Since You Ask

by Louise Wareham

  ‘Hey, kiddies,’ Frank would call, his eyes wide and dark and blatant.

  Then one day he got out of the car.

  ‘Miss Scott.’

  He was wearing a black leather blazer.

  Beck looked at us from across the court, tossing the basketball from hand to hand.

  ‘The boys treating you well?’ He stood with his hands splayed on his hips.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You finished school already?’

  ‘Three-thirty.’

  ‘You don’t have uniforms at your school?’

  We had uniforms in Antigua. We had ties and long socks and black polished shoes. We had caning and prefects and assembly on the asphalt.

  ‘No,’ I said.

  ‘No playground at your private school?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Lucky us.’

  In January the week of Beck’s birthday—a week without snow, and warm—Frank and Beck were under the basketball hoop.

  ‘There she is.’ Frank turned toward me.

  ‘Hi,’ I said.

  ‘Nice shirt.’

  It was blue and white in checks.

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Why don’t you two come for a drive?’

  ‘Now?’

  ‘Sure.’

  Frank walked ahead of us and Beck rubbed his face and then his head with both hands, the way you rub a dog’s head. Frank opened the car door for me.

  Inside, the car was cream leather with a tint of rose. Beck sat in the backseat and didn’t smile at all, not even when Frank put on ‘Ain’t No Use in Crying.’ I put one of my hands behind me, between the seats for him to take, but he just ignored it. Finally he gave in, leaning forward and wrapping his arms around my chest, over my black coat and blue shirt, kissing the side of my head.

  Frank was from Queens, he explained, but he didn’t set foot there now—except at the airport. He had offices at JFK and LaGuardia and Newark. He drove the way he walked, in a glide or as if on water, all the way down Lexington and over to Broadway the leather on the steering wheel whirring beneath his palm.

  Tribeca was all old buildings, gray and in blocks. There were hardly any trees. ‘Drop the car at the garage?’ Frank said, handing Beck the keys.

  ‘I’ll go with you,’ I said.

  ‘Don’t be silly,’ Frank said. ‘It’s cold. He’ll only be a minute.'

  The lobby was terra cotta and slate. The doorman wore a black suit. His hair was long for a doorman. In the elevator, all black with cherry wood, Frank held onto a metal handrail. The floor numbers clicked by in red letters like my alarm clock. Frank was on 9. When he opened the door, the wood on the floor was the color of a rare pear. The living room was at the far end, down a wooden step to two black leather couches. In the corner was an urn with the branches of a cherry blossom tree.

  ‘Make yourself at home,’ Frank said. He acted so casual. The kitchen was black and polished. On a counter was a blender and a box of instant protein packs. On the fridge were two photographs. One was of an office, three women standing about with champagne glasses as if at a party. The other was of a woman on a beach, her hair short and wet and dark.

  ‘My sister,’ Frank said.

  ‘Where does she live?’

  ‘Maui.’

  ‘What’s her name?’

  ‘Elise.’

  The walls were largely windows, on three sides. I could see New York Harbor and Chinatown and the Hudson River.

  ‘Walk around,’ Frank told me. I went clockwise, trailing my hand on the cold windowpanes, looking out at the sheer drop.

  ‘Is that a French name?’ I asked.

  He was looking at his mail.

  ‘My parents were French.’

  ‘Frank isn’t French.’

  ‘It’s not my real name.’ He was throwing most of the mail in the trash.

  ‘What’s your real name?’

  ‘Franijois.’

  ‘You didn’t like it?’

  He laughed.

  ‘Not in Queens, no.’ He dropped a few letters into a drawer, then snapped the drawer shut.

  ‘You walk well,’ he said.

  ‘Do I?’ I liked a compliment. It helped me know where I stood.

  ‘Definitely.’

  Outside, the bare trees were brittle, the buildings gleamed.

  Above the Hudson River, the sun was darkening. The blinds were the same cherry wood as in the elevator. Frank went to the fridge and opened it so I saw beer in brown bottles, sticks of individually wrapped mozzarella cheese. He twisted off a beer bottle cap. I played with the blinds; when they moved, they bent like reeds.

  The intercom rang.

  ‘Shall we answer it?’ Frank asked, sipping from his bottle.

  ‘Of course.’

  His beautiful eyes looked dark. Beads of water had formed on his brown beer bottle.

  ‘It’s Beck,’ I said.

  ‘All right.’ He left his bottle on the counter, moving to the intercom. ‘You’re sure now?’

  My voice went hard. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Okay, darling,’ he said.

  On the Hudson, a sailboat motored upstream. ‘Pretty, isn’t it?’ Frank asked, coming up behind me. He put his hands on my shoulders, still holding his bottle of beer. I felt my hair rise, as with static.

  Then Beck came in the front door, cheeks stained with cold. ‘Hey,’ he said, so Frank turned from me; Beck came to us and dropped his car keys in Frank’s hand. ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘Looking at the view,’ Frank said, slipping his keys into his pants pocket.

  ‘Nice, huh?’

  ‘Why don’t you show her around?’ Frank said.

  In the hallway behind the kitchen, I raised my arms to put them around Beck’s neck. I was so glad he was there.

  ‘Betsy,’ he said, his cheek cold, the wool of his peacoat rough. He took down my hands, laughing.

  ‘Don’t.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Frank.’

  ‘What about Frank?’

  ‘I don’t know. You know. I just—I work for him.’

  The towels in the bathroom were thick and fresh and white. At the edge of the Jacuzzi was a blue glass ashtray. Frank’s bedroom was all green, except for the curtains, which had panels of white lace.

  ‘What do you think?’ Frank asked, back in the kitchen. He was sitting in one of the high chairs, his right ankle crossed on his knee. The sun had almost set, its light amber and soft with dust.

  ‘It’s lovely.’

  A helicopter passed between the Twin Towers.

  ‘Well, that’s good, isn’t it, Beck?’ Frank asked. ‘I always like to impress a girl like Betsy.’

  ‘Frank impresses all the girls,’ Beck said, so Frank smirked, holding onto his ankle in his ribbed trouser sock.

  They walked back to Frank’s room and I took a cup of water from a water cooler in the kitchen. I sat on the leather couch in the lounge. On the glass coffee table was a glass figurine in the shape of naked woman with raised knees. It was small and heavy like a stone in the hand. I rubbed it on my sweater to get my fingerprints off. I picked up a magazine: British Vogue.

  ‘You can take that if you like,’ Frank told me.

  ‘That’s all right.’

  ‘It’s late,’ Beck said.

  ‘You want to go?’ Frank asked. ‘I’ll take you.’

  ‘Don’t worry about it,’ Beck said.

  Frank took out his keys. ‘I’ll drive.’

  He lit a cigarette just before we left. ‘Jesus, man,’ Beck said, when Frank took it on the elevator, so Frank laughed, making a gesture with his hand.

  Outside, it was night. The avenues were lit. Frank’s last name was Ravell, he told me. ‘It’s French. I like French things. You could be French.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘But you are not American. Your parents are—‘

  ‘English.’

  ‘So we are European.’

  ‘Beck’s mother is from Iceland.’<
br />
  ‘Where do you live, exactly?’

  He was on 60th Street.

  ‘64th Street.’

  ‘Which number?’

  ‘Just drop us on the corner,’ Beck raised his voice.

  ‘Hey,’ Frank said, looking in the rearview mirror, ‘where the fuck is Seth?’

  Beck shrugged.

  ‘Find him, would you?’

  ‘You like him, don’t you?’ Beck asked me.

  ‘Who? Frank? No.’

  ‘You were all over him.’

  ‘I was not.’

  ‘All that European shit.’

  ‘That was him.’ We stood against the wall, under my stoop. It had grown colder, the wind gusting from the park and dry leaves scraping against the sidewalk. ‘It’s cold.’

  He rearranged my scarf.

  ‘You do like him.’

  ‘Where did you meet him?’

  ‘Through some guy years ago.’

  ‘What do you do for him, anyway? What does he do?’

  ‘He’s in trucking.’

  ‘So you load trucks for him?’

  ‘Things like that.’

  There was a card in my coat pocket. It had smooth raised letters. I went to pull it out. Then I realized what it was. I should have given it to Beck, right then. But I didn’t. ‘It’s freezing,’ I said, wiping a strand of hair from my mouth.

  ‘Go on.’ He pushed at me, pulled me back to kiss him. ‘Get inside.’

  The house smelled of roast lamb and potatoes and squash. My mother was on the kitchen telephone. The lights were yellow and red. The television was on C-Span in the living room. On the stairs, I pulled the card from my pocket. “Frank Ravell,” it said, “66 Leonard, “with three telephone numbers. The cell phone number had been circled.

  ‘What are you looking at?’ my father asked. He was right below me, before the dining table. He had his hands in his trouser pockets.

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘It’s late. Where have you been?’

  ‘I was with Beck.’

  ‘Where with Beck?’

  ‘In the park—and then a coffee shop.’

  ‘You should get in before dark.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’ I put the card in my pocket.

  ‘Let me see that.’

  ‘Dad.’

  ‘Let me see it.’

  ‘It’s just a card.’

  I handed it across the banister to him. ‘Whose is this?’

  ‘It’s Beck’s. He works for him.’

  ‘Why do you have his card?’

  ‘So I can reach Beck. That’s what he said.’

  ‘What’s what who said?’

  ‘Beck.’

  My father handed back the card. He shrugged and waved his hand. ‘Anyway, it’s dinnertime.’

  Eric was a better student than I was. Every night, he went from dinner to his room, closing the door to study. He liked Noam Chomsky and Thomas Pynchon. He had a poster of Philip Glass. He liked talking about these things—about authors and musicians—more than about other things. Once, Sylvia asked me what Eric thought of Beck, but I didn’t know what he thought. He had seen him at school, but we had never mentioned him, either of us.

  I put Frank’s card in my wallet, underneath my bus pass. ‘Why keep that?’ Sylvia wanted to know.

  ‘I don’t know. Just in case.’

  ‘You didn’t seem to like him too much.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘So throw it out.'

  Beck picked me up from school and we went to the playground, and Tommy was talking to Sharon and her friend Didi from Wagner High School. I kept looking around, half afraid Frank would show up and half wanting him to.

  I sat on Beck’s lap on the bench and his coat smelled damp but his skin was warm and he sang ‘She’s the One’: ‘Oh she can take you but if she wants to break you she’s gonna find that ain’t so easy to do.’

  Then it snowed, three times in one week. Beck and Tommy and I were in a coffee shop on 85th Street and Lexington, in a blue vinyl booth beside the window. Tommy kept adding sugar to his coffee, pouring it higher and higher on his spoon until Beck said, ‘Quit it.’ Then Frank pulled up on Lexington in a shiny black four-wheel-drive. He got out of the car and stood on the sidewalk in a camel-hair coat. Wind blew the snow around and Beck went out to meet him. I watched him scraping the sidewalk with his sneaker, the way he did when he was nervous. Finally Frank got back in the car, the exhaust still running, and Beck came in to get me.

  ‘What is it?’ I asked.

  I spilled my hot chocolate getting up. It was the color of dried lilac.

  ‘Frank wants us to go downtown.’

  ‘Now?’

  ‘He wants me to pick up something first. Then I’ll meet you.’

  ‘You want me to go with Frank?’

  He glared at me, like I should keep my voice down, like maybe I was embarrassing him.

  ‘No big deal,’ he said, putting his hand on my back, pushing me ahead of him out the door.

  The snowflakes turned to water on my black down jacket. Beck opened the back door of Frank’s car.

  ‘Get in.’

  ‘Hi, honey,’ Frank said, turning down his techno music.

  ‘I’ll see you soon,’ Beck softened up suddenly.

  ‘Close the fucking door,’ Frank said. ‘It’s freezing.’

  He lit a cigarette, cracking the top of his window so the smoke curled out. He drove around the corner, down Park Avenue, which was all white. A patch of snow slid down a green awning.

  ‘Why can’t Beck come?’

  “Cause he’s doing something. He’ll meet up with us.’

  I hoped no one saw me. I hoped my mother didn’t, or my father. Frank flicked his cigarette stub out the window, red embers hitting the windowpane. ‘So, how are you, sweetie?’ he asked.

  ‘All right.’

  ‘Nervous?’

  ‘No.’

  It was like when your friend leaves you alone with their parents and you have to talk to them. Only more than that. We stopped at a light on 42nd Street, everyone crowded on the curb with their foldable umbrellas and their rubber shoes. ‘Why don’t you hop out, honey get in the front seat?’

  Outside, the snow listed about. Water had risen in the gutters. I felt the cold inside my boots and something went through me—like fear, or the beginning of crying. I let out a sound but no one looked at me.

  ‘You have snow on your hair,’ Frank said.

  ‘It looks pretty.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘I’d touch it, but I’d just get wet.’

  Back on Lexington, snow rose on newspaper stands and bicycle seats and on metal garbage cans. Frank played Sade on his stereo. It was one of my favorite songs: ‘Haunt Me.’

  ‘I had a daughter like you once myself, Betsy. But she died.’

  ‘That’s terrible.’

  ‘Greatest tragedy of my life.’

  ‘How old was she?’

  ‘Six.’

  For a moment, I thought I’d get out of the car. I put my hand on the door handle. If I did get out, I thought, I would just have to wonder. I would go around all the time wondering what Frank wanted, what could happen with him. The window was cool on my forehead.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said.

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘What did she die of?’

  ‘Cancer.’

  Snow piled up on ledges and branches. It fell into dumpsters and garbage cans and doorways.

  ‘Where are we going?’

  ‘Tribeca.’

  A valet took the car. He was black and had a black sweatshirt with red lining in the hood. Frank took my hand as we crossed the street. ‘You need to lighten up.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  We walked from Church Street to Leonard, snow turning to slush and running water.

  His doorman was drinking cappuccino, foam on his upper lip. Inside the elevator, snow melted on Frank’s coat. Beads of water shone on his black sweater. />
  ‘Shoes off.’

  He leaned down in the hallway and pulled off my boots. He smelled of something bitter, licorice or anisette. ‘Your socks—’

  My feet looked pale, almost yellow.

  ‘I’ll put them in the dryer. They’ll be ready in five minutes.’

  From his room, I heard the glide of a wooden drawer. He tossed socks down the hall, black and soft. Then I heard the dryer.

  ‘Sit down,’ he said, going to the kitchen, motioning to his couches. ‘Do you drink wine?’

  ‘Sometimes.’

  I picked up the glass figurine, then put it back.

  ‘That is not a naked woman.’

  He took a bottle from a rack above the fridge, uncorking it on the slate kitchen console.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Well, it is when it’s lying down, but if you put her on her knees, she’s a woman praying.’

  I laughed. My laughter seemed odd in his great bare space.

  ‘Here—‘ When he moved in his black trouser socks, he made no noise at all. ‘Your glass.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘You’d better clean that off with your sweater.’

  It felt like a sparrow, rounded and smooth.

  He took a big sip of his wine. ‘You look good on my couch.’

  ‘Do I?’

  ‘Yes. I thought you would.’ I set the figurine on her knees. He looked at it and laughed. He wasn’t thinking about it.

  ‘How are those socks?’

  ‘Nice.’

  He was like a man who looks at you in the street, a man you would never speak to usually, but who attracts you somehow—the way he smiles or moves or talks to you as if he already knows you—so when you look away you feel guilty, a little sick and aroused and disturbed. He sat beside me on the couch.

  ‘What’s a girl like you doing with Beck?’

  ‘I like Beck.’

  ‘You can do better.’ His nails were square and manicured. He looked at my pants.

  ‘You sure like corduroys, don’t you?’