by Dyan Sheldon
Ella stopped and leaned gingerly against a building. She didn’t trust touching anything. “My feet are killing me,” she moaned.
“Maybe you should put your sneakers back on till we get there,” I suggested. Her heels weren’t as high as my mother’s but they were still significant.
Ella, however, wasn’t listening to me. She was looking around us as though she’d just landed on a planet with sixteen moons where everyone lived in glass bubbles and looked like trombones.
“Now what?” I asked.
It was pretty late and the streets were more or less deserted. The only people out were the kind your mother warns you never to talk to, huddled in doorways. It kind of reminded me of old photographs of war-torn Europe.
Ella finally turned back to me with a worried look on her face.
“Are you sure you know where we are?”
“Of course I know where we are,” I said with more confidence than I felt. Since I’m being totally honest, I have to admit that I wasn’t as knowledgeable about Soho as I could have been. I’d never actually been this far downtown at night by myself. Everything looked different with the shadows and the rain. But I didn’t tell Ella that. She was nervous enough.
“This is my city,” I assured her. “I know it as well as I know my own room.”
Ella gazed at the sodden avenue. “Your room isn’t this big,” she said, but she sounded relieved.
I pointed to the corner. “I think we go left down there.”
We went left, and then we went right, and then we went right, and then we went left, and then we doubled back and went right this time.
“Why aren’t there any policemen around to ask?” Ella complained as we staggered back again to where we’d started.
I was about to repeat my father’s joke about New York cops spending all their time in diners eating doughnuts and drinking coffee, but at that instant the gods blew the clouds of hopelessness away.
“Look!” I shouted. “Look what’s there!”
Ella looked to where I was pointing. “It’s a car stopped at the light.”
“No, it’s not,” I said, already yanking her forward. “It’s Mr Santini’s car stopped at the light.”
Keeping close to the buildings, and counting on the fact that Carla and Alma, who were sitting together in the back seat, would be looking in the mirror, touching up their make-up, and that Carla’s parents, if they did see us, wouldn’t recognize us in our new personae as flood victims, Ella and I started to run in the direction of the car.
We caught up with it at the next corner. It turned right. Ella and I went with it. Mr Santini obviously didn’t know Soho any better than I did, because he was going really slowly, his eyes on the street signs. We managed to keep up until he shot suddenly to the left down what looked like an alley. I gave a quick look both ways, just as Karen Kapok taught me to, then splashed into the road with Ella in tow.
We raced around the corner; just in time to see the Mercedes turn into the cross street.
“Come on,” I said, dragging her on. “He’s looking for the address. We must be pretty close.”
Ella flapped her arms in a gesture of despair. “So near, and yet so far…”
“So near, and yet so near,” I corrected.
We reached the end of the narrow road and peered cautiously around the corner building.
I squeezed Ella’s hand. “I told you!” I hissed. If by some cruel twist of fate I don’t become a great actor, I can always become a great detective instead.
Mr Santini had stopped at the curb in the middle of the next street. We were just in time to see Carla and Alma step out of the plush cocoon of the back seat and into the stormy night, an enormous silver umbrella held high. Carla was dressed to kill (or dressed to roast a turkey) in a short, tight dress – silver to match the umbrella – and silver stilettos. I glanced at my sodden clothes and muddy feet. I looked like someone had tried to kill me. With the umbrella quivering above them like a halo, Carla and Alma glided towards the black door with the number 63 painted on it in gold.
Mr Santini leaned across the passenger seat and said something. Ella and I ducked back. When we peeked out again, the Mercedes was pulling away, and Carla was showing her invitation to a very large man in black leather. He looked like the guy you’d find guarding the gates of hell.
“So all we have to do now is get past him,” whispered Ella.
“Don’t worry,” I said. “We’ve gotten this far. From now on it’s a piece of cake.”
Ella gave me one of her looks. “Yeah,” she muttered. “Fruitcake.”
* * *
“Plan B isn’t going to work,” said Ella with new-found authority.
“You mean, unlike Plan A?” I asked sarcastically.
Plan A was Ella’s. Plan A entailed sitting in the doorway across from 63 to wait for our chance to crash the party. We’d pushed a few empty beer cans out of our way and sat. And waited. I guess we thought the guests would arrive more or less all at once, like they do for the Oscars and movie premières, but we were wrong. The guests arrived in dribs and drabs. A car would pull up, a couple of people would jump out and rush to the black door, and the car would vanish back into the night as its passengers vanished inside. Maybe if Stu Wolff’s friends really had been just regular guys, we would have been able to sneak in with them, but though he was a man of the people, most of those people drove Jaguars and Porsches and none of them shopped at K-Mart. There was no way we were going to be able to slip in without at least a dozen of them as camouflage.
“And anyway,” I continued, “it is going to work. It’s perfect.”
I was tired of waiting for a stretch limo with fifteen passengers who’d just been in a boating accident to turn up. I gazed at the black door, shining in the rain, then raised my eyes to the lighted windows of the loft above it. I could see people talking and drinking and having a good time. Music and laughter seeped into the quiet street. I didn’t want to sit in the deluge. I wanted to be inside with all the famous people, talking and laughing and dancing the night away. All the women we’d seen enter the building were stunningly beautiful and wearing stunningly beautiful clothes. Stu Wolff would never notice Carla amongst them. She’d look ordinary in that crowd. But not Ella and I. Stu might think we were homeless runaways, but he’d notice us for sure.
I grabbed Ella’s arm. “Don’t argue,” I ordered. “Let’s do it now, before anyone else arrives.” I tugged her to her feet. “Plan B, here we come.”
Plan B was simple. I’d pretend to be ill, and Ella would ask to use the phone to call my mother to pick us up.
Ella rang the bell. She did it so gently, you’d think she was hoping there was no one home.
“Harder,” I whispered. “You want to sound urgent.”
She rang it again.
“Ding dong, ding dong,” I mimicked. “What are you, the Avon Lady?” I’d been putting myself into the part of someone in intense and unbearable pain, but now I rallied. “Let me do it.” I pushed her aside.
“I thought you were supposed to be dying.” She pushed me back.
“I’ll start dying again after he opens up.” I put my finger on the bell and kept it there.
“Stop upstaging me,” said Ella, trying to pry my finger off the black button. We were so engrossed in how to ring the bell and who should ring it, that we didn’t hear anyone coming down the stairs.
The door swung open so suddenly that we almost fell in. That is, we would have fallen in if our way hadn’t been blocked by six feet of leather and a face like a wall. The doorman looked a lot bigger up close, and not nearly as charming.
He didn’t say anything, he just stood there staring at us in a sullen and inhospitable way.
I groaned and clung to Ella, holding her tightly.
“I … I … I’m sorry to bother you,” Ella stammered, “but I was wondering if we could—”
“There’s a party on,” he informed us shortly. He had the soft, polite, reasonable
voice of a thriller killer. “Invitation only.”
“Please,” I gasped. “We just want to use the phone.”
No flicker of compassion showed in those steel-blue eyes.
“This is a private residence, not Grand Central Station. Use a public phone.”
“But we have no money,” cried Ella. “And my friend’s very ill.”
Mr Charm put his hand in his pocket and pulled out some change. “Here,” he said. “My treat.”
I groaned. “I think I’m going to be sick,” I whispered. “Quick! I’m going to be sick.”
A slight look of doubt appeared in the granite of his eyes.
“You can’t leave us out here!” Ella half commanded, half begged. “My friend’s going to throw up on the street.”
He hesitated for a second, obviously weakening. “Look, I don’t know … I’m really not supposed to let anybody in…” He glanced behind him, as though the answer to his problem might be coming down the stairs.
Ella and I looked, too. Something was coming down the stairs. We could hear a lot of angry shouting and the pounding of hurrying feet. The only words I could make out were ones I can’t repeat. All three of us moved to one side as two men came charging down the staircase. Neither of them seemed too steady on his feet.
“Come back here, you idiot!” screamed the one who was behind. Ella gave me a nudge. It was Steve Maya, Sidartha’s lead guitarist. “You can’t leave like this. You’re making a fool of yourself again.”
The man in the lead didn’t slow down.
“Don’t tell me what I can and can’t do!” he screamed back. “It’s all over, remember? I’ll do what I want!”
“Haven’t you always?” screamed Steve Maya. And then, seeing the three of us gaping up at him, he started yelling at the doorman. “Grab him, Mick! Don’t let him out!”
The man being pursued stopped at the bottom of the stairs, pointing at the doorman. “You touch me, you loser, and your wife’s a widow!” he roared.
Mick wasn’t sure who to take his orders from. He’d moved to block the door, but now he hesitated, frozen with indecision. Ella and I didn’t so much as breathe. We couldn’t. We were frozen with awe. All three of us kind of leaned backwards as Stu Wolff thundered past us and hurled himself into the stormy night.
Ella looked at me. “Now what?” she whispered.
Life is full of ironies, isn’t it? Ella and I had been desperately trying to get into the party, and now the gods had made it possible for us to do just that. Steve Maya had reached the door, and he and Mick were standing there, discussing what they should do next. Paying no attention at all to Ella and me. All we had to do was walk up the stairs and we were in. But the main reason we wanted to be inside was now outside, staggering down the street in the wind.
“Maybe one of us should go after him,” Mick was saying. “He could hurt himself.”
“I don’t care if he hangs himself,” said the man who, according to the magazines, has been Stu Wolff’s best friend since elementary school.
“OK,” said Mick. “Then he could hurt somebody else. Remember what happened in LA?”
Steve Maya laughed unhappily. “I remember. And I remember Chicago, Frisco, Albany, Tokyo, London and Manchester, too…” He laughed again. “There’s hardly a city in the world where something hasn’t happened because of him.”
I took hold of Ella.
“You know,” I said loudly, “I think I’m feeling better. I don’t think we have to call my mom after all.”
I gave Ella a squeeze.
“Well,” she said, picking up her cue. “I guess we’ll be going now. My friend’s OK.”
I nodded. “Yeah, we’ll be going now.”
We could have saved our breath. Neither of them acted as though we’d spoken.
Mick’s eyes were still on the street. “You sure you don’t want me to follow him? Just in case?”
“Nah,” said Steve Maya. “Maybe we’ll get really lucky and he won’t come back this time.”
ELLA, I, AND THE GREATEST POET SINCE SHAKESPEARE HIT THE MEAN STREETS OF MANHATTAN
Hand in hand, Ella and I followed Stu Wolff, the Bard of Lower Manhattan, into the dark and treacherous night. My cape swirled behind me as we walked. Except for the garbage and traffic, it was like following Heathcliff out on the moors.
Ella squashed my fingers every time we crossed a street, as though we were about to fling ourselves over a cliff and into the cold embrace of the sea. This was slightly less distracting than the way she went rigid whenever anyone suddenly loomed out of the shadows.
“Will you please chill out?” I whispered. “We’re going to lose him if you keep slowing down like that.”
Ella was watching everything at once, but I was trying to keep my eyes on the tall, thin figure several yards ahead of us. The darkness and rain made him come and go like a ghost.
“I’d rather lose him than lose my life,” Ella muttered darkly.
Those were not idle words. Stu Wolff might not exactly be a man of the people at home – unless you mean the people who drive $50,000 cars – but let him loose in the wilds of the Lower West Side and he went straight for every blackened window with a Bud sign hanging in it.
Nonetheless, I barely heard her. My mind was leaping ahead to the moment when we finally caught up with Stu. Would he still be angry, or would the walk have cooled him off? Would he tell us what the argument was about? Would he ask for my advice? Maybe he’d take us for a coffee at one of his favourite cafés. I could see the three of us walking into a room filled with plants and mirrors and people wearing clothes with names (Gucci, Armani, Ralph Lauren…). Stu asked for his usual table. “Certainly, Mr Wolff,” cooed the waiter. A silence fell on the sophisticated New Yorkers as we passed among them. “Look who it is…” they whispered. “It’s Stu Wolff… But who are those girls with him?”
Ella moved even closer as we trudged across Sixth Avenue for the third time. I wasn’t sure if it was for warmth or protection.
“Where do you think he’s going?” she whispered nervously.
“God knows,” I whispered back. Which put God in the minority. Not only was it pretty obvious that Stu had no destination, it seemed pretty likely from the number of times we came back to the same places that he wasn’t always sure where he was.
I wasn’t always sure where we were, either. I’d recognized Chinatown (because of all the restaurants and Chinese people), the East Village (because we walked right past my dad’s building), and the West Village (because of all the out-of-towners), but not everywhere we went was on the tourist maps, or someplace where my parents used to take me to eat, or the street that was home to my father and his dog.
Stu lurched unexpectedly to the right.
“Let’s walk a little faster,” Ella whispered. “We don’t want to lose him.”
I couldn’t have agreed with her more. You wouldn’t think it was possible in a city that never sleeps, but once we left the bright lights and heavy traffic of Sixth Avenue behind, the streets were pretty bleak and desolate. Figures rustled in the shadows like rats. Every sudden noise sounded like a threat.
“We won’t lose him,” I reassured her – and me. “He can’t even walk straight.”
We turned the corner. And stopped.
“Where’s he gone?” whispered Ella.
I squinted into the darkness. There were cans and bags and boxes of garbage piled up along the curb and the wheel of a bicycle chained to a lamppost, but, aside from that, the narrow street of warehouses and lofts was empty. I wasn’t worried, though. It wasn’t the first time Stu had disappeared in front of our eyes.
“He must have gone in somewhere again,” I said. That was Stu’s trick, suddenly vanishing through a door.
Ella shook her head. “Where would he go? There aren’t any bars.”
“Well, maybe he didn’t go into a bar this time,” I said a little defensively. “Maybe he knows someone who lives here.”
When I used to im
agine what the Greatest Poet Since Shakespeare did in his spare time, I always pictured him watching sunsets and gazing into the depthless sky, his mind filled with cosmic questions and universal truths, not fighting and drinking beer – but so far tonight he’d done nothing else.
Ella pressed her lips together. “Nobody lives here,” she said. “Not inside.” She looked over at me. “I’m really getting scared being out here alone, Lola.”
“But we’re not alone,” I reminded her. “We’re with an adult.”
“Aside from the fact that he isn’t actually with us,” said Ella. “Stu Wolff isn’t actually an adult, either; he’s a rock-and-roll star.”
As thunderstruck as I was by this unexpected display of disloyalty, I decided not to say anything. Later, when we were talking and laughing with Stu, I knew she’d regret those callous words.
“Well, whatever he is, we have to find him,” I said diplomatically.
We started walking again, cautiously, taking small, tentative steps as though tip-toeing through a minefield. There were no bars, no coffee shops, not even an alleyway Stu might have cut through.
We stopped when we reached the next corner. Ahead of us, in all directions, were more streets just like the one we were on.
Ella sighed. “We have lost him.” She didn’t sound as disappointed as you might think.
“It’s impossible,” I argued. “He was right in front of us.”
“Well, he’s not in front of us now,” said Ella. “All that’s in front of us is uncollected garbage.”
We were both so tired, so wet, so hungry – and at least one of us was so disappointed – that it might have turned into a real argument if we hadn’t been successfully diverted at that moment.
Someone – or something – groaned.
Ella practically jumped in my arms – which saved me the trouble of trying to jump into hers.
“What was that?” she hissed. I’d never seen her eyes that big. She looked really beautiful, if half drowned.
I had to get my own heart out of my mouth before I could speak. “I don’t know,” I whispered back. “Maybe it was a cat.” Or a rat.