Name Dropping

by Jane Heller

  And I want a man who doesn’t use the expression “the whole enchilada,” I thought as I hung up the phone.

  Three out of four of us adored Thai food (I was the lone hold-out; putting scallions in tuna salad was about as exotic as I got). But the majority ruled and we went to a Thai place on Third Avenue that was all the rage, according to Janice, Stan, and Dan. Like Stan and Dan, the name of the restaurant rhymed. Jai-Ya Thai, it was called.

  “The food here’s incredible,” said Dan as he was pulling out my chair for me. He was short and wiry, as was his reddish-brown hair, and he had a pointy nose and pointy teeth (the incisors, anyway). He wasn’t unattractive by any means; he just wasn’t Bill.

  As for Stan, he was short and wiry too, and just as tightly coiled as Dan. In fact, I had never been in the presence of two men who were so wound up, so constantly in motion, so energetic. I actually whispered to Janice that I thought they must be on cocaine. “No,” she assured me. “They’re just high on life.”

  They were high on Thai food, that much was clear. The menu at Jai-Ya Thai rates the food for spiciness by placing one, two, or three stars next to each dish. Stan and Dan insisted on ordering three-star items, while Janice and I opted to play it safe with one-star entrees. The waiter tried to talk the men out of their choices, explaining that even the Asians who frequented the restaurant stuck with one stars. “We’re not wusses,” Dan told him, slapping the man on the back. “Give us the fire, man.”

  The waiter brought the fire for Stan and Dan. Then he brought the tamer stuff for Janice and me. Two minutes into the meal, I noticed that both Stan and Dan were weeping. The food was that incendiary, apparently.

  “Are you all right?” I asked Dan.

  He shook his head and gulped down an entire glass of water.

  “Maybe you shouldn’t have gone for the three-alarmer,” I said.

  He shook his head again. “This is what it’s all about,” he said, coughing and gagging and then drinking more water. “If I’m going to eat, I want to feel the heat.” He shoveled another forkful into his mouth and started weeping all over again.

  To each his own, I thought, as Stan and Dan turned the meal into a spectator sport. Janice and I watched as the two of them went head to head over their mee krob and dancing shrimp, eating and crying and eating and crying.

  “Done,” said Dan when he had cleaned his plate. He had beaten Stan to the finish line by a nose, his pointy nose. “How’d you like yours, Nancy?”

  “It made my lips vibrate,” I said.

  “Excellent,” he said approvingly. “Next time you’ll move up to two stars.”

  There won’t be a next time, I thought as we left the restaurant. I’d rather be home counting the fibers in my bedroom carpet.

  I didn’t say that to Dan, naturally. When he brought me back to my place, I invited him in for some tea and he described more maladies that bring people to the eye doctor.

  “As a matter of fact, I think you’ve got a broken blood vessel in your left eye,” he said, sliding closer to me on the sofa. “Mind if I take a look?”

  Before I could respond, he was in my face, peering at my eye.

  “See anything?” I asked.

  “Nope,” he said without budging. “You’re all clear.”

  “That’s a relief.” But it wasn’t a relief because Dan didn’t return to his original position on the sofa. Instead, he kissed me.

  “Dan,” I said after pulling away. “You’re a terrific guy, really sweet, but I’m not available for a relationship right now. I’m involved with someone else. Janice should have told you.”

  He seemed surprised. Janice must have told him just the opposite.

  “I’m sorry,” I said as he got up from the sofa. “But I did enjoy meeting you. I hope you don’t think our date was a total waste of time.”

  “Not total,” he said as he walked toward the door. “You’re getting up there in age.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “You’re in your late thirties, right?”

  “Yes.” I braced myself for a Janice-type lecture on my good years, my marketable years.

  “Then it won’t be long before you’ll be needing an opthamologist,” said Dan, who handed me his business card. “If I can’t score with you one way, I’ll score with you another, huh?”

  He winked at me. I winked back. I did not bother to tell him that I already had an eye doctor, the one who’d treated me in November for the conjunctivitis.

  “Give my office a shout,” said Dan as he stepped into the hall. “In the meantime, maybe I’ll run into you at the Thai place.”

  “Maybe.” I smiled. And maybe not.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Going out to dinner with Dan on Saturday night made me miss Bill even more. (It made me swear off Thai food too; I nearly overdosed on Pepcid AC Chewables.) I longed to hear his voice, hear him tell me he still loved me. I was also, I had to admit, extremely curious how his investigation was coming along—whether he’d made progress in identifying the big shot who was jerking Levin and the others around. Most of all, I needed to know that he was all right. And so when I got home from school on Monday afternoon, I decided to break my vow of silence. I picked up the phone and called him at Denham and Villier.

  “Hello,” I said nervously when the switchboard operator answered. “Bill Harris, please.”

  “He’s not in,” she said. “I’ll give you his voicemail.”

  Just like that. I’ll give you his voicemail. Without even asking me if I wanted his voicemail. This is progress?

  I hung up and redialed the number.

  “Denham and Villier,” said the switchboard operator.

  “Hello. I’m calling for Bill Harris but I’d rather not leave a message,” I told her. “Could you possibly tell me whether he’s out for a few minutes or gone for the rest of the day?”

  “I’ll connect you with reception,” she said and launched me into Muzak land.

  A few seconds later a woman cut into an instrumental version of “Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head.”

  “Hello,” she said. “Executive offices.”

  “Yes, hello,” I said. “I’m calling for Bill Harris.”

  “Mr. Harris is out of the office,” she said. “I’ll give you his voice—”

  “Wait!” I interrupted, before she could transfer me. “Will Mr. Harris be back today?”

  “No, he won’t,” she said.

  “Will he be back tomorrow?” I asked.

  “No, he won’t,” she said.

  “Will he be back on Wednesday?” I asked.

  “No, he won’t,” she said.

  “Look,” I said, exasperated. “You could make this a lot easier for both of us if you’d just tell me when Mr. Harris will be back.”

  “I don’t know, ma’am,” she said. “He’s taking some time off.”

  “Time off?”

  “That’s right, ma’am. Would you like his voicemail?”

  “No.”

  I hung up and considered this new development. Did Bill take time off to work on the case? I wondered. Was he down in Virginia seeing his kids? Or was he stretched out on a beach in Bali contemplating his navel?

  As Bill’s sons were coming to New York in a few weeks for the Memorial Day holiday, and as his work ethic was such that he would never fly off to the South Pacific and shirk his responsibilities, I narrowed the three possibilities down to one: He had gone undercover to wind up the case.

  I was terribly conflicted, which wasn’t uncommon for me since I’d met Bill. On one hand, I was thrilled that the end might be in sight, that he and I would be together sooner rather than later, that the whole mess would be over and done with. On the other, I was worried sick that something might happen to him. Men like Bill Harris didn’t come along every day, as Joan Geisinger had rightfully pointed out. I could deal with the thought of our not working out our differences, if I had to, but I couldn’t bear the thought of his being hurt—or worse.

>   I called his apartment. His answering machine picked up.

  “Hi, Bill. It’s Nancy,” I said after the beep. “I hope you’re okay. I love you. That’s it, I guess.”

  And that was it. Days went by, then weeks, and Bill still didn’t call me back. All I could do was wait. Wait and see how everything would turn out. I felt hopelessly passive.

  At Small Blessings, Janice and I were busy getting the children ready for the Middle Ages celebration. We mailed a letter home to the parents asking them to send their child to school with an old pillowcase that we would make into a tunic. Of course, Small Blessings parents couldn’t send their kid to school with just any old pillowcase; it had to be an old Ralph Lauren pillowcase, an old Pratesi pillowcase, an old pillowcase that was in far better shape than one of my pillowcases. We had each child cut holes in his pillowcase for his head and arms, slip it on, and tie a rope around his waist to keep the tunic in place. Instant costumes.

  We also had the children make swords out of pieces of cardboard and spray them with gold paint. We used the same materials for their crowns. Instant accessories to our instant costumes.

  We had a Middle Ages feast instead of our regular lunch period. We cooked chicken legs and roasted potatoes and apple tarts, right next door to the classroom in the school’s kitchen, and to wash everything down we served grape juice (“pretend wine”) in plastic goblets I’d bought at a party store. The children were allowed to eat with their hands, because there was no silverware in the Middle Ages, we explained, and they got to dance to music which sounded medieval but was actually Mozart.

  And every day leading up to the last day, we rehearsed the Middle Ages song that the children would be singing for the parents. They were learning the lyrics. They were learning the melody. They were learning their last lesson at Small Blessings. They were counting down to good-bye.

  Oh, and there was one other order of business before graduation day. Each of our sixteen charges had to tell either Janice or me what they wanted to be when they grew up, and we would then write out their message in fancy script and insert the piece of paper inside their diploma.

  Lindsay Greenblatt said that when she grew up, she wanted to be a vet and take care of people’s dogs and cats but not their snakes.

  Todd Delafield said that when he grew up, he wanted to be a man who drove race cars and have his mommy bring him chocolate milk when he got tired.

  Alexis Shuler said that when she grew up, she wanted to marry Todd Delafield.

  And so on.

  What did Fischer Levin want to be when he grew up? A pirate who hunted for buried treasure, just like his dad. I had trouble writing that one down, but I didn’t have much choice.

  Eventually, Friday, May 22nd, the last day of school at Small Blessings, arrived, and it was chaos as expected. Ours wasn’t the only class having a last-day celebration, so there were crowds of parents and guests and caregivers milling about the halls.

  And then there was Victoria Bittner dashing frantically between our rooms, asking to borrow some paint, then some brushes, then some turpentine. She had created yet another mural in her classroom and was not only behind schedule but out of supplies.

  That’s her problem, I thought. I’ve got enough of my own today. It wasn’t simply the last-minute preparations that had me rattled; it was the suspense of whether or not Bob Levin would show up to watch his kid graduate—and, if so, what he would say or do to me. I hadn’t seen him since the notorious samba incident at the spring fund-raiser, and so much had happened since then: Uncle Dave’s concussion, my parents’ robbery, Janice’s night visitor, my breakup with Bill. Would he keep upping the ante as I kept predicting? Would he be desperate enough to do it on his son’s last day of school?

  My anxiety level rose as Janice and I got the children dressed in their tunics and crowns and swords and positioned them in the play area, amid their coats of arms. When everybody was in place, I punched Play on the tape player, and sounds of our medieval/Mozart music heralded the start of our ceremony.

  “You may all enter the great hall!” I said, summoning the waiting parents inside the classroom.

  They filed in. Mr. and Mrs. Shuler. Mr. and Mrs. Delafield. Mr. and Mrs. Woolsey. But no Mr. and Mrs. Levin. Where were they? And what did their absence signify?

  I didn’t have time to figure it out. I was busy greeting everybody and inviting them to sit in the little chairs we’d set up on the other side of the room or, for those with video cameras, to stand near the chairs.

  I was about to begin the program when I finally spotted Bob Levin. My heart did a flip in my chest. Where was Gretchen Levin? I wondered as he made his way into the classroom, eyeing me with malicious intent. Where was Olga? And who were the five badly dressed men flanking him—men I didn’t recognize as any of the other children’s daddies?

  I nodded in their direction and whispered to Janice, “Do you know those guys huddled together over there next to Bob Levin?”

  “No,” she whispered back, “but there’s something fishy about them. I overheard Mrs. Shuler ask one of them which child he was here to see, and he said they were all here to see Fischer because they were his uncles!”

  “Fischer’s uncles. Yeah, right.” I knew it, knew the bastard would pull something.

  “You think they’re Levin’s guys?”

  “What else?”

  “But why would they come here?”

  “To scare me. To intimidate me into returning the brooch. How better to get me to do what they want than by giving me the impression that they’re willing to put the children at risk? That’s what they’re doing, I bet. They’re saying: ‘You don’t hand over the brooch, we’ll hurt the kids.’”

  “But what about Fischer? Levin isn’t evil enough to let anything happen to his own kid, is he?”

  “No. They’re bluffing, I’m sure of it. Bill says they’re not interested in hurting anybody, just getting the brooch back.” Pretty ironic that I was suddenly taking his position, huh? Was it wishful thinking or did I finally trust him? I didn’t know.

  “Jesus, Nance. What should we do? Call security?”

  “I have a better idea. Bill’s hope was to manipulate a meeting of these guys, get them in a situation where they’re seen together, incriminated together, photographed together. Well, here they are in our very own classroom. How perfect is that?”

  “Perfect? Are you crazy?”

  “No, I just want this case to be over. So here’s what I want you to do.”

  “Me?”

  “Yes. You’re Miss Just-Do-It, remember?”

  She rolled her eyes.

  “I want you to tiptoe over to James Woolsey’s father and ask him—very quietly—if you can borrow his video camera. And then, when I start the program, I want you to focus the camera lens on Fischer’s uncles and catch them talking—to each other and to Levin. Got it?”

  “Yeah, but what if Mr. Woolsey won’t part with his video camera?”

  “Tell him I’ll flunk his kid.”

  She nodded and did as I asked. Mr. Woolsey gave up the camera, and I gave her a discreet thumbs-up.

  I stepped to the center of the room.

  “Good morning, ladies and gentlemen,” I said, “and welcome to our special Middle Ages graduation ceremony. The children will be performing a song they’ve worked hard to learn, and after that we’ll be handing out their diplomas. But first, I’d like to say what a wonderful class we’ve had this year and how much we’ll miss each child.” I went on about how well the kids did in all aspects of our preschool curriculum and what a breeze kindergarten was going to be for them. Blah blah blah. I had made the speech a thousand times, but this time I was more than a little distracted. “And now, without further ado, here are our stars!”

  I walked back to the rug, knelt down in front of the kids, and asked them if they were ready.

  “Yes, Miss Stern,” they said, including Alexis Shuler, who had been cured of her lisp and could now pronounce my name co
rrectly.

  We began to sing. I tried to keep my mind on kings and queens and serfs and peasants.

  We were in the middle of the chorus when we were interrupted by Penelope, of all people. Or, rather, by Penelope’s voice. It came blaring over the intercom that was used only for emergencies.

  “Attention! Attention!” she bellowed. “I’m sorry to report that there’s been a gas leak in the basement and we’ll have to cut all our graduating ceremonies short in order to evacuate the building. Children will go first, accompanied by teachers. Once again, children first. As soon as every child is outside and accounted for, parents and other visitors may join them on the street. Please do not panic. Everyone will be fine provided they remain calm. Once again, children first. Children first.”

  What in the world is this? I thought. A gas leak? On the last day of school? We’d never had a gas leak in all the years I’d worked at Small Blessings.

  My gaze went straight to Levin and the “uncles,” to gauge their reaction, to determine if they were somehow responsible for the interruption in the program. They looked as stunned as the rest of us.

  There was complete bedlam as Janice rushed over to help me herd the children out of the room. Some of the kids were scared and wanted to stay with their parents. Some of them were relieved that they wouldn’t have to remember the rest of the words to the Middle Ages song. Either way, there was gridlock as we attempted to assemble all of our crowned and sworded and tunic-ed graduates, lead them down the hall, and keep them moving once they merged with the children and teachers from the other three classrooms.

  “I didn’t even know we had gas in this building,” I heard Nick Spada remark to Fran Golden. “The place has oil heat and electric kitchen appliances. So what’s there to leak?”

  Nick had a point, but I couldn’t address it at that moment. I had to concentrate on the children.

  When we got the class out to the street, I was startled to see a dozen cops spilling out of the police cars that had come screeching up to the curb in front of the building.

  “They sure are taking this gas leak seriously,” Janice mused as the cops raced inside.