As I am double-locking my door, 16D swings open and old Mrs. Noffz peers out. She is wearing an orange hood that looks as if it may have been torn off a child’s raincoat. Her umbrella is closed, and she leans upon it as if it were a cane.
“Hello there,” she says.
I am late and she is an unwelcome intrusion upon my thoughts, but I make a halfhearted attempt to be civil. “Hi.” I walk to the elevator and press the button. I stand half-turned away from her as I wait.
“Terribly hot morning,” she says. Squinting slightly, she gazes out from under the brim of her hood and looks up at the ceiling, right at the spot where the paint is chipping. “It’s going to be a scorcher.”
“I guess so,” I say, and then I press the button again.
“Mabel is not fond of summers in New York,” she says. “It is too humid for her.” Although her voice lingers with care on the word “humid,” it comes out strange, without the h.
“Yes,” I say, “humid.” I accent the beginning of the word slightly.
“Humid,” she says, cheerfully repeating the word as if this were an English lesson.
She is still pronouncing it wrong, but it is too warm to press the point. Instead I turn on her. “Why are you wearing a hood?” I ask innocently. The question backfires on me, though, as I feel ashamed of myself almost before it is out of my mouth.
“I beg your pardon?”
“Nothing,” I tell her. “Never mind.”
“No, please, what did you say?”
“Your hood,” I say, gesturing at her head. “Why are you wearing a hood?”
“Oh.” With some confusion she takes off the hood and pats down her hair, but her face looks happy and calm as always, and then I look away from her because the elevator has finally arrived.
I step through the doors. “I’ve got to go,” I tell her. “I’m very late.”
“I had forgotten,” she says, just as the elevator is sliding shut.
“What?” I say, jamming the doors back open.
“I had forgotten I was wearing the hood,” she says. “Good-bye, so nice chatting with you.” She smiles and waves at me from her door as the elevator shuts, this time for good.
Although a lazy breeze is blowing, the air is so hot and thick I can move only slowly. After only a few steps, I can feel my eyeliner begin to melt. Carefully I dab at the spot just beneath my eyes.
The subway station is even hotter. I buy two tokens, put one in and go through the turnstile. Eric’s office is close, a mere seven stops on the speedy number one line, but I am still cross at having forgotten to bring something to read. In the subways I usually try to arm myself with a book, finding it cover from the panhandlers, the crowds, and the men. Phillip, who loved to ride in the last car and watch the track falling after us, got me out of the habit of doing so; it is only since he left that I find myself needing, once again, the distraction and protection of print. Now I concentrate on the ads for foot- and skin-doctors, for watches and roach motels. I try to tease out the meaning of the Spanish comic strip on AIDS, which runs in serial form on all the trains, and I piece together one more episode in the continuing saga of voluptuous Marisol, who is HIV-positive but cannot bring herself to tell her ex-lover. It is hard to keep up with the story line, since the characters die with such frequency. What with this comic strip, and injunctions such as “No se apoye contra la puerta,” and ads for “ricas” and “la Ciudad de Nueva York,” I have been picking up a lot of Spanish from the trains.
Between 72nd and 66th Streets, the express passes us by, and I watch the people in the other train reading, talking, laughing, blowing their noses, begging. One woman, black and tall, catches my eye and gazes curiously back. All this and more for a buck and a quarter, as Phillip used to say. Even without him beside me, I can still faintly feel the lure of the subways.
Directly across from me in the car, there is a large brown cat sitting on a woman’s lap. Despite the noise and all the strangers surrounding him, the cat sits calmly, occasionally licking at his left paw. I must have made an involuntary sound, because the woman, who is big, plump, and brown-haired, just like her pet, looks up and smiles. “He’s sick,” she explains. “I’m taking him to the vet.”
“He’s so quiet,” I say. “He sits so quietly on your lap.”
She nods, but her attention is already turned back to the cat. He is very handsome, with yellow eyes (Horse’s were greener, but Phillip’s had flecks of yellow), and long-haired enough that tufts of hair stick out from between his toes (Phillip laughing, lying on the ground with Horse’s paws on his face). He yawns, showing off his red mouth and sharp teeth.
(Phillip asleep on the floor, his thin body twisted just slightly so that his hand can reach Horse, who is lying curled by his thigh.)
The woman nods pleasantly to me as she gets off the car at 66th Street, the cat slung over her shoulder like an old sweater, his unblinking eyes watching me as he rides off in style to the vet.
Eric’s law firm is located in the heart of New York, on 51st Street and the Avenue of the Americas. It is big enough to take up almost a whole square block, and high enough to be an important part of the skyline. After the sticky heat of the city, the dustless cool beyond the revolving doors comes as a shock. The interior is all serene green marble, slippery beneath my heels, and when one set of the elevator doors opens, I am met by a tide of people streaming out for lunch break. The few people entering the elevator with me are sweaty and red-faced from the outside heat, while those on their way out look brisk and cool, their hair still tidy and the women’s makeup still fresh. With the exception of two security guards and a mailman, the people are well dressed and well groomed, the men especially smart in their suits. I tug at the skirt of my dress to cover my knees.
I have been to the office many times before, but usually I come in the evenings, after work. I am unaccustomed to seeing so many people in the halls, the younger ones harried and laden with heavy files, the older, prosperous-looking ones pacing themselves with portly dignity. By the time I turn the corner, I am well aware of the eyes. Everybody is watching me. Heads turn to examine my figure and scrutinize my face. While the secretaries’ fingers still move over their keyboards, they are no longer looking at their computer screens when I walk by, and documents go unattended by the attorneys. I move in the wake of staring silence.
With my front teeth I tear out the skin on the inside of my mouth and chew on the soft bits of flesh, a nervous habit that I thought I had kicked years ago. I catch myself slouching as if I were an overweight teenager again, and though I make a conscious effort to straighten my posture, my body keeps slumping forward on its own.
His door, when I finally find it, is open, but Eric himself is nowhere in sight. I wander back out, turn the corner, and there is Eric standing with his back towards me, in the alcove by the coffee machines.
He is there with a woman, and for a few moments I loiter in the corner, taking stock before I approach.
They stand together just a shade closer than is normal. He talks to her in a low voice, using one hand to hold his coffee and the other to gesture, while she leans against the wall and listens attentively, occasionally nodding, her eyes never wandering from his face. She is very thin, with that natural bony fragility that suggests that she never has to diet, or exercise, or worry. Her hair is very black and very straight, cut with geometric, almost architectural precision, in what Russia calls an “Asian-American ’do.” She has a delicate face, with high cheekbones and arching eyebrows; she wears no makeup except for a little darkness about her eyes and the faintest trace of lipstick, and she carries herself with ease. Watching her from the shadows, I feel outdone by her possession, and overdone as well, exposed as a cheap painted geisha.
I dally at the corner, eyeing them, surprised at how possessive I feel. I have a strong desire to take him by the arm and kiss him on the mouth, and I have to remind myself why I am here.
“Eric,” I call out, and he turns so quickly h
is coffee sloshes over his sleeve. He curses, farce intruding on our little encounter.
“I’m sorry,” I tell him, clamping down on my glee. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”
“Hi,” he says, reaching for a napkin, and taking a quick detour to give my nose a peck.
The woman and I nod at each other, but do not speak. Even after I turn back to Eric, I can feel her eyes appraising me. Momentarily distracted from his (futile) attempts to wipe the stain from his shirtsleeve, Eric looks at me, then at her, and uncharacteristically flushes. “Terry, this is my girlfriend—that is, my fiancee, Kiki Takehashi,” he says, pulling me forward. “And Kiki, this is Terry, Theresa Chan. One of my closest friends at the office.”
“Oh,” I say, adding hastily, “of course.” Surreptitiously I wipe my hand, and then I stick it out and we shake. “Nice to meet you.” Her hand is cool and a little limp.
She watches me with her head thrown slightly back. Her eyes are thin and dark, far darker than my own. “Well, I’ve heard a lot about you,” she says, as if guessing the source of my confusion. Her voice is warm and low, though marred by a trace of a head cold.
“Kiki and I are going ring shopping,” says Eric, a little too loudly, his hand suddenly at my back.
I smile, she smiles, and he smiles, but no one says anything. Not only is she thinner than I am, she is taller, too. Her fingers run through her hair and then they stroke at her throat, which is long and white. Drawn by their movement, I idly watch her fingers, and I try not to look shocked when I notice how jagged her nails are; they are so chewed up I can see dried bits of blood. The thought tugs at me that there is something I should remember, some connection I am failing to make, but I dismiss it quickly.
One of the secretaries pokes her head around. “Terry,” she calls out, “phone call for you.”
“Excuse me.” She begins to walk away, and then briefly turns. “Oh, and nice meeting you, Kiki,” she says, but she is looking at Eric rather than me, and her eyes are wide.
Her calves are long and slightly rounded at the top, encased in flesh-colored stockings with a run creeping out of the heel of her left shoe. Together Eric and I watch her go, and then, with his hand at my back, Eric steers me back out into the hall.
When we leave the building, the heat is like a wall pressing down upon us. It is too hot, even, to hold hands, so instead we hold fingers, two each. He has been my lover for more than a year, and we are on our way to shop for a ring that will tie us together, presumably for life; we are walking together side by side, our fingers intertwined. Yet as if he were my grandmother, an almost mythic figure I have never met but long imagined, the questions I ask him are silent. Would you love me if I were a strapping German, a Frenchwoman with plucked eyebrows or even, God forbid, a Jew? Could you love me if I were a good white girl, one who would make your parents beam?
I have not betrayed my thoughts with so much as a glance or a slowing in pace, but he answers my unspoken thoughts aloud. “You’re going to start with that Asian-fetish thing again, aren’t you,” he asks calmly, sounding resigned. “It’s Theresa, right?”
“I didn’t say anything,” I remind him.
“But you’re thinking it,” he says. “Kiki, once and for all, I don’t have an Asian-woman fetish.”
I nod, still troubled by the memory of those arching eyebrows.
“You’re still not convinced, are you,” he says, sighing. “You have such a bee in your bonnet on this subject. Look—you may have gotten it a lot from other men, but that’s not why I’m with you.” He squeezes my two fingers. “If anything, what I have is a Kiki Takehashi fetish, okay?”
“That’s nice,” I say, smiling in spite of myself. “Thank you.”
“Okay,” he says, surprised but also relieved at my quick capitulation. “Okay, that’s settled. By the way, did everybody look at you in the halls just now?”
I turn to stare at him. “How did you know?”
“They’ve been bugging me about my personal life, and I let it slip that you were coming by today. I’m afraid the news got around awfully fast. It must have made you feel uncomfortable.”
“I wondered if I was becoming paranoid.”
He laughs. “Dreamy, yes. Paranoid, never.” Our steps slow, then, because we are standing outside the portals of Tiffany’s.
“Ready?” he asks, and smiles when I nod. “Don’t expect great service,” he warns as he waves me into the revolving doors ahead of him. “Remember, these guys can smell that we’re just browsing.”
We enter the air-conditioned sanctuary of Tiffany’s with some relief, though I always consider it one of the least friendly places in the world, with its rows and rows of glass cases shielding expensive baubles and trinkets, the security guards watching you from select corners, and most of all the men, dressed all alike in dark suits, austere and bored behind the counters. As Eric had warned, the salesmen can smell that we are just browsing, and are not too keen to help. Still, one eventually steps forward, and with considerable prompting from Eric, I manage to explain that I want a small ring that will not snag on all my sweaters, though pretty, of course, and with a distinctive setting.
I pick out a ring, and the salesman hands it to me. As I turn it over, my scarred fingertips are momentarily exposed, and I catch the salesman looking at them, one indiscreet millisecond too long. I draw my fingers into a fist and say to Eric no, maybe not this one after all, and I am thankful when he, after due consideration, agrees: this one is far too small.
Eric then begins to thaw out the salesman in earnest, as only he can. Making a transition that I cannot follow, he brings up the subject of British royalty, and our salesman is soon showing signs of animation. I, too, should try to draw people out, but I cannot even tell these salesmen, dressed so impeccably in their dark suits, apart. If our salesman suddenly pulled out a gun, shot Eric dead, and ran away, I would not be able to identify him in a lineup. “He was wearing a black suit,” I would say over and over at the police station, and the men there—also all dressed similarly, though in their case in blue—would sigh and shake their heads at me, the poorest of all poor witnesses.
A pretty young woman at another counter glances at Eric, once, twice, and then again, before moving on her way. It is not only his looks, so fine and dark, that make women turn. Almost anybody would be able to see that Eric is a decent, likable man, a promising young professional, and an extremely good catch, and that anybody would be right. I squint, trying to see him through the eyes of the young woman, and then through those of the salesman, whose shirtfront is swelling visibly under all the attention.
To strangers Eric seems charming, certainly, but a little intimidating as well, for he has a natural authority that makes people scurry to do his bidding. He is terrifying when he gets mad, and I am lucky that we have never fought seriously, for I am no match for his rage. It is not only what he says, but rather his tone or perhaps even the way he stands. A few months ago, after I had confided to him that a computer dealer had refused to take back a malfunctioning printer, he accompanied me back to the store and had the whole place turned inside out within fifteen minutes: the manager as well as all of the available salespeople were running around trying to help us while the original dealer, a shifty and rather cocky weasel type, was reduced to the status of an abject pet dog.
For a second I think I almost succeed in viewing him through a stranger’s eyes, and then I give up trying. I have gotten so used to thinking of Eric as my lover that I have lost my perspective on him. When I shut my eyes and envision him, I see his face in extreme close-up, as if we were holding each other in bed, and I can only picture select parts of him at a time: dark brown eyes, the straightness of his nose, the stubble on his cheeks, the lock of hair that falls across his forehead, the contours of his shoulder as I rest my chin against his chest. Naked and horizontal, he seems so muscular that I am almost confused by how normal he looks clothed. He has presence as well as a handsome pair of broad shoulders, and the
two assets combine to make him seem much bigger than he actually is. In reality he stands a good three inches under six feet, only a few inches taller than I am, but in my mind I always see him towering over me like a giant. I cannot judge Eric as a vertical human being.
He is now talking with our salesman about cufflinks. I stifle a yawn as my attention wanders, to the salesman across the way who avoids my eyes, to the dizzying pattern of dots on the carpet, and finally to a small svelte woman standing close beside us. Her clothes are flowing and white, and her hair is a striking silver over an unaged face, but contained in the bag over her shoulder is what looks like a bushel of cucumbers. Too small to bear the weight of them easily, she stops often in her scrutiny of jewels to readjust the bag on her shoulder.
Leaning against the counter, I idly muse on the oddness of her carrying so many cucumbers. If she were carting around a bushel of lemons, I would nod sagely, thinking how nice to make lemonade on such a hot day. If she had a bagful of apples, I would shrug and look away, picturing apple pie. Even a pile of onions would not seem too amiss, since the woman looks as if she might enjoy a bowl of elegant French onion soup. But why would anyone, let alone a woman of style shopping at Tiffany’s, need a bagful of cucumbers, which are only good fresh? Such a ridiculous vegetable, a joke in itself, really, like eggplants, but with the added indignity of a phallic resemblance.
Yet it is this smell of this joke of a vegetable, coupled with the faintest trace of cigarette smoke lingering about our salesman, that undoes me. The smell hits me with an almost physical blow, sending me reeling back to those moments when I step out of the shower, and I know from the scent of rain, brine, cigarettes, and cucumber that Phillip has been there.
One Hundred and One Ways Page 11