Riverside Park (4 page)

“The cheeldren are great,” Miklov said, nodding. “They leesen, they practice and they do goot.”

Amanda and Howard tried not to laugh but it was difficult. There were so many conversations going on there simply was no thread to follow. Everyone seemed happy, though, which was all that really mattered. Even Miklov, who usually featured a deep sort of Slovak scowl, was smiling.

He was a good-looking young man of twenty-six whose professional career in soccer had ended in his own country with an ankle injury. Amanda never really understood how Miklov had come to their soccer league but she hoped it would lead to better things. The job did not pay well at all, which was why Howard had engaged Miklov to conduct private sessions with the children, to give him some pocket money. (Well, and to make the children better players.)

Mrs. Goldblum, Rosanne and Randy departed shortly after dessert and the wife of the building superintendent arrived to
clean up. Madame Moliere prepared the children to leave for Connecticut while Amanda endeavored to sort out her parents. Mother Stewart was flying out of JFK very early in the morning so Howard was staying in the city with her tonight. After he dropped her off at the airport he would join his family and in-laws in Woodbury in time for the children's holiday indoor soccer tournament.

Howard and Miklov took the bags down to the building's garage and secured them under a tarp on the Navigator's roof. Amanda's father sat in the front seat; Amanda's mother, Madame Moliere and Grace sat in the backseat; and poor Miklov was crammed into the rear jump seat with Teddy and Emily. Howard made sure everyone had their seat belts on and then walked to the driver's window. “Drive carefully,” he murmured, giving Amanda a kiss on the lips.

“I shall,” she promised.

One of the greatest surprises of their marriage had been Amanda's excellence as a driver. She loved it. Getting behind the wheel of a car gave her the same quiet thrill as when as a child, she had discovered someone had left the paddock gate open at her grandparents' farm. It was the thrill of freedom, of suddenly having the way and the means to go wherever she wanted.

The drive to Woodbury was pleasant and the traffic not too bad. They swung into a rest stop for Emily to use the bathroom and get some gas but then everybody except Madame Moliere and Grace got out for one reason or another and it took a while to load everyone back in.

When they reached the house, Ashette, their black Labrador retriever, was overjoyed to see them. Amanda dismissed the house sitter, got her parents settled in their room and made sure Madame Moliere had her eye on the children. Then Miklov climbed into the front seat and Amanda drove him home to
the Waterbury housing complex where the league had put him up. They talked a little bit about the tournament that started tomorrow. A lot of the children were away for the holidays so Emily and Teddy would probably play their whole games, which was great since Amanda wanted her parents to watch them in action.

“How are you getting on, Miklov?” Amanda asked him. She had been surprised when Miklov had accepted Howard's offer of a bus ticket to join them for Thanksgiving dinner. Emily had not been, though. (“He's all alone, Mommy, oh, so very, very alone!”)

“I miss my family,” he admitted, brushing his hair out of his eyes.

“Of course you do,” she said. “And I'm sure they must miss you.”

“My mother.”

She glanced over at him.

“My mother meeses me.”

“Will you go and see her? For a visit, I mean.”

“Not yet,” he said, turning to look out his window.

He probably couldn't afford it yet. Maybe she and Howard could find some other parents who would engage him for private lessons.

While they drove through downtown Waterbury Miklov suddenly said, “This is a very happy day.” When he smiled he was very handsome, although his teeth needed some work. She had no doubt that would come in time. Perfect-looking teeth was still a very American thing.

When she pulled up in front of the dreadful-looking building where he lived she said, “Here we are.” She kept her foot on the brake, waiting for him to get out. She needed to pick up some milk on the way home. Her parents now only
drank soy milk. What store would be open on Thanksgiving that would carry soy milk?

Mickey-Luck undid his seat belt and shifted to face Amanda, making the leather creak. “I will tell my mother about my American Thanksgeeving. I haf—”He looked down a moment and then raised his head to meet her eyes directly. “I say how kind you are.”

“Our family is very fond of you, Miklov. You've made a big difference in our children's lives.”
Because out here they miss their father terribly. So do I
.

Miklov's eyes traveled down to Amanda's mouth for just a second and then he turned away, searching for the door handle. When he found it he stopped again and turned around. “You understand how beautiful you are, yes?”

Amanda's eyes widened. And then she laughed a little. “Why, thank you.”

He made a fist and pounded his heart twice. “I feel it there. For you. You are so beautiful.”

Oh, save it, Mickey-Luck!
she thought.
It is being American that you think is beautiful, our money is beautiful, this ridiculously expensive truck is beautiful, having a family is beautiful!

“See you tomorrow,” she told him.

He looked disappointed as he got out. Then he turned around, ducking his head back into the truck. “People think I am a peasant but I am not,” he said in a rush. “My great-grandfather was a great general. My father went to school, he was a teacher. I am not a peasant, Mrs. Stewart!”

Somewhat startled, Amanda said, “Everyone knows you are a champion soccer player, Miklov, and an excellent teacher. And in America that is all that matters.”

Miklov was searching her eyes and it made Amanda uncomfortable. But then his dark mood seemed to lift and he
smiled, closed the door and walked away from the truck. He did not look back.

Amanda took a deep breath and regripped the steering wheel. Miklov was very attractive.

She set out to find soy milk.

IT SUCKED BIG-TIME
that she had to work. This was the first time in four years that Celia had the apartment to herself over a holiday weekend. But she did have to work, three until eleven tonight, three until two Friday and Saturday, and then three until ten on Sunday. Normally she cleaned up in tips over the weekend but on Thanksgiving? It might be okay today but she knew it would be dead over the weekend. To meet December's rent she was going to need an extra shift this week.

Celia and Rachel had been assigned as roommates in a freshman dorm at Columbia University. Celia did not have many Jewish friends in the Connecticut suburb she had grown up in, and Rachel did not have many white Anglo-Saxon Protestant friends in the New Jersey suburb she had grown up in, but they had hit it off in a big way and learned a lot from each other. For example, Rachel introduced Celia to lox and bagels, while Celia, Rachel joked, had introduced her to mar
garine and instant mashed potatoes. Both girls came from affluent families, had parents still married to each other, and had done well in their suburban training in piano, tennis, skiing and keeping secrets.

Celia's father was a partner at a Wall Street law firm, while Rachel's last name was synonymous with the largest independent truck leasing company in the world. Her father was really,
really
rich. So rich, in fact, that he had bought a two and a half bedroom apartment on Riverside Drive so his daughter could move out of the dorm her sophomore year. Celia was welcomed to move in with Rachel as along as she paid sixteen hundred dollars a month toward expenses. Celia's father asked why the heck should they pay sixteen hundred dollars a month to let her run wild when Celia could stay in the dorm for six hundred dollars a month and let her mother sleep at night. The girls put their heads together and figured out if they could just find someone who'd pay Celia's rent for the full-size bedroom, Celia could pay Rachel six hundred dollars a month and cram herself into the tiny maid's room off the kitchen, and then Rachel would have extra cash her father didn't need to know about.

They advertised in the
Spectator
and the son of a country-western star was happy to pay sixteen hundred dollars to live in such a nice apartment. After Celia's mother checked it out
and
the building
and
the neighborhood, she told Celia's father she had no objection to Celia moving in. If Celia wanted to live in a closet that was her business, but the Riverside Park neighborhood was now very in, Mrs. Cavanaugh told her husband.

They moved into the apartment in August and it was really great. Celia's father built her a loft bed so she could turn around in the maid's room. Then, on their third night in the
apartment, Celia and the-son-of-a-country-western-star shared a couple of bottles of wine, one thing led to another and Celia never slept in the maid's room again. The next thing she knew, she was smoking cigarettes like the-son-of-a-country-western-star (Rachel put a huge standing fan in the hall to blow smoke back into their bedroom), and suddenly it was November and Rachel was calling Celia at the country-western star's palatial home outside of Nashville to say that if Celia didn't withdraw from their English class she was going to get an F because of her absences. Celia wasn't going to be able to make the time up, the teacher was an asshole. So Celia called the university from Nashville and withdrew from the class. Later when her parents saw the
I
on her report card she said she had actually gotten a B but the teacher had handed in the grades late.

The lies came easier and more often. Celia and the-son-of-a-country-western-star were drinking a lot and smoking a lot of pot. Rachel said after this school year that was it, Celia was out. Celia said that was fine, they were going to get their own place anyway. In February the-son-of-a-country-western-star wanted to take Celia to Aspen where his country-western-star parent had a place, but Celia explained she had a huge test coming up in history and couldn't go. But as she watched the-son-of-a-country-western-star packing his bags she changed her mind and went with him, deciding she'd just figure out what to do about her classes later. The solution she came up with was to call the school from Aspen and explain that she had broken her leg in three places skiing, was being forced to stay for medical treatment and could they please tell her what portion of her tuition could be applied to the following year since it looked like she would have to withdraw from school.

“Oh, Rachel's great, Mom,” Celia would say, dragging on a
cigarette outside one of the Aspen ski lodges. “And she says hi. We'll probably go to the new place on Broadway for pizza tonight.”

When Celia and the-son-of-a-country-western-star finally got back to New York in late March, Celia knew she had better get a full-time job so she'd have some money saved toward school; she had to somehow soften the blow to her parents that she had dropped out. She figured she would pay them back, start school again in the fall and be only fifteen credits behind.

That was five years ago and Celia hadn't been back to school since.

The week before Celia's twenty-first birthday, the son-of-a-country-western-star ran away with the newlywed wife who lived on the fourth floor of their building. Celia was at first stunned, then disbelieving, and finally devastated. (The newlywed husband wasn't so happy about it, either, although he did keep asking Celia if she wanted to come over to talk about it over drinks.)

Not long after that Rachel came into Celia's bedroom for a talk. Rachel made a great show of wafting through the smoke and sat down on the foot of Celia's bed. “You don't have to pay me for the maid's room anymore but someone has to pay the $1,703 for this room this month.”

“I start bartending at Captain Cook's next week,” Celia said, blowing smoke to the ceiling. (She had just smoked a joint with one of the doormen on his break and was still a little out of it.)

“Celia—” Rachel jumped up and kicked her way through the clothes and junk all over the floor to retrieve a handheld mirror from the dresser. She'd brought it back to shove in Celia's face. “Look at you!”

She hadn't wanted to particularly, but Celia did. Her
shoulder-length brown hair was unbrushed and her brown eyes had purple circles under them. Celia had also gained about fifteen pounds since she had replaced the-son-of-a-country-western-star with Oreo cookies, Cheez Doodles and Guinness in bed.

Celia sat up to stamp out her cigarette. “I'll move if you want.”

“Oh, Celia, you never sleep anymore, you just keep doing drugs and drinking and locking yourself up in here.” Rachel's eyes welled up with tears. “I want my friend back.”

Since Rachel had threatened to throw her out the year before Celia didn't put too much on this threat. For whatever reason Rachel wanted to save their friendship, and did so with persistency which at that point had evoked from Celia mild contempt. Still, there was something about Rachel's near hysteria that got to her.

“My littlest angel, what is wrong?” her mother asked Celia the next night in Darien, as Celia lay sobbing on her old bed in her old room.

“Everything,” she wailed. “I just feel like killing myself.”

The next morning she found herself in a psychiatrist's office in Stamford. When she saw her mother's hopeful expression when she came out she felt enraged. She wouldn't tell her what she had told the man (which had been pretty much nothing). In the car, when her mother asked if they had discussed an antidepressant, Celia went ballistic, screaming, “I'm not going to be a high-tech zombie! So just forget it!”

“But, Celia—”

“The doctor said if I get all this sugar and nicotine and caffeine out of my system I'm going to feel better. And he said I had to exercise more and get more sunlight.”

“And what about the drinking, Celia?”

“He didn't say anything about that,” she lied. Actually what he had said was how much alcohol would increase her depression when it wore off.

“I'm going to cut way back anyway,” she told her mother.

“Since you're only turning twenty-one next week and are already vowing to cut back on your drinking I'm not sure how to take that, Celia,” her mother said, trying to remain focused on the road. This was how Celia remembered her childhood, her mother always driving Celia and her brothers somewhere. “But if you find changing these things doesn't help, you have to promise me you'll see the doctor again.”

Although Celia said nothing about it, the doctor had lectured Celia on what a death sentence cocaine could be for someone like her. “You lose the ability to experience wellbeing because the cocaine burns up the chemicals that create it. That's why so many cocaine addicts kill themselves. They become physically incapable of feeling sensations of wellbeing. Think of a turtle whose shell has been ripped off.”

Rachel was irritatingly elated when Celia said she was going to reform her evil ways. She quit smoking, started running in the park and Rachel went with her to a couple of Weight Watchers meetings so they could both get their food under control. (Rachel tended to be on the heavy side.) Celia started working at Captain Cook's and was amazed at how well the men tipped her; she was also perversely fascinated by people who drank too much. She swore off cocaine, stayed away from pot and began to sleep again.

All in all she started to feel whatever it was starting to lift. At least she could breathe without wanting to hang herself.

Her stint at Captain Cook's had worked out well. Mark Cook, the owner (who had sailed on nothing but the Staten Island Ferry), liked Celia from the start because she was really
popular with the customers. She also didn't steal from the register like the other bartenders. Celia was made assistant manager of the bar. Not too long after that, when Celia lied to the other bartenders that the new guy was an undercover cop and the two worst offending thieves quit, Mark promoted her to manager of the bar.

In the meantime, Rachel got her B.A. and entered the master's program at Columbia in American studies. Although Celia looked and acted a thousand times better since her more wayward days, Rachel still worried about her.

“Oh, Rach, now what?” Celia said, making a strawberry-banana smoothie in the blender. “I've given up smoking, drugs and junk food. What else do you want me to do?”

“It's the stuff you're dragging home. All this junk all over everywhere.”

It was true that Celia had found a renewed interest in well-made old things again. Finding and dragging home old things was something she had done even as a child. (Her parents said in her last life she must have been Queen Victoria.) “It's not junk,” she protested, pouring some of the smoothie in a glass and sliding it to her roommate. She looked around and then snatched up a glass inkwell that had been drying next to the sink. “This is a mid-nineteenth century inkwell. It is not junk.”

“It doesn't have a top, Celia, it's just more junk. But at least that's small. What are you going to do with that old window you dragged home the other day?”

“I'm taking it to storage,” Celia said.

“It's
weird
, Ceil,” Rachel continued. “I don't know anybody else who has a stone fireplace mantel lying on their bedroom floor. Do you?”

That made Celia laugh. And then Rachel laughed, too.

“We used to laugh all the time,” Rachel said. “Remember?”

Celia nodded, feeling a little sad. When had everything gotten to be so hard?

“You spend too much time alone,” Rachel continued. “If you didn't go to work I don't think you'd speak to anybody.”

It was true, she had gone from being outgoing to wishing most of the time that people would leave her alone. She made all kinds of excuses to get out of family things. Her oldest brother was a lawyer like her dad and the other was a research scientist. This did not leave a whole lot of room for Celia to talk about her career in bartending. Even her mother was working on a master's degree at night at Fairfield University, in what Celia didn't even know. (She was almost afraid to ask what a Cotillion debutante who hadn't held a job in thirty years wanted a master's degree
in
.) The whole Cavanaugh family was so programmed for success Celia's throat tightened whenever she was around them.

At one time
she
had been a success in her family's eyes. She had made the National Honor Society in high school and made the varsity soccer and tennis teams. She had always been a class officer, and as a senior had been voted most popular, most likely to succeed and best legs. She remembered being happy, feeling full of energy.

Now, even in her reformed state of living, Celia felt as though everyone she had grown up with had run ahead and she couldn't catch up. It was as if she was stuck behind a wall of glass. She could see them but could not reach them. Rachel saw it because Rachel was the one who had to make up excuses for why Celia always ducked calls from old high school friends.

Celia pretty much ducked calls from everyone at this point.

After Celia encouraged Rachel to sign up for Match.com, the roommates' relationship improved because Rachel had
something exciting going on in her life to focus on and all Celia had to do was listen to her talk about her experiences.