by Nan
* * *
There were a lot of empty seats on the boat, but Alfero wanted to stand. It hurt more when he stood. He had been walking for hours, hoping the pain from his new shoes would help him forget his despair. Alfero didn’t know where to go when he left Libby’s, but he knew he couldn’t go home. He couldn’t tell Dolores and the niños that he had been fired on the first day of his new job. He couldn’t tell them that he was out of the tips business no sooner than he had gotten into it.
Most of the other passengers were inside seeking protection from the wind and the spray as waves crashed against the hull. Alfero stared at the Manhattan skyline. Like the wall of a great fortress, it protected the island. There seemed to be no entrance. No way in.
It didn’t make sense to Alfero. America was a country where everyone was equal. Where the son of a garbage man could rise to the top and clear away the dirty dishes of the President.
What could he tell Dolores? She had let him do it to her last night but now she would never let him do it to her again. She would make him wait even longer than after the baby died. This was a bigger death. It was his job. They had taken away his future. He wasn’t good enough to be a busboy. He was no longer a man.
Suddenly, Alfero remembered Tessa screaming at Steven, “If I’m not good enough to be here tomorrow, then neither is the President.” He wondered whether she was right.
The boat docked at the landing. Children ran to the front of the deck, excited but still holding hands as instructed by their teacher. Alfero stayed close to them. His feet hurt so much that he limped all the way from the pier, hurrying to keep up with the children and hear about Mr. Bartholdi.
Near the entrance to the pedestal, he saw the bronze plaque engraved with words he had heard before. The words he had come to see.
Give me your tired . . .
Alfero was tired. His feet were killing him.
. . . your poor . . .
Alfero was poor. The ferry had cost $3.25. All he had left was a dime and a subway token.
. . . your huddled masses yearning to breathe free . . .
Alfero looked up at the face of the Statue of Liberty. He began to cry. Tessa was right. If he wasn’t good enough to be there tomorrow, then neither was the President.
* * *
Lunch was over. Libby lay back in the tub, imagining herself far away from the restaurant downstairs. In some distant place where there were no clocks. On a mountain top. The Swiss Alps. A very exclusive clinic for the terminally sentimental. A place where people suffered from broken promises and lost letters. Where they died from dreams that never came true. Barbara Stanwyck had once died in just such a clinic. Beautifully dressed. Libby scooped up a handful of soap bubbles and made a fist. Some of the bubbles escaped between her fingers.
There was a knock at the door. “Cal?”
No answer.
“Who is it?”
The door opened slowly. “Libby?”
“Go away!” Libby reached for her towel. “Don’t you dare!” The door kept opening. “One more step and I’ll . . .”
“Don’t be afraid.”
It took Libby a moment to recognize the man standing in her bathroom. “What are you doing here?” She gasped as he took off his aviator glasses.
“Why didn’t you answer my letters?”
Letters? Libby couldn’t believe it. He had written to her! “You’re not supposed to be here until tomorrow.”
“There is no tomorrow.” He took her towel, inhaled it for a moment, and then sat down on the edge of the tub. “I wrote dozens of letters.” He raised his eyebrows. “I should have known they’d be intercepted.”
“By whom?”
“Who do you think?” The President of the United States reached into the water and pulled the plug. “Birnbaum.”
Libby felt a chill on her shoulders. “Why are you here? What do you want?”
“I want my son.”
Libby covered her breasts as the water slid away. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” She was exposed. Cold. Libby put a hand to her mouth as she heard herself scream. But it wasn’t a scream. It was the phone. She picked it up.
“Libby, this is Birnbaum.”
The President was gone. The bubbles were back.
“Birnbaum?”
“I have a car waiting,” he said. “How fast can you get downstairs?”
Her eyes clouded with tears. “I told you yesterday. No more chow mein!”
“Libby, get dressed. Cal’s been shot.”
* * *
Libby stared through the car window as they arrived at Roosevelt Hospital. The Fifty-ninth Street entrance was swarming with reporters. “That looks like more than a flesh wound crowd.”
“Trust me.”
“Are you crazy?” She turned to him. “I don’t know why people think they’re doing you a favor when they say ‘It’s nothing serious’ until you get to the hospital and then they tell you he was eaten by an alligator.” Libby smiled nervously and put a hand on Birnbaum’s arm.
“No alligators,” he said, putting his hand over hers. He expected her to take her hand away. She didn’t. “It’s only a flesh wound.”
“Listen, Birnbaum, you’re not just trying to make things easy for me, are you?”
He smiled. “Would I do a thing like that?” The driver took them around to the Emergency entrance.
Libby hesitated. “Wait. I’m such a mess. My eyes are swollen. My nose is all red. God knows what I’m wearing. They’re going to take one look and wheel me into intensive care.”
“You look fine to me,” he said, opening the car door and getting out. Libby was wearing a pink wool jumpsuit and an orange fox vest.
“What do you know?”
Birnbaum reached for her hand. “You look great. I wish you were rushing to my side.”
She brushed his hand away and got out by herself. “Don’t be dumb.”
Not that some women wouldn’t have found Birnbaum attractive. Some women were threatened by men with style. Some women preferred men who hummed along with the music, couldn’t read a French menu, and whose hands were too large to do their collar buttons. Libby felt sorry for the elitist Mrs. Birnbaum. It must have been sheer hell until he took off his Timex watch and his Sears suit and hopped into bed.
Birnbaum led the way. He knew exactly where to go. He had been to the hospital on Monday checking things out for the President. “We can take this one,” he said, ringing for a Staff Only elevator.
Libby stared straight ahead. The door opened. She couldn’t move. “I’m frightened.”
“He’s all right!”
Libby was afraid Birnbaum was going to put his arms around her again. Even worse, she wished he would. Instead, he led her into the elevator. The doors closed. She stared at the No Smoking sign. “Do you smoke?”
“No.”
“Good. It’s a filthy habit.” She paused. “I used to. Years ago.”
“Years ago doesn’t count.”
“The hell it doesn’t!” she shouted. “I know people who stopped smoking years ago and they still get sick. It all catches up with you. Everything catches up with you. Oh, Birnbaum. I’m so terrified that all those lousy cigarettes are going to catch up with me!”
“It’s okay,” Birnbaum said. “Cal is fine. It’s only a flesh wound.”
Libby made a fist and raised her hand as though it were an SOS. “Whose flesh, Birnbaum?” She stared at him, then slowly closed her eyes as he reached out, took her in his arms, and kissed her.
The moment the elevator doors opened, Libby broke away from Birnbaum and ran down the corridor.
Finding Cal’s room was as daunting as Scarlett searching through the wounded in Atlanta. Libby glanced anxiously into each room, afraid she might actually find him. Or find what was left of him. She was afraid she might be too late. But she didn’t know whether it was too late for him or too late for her.
Libby stood frozen in the doorway of Room 824. Two enormous bo
uquets of balloons were tied to the headboard. Cal, barechested and laughing, sat up in bed. His right arm was in a sling. A barber was trimming his hair while a pretty young woman gave him a manicure. A dozen vases were filled with roses. Extra phones had been brought in and they were all in use. Cal’s lawyer Arny. Barry from the agency. Jerry the press agent. In the corner, Cal’s manager, Freddy, dictated notes into a tape recorder as though the tape recorder were deaf. The noise was earsplitting.
“Babe!” Cal shouted, flashing his baby blues. He raised his hand to wave at her and winced at the pain from his bandaged shoulder.
“You’re not dead!” Libby blurted out.
“I will be if Sweeney Todd cuts my hair any shorter,” Cal said. “Can you believe that today of all days Leslie is on a shoot with DeNiro?”
Libby put her hands on her hips. “No! I can’t believe it.”
“That’s what I said! And DeNiro is definitely not a hair person!” Cal rocked back and shouted, “Ouch!” He pulled his hand back from the manicurist. “Honey, it’s the nail you cut, not the finger!”
Libby stood in the doorway, tapping her foot. “So I hear you got shot.”
Jerry, the press agent, rushed over to Cal. “I’ve got the Enquirer on the phone. What do I tell them?”
Barry shouted from across the room. “Oy vay! The Enquirer knows? They know?”
“Everybody seems to know.” Libby took the towel from the barber and pointed him toward the door.
Freddy slapped his head. “How much do they know?”
“Everything!”
“Everybody seems to know everything.” Libby ankled the manicurist away from the bed. “Later.”
“How much of the cover do I get?” Cal shouted across the room.
“An eighth,” Jerry shouted back. “But for an interview, you could get the big cover shot and a two-page spread.”
“Visiting hours are over,” Libby announced. “You may feed the animal again at eight P.M.” She went from Arny to Jerry to Barry to Freddy. She hung up their phones and greeted them each with a goodbye.
Jerry nodded. “Maybe I should go down and talk to the Enquirer.”
“Is there any place to eat around here?” Freddy asked.
“Dynamite outfit,” Barry said, kissing Libby. “Very retail.”
Arny the lawyer scooped up all of his papers. “He changed his will. You get everything. That means you get nothing. You’d get more if he cut you out and you contested. Don’t tell him I told you.”
Once they were alone, Libby walked slowly to the bed. She took Cal’s hand, held it tight, then leaned over and kissed each finger. “Would you believe that I was a young, beautiful woman just a few minutes ago?” She sniffed back the tears. “I aged a hundred years on my way over here. Look at me. I went from Brooke Shields to Brooke Astor just going crosstown. For God’s sake! What happened?”
Cal put a hand to her face. “Oy vay. I thought you knew.”
“Don’t say oy vay. You only say oy vay when you’ve been around Barry too long.”
“Once in a while I can say oy vay. It’s a very New York thing to say.”
“Cal, all I know is that you were shot at Trump Tower.” She smiled. “I feel so guilty. You must have been buying something ridiculously expensive for me.”
“I wasn’t buying.”
“Well, then what were you doing?”
“I was selling.” Cal cleared his throat. “Donald shot me.”
“Donald who?”
“Donald!”
Libby stood up. “Listen, the only Donalds I know are Phyllis and Donald and Donald Duck.” She stared at Cal. There was a long silence. “Oy vay.”
Cal nodded yes.
Libby crumpled into a chair. “Why would he do such a thing? Did he go crazy? I can’t believe it! Oh, my God. Does Phyllis know?”
Cal stopped Libby from picking up the phone.
“But I have to talk to her. She must be going through hell. I don’t understand any of this.” She reached for the phone again. “Is Donald in jail?”
Cal grabbed hold of her. “I went to see Phyllis about her new play. I had spoken to Mike. He was willing to direct.” Cal paused. “For some bizarre reason, Donald thought I was fooling around with Phyllis.”
“Are you kidding?” She laughed nervously. “You are kidding?”
“I swear I never touched Phyllis. Nothing was further from my mind.”
“Then what gave Donald the idea?”
Cal hesitated. He started to smile but shook his head, trying to make sense of it. He took a deep breath and suddenly burst into laughter. “Maybe it was because Phyllis was on the bed naked.” Cal winced. He pointed to his bandaged shoulder. “It only hurts when I laugh.”
Libby stared at him in disbelief. “I don’t know. Maybe it’s me. It just doesn’t strike me funny.”
Cal breathed a loud sigh as he regained control. “All right. Here’s what happened. I’m in the living room with Phyllis. In the middle of the conversation, she goes into the bedroom and closes the door. I stand there like a dummy, shouting to her. Finally, I knock. She tells me to come in.”
Libby watched suspiciously as a smile crept back onto Cal’s face. “I guess this must be the funny part.”
“I open the door. All the lights are dim. I see Phyllis lying there like Venus on the half-shell. Donald rushes in, thinks God-knows-what is going on and the son of a bitch shoots me!” Cal started to laugh again.
Libby shook her head. “You’re absolutely right.” She stood up angrily. “That is hilarious. My best friend’s husband thinks you’re having an affair with her and he tries to kill you.” She paused, unable to stop herself from smiling. “I’m not smiling at that.”
“Then what?”
Libby pretended to cough. “Venus on the half-shell.” She tried to stifle a giggle. “It must be the way you tell it.” She doubled over with laughter. “Oh, poor Donald. I feel so sorry for him.”
Cal was barely able to catch his breath. “To hell with him! I turn down a six-million-dollar tumble with Rikki and I still wind up on the front page of the Enquirer!”
Libby stopped laughing. “You what?”
“I still wind up on the front page . . .”
“No. The other part.”
He wiped the tears from his eyes. “The reason I went to see Phyllis was because I told Janos no.”
“You told Janos no?”
“I told him I didn’t believe in his Big Bang Theory.”
“You gave up the six million?”
Cal nodded yes and they burst into laughter again. Finally, Libby reached for a tissue and blew her nose. “You gave up six million dollars,” she said softly.
He leaned over and kissed her. “Six million dollars.”
Libby rubbed her cheek against his. “Six million dollars.”
Cal put his hand to her hair. “Six million dollars.”
She nuzzled her chin in his palm. “You know how much chopped liver I have to sell to make six million dollars?”
Cal pulled back. “So now I’m chopped liver?”
Libby stared at Cal, realizing she had never loved him more than at that moment. “The hell you are.” She nestled close on the bed. “You know, I really think that’s one of the nicest things anyone’s ever done for me.”
“You’ve really got one hell of an ego.”
She ignored him. “And I didn’t even bring you any flowers.”
Cal was defensive. “What do you mean one of the nicest things?”
“Or even a box of candy.”
“It occurred to me you might think I did it for you. You really get my goat sometimes!”
She looked up at him lovingly. “Do I?”
“Yes!” he said, melting. “You do.”
Libby began to purr. “How often?”
“Not often enough.”
She laid her head on Cal’s chest. “When do you get out of this joint?”
“In the morning.”
“Well, what am I supposed to do tonight?” she asked.
“Same thing I’m going to do.”
Libby smiled. “You can’t. Your arm’s in a sling.”
“How are we going to get through this crisis?”
She kissed Cal. “God, I wish I knew.”
“If only I had something to look forward to.”
“No!” she said, putting her fingers to his lips. “Don’t ask me again, Cal. Let me ask you.”
“Sure. Go ahead.” He waited. “Well, when are you going to ask me?”
“Tomorrow. After lunch.”
“And what if you don’t?”
She shrugged. “Then I owe you six million.”
“Come on, babe. What do you think is going to happen tomorrow?”
“Oh, Cal. Don’t you read the papers? Haven’t you heard the news? Everyone’s been talking about it. Tomorrow, after lunch, all the angels will fly down from heaven. The grass will turn green. The flowers will burst into bloom and all the birds will sing.” Libby kissed him gently and whispered, “I know that sounds a bit bizarre, but in Camelot . . .”
“. . . in Camelot,” Cal sang sadly.
“. . . that’s how conditions are.” Libby held him tight as she kissed his nose and his eyes and his chin. But all the kisses in the world couldn’t get Birnbaum out of her mind.
As Libby walked down the corridor after leaving Cal, she half expected to find Birnbaum waiting for her. The devil come to collect his due. But his due wasn’t due yet. She had to tough it out for one more day. After lunch tomorrow she would be rid of him.
She glanced into the waiting room to be sure he wasn’t there and saw Steven. He got up anxiously. “Cal’s all right,” Libby said. “There’s nothing to worry about.” She reached out for him. As always, Steven pulled away.
“Why won’t he press charges?”
Libby forced a smile. “It was only a flesh wound.”
“She jests at scars . . .”
“He’ll be out in the morning,” she said flatly.
“Barely enough time to have Libby of Lourdes embroidered on your undies.”
She tried changing the subject. “I’m worried about Donald.”
Steven shot his arms into the air. “Forget Lourdes! Go directly to Nazareth. If you pass Go, collect two hundred hosannas.”