“Not much. I listen.”
She said, “I have to tell you, I truly believe that you are better off joining in.”
Then she walked into the bedroom and closed the door. She could feel him closing in and she knew that her mother was delighted that he came. Which was one topic she made certain not to discuss. The second was the apartment on 74th Street, which kept reappearing in her mind at night and whenever she passed the street. Now that she had no need to raid it for his government checks, she turned her head so as not to look at it. Sitting in her room now, with Owney out in the living room, she felt as if she were in a closet at the end of an airless passageway.
In the third week of May, Steiner gave his test. He began it by standing in front of the room and speaking in a voice that had far more carry to it than at any time in the term thus far. “I consider this test tonight the beginning of a weeding-out process. I will know and perhaps many of you will know if we are all heading in the direction you feel you want to pursue. Or, is
it the one your parents decided upon?”
With that, he spun and left the room and the teaching assistants took over. The chairs in front, where Dolores usually sat, were taken, and there was confusion among the young teaching assistants and she wound up in the fourth row, next to a dark-haired young man with thin lips who settled in his seat and glanced down to be certain that he could read the pages of white notes he had between his legs. Dolores reached into the pocket of her sweater nearest the guy and took out her change purse. This immediately caused him to shift in his seat.
“Am I in your way?” he said.
“No.”
“Then you didn’t have to move it.”
“I’m more comfortable with it on this side,” she said. “I’m merely doing what your mother must have to do. She does hide her purse on you, doesn’t she?”
The test was mimeographed and the first glance showed that it was indeed Steiner’s revenge. The questions, dealing with synthesis, were in a naming system that is almost never demanded from undergraduates. As Dolores looked over the test, nodding to herself, she heard a moan in the back of the room. She glanced back and saw the red-headed young woman standing up and crying uncontrollably. The other young people seemed too much in shock to bother with her. In tears, the red-headed girl simply walked out of the room. Dolores saw Marissa, head down, chewing gum, starting to work. Off to the right, LaVine’s legs stretched and he slumped in the seat. “No way for me,” he said. When Dolores looked at him, he made a face and looked down. There was no reaction next to her. The kid was catatonic on two counts: lack of knowledge compounded by an inability to cheat. Later in the night, on one question about a synthesis of trichlorophenol, her back became tired and she forgot herself and stretched. As she did, the kid in the next seat put his head so close to her paper she was afraid he was going to eat it. She put her hand over it as if they were in grammar school. Then she bent her neck and went back to the test that could have something to do with the rest of her life.
“Look at me,” LaVine said in the parking lot.
“I am.”
“Take a good look.”
“All right.”
“Now close your eyes until I’m gone. I want you to remember me like this. It’s the last time anybody ever is going to see me.”
“Oh, come on.”
“No, that’s it. I’m truly dead.”
Four days later, the postcard came from school. The mark in organic chemistry was an A. Dolores made a small noise and headed for the phone. She called Marissa first; when there was no answer, she called the Emergency Medical Service number in Maspeth and left her number for LaVine.
She was sitting home at seven o’clock at night when Owney walked in. Just like he lives here, she thought. He swung the baby over his head in the living room.
“My daughter tell you her mark?” her mother said.
“An A,” Dolores said.
“In what?”
“Organic chemistry. That’s the hardest.”
“My daughter’s smart.”
“She sure is,” Owney said, keeping his attention on the baby.
Later, they were watching a movie on Channel 9 when her mother answered the phone. “It’s David LaVine.”
Dolores got up too quickly and immediately felt Owney’s stony look.
LaVine shouted “Great!” when he heard Dolores’s mark. “Now you got me crazy. I haven’t been home, so I don’t know if mine came or not. I’m standing in Howard Beach right now. We got here second on a car accident. Waiting for the priest.”
“They made you wait?”
“There’s no reason to leave without him. He’s only coming for—what do you call it?—extreme unction.”
“Oh, David.”
“What can I tell you? Kids. They went into a tree. Bridge abutments and trees don’t move. You ought to see it. The tree doesn’t have a piece of bark missing. I mean it. The car, forget about it. The car and two of the kids who were in it.”
The noise around LaVine’s phone booth now grew louder. “That’s your nice crowd here. They hope there’s another crash right now.”
“Awful.”
“They don’t know. They need thrills. They have boring lives. So I’ll wait for the priest. He should be here any moment now. The church is right down the avenue.”
“At this rate, what time will you finish?”
“I’m on till, what, two. It’s all right. Except, because of you, the rest of the night I’m going to be in torture.”
“I shouldn’t have told you.”
“Not only the mark. It’s your face. I see it all night.”
“I know. At every accident.”
“First time.”
“What?”
“First time I’m nervous about school. Right here. I feel like leaving here right now and running home.”
“Now I’m upset. I should go to your house and see if it came. I could call you.”
“Stop it.”
“No, I’m going to.”
“Why bear horrible news?”
“Will you cheer up? You probably got a wonderful mark.” Out of the corner of her eye, she looked at Owney. If LaVine had the confidence that Owney had in one finger, he would be different. She smiled. Some confidence. If he had it, LaVine might be calling from a bar.
“I am going to go to your house. Where do I go?”
“Nowhere.”
“Don’t be silly. I said I wanted to do it. I have nothing else to do. I need the air.”
“I’ll get it when I get home.”
“What time is that?”
“I told you. After two.”
“Nonsense. I want to get it to you right now. I want to call an ambulance service and inform them tonight somebody started living. What’s the address?”
“No. It’s all the way over by the river in Long Island City. You’ll never find it. It’s surrounded by weeds.”
“So? I’ll have somebody with me.”
“Who?”
“My cousin Virginia. I want you to meet her some night. You’ll love her.”
“You’re sure?”
“I’m waiting for her to come home from work now. She’ll love taking a ride with me.”
“Write it down, then. It’s complicated.”
Walking back into the living room, Dolores said, “LaVine. That’s the guy I have for Virginia.” Owney, who had pretended indifference through the call, immediately brightened.
“I had to tell him about the mark.”
“It was great,” Owney said.
“I’ve got to go the whole summer for the second half of the course. And then we’ll know.”
“Know what?”
“Know what we know.” Not one step more into this conversation, she thought quickly. “All right. Let’s get going here.” She picked up the baby. “It’s late for a bath. But don’t you still want one? Sure you do.”
Owney stood up. “I’m on the go the whole day tomorrow. Be at work early, then some union thing in the afternoon.”
“Really, what?”
“Something to do with tests for veterans. It’s not just my union. It’s the central council.”
“That sounds like fun. All right.” She picked up the baby and walked into the bathroom. Don’t dawdle, she told herself as she walked in. What kind of a life is this, anyway? she thought. Nobody leaves you alone for five minutes. If he was out drinking, I certainly wouldn’t have him all over me. See him once a week. She regarded the bathroom—a room so small that she had to move sideways between the tub and the wall—as a plaza of freedom.
When Virginia was not home by nine o’clock, Dolores went in to change her clothes, a yellow T-shirt and jeans, and she found herself looking at the bathroom mirror, brushing her hair and trying an earring; she frowned at herself, put the earring down, and went out and sat and waited for Virginia, who walked in at ten-thirty.
“Where were you?” Dolores said. “Let’s go. We’re going to get in touch with t
his fellow from school.”
“Where? I’m exhausted. I was shopping, Manhasset. Then we stopped and had something to eat.”
“We’re going to Long Island City.”
“At this hour? Are you crazy?”
“Virginia, we’re going to get something from his mailbox, then you’re going to call him and if you have any brains, you’re going to meet him when he gets off work.”
“Do we have to do it tonight?”
“Absolutely.”
“Oh, I can’t.”
“Virginia, will you stop it!”
“I said I’m too tired.”
“You said you’d go to school to meet him. Now I’m getting him for you right now.”
“I didn’t say at an hour like this. Dolores, I’m so tired from shopping.”
“I don’t care what you are, you’re coming.”
“Dolores, what’s the matter with you?”
“I want you to go.”
“I’m not deaf. You told me that ten times right here. You’re making this the only important thing in the world.”
Dolores went into the kitchen to call the Emergency Medical Service number and leave a message for LaVine to tell him she wasn’t coming, but instead she impulsively picked up the car keys and walked out. “I’ll be back in forty-five minutes,” she called in to her aunt’s apartment, where they all watched television.
At Long Island City, she noticed an outdoor phone booth at the subway entrance on 51st Street; I’ll call him from here, she told herself. Then she drove down a street lined with row houses, which ended at the start of a short block that was dark and lined with factories. She stopped and reread the directions. So far, perfect. At the end of the block were the remains of a pier and high weeds, which combined to block any view of the river. Looking up, she could see over to the Empire State Building, which climbed into the night and sprayed light across a magenta sky. The car rocked like a small boat as it went over the broken street. On the left was the corrugated box factory and next to it, the two-story building with the sign proclaiming a metal stamping business. The windows on the second floor had shades drawn halfway down. She stopped under a streetlight. The street around her was a cellar. How could he have let me come to a place like this? Peering out, she saw advertising mail stuck out of a box at the metal door leading to the second floor. She got out and, apprehensively, pulled out the letters. The postcard nearly fell out. Flipping it over, she saw the mark, a B minus.
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