Summer in the City

by Irene Vartanoff

  A sudden thirst came upon her and she directed the cab driver to her favorite wine shop. It was time for some serious self-medication. What she had just done with Edward was utterly crazy.

  Chapter 8

  Susan and Rona hardly spoke during the next week. Susan could not penetrate the hard shell behind which Rona had hidden her feelings. Not to mention that Rona was drinking heavily, and Susan despised drinking. Rona seemed quite able to hold her liquor, but that wasn’t the point. Heavy drinking was another way to hide feelings and duck moral responsibility. Susan’s support group meetings about overeating had drawn the parallel to alcoholism, although she’d hardly needed to hear it. She would never forget her parents were killed by a drunk driver.

  She didn’t want to press Rona. She knew that wasn’t the way. So she did her work, checked in with her friend daily, and then found plays, concerts, ballets, and even one-man shows to attend virtually every evening. Her weekend was dedicated to her museum and tourist site pilgrimages. She looked forward with nervous anticipation to her date with Michael next week.

  The rest of the time, she shopped. She enjoyed visiting the Prada store on Fifth Avenue. It was a triumphant concoction of glass and clean-lined marble, with plenty of light streaming in from the street. She looked at everything but bought nothing. The clothes were too severe for her taste. There was too much black. A funereal color. By contrast, Manolo Blahnik’s shoe boutique was a charming oasis, a tiny shop in a street-level brownstone with its own private deck and garden, tastefully furnished. Blahnik shoes were colorful and simple. In fact, examining a wall of them, she concluded that they were the same basic sandal, each decorated differently with whimsy and charm. The heel height and width were the same. The soles were fragile, unsuitable for hard city sidewalks. The women who could afford these shoes didn’t walk about the city. They took cabs or had private drivers. Their gilded feet only graced the New York City concrete from the distance of their vehicle to the red carpeted entrance to some posh club, posh hotel, or posh shop.

  She hadn’t gotten around to Jimmy Choo yet, but that store was on the list. While she enjoyed shopping in the fashionable clothing stores, she seldom bought anything in them except basic neutral pieces. A navy jacket with an interesting cut. A tan cardigan to wear over a white dress she already owned. A brown skirt to tone down a vibrant blouse. She was still wearing her too-loud and too-touristy bright clothes because Rona had forgotten her promise to help Susan find a city wardrobe.

  Solitary shopping wasn’t a substitute for a working friendship. If things got any worse, she might find herself turning to using food to fill the empty spaces again. Not a good idea.

  One night, after she had returned from a dinner concert down at the Dow Jones seaport, she got a shrieking phone call.

  “Finally, you’re home! Come down here right away. It’s urgent.”

  Her heart sank. Was Rona planning to yell at her again for making the apartment comfortable? Or maybe finally Rona was going to reveal what was troubling her.

  When she took herself downstairs and knocked at Rona’s apartment door, she heard a strange sound.

  Rona threw open the door. “Thank god you’re here!” She practically dragged Susan inside. There was Bev Feinstein, sobbing, on Rona’s couch.

  “Bev! What on earth is wrong?” She turned to Rona and mouthed the same question. Rona shook her head, her expression indicating she had no clue. She obviously wanted Susan to stop all the sobbing.

  Since Bev had not answered, Susan moved closer. Bev was still crying quietly. She looked terrible. Her up-to-the-minute hairstyle was awry. Her hair was dyed a harsh black that made a bad contrast to her face, now mottled from her tears. Her dress was clearly expensive and fashionable, but there could be more of it. Susan caught herself. She tried to banish her critical thoughts and deal with the moment.

  After what had happened at Nancy’s wedding last year, Susan had good reason to hate Bev. They had never been close, merely mutual friends of Rona. She supposed a better person would pretend it had never happened. She couldn’t.

  For some reason, Rona was over her head with this visit. Meanwhile, Bev looked as if she was about to cry some more.

  “Are you and Todd up here visiting relatives?” Susan asked, hoping to avert more tears. Her words set Bev sobbing again.

  “That’s not the reaction I expected,” she admitted to Rona, puzzled. After the sobbing quieted a little, she tried again, but Bev replied with a tangled tale of leaving Todd because his latest bimbo was pregnant.

  “Are you filing for divorce, is that it?”

  “Nooooo…”

  “Is Todd?”

  Bev shook her head.

  “Who’s looking after your daughters?”

  “My mother.” She wailed again.

  Why had she come to New York? Her mother lived in Florida now. Did she think Rona could help her somehow? Susan looked at Rona again seeking some clue. Rona shook her head. No idea.

  “Why did you come here?” she asked Bev, hoping to get a sensible reply. Bev was still hysterical.

  “I need help. I can’t stay with Todd when he’s like this.”

  “Then…what are your plans?” she asked, not wanting to know the answer, but clearly Rona had deputized her in this situation.

  “Plans? I didn’t think.” Bev spoke between sobs.

  She never did. Susan didn’t even feel guilty thinking that. Bev continued with an incoherent tale of expecting to stay with Rona.

  “What’ll I do?!” she wailed.

  “Honey, I have no extra space,” Rona said.

  A massive understatement. Even viewed from the living room, the huge pile of clothing in her bedroom that dominated the bed proved the truth of her statement. Rona only had a small space clear for herself.

  As Bev looked about to dissolve in tears all over again, she instead straightened up and her face took on an angry expression.

  “I’m not going back to that mean Todd again. He thinks just because he’s a surgeon, everyone should bow down to him.”

  “You can’t stay here,” Rona said, obviously affected but fighting it.

  “But you’re my friend. I can’t possibly get a hotel room at this time of night. Anyway, they’re all infested with bedbugs. I heard about it on TV.”

  The pleas obviously worked on Rona, who looked torn. She suddenly smiled in relief.

  “I’ve got the perfect solution. Susan is subletting my upstairs co-op. There’s a couch you can sleep on.”

  Suddenly the scene Susan had been observing with deliberate dispassion was personal. Was this Rona’s idea of payback? She couldn’t be serious.

  Bev gave Susan such a hopeful look that she could not come up with an excuse to say no.

  Reluctantly, she admitted, “Actually, there’s a furnished spare bedroom.”

  She couldn’t bring herself to lie and say Bev was welcome to stay with her. She was not. Yet, there was no decent way around offering Bev a place for the night. Bev could bunk with her on an emergency basis and Susan would pretend she didn’t know how Bev had betrayed her.

  Bev’s thanks, between sobs, didn’t make her feel any better. Being praised for her competence by someone who delighted in her own ineffectiveness was a double-edged sword. Bev seemed to be proud of being scatterbrained.

  Finally noticing that Rona had a drink in her hand, Bev asked for some wine, too. Rona gave a Susan a perplexed look.

  Susan asked Bev, “Are you taking any medications you shouldn’t mix with alcohol?”

  “No! Of course not.” Bev sounded outraged at the very idea.

  “Okay, then no worries about bad reactions if you have a glass,” Rona said briskly.

  After the wine had been dispatched, it took both Susan and Rona to get Bev and her luggage upstairs to the other apartment. Susan felt a certain satisfaction that her dogged efforts to create a home out of this empty and lackluster apartment had given her the opportunity to be a proper hostess in an emergency. The
futon mattress rested on the airbed in the second bedroom, and that made an acceptable spot for Bev.

  Of course, there still was a big gaping hole in the wall between the second bedroom and Susan’s.

  Bev was worn out from her histrionics and soon went to bed. For that, Susan was grateful. Her flash of compassion for the younger woman had not erased the resentment she bore her for her actions at Nancy’s wedding. Susan wanted to avoid having to talk to Bev.

  She left the apartment on the excuse that she had laundry to check on. She didn’t exactly lie. She called Rona as she headed downstairs and they met a few minutes later not far from the basement laundry room. They sat outside in the back of the building, in a walled garden area that Rona had been instrumental in creating. There were lights, round open-weave metal picnic tables and chairs, and a profusion of flower boxes of many sizes. Ivy and colorful flowers had been trained to drip from the retaining walls, and decorative plaques with an aged copper look were hung amidst them.

  The garden had been a welcome discovery one day when she went to the basement laundry room. A few steps up from the basement or a few steps down from a door off the back end of the building’s entrance hall, it was an oasis in the stone and concrete city. She especially liked the array of blooming flowers, all chosen to thrive in the low light conditions of what was, after all, a concrete courtyard below grade. The overall effect was enchanting. Much of the time, it was empty, another luxury in the city. She had been to many of the tiny pocket parks that dotted midtown. They had beautiful fountains and tables and chairs, but there was an overall institutional feel to them. This small garden area behind the apartment building was a different and more personal rest spot. Here, she could breathe and relax without having to watch her back.

  Rona, of course, arrived bearing a glass of wine. She had thoughtfully brought Susan a glass of ice water, as well. They sat at a table and solemnly toasted each other.

  After a long, peaceful moment, Susan asked, “What do you think happened?”

  Rona shrugged. “I haven’t a clue. She rang my bell, burst inside with all her things, and then spent the next two hours crying on my loveseat. Why didn’t you answer your cell? I was desperate.”

  “I turned it off at a concert. I forgot to turn it back on until I got home.”

  “Thank god you finally did. I was going nuts from all that crying.”

  In this softer, more approachable mood, Rona didn’t come across as an antagonist anymore.

  Susan said, “Please tell me what’s bothering you. Maybe I can help by listening.”

  Rona sighed. “I’ve been a brute, I know it. Not only to you. I’ve been ignoring Jack—I finally spoke to him and he told me how he tried to pump you for information, by the way.”

  “He was worried that you had dumped him without even telling him,” she explained, trying to justify her behavior.

  “I suppose that’s actually what happened.”

  At Susan’s look of confusion, Rona sighed and said, “Oh, hell, why not?”

  She swallowed the last of her wine in a gulp. “This isn’t going to be pretty. I hope you can take it.”

  Susan put her hand on Rona’s. “You are my best friend. You gave me everything in my time of trouble. You can tell me anything.”

  Rona took a deep breath. “Okay, get ready for a shock. Edward is back.”

  “Oh, dear,” Susan replied. “Louis suspected it. I did, too, once I heard that Edward’s wife had died.”

  “Honey, I definitely did not expect this. It’s a mess. Edward says he contacted me because he wanted to make amends for the past. You know, that old Alcoholics Anonymous thing about going to the people you have hurt and apologizing to them? Maybe trying to make things right if you can?”

  “I’ve heard of it,” she said cautiously. She had made her own amends to Rick and Nancy after she finally regained her sanity, but Rona didn’t need to hear about that right now.

  “Edward isn’t in A.A. I’m the one who should be,” Rona said as an aside, “but he’s a practicing Roman Catholic. Always has been. It seems that confessing everything about our affair to his priest didn’t give Edward lasting peace of mind.”

  “He needed to tell you?”

  “That’s what he said. I have to give him credit. He was very broken up about it.”

  “You’ve been pretty upset yourself lately.”

  “I’ve been freaking out,” Rona said frankly. “I had no clue why he called me. My initial reaction was that I didn’t want to know.”

  “So you ignored his calls.”

  “He kept on calling and calling,” Rona said, again showing some of the anguish she had displayed in the past days. She got up restlessly and started pacing. Then she stopped and faced Susan.

  “I finally broke down and met him. At a hotel.”

  “Oh, Rona,” Susan said sympathetically. “Not a hotel? Men are so dense.”

  Rona’s next words were painfully self-mocking. “Exactly like twenty-five years ago when we were sneaking around to have sex.”

  She walked back to the table and flung herself back into her chair. Her fingers started playing with the stem of her wine glass. “God, I wish I hadn’t given up smoking. I could use a cigarette right now. Maybe some more wine.”

  “Now, Rona…”

  “Okay, okay. I know. I don’t need any more wine tonight. Or any other night, for that matter,” she said dryly. Then, she continued. “I’ve stalled enough. Let me tell you the worst.” Her expression was angry. “Sure we talked. I ended up having sex with him.”

  “Oh, Rona, no!”

  Rona’s eyes glistened. Susan could see her fighting the tears. “I swore I would not cry over him ever again. Ever,” Rona muttered through clenched teeth.

  A few seconds passed. She took a sharp breath. “There. I’m better.”

  She continued, though still visibly struggling to keep her composure. “Now I don’t know what he wants from me or what I want from him. I simply do not know,” she said. Her fingers had tightened on the wine stem with each word. Finally, they snapped it. The bowl of the glass fell on the pavement and shattered into a million pieces.

  Susan leaped up. “Did you cut your hand?” In the pinkish rays of the security lights, Rona’s sleek bob with its expensive salon streaking looked like cotton candy at a carnival. How strange to notice it at this moment. The light was so odd that it was hard to see clearly. Rona was staring at her fingers.

  Susan insisted that Rona stand, and then led her back to her second-floor apartment. Rona seemed to be in shock. Once they were in normal incandescent lighting, Susan could see that Rona’s hand was not bleeding. That was a relief. They could skip a midnight wait in the nearby hospital’s ER.

  Rona collapsed on the edge of her bed, seeming very slender and fragile against the mounded pillows and luxurious spread.

  “I’m so tired. I’ll tell you more, but not tonight. I need to rest.”

  “Are you going to be all right alone?”

  Rona gave her a sad smile. “I’ve got so many memories whirling in my head I’m never alone anymore.”

  Susan hugged her. “We can talk another time. Or never. It’s up to you. Get some rest, dear friend.”

  Of course, she herself didn’t get much sleep. Bev’s tears had dried, but then she wandered around the place in the middle of the night, which woke Susan. With the holes in walls between the bedrooms and between the kitchen and bath, every noise echoed. It wasn’t a restful night.

  In the morning she got up early, showered, and dressed for work without seeing or hearing her unexpected guest. She planned to check on Bev later by phone but then realized that the apartment itself did not have a phone. Landlines were less and less common in temporary living situations. She would have to call Rona later to get Bev’s cell number and see about what they should do next.

  Chapter 9

  Two days later, Susan was still an unwilling hostess to her houseguest. She had bought more amenities for the apartm
ent, shopping needlessly in an effort to smother her resentment at Bev’s continuing presence.

  Luckily, there was the job to go to in the daytime where she could be alone. She was always alone in her special hallway. What a place. No wonder the previous person quit. Although she had discovered that the editors actually had plenty to say to each other. They simply never got up from their desks to do it. They sent each other emails and instant messages. Unfortunately, she didn’t have any excuse to message the editors, and they seemed to have no interest in contacting her. Linda didn’t, either. That ought to count as a blessing.

  Rona called her in the late afternoon.

  “I can’t take it anymore. Bev sits around moping, either upstairs at your place, or downstairs at mine. Or she gets calls from her relatives in Florida and then starts sobbing. I’ve got no time for this. I have a summer session starting soon.”

  “I hear you. I’m suddenly cooking and cleaning for an uninvited guest. What can we do?” She idly opened a carton of manuscripts as she talked. She could do this job in her sleep by now.

  “I haven’t a clue, honey. I’m sick of hearing her whining about how selfish and mean Todd is. He’s a prick; we’ve already decided that. My money says she’ll go back to him in the end because he’s her meal ticket.”

  That was her cynical Rona talking. At least she didn’t sound as miserable as she had the other night. Maybe having Bev around, annoying lump that she was, took Rona’s mind off her troubles a little.

  “I’ve asked her several times if she wanted to go out,” she said. “So far, she hasn’t budged.”

  “That’s because you’re making life too easy for her.”

  “You’re probably right.” What to do about it?