She offered him one of her more cynical looks. “English, biology, textile—”
The wall phone rang and Sam snapped it up. “Hello?”
“It’s me, Mabel.”
“Good. Listen, Mabel, I want you to take the Trinity Electronics files—”
“Oh, don’t worry,” she said cheerfully, “Mr. Canley already has them.”
Sam’s stomach flip flopped. “What do you mean,” he said slowly, “Mr. Canley already has them?” He turned his back on Althea’s inquisitive eyes. “He came over with some guy after you left. He said you knew all about it, that you discussed it at your meeting.”
Man, oh, man.
As soon as he hung up, Althea said, “Somebody stealing your files?”
“Borrowed them,” Sam said. He finished making his Sanka and pulled out a chair to sit down at the table. He was well aware that Althea’s eyes were still on him.
She closed her magazine. “Who is Mr. Canley?”
“The senior executive vice-president.”
Silence.
“Mom’s going be pretty upset if we have to move to Peoria.”
Sam looked at her.
“Mr. Canley’s the guy who sent Mr. Wellman there, isn’t he? To Peoria?”
Sam reached over and pulled on her nose. “We’re not moving to Peoria, Miss Busybody,” he said, trying hard to smile.
At close to one in the morning, Sam was sitting alone in the living room, in the dark, looking out across Riverside Park. By Wyatt standards, it was very late indeed; by New York standards, it was still considered a Friday night to be reckoned with. Cars were streaming south on the West Side Highway, heading for the heart of the city. Sam pulled his robe a little closer around him and continued to think about the need for his office telephones to be fixed.
12
NEWS AT THE COCHRAN’S
It had been some Friday. To start it off, for the first time in over three years, Rosanne did not show. After Cassy tried her a number of times, left messages with increasing urgency, she finally gave up, rolled up her sleeves and started cleaning the apartment herself.
By eleven she was on the phone, checking with the forty-seven odd neighbors who were running booths or working at the block party the next day. Did they have everything they needed? Did they know what to do? Would they make sure that Cassy would never, ever again be asked to organize this horrendous escapade?
Every time she placed a call, it seemed, someone from WST called on the other line. Was Cassy aware that the AFD films had not arrived yet for the weekend film festival? Did Cassy know the air vents were all being replaced next month? (Next month? This had to be discussed at noon on her day off?) What was Cassy going to do about Chester’s new contract? Had Cassy come to a decision regarding the removal of pay phones from the lobby of the building? Her boss, Steven Lubin, called too, simply to say what he always said when Cassy was out of the office. “If you’re going to be indispensable, you can’t leave us to fend for ourselves in this asylum.”
Phone under her chin, Cassy took an inventory of the kitchen. After the block party, the neighbors who helped were all supposed to come back to the Cochrans’ for a buffet. With Rosanne currently and mysteriously missing in action, Cassy assumed the worst for tomorrow and called the caterer in Rosanne’s stead. And of the six casseroles in the freezer? Well, Michael and Henry could predict the next month’s menu.
Alexandra Waring called in. Since Harriet Wyatt reported that Newton Thatimov was on tour to promote his 345th book and could not get back from San Francisco in time for the block party this year, Alexandra had become their sole starring attraction.
“Michael suggested one dollar for an autograph, two dollars for a handshake and five dollars to—” Alexandra had laughed, a wonderfully long affair that reminded Cassy of Garbo in Ninotchka. “He seems to think people would want to pay five dollars to kiss me on the cheek.”
“Oh, Lord,” Cassy had said, “I wouldn’t make you do that.”
“Good,” she had said. “But do you want me to? Five dollars is a good deal of money.”
“Alexandra, I would not ask anyone to be kissed by strangers. In Kansas maybe, but in New York? Good Lord. No, what I think we should do is stick to autographs for two dollars. Okay?”
“Fine with me.” Pause. “What do you want me to wear?”
“Oh, anything you’re comfortable in. No—you know what? I adored the blue dress you wore on your debut—”
“The navy one?”
“Yes, I thought it was stunning.”
“So you’re going to make me stand in heels all day.”
“You can wear whatever—”
“I was kidding, Cassy, really. I don’t mind.” Pause. “Okay, I’ll wear the navy number. By special request. Say, if it’s as stunning as you say it is, maybe I can fetch two-fifty.”
Alexandra handed the phone to Michael, who promised to be home by four to help out with the tables in the basement. Next came the police department, checking and rechecking the hours of the fair, the exact area that was to be barricaded off from traffic and the number of off-duty cops the association would pay for. Sergeant Baker made no secret of his fond admiration for Cassy, and it was with great effort that she succeeded in convincing him she needed no further assistance from him tonight after he got off duty.
Henry zoomed in from school at three and out again, down to the basement to sort the books for Howard Stewart’s bookstall. Cassy went out herself, coordinating and rechecking arrangements with the building supers who were storing materials for various booths. When Michael failed to appear, and the evening grew later, Cassy took Henry and moved and labeled the tables for the booths herself. By nine they were finished. By quarter past ten Cassy was bathed and in bed. Five-thirty would come awfully early the next morning.
She dreamed that Henry married a German girl who looked suspiciously like Greta Garbo. (“Henry,” Cassy said in her dream, straining her eyes, “I’m positive this girl is Garbo.” “Her name is Hilda, Mom.” “But I know it’s Garbo in disguise and I think she’s too old for you. She’s only pretending to be sixteen.”)
“Mom,” Henry’s voice was saying.
Cassy struggled to wake.
“Mom, come quick—it’s Dad.”
Cassy sat up like a shot. “Henry?”
“You’d better come.”
There was a crash from somewhere in the apartment. Cassy turned on the bedside lamp and reached for her robe on the chair. Henry was already gone.
There was another sound—a kind of thunk—followed by the crack of glass, and then a harsh scraping sound. She heard Michael laugh. It was coming from the study.
Henry was standing outside the door to the study. He looked back at Cassy with a silent warning.
Crack. Scrape. Crash.
Cassy pulled Henry behind her and peered into the study. Michael was stabbing the photographs on the wall with a kitchen knife. Cassy yanked Henry a few steps down the hall. “I want you to go to your room and lock the door.”
“No. I’ll stay with you.”
Cassy put her hands on his shoulders and looked him straight in the eye and said, “I’ll be fine. Go. Now,” and gave him a little shove. “Go on.” Crack. Slam.
Once Cassy heard the lock on Henry’s door click, she went back to the doorway of the study.
Roughly half the pictures were still hanging. Glass and tattered photos and broken frames were everywhere. The point of the knife had broken off, but Michael was beyond caring. Holding the knife in both hands up over his head, he took aim and then swung down on another picture.
Crack.
It was a direct hit, splintering the glass and slashing through the back of the frame. It was of Michael accepting a Dupont Journalism Award in 1973. The picture was stuck on the knife and Michael laughed, flinging it off.
Crash.
“Mike,” Cassy said softly.
He turned with a ghastly smile. For a second Cassy considered running, but
then he lowered the knife. “Sweetheart,” she said, voice hushed, “what’s happened?” He swung away from her and faced the wall of pictures again. “I’ve decided to redecorate, that’s all,” he said, scraping the knife in an arc over the wall, sending three more photographs to the floor. “I’m sick of these pictures. Sick of the people in them.” He stepped down hard on a picture and ground his heel into the glass. “It’s all in the past, Cassy girl. They don’t count for nothing.”
Dazed, he looked at the mess around him. Sighing, he dropped the knife to the floor. Then, weaving slightly, he covered his face with his hands. “Oh, Cass,” he said, “my contract.”
Cassy hesitated, and then took a step toward him.
“Cassy,” he wailed, looking up from his hands. Tears were spilling down from his eyes. “They fired me. Fired me.”
In a moment Cassy was there, holding Michael, feeling the pain of his heart.
13
THE BLOCK PARTY
It was a gorgeous day, the sun shining and the sky teal blue. The apartment buildings were festooned with red, white and blue streamers, balloons and hand-lettered signs. Across the way, in Riverside Park, the trees were radiant with new leaves catching the morning light, and the birds, as they would all summer, were sitting in them, singing their hearts out. The block party was, in actuality, three blocks long. The northbound right-hand lane of the Drive had been cleared of parked cars and was barricaded off by the police. The cross streets, too, 89th through 9lst, had been cleared and were closed to traffic. Cars on the Drive slowed to look at the activity occurring along the front of the buildings, and some even pulled over and got out to see what was what. “We don’t open until nine!” the harried volunteers yelled, frantic to meet the deadline, but fretting nonetheless about whether they should or should not make an exception to make a sale. It was for a good cause, the annual block party, though no one seemed to remember exactly how it was they had come to pledge themselves to raising money for the Children’s Clinic—a marvelous institution way up in Riverdale that, in truth, no one still living had ever visited. But every year Sister Mary came down, her habit gently aloft in the river breezes, and expressed such gratitude, such humility to the volunteers, that no one ever considered not carrying on for at least another year.
This year Cassy put Sister Mary and her heavenly influence to work. The block party headquarters was located in the lobby of the Cochrans’ building on the corner of 88th, and so was the treasury. Every two hours the off-duty police officers were to collect excess money from the booths and bring it back to headquarters. Now last year, despite the presence of the police, two different desperados had made a play at trying to steal the treasury. So this year Cassy decided to try throwing the fear of God at them, and stationed Sister Mary outside headquarters, under the awning of 162, reclining in a La-Z-Boy from the Cochran living room.
The layout of booths and stalls and rides was the best in years. The booths and stalls stretched along the buildings of the Drive; the rides and activity booths were sprawled across the cross streets: 89th had the big wooden Train Ride (powered by ten stalwart daddies who would spend the day pulling trainloads of alternately delighted and terrified little people), and a huge, inflated tent of air pillows called the Space Walk; 90th had the Puppet Theater, the House of Mirrors, Needle in the Haystack, and the China Break (manned by the Wyatts); and 91st had Pop a Balloon, Shoot Out at the OK Corral (water pistols and candles), and Lawn Bowling (on Astro-Turf).
Highlights along the Drive were MEET ALEXANDRA WARING OF WWKK TV between 88th and 89th; Melissa Stewart’s creation, THE JUNIOR LEAGUE’S “DANCE OF THE SPRING VEGETABLES” on the corner of 90th; and Howard Stewart’s MORE BOOKS FOR THE BUCK, stretching for nearly a half block at 91st.
Thanks to Henry Cochran and his friend Skipper, the book tables were set up and ready to go at eight-thirty. For nearly two hours they had carefully organized and lined up (spines up) over seven hundred books on ten long tables. When they ran out of room, at Henry’s suggestion, they organized paperbacks, spines up, in cartons to put under the tables, or on them as room was made by sales.
He was a nice kid, this Henry, and Howard was pleased when he asked if he could help Howard all day—that is, if he didn’t mind. Mind? Of course not. “In fact,” Howard had whispered to the two boys, “if you’ll help me, I can get rid of the two flakes my wife recruited.” And so Howard and Henry and Skipper became the official proprietors of the bookstall and the flakes when they finally showed up—were redirected to the “DANCE OF THE SPRING VEGETABLES” to help Melissa.
As for Skipper, well, let’s just say that what Skipper offered as a potential salesperson (which Henry claimed was a great deal), he lacked in social graces. At one point Skipper took a swing at one of the clowns in the booth next to them. “Tell him to stop banging his goddam cymbals in my ear!” Skipper complained. Howard intervened and the clown was moved to the other side of the CLOWNS COURTESY OF BRANTOWSKI CEMENT—”WE STICK TOGETHER” booth, and Skipper was assigned to work the other end of the book tables.
At twenty to nine Cassy swung by. “You’re the only ones set,” she said, throwing an arm around her son.
In a pale yellow sweater, gold hoop earrings, blue jeans and yellow Topsiders, Howard Stewart thought Cassy Cochran a knockout. They officially shook hands—yes, they agreed, they had seen each other around the neighborhood for years; Howard told her Rosanne had had him watch one of her editorials; Cassy said she knew Melissa (end of comment); Howard told her she had a great son and she agreed with him.
Looking into this woman’s eyes, Howard was struck by how tired she appeared, and yet how beautiful she was—much more than she had been on television that day. It was funny—Melissa had no lines to speak of in her face, and indeed, Cassy Cochran did, particularly at the corners of her eyes, but they seemed only to make her eyes bluer and more intense. And more... No—you know what it was? Cassy Cochran looked like she lived a life —laughed and cried and loved—whereas Melissa looked like she—well, posed for life.
Henry said he was sixteen, so if Cassy had been, say, twenty-two, that would make her thirty-eight. Well... No, Howard thought maybe forty...
Howard commanded himself to stop thinking along these lines, mainly because he knew in what direction he was trying to rationalize: speculating and exploring the possibilities of what Cassy Cochran—the woman standing here in front of him, with a teenage son at her side no less—might be like in bed.
As Howard and Cassy and Henry stood there, smiling at one another and chatting, an irate woman dressed like a tomato descended upon them. Betty the Tomato, as her name turned out to be, had been sent as an emissary to file official protest about the Junior League being repeatedly zapped by a little monster wielding a Laser Tag gun. As the woman argued with Cassy over whether or not the six vegetables could handle this extreme danger themselves, Henry and Howard moved around to the inside of the tables where Skipper was lying against the wall of the building, holding his sides, hysterical over the antics of Miss Tomato. Henry started laughing next. And then when Miss Tomato, in her excitement, started rear-ending books off the table, left and right, Howard too had to turn away and laugh.
And then a familiar voice cut through the air.
“Howard! Howard!”
The voice was so shrill, even the boys stopped laughing for a minute to follow the sound of it. Melissa, in the form of a celery stalk, was approaching. Bound and wrapped in yards of green crepe paper, her progress was not achieved without difficulty. Particularly since she had to keep a mindful eye on the horrendous green spiky things that were shooting out of the top of her head.
With a hoot, Skipper clapped his hand over his mouth and keeled back against the wall. Howard’s and Cassy’s eyes met. They both clamped down hard on their teeth to keep from laughing.
Henry, at this point, was under the table in tears. “Hey,” Howard whispered, nudging him with his foot and choking back a laugh, “cool it, it’s my wife.”
“Melissa—thank God!” Betty the Tomato said.
“I have solved our problem,” Melissa declared. “There!” She hurled a handful of plastic on the table in front of Howard. “I disarmed that Benson brat myself.”
“Good!” Betty the Tomato said.
Skipper slid to the ground.
“We didn’t have this kind of problem last year,” Melissa huffed to Cassy. “Come on, Betty, we’re about to start.” Miss Celery took Miss Tomato’s hand and led her away. “Oh, Howard,” Melissa said, turning, her spiky green things bending in the breeze, “those vile Bensons will probably want to talk to you.”
When it was safe, Howard and Cassy burst out laughing.
“I’m sorry, Howard,” Cassy said, wiping at one eye.
“It’s okay,” he assured her. He kicked Henry with his foot. “Hey, you still alive down there?”
Cassy checked her watch. “Okay, gang, you’re officially open in two minutes. Good luck. I’ll stop by later.”
“Okay, Mom,” Henry said, standing up, wiping his eyes.
“Howard,” Cassy said, motioning him away from the boys. She placed a hand gently on his arm. “Thanks for letting the boys work with you today. Henry wanted to work with the books, but since he—we—didn’t know you, he felt shy about asking.”
“I’m only glad to have him. Really.”
“Good luck, boys!”
“Thanks, Mom.”
“Bye, Mrs. C.”
The liberty bell at the Colonial America booth rang and the block party officially began. People descended on the book tables with all the decorum of looters. Skipper raced up and down warning, and then threatening, the customers about how they were treating the books. “What I need,” he yelled to Howard, “is a fly swatter for these guys!”
Someone tapped Howard’s shoulder. He turned around. He felt his face flush and he said, “Amanda.”
It was Amanda all right. No, she didn’t look anything like Cassy Cochran. There was no great beauty, no great blaze of light from her eyes; she was just, just—well, lovely Amanda in the sunlight, looking even better to Howard than he remembered. Or making him feel even better than he remembered.
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