Connections (9 page)

Chris held his glass up and tilted it until the light made a shimmering asterisk in the crystal. The red wine dazzled like a star ruby.

“And then they took the vote, and except for a couple of the old cronies who wanted
her
, it was almost unanimous.”

Chris laughed and took a sip of wine. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you this excited.”

“It’s not that I’m excited,” Jason said, sounding apologetic, “but it just made me so mad, the way everyone was screaming. They needed someone to get it organized. Already, in one night, I got a committee together and floor captains elected. I mean, I think it’s a challenge, don’t you? We shouldn’t run around without knowing what’s going on. I got the names of two lawyers who specialize in tenants’ rights, and two others who handle conversions. I’m going to start calling tomorrow to see if we can get one of them to meet with the committee. If this building does go, I think it might be a great opportunity. To own a piece of real estate in the middle of Manhattan would be a nice thing to fall back on. But it might not necessarily be the best thing for us, for this building.”

“Good for you.” Chris nodded his drink toward Jason in an imaginary toast.

“Well, it’s just that…hey, look, I’ll be damned if I’m going to let a bunch of schmucks who live in this building make decisions like that for me, for us. Or let a nut like that Pedersen woman get involved.”

“It’s going to be a lot of work, not to mention money.”

“Oh, I know. We talked about money briefly. I told them by the next meeting, we’d try to have some kind of plan worked out for how much it will cost, like for attorneys’ fees, and how we’ll prorate it with the senior citizens and everything. We’re going to have a committee meeting on Thursday to do some preliminary planning.”

“Thursday? I thought we were going out for dinner on Thursday.”

“Oh, I forgot. Well, listen, we’ll go another night, okay? If I have to get the four members together at one convenient time, it will take a lot of e-mails back and forth. As long as they already agreed, I’d rather not change it. Boy, I wish you had been there. You’ll have to come to the next meeting, Chris.”

“I wouldn’t miss it for anything.” He stretched and yawned widely. “I’m tired. Almost ready to turn in?”

“Naw.” Jason looked at his watch. “I’m too wound up. Maybe I’ll go get some air.” He got up and walked to the coat tree in the hall, where a peg had been added halfway down for Sabrina’s coat, packed away now, and another, which they called the hitching post, for her leash. “Want to go for a little spin, once around the block, baby?” he asked as he put her collar on. He came back into the living room to squeeze Chris’s shoulder. “I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

Chris started twisting his glass again. “Okay,” he said, concentrating on the kaleidoscopic lights.

Louise bent her head at an angle to better read the graffiti. The lights momentarily went off, and the noise seemed louder in the dark, the screeching echoing off the walls of the tunnel. The overhead fans blew the hot, dusty air around, and she felt stuck to the plastic seat. The lights came on, illuminating the filth and the empty soda can rolling on the floor. It was like a game you tilt in your hand to get the metal ball through a maze and into a hole. The can started, skidded, turned, and rolled backward. Then it stopped, balanced itself, and went forward with the train. All the passengers watched it, like spectators at a sporting match.

The girl swung her legs back and forth under the seat in time to a silent song in her ears. Louise waited for her to turn her head and then smiled reassuringly at her. “We’re gonna have fun.”

“What?”

“Fun!” Louise shouted over the grinding wheels. “Two stops,” she mouthed, and held up her fingers. The little girl nervously rolled the handles of the plastic Duane Reade shopping bag tighter in her lap. If they did this more often, Louise thought, she’d get her a little overnight bag. She could probably pick one up at a street fair for six or seven dollars. Christ, even Barbie dolls had suitcases. And maybe a new pair of sandals to replace the worn ones she was kicking under the seat now, as if she were on a swing. Louise was looking forward to it. She hoped Elena was too. Not that the Upper East Side was the country or even the suburbs, but it was a vacation from the squalor of the ghetto. A chance for a young girl to be away from her family, to feel grown up and see new things. Have a real holiday on a holiday. Maybe Louise would take her to Chinatown for supper. Or the South Street Seaport. Then she could stop back to walk Honda before going to a movie or possibly a walk on Fifth Avenue. It would be nice at this time of year.

Louise saw Elena eye the token booth, the modern tiles, and the clean signs at the 86
^th
Street express stop. As she guided the girl to the subway stairs to the street, mentally planning the weekend’s itinerary, she felt like Auntie Mame. And Louise beamed.

Laurie stretched lavishly, arched her back, and massaged the base of her spine with her hands, enjoying the relief in knowing that tomorrow was Memorial Day, and this particular Sunday was the middle of a three-day weekend. It was only 7:30 in the morning, and she had the whole day ahead of her, plus another. She luxuriated in her laziness, until Felix jumped from the windowsill onto her chest, swiping her once across the face and whining—demanding—to be fed.

She went into the kitchen, opened a can of cat food, divided it into two bowls, and put them on the floor. She added some water to the kettle and sat down at the shelf that swung down on its hinge to make a table. She toyed with the idea of calling her old friend Joan to ask her over. She could probably be here by nine. After catching up for an hour or two, though, what would they do all day? Or she could call her great-aunt Corinne, wait for an invitation to Sunday dinner, take the bus to the railroad station, and join the closest family she had in New York—maybe the world. Because she would probably never see her parents again. She’d never call them, that was for sure. And after all this time, it looked like her mother would never defy her father and get in touch with her. She shrugged her thoughts away before they invaded her mood.

She could go to Queens Center and do some shopping. She certainly needed summer clothes. The thought of trying on bathing suits made her cringe. Then again, when was she going to go to the beach? On the other hand, she could just go out and get the papers, come back, get undressed, and lounge around all day—reading, napping, watching TV. She sure could use the rest.

The last three or four months were terrible
, she thought as she stirred the freeze-dried instant coffee through the boiling water. She held her cup with both hands, tilting it toward the fluorescent light, smiling widely to see if she could see her teeth in the vague outline of her face in the black liquid. She remembered how apprehensive she’d been of the new software program when it first arrived. Maybe it was her generation, or her sex, or just a personality flaw that she was so intimidated by electronics. It was probably because it was foreign to her and that she didn’t understand anything about it. After the hands-on instruction in the class she’d attended for three days, she’d been able to approach it a little more boldly. Now, she was expert at it. She was no longer intimidated, just respectful of it and awed by its capacity. She treated it almost reverently. Each time she used it, she discovered some new function to try. If she ever finished figuring everything out, feeding it data, and applying all that she learned to operating it, they would be some team!

But the amount of data she wanted to give it was overwhelming, and she was too busy most days to worry about it. God knew when she’d find the time to enter all the statistics. Maybe once she didn’t have to convert all the files to the new system anymore…It seemed it would never be finished.

With a mental snap of fingers, Laurie carried her mug into the bedroom, put on a pair of slacks, and sipped her coffee between applying eye shadow and mascara. Dressed, she took her bag and went to the front door, where Oscar and Felix were waiting for her, waiting to peek into the hallway when it opened. They knew her better than she knew herself. Oscar twisted her head away when Laurie tried to pat her. “Bye, guys. Just pretend it’s a regular workday.” She double-locked them in and, with a twinge of excitement, headed toward the subway.

Third Avenue was wall-to-wall people strolling in their shorts and tank tops and flip-flops, stopping and examining the wares. Vendors on both sides of the street in white open-sided tents hawked socks and T-shirts and cell-phone accessories and reading glasses and silver jewelry. Laurie joined the crowds for the first big street fair of the season, determined not to spend any money on junk.

By 1:00, the sun was strong, the crowds dense…and all those publications were calling to her to cull the facts and enter them into her computer. Painful images of abused animals assaulted her brain and coiled around her lungs, squeezing the breath out of her. Compelled, she headed home to her laptop.

Donna Griffen had been “on the floor” at Chase for a week. She liked talking to the customers, advising them which kinds of accounts to open, how and when to invest their money, and explaining statements and notices to them. She felt a little like a schoolteacher, especially now, as she walked from her desk to the other side of the bank, her heels echoing on the marble, and waited to be buzzed into the inner sanctum. The eyes of the pupils—people tapping their feet on the snaking tellers’ line and the people crossing and uncrossing their legs in the chairs, looking up to her to come back to help them—watched her intently.

And help is what she wanted to do. Which was why she had been very uncomfortable about the old lady who was trying to withdraw her CD early. Donna had checked the woman’s bank history and saw that she hardly ever withdrew
anything
from her money market account; that made Donna more suspicious. When she had patiently explained to the woman that she would lose the equivalent of a month’s interest, the clear blue eyes had studied the vaulted ceiling and refused to meet hers. Donna was sure the petite elderly lady was in the process of being ripped off. Swindled.

As she stood behind the teller’s counter now, on the pretext of looking at the account on the computer, Donna kept her eye on the woman and dialed the manager. “It’s just that she’s an old woman, and you know that notice we got from the police department? Well, I think somebody’s waiting for her outside for that money.”

“Okay. Stall her as long as you can while I call the police.”

“Thanks,” she said. She grabbed a handful of forms and walked back to her desk, her heart thumping in time to her heels. “Well, it seems that you’re the first depositor in this branch to withdraw a certificate of deposit early, so I had to call the main branch to find out which of these have to be filled out.” She thumbed through the forms, reading some, entering information on others.

Mr. Bass, the bank manager, dialed the Nineteenth Precinct. He was kept on hold for five minutes, as the operator constantly clicked on and said, “Ringing,” as if he couldn’t hear the extension ringing himself. Finally, someone in the detective squad picked up. Although the detective thought it was very wise of him to call, he told Mr. Bass that they were investigating four robberies, and no one was left on duty except him—and he couldn’t get away. But he thought there was a senior citizens’ bunco squad that handled cases of fraud against the elderly. He didn’t have the number, he told Bass, but Headquarters might be able to help.

After getting a run-around and being transferred from department to department, Leonard Bass decided the hell with it. He nodded to Donna to go ahead. After all, it was the woman’s money; if she was stupid enough to withdraw it all, it was none of his business. Citizens not going to the aid of a crime victim was one thing. Demanding that a person
be
a victim and be helped against his wishes was another. And not his problem.

Donna slid a form over to the woman at the side of her desk. She pointed with a long pale-blue nail. “Just sign here,” she said. Then she took it back to the tellers’ counter, had the money withdrawn, and the account closed. She watched the teller feed the bills into the counter and then brought the cash to the frail-looking woman and counted them again, in front of her. She watched the woman count the bills too. She lost her place halfway through, started again, and then stuffed them into the tote bag she had been hugging to her chest.

“They
what
?” she said to Mr. Bass as soon as the woman had walked through the revolving door. “I assumed you told me it was all right because someone was going to wait for her outside. You know, to see what she was going to do with it. Or where she was going.”

“Look, there are three customers waiting.” He motioned toward the chairs. “I think we’ve spent enough time on this one account…and lost money in the bargain.”

“But…” It was too late. Mr. Bass had walked away.

Donna waited until lunch. Rather than use her own extension and take a chance on being overheard, she brought her memo pad with the account number, name, and address to the lobby, and she called the mayor’s office from her cell phone. She hoped it wasn’t too late.

A jogger left the path around the reservoir and, without breaking stride, ran toward the grassy knoll, the sweat rolling off his face and arms, the muscles in his neck bulging against his skin. Jason couldn’t understand how people could get pleasure out of what he considered unnatural abuse to the body. Jason, pleased at the confirmation, watched the man drop onto his stomach in the grass, gasping for breath. Jason shook his head in amazement when the jogger visibly forced his arms into pillars and started doing push-ups.

Jason hadn’t realized he had come so far, but the early morning walk was invigorating after a sleepless night. Even Sabrina was excited at their outing and pulled at him from ahead. A squirrel darted across the path in front of them and, like a puppy, Sabrina tried to gallop after it. She was panting now. Jason picked her up with one hand and stroked her head to calm her down. “What do you think you are, a young chick?” he asked as he looked for an empty spot on a bench. He found one and automatically brushed at the rotted wood and wiped his hand on his jeans before sitting down. Sabrina was content to sit in his lap, erect and alert, watching the goings-on. Sometimes she seemed too ladylike and dainty to even put her paws on the ground.

“Allo, allo, remember me?” The voice came from behind Jason. Sabrina jumped off his lap, and he held the leash tighter as he turned around to look. He saw a large back bent over with an arm reaching under Jason’s bench. He felt Sabrina tugging excitedly on her leash; if she were any bigger, she would have dragged him under the bench.

Jason stood up, just as the woman did. “Ah,” she said, squinting at him. “Ah, now I remember you face.” When she smiled, a gold tooth in the back of her mouth winked at him. “I see the dog. I was a-walking back there”—she turned to point to a concrete path behind the trees—“and I look over and I see this little girl.” She bent down to continue the conversation with Sabrina, who was standing on her hind legs, clawing at the woman’s shins, begging to be picked up. “And I say to myself…that look like the dog who live by First Avenue. I try to look over, but your back…I can’t tell for sure who you are. Until you just turn around. But you…you I remember right away.” She picked up the Yorkie and held her in one arm like a baby, stroking Sabrina’s long fur out of her eyes. “I don’t see you no more. What happened to you?”

“Oh, I don’t live there anymore. I moved over to West End almost a year ago.” Although the woman didn’t really look familiar to Jason, her loud voice and heavy accent reminded him of someone or someplace. He slapped his cheek as it dawned on him. “Oh, you! Now I know who you are. The Poodle lady!”

“Yes, that’s a-me.” Rosa felt better now that he remembered her and seemed glad to see her.

“Oh, don’t tell me…” Jason lowered his voice sadly and looked to the ground where the dog should have been with its mistress.

She understood what he thought. “Oh no, Princess, she fine. But I have to take the bus over here, where I have to go. Too far for me to walk. Too far for Princess. We’re just two old ladies, you know.” To prove it, she pressed her chest with a fist to push her breath in and out loudly. Still holding her hand there, she walked around to the front of the bench and sat down. “Not like this little girl,” she grunted, gruffly clutching Sabrina to her bosom. “My doctor, he near Fifth, so I see the trees and decide I sit for a while before I go home. It’s-a beautiful here. Like the country in the middle of the city.”

“Hey, tell me what’s happening in the old neighborhood,” Jason said. “I miss everyone.”

Walking a dog, meeting other dog walkers, chatting to neighbors, and swapping pet stories was as close as most New Yorkers would ever get to a backyard fence to gossip over. And Rosa knew every dog and owner within a five-block radius of 83
^rd
Street. Excited to be the source of information, she lifted Sabrina into her lap and started bringing Jason up-to-date on his old neighborhood.