by Nina Solomon
“How bad is the damage?” the woman asked, softening a little. She put on a pair of tortoiseshell glasses and reached into the shopping bag, spreading the afghan out onto the counter, as if about to perform a complete medical exam. She ran her milky-white hands along the frayed edging, shaking her head as she assessed the situation.
“You’re better off starting over,” she said finally. “There’s less here than is missing.” Grace felt like snatching the afghan away from this woman, who bore a strong resemblance to a Little Kiddle doll.
“I couldn’t do that.”
“Start fresh. It’s too ungepatchket, anyway,” the woman said, without a trace of sentiment. Grace had heard her mother use that word to describe Francine Sugarman’s taste in decorating. Actually, anything pre-1960s was ungepatchket in her mother’s mind.
“I need to try at least,” Grace said quietly. “I’ve had it for so long.”
“Suit yourself.”
“Do you sell this kind of rainbow yarn?” Grace asked.
“You mean ombré?”
“I guess so,” Grace replied.
“We don’t carry any acrylics. And Woolworths has been closed for years.”
Grace’s eyes inexplicably filled with tears as she folded up the afghan and put it carefully back into the bag. She turned to leave. Just as she was reaching for the doorknob, the woman approached her and put her hand on Grace’s shoulder.
“I could teach you a few simple stitches. It might take your mind off of things.”
Grace sat down on a small stool as the woman dug through a basket until she found a skein of ombré yarn in soft muted shades of purple, sage, and teal. The woman made a simple slipknot, looped it over the crochet hook, and within a matter of minutes was showing Grace how to make a granny square. Grace’s hands moved slowly and awkwardly at first, until she began to get the hang of it. By the time she finished her square, she felt serene. She looked at the four-by-four-inch square in her hands and could not believe she’d made it.
“One by one,” the woman assured her. “That’s all it takes.”
“I had no idea it was so simple,” Grace said.
“What’s your name?” the woman asked, snipping the end of the yarn with a pair of tiny gold scissors that were shaped like a stork.
“Grace,” she answered.
“I’m Penelope. Grace, most things are simple—it’s people who complicate things.” She put five skeins of wool and a crochet hook in a plastic bag. Grace offered to pay, but Penelope refused. “I’ll just put it on your tab,” she said. “Come back when you’ve done a few, and I’ll show you how to put them together. And leave the afghan. I’ll see what I can do with it.”
THE LOBBY OF LAZ’S old building had been recently refurbished, restored to an extroverted facsimile of its former Beaux Arts splendor, with a cobbled carriage entrance, gilt paneling, and crystal chandeliers. The limestone exterior of the building was being repointed, and the entire southern side was sheathed in black netting. It looked like a giant veil had been suspended from the cupolas. For all the improvements, though, the building still had the same stale smell that had always permeated the hallways and stairwell—a sort of olfactory melange of burnt toast, papaya, and mothballs.
The Barclay School of Dance that Grace had attended during all of her preteen years had occupied a grand studio on the mezzanine level in the same building, with floor-to-ceiling mirrors and double-height windows. Grace’s mother used to sit on the faded chintz couches in the lobby, waiting for Grace to emerge, lollipop in white-gloved hands, usually a hole in the knee of her white tights from where she’d skidded in her Mary Janes across the polished floor. Laz thought the image was funny and had called Grace his little debutante, one night waltzing her down the marble hallway toward the elevator bank.
She and Laz had lived in his old apartment together for less than six months, until Grace could no longer tolerate the confined space and the noisy, whip-crazed neighbors, whom Laz had once threatened in the middle of the night by knocking on their door, wearing little more than his sheepskin slippers. The next night, the neighbors, Alexander and Julian, were invited over for brandied pear canapés and white wine sangria. Later, Laz laughed about the lively neighbors next door. He had a selective memory, as did she, but he only seemed to remember the good times in that apartment, most of which predated Grace entirely.
Grace recognized the concierge as she passed by on her way to the elevators. He waved as if he thought she still lived there. Grace took the elevator to the sixteenth floor, where the office of the managing agent was. She opened the door and approached the receptionist, who was tapping her long, turquoise nails against the desk.
“I’d like to pay this bill. It’s two weeks late.” She felt the words catch in her throat, feeling as if she had just told the receptionist that her period was late and not the rent. The receptionist took the bill from Grace’s hands and studied it. Then she looked at the check Grace had written.
“You need to get this check certified,” she said flatly. “And we need to schedule a date for the asbestos abatement.”
“That shouldn’t be a problem. I’ll arrange it with my husband.” The woman gave Grace the once-over, her eyes eventually resting on the ring on Grace’s left hand.
“That’s some ring,” she said, finally. Grace had grown accustomed to people staring at her engagement ring. It was quite a ring—a two-carat, emerald-cut diamond with sapphire trillions. When Laz gave the ring to her, Grace had at first been embarrassed by it. Laz had originally planned on giving her his grandmother’s engagement ring, a more modest diamond in a basket setting, but a week before he was going to propose, his mother told him that the ring had been stolen. She had collected a huge sum of money from the insurance agent, enough not only for a replacement ring but also for her to remodel her kitchen. The ring was eventually discovered in her safety deposit box along with her stallion’s certificate of genealogy, but by that point, Grace and Laz were already off to Belize.
“I should mention,” said the receptionist, “there have been a few complaints about noise from your apartment.” Grace tried not to appear startled by this information. After all, Laz had been known to sublet the apartment from time to time. He usually mentioned it to her, though.
“I’ll take care of that,” she assured the receptionist.
GRACE TOOK THE elevator down to the fourth floor and stood in front of the door to Laz’s old apartment. The key and rose she’d dropped on her previous visit were gone. Even though she had the key from the goldfish bowl, she felt obliged to ring the bell. After waiting for an appropriate length of time, Grace put the key in the lock and opened the door. If anyone was living here, there were no visible signs of occupation—no food, recent newspapers, or disarray—nothing to suggest that the apartment was currently inhabited.
Laz’s college desk and cinder-block bookshelves looked as if they hadn’t been touched in years. Even the television that could access only the local stations, and then with plenty of interference, still had the tinfoil rabbit ears attached to the antenna. Grace noticed how dusty everything appeared, the surfaces covered not with ordinary soot and dust but with particles that had a shiny, almost opalescent sheen.
Grace continued to look around the room as if she were at an exhibit of pre-Columbian art. From the fluorescent light fixtures to the makeshift, faux–wood grain kitchenette, the apartment was no-frills. Laz had liked it that way, the antithesis to his mother’s Bauhaus duplex on Park Avenue. The only remnants of this apartment’s former glory were the sealed-off dumbwaiter, which had once brought up dinners to the hotel guests, and the gas fireplace. Laz’s mother referred to the apartment as “the tenement.” On Laz’s thirty-second birthday, one of the few times his mother ever deigned to visit, Grace had prepared a dinner of rack of lamb and scalloped potatoes. The meal was eaten at a card table surrounded by metal folding chairs, and they spent a good part of the evening fanning the overly sensitive smoke alarm, which wen
t off even when Laz blew out the candles on the Greenberg chocolate cake.
Grace was surprised to see the spinning pups on the coffee table, merrily skating across its dust-covered surface. And then she saw an extension cord, tangled with plugs, leading in all directions to various electronic appliances. It looked uncannily like the one she’d been missing. Where before she might have considered the mystery of the extension cord solved, now she had only more questions. She knew that these were not just simple coincidences; she began to wonder if she and Laz were engaged in an unwitting game of cat and mouse. Still married, but not together—it was as if they were playing chess, just not on the same board.
Grace sat down on the edge of the couch. It was an emerald green velvet pullout that Laz had slept on in college, with a concave foam-rubber mattress that was missing several springs. Laz used to replace them with twist ties, which Grace would later find underneath the couch when she dry-mopped. She recalled how much effort it used to take to fold the mattress and close the couch. Sometimes, she would have to physically jump on it. Grace ran her hand over the fabric. The velvet was worn to a pale green on the arms and seat cushions, which they used to flip regularly.
She remembered the morning not long after they’d moved in together, when she found a black-and-white photograph of a woman inside one of the zippered seat cushions. Laz had said that it had probably been forgotten by the previous owners of the couch. It was such a sensible explanation that she felt ashamed for even bringing it up. The next evening, he blindfolded her and led her down twisting corridors, up a spiral staircase, and outside. When he removed the bandana from her eyes, Grace was looking out over the skyline.
“I thought the roof was closed,” she said.
“It is,” he answered. “I paid off Jorge.” Grace smiled, and then she noticed a hammock in the most northern corner, under a thatched covering, and a book on top of a stack of black roofing tiles.
“Look,” Laz said, walking over to where the hammock was fastened, “someone’s reading Oblomov.” He and Grace had been reading it aloud nightly for weeks. He picked up the book and opened it, the spine cracking. They had bought their copy at the Strand bookstore, and it still had the price written in pencil on the inside cover and the ex libris bookplate from the previous owner.
Grace leaned against the metal railing, taking in the unobstructed view all the way up Broadway past Columbia University almost imagining that she could see the outline of the mansion where they’d first met. That night, as they lay in the hammock, Grace felt secure that these memories would always be there for her, grounding her and Laz, especially during the times when they were apart.
SHE COULDN’T REMEMBER now if they’d actually ever finished reading Oblomov. But it had never been about getting to the end. They had a way of stopping and picking up again without missing a beat. A wave of exhaustion came over her, so she put down the shopping bag and rested her head on a tasseled pillow. As she drifted off, she wondered how Oblomov ended.
The next thing she was aware of was a loud knocking on the door. It had grown dark outside. She heard the sound of rain on the air conditioner. As she tried to reorient herself, she recalled a fragment of a dream that hovered above her in her half-waking state. Laz was standing on the other side of a doorway, which was covered by a huge cobweb. As he walked through it toward her, not a trace of the web adhered to him.
She stood up from the couch to open the door and caught sight of a brown leather jacket that looked identical to Laz’s hanging from a hook. Stunned, and afraid that she might still be dreaming, she reached out to touch it. She pulled the jacket off the hook, causing a windbreaker and a baseball cap to tumble to the floor. She pushed her arms through the sleeves and plunged her hands into the pockets. As soon as she did, her heart sank. The jacket she was wearing, although almost identical to Laz’s, had no hole in the lining. As she took it off, she noticed two frayed army patches on the sleeves. It was not the missing jacket she was looking for, but it had clearly belonged at one time to the missing man.
AS SHE WAS RIDING down in the elevator, Grace realized that she’d been so distracted by the leather jacket that she’d completely forgotten all about the person knocking at the door. Probably a maintenance man to schedule the abatement, she told herself.
When she descended to the lobby, another concierge was on duty. She glanced at a brass clock above the desk and saw that it was a quarter to six. She’d slept for over three hours! She hadn’t yet canceled spelt night, and Kane and Greg would be expecting her and Laz at seven.
“You just missed Mr. Brookman,” the concierge called to her, as she passed his desk. Grace stopped and turned around.
“Excuse me?”
“Mr. Brookman,” he repeated. “You just missed him.” The shopping bag with the crochet hook and wool fell out of her hands, and Grace watched as a ball of ombré yarn rolled away, leaving a rainbow trail in its wake.
“Laz was here?” she managed to say. The concierge shook his head and smiled.
“No,” he corrected her. “The young Mr. Brookman. He just came by to drop something off.”
15
SPELT NIGHT
Back at her own apartment, Grace called Kane to cancel, but there was no answer. Then she reconsidered. She was so hungry that spelt pizza with tofu mozzarella was beginning to sound appealing. Just as she was about to leave, the telephone rang. It was her father.
“Been out?” he asked, not bothering with pleasantries.
“Yes, actually. I just got in. Why?”
“Mother’s friend Mrs. Kreiger called and said she saw you in Laz’s old building.”
Grace was used to this level of surveillance. Still, it was shocking how quickly the information had been conveyed, as if it had been done by means of a global satellite scanner. There was a decided method to her father’s interrogation, an occupation he relished, and no matter how mundane her crime, she knew she’d have to endure his inquisition. It was a nuisance at times, but she also knew how much he enjoyed it—a sort of holdover from his Perry Mason–watching days, so she played along, answering his questions as if on the witness stand. While she was talking, she busied herself by unknotting the yarn that had spilled out of her bag. She heard a muffled cough on the extension, an indication that her father’s very own sidekick was listening.
“Doing errands?” her father asked.
“I was just coming from the yarn store. The afghan Grandma Dolly made me needs some repair,” she answered, yanking on a particularly tight knot. Grace’s grandmother had once told her a story about how prospective brides in the shtetlach of Europe were given a knotted-up ball of yarn, and if they had enough patience to undo all the knots, they were deemed to be a worthy match. Over cups of tepid tea with lots of milk and sugar, Grandma Dolly had made Grace practice on shoelaces or delicate gold chains. Luckily for Grace, for whom a pair of sharp scissors seemed now the only solution to such knots, those customs had long been abandoned. She still had several knotted skeins remaining, the shtetl’s judgment of an old maid.
“But the yarn store is blocks from there.”
“When it started raining, I ducked into the lobby to avoid getting wet,” Grace answered. Laz’s building had two entrances. She could actually walk a stretch of almost ten blocks virtually untouched by the elements by wending her way through various buildings, hotel lobbies, subway stations, garages, and covered courtyards, a route that her father had mapped out for her.
“Ah! Good thinking. Did you use the Hotel Mirabela’s side entrance?” he asked.
“Of course,” Grace answered, stretching the truth still further like a piece of warm taffy. “And the Apple Bank.”
“I tried to show your mother once, but you know her—she could get lost in a phone booth.” Grace heard the sound of “someone” clearing her throat. “Well, anyway, your mother got this silly idea that you were up to some sort of covert activity,” he said, taking pride in his deductive skills.
“Well, you
can reassure her I was not smuggling wool,” she said. There was rustling on the extension and Grace could almost hear her mother bursting from the effort of trying to remain unobtrusive.
“I hope it’s not real wool,” her mother finally said. “Wool pills.”
“Oh, and if you’re going out,” her father warned, “make sure you and Laz take mass transportation. It’s going to be treacherous to -night once the temperature drops. Like a sheet of ice.”
THE RAIN HAD ended, the temperature had dropped, and the streets were indeed treacherous. The taxi ride downtown to meet Kane was a more adventurous journey than Grace would have liked. She had no idea that cars could move sideways.
The restaurant was minimalist in style: long maple tables, chrome chairs, and a silent, rippleless waterfall cascading down a granite wall. Kane was sitting by himself at a table near the window. From his expression and the empty bottle of organic beer in front of him, Grace guessed that something was troubling him. She wondered if he and Greg had had an argument, and she felt relieved—though also a little guilty—that Laz’s absence would now be eclipsed by Kane’s greater need for comfort.
“Are we dining alone?” Grace asked. Kane got up from the table and kissed her on the cheek.
“Greg got caught up at the studio. You know how those things are.”
“Yes, I do,” Grace commiserated.
“Laz couldn’t break away either?” he asked, taking a sip of his hops-free lager.
“Unfortunately not. And he was really looking forward to meeting Greg.”
“Another time, I guess,” he said.
“Definitely. We’ll do it soon. The four of us.” The conversation continued in this vein for another few minutes until Grace could no longer stand the forced civility and tried to concentrate on the menu. She reached for a spelt breadstick, which, she was loath to admit, was actually quite tasty.
The waiter, who, in Grace’s mind, was paying an inordinate amount of attention to Kane, came over to take their order. Grace noticed the eye contact and the nuanced gestures of the waiter toward her old friend, and she felt suddenly proprietary toward Kane, who seemed completely oblivious to the waiter’s overtures. They ordered a large spelt pizza with mushrooms, two organic fennel salads, and two soy milk shakes with wheat grass juice.