A Certain Age (32 page)

"I just found out about Claudia, Natalie. I am so sorry." She was crying.

"Of course you are." Natalie's voice was calm, but she was shaking. "Because now I'm going to make sure that your life is as much of a living hell as you've made mine."

"But what did I do?" She was genuinely baffled even while the hot tears continued.

"I'd like to hear your thoughts on what you think you've done."

The other guests at the party had stopped talking to eavesdrop. It wasn't difficult; Natalie's voice was brutally shrill.

"I don't think I've done anything."

"Excuse me, but in order for you to say that, you would either have to be incredibly stupid—which I don't believe you are—or a complete sociopath."

Someone came in from the outside hall. Florence's back was to the door, but she could hear a man's blustery voice as he entered the room. "Hi, Katherine! How are you? Wait until you see what I've brought you. You're going to hate this present more than anything!" Out of the corner of her eye Florence watched the man display a plush white stuffed rat with red eyes and a pink tail. "Now, listen to this. This will really get you."

Abruptly the man realized that something was going on—it was unnatural for a group at a party to be so quiet—and he fell silent. But he had already pressed a button in the rodent's ear. A mechanical voice blared out across the room. "I'm Ratty Rat! I'm Ratty Rat! I love you! Do you love me?" The rat's babyish speech was a parody of artificial sugariness: "wuv" instead of "love." Or else the quality of its internal organs—the tape player—simply wasn't very good.

Still holding the gibbering toy—there seemed to be no way to turn off its voice—the man scuttled into the other room. "I'm very sorry about Claudia, Natalie, but you can't possibly blame me."

"Don't put on that act with me. You've played that routine from the beginning."

"I realize Claudia wasn't supposed to go to the beach that day, but it could have happened just as easily in the pool at your house." The interruption by the man with the talking rodent had given her a chance to collect herself, and she was surprised at how calm she sounded even while she couldn't seem to stop her mouth from trembling and the endless stinging drops from pouring from her eyes.

"Tell yourself whatever you like, but the truth is that you are

directly responsible for my daughter's death. You come to my house for a weekend, murder my daughter, seduce my husband, completely destroy the place after I told you not to use that toilet, and for what reason? Jealousy? Spite? Because you've slept your way through New York and didn't make it?"

"Excuse me, Natalie. I realize that you're upset over Claudia and need someone to blame. But since you've brought it up, I think you should know: I never seduced your husband. He's not my type, believe me. He came up to my room and virtually raped me. I had the feeling that you invited single women all the time to your house to provide for your husband's sexual gratification—so you didn't have to." She felt, somehow, that she had won the argument, the battle, whatever had just taken place, and that, having made her summary statement, she should leave the premises.

"My husband tells quite a different story." Natalie tried to get in the last word as Florence began to walk away. "And I had to have the ceilings redone on two floors! Do you have any idea what it cost, the damage you did?"

As she walked out the door Florence could still hear the cloying chirp of the rat: "I'm Ratty Rat! I wuv you! Do you wuv me?"

It wasn't until she was in the front lobby of the building, staring out at the rain, that she realized the gravity of what had occurred, that Claudia was dead, that her tears were connected to an emotion. In some way she was really responsible for Claudia's death, even if in some way she wasn't. Claudia had died from a lack of love. That poor child was so pathetic, so wizened, why had she been born into this world at all? Florence would have gladly traded places with her, if anyone had asked.

But now that she was gone the others would gather around Natalie, commiserating, trying to find out all the lurid details— and Natalie could make up anything she wanted. Tactically Florence had made a bad move. Who would ever believe John de Jongh, bland as mashed potatoes, would rape anyone, let alone

steal her money? She never even had a chance to mention the twenty-five thousand dollars he had gotten her to hand over for some supposed investment.

"No umbrella?" The doorman was speaking to her.

"What's that?"

"You don't got no raincoat? No umbrella? You need a taxi?"

"A taxi." The mention of the word brought back all the memories of the night before and she cringed. "No, I don't think so." She headed out into the pouring rain.

A few blocks away she found herself in front of a pay phone, rummaging for a quarter, dialing Raffaello's number. Once, public phones had been contained in phone booths, complete with seats, protection from the weather, even phone books. Now she had to stand, getting wetter, in front of a stainless-steel stand that not only provided no soundproofing but resembled and smelled like a urinal that provided privacy only to the top half of the user.

His machine answered the phone. "Hello, Raffaello? Are you home? If you're screening your calls, pick up, please." There was no response. "It's me, Florence. I'm wondering—I don't want to bug you—but could you help me get some more of what we had last night? I'm not planning to do it often, but I'd like to have some around, just in case, and I don't know—" There was a beep and she realized she had been cut off.

She went into a nearby coffee shop. The place was deserted except for an old man eating fish and a bag lady sitting at the counter, talking to herself and picking at a corn muffin. There were only a few coffee shops in this neighborhood; in fact, there were scarcely any restaurants at all. The coffee shop might have been busy at lunchtime, or during the day on weekends, but at night only the few poverty-stricken denizens of the area came into the place. The fluorescent lights flickered erratically, casting a hard, cold light on the lime-green vinyl seating and Formica tables. She squished down the aisle and flung herself down in a booth for two. "Good eve-a-ning." The waiter appeared out of nowhere. He was Greek, tiny, in a white shirt, a black tie and jacket. "One person?"

"Yes."

He whisked away the other setting opposite her—paper napkin, cheap knife, fork and spoon. The menu was huge. It seemed impossible that one place felt capable of offering roast turkey dinner, eggplant moussaka, tuna fish sandwiches, Southern fried chicken, pancakes, steak and fries, along with a thousand other things. "You like something to drink?"

"Um ... do you serve alcohol?" He pointed to the back of the menu. There had to be something on it that would cheer her up, something different from what she usually drank, maybe an amusing combination.

"How about this? The Frozen Strawberry—Pineapple Rum— and—Curaçao Supreme?"

"Which one?"

She showed him the picture of something pink and artificial.

"Gimme a Frozen Supreme!" he shouted over her head. "What else?"

"Maybe a cup of tomato soup. That's it."

"Just the Frozen Supreme and a cup of soup? You look kind of wet, you should eat a dinner, you don't get sick. We got a nice fish tonight, maybe you have some spaghetti—"

"Thanks. I'll see how I'm doing after the soup." The man behind the counter had removed a carton from the refrigerator and was pouring it into a blender—probably her fancy, prepackaged, manufactured drink.

It tasted like chemical fruit mixed with a solvent. Suddenly she was haunted by the memory of the crack. If she could taste it, smell it, just once more! It wasn't even the effect that she craved as much as the smell. Her cells twitched miserably, begging her to stuff them with the smoky salve. She got up and went to the pay phone. Maybe it was dumb, but she wasn't calling him to see him—she just wanted the address of the place to go, or some contact number to call. She had slept with him, what, little more than two days before; now she'd be damned if she sat around waiting for him to call.

No answer except the machine.

She went back to her booth. The soup tasted lousy, the drink tasted lousy—maybe some Jell-O? But when it arrived, topped with a big mound of canned whipped cream she had to scrape off to one side, it was like mouthfuls of slightly hardened rubber.

"No good? You no like?"

"No, it's fine. It's just that—I don't know what I'm in the mood for. Maybe . . . what about a plate of spinach? And . . . could I have a double shot of vodka, whatever's your best brand, on the rocks with just a little splash of fresh-squeezed orange juice?"

The waiter didn't even flinch. Obviously he was familiar with any and all eccentricities. The derelict woman at the counter had finished her tea and was carefully wrapping her used tea bag in a bit of aluminum foil provided by the counterman.

The area around the base of her stool was littered with five or six shopping bags, some paper, some plastic, stuffed and overflowing. The freckled brown sleeve of an old sweater protruded from the top of one. Actually, the woman's outfit must once have been quite fashionable, of good quality. Her shoes were completely worn down at the heels, stuffed with newspaper against the rain, but they, too, looked as if they had once been very good shoes. She had on heavy pinkish-nude orthopedic stockings that ended just below the knees. On her head was a little hat—the sort of velvet evening hat worn back in the fifties—twisted around the wrong way, so that the black veil came down over her right ear.

There was money in Florence's pocketbook and she threw a handful of it onto the table without waiting for the other things. It was still raining, a milder drizzle now. She began to walk, heading toward her block, but when she got there she kept walking. The rain had collected in deep puddles, in places almost a foot deep and no way to avoid them. After another six or seven blocks her shoes were completely ruined, melted into paste. They would never be salvageable and they made walking even more difficult. She took them off and tossed them in a trash container.

The sidewalk felt good beneath her bare feet, though the water in the puddles at the corner was warm, with a slimy texture that made her uneasy. It was probably a combination of rain mixed

with Manhattan's black, greasy soot and the vast quantities of sputum that covered the sidewalk. It seemed to be a pleasant pastime for three-quarters of the men in the city to spit huge gobs wherever they walked. Probably if a nuclear bomb fell, destroying all human beings, it would be from the water in New York puddles that life would spring anew.

There was a telephone on the side of a building. Broken. A few blocks later, a bank of three telephones. All broken. A few blocks more, two telephones, back to back. One was in use, so she picked up the receiver on the other and put in a quarter. The money spat back out at her. She tried again. Okay, it wasn't working. She would wait for the other. The man using it was oblivious to her presence. He talked and talked, in what language she could not determine. She paced back and forth nearby, trying to let him know she was waiting. Then it became obvious he knew she was there; but he still had no intention of finishing his call. He talked endlessly. Whoever was on the other end had equally lengthy answers. She couldn't understand what anyone would have to say that would take so long, particularly at night, standing in the rain. He turned his back so that he wouldn't have to see her.

At least twenty minutes went by. She stood restlessly, thinking the phone would be hers at any minute. Finally the man looked over and saw she was still there. "I'm going to be a while," he said in a furious, heavily accented voice.

She was near enough to Raffaello's building; perhaps he was already home, or she could wait for him to return. Anyway, she had nothing else to do. She entered the marble lobby dripping and raggedy as a used paper towel. Her hair was soaked, flattened against her head. Beads of water slid into her eyes. The doorman sniffed suspiciously. "Can I help you?"

She tried to shake off some drops. "Urn, I'm here to see Raffaello di Castignolli?"

The doorman looked at her—and the mess on the floor— disapprovingly. "Just a minute, please." He dialed Raffaello's intercom number on the house phone. "There's no answer. He's not home . . . was he expecting you?"

She ignored the question. "He's not back yet? Do you think you could let me into his place, to wait? Then I can dry off."

He stared at her with a mixture of embarrassment and contempt. "No, I'm afraid not."

"I'm a friend of his."

"I'm sure you are. But I can't let you in."

"Why not? You must have the keys."

"You can wait in the lobby, if you like, but I can't let you into a tenant's apartment."

If she hadn't been so bedraggled, he wouldn't have treated her like this. She would show him. She sat on a fake Le Corbusier couch between the doorman's position and the elevator bank. Very few people went in or out—a man with two West Highland terriers, a deliveryman with take-out food, an older couple returning from dinner—but every time she saw someone she made a big production of shivering and looking even more pathetic than she was. She really was freezing; it was no fun being so wet, and barefoot, but by now she was determined to see this through. An awfully long time passed in this fashion. The doorman tried not to notice her. Finally he must have grown desperate, or bored. He walked over to where she was sitting. "Are you sure he was expecting you?"