Hanging by a Thread (14 page)

As I said, my father, sister and I moved in with my grandparents after my mother's death, at which time our old house was converted into the two apartments. For the most part, the smaller duplexes like ours only converted well into one-bed-room apartments, or small twos at the most. But with a little clever maneuvering and an eager young contractor, Leo managed to make the bottom apartment into a three-bedroom, by turning the finished basement into a living/dining/kitchen combo and then making over everything on the first floor into bedrooms and bath. The top apartment they made into a very nice one-bedroom, where Mr. and Mrs. Nguyen live.

When I tell Mrs. Nguyen that nothing's changed, except she'll be making her rent check out to me instead of my grandfather, the soft-spoken sixtyish woman looks torn between sympathy and extreme relief. She expresses her condolences, sings my grandfather's praises for several seconds, then asks me in careful English if we need any food. I decline; then, after several obviously tormented seconds, she apologizes for the bad timing, but she can't get her kitchen faucet to shut off all the way and the dripping is starting to get on both her and her husband's nerves.

I tell her I'll take care of it. Of course, I have no earthly idea what I mean by that, but I'm sincere. Somehow, I will take care of it.

Then I go downstairs to get Starr. Mrs. Gomez—a former beautician, I think my grandfather had said, a few years older than me, very pregnant, very pretty, with curly brown hair caught up in a ponytail—takes one look at me and lets out a soft gasp. Our relationship is maybe a Level 3—with Tina being a 1 and the guy at the newsstand I say “hi” to every morning being a 5—so we exchange the odd pleasantry now and again, but we're not close by any means. Maybe not quite a 3,
now that I think of it, more like a 3½. Anyway, she reaches around her enormous belly and pulls me inside.

“You've been crying? Of course, you've been crying, what am I saying? Can I get you anything? A cup of tea or coffee…?”

“No, no, thanks. I just came to get Starr. And to tell you you don't need to worry about the apartment. Nothing's changing as far as that goes. Well, except that I'm your landlord now, I guess.”

Like Mrs. Nguyen, she looks torn between regret and relief. “Thanks. This wouldn't've been a real good time for us to have to look for a new place.”

My gaze strays to her belly, barely contained underneath her sweatshirt. A little twinge of nostalgia sneaks past all the other flotsam floating around inside my head, memories of the fear and excitement and anticipation, wondering who this was inside me, would we like each other, would I be able to answer her questions, be what she needed me to be…?

“Mickey and I thought maybe you'd sell up and leave the neighborhood, actually. Your grandfather mentioned something about you working in fashion, maybe moving to Manhattan at some point….” Then her cheeks pink. “Listen to me, going on about the house when your grandfather just died!”

“No, no, really…it's okay. And I'm not going anywhere right away, so please, don't think another thing about it.”

After a moment, she nods, then says, “You sure you won't have that cup of tea? It would only take a sec—”

“No. Thanks. I really need to get back—”

“Sure, sure, I understand. Well,” Liv says, turning and starting slowly up the stairs, “your daughter's been trying to teach my seven-year-old how to play checkers for the past hour.”

“Is it working?” I say when she stops to get her breath—oh, how well I remember that.

“I have no idea.” She resumes the climb. “All I know is, they've been quiet. Locito conked out about a half hour ago
on my bed, and it's been Heaven. I'd almost forgotten what it was like to start a thought and actually finish it, too!”

The Gomezes have the two boys, seven-year-old Andy and a three-year-old named Erik who they mostly call Locito—little crazy one.

We reach the doorway to the boys' room, which is your standard bunk-beds-and-wall-to-wall-toys space. On the dresser sits an aquarium with something furry molded to one corner, sacked out. In the middle of the chaos, Starr and Andy are sprawled on their bellies, feet in the air, chins in hands, as Starr explains—for what I have a feeling is not the first time—the rules of the game.

“She's very patient,” Mrs. Gomez whispers. Unlike her husband, she has no trace of an accent. “Maybe she'll end up being a teacher someday.”

“Since she's already convinced she knows everything, I wouldn't be surprised.”

Starr looks up, scowling. As if I'm an interruption. “C'n I stay a little longer? He's just about got it, I think.”

“I'm sure Mrs. Gomez has other things to do—”

“Of course you can stay, sweetie,” my tenant assures her. “I'll just show your mommy the nursery while you finish up, okay?”

“Honestly, I don't want to impose—”

“Don't be ridiculous,” she says, steering me into the next room, which is as pretty and pink as the boys room is messy and blue. “And please, call me Liv. Short for Olivia,” she explains with a grimace. “Anyway, Andy and your daughter get along better than he does with his own cousins. Or any other kid on the block.” She hesitates a moment, then says, “He's a little slow. His kindergarten teacher noticed it first, but just brushed it off to him being one of the younger ones in the class. But they did some tests on him last year, and found some problems. Nothing major, they don't think, but he needs some extra attention.” Guilt swamps her pretty features when she looks at
me. “With the new baby coming, I don't know how much time I'm going to be able to give him. And it's not like we can afford special tutors. So trust me, your little girl is a blessing. She can come over anytime she wants. Anyway…”

Her bright smile back in place, Liv turns back to the room. “We found out it's a girl and I guess, after two boys, I sorta went berserk with the pink.”

There's an understatement. Still, I've never seen a happier room, with the white crib and all those bunnies dancing along the top of the walls. My grandfather has always given his tenants permission to repaint the rooms any way they liked, as long as it wasn't a dark color. If I were a baby, I'd be tickled, well,
pink
to be brought home to this room.

“It's great. Have you named her yet?”

“My mother's name is Danielle, so we're thinking the Spanish version—Daniella. But then, she might not be a Daniella, so we'll have to wait and see.”

I glance over at Liv, wearing that serene look mothers sometimes get when the house is quiet and/or the baby inside them is close to coming out. And man, I could really use some serenity in my life right now.

“You know,” I say, “maybe I'll take you up on that tea after all.”

She beams. “You got it.”

Eventually, I'm going to have to deal with both my grief for a man I absolutely adored, and the consequences of his not being here anymore. But not right now. After all, putting off the inevitable is what I do best, isn't it?

L
ater that evening, I'd come to the conclusion that not doing anything, funeral-wise, for my grandfather feels very…unfinished. As though I've been cheated, somehow. Or as if I'm destined to go through the next several weeks sure I've forgotten something.

However, despite there being no funeral or wake or shiva-sitting, my house is full of flowers. And food. Oh, God, the food. I have Frances to thank for that. Or blame, I think as I stand here, staring into the open refrigerator. There are no less than four deli chickens in here. Not that I don't love deli chicken, but Starr won't touch it and, um, I'm the only other person in the house? Must see about palming some of this off on other people. I'm sure the Gomezes could use one. Or two. Don't know about the Nguyens, though. They don't strike me as deli chicken types.

Starr's in bed, asleep. I've encouraged her to talk about how
she feels, but she just keeps saying she's not ready. Oh, well. She knows I'm here, ready to listen whenever she's ready to talk. I can't do any more than that.

And earlier, I'd gone through Leo's desk and phone book, searching for a clue as to who this Sonja Koepke is. But I couldn't even find a cryptic “S” or “K” with a phone number. Very weird.

Taking into account Leo's regular Sunday afternoon outings, I assume this is some sort of secret romantic thing. But why? Why did he keep it a secret, I mean. After all, my grandmother's been dead for more than a dozen years. Yeah, they'd been married since their early twenties, but did he think this would bother me? Or, given the possibility that the relationship went back to when my father was still alive, that Norm would have had a problem with it? Then again, maybe because my father never went out with another woman after my mother died, Leo couldn't bring himself to flaunt his happiness in front of his son.

Of course, I could simply be romanticizing the whole thing and this Sonja person could be…his insurance agent or somebody.

Right.

I'll say one thing, I muse as I begin the slow, deliberate annihilation of the seasoned, now rewarmed, bird in front of me (I may be depressed, but my appetite isn't), this whole Who is Sonja Koepke? business is keeping me from obsessing about Leo's death. Tina's strangeness. Losing this job opportunity.

I strip the meat off an entire drumstick in one bite.

The phone rings. Why does the phone always ring when you're on the toilet, your mouth is full or you're on the verge of orgasm? Not that I've had to deal with the last one in a while, but it has happened.

Wiping my hands and chewing double time so I can swallow, I check the Caller ID, but it's a number I don't recognize.
Something upstate. The machine clicks on, and I hear Luke say, “Hey, honey, it's just me—”

I grab the phone off the hook, startling both of us. Him, because I shrieked “I'm here, I'm here!” in his ear. Me, because I sound like some fourteen-year-old who hasn't yet learned the finer art of answering a boy's phone call.

“I just heard,” he says. “God, I'm so sorry, El.”

“Thanks,” I say, my throat thick with emotion and half-chewed chicken.

“I'd be there in person, but Pop sent me to do this bid upstate and I didn't know until Mom called me this morning. Then my damn cell service went out and I had to drive halfway to Poughkeepsie before I found a phone that worked. Are you okay? What am I saying, that's a stupid question. Do you want me to come home? 'Cause I will if you want.”

Yes!
is the first thought that flits through my brain. I let it keep on flitting while I finally swallow the chicken puree in my mouth and say, much more calmly, “Thanks, but I'm fine, really.”

“Don't bullshit me, El. You were crazy about that old man. And with good reason. There is no
way
you're fine.”

“There are degrees of ‘fine,'” I bravely say. “Which you of all people should know. There's ‘fine' when you really
are
fine, and ‘fine' meaning, yeah, I feel like crap right now but I'll get over it and then I'll be the
real
‘fine.'”

I can hear crackling on the line. So much for high-tech fiber optics. Or whatever they're touting these days. Then he says, “How's Starr?”

“I don't know, to be honest. I'm not sure I know what her definitions of ‘fine' are yet. My assessment is…sad but coping.”

“Poor thing,” Luke says. And I somehow don't think he's talking about Starr.

You know, I'm not sure my brain can take any more weirdness right now. In fact, I know it can't. Even as we speak, I can
feel it pressing against my skull, looking for a weak spot to break through and explode all over the ceiling. Tina was talking smack, I know she was, yet…

Yet here I am, hearing nuances in Luke's voice from two hundred miles away. At least, thinking I'm hearing nuances in Luke's voice.

Wanting
to hear nuances in Luke's voice?

“You sure you don't want me to come home early?”

You have no idea.

“Positive. It's not like there's anything you can do here, for heaven's sake. Except maybe fix the Nguyen's leaking faucet.”

“Tell Pop, he'll take care of it. Then when I get home, I'll show you how to do some of that stuff.” A pause. “Unless you're gonna sell the houses anyway.”

“No, I'm not—”

The canned operator cuts in, demanding more money.

“Shit, I'm outta change. I'll see you Sunday, and you take care, okay?”

And he's gone.

I sit back at the table, facing my mutilated chicken. There's not much left. Although in my defense, it was a small chicken.

One puny little tear sneaks out of my eye and wriggles down my cheek. And, because being sad about one thing always seems to lead directly into the Bad Memories storehouse in your brain, I start thinking about Daniel.

He was my first grown-up—or so I thought at the time—love affair. Or maybe it was just that I wanted to believe I was in love, that I finally had a boyfriend. A
lover.
I hadn't been a virgin for some time, but I'd never even gone steady with a boy. Two, three dates, and
pfft.
Usually by mutual consent.

But Daniel…Daniel was different. At first, anyway. He made me laugh, he paid attention to me, he made me feel desired and important and like a woman on a very basic level. Which might sound trite, but when you're twenty-two, you
don't know from trite. That first night, after we left the bar, we walked all over the Village until two in the morning, talking. Just talking. I suppose at first I was simply besotted with his English accent. Or his being six years older than I was. Or that, as a photojournalist, he had a real career, not just a job, doing something he loved. Why he was attracted to me, I have no idea. And I've given up trying to figure it out. Just one of those things, I guess.

Anyway, he didn't try to get me into bed right away. In fact, we'd been out four or five times before he asked—almost shyly, I thought—if he could make love to me.

What can I say, I'd already gone on the Pill. And was I ever delighted to discover he knew how to push a lot more buttons than those on his trusty Nikon.

I was not in a real place, I know that now. But I was having too much fun—and far too many five-star orgasms—to care. Even about his having to be away so much, or that he maintained apartments in both Manhattan and London. When he had to go back to England for a month, I was a mess. And I was too young or naive or whatever to realize that feeling as if my own life was in a holding pattern until his return wasn't such a good thing.

So when he returned, and asked me to move in with him—as long as I understood that he couldn't make any promises— I said yes in a heartbeat. At that point, I wasn't after promises; I was after full-time sex.

Not to mention being able to finally move out of Queens.

I told Leo and Dad I'd found a male roommate, which wasn't exactly a lie. Even though they didn't try to stand in my way, I know they worried about me. Now that I'm a mother, I realize just how much. I'm also sure I wasn't fooling anybody but myself.

About a lot of things.

Like Daniel's insisting we each have our own cell phone,
rather than getting a land line. And that I was expressly forbidden to answer his, even if he was just in the shower. He said it was because he'd be charged for the minutes and that many of his calls were from overseas.

But then, when he was away? I had to let him call
me.
Again, he made some excuse about his schedule being so wacky, it was just easier that way. Which was true. You could set clocks by my comings and goings in those days—I was always back in the apartment within thirty minutes of getting off work. Waiting for his call. Pathetic, I know.

Then I started talking about babies, and the shit started edging a lot closer to the fan.

I wasn't even aware I was doing it—at that point, I certainly wasn't thinking about having any of my own—until Daniel irritably brought it to my attention one day. We were out for a walk in Central Park; I saw a toddler in a stroller and made goo-goo eyes at it. He went nuts.

“Don't get any ideas, Ellie,” he said, yanking me away.

“About what?”

“Kids. As in, you and me having them. Because it's not going to happen.”

I believe I laughed. “Oh, for heaven's sake, Daniel—I was just
looking
at the kid! I don't plan on having children for a very long time—”

“You're not listening, Ellie.” In hindsight, I now realize he could get very paternalistic at times. And his jaw would start working, making his beard bob up and down. “I don't want them
ever.
”

I got the message. But since having children was one of those vague, maybe-some-day-down-the-road kind of things, anyway, I thought no more about it. And said no more about it, and all was well.

On the surface.

As the weeks went by, though, he started getting weirder.
Nothing I could really put a finger on, but he'd get short with me over nothing, usually right before he'd take off on one of his trips. Then he'd come back and things would be all lovely and multiorgasmic again, and I'd convince myself I'd been imagining things. Then, one day, I got a wedding invitation from one of my girlfriends, which set Daniel off. About how marriage was such a crock and only idiots let themselves get suckered into it and I was never, ever to even think about us getting married, was that clear?

Of course I
said
I totally understood, but deep down— God, this is embarrassing—I somehow assumed I'd be able to change his mind. Given time and a long enough lever. In my blissfully ignorant state, I assumed all men felt this way about marriage initially, but that, when the right woman came along, their objections melted away like ice in the Sahara. And I had no doubt I was Daniel's right woman. He just didn't realize it yet.

Except I should have realized how serious his aversion to marriage was when he refused to go to the wedding with me. Actually, he'd somehow always manage to wriggle out of going anywhere with me that included friends or family. Said he didn't want to share me with anybody, which I actually thought was very sweet.

At first.

Shouldn't his refusal to even hold hands with me in public have rung some sort of alarm? Or his wincing the first time I called him my boyfriend?

“A bit juvenile, love, don't you think?” he said.

The last thing I'd want anyone to think me, God knows.

So I played by his rules, a small price—I rationalized—for having this man want me in his life. And his bed. In fact, when we accidentally ran into his brother, Alan, one afternoon at a post-modernist exhibit at the Met, Daniel frantically whispered to me—as his smiling, older, what-the-hell-was-he-
doing-in-New-York-for-Christ's-sake? brother rapidly closed the space between us—not to let on to Alan that there was anything serious between us, otherwise his brother would torment him mercilessly. I was tempted to point out how juvenile I thought
he
was being, but I played along. Even told Alan, when we were introduced, that I was one of Daniel's photography students (how handy that he was teaching a seminar at the New School at the time). I didn't even catch on when, seconds later, Daniel excused himself to take Alan off to the side for a “quick word” about some family crisis or other.

I thought it was odd, but I let it slide. I let it all slide, because I wasn't about to do anything to screw this up.

Or so I thought.

We'd been together for about six months when, one morning, Daniel's phone rang. I could hear him finishing up in the bathroom, so I figured, this is nuts, the guy's right here, I'll just answer it. A very prim, English-accented child's voice asked to speak to “Daniel Stein, please.” But before I could reply, an equally prim, English-accented, grown-up woman's voice cut in.

“Sorry about that, my little boy's just learned how to use the phone!”

“Oh, that's quite all right,” I said. “How old is he?”

“Four,” she said on a laugh. “I'm so sorry—he must have pressed one of the autodial buttons—whom did he call?”

“Daniel Stein. At least, this is his phone. I'm not Daniel, I'm Ellie. Your son asked to speak with Daniel, though.”

There was a pause, which I assumed had something to do with the satellite transmission.

“What time is it there?” she asked, the lovely voice suddenly rather frosty around the edges.

“Around seven-thirty in the morning, why?”

“I see.” A pause. “Is Daniel available?”

“Sure, just a sec.”

I called him; he came out of the bathroom, saw his phone in my hand, blanched, then reddened. Fury darting from his eyes, he grabbed the phone and stormed back into the bathroom, slamming shut the door. Five minutes later, he emerged, screaming at me,
how
many times had he told me
not
to answer his bloody phone!