The Third Angel (16 page)

It was “Greensleeves”; Frieda knew that's what it was. And that was just what she'd wanted, the kind of song that could come up behind you and grab you with its sheer emotion.

“If John Lennon ever did stay here,” Lennie mused, “maybe I'd say I have a friend with a brilliant song for you, Mr. Lennon.” She was falling asleep. “She pretends to be a maid but she's a fucking poet. You need to rescue her from the Lion Park Hotel, Johnny boy.”

Lennie was asleep in no time. Frieda never bothered to tell her that she didn't want to be rescued. If anything, it was the other way around. She was her father's daughter still when it came to matters of life and death. You never knew who you might save in this world.

Frieda was on the late shift, so she left Lennie sleeping and had her dinner with some of the other girls in the kitchen. The staff at the hotel was given dinner five days a week, meals consisting of whatever the restaurant hadn't sold out of the day before. Frieda wore her black dress under her maid's smock. She'd washed and straightened her hair and had painted on her Cleopatra eyes. She caught a glance of herself in the mirror set into the highboy across from the long table where the staff ate. She looked surprisingly attractive. She didn't look like a girl who didn't mind mice and dead bodies and illness.

“Don't you look dressy?” a gossipy girl named Vicky said to her. “Hoping to run into some famous musician?”

“Lennon isn't staying here, you twit,” Frieda gleefully informed Vicky. “It's someone named Lemming.”

It was Jamie whom Frieda had been thinking of when she dressed up. She'd gone past his room in the afternoon and knocked at the door, but there'd been no answer. She actually went down to the front desk to ask Lennie's sister if he was still registered.

“You know I can't tell you,” Meg said. “Privacy issues. I'd lose my job. We're known for our discretion, aren't we?”

“Mr. Lemming is probably hoping so. Imagine if all those groupies descended upon him and he's probably just here to have an affair or dress up in women's clothes.”

Meg raised one eyebrow; she might have laughed if she wasn't in charge. “Why do you want to know about 708?”

“It's personal,” Frieda said.

“Personal is always a mistake. Trust me on that.”

All the same, Meg left the book open when she went to the file room for a customer's bill. Frieda thumbed through till she came to his name. He was still registered. Room 708. He hadn't gone.

Frieda worked fast that night; she didn't clean the rooms as well as she might have, but she frankly didn't think the clientele at the Lion Park would notice. They were more concerned with privacy and locked doors. She turned down the beds and emptied the trash and left it at that. If she vacuumed, most of the guests wouldn't even notice. All they wanted were a few clean towels and to be left alone.

She went up to his room as soon as she was done. She felt silly and embarrassed and her pulse was wild. She stood in the hall thinking. Was it a mistake to make this personal? To think she was anything more than a maid? The hallway was especially cold and Frieda had little bumps up and down her arms. Before she could decide what to do, Jamie opened the door. He was going out to meet Stella. He was already late. He'd been shooting more heroin every day. He never thought he'd be one to get hooked, and if he was—so what? He was dreamy and loose. He felt like anything could happen. He wore his purple jacket and jeans and a white shirt and cowboy boots he'd bought on West Fourth Street the last time he was in New York. He was feeling washed-up and his career hadn't even begun.

“Hey,” he said when he saw the maid in the hall. Heroin was like the bed in Stella's house, all feather down, white and waiting.

“Hello,” Frieda said. She was still wearing her stupid smock that she'd forgotten to remove. “It's me again.”

“I'm just on my way,” Jamie said. “I'm late.”

“Sure. I understand.”

Frieda blinked her Cleopatra eyes. She looked right at him in a way most girls didn't. Square on in some strange way. Not at all self-conscious. She acted as though she thought she was somebody. It was a little confusing.

“But I could have a drink first.” Jamie had a little time, after all. He wasn't that late. Truth was, he'd like to stay in bed dreaming, half in reality and half somewhere a million miles away. It was so hard to get anything done in this world; there were so many interruptions. But this girl was a welcome distraction. She was like a doorway to another place. Jamie had known such people in the past—some of the nurses who'd cared for him when he was in the hospital. They had opened up time and space and let him step out of his pain. They were magicians, really, and when they left and he was there all alone under the white sheets and cotton blankets, his leg throbbing, in agony, he wondered how they'd managed to make him forget it all, even for a minute. Jamie had been avoiding the here and now for so long he looked for any portal out. He thought this girl might help him and he never said no to an offer.

They went into his room. Jamie didn't even think to be embarrassed by the mess. She'd seen it before, and what was the difference really? He'd be out of here soon.

The room was so rank Frieda laughed, then went to throw open the window. “Good lord. It smells like there was a fire.”

Creative men were disorderly and untidy and filled with ideas. Frieda wasn't surprised to see that the ashtray was overflowing with burned paper. There were ashes on the carpeting and some black singe marks as well. Frieda thought she'd move the desk a few inches and cover it up and no one would ever be the wiser.

“My song,” Jamie said when he noticed Frieda looking at the ashy mess. Some water had been sloshed over it, which had only made more of a mess. “Or it was.”

“Didn't work out?”

He looked so broken, and Frieda had always been drawn to broken things. She noticed needles in the ashtray. Her father had always told her to be careful with sharp objects, to wrap them in tissue so no one would get hurt. She looked more closely at Jamie as he poured their drinks. His hand was shaking. He was an addict. Frieda's father would have intuited that in a flash, as soon as he'd seen him. All the signs were there: dilated pupils, scabs on his arms, the pallor of his skin. Frieda hadn't seen it before and that puzzled her. She was usually so clear about things. She picked up on small details, and she'd missed this entirely.

“I never really finished the song,” Jamie admitted. “I got fed up.”

“My good fortune.” Frieda had no idea how she came to be so brazen. What was wrong with her? She had the urge to open the top bureau drawer and see what was inside. She wanted to know him completely. “Now I suppose you owe me,” Frieda said.

Jamie looked at her, not understanding.

“We bet the purple jacket, not that you have to give it to me, but we did make a bet and I do believe you lost.”

Jamie nodded. “You're right.” Though it pained him to lose it, he took off the jacket and gave it to Frieda. It was laid across her lap. He'd bought the purple jacket after his first paying gig in New York. Other than his guitar, it was his favorite possession. And his cowboy boots. He couldn't live without them. He certainly wasn't about to let those go. “Consequences and all that, right?”

“You don't really have to give it to me,” Frieda said, though she wanted the jacket desperately. She ran her hand over the fringe. The other girls would die of jealousy.

Jamie bowed. “It's all yours. A real man pays his debts.”

Frieda took off her white maid's apron and put on the suede jacket. She stood on a chair so she could get a look at herself in the mirror. Was that really her? The girl from Reading all done up like a dolly? If she saw herself walking out on the street, she would have thought she belonged in a magazine standing alongside Jean Shrimpton. Frieda laughed out loud and her laugh was so pure Jamie felt something go through him. Before he could stop himself he invited her out with his friends.

“We're just going to a club. You probably wouldn't be interested.”

It was a private nightclub that Stella and Marianne belonged to, right behind a hotel in Mayfair. You wouldn't guess it was there if you didn't know about it; no number outside, no name. It was called the Egyptian Club and every drink cost double what it would in a decent pub.

“I'm interested,” Frieda said.

Maybe it was the purple jacket, maybe it was something else, but she just didn't want to let him go. They went out to get a taxi. Just that one drink had done something to Frieda. She was like another person. Jack Henry and Meg at the desk didn't even recognize her as she left. Not with that purple jacket and the black dress with Jamie guiding her past the crowd of girls still stationed outside. When the fans saw Jamie they started screaming. It was his long hair and the girl with the Cleopatra eyes who accompanied him that jump-started the screaming—they looked like they were somebodies. They sprinted for the taxi and jumped inside, laughing. Frieda felt like an impostor, but she didn't care.

“I didn't think anyone would know who I was,” Jamie said. He'd only played a few gigs in London, the ones that hadn't gone so well. People had been chattering the whole time and the applause had been sparse. They wanted something louder than what he'd given them; something to shake their souls. “I don't even have a record yet. They couldn't possibly know me.That was weird.”

Frieda smiled. She knew those girls were looking for John Lennon, but willing to settle for anyone. Well, she was somebody, wasn't she? She was happy to be where she was, away from the winding roads that led to her father's patients. Away from home. She had gotten a letter from her mother that day. It was not a normal letter. It was more of a list. It even had a title: When He Leaves You. It was all about practical matters, how to tie up loose ends, going to the bank, for instance, dividing possessions into boxes and cartons, returning gifts he gave you or selling them at auction for the best price. Things had not been going well for Frieda's mum. She couldn't give up on the doctor, even though he was living in a cottage in that little town with the toll bridge and the willow trees. He'd told Frieda that life was complicated. She of all people would understand that a person had to live it to the fullest. She had seen what he'd had to deal with over the years. The Angel of Death who'd come to sit in the backseat of his car. The dark country roads at night. He needed some time alone to reassess his life. It took Frieda a while to realize that her father wasn't alone, he was with that woman, the one who'd cried. Well, maybe Frieda needed to be selfish as well. Maybe she needed to reassess, too. She hoped her father remembered that when he was unhappy with her. This, after all, was her one and only life.

At the club the Ridge sisters belonged to, customers and their guests had to have their names on a list, and Jamie did. “There are my friends,” he said. He pulled Frieda through the crowd and no one questioned her right to be there. Jamie's hand was big and callused and Frieda's hand fit inside his perfectly. She felt that she was burning, that she'd wind up like the carpet in his room, scorched by his touch.

There were so many people at the Egyptian Club, Frieda didn't have time to feel awkward. She wasn't beautiful like most of the other women, or rich; she wasn't anything much, she supposed. But she'd ridden with the Angel of Death, maybe that was where she'd gained her courage. She didn't feel intimidated, even here where she didn't belong. When they got to the table of Jamie's friends, Jamie shook hands with Nick, then went to kiss Stella hello. Stella let herself be kissed, but she was staring at Frieda. Her lips were pursed. She took a drag of a cigarette.

“That's your jacket,” Stella said.

“I lost it in a bet. Sit down,” Jamie told Frieda. Frieda dropped into the closest chair. Her black dress really was short. “This is Frieda. She's my muse,” Jamie explained to Stella.

“Are you kidding?” Stella said. “I'm supposed to be your fucking muse, Jamie, not some stranger.” Stella's hair was almost white and she was wearing a filmy blue dress. Crushed into a corner was a coat made of python. She had a hurt look on her face.

“A muse isn't something you choose. It just happens, Stella. It's called art,” Jamie said.

Frieda felt herself flush; she felt like the other angel her father had always spoken of, not the ones who rode with them, but the one who walked among men and women. She felt as though she had a duty in this world, to be there for Jamie, to inspire him.

“This is Stella and Marianne and Nick,” Jamie told Frieda. He signaled a waiter over and ordered champagne. Möet. It was going on Stella's account. He ordered two bottles. Stella never minded; she liked him to spend money. It was her father's, after all. Somebody had to get rid of it. She wasn't so pleased tonight, however. “You'd better make certain she's not a muse you're fucking,” she said.

Stella had a strand of what looked like sapphires and diamonds around her throat. The stones were huge; the chain was twenty-two-karat gold. She reached out to take Frieda's hand. Her skin felt extremely cold. Frieda noted that her pupils were dilated. Her nails were long and painted ice white. “So what is it you do other than steal people's jackets and amuse them?”She pressed Frieda's hand so hard that Frieda's bones hurt. Stella seemed dangerous, the way the wounded often are.

“I work in a hotel.” Frieda withdrew her hand. She felt as though she'd been bitten by a snake. She felt violated. She thought of saying, I wash toilets and pick up trash and take people's dirty linens off their beds. Instead she smiled. She should have known Jamie would have a girlfriend. There was no reason to be shocked or stunned or disappointed. But a girlfriend wasn't necessarily permanent. That had been on her mother's list of things to know about love and marriage: Nothing lasts forever.

Marianne was leaning against Nick's shoulder and nodding out. She had long black hair down to her waist and ten gold bangle bracelets on each arm. Her bangs were nearly over her eyes, which were a surprising green, whenever she bothered to open them. Her skin was as white as Stella's; Frieda could see the veins running up and down her arms. She had abscesses, too, red and black against the white. She had enough energy to say to Frieda, “Don't think you can win against Stella. She's much smarter than you'd guess. She's definitely smarter than me. She certainly was last night.”