Family Dynamics (Pam of Babylon Book Five) (14 page)

Chapter 17

T
he following week was a week back to work for everyone. Ashton had several big staging jobs to pull off quickly for the largest real estate firms in town. Ted had closings, one after another, and two new clients to show industrial spaces suitable for residential conversion downtown. Natalie was going back to her summer hobby of teaching Native American crafts at the downtown YMHA. Deborah was starting her waitressing job, and Zach was going to teach at summer camp.

Monday morning, Steve and Carolyn met in the elevator going up to their offices. She was already on when she heard his voice.

“Be a champ and hold that car!” he hollered.
He is such a nerd
, she thought,
but a nice one
. She stuck her hand in the doors so they wouldn’t shut, and he pushed them open and stepped in next to her.

“Thanks! Good morning,” he said.

“Good morning, to you,” she replied, looking up at him with a smile. “Thanks again for Saturday. My boys had a great time with you. They talked about how they were moving to the Village as soon as they graduate high school. So what’s on your desk today?”

“I had a nice time, too. It was difficult coming in to the office after such a nice weekend. Today I’ve got the usual crap from Lang. What about you?” he asked.

“I actually need to go down there today. Presentation about one of their properties,” she explained. Lang, Smith & Romney was Jack’s old company and that of his former mistress, Sandra. “Unless you want to do it for me. I have so much on my plate right now.” Carolyn was hopeful Steve would take pity on her. He thought about it for a moment. It would be nice to get out of the office, and if he timed it right, he’d go home after seeing their contact at Lang.

“Sure, I can do that for you,” he replied. “Let me get my act together first. I could probably go after lunch, if you can set it up for around three?” He hoped it wasn’t too obvious that he planned to go straight home afterward, but Carolyn didn’t seem to notice, and if she did, she didn’t mind.

After lunch, Carolyn took a file folder full of charts and graphs to Steve’s office. The door was open, and he was stacking papers and organizing things on his desk. Steve was very neat, Carolyn had to hand it to him. He always seemed cool, even while Marie was sick; you never knew what was brewing.

“Are you ready to go downtown?” she asked. “Here’s the file.” She spread the contents out and showed him what had been accomplished for the client.

“I think I’ll take off now. If it’s not going to be a problem, I’d like to head home from Lang’s instead of coming back up here,” he said. Carolyn nodded her head.

“OK, well, I don’t think that’s a problem. And thanks for doing this for me. I’ll find a way to pay you back,” she said sincerely. She walked him to the elevator. He cautiously looked around to make sure they were alone and bent down to kiss her on the lips.

“Can I call you tonight?” he asked, stepping into the elevator.

“OK, I don’t think that would be a problem,” she repeated, and they laughed as the doors to the elevator closed. The freedom from the office on a beautiful June day wasn’t wasted on Steve Marks. He walked quickly to the subway, and a car came right away. The train wasn’t full, so he could sit if he wanted. His mind was racing, thoughts full of anticipation.
Of what? What the hell am I so excited about?
He knew giving way to the negativity would lead to a total meltdown that only a full bottle of scotch would alleviate. The underlying problem was that he missed Marie. He’d walked around in a fog since she got sick, allowing everyone to make decisions for them, and now it looked like they would continue doing so whether he wanted it or not. The problem was less their intervention on his behalf than it was his inability to take responsibility. If situations seemed too scary or too demanding, he gladly gave up his authority. Now he was suffering on account of it and blaming everyone else.
You’re a slug
, he thought.
You had a perfectly great apartment that you loved, and now you’re stuck in that bleak mausoleum
. Suddenly, as a ray of light shot through his despair, a little voice answered,
Paint the place, you asshole. Move in. Make it a home
. Would it be that easy? Would putting his stamp and that of his daughter’s on the house really make it that much better for him? He remembered Marie saying that her mother’s house was always depressing; she never tried to fix it up or do anything to it. Steve noticed that Nelda seemed perfectly content to leave their current digs exactly as they found them. And it was as dreary as it could be. He decided that he’d call Pam as soon as he got home and find out if she would agree to let him brighten the place up a little bit. It was the least he could do for his child.

The train pulled into the Wall Street station. Steve rarely had to go that far downtown, and when he came out of the tunnel, he was reminded why. It was as dark and as dreary as his townhouse was. He’d read all kinds of stories about how lack of light affected some people, but he never thought he was one of them. It was yet another weakness he could face and conquer that would benefit him and his daughter. He got to the Lang office and was reminded of how much expendable wealth these people had. Even the receptionist looked like a million dollars. Steve was sorry he’d never met Jack. He understood what a total fucker he was; look what had happened to Marie. Yet his name still seemed to generate reverence. People were just sucked in by his wealth and his charisma. He suddenly thought he had shed some light on how Jack was able to get away with such a tremendous amount of garbage, from manipulating Marie to pulling the wool over his own wife’s eyes. He was like a cult leader. Men and women were manipulated, and he was able to destroy them without a twinge of guilt.

The receptionist told Steve to have a seat; someone would be right out to talk to him. Within a minute, Sandra came out. Steve was taken aback by her greeting—she put her arms around him and hugged him, then asked him to follow her. She walked slightly ahead of him but to the side, and while she wiped her eyes with an ironed white handkerchief, she asked how baby Miranda was and if Nelda was still with him. Had he heard anything about Bernice? They made small talk, and then Steve pulled out the file contents and gave her a brief rundown on it. But she seemed distracted. She was pacing behind her desk when suddenly she turned to Steve.

“Do you have time to run to the coffee shop with me?” she asked. “I want to talk, but not here.” Steve wasn’t really in the mood for more chitchat, but her demeanor and voice told him that she had personal business to discuss with him.

“OK, I guess I can take a few minutes.” He felt like he was talking to a teenybopper.
What would a man my age find in common with a skinny kid like this
? he thought. She didn’t even appeal to him. She was pretty in a starving-model way, though. He thought about beautiful Pam and her gentle, honest kindness, the way she overlooked the worst faux pas and was generous and giving to him and Miranda.
Jack must have been a real jerk
, he thought. Sandra gathered her belongings.

“I may just get on the train for Williamsburg when you want to go home,” she said. She opened the door to her office so he could pass through, and then she shut it and locked it. “You never know who might snoop.” He didn’t care if anyone stole everything in his desk. Maybe she kept money or drugs locked in there.

“Follow me. We can take the back elevator,” she said, opening a door to a stuffy, hot stairwell. “If I don’t come back here today, the less my employees will have to tattle to Peter, the better.” Steve chuckled to himself; she even talked like a teenager. They got on the freight elevator, and it dropped down thirty floors in speedy fashion, taking his breath away and making his bowels protest. “That’s why they call it the
freight
elevator,” she said, laughing, when Steve yelped.
Young people are a pain in the ass
. “Do you want to walk, or should I get a cab?” she asked. He wasn’t sure if she was making fun of him or just being considerate.

“Let’s get a cab,” he said, certain he’d lag back when it came time to pay. But when they arrived to their destination, she didn’t pause, throwing bills down on the seat and jumping out before him. She was taking him to a grimy steel diner under the Brooklyn Bridge, the same one, oh, so long ago, where he attempted to demolish Marie’s car after she confessed she’d had unprotected sex with him and had recently been diagnosed with AIDS. It was probably during those few encounters that she had gotten pregnant with Miranda.

They’d been silent during the ride, and now Steve was a little choked up. Sandra noticed but didn’t say anything, correctly suspecting he was thinking about what could have been. They went through the door to the closest booth. The space was dark and cool, the windows unwashed so the sun couldn’t penetrate. Steve ordered iced tea, and Sandra got hot tea.

“No matter how hot it is outside, I always get hot tea. It’s comforting,” she said.

“I get iced because I can pretend it’s a Long Island iced tea,” he replied. She couldn’t tell if he was making fun of her, but she thought not. He would probably give his soul for a drink.

“They have a liquor license,” she said.

When the waitress brought their teas, Steve said to her, “A shot of Johnny Walker, too, please.”

The waitress nodded and walked away.

“Thanks,” Steve said to Sandra, sipping his tea. “So what do you want to talk about?” She looked uncomfortable, and he thought,
Oh, oh, something about Marie
.

“I never really knew what happened,” Sandra said. “I mean, I knew Marie was ill, but the next thing I knew, Pam said the baby was born and Marie had died. She didn’t go into details, and I couldn’t ask. I knew Marie well, and it was difficult to let go without knowing what happened,” she explained, sipping her tea. “I didn’t feel right about coming to the hospital. I don’t know. It seemed insincere. Marie didn’t like me.”

Steve looked at her and felt sorry for her. He knew why—Marie had been jealous of what Sandra meant to Jack. “You know why, correct?” he asked.

“Yes. Because of Jack. Jack lied to her, and she thought he had stopped seeing her because he didn’t love her anymore, and he was spending more time at home. But it was because he was with me. He was also with about four other women if I counted them correctly, so it wasn’t just me, but she never knew that. Pam and I didn’t tell her everything. I didn’t tell Pam everything I found out, either, and that’s turned around to bite me in the ass.”

Steve thought about what it would cost to go into the whole story of Marie and her death and decided he couldn’t do it. But he could offer her the short version. His scotch arrived, and he drank it down in a couple of gulps, then launched right in. “She had an AIDS-related brain infection that caused her to go into a coma. The doctors kept her alive as long as they could and finally had to deliver the baby because the placenta was beginning to deteriorate. She wanted to hang on as long as she could for Miranda.

“The day she was born was really difficult. I couldn’t go into the delivery room with her, so Nelda did. Seeing Nelda dressed in the scrub gown and her hair covered in the blue cap made her daughters and I break down. It was so sad. She took care of Marie all those months and never complained, never flinched. When it was time to remove the breathing tube, she had to leave the room. I think if we’d decided to keep Marie on life support for the rest of her life, Nelda wouldn’t have minded taking care of her.

“So that’s the story. I didn’t really have a chance to be sad because after she died, I had a newborn to take care of. Nelda moved in with me to help, and she does most of the caregiving. I try to shoo her away on the weekends, but she is the first one to say that she likes being where she’s needed. On the weekends she goes to visit Bernice, or Bernice comes to see us. We haven’t been to the beach for a while, but I may insist this weekend that we go.”

Neither said anything for a while. Sandra didn’t respond to the story. If anything, she seemed stonier than usual. Steve was caught off-guard. He expected at least a tear on her cheek. Maybe what Marie had said about Sandra being a cold snake was true. But he would wait it out.

“I lost a baby last year. Did you know that? Jack’s baby. She was five months. Big enough to have fingernails and hair. I got to see her, to hold her after she was born. She was dead, but it was better than wondering what she was like the rest of my life. And the worst is I can’t have more. I mean, I could if I was irresponsible like Marie was. But my doctor said it would be dangerous for me and the baby if I got pregnant,” she said. She was sitting up ramrod straight, a real “fight me” posture, but Steve Marks wasn’t biting. She was a punk. He wasn’t going to take advantage of her weakened position as a heartbroken mother. So he ignored her cruel reference to Marie and grabbed her hand.

“Oh, my God, how sad! It must have been so awful for you to lose your baby. And to know that it wouldn’t be wise to have more must just multiply your anguish,” he said. She was totally unprepared for his response and burst into tears. Fortunately, there weren’t many customers in the diner; it was between lunch and dinner. She let him keep hold of her hand. It seemed like she’d never had the opportunity to let her composure down until now.

“Yes! It’s been awful! No one understands, no one cares. My boyfriend doesn’t like to see me sad, so I have to be strong for him all the time. Pam certainly doesn’t want to hear about it. My sister doesn’t know the whole story. There’s no one! You are the only one I can tell what it was really like,” she said, crying. “The baby was so sweet; you could just tell she was going to be adorable if she’d lived. And now, of course, I’ll never know what it’s like.” She took out her handkerchief again and blew her nose. “I’m sorry. Poor Steve,” she said. He took her hand again.

“Anytime you need fatherly advice, I’m available to you. But can I ask one question? Why not get another opinion about having a baby? Miranda doesn’t have AIDS, and even though she was born under the worst circumstances, she is as healthy as a horse. I’d talk to someone else if I were you.” Sandra looked hopeful.