“That’s what I’ve been saying! What is wrong with you?”
I maneuver myself into a standing position and consult the bathroom mirror.
“Did I just hear you gasp? Do you get it now? He can’t possibly be having a business meeting today. It’s Saturday. That’s why I must know if he really is at that building.”
I wasn’t gasping for the reason Vickie thinks. My hair! I’m a freak! I’ll never land a real job looking like this! And my face! The towel’s tone-on-tone monogram, which Teddy’s mother insisted we had to have, has left in my forehead a temporary indentation of Teddy’s and my intertwining initials.
Will it really take four months to get a salon appointment? Will my Department of Labor paycheck cover what it will cost to return my hair to its natural state of drabness?
“Fine,” I tell Vickie. “You get fifteen minutes. That’s all. I’ll leave here in five minutes and go up to Columbus and Eighty-second, and whatever I can observe in fifteen minutes is what you get. Not sixteen minutes. Not fifteen minutes and thirty seconds. After fifteen minutes I will come home and call you. Then, no matter what, I am going back to bed.”
“Great. Now, what you’ll want to look for is—”
I rub the monogram on my forehead. “I’m not finished. My fee just went up. I get a hundred dollars an hour, with a one-hour minimum, whether I work the whole hour or not. Plus all expenses. Travel, snacks, wigs, disguises, cosmetic surgery, whatever.”
Vickie, for once, doesn’t argue.
Swaddled in sweatpants, shielded by sunglasses, I make my way north to Columbus and Eighty-second. Vickie isn’t sure exactly which building on the corner Steve claims to be visiting, or if his company even manages anything in that area. She’s instructed me to look for his company’s sign by each building’s main door. Despite my sorry state and that I’m not expecting to find a sign, I spot one right away: a small, rect-angular brass plaque that reads “Empire Property Management,” on the five-story building on the intersection’s northeast corner. I cross to the building on the northwest corner. It’s a similar turn-of-last-century brick low-rise, a few stories of apartments above a ground-floor business. This building’s bottom floor is a Spanish-language church. I could use a little help from a higher power simply to keep me standing for the allotted time. I duck into the side doorway and stare across the street. So Steve’s company manages a building at Columbus and Eighty-second. He’s still not going to show up. I check my watch: fourteen minutes to go.
As I’m leaning against the church’s faded-orange-painted steel door, massaging my temples, a low, black car pulls up to the curb in front of the building I’m watching across the street. A young woman emerges. She struts up to the ground-floor door, rings the bell, and looks into a small porthole at her eye level. From the inside, someone opens the door. After she disappears through it, I take a couple of steps closer to the curb and, from behind the pole of a street lamp, try to figure out what kind of business this might be. It looks like a Prohibition-era speakeasy. There’s no identifying sign of any kind, and its windows are blacked out. Something about it gives me the creeps. I check my watch again: twelve minutes and fifteen seconds until I can leave.
Across the street, the door opens again and two beautifully dressed women emerge. We could almost be different species, these women and I. They are coiffed, polished, pampered, cared for. They’re laughing, all glossed lips and white teeth. When was the last time I laughed with such abandon?
Another woman, passing them from the opposite direction, approaches the door. On her arm hangs what even at fifty paces I can identify as this season’s wait-listed Gucci handbag, one of several styles Val must have rightly described to Vickie as already sold out. The woman reaches out with what is surely a manicured, bejeweled hand to ring the doorbell. The door remains shut. She rings again and presses her nose against the porthole, shading her eyes to see inside more clearly. She taps on the glass with a fingernail and presses her hands together, entreating. The door stays shut. After another round or two of pretty-please pantomiming, she gives up and walks away, glancing behind her, it seems, to see if anyone has witnessed her humiliation. What kind of business is this?
Seven minutes until I can go home. My ears are ringing. My skull is throbbing. My skin feels a size too small. My eyeballs feel a size too large, pushing up against their sockets. Four boys skateboard past me. The rush and clatter sets my stomach to churning, and I lean back into the dank doorway of Iglesia Sangre de Cristo, closing my eyes.
A passing car honks its horn. I jump and open my eyes, disoriented. Could I have lost consciousness for an instant? Incredibly, according to my watch, three minutes have gone by. I’m falling asleep standing up. Time to go home. Vickie won’t know if I leave four minutes early. I step out of the doorway with one last, reflexive look across the street.
The porthole-door opens, and out comes Steve.
My heart pounds. I shrink back into the church doorway and cover my telltale hair with my hands. Steve doesn’t look across the street. He gives a jaunty salute to the person on the other side of the door—just a standard, uniformed doorman—saunters to the corner, and summons a taxi coming down Columbus. The yellow car pulls over, and Steve slides into the backseat, pulling the door shut. The lighted roof sign goes dark, and the cab drives away. I watch the taxi’s taillights until it turns left toward the park and out of my sight.
Did that really just happen?
Wretched physical state momentarily forgotten, I cross the street. The porthole-door has closed again, and the blacked-out windows give nothing away. Dare I ring the bell? I peek into the porthole and jump back with a squeak; the doorman’s face is inches away on the other side of the glass.
But my watch says Vickie’s time is up, and I say it’s time to go home. There’s a wet hand towel there with my name on it.
EIGHT
Saturday, six p.m.:
“Really.” Linda has lost her buzz. I almost feel sorry for her. It’s as if by assuring her again that nothing happened, that her husband didn’t make a single inappropriate remark, didn’t so much as lay a finger on me—by telling a little white lie for the good of her marriage—I’ve pulled out her wings. “Are you positive? You sounded a little out of it when you called last night. Don’t get me wrong; it’s good he didn’t, but I thought he would.”
I switch the phone to my other ear. “But he didn’t. And what you did is called entrapment, and it’s illegal.” Is this true, or something I heard a cop say on the soaps? “More than that, it’s immoral. You shouldn’t be trying to lure Elliot into an affair. Don’t try anything like that again.”
“All right, all right, I won’t.”
“Good. I’ll send you my bill. What’s your real e-mail address?”
Sunday, eleven a.m.:
“He’s absolutely up to something.” This time it’s Vickie making a follow-up call. “I asked him how his meeting went. He said, ‘Well.’ I said, ‘Well, how?’ He said, ‘Just well.’ Six times I asked, and all I could get was, ‘Well.’ Do you see how evasive he is?”
“I told you yesterday. He was exactly where he said he would be.” I’m afraid I sound thoroughly unsympathetic. After this many tries at catching Steve doing something, even I have to agree with Kevin that there’s simply nothing to go by. Except for that zap between the two of you, my little voice whispers.
I flip on the television with the sound on mute. There’s an advertisement for a correspondence trade school. I should write down the number, look into getting my diploma in computer repair or medical billing. No, I’ve got to be more optimistic. I just mailed my résumés. I could start getting interview calls in a matter of days.
“I don’t care. You said he got into the cab around three forty. Well, he didn’t get home until after five. What took so long is what I want to know. It doesn’t take an hour and a half to get across town. And what was that place, anyway? Why didn’t you go in and find out?”
“Listen to me
. Stop. Get hold of yourself. Give it up.”
“I want you to go back and find out what he was doing in that building.”
“No.”
“He’s cheating on me, Iris. Okay, maybe he is going jogging in the mornings. And okay, maybe he did have a business meeting yesterday, and maybe he does have a golf game today. But somehow, some way, my husband is finding time to be with another woman. I need to know who, when, where, and how often. If that means having you follow him night and day, so be it. If it means you have to bug his office, tap his phones, interrogate his secretary, whatever, do it. I have to know the truth!” Predictably, Vickie is crying.
I am unmoved. Bug his office and tap his phones? What does she think I am, a CIA operative?
“Iris, I’m pregnant.”
I turn off the television.
“I’m about fifteen weeks along. I’m due in November. Maybe Val told you already.”
I sit on the edge of my bed. “She didn’t say anything.”
“I’m not surprised. She couldn’t care less what’s going on in my life.”
Upset though I am that Val didn’t share this bit of information—and that since I left Hayes Heeley she doesn’t seem to care much about what’s going on in my life, either—I feel compelled to defend her honor. “We haven’t had much time to talk lately. Michelle’s been keeping her pretty busy at work.” That’s what I’ll tell myself, anyway.
“Since when does Val not have time to gossip about me?”
Good point, I think. “Congratulations on your pregnancy. It’s wonderful. You’re happy, right?”
“It’s what I’ve always wanted,” Vickie answers. “I only wish I knew what was going on with my marriage. Now I hope it makes sense why I’ve been acting this way.”
It explains a lot. But I can’t spy on Steve. He’s seen me. He’s talked to me. He knows me, sort of. I don’t plan ever to admit any of this to Vickie, however. “Perhaps you should hire a professional detective. Someone with experience.”
“I looked into it. Don’t take this the wrong way, but it costs a fortune. There are surveillance fees, videotaping fees, mileage fees, retainers. It would be fine if my husband didn’t pay all my bills, but he notices if I go too far over budget.” She laughs halfheartedly. “That leaves you. You’re the only one who can help.”
“What would you want me to do, exactly?”
“Follow him as much as you can. His schedule is totally unpredictable, but whenever he tells me he’s going somewhere specific, I’ll call you, and you can run over to the place he says he’s going, and wait for him.”
I’m envisioning a hellish existence in which I literally am at Vickie’s beck and call, my phone ringing at all hours, Vickie capriciously dispatching me to various points in the city.
Vickie has read my mind. “That would only be a few times a week, at most. Usually he doesn’t tell me anything. When you’re not following him, you could maybe revisit some of the places you’ve seen him, like that building, and see if there’s anything you missed.”
Vickie and Steve are bringing a child into the world—a child who deserves parents who don’t lie to each other, whose life isn’t torn apart by divorce. If Vickie and Steve split, better now, before their child can suffer permanent damage. I can do this. I want to do this. It’s the right thing. I’ll recolor my hair back to brown. Steve knows me as a redhead, not as a brunette who looks just like every other woman in America. I’ll recolor my hair and wear sunglasses, and hide behind a magazine or something, and Steve will never know I’m there. I’ll ask Vickie for a few hundred dollars up front, for expenses.
“I’ll do it!” I feel noble and heroic. “I won’t let you down!”
“Thank you, Iris. I’ve been married to my husband for almost six years. It’s about time I found out who he is,” Vickie says. “You don’t think I’m crazy, do you?”
It’s the oddest thing. At least for this moment, Vickie doesn’t seem crazy in the least.
“Of course we take walk-in appointments,” the receptionist at Rapture Salon assures me Monday morning. “And we specialize in corrective color, too.” He waves breezily at the sign in the window.
I pretend not to have seen it already. “That’s what I’m here for.”
Half an hour later I’m in consultation with Charles, the colorist, who asks what I would like today. Brown, I tell him. He asks me to describe my hair color as a child. Brown, I tell him. He asks what shade of brown: Caramel? Chocolate? Chestnut? I tell him, just plain old brown. He covers my hair with a towel to determine the undertones in my complexion. He speaks of luminous brown, moonlit brown, the color I was born to have, the ideal version of my genuine self. I succumb to his poetry and nod yes, yes, and lean back into a stream of warm water as an assistant massages almond-scented shampoo into my scalp and brings me the new issue of Vogue. I sigh and read and float away on a cloud of happiness.
When the fog lifts, my hair is the grayish-beige of a pair of faded khaki pants.
“Moonlit brown,” Charles announces. He lifts a few strands to demonstrate that he has woven in face-framing highlights in ecru and wheat.
I didn’t think it existed, but apparently it does: a hair color that makes Scarlet Sunset seem flattering. At least that shade contrasted with my complexion. With this it’s hard to tell where my pallor ends and my hair begins. I take surreptitious calming breaths. Charles presses his palms together as if in prayer and looks at me with nothing short of reverence. On my way out, the receptionist says, “May I interest you in one of our VIP packages?”
I next go two doors down to Photo/Copy Express, to see if I can get something out of the counter clerk. A craggy, sour-looking man mopes behind the counter. When I ask for Mona, he says she’s on break and won’t be back for half an hour. In that case, I tell him, I’m here to pick up photos for someone but unfortunately don’t have the claim stub.
He sighs. “Who?”
“Steve Sokolov.” I take two more calming breaths as he riffles through the photo packets in a drawer behind him. Please let there be photos. Please let there be photos that provide a clue to something.
“No Sokolov.”
“Did I say photos? I meant copies.”
He shuffles back to the stacks of copy projects and looks through them. “Nothing for Sokolov.”
“Maybe it’s filed under ‘Steve.’”
He doesn’t look. “Nope.”
I leave the copy shop and walk to the cheap-gift emporium on the next block, the one that sells faux-wood-handled umbrellas and gold-tone watches and packages of men’s boxer shorts, and buy myself a five-dollar Yankees baseball cap, which I wear out of the store.
I return to the copy shop to find Dr. Jekyll leaning against the cash register, chatting on a cell phone. I wait until she’s finished with her conversation. Then I channel my inner moderator and ask if she has seen Steve Sokolov lately.
“Who?” She’s already started dialing her phone for the next call.
“Steve Sokolov? About this tall, brown hair, brown eyes?”
“I don’t know a Steve Whoever-you-said. Yo, Nancy!” she says into her phone. I sigh a suffering sigh and slip out the door.
In the afternoon I check my e-mail. No responses from any of the companies to which I’ve sent résumés, only the typical insulting spam and the latest installment of “Bliss Blitz from Joy!”
Why I open it, I have no idea.
TO: Friends
FROM: Joy
SUBJ: When mind over matter isn’t enough
Dearest Goddesses:
Sometimes, it takes more than spiritual faith and ritual to heal a wounded soul. If positive thinking and meditation have only brought you so far, it may be time to take more practical steps toward fulfillment. Bliss Bits from Joy!, my new line of tools and totems, has been developed by me to help guide your spiritual practice to its next level. Come see them, and meet me, at the New Age Expo in August. More details coming soon!
I can’t recall
how it started, but whenever Teddy and I got pizza delivered in Studio City, he liked to order it pretending he was Joy. He’d sit on a sofa cushion on the rug that’s now in my apartment, feet bare, legs crossed in the lotus position. Then he’d blink serenely and affect the twinkly goddess voice Joy adopted after she and my dad divorced. When the pizza guy answered the phone, Teddy would trill, “One large, and please be sure the sausage and mushrooms are blended harmoniously.”
I never shared with Teddy the whole story about Joy. He must have assumed that my animosity toward her was typical mother-daughter growing pains. He simply saw the humor in her life philosophy, cobbled together from a little Buddhism here, a little Wicca there, with pinches of New Agey earth-mother/Eastern wisdom/yoga/meditation/mysticism. My problem with Joy’s spiritual mumbo jumbo is that it’s inexcusably forgiving. You do something terrible, but you’re not terrible. You’re wounded from past traumas, or your chakras are out of balance, or there’s a blockage in your mind-body energy flow. You’re not selfish; you’re someone who gives and gives to everyone else and now must feed your own soul. You’re a good person who’s done a bad thing.
I think if you do bad things, you are by definition a bad person.
“Was Joy this bizarre even when your dad was alive?” Teddy once asked.
“We had no idea,” I told him.
NINE
On Tuesday morning I walk up to Columbus and Eighty-second, gather my courage, and ring the bell next to the speakeasy door. Behind the porthole window the guard is an unsympathetic monolith. I knock twice and wait. He stares straight through me. I call, “I need to ask you something!” and finally get a response: a definitive shake-of-the-head no. I shrink away and tiptoe into the dry-cleaning establishment next door, praying the guard isn’t tracking my movements.
It's About Your Husband Page 9