“Well, if it’s really good chocolate, semisweet could work,” she said, lying. And then surprised herself and invited the slim young man with the curly black hair and beard and deep-set black eyes to come in.
“Actually,” he said, “it was really the prison term that severed our relationship.”
“You’re an ex-con?”
“It was a short sentence.”
“How short?”
“Seven years.”
“My God!”
“I’m not a serial rapist or a bank robber. And I didn’t serve my term in the state pen. I was right here, when the building was a correctional facility.”
The choice of correctional facility did little to ease Rosemary’s angst about the formerly gruesome quarters for which she owned a hefty mortgage. She should have been frightened, but other people’s troubles intrigued Rosemary; it was her business.
“I want you to know that I was gay before I went in.”
“That’s a consolation. You wouldn’t happen to be a priest, would you?”
“You must be confusing me with another reader.”
Rosemary nodded. The young man took this as an invitation to sit on her couch; she did not protest. He’d suddenly risen in her estimation, since she had a soft spot for gay men. She considered them a notch above everyone else because she’d never met one she didn’t like immensely.
“By the way, what’s your real name? Rita? Rene? Roxanne? There’s only an initial on the mailbox.”
“It’s Rosemary. But how did you know I was Lydia? Hardly anyone knows that. They still insist on using good ole’ Lydia’s 1950 photo next to the byline.”
“I confess I overheard you and the blond woman talking.”
“She does have a loud voice.”
“You both do.”
Despite his bravado, he nervously tugged on his beard the way a chess master might caress his chin while pondering the consequences of his next move.
“Have you tried tweezers? Better yet, a razor?” Rosemary said.
“Excuse me?”
“You’re pulling on your beard. Don’t do that. You’ve obviously made a habit of it.”
“I wasn’t aware.”
“That’s the thing about habits. My husband was a bad habit.”
And for the first time in ages, Rosemary felt the vibrating vocal cords and rumbling in the larynx that signaled a genuine belly laugh at what she thought was a grand joke.
“Shall I cut the cake?” he asked.
***
Angie: He brings her chocolate ice cream nearly every day.
Nancy: He’s stalking her.
Joanna: They’re friends.
Barbara: He’s stalking her.
Joanna: Whatever for?
Nancy: Get real. He’s an ex-con — a young ex-con: money for drugs, sex.
Angie: He sounds sweet.
Nancy: Angie, sometimes you’re so clueless.
Joanna: But he’s gay.
Angie: He could be bi.
Nancy: Gay people don’t murder? Bi people don’t steal?
Barbara: She’s always had a thing for gays. She’s wanted one of the boys in our family to be one.
Nancy: Gays are not something that’s chic to have around, like a Persian cat. They’re people too, you know.
Barbara: Forget the gay thing. He’s an ex-con!
Angie: What do you think he was in for?
Joanna: Seven years is a long time. Maybe embezzlement or tax evasion.”
Barbara: Assault with a deadly weapon?
Angie: Maybe he’s a terrorist.
Joanna: She’s talking about working again.
Nancy: She’s not ready.
Barbara: Well, I am. I’m sick of these people’s problems and I can’t think of any more recipes that are simple enough for them to handle, or not insulting to their ethnicity, or threatening to their dietary restrictions. My house burned down and I’m living in a five-room town house with Lenny and the twins peering over my shoulder, telling me what to write to these whiners. I have my own problems.
Nancy: Yours are temporary. And so is taking on the column.
Joanna: Do you think we might be jealous?
Nancy: Of Rosemary having a gay friend?
Joanna: Of her having a friend who can help her more than we can.
***
Avery Sloan visited Rosemary several times a week: he helped her set up her computer on the dining room table; he hooked up her new DVD player; he painted her bedroom lime green. He was good at high tech and low tech. He was good at delivering the letters she’d written that had to be mailed from the newspaper to the main office — the thought of encountering her former colleagues was overwhelming for Rosemary. And he did it all with an unassuming ease that she appreciated. Her self-absorbed husband had taken up so much space. She had learned to deal with him the way New England towns deal with enormous amounts of snow: she had carefully maneuvered around him, found ways to accommodate him, and then, just like snow in spring, she had woken up one day and he was gone.
And talking to Avery was such a pleasure. It wasn’t only that they’d read the same books and liked the same movies and art exhibits. Their brains absorbed information the same way: quickly, concisely, and cynically.
She walked with him in the nearby park. Round and round they went on their daily constitutional, alerting each other to stray dogs or rocks on the path or wire barriers almost invisible at night that blocked off certain areas. She began to cook again, preparing elegant dinners for him; he brought her takeout. She gave him haircuts and trimmed his beard; she didn’t resume coloring her hair. (He liked it long and gray.)
He was older than her son yet substantially younger than she — somewhere in between. And that was how they saw themselves: somewhere in between wise mother and innocent son, supportive friend and charming lover. There were no sexual advances, just playful innuendo that neither of them had any intention of pursuing but, while Avery confessed when he found men attractive, Rosemary swore she’d rather have a monkey than ever live with another man. And for all he did for her, Rosemary assumed that she was filling some greater need of his, although she hadn’t quite put her finger on what it was.
From time to time she brought up the prison term, but even when she asked him straight-out about his crime, he skirted the topic with a childlike giggle she found appealing. She displayed no curiosity about seeing his third-floor apartment, something she withheld from her cousins for the simple reason that there was no third floor. Barbara suggested he might be a thief, but Rosemary said she had brought nothing but the bare essentials to the condo and he was welcome to them. Joanna said he could be a gigolo looking to marry and then kill her for her estate, but Rosemary knew that, if that had been the case, he would have been too eager to invade her space, and intolerant of the considerable privacy they allowed between them.
One day he appeared at her door with an amber amulet he’d bought on the streets of New York from a Haitian voodoo priest who swore it would improve circulation and therefore bring blood to the crown and lift the spirit. Another time he brought her a canister of health powder that, when mixed with juice, produced an emerald green drink with deeper green strands floating in it.
“I’m not going to be craving raw liver next, am I?” she asked. “I’m warning you, I’m beyond childbearing. The movie title is where the similarity ends.”
“It’s proven to increase stamina 45 percent. And there were no gargoyles on this building last time I looked. It was a great read though, wasn’t it? I finished Rosemary’s Baby in one night when I was in fifth grade.”
“You shouldn’t have. It’s inappropriate reading for a ten-year-old.”
She drank the drink every day, nearly gagging on its vilely bitter taste. She chased it with crackers or fruit, and sometimes had t
o brush her teeth to get rid of the taste. Within several weeks, however, she had no more desire to sleep most of the day. In fact, she had more energy than she remembered ever having. She returned to the health club. She took up flamenco dancing.
None of the other condo tenants seemed to notice Avery. It was as though, when Rosemary walked with him, he was invisible. She even started to doubt his existence.
“You aren’t the soul of some poor tortured prisoner who was beaten to death or found hanging from a light fixture with a piece of cord he’d made from bits of gristle he saved over 30 years and tied together, are you?”
Avery just laughed.
She resisted the temptation to Google him. It would have been such an easy thing to do. After all, he had eavesdropped on her conversations. She’d spent a third of her life urging others to open their eyes and see beyond their own assumptions, because assumptions were often just that, born from needs, oblivious to mine fields or “red flags,” to quote a phrase she liked to use. Unfortunately, people made life-determining decisions based on those narrowly focused, self-centered assumptions. Unlike Barbara and Joanna, she didn’t believe in ghosts or reincarnation; one lifetime was time enough to pay back bad deeds. She did believe in karma, though — that what you sowed was what you reaped, what went around came around. As for Avery’s uncanny resemblance to the 400-year-old El Greco spirit she’d seen, everyone knew the painter’s work was a product of his astigmatism.
***
As Rosemary grew stronger and cognizant of things beyond herself (her cousins said she “returned to this earth”), she realized that, when her cousins decided to visit, they would not only want to meet Avery but would try to see his apartment. Nancy felt that the way a person kept their home told all about them; Barbara was passionate about decorating and believed that gays had a knack for interior design. They would grill him on every detail of his existence. Rosemary had suggested they go out to lunch, but Barbara insisted on eating in, no doubt hoping to run into Avery. Rosemary, however, would not subject Avery to their scrutiny. Nor would she subject her own happiness to the possibility of it being deemed a figment of her imagination, something she had created in her subconscious to help her go on, because she was, and must continue to be, the reliable, the wise, the immortal Dear Lydia. But there was no dissuading the determined women who traveled from their various locales and showed up at her door in a snowstorm, bearing homemade chicken tetrazzini, fennel salad, and blueberry-topped cheesecake, and demanding to meet Avery Sloan.
“I’ve invited him for dessert,” Rosemary said. “And I don’t know why you insisted on bringing food. God knows you’ve done enough for me. I wanted to cook for you.”
“He’s coming for dessert. Perfect,” Joanna said. “That will give us time alone first.”
“You look great, Rose. So much better than the last time we saw you,” Nancy said.
“You’re back in the saddle,” Barbara said.
“I hate that expression,” Angie said.
“Why?” Joanna asked.
“I just do. It’s crude.”
“Sexual repression,” Nancy told Angie, whose hands cradled a belly now in its seventh month. “Wouldn’t you say, Lydia?” Nancy turned to Rosemary.
“I have to admit the thought of us sitting in someone’s prison cell kind of gives me the creeps,” Joanna said, looking around.
“Here’s something to give you the creeps; Lenny told me that Nate and his girlfriend are getting married,” Barbara said. “She’s pregnant.”
Avery showed up not a minute too early, or late, in a pair of khakis and a light blue shirt opened at the neck to let a clump of black chest hair peek through — a departure from his usual attire. In contrast, his hair was a bit wiry and out of control, and so he seemed like a schoolboy who had stood impatiently while his mother had groomed him and then run before she was quite finished. The creases in the corners of the eyes that matched the color of his shirt added maturity to his demeanor. He carried a bottle of Prosecco, which, after the introductions were made, he took to the kitchen and returned with it on a tray along with six champagne glasses. That he knew his way around Rosemary’s condo was an understatement; he was downright comfortable, the women’s glances said.
They all, with the exception of pregnant Angie, drank to Rosemary, to cousins — and to friends. Nancy wasted no time in asking where his apartment was, and Rosemary braced herself. She hoped he would at least have the wit to lower the floor number, but she was unprepared for his announcement that he lived secretly in the basement, attempting to conserve what was left of a paltry inheritance from his grandmother.
“How do you get in?” Nancy asked, knowing the doors were always locked.
“You’d be surprised how many people have no idea who their neighbors are. Show your face enough and they hold the door for you.”
“So you’re not an ex-con?” Joanna asked.
“I bet you’re not even gay,” Angie added, a little disappointed.
“I’m all those things,” Avery insisted. “I’m just not the super, and I don’t have a proper place to live. And if you ladies wish to roll me up in this Oriental carpet and drop me out the window and into the dumpster, I’ll understand.”
“In other words, you’re homeless,” Joanna said sympathetically.
“Where do you shower?” Angie asked.
“Who the fuck are you?” Rosemary stared at him long and hard.
He cleared his throat. “My grandmother was born Eugenia Sirkowsky.”
Rosemary gasped.
“And ours was Concetta Capolavoro,” Nancy said. “So what?”
“His grandmother was Lydia,” Rosemary explained.
“You can see why they changed her name for the column,” Avery said. “And I sneak into the fitness room downstairs to shower.”
They were not amused.
“But everything else is true. I did serve seven years in this jail,” he offered proudly.
They all, speaking at the same time, asked questions ranging from what had he been in for and how much his inheritance was to why he was hanging around Rosemary.
“I still don’t understand what you want with Rosemary.” Angie repeated her question clearly and loudly.
And while the others pursed their lips at her naiveté, they too had no idea what he wanted with Rosemary.
“You never overheard any of my conversations with Angie, did you?” Rosemary asked.
“I wrote to you right after you took over the column after my grandmother died. I was 25 and still hadn’t come out to my parents. I should have told my grandmother, but — well — she was my grandmother and, by the time I was ready, she was gone. Sometimes it’s easier to talk to a stranger. Sometimes a stranger is all you have. And your letter was so kind and encouraging, and you did send me the chocolate cake recipe and I tried it, and it failed. When I went to jail, my parents really shut the door on me. But I’ve always been grateful to you for being there for me, and when I read your divorce decree in the paper — ”
“You read about my divorce?” Rosemary asked warily.
“Yes.” He lowered his head as though he could not admit this to her face.
“So you have been stalking her!” Nancy leaned in toward him.
“I’ve kept track of her. That’s all.”
“He hasn’t stalked me,” Rosemary said. “He’s never stalked me.”
“I think it might be time for us to leave,” Joanna said.
“We’re going to leave her here with him?” Nancy said.
“We’re going to leave.” Barbara took her hand.
“I’ll call you tonight,” Angie said.
“We’ll all call,” Joanna said.
***
“I have one question for you, Avery. If that is your name,” Rosemary said when they were alone.
“It is …”
<
br /> “Why did you lie?”
“You needed me to.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“You knew I didn’t live here, Rosemary. When I made that slip about the third floor, you never questioned me. You’ve never asked to see my place. You’re the most intuitive person I’ve ever known, except maybe for my grandmother. Sometimes fantasy helps us maneuver through reality — ask any ex-con.”
“And you think I wouldn’t have befriended you if you had told me your real circumstances?”
“Honestly?”
“We need to start somewhere.”
“No, I don’t think you would have. When I read your column, I could tell that something was very wrong, that you weren’t writing those letters. And if you were hurting, you must be hiding from people you knew — and anyone related to them. I know what it’s like to lose someone’s trust. You needed a stranger.”
“But why, Avery?”
“I just told you.”
“Not the lies. Why were you so interested in me in the first place?”
“You were there for me when no one else was. I was grateful, and I wanted to reciprocate. All right, I needed to. I suppose there was a selfish part in it — helping you helped me too. I needed a purpose.”
She understood this: having been asked to take over Lydia’s column had salvaged years of her inability to carve out a satisfying career for herself. (She had worked as a realtor, a bank teller, a reporter on police logs, and hated each job.) It had finally given her a suitable identity — albeit someone else’s. Helping troubled others had been Rosemary’s claim to fame, her salvation. The evening Nate had announced he was leaving, at the King of Siam restaurant, she believed that her amateurish advice over the past ten years had been as great a sham as her marriage. Who else’s life, besides her own, had she so badly misdiagnosed? How many other desperate souls’ messages had flown below her radar while she played psychologist?
Thieves Never Steal in the Rain Page 12