Love Maps Page 8

  “Hold this one, please.” He gave her another piece of wood, a nicely sanded plank of pine.

  “Where did you get this?”

  “The basement.”

  “I don’t remember any loose lumber down there.”

  “It’s not lumber. It’s too small to count as lumber. It’s a small piece of wood that wasn’t doing anything.”

  “Where did you take it from?”

  “Your shelves. The broken ones that weren’t holding anything up.”

  “You should have asked, Max.”

  “Sorry. May I use scraps from broken furniture to make something new?”

  “What’s so great about new? Answer me that. People are mad about the new, but there isn’t anything new, really. You know what I mean?”

  She let go of the wood. It floated midair, the delicate strings holding it up. For a tiny moment, she forgot about the wet socks in her hand, Philip, the Internet, everything, so caught up she was in the beauty of Max’s bridge, and the sweet feeling of Max beside her, pleased as punch.

  Chapter 8

  New York City, 1982

  The first time Philip invites her to dinner, she says no. The silence on the other end of the line pains her, but it’s best to be on the same page with a man. Someone who has been celibate for several years is not only not on the same page, he’s in a different book entirely. But she keeps thinking of him. A week later he calls again. She says yes. But this doesn’t make her any happier.

  “Give yourself a break,” Gus says. “You’re allowed to fall in love every now and then.”

  “I’m not in love.”

  Gus looks skeptical.

  “I’m not,” Sarah says. “I’m just being an idiot.”

  “You need to get into bed with him.”

  “That would solve something,” she says. “But he’s not really a just-get-into-bed guy.”

  “What does Maya say?”

  “Maya? I haven’t told her.”

  “I thought you guys were talking again.”

  “We are. But we won’t be if she finds out I met him at Conningsby’s funeral.”

  *

  Sarah walks to the subway, sucking nervously on a mint lozenge. A soap bubble pops in front of her. There’s a trail of unpopped ones, clear and bluish, shivering in the wind, coming from the toy shop. A mechanical elf dips his wand into a tray, lifts it to his mouth, blows. One more block to the subway stop. The train. The restaurant. Philip. Her stomach flips. She can’t do this. She looks for a pay phone. The wind blows off her hat. She runs after it. It’s a great hat, a powder-blue flapper she found in a thrift store. She can’t cancel. She has this wonderful hat. She put on eyeliner. She spent half an hour looking for her rhinestone belt.

  She almost trips on a homeless man, curled up on a cardboard box.

  “Sorry, sir.”

  “Watch where you’re going,” he says.

  She slips the token in the slot and walks through the turnstile. A train screeches by in the opposite direction. An A train, identified by a blue circle with an A in the center. She remembers being a kid, reading The Scarlet Letter. She’d been pleased that her favorite train was the A train, but glad that it wasn’t on the red line. A red A would have been too much. A blue A was just enough. Pleasantly wicked without going overboard. She leans against the iron beam. No train. Blackness. She’ll be late. She thinks about herself as a little girl, sitting on the train, all alone. She used to get on at the station outside their apartment. She wouldn’t have any money, just two subway tokens, enough to go somewhere and come back. Anywhere. She’d just go. It was her magical mystery tour—hers, not Maya’s. She explored strange Midtown streets, fountains hidden between skyscrapers, peep-show palaces with neon nipples flashing, chocolate shops with iced and ruffled truffles, each one costing more than a week’s allowance. Or she left Manhattan, went to the end of the line, the quiet trashy Rockaway streets, the diners with sky-high meringue pies in the window, the salt in the air, the crash of surf, then, at the end of the block, the end of it all, the endless gray ocean with the seagulls swooping.

  A is for ages. C for centuries. Hard to go back, you get disoriented, wait on the wrong platform. Sarah only catches her mistake when a tall guy with dreadlocks and maroon corduroys asks her where she’s going.

  “Uptown,” she says in her leave-me-alone voice.

  “No you ain’t. You headed down under the Brooklyn Bridge to the best borough beyond.”

  She slinks to the opposite platform. Across the tracks, the guy with dreadlocks grins at her. He is smooth and muscular, with a golden earring. A handsome boat, as Maya would say. Handsomer than Philip. She shouldn’t have been so snotty; should have said, I’m going where you’re going, mister.

  The train comes. She hangs onto the pole, the lights flickering on-off, on-off, off … off, on again. A Salvadoran lurches down the aisle, selling Cracker Jacks from a crumbling cardboard box. A woman buys some for her kid. The Salvadoran gives her change then moves on, slow-paced, silently offering his wares. Why does she think he is Salvadoran? He’s got a peasant’s hard-worn body and Indian features, but that doesn’t limit him to El Salvador. It’s because she’s been reading about Salvadoran massacres. He looks like he has seen a massacre, something about the lines of his face, his eyes. She should do a painting of him. But she can’t get that look. She’s tried with her father. Ding-dong: 42nd Street, her transfer. She doesn’t want to get off. She wants to follow the Salvadoran into the next car, eat Cracker Jacks for dinner. She’s seen her father in him. He used to say that if it weren’t for Ma and her business sense, he’d be peddling buttons on the subway.

  She pictures him at JFK, so tiny and old-world in the midst of the new space-age terminal. He and Ma were dressed up, he in a dark, striped three-piece suit, his beard combed and glossy, Ma in a wool skirt suit with cloth-covered buttons, her hair styled into a frozen wave. They were excited and nervous. Max’s boycott was over. They were going back to Vienna for the first time since the war. They kissed Sarah then Maya goodbye. Max held Ma’s arm as they disappeared into the portal. A few hours later, the plane’s engine conked out, smack in the middle of the Atlantic.

  *

  The restaurant is a candles-on-white-table-cloth affair, cozy with exposed brick and a chatty host who looks like he should be smoking a pipe on a porch somewhere. She pulls her hat down around her ears and checks that the feather is still at a jaunty angle. Philip sits in the smoking section, reading the paper, his hand curled around his drink. She sneaks up on him, something she’s particularly good at. She used to tiptoe into the kitchen when Ma was making breakfast, and the toast would fly. She has startled everyone except for Maya, who can always sense her. She slips the glass from Philip’s fingers and takes a sip. “Hi.”

  “Oh,” he says, startled. “I didn’t see you.”

  “I noticed.”

  “Nice hat.”

  “Thanks.” She sits down. He smiles. He is almost as good-looking as the guy with the dreadlocks. “Have you ever thought about getting an earring?”

  “No.”

  “Too bad.” She lights a cigarette. “So,” she says, blowing out the match, “I almost didn’t come.”

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t know. Don’t you ever wig out? Take shelter in a telephone booth?”

  “No.” Philip looks confused, maybe a little impatient. She takes a slice of bread from the basket. It’s good homemade bread.

  “Here,” she says, breaking off a piece. “Taste.”

  “Thanks.”

  She smiles. She’s happy. She’s happy! She can’t be in love. She’s never happy when she’s in love. She’s consumed, electrified, miserable.

  “Would you like to look at the wine list?” the waiter asks.

  “Yes, please.”

  “Actually,” says Philip apologetically, “I was just going to order a glass. I’ve got a meeting at dawn.”

  Sarah laughs. She wants to hug him, but thinks th
e better of it. Who wants to hear how pleased a girl is that she’s not in love with you? “A meeting at dawn. A duel?”

  “Of a sort. I’m jogging with a developer.”

  “Isn’t it a little nippy?”

  Philip shrugs. “He says he gets a feel for people by their pace and stride.”

  “So how’s your pace and stride?”

  “I hope it’s adequate.” He cracks a smile. The waiter clears his throat. “Do you know what you want?” Philip asks.

  “A glass of champagne,” says Sarah. “I want to toast to us being friends.”

  “I’ll have a glass of red wine,” he tells the waiter. “I don’t know if I want to toast to that.”

  “All right, then cousins.”

  “Cousins?”

  “You could think of Conningsby as a sort of uncle.”

  “I definitely do not want to drink to us being cousins.”

  The waiter brings their drinks. She holds up her glass. Philip lifts his.

  “Better left unspoken,” he says, clinking her glass.

  “What’s better left unspoken?”

  “Nothing.”

  “All right then. Here’s to nothing. A rien.”

  “A rien.” Philip looks into her eyes.

  “Have you been to France?”

  “No. I’ve never been out of the country.”

  “Wow. You’re a real ’mayrican.”

  “Whatever that means.”

  “I hardly know anyone who’s spent their whole life here. Except for my friend Bambi Peterson. She grew up in Westchester, went to church, the whole nine yards.”

  “You find that exotic.”

  “Kind of. You should meet her. You’d like her.”

  “I like you.”

  She looks at the menu, a little flustered. “So who’s this developer? What’s he developing?”

  “A retirement community outside of Orlando.”

  “Good grief.”

  “It’s not that bad. They’re focusing on aesthetics and uniqueness. Each unit will be designed differently, so there’s none of that canned feel, and the security will be serious but subtle. The idea is naturalness, a place that looks organic and comfortable.”

  “Why do you need high security for a retirement community?”

  “It’s as much about keeping the people living there in as keeping others out—Alzheimer’s, you know. People wander.”

  “My sister’s coming back tomorrow,” she says, as much to herself as to him.

  “Where is she?”

  “In London, tying up some deal.”

  “She’s a lawyer?”

  “No, a singer, but she makes her money from real estate. She owns six or seven buildings and apparently wants more.”

  “And you disapprove?”

  The words rise up, the pressure of them. She grew up with a simple and affirming distrust of the rich. Of all Maya’s difficulties, it’s the money that she finds hardest. “Our parents were landless,” she says carefully. “I think that’s her way of dealing with it.” Philip nods, as if he understands. But he can’t. He’s a businessman himself. She crosses her arms over her chest, willing herself to keep quiet.

  “What’s her name?” he asks.

  “Maya Marker for real estate, Maya Myrrh for singing. She tries to keep her worlds separate.”

  “Never heard of her.” He sounds dismissive.

  “She’s famous in her way. She even has her own Hinckley.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “A guy tried to shoot her, one of her fans. She didn’t know him but he was crazy in love with her. He’d gone to fifty of her concerts or something like that. He was going to kill her, then kill himself. He thought they could be together in heaven.”

  Philip puts down his drink, all sympathy. “What did she do?”

  “She ducked.”

  “No, I mean afterward. Is she okay? What an awful experience.”

  Sarah nods. It was definitely an awful experience. But Philip’s sympathy is conventional, trite. Maya came out of it fine. “She was good about it. She was more empathetic than usual. I think she felt responsible for him. He’s in a mental institution now. He’ll be there for the rest of his life. She’d like to write him a letter, but the doctors won’t let her.”

  “Poor woman,” says Philip.

  “And the guy?” says Sarah. “He’s going to be imprisoned for the rest of his life.”

  “You want him free?”

  “No. I understand that he’s dangerous. But he loved her.”

  “That’s not love.”

  “It was to him. Love isn’t always some pretty thing.”

  Philip shrugs. “I don’t spread my sympathy around as easily as you.”

  He may as well have called her a slut. Her mouth drops open. Philip appears not to notice, his eyes on the waiter who approaches their table with two oversized steaming plates. A steak for Philip; chicken fricassee for her. She frowns at her dish, feeling as shredded as the poor bird strewn upon it.

  “Pepper?”

  “Sure,” says Philip, smiling at the waiter. The smile remains when the waiter leaves, a determined smile. “Mmmm,” he says, holding his head over his plate and inhaling. “Smells great.”

  She grunts.

  “It is great,” he says. “You want a bite?”

  “No.”

  “How’s yours?”

  “Fine.”

  She pushes the food around on her plate. Philip holds forth on movies and the challenges of jogging in Riverside Park. She can’t possibly eat. Her stomach is twisted in knots. She keeps checking his watch. When are they going to get their check? Why doesn’t the waiter come over? He’s ignoring them. Why won’t Philip flag him down? How is she supposed to sit here? Outside a cold wind barrels down the avenue, blowing trash and newspapers. The pedestrians grimace and clutch at their coats. Sarah zips up her jacket.

  “Thank you for coming,” Philip says. “I had a good time.” Could he possibly mean that? “Can I get you a cab?”

  “No thanks.” She doesn’t want the dark introspection of a cab. “I’ll take the subway.”

  He looks concerned. “Isn’t it a little late?”

  “I like the subway,” she snaps.

  He shakes his head, confused and frustrated. “Well.” He leans over and kisses her on the cheek. “Goodnight, friend.”

  “Good luck with your developer,” Sarah says. She digs her hands deep in her pockets and walks into the wind, wishing the air could blow right through her.

  *

  No more nights alone after that. It’s Falk, Bambi, Gus, Maya when she’s in town. But she can’t get Philip out of her mind, that horrible conversation. What was she thinking? Why had she told him about Maya’s loony attacker? Who wants to go on a date with a woman who declares love to be a species of homicidal madness? No wonder he had recoiled. She’s told Gus and Bambi about the date, but jokingly, making no reference to the misery it still causes her. To talk about that would be to expand it, to give it oxygen.

  On a sunny, cool morning, wind whipping through a freshly chinked window, Wendy Flanders drops by the studio, her nose red, her scarf homemade and bunchy. Her appearance surprises Sarah. Wendy was a far more powdered type when she was going out with Gus. Now she’s married, with her own cheese shop on the Upper West Side and a thick stack of baby pictures. Gus croons over them, his behavior impeccable. Sarah can’t tell if Wendy’s visit is a form of payback or a spontaneous little hello, which is how they’re playing it. Wendy, stir-crazy at home, no time for anything except for cheese and nursing, but her mother is in town, taking care of the baby, and the shop is closed on Sundays, so here she is, for the first time in how many years? The air in the room is taut and expectant. Perhaps it’s the extra energy that makes Wendy so enthusiastic over Sarah’s icons. She offers to buy one. Sure! says Sarah, before she gets a chance to change her mind. Ka-ching! Her first sale in over a year.

  Sarah is pleased, though a week or two
later, when Wendy calls to say that her customers love Artichokes and Onions, and would Sarah be interested in having a show, an uncomfortable silence follows.

  “You mean in your cheese shop?” Sarah says. The thought of asking Maya to an opening in a cheese shop is not appealing. Gus, who had originally picked up the phone, methodically bounces his ball, making a show of not noticing their conversation.

  “It’s a storefront with great light and high ceilings—a nice spot for art, I’ve done shows here before.”

  Sarah agrees to check it out, and goes up a few days later with Falk. Falk, new to the Upper West Side, puts his hand in her back pocket and gazes goofily at the grand old buildings and the people selling books on the street. They walk past the restaurant where she had her meal with Philip. She doesn’t look at it, afraid she’ll blush, and focuses her eyes on the intersection ahead, the women with shopping bags, the yellow cabs, the blinking Don’t Walk sign. The cheese shop is nicer than she was expecting, high tin ceilings, an antique mirror looking over the wheels of Camembert and Brie, dried flowers in earthenware vases. Artichokes and Onions hangs in the middle of a large empty wall, the gold shimmering almost magically in the sunlight.

  Wendy comes out from behind the counter, gives her a hug and shakes Falk’s hand. They study the light on her painting, approvingly.

  “But don’t you think it would be even better with more surrounding it?” says Wendy. Sarah can almost feel Ma beside her, clicking her gums. Och och, what’s wrong with cheese?

  *

  Philip calls the next day. His voice is not altogether steady. Sarah pats her pockets for cigarettes. Say something. “Hey,” she says. “What’s up?” A couple of raindrops, fat and quivering, splat against her window.

  “I’m calling about a painting.”

  “You’re kidding. No one ever calls about my paintings, and you’re the second one this week.”

  “That’s how it works. I don’t get a commission for a year, then I get three at once.”

  “You’ve gotten three commissions?”