We All Sleep in the Same Room (7 page)

“I already told you about that,” I say.

“Tell me again,” she says. “Were you really the same age as me when you started at the firm?”

I think about Waxman and his talk of bigger fish. A guy like him could never understand.

The old waiter sets dinner between us.

“Buon appetitto,” he says. “Another round?”

* * *

“That perverted old waiter
called me beautiful.” Jessie hiccups. “Twice!”

“What a character,” I say.

We cross over 6th Avenue at 47th.

“He bought us all those drinks before the bartender even showed up.”

“Creepy old man.”

“I kinda liked him. Where should we go next?”

“To a bar,” I say. “We'll walk this way until we find a good spot—though I'm afraid we'll hit the river before it happens.”

“Do you know a place?”

A cold wind picks up behind us.

“It's good to win, isn't it?” I say.

“I suppose. It's all so new to me.”

“Winning? Success? I doubt you're a stranger to that.”

She stops and closes her eyes. “I feel good,” she says. “It is a beautiful night, isn't it?”

“A beautiful night, yes, clear enough for stars,” I say.

“You're really happy for her, aren't you? For Doreen.”

“Yes.”

“And you're happy for me?”

“Yes.”

“I'm taking the bar soon, in January.”

“Wow. So soon.”

“Tom, are you happy?”

“Yes. I mean, I'm good. Are you happy?”

“I feel good.”

We cross 5th Avenue.

“You know,” Jessie says, “where I'm from, you could sit anywhere on a night like tonight and you'd be able to see so many more stars. I mean thousands more than you guys have ever seen. All those constellations you have stenciled up in Grand Central, you can actually see all of them. And thousands more. So many more, all perfectly clear. You can make up your own constellations…”

There's a vibration in my pocket. Raina.

“Hold that thought,” I say. “Guess what?”

“What?” Raina answers.

“We did it.”

“Did what?”

“We won her case.”

“Whose case?”

“Doreen's. Doreen Grant. We won the case.”

“Who's Doreen?”

“Who's Doreen? You know who she is. The receptionist…the healthcare worker…very sweet, good heart, a little bit odd.”

“Wait, was she a receptionist or a healthcare worker?”

“A receptionist. At a health clinic. The one who helped everyone…”

“…Sorry…”

“What do you mean?”

“I must've forgotten.”

I pivot away toward the wall of a building and speak more softly.

“Raina, I told you all about her.”

“Look, Tom, I said I was—”

“I told you this morning I had an arbitration.”

“Well, you know that's not a good time to tell me things when I'm getting ready.”

“I can't believe this.”

“I'm sorry, Tom. That's good that you won. I can't really talk—”

“Good? It's fucking great is what it is.”

“Don't get so worked up. Have you been drinking?”

“No. Yes, I've had a drink. Hey, look, I'm sorry. I just got excited. I thought you knew this was a big day for me. I was hoping you could come meet me for a drink. We're celebrating. I wanted you to be there.”

“Oh, Tom, I'm sorry. I didn't know. I made plans. But you go and have a nice night. Don't worry about coming home early. I can't really talk, I just wanted to—”

“Who's gonna put Ben to bed?”

“Frank will. Then I'll be home.”

“I don't believe this.”

“I'm proud of you, it's just that—”

“I know, you just can't talk right now.”

“Tom…” Raina's voice is quiet.

“What?”

There's a pause.

“Good night,” Raina says.

“You really don't remember?”

No answer.

“Raina…?”

The call has ended.

I feel a pat on my elbow. It's Jessie. Her dark hair catches in the wind.

“Is everything alright?” Her face glows against the night and the charge of speeding traffic. “Do you want me to go?”

“No. Don't leave,” I say. “It's early. And I have a place for us to go. I've never taken anyone there. It's kind of a secret.”

* * *

The overhead fluorescents buzz
in the after-dark silence. We duck past the empty guard desk, past the dormant elevators, which have been turned off for the night, and through the back door marked Exit. A hallway leads us through an unlocked door marked Employees Only; and then past storage rooms, a small office, bathrooms, a janitor's closet, and a freight elevator.

“In here,” I say.

The odor is dank in the unlit compartment. I lift the door up manually, secure the latch, and feel for the top button. The elevator moans, lurches in place, and then begins a slow ascent.

Jessie giggles when I crack one of the beers. We'd grabbed a six-pack from a nearby bodega. I have a swig and hold out the can to her. She does the same, continuing to laugh between drinks. When the freight stops, I open the gate and take us down a hallway leading to a back stairway. We're at the fiftieth floor and have twelve more to go.

“I discovered this place years ago,” I say as we climb. “Just wandered up without a second thought. It was kind of weird how simple it was. Everything unlocked and unguarded. It's funny being up there alone. I've thought about telling someone about it, but I wanted to make sure it was the right person, someone who'd understand. In the end, I figured if I wanted it to last, I ought to keep it to myself. It's really something, standing on top of the city. You're not going to believe it. It may not be Kansas, but...”

“Nebraska.”

I wink and keep climbing.

At the final landing, I escort us, can of beer in one hand, briefcase in the other. There's a red box that I've never seen before rigged above the doorway. A camera, and the word STOP printed in red letters on the door handle are also new features. Above the handle is a new sign that reads, NO UNAUTHORIZED PERSONS ALLOWED. But we're well-meaning individuals. We work here.

I lean into the handle with my forearm. And the moment the door swings into the night, a shrill, deafening alarm bell blasts our unsuspecting ears. The sky disappears. The door slams.

“Fuck.” I drop my beer. Suds pour out on my shoe.

“Tom?!”

I flee past Jessie, jerking her by the wrist, backward to the stairs.

“Let's go.”

I'm tearing down steps, when her footsteps grow faint.

“Come on!” I call.

The alarm thunders, ricocheting around the walls.

“Tom, my shoes.”

I double back and retrieve them where they've fallen.

We hit the fiftieth floor, fly out the narrow staircase and sprint down the hall. No time to risk the freight. Jessie's at my side. We dip into the main stairwell and this time Jessie flies ahead, descending now with agile grace. Leaping over steps, her black dress billows.

The alarm continues to blare.

“Forty more,” I say.

“Thirty-nine,” she calls.

I switch my briefcase to my outside hand and clasp the shoes with my fingers. At each bend, I swing myself, using my free hand, around the banister. Pushing off the railing, I sail over five and six steps at a time, thumping the floor at each landing, careening into walls. Jessie forges just ahead.

“Thirty more.”

She laughs. Her feet rap the cement stairs faster and faster. Her laughs turn to shrieks, growing louder as her pace accelerates.

I yell, too.

A few flights farther down, she slips, tumbling for a step or two, before twisting around, and continuing to fall ass-backwards. She screams as she scrapes against four or five more steps before reaching up her hand and stopping herself just as her feet touch down on the next landing.

“You alright?” I call from a few flights up.

She straightens herself back out and gallops down the next flight.

Down and down, howling like banshees. Walls lose their corners and turn to liquid.

“Twenty more.”

“Sixteen.”

“Fifteen.”

“Eleven.”

Two floors below I spot Ricky, the night watchman, lumbering up toward us. I watch Jessie fly past him. Ricky halts, perplexed, and begins to turn when I bulldoze by. Then we're out, across the lobby, back into the street.

Jessie takes a few bare tights-against-concrete strides and stops, hands on her hips, chest heaving.

“Oh my god. I'm so fucking dizzy,” she says.

I scoop her up and carry her to the corner.

“South,” I direct, when we're safely inside a cab.

“Okay,” says the cabbie, eyeing my beautiful, slumped-over companion and me in the rearview, “but I'll need more than that.”

“Let's start by getting us out of here.”

“Okay, boss, meter's running.”

The cabbie deftly slides the car across two lanes and then swings it right out into the busiest intersection in Manhattan. The line of cars waiting to take a left hold down their horns, but the sound quiets, as the cabbie guns it through the intersection—ahead of the uptown rush—and down 41st Street.

“Name is Omar,” he says. “You got the best driver in the five boroughs. I'm old-school.”

“Good to hear,” I say, still regaining my breath. “Me too.”

“I gotta ask,” Omar says. “Am I complicit in some kind of crime?”

“Not really,” I say. “Strictly white-collar stuff.”

“Cool,” says Omar. “You guys always got the best lawyers.”

“We are lawyers,” Jessie says laughing.

“Even better.”

Jessie has wrapped her arm in mine. She lifts up one of her legs over my lap and inspects the raw skin on her knee. Her tights are torn. Blood oozes over the white surface, disappearing under the fabric. She leaves the leg there. I bend down and slip her shoes back on her feet.

She whispers into my ear. “Let's go home.” Her whisper is gentle. “Can we go home, Tom?”

Her lips touch my cheek.

“To Williamsburg,” I say to Omar. “You know how to go?”

“I know how to get everywhere,” Omar says.

In a moment we've reached the FDR, Omar winds us right, and soon we're picking up speed, riding the island's edge to the bridge.

* * *

We kiss as we
free ourselves from our overcoats. She shuts the door and turns the dead bolt. We kiss and my hands slide down her sides to her waist.

“Let's have some water,” she says.

“Good idea,” I say.

But then I drop to my knees atop our fallen coats—blocking her path—and duck beneath her dress, where I inch down her tights, kissing each new band of uncovered skin. I pull off each of her shoes. With two hands I grab her tights and rip them apart at the crotch, then bring them down to her ankles. Her thighs are stocks of alabaster white. I kiss them all the way up. Her black underwear is warm and wet. I remove that too and glide my tongue between her legs, up the thin strip of hair, and along her abdomen to her navel. Then I part her lips with my hand. Jessie's thighs clamp against my ears. The distant, hollow sound of an ear to a conch shell.

3

D
oreen in her green dress, head bowed, sits precisely as she'd been on one side of the wooden table in the windowless conference room on the twenty-seventh floor of the Sheraton Hotel. She's flanked by Jessie and McDougall. The clinic's letter lies before her. Her employers and their lawyer sit across from her and wait. We're all witnesses, waiting and watching expectantly. Doreen takes the pen, puts it to paper, and signs. Then she raises her head and stares at me. And I see that there's blood streaming down from a gash in her forehead.

I sit up in my bed and touch my hand to my brow. It's damp with sweat. I roll over and reach out to put an arm around Raina. It's Jessie.

My overcoat and briefcase are by the door. I slide out of her bed and gather my clothes.

* * *

Williamsburg. The sun is
just beginning to peer pensively through the treetops. As I walk along the eastern border of McCarren Park, I contemplate a quick pass by the scene of Ben's accident. No, I'll revisit the grounds with Ben when he's older.
Look here, Ben. See this bench? You were only three and a half and I was supposed to be watching you. I was watching you. I watched you while you tried to crawl from one bench to another without touching the ground and fell right through. I thought your mom was never going to speak to me again. But she did. I was so terrified when I peeled you off the ground. You have no idea. But those
doctors did a great job. Sewed you up good as new. Just the faintest scar now, huh? You can barely even notice it. The point is, things work out. You can be anything you want to be. Just between you and me, when it comes to your own life, things work out. When it seems everything is falling apart, like the world is splitting, sometimes you just need to get some more sleep and look at things fresh in the morning. Or better yet, to dig harder into your work. At least that's what I've always done.

* * *

I turn the key
gently in the lock. A figure sleeps on the sofa. It's Frank. His shoes are lined up neatly at one end. Next to his shoes is a paperback atop a folded sweater. I step closer. Frank moves faintly and then is still. If he's faking or half-faking sleep, I don't blame him for not wanting to converse at this early hour. He may not yet feel ready to explain why he's sleeping in my apartment.

I tip-toe past my son and slip into bed beside Raina, who sleeps where I usually do, facing the window.

“Have you been here a while?” She murmurs without turning. Her half-conscious voice is soft and lilting.

“A little while.”

“Did you have a nice night?”

“Uh huh.”

“Frank's building was being sprayed for bugs so I said he could stay here. Is that okay?”

“Of course.”

“Okay,” she says and reaches a limp hand back that doesn't quite make it to me. Her heavy breathing resumes. She has no idea. She'll go back to work tomorrow. So will I. So will Jessie. And so will Doreen. I take Raina's hand, give it a light squeeze and set it back by her side.