by Robyn Sisman
“Shit, that’s heavy! You shouldn’t have to drag around a thing like that. I can lift my bike with one hand. Watch!”
He walked over and proudly hoisted his own sleek, slim, gunmetal superbike into the air. His T-shirt rose with the action, revealing a rippled band of caramel skin.
“Amazing,” said Freya.
“That’s the titanium, you see,” he explained seriously.
“I see.” Freya raised her eyes to his and smiled. He blushed! She wondered how old he was. There was a time when she’d dismissed boys his age as cocky little twerps. Now she wondered why she hadn’t helped herself to boatloads when she’d had the chance.
A group of bikers swooped out of the garage. Someone called, “Coming to the park, Brett?”
The young man glanced at Freya. “Maybe later.”
“Please don’t stay because of me,” she said quickly. “I can easily get the bike fixed inside.” It would be awful if he felt stuck with her, like some old lady he had helped across the road and was too polite to abandon.
“Nah, it’s okay. I want to. We can talk.”
So, Freya perched on a fire hydrant and listened to him talk, watching his lean fingers move skillfully around her bike. Brett was an actor—well, mainly a waiter and bar person, if he was honest, though as a matter of fact he was opening next week in a really challenging production—a nonspeaking role, unfortunately, and unpaid, but still, it was a start, wasn’t it? He’d only been in the city ten months, sharing a loft space in the West Village with three others—strangers to begin with, but a great bunch. He’d be getting his own place as soon as he’d landed a good part—ideally something by Mamet or Stoppard: he had some good contacts.
Listening to him, Freya felt an ache of nostalgia. Had they all been this eager and hopeful in the Brooklyn days? Had they been this attractive and energetic and firm-fleshed? Back then, “real” life lay in the future, somewhere over the rainbow, waiting for when they were ready; now they were drowning in it. Brett’s enthusiasm about the details of her own life was infectious. It was “cool” that she was English; “really cool” that she ran a gallery. When she told him she was temporarily living in Chelsea, he thought that was cool, too. Meanwhile, the glances he gave her, which had at first made her wonder whether she had bicycle oil on her face or had suddenly sprouted a varicose vein, confirmed the flattering truth that he found her attractive. Freya began fiddling with her hair and rearranging her legs. Her heart was as light as a bubble.
At length Brett righted the bicycle and squared his shoulders in triumph.
“Marvelous.” Freya stood up and dusted off her shorts. “Thank you so much.”
“No sweat.”
His hand rested in a proprietary way on her bicycle seat. Freya could not stop herself staring at the twin bones of his wrist and the golden hairs that dusted his smooth arm. He squeezed the seat gently, and she felt such a fierce leap of lust that she had to dig her fingernails into her palms.
“Well . . .” she said.
Brett grinned at her, looked off into space, glanced back, bounced on his toes, ducked his head. “I was going to take a loop round the park,” he said. “Maybe get a drink. Hang out. Want to come?”
Freya thought of the crowds, the noise, the heat, and her aching legs. She reminded herself that she was thirty-five years old and hadn’t combed her hair since this morning. She thought of Jack and Candace on the couch, and Fragonard’s young lover with the rose, and Tash’s cat-with-the-cream smile. She saw the invitation in Brett’s eyes and read the eager vitality of his tapping foot.
“Why not?” she said.
CHAPTER 13
Michael hurried out of the elevator and down the hall, the trousers of his ill-fitting new suit flapping around his ankles. He was late, and he couldn’t find the right office.
“Excuse me!” He flagged down a young woman carrying an armful of legal folders. “Can you tell me how to find Suite 719—the Birnbaum case?”
Her eyes gave him a quick up-and-down scrutiny and returned to his face unimpressed. “Do you mean Blumberg?” she inquired.
“Atshoo!” Michael sneezed heavily. “That’s it: Blumberg.”
The woman gave him directions, keeping her distance from his germy presence. Michael hurried on, wiping his sore nose with a handkerchief. He hated this kind of situation, where he had to take over a case with no notice and no background knowledge of the participants. But Fred Rinertson, his boss, had been rushed to the hospital with suspected colitis; he could be out of action for weeks and had specifically requested that Michael handle the case. Michael was unsure whether this was an honor or a test. Either way, his partnership could depend upon his performance.
The case was Blumberg versus Blumberg. He was representing Mr. Lawrence Blumberg, aged seventy-six, of Queens, New York, against his wife, Mrs. Jessica Blumberg, aged seventy-four. It was not the kind of high-profile divorce case normally handled by a senior partner like Fred, but apparently there was some family connection with Mr. Blumberg which Fred had chosen to honor with his personal services. The case seemed straightforward enough, though there had been no time to meet his client in person, nor to review the paperwork as thoroughly as he would have liked. Michael had never felt so stressed: Freya, his mother, the game of hide-and-seek with his dry cleaning, emergency shopping. His routine had gone haywire. As a result he had caught this crippling cold, which showed ominous signs of turning to flu. Michael put a hand to his chest and listened uneasily to its hoarse wheeze. It could even be pneumonia.
Here was Suite 719 at last. Michael straightened the knot of his tie, gave his nose a last-minute blow, and opened the door. An elderly man with sparse gray hair and a doleful expression was sitting in the small reception area. He looked doubtfully up at Michael over half-moon glasses.
“You the young fellow from Rinertson’s?”
“Yes, that’s right, Mr. Birnberg—uh, Blumbaum—that is . . .”
“Blumberg. You’re late.”
“Well, I’m here now.” Idiotically, Michael held his briefcase aloft, as if to prove he really was a lawyer.
“Jessie’s already in there.” Mr. Blumberg nodded his head toward a farther door. “With her lawyer—a woman. Seems a very commanding young lady. Everything at her fingertips, if you know what I mean.” His expression implied that he did not necessarily feel the same way about Michael.
Michael hid his irritation with a professional smile. “I’m sure you and I will be more than a match for them.” He sat down next to Mr. Blumberg and took a folder from his briefcase. “Now, if we could just run through a few points before we go in . . .”
Mr. Blumberg was extremely definite in his instructions, but so long-winded that it was a good ten minutes before Michael was able to lead the way to the inner office. He knocked once, and opened the door. It was the usual square, unadorned room, furnished with chairs and a small conference table, where two people sat facing him, each provided with a paper cup. Mrs. Blumberg was handsome and stern looking, with snowy hair pinned in a bun. Next to her was a much younger woman, presumably Mrs. Blumberg’s attorney; though Michael noted, with fleeting disapproval, the distinctly unlawyerly flamboyance of her brilliant turquoise shirt and riot of jet-black hair.
Michael adopted his best smile. “Good afternoon, everybody. I’m so sorry—”
“What do you think you’re doing here?”
To Michael’s astonishment, the young woman with the hair had leaped to her feet and fixed him with an accusing glare.
“I’m Michael Petersen, of—”
“I know who you are,” she said in tones of loathing. “What I asked was why you’re here.” She kneed her chair out of the way and stepped toward him. “Let me tell you, I will not have you interrupting this meeting so that you can slap some ridiculous lawsuit on one of my clients.”
Michael stood frozen in the doorway, opening and closing his mouth like a fish. What lawsuit? Which client? She must have mistaken him for someone else
.
“Michael Petersen,” he repeated stubbornly, “of Rinertson and Klang. I’m here to represent Mr. Blumberg.” Belatedly, he stepped forward, allowing Mr. Blumberg to enter the room. “Mr. Rinertson’s been taken sick,” he added.
“Oh.” Far from offering him an apology, the mad woman folded her arms and glowered.
“And you,” Michael scoured his sluggish memory, “must be Ms. da Fillipo.” He tried to inject a cheery note into his voice.
She tossed her head as if this were obvious. “You say you’re here as Mr. Blumberg’s attorney—instead of Fred Rinertson?” She seemed unwilling to accept this fact. “Why wasn’t I informed of this substitution?”
“Didn’t our office—?”
“No, they did not.”
“Well, I apologize for that, naturally, but atshoo!” The sneeze shook him from head to toe. Droplets sprayed into the air. “Excuse me. I’m so sorry.” Once again, he dragged his long-suffering handkerchief from his pocket. He felt wretched.
Ms. da Fillipo’s smoldering brown eyes rested on his face for a moment. Then she dropped her eyelids, turned on her heel, and returned to her place next to Mrs. Blumberg. She gave the old woman’s hand a reassuring squeeze. “There’s nothing to worry about, Jessie,” she told her—prematurely, in Michael’s opinion.
He had hardly sat down with his client before she rapped a pencil on the table. “Okay, let’s get started, now that Mr. Petersen has condescended to join us. The purpose of this meeting, as you know, is to talk through your reasons for wanting a divorce and, if you are resolved on such a course, to reach a settlement without having to resort to the expense and stress of a courtroom procedure.”
“But I don’t want a divorce.” Mr. Blumberg said mulishly.
“Well, I do,” said his wife.
“She doesn’t.” Mr. Blumberg nudged Michael. “She’s being stubborn. Can’t you make her come home? I’m lonely, and I can’t find anything.”
Ms. da Fillipo bristled. “I hardly think those are convincing reasons for maintaining a relationship. My client has a very serious grievance. Perhaps, Jessie, you would like to tell us about that.”
But now that her moment had come, Mrs. Blumberg was strangely reluctant. The proximity of her husband of fifty years, sitting right opposite her, seemed to unsettle her.
“Well, he snores,” she offered.
Michael couldn’t help smiling. Ms. da Fillipo shot him a look of contempt.
“And what else?” she prompted.
Mrs. Blumberg stared at her clasped hands. In a low, tight voice she claimed that her husband also left his slippers under the bed instead of putting them in the closet, and that they sometimes fought about what to watch on TV. Finally, at the end of a stumbling catalog she suddenly burst out:
“And he’s having an affair with Mrs. Lemke from upstairs!”
Mr. Blumberg groaned and smacked his forehead, as if this ground had been gone over many times. “All I did was ask her if she remembered how to foxtrot. Before I could stop her, she’d grabbed hold of me and—”
“What kind of a woman dances with strange men in her kitchen in the middle of the day?” Mrs. Blumberg demanded darkly.
“Now, Jessie: Doris is sixty-five years old,” protested Mr. Blumberg.
“Doris, is it now? Well, pardon me.”
“She just moved into our building. She’s a widow. I was being neighborly.”
“Neighborly! Is that why you snuck out to have lunch with her when I was visiting my sister?”
“I did not sneak.”
Back and forth they went. Michael was amazed at their passion. Privately, Mr. Blumberg had conceded to him that for two brief weeks he’d had “a crazy thing” with sixty-five-year-old Doris, though the craziness had consisted of little more than a kiss on the cheek and the odd bunch of flowers. Mr. Blumberg now regarded the episode as closed; he couldn’t see why his wife was making such a fuss, or why he had to apologize. Mrs. Blumberg, on the other hand, felt betrayed; she wanted her pound of flesh.
“I just want to get divorced,” she said, terminating the argument. “It’s the end of the road.”
Ms. da Fillipo looked at Michael triumphantly. She must really hate men, he thought.
The discussion moved on to an examination of the Blumberg assets and the settlement to which Mrs. Blumberg might be entitled. Michael protested that Ms. da Fillipo’s demands were absurdly high, but every time he attempted to object, Mr. Blumberg, looking more depressed by the minute, cut the ground from under his feet by saying he didn’t care. Until, that is, Mrs. da Fillipo uttered the words, “And what about Pookie?”
“Ha! I thought we’d get to that,” said Mr. Blumberg, showing more animation than he had all afternoon.
“Pookie’s my baby,” said Mrs. Blumberg stubbornly.
“That’s right,” nodded Ms. da Fillipo.
“Well, I’ve got her, and I’m keeping her.” Mr. Blumberg stuck out his chin.
“No, you’re not.”
“Yes, I am.”
Michael was floundering. He tried unobtrusively to peek through his notes. “Let’s see now . . . What exact kind of, uh, baby are we talking about here?”
Three pairs of eyes regarded him with scorn.
“Creeping Jesus!” exclaimed Ms. da Fillipo. “I always knew that you macho power-freaks at Rinertson and Klang had no compassion for the humanity of these sad situations, but I thought you might at least have done your homework. Pookie is a five-year-old pedigree Highland terrier, purchased in person by my client, as the breeder will testify.”
“Paid for with my money,” Mr. Blumberg pointed out. “Jessie doesn’t have any money of her own; she’s never worked.”
“Never worked? Never worked!” Ms. da Fillipo flung back her head and stared down her high-bridged nose at poor Mr. Blumberg. “The woman who has made your home, who cooked your dinner, who bore your children; the woman who tends to you when you’re sick, who listens to the trivia of your working day and gives you the warmth of her body at night—for fifty years: How can you say that woman has never worked?”
There was an intimidated silence. Michael tried to remember what he knew of Ms. Caterina da Fillipo: nothing, except that she worked for a family law partnership that had a radical reputation and handled a lot of legal aid cases. The word feminist formed in his mind.
“Isn’t that just typical of men?” she continued, in a quiet, sinister voice. Unnervingly, her laser gaze now moved to Michael. “Does the woman not contribute to your life who shares your bed, who puts up with your musical tastes even when she doesn’t like opera—”
“Opera?” both Blumbergs chorused in surprise.
“—who drinks skim milk because of your dietary requirements—”
“—skim milk?”
“—and endures your sexual inadequacies?”
“Jessie! How could you?”
Michael’s head spun. It was almost as if she was talking about himself and Freya. But how could that be?
“You pursue this woman.” Ms. da Fillipo thundered on like a runaway juggernaut. “You send her flowers. You beg her to share your life. Then one day—pfff!—you decide you don’t need her anymore. So what do you do? You take her to a public place and cast her off.”
“But Jessie left me,” objected the old man.
“Of course, I left you! You were having an affair with Mrs. Lemke.”
“Once and for all, I was not—”
“You cast her off, I say—homeless, alone, crying her heart out, like an old—an old—”
“Like an old, homeless, lonely shoe,” Michael offered dryly. “In tears.”
Ms. da Fillipo glared at him. The Blumbergs were looking bewildered and hurt.
Michael rose to his feet. “Ms. da Fillipo, I wonder if we might step next door for a moment?”
“Gladly,” she answered, her cheeks flushed.
Michael crossed to the door and held it open with elaborate politeness, then stepped after her in
to the outer room. Behind him he could hear Mrs. Blumberg wailing, “But I don’t understand. . . .” He closed the door firmly.
“Now.” He rounded on Ms. da Fillipo. “Would you please tell me what’s been going on in there?”
“Don’t play the innocent with me.” Her eyes flashed. “I know everything. And I am not embarrassed to tell you to your face that you have treated Freya abominably. If you dare to sue her over those trousers, I shall defend her personally, to the Supreme Court if necessary.”
Michael looked down on her in perplexity, mildly disconcerted by how small she was, up close. His brain struggled to figure out how she knew so much about Freya and his trousers. It was hard to believe that Freya had gone to the trouble of hiring an attorney, just in case he sued. And why the ferocious attitude? How come this Caterina da Fillipo was taking it all so personally, as if she actually knew Freya? Caterina . . . The penny dropped with a clunk. “You’re Cat,” he said.