Claudia Silver to the Rescue (9780547985602) (29 page)

It was then that a dark, curly head, bent over a notebook of its own, lifted, and a round face rose up. The dark eyes that immediately found Claudia's flashed surprise, hope, and fear in semaphore.

Oh, for fuck's sake,
she thought.

Moving very slowly, so as not to enrage her, Garth Kahn raised a mitt. He refrained from even waggling his thick fingers, and showed no teeth. Here, Claudia considered, was the perfect opportunity to ricochet herself down Macdougal Street, and from there, into sweet oblivion. But instead, pressing her notebook even more closely to her chest, she gestured, with a small shrug, in Garth's direction. It was a request to approach. He nodded.

Claudia threaded through the tables. Garth watched her, his expression neutralizing. “Hey,” she said, arriving before him.

“Hey yourself.” Garth was working on a pot of tea and a plate of pignoli cookies. His cheeks had grown pinker with her approach. His big silver parka occupied the extra chair at his little table.

“How are you?” Claudia asked.

“Wary,” Garth replied. “And yourself?”

“I'm okay.”

Garth's hair had grown up and out since they'd last seen each other, and a thin headband pushed it back from his forehead, creating a halo effect. “You don't look super-okay, to be honest,” Garth admitted.

“Good to know.”

“Let me rephrase that,” said Garth. “You're a beautiful girl who looks like she's having a shitty day.” Claudia shook her head, dismissing his ditty. It was so awful, somehow, how Garth insisted on seeing her. “It's what my mother would call a Jewish compliment,” he explained.

“Got it.” Claudia glanced back at the door, confirming its exact location for her pending escape.

“Do you want to sit down?”

“No. I—” In an instant, Claudia dropped her notebook to the table, snatched up Garth's parka, and clutched it like a silver shield as she slid into the extra chair. “I want to tell you, Garth.” She paused.
Goya.
That's how Garth looked.
Goya-esque,
Moorish. He just needed a lute, a velvet doublet, and a disturbingly human spider monkey on his shoulder and he'd be good to go. It was something, really, how Garth climbed right into her eyes. “I . . . I'm really sorry,” Claudia said. “For being such an asshole. On more than one occasion. But especially for hitting you. That's so fucked up.” She sank against the scrolled metal back of the chair. “I . . .” Her voice strained, breaking, but she pushed through. “
I'm
actually pretty fucked up.”

Garth gently removed his jacket from Claudia's grip and draped it behind his chair. “I felt like, you know, Joan Crawford for a second,” he said. “It would've been cool if you'd kissed me afterward, but whatever. To be honest, the not-returning my phone calls after Fela Kuti was worse.” Garth smiled, with teeth this time, a little sadly. He pushed his plate of cookies in Claudia's direction.

Claudia paused, considering uncomfortably that other people remembered the things she said and did. Too warm, she now removed her fur hat. The gesture provided a spontaneous air of deep humility. “So,” she hesitated, “do you want to accept my apology?”

 

Garth Kahn's hips pumped up and down, his sturdy thighs groaning through his jeans. Claudia's legs splayed, flanking Garth—she had no idea where to put them. When he'd offered her a ride back to Park Slope, Claudia pictured a Datsun. Now she focused on maintaining her perch on the back of Garth's bike, and wished, as Garth worked hard to get them over the Brooklyn Bridge, that she wasn't so heavy.

Garth was standing up, leaning over the handlebars, the wind off the East River tossing his dark curls. He'd given Claudia his helmet and clamped her fur hat into the rack behind the seat. At the top of the bridge, the dark hill turned in their favor, and the bike soared into Brooklyn.
READ GOD'S WORD THE HOLY BIBLE DAILY
, commanded the sign on the side of the Watchtower Building, while unknowable Queens sparkled in the distance.

“You okay?” Garth bellowed into the swift wind.

“Yeah!” Claudia called back, realizing, to her own surprise, that she was smiling.

 

Meanwhile, under the river and through the walls of an improbably engineered tunnel, Phoebe Goldberg, tucked into the orange plastic corner seat of a crowded Brooklyn-bound F train, suddenly felt hungry, like she could go for a chicken-flavor ramen or a Swiss Miss. She got off at Bergen, hoping there'd be no reason to see Edith or Robbie on an utterly shuttered Smith Street. Soon, she stood at the foot of the Parker's stoop, just twenty feet and a lifetime west of Edith Mendelssohn's.

The Parkers' steps offered choice selections of the neighborhood's windswept grit: straw wrappers, a mangled flyer from Peking Garden with a boot print, the cellophane off a box of butts. The Parker's front door featured a stale Christmas wreath, and the parlor window glowed with unseen evening activity. Edith's place was dark. Her stoop had been swept by Robbie Burns twice that morning and once more before he set out on his last ambivalent stroll to a church basement before coming back to a new set of locks. Edith's front door featured a mezuzah and a water-stained sign, written in fountain pen, laminated with clear packing tape and hung from the doorknob with red yarn:
Absolutely No Menus.
But it was the Parkers' front stoop that Phoebe now ascended.

Darleen Parker answered the door in her Knicks warm-ups and giant teddy-bear slippers.

“What's up?” said Phoebe, casually. She could have thrown her arms around Darleen and clung for dear life, but instead she jammed her hands deeper into the pockets of her peacoat and raised her shoulders to her ears.

“Oh man,” Darleen chuckled, as Mrs. Parker appeared, her Rite Aid readers tucked into her twisted and coiled hair. “You got some
witchy-ass
timing. We was just talking about you.”

Phoebe glanced over at Edith's darkened building. “Oh yeah?” She hadn't figured on Mrs. Parker being home. She'd wanted Darleen to herself. Then: “Hi, Mrs. Parker.”

“Hello, Phoebe,” said Mrs. Parker, looking like her next word for sure would be
good-bye
. Accordingly, Phoebe quickly began to map her next stop. It was too late to land on the doorstep of anybody she went to school with. It was too cold to wait out the night on a bench in Cobble Hill Park.
This,
she realized, picturing the white building near the West Side Highway with the porthole windows,
is why they invented Covenant House.
A wind kicked up, rattling the rusty aluminum awnings slung up and down the block.

“We need to talk, Phoebe,” said Mrs. Parker. “Can you come on in for a minute?” Phoebe hesitated. There was something about Mrs. Parker's tone. But she stepped inside. The foyer, with its enduring kids' art, inspirational plaques, and Afrocentric crucifix, opened directly on the Parkers' tidy world. Unlike Edith Mendelssohn's building, the Parkers' place had never been officially subdivided into apartments, although it had seen a steady parade of boarders over the years. Phoebe saw the chubby chintz sofa under its bright afghan, and met the rich aroma of Mrs. Parker's Crock-Pot as it wafted out to greet her, along with the
Quiet Storm
. Darleen had disappeared, and Ramona was several flights upstairs, reading Cheever in bed.

“Ramona got a talking-to at work today,” said Mrs. Parker. They were still in the foyer, as there'd been no further invitation. “Do you know why?”

“No,” Phoebe answered.

“She was
late,
” explained Mrs. Parker, evenly.

“Shit,” said Phoebe, silently considering that of all the harsh consequences in the world, a talking-to didn't really sound like one.

“You know
why
Ramona was late?” Mrs. Parker pressed.

“Yeah.”

“Well, I'm gonna tell you about it anyway,” Mrs. Parker declared, folding her arms high on her chest. “She was late 'cause she was messing around with you at a photo shoot, holding hands, lying on the floor. With Punky Brewster and friends taking notes. Ring a bell?”

“Yeah.”

“You heard of the Venus Hottentot, right?” Mrs. Parker asked.

“No.”

“Oy vey,”
Mrs. Parker sighed, then shifted gears. “Then let me tell you about my daughter Ramona. Ramona is not about style. She doesn't have to be. That's because Ramona's about substance. She works hard every day to accomplish goals of
substance.
She's going to be a veterinarian. And to get there, she puts her back into it, every day. And I
know
you know that.” Phoebe nodded. “So why would you do anything to knock her off her game?”

“Did she get fired?” Phoebe asked.

“That's not the point,” said Mrs. Parker.

“I know, but I'm still asking.”

“No,” said Mrs. Parker, after regarding the girl with growing benevolence, “she did not get fired.”

“I . . . I just wanted her to come with me,” Phoebe admitted. “It was like this kind of random job interview, I guess. And I didn't want to go alone.”

Mrs. Parker shook her head. “The thing is,” she said, “is that girls like Ramona can't
afford
a talking-to. That's the thing you've got to understand. Ramona's going to work twice as hard her whole life, and she can't
never
get a talking-to. Four hundred years of slavery means you two aren't the same. You know that, right?”

Phoebe slowly unhooked her shoulders from her ears and allowed her full height. Then: “No.”

“
Excuse
me?”

“I . . . I don't know that me and Ramona are not the same,” Phoebe declared. “I don't see it like that. At
all.
”

Mrs. Parker leaned against the door frame and cocked her head. “You don't see it like that,” she marveled.

“No.”

“Go on and tell me how you see it, then.”

Phoebe's throat constricted. It wasn't just that she was hungry and cold, but that she was tired. Deeply so. And unable to picture how and when she'd ever be able to rest. She could lie down, right on the Parkers' stoop, with the Peking Garden flyer for a duvet, and never get up. Instead, she raised her voice. “The way I see it,” Phoebe said, “is that we're, you know.
Equals.
”

Mrs. Parker gave a mild snort. “Well, that's not how the world sees it, I'm afraid.”

“Then the world,” Phoebe countered, “is wack.” Silently, she conceded that what she and Ramona had in common was possibly outweighed by what Ramona had that she didn't.

“That's right,” Mrs. Parker agreed. “The world is wack. Which is why I'd appreciate it if in the future you'd avoid any damn thing that keeps my baby girl from getting her slice.”

Phoebe suddenly gave up trying not to cry. “Mrs. Parker?” she said. Hot tears and snot came next, but she refused to hide her face in her hands. “I need help.”

“Your mama know you're here?” asked Mrs. Parker.

“No,”
sobbed Phoebe.

“You eat dinner?” Mrs. Parker asked, steering Phoebe toward her bright kitchen. Later on, she would sit up with Phoebe, and she would listen.

 

Claudia hesitated in the doorway of her apartment, thrusting her arm against Garth's chest in the futile manner of a suburban mother stopped short at a red light. “Is something wrong?” Garth asked, the warmth of his body spilling out as he unzipped his big silver parka. Claudia just looked at Garth, unable to imagine ever breaking it down for him. She knew Bronwyn wouldn't be there, but as their steps echoed down the hallway with a wrong sort of hollow, it occurred to Claudia that Bronwyn might be
gone.
Even the dust bunnies seemed bewildered.

“So when does your roommate usually land?” Garth asked at the kitchen sink. He filled an empty Bonne Maman jar with tap water and drank deeply.

“I have a feeling she's not my roommate anymore,” Claudia replied, taking the jar from him.

“You know the one about another door opens, right?” Garth offered, unhelpfully. “I love that one.” He reached out and put his hands on Claudia's shoulders. “You're tense,” he said. Garth's touch was solid. Claudia nodded, keeping the empty jar to her lips. Gently, he took the glass and set it down.

“I'm kind of screwed,” Claudia said, but it came out as a whisper. “I mean, not really, I guess.” She tried for a casual shrug. “It just, you know, kind of feels like that at the moment.” Garth's expression was unbearably kind, but she let him look at her. “I'm fine,” she said, unconvincingly.

“Do you know how to roast a chicken?” Garth asked.

“ . 
.
 . What?”

Keeping his mitts on her shoulders, Garth stepped closer to Claudia. He had very thick, very dark lashes, and his lips were dark, too. Actual red lips. “Roast chicken is sort of like the grandfather of all dishes. It's cheap, and you can eat it for days, then make stock from the carcass. And while it's cooking, it fills your place with the best smell. I could teach you.”

Claudia nodded.
Fuck it,
she thought, and let roll the few tears she'd been holding back.

Garth ran his thumb along her jawline to wipe the tears that had gathered. He opened his arms, and Claudia stepped in.

 

Phoebe Goldberg slept the night on the trundle bed in Ramona's room under a pile of patchwork quilts. On Saturday morning, Mrs. Parker fixed oatmeal and turkey bacon and cling peaches in syrup. She offered to accompany Phoebe on the long march next door to see Edith, and even to have a word with Edith; Phoebe demurred. Mrs. Parker promised there would be a solution, and she had some ideas. But what she couldn't do was pretend to be Phoebe's mother for the sake of the working papers.

Phoebe took a deep breath, and she rang Edith's buzzer.