Look At Me_ A Novel Part 24

Irene carefully set down her drink and moved her chair for a better view. Without taking her eyes from Oscar, she fumbled in her bag for her notebook, s.h.i.+mmied it out, flipped it open, found the page she wanted and jotted a few notes in her parsimonious style. I longed to see exactly what she was writing, to witness the alchemy whereby Irene and I merged into a woman who owned a dog and had recurrent dreams of geese.

"He looks exactly the way I imagined," Irene said. "You described him well."

"He's my best friend."

She set down her pen and looked at me. "Charlotte, we know this thing is rotten," she said. "But it's still in our hands, we can still walk away. All we will have lost is some time!" I saw the martini in her eyes-the heat, the conviction. And a strange feeling overtook me then; it flared at the word "we," a kind of vision-myself and Irene moving together into another kind of life: a life in which my choices were all different, in which I I was different. The life of someone else. I glimpsed that woman rus.h.i.+ng somewhere, engaged, engrossed, and a fat knot of hope snaked through me and jammed in my throat. And then she vanished. I was thirty-five. I'd made my choices long ago. was different. The life of someone else. I glimpsed that woman rus.h.i.+ng somewhere, engaged, engrossed, and a fat knot of hope snaked through me and jammed in my throat. And then she vanished. I was thirty-five. I'd made my choices long ago.

"It's too late for me," I said. "As you know."

Irene slipped her notebook back into her bag and rose unsteadily from her chair, the one drink visible in her gait as she headed for the restroom. She looked beaten. I felt it, too, but fought the feeling back. I looked at the notebook in her bag. After the briefest deliberation, I yanked it out and opened it. But my unease at violating her privacy, compounded by fear that she would catch me in the act, made me too anxious to read anything. I wedged the notebook into my purse, but it jutted conspicuously from the top. I pulled it out with the intention of returning it to her bag, but now Irene had reappeared and was heading toward me. Panicking, I jimmied the notebook back into my purse and used the silk scarf around my neck (a lingering habit from the days when I'd had bruises) to camouflage it. As I turned to wave for the check, I saw that Oscar was gone. Not even Irene had noticed.

Outside, the unseemly sun was still grinning down at us. "I'm drunk," Irene announced, and looked at her watch. "No!" she cried. "I'm a half-hour late to meet Mark. He'll think I was. .h.i.t by a bus."

"He'll think you're having an affair," I said.

She looked so stunned that I genuinely regretted having said it. "Oh, G.o.d," she said. "He knows I'd never do that."

Chapter Thirteen.

Eventually, when Anthony Halliday refused to leave the brownstone stoop despite two requests from Mimi and one from Leeland, her lover, who tapped on the gla.s.s and spoke from behind it as if Anthony's instability made opening the door a risky proposition, as if he might attack Leeland in a feverish attempt to right the imbalance between them (namely, the fact that Leeland was living in Anthony's apartment with Anthony's wife and twin daughters); after two hours of ringing the buzzer at ten-minute intervals and reiterating, quite calmly, his refusal to depart, Mimi finally opened the door and came outside. She sat beside him on the stoop, a compact woman, athletic, a runner of marathons. Colombian. She had become a citizen when they married. Halliday refused to leave the brownstone stoop despite two requests from Mimi and one from Leeland, her lover, who tapped on the gla.s.s and spoke from behind it as if Anthony's instability made opening the door a risky proposition, as if he might attack Leeland in a feverish attempt to right the imbalance between them (namely, the fact that Leeland was living in Anthony's apartment with Anthony's wife and twin daughters); after two hours of ringing the buzzer at ten-minute intervals and reiterating, quite calmly, his refusal to depart, Mimi finally opened the door and came outside. She sat beside him on the stoop, a compact woman, athletic, a runner of marathons. Colombian. She had become a citizen when they married.

"Tony," she said. "This is not good for anyone."

"You'd do the same," he said, "if I wouldn't let you see them."

"The situations are not comparable." She accented the middle syllable of that word in a way he found sweet.

They looked together at St. John's Street, exhausted in advance by a conversation they'd had too many times, playing out the moves like a game of telepathic chess. Orange streetlight soaked the leaves. "Seven months today," he said. "Not a drop."

She touched his back. "That's fantastic, Tony."

It was the longest abstention of his adult life, excepting the five years when he hadn't drunk at all, five years that had included (it was true) the period when he'd courted and married Mimi. But the present abstention had come a year too late. A year ago, without warning-or rather, after a warning that had seemed no different from the thousands of other warnings Mimi had delivered-she had stopped loving him. It amazed Anthony how distinct that feeling had been, like someone leaving a room.

"They're my children," he said. "They trust me. You have no right to stand between us." But he couldn't bring himself to go on, so belabored and oratorical did it sound.

"They trust you, yes. I I don't trust you. Seven months-why should I believe that? I should demand a urine test!" don't trust you. Seven months-why should I believe that? I should demand a urine test!"

Anthony took a certain grim delight in listening for the moments when the voice of Leeland, a law professor at Fordham, broke through Mimi's speech like clicks on a tapped phone line. The last time they'd spoken, she had actually used the phrase, "In any event." Yet his fascination with this audial commingling of Leeland and Mimi failed to salve the hopelessness it made him feel. Leeland Wile, a dispa.s.sionate, bearded pipe smoker whose toes pointed out when he walked, had forced himself into every crevice of Anthony's life-was speaking to him through his wife's mouth!

"Drinking isn't illegal, Mimi," he said.

"Drinking is not illegal, no. But what about reckless endangerment?" (Leeland) "What about scaring our girls half to death with your negligent" (Leeland) "drunkenness and your wild hallucinations? What about the fact that I couldn't reach you, I had no idea what was going on and the girls were panic-stricken while their daddy slept off a binge? I could sue you for emotional pain and distress and I'd probably win!" (Leeland, Leeland, Leeland).

"Stop," he said. "Please." It gave him physical pain to listen. He couldn't remember any of it, couldn't remember why he had been drinking with the girls there in the first place.

Mimi hove a sigh. "In any event-"

Anthony held up a hand and she stopped, her eyes moving over him in the orange, leafy darkness. He imagined she was looking right at the gouge of his loneliness, which he felt able to hide from everyone but Mimi. He saw the shame of it in her face.

"Can I watch them sleep?" he asked, taking advantage.

She stood without answering and opened the door. This was their compromise, the concession that, every few weeks, he was able to wrest from her. Together they climbed the carpeted stairs, every bulge in the plaster wall familiar to Anthony's hand. She turned the s.h.i.+ny new Fichet lock (Leeland). The musk of his pipe tobacco filled the apartment.

"Let them sleep," Mimi warned as he pushed open the girls' bedroom door.

The smell of them nearly overpowered him, a smell he missed so acutely that he forgot it instantly each time he left. The milky, waxen, fruit-tinged smell of his children. Apples, or apple juice. Damp cookies. They were asleep in their beds, six years old, red curls. His twin girls. Anthony lowered himself cross-legged onto the floor between their beds. The room was shadowy and small, neatly stacked toys and books seeming to float on the tide of his girls' breath, its peaceful rise and fall, and Anthony felt like an interloper, someone who could never belong in such a place. But gradually he relaxed into the aquarium of their sleep, their breath, their very white skin, their nearly identical faces. He spread his arms and placed one hand gently on each girl, Laura's arm, the little fin of Fernanda's shoulder blade, feeling the life under his hands even through pajamas and bedclothes, warm frantic life thrusting against them from inside. And he had helped to make that life.

For the first time in days, the first time since the last time Mimi had let him come inside and watch them sleep, Anthony felt a kind of peace, as if some perpetual discomfort, a discomfort so unrelenting that he no longer noticed it, had finally eased. They were still here, still alive, still breathing softly, and Anthony felt their life enter him through his two hands, strengthen him. Yes, he thought, yes he would hold on, he would win them back. His girls and Mimi, too. Why had it felt so impossible before? They were warm, almost hot. Laura wore her Orphan Annie pajamas, Fernanda wore Madeline. Very gently he touched their faces, kissed their folded, velvety ears.

At the sound of Mimi outside the door, he got up. He didn't want her to come in.

He left the apartment without ever seeing Leeland.

Back in Park Slope, the peace Anthony had felt among his daughters stayed with him for perhaps a block, then began to dissipate. After three blocks, he felt like doubling over. The discomfort was back, with the difference that now he was aware of it-keenly, agonizingly. He took the long way home to avoid a particular bar he didn't trust himself to resist in such a mood, then opened the door with his key and ascended three flights of steps to his new apartment, an aerie surrounded by spreading trees that reminded him of hands holding playing cards. He loathed it. On his desk lay a legal pad full of notes he'd taken earlier that day during a visit to his friends at Immigration. They'd had a few ideas about Z, nothing definite. Of course, the pictures Mitch and Ha.s.sam had given him were practically useless: a man whose eyes were always closed or averted, a man about whom the only thing you could say for sure was that he didn't want to be photographed.

Anthony's interest in Z had engaged (he'd felt it distinctly, a bolt sliding into place) during his first conversation with Mitch and Ha.s.sam, when they'd told him the address of Z's office: the same Seventh Avenue building where Anthony's own office was. Five floors down. What were the chances of that? In a s.p.a.ce virtually identical to his own (shared among several anxious looking men with import-export connections), he'd found Z's desk and computer, all of it empty, bereft of files. Anthony dusted for prints, knowing he wouldn't find Z's; it had all been carefully wiped. Not a single ragged edge, not a clue as to who had been there. Except one: a business card placed neatly inside the top middle desk drawer, a card that read, "Z," the letter tiny, a phone number leading to a voice-mail box that had turned out still to be active. He'd called it right there, on Z's still-connected phone, sitting in his chair, and had been greeted by the man's voice, his light, indistinguishable accent. He sounded as if he were smiling. As if he had known Anthony would trace his steps this far, and meant to say, Yes, I was here, there's no mistake. He was a man who didn't make mistakes. And Anthony was all mistakes, mistake after mistake, and the damage they had wrought would surround him forever.

He unlocked a drawer in his own desk and pulled out the birth certificate he kept there, its county seal in relief. Ralph B. Goldfarb, a Caucasian two years younger than himself. Born in Pittsburgh. Murdered six years ago, walking his dog on the West Side highway. Anthony had snagged the birth certificate in his first year as a detective, going through the man's possessions. That was shortly after he was fired from the DA's office-one of his biggest mistakes. Fired for drinking, of course, the single mistake that underlay all the rest. Except that it wasn't a mistake. It was the thing he loved most.

He held the birth certificate in his hands and let his mind run. To disappear, leaving not one single ragged edge. To clear out, as Z had done, whoever Z actually was (and Anthony would find out eventually-he was a good detective, despite everything). To begin again with a new name, in a new place, a place where he hadn't made a single mistake, and wouldn't. He could do it. All you needed was a birth certificate.

One birth certificate. It could sp.a.w.n a whole life: Social Security number, bank accounts, credit cards, loans. All of it, from so little. Almost nothing.

The fantasy of disappearance had been with Anthony for many years, but since his abrasion with Z it had become more insistent. He found himself clinging to the search even now, when Mitch and Ha.s.sam had decided to cut their losses and stop paying his retainer. He had something to learn from Z, he was convinced. Something that would help him.

He brought the phone to the next room, lay on his bed and called Charlotte. He had no idea why the urge to call her overtook him so often at night-was it her connection to Z, or a sense that she occupied the same dark stratum as himself?

"Hi," she said. She always seemed to know who it was.

"Did I wake you?"

"No. I was watching Unsolved Mysteries Unsolved Mysteries."

Her voice, rough from cigarettes in a way that reminded him, incongruously, of a child's, had the power to relieve him. Even when she lied, as she nearly always did.

"How was your day?" he asked.

"Busy," she said. "I'm a TV anchor now."

"Think I saw you. Six o'clock news?"

"That was me."

"You move fast," he said, closing his eyes.

Charlotte laughed. She had the saddest laugh he'd ever heard. "What about you?" she asked.

"The usual. Trying to separate the good guys from the bad guys."

"Is there a difference?"

"I have to think so," he said. "It's a matter of faith."

There was a lengthy silence, a silence of several minutes. He heard the match as she lit another cigarette, heard the voice of the Unsolved Mysteries Unsolved Mysteries guy in the background. guy in the background.

"Sweet dreams, Charlotte," he finally said.

34July. Z was everywhere. I looked for him in the crowds of people waiting to cross Sixth Avenue. Short dresses, gold lame sandals. Men in s.h.i.+rtsleeves, jackets hooked to one finger. Gold mist dusting the air.I searched for his outline behind the windows of limousines slowly turning corners. The streets were riotous. He was everywhere, places I couldn't imagine him going. Sitting in outdoor cafes. Applauding a bawdy comedian in the fountain at Was.h.i.+ngton Square. Looking down from fluorescent cubes of office windows against a neon-blue dusk. Looking down. Instantly picking me out.I did the things I'd always done, but with a new excitement. A fever that reminded me of childhood. Adulthood as children imagine it.Dinner at ten with a man visiting from Europe. I'd known him for years. Added my bit of color to parties at his villa in Antibes. At lunchtime, an old English servant would wheel a cart to the water's edge. Starched tablecloths thrown over yellow rocks. Grilled fish, white wine. The Mediterranean went purple in the afternoons. Twice I was burned by a stingray.This man was married now. A father. But still eager to see old friends, as he put it. While the others laughed around us, his hand drifted to my leg. "When are you going to get married?" he asked."Never," I said.The hand wandered, inquisitive. "Then what? This, on and on?""Of course not."Something else was going to happen. I was right up against it.37Z and I pretended we were strangers. No one knew. That secrecy was the hidden pulse. The buried engine.We were at our best with a room full of people between us, linked by a glittering strand of mutual awareness. His presence made the air sing. Made me loopy. Buoyed me up on a reckless swell of freedom I hadn't felt in many years. I threw my arms around people and shouted into their ears. I jumped onto tables and danced. I expanded, trying to fill my exaggerated outline.He watched me. I was showing him something, but I didn't know what it was. I was leading him someplace.He came to my apartment a few more times. Alone in a room, he was hard to take. Too G.o.dd.a.m.n serious.I was getting impatient. To begin! To play my part, whatever that was! I imagined drugs, crime. Spy missions. Weapons trading. But only in the most sketchy, cinematic terms. None of it really made sense. I think I didn't want to know. Even as I boiled with frustration.I'd never liked mysteries. Except on television.He felt the frustration, too. Once, in the middle of f.u.c.king, he slapped my face. I hit him back, socked him right in the head. I heard my knuckles on the bone.And then we kissed. It was a relief.

My name was printed in small block letters on the cover of Irene's six-by-nine steno book. Looking at it gave me a tiny flick of pride, but each time I opened the cover, I felt dread.

Dread of what? I didn't know. Maybe it was as simple, as childish, as the fear that she'd written nasty things about me.

On the day of our next appointment, I brought the notebook with me to Gristede's and then to the river, where I sat on my usual bench. I opened the notebook. Irene's writing was cryptic, streaky, illegible at first. Upside down it looked the same as right side up. I flipped among the pages, half relieved that I couldn't read them. Then I deciphered Saved $ Saved $, followed by (the words seemed to tumble toward me) Bought apt. 198-v. proud, esp. sect. couch. Bought apt. 198-v. proud, esp. sect. couch. This was true, I thought; I was proud of my couch (it was an excellent couch), but reading it in someone else's hand made that pride seem ludicrous. I made a mental note not to refer to the couch again in Irene's presence. This was true, I thought; I was proud of my couch (it was an excellent couch), but reading it in someone else's hand made that pride seem ludicrous. I made a mental note not to refer to the couch again in Irene's presence.

And then, by degrees, other words yielded themselves to me, painstakingly at first and then in a kind of rush, as if I were pus.h.i.+ng through a wall: tough pose dev. early. Why? Hurt? tough pose dev. early. Why? Hurt? Later I found Later I found sms completely isolated. Exile. Self punish? Ask abt religion. sms completely isolated. Exile. Self punish? Ask abt religion. And I remembered Irene questioning me about religion, describing the Lutheran church where I'd gone each Sunday with my parents, blah blah blah. It was unsettling, now, to read the original question. All of it was unsettling, like hearing the other side of a conversation I only dimly recalled my end of. There were doodles: a sailing s.h.i.+p, a woman lying in bed covered with a blanket, her stomach bulging in pregnancy. Several long lashed eyes. Trees. Chess pieces. I found lists. And I remembered Irene questioning me about religion, describing the Lutheran church where I'd gone each Sunday with my parents, blah blah blah. It was unsettling, now, to read the original question. All of it was unsettling, like hearing the other side of a conversation I only dimly recalled my end of. There were doodles: a sailing s.h.i.+p, a woman lying in bed covered with a blanket, her stomach bulging in pregnancy. Several long lashed eyes. Trees. Chess pieces. I found lists. Laundry Laundry, scrawled in one margin, and beneath it, buy: Windex, pap. towels, plant food, cereal, ravioli, shoelaces. buy: Windex, pap. towels, plant food, cereal, ravioli, shoelaces. Another list, Another list, Re: Mark 1. Invite J. M. to dinner. 2. Ask L. abt. commission 3. Apple composer prog-how much $$$?? 4. Mark-shrink Re: Mark 1. Invite J. M. to dinner. 2. Ask L. abt. commission 3. Apple composer prog-how much $$$?? 4. Mark-shrink?

Poor Mark. I knew the feeling.

Despite these proofs that Irene's mind had strayed to other topics during our conversations, I experienced relief. There was nothing really bad. At one point, she had even written Less b.i.t.c.h than 1st seems. Less b.i.t.c.h than 1st seems. That was toward the beginning-the second page. I returned to it, and now a few other formerly indecipherable lines tipped open to me: That was toward the beginning-the second page. I returned to it, and now a few other formerly indecipherable lines tipped open to me: Doesn't want to talk. Needs $$. (Why me?) Doesn't want to talk. Needs $$. (Why me?) and then, a few lines down, and then, a few lines down, Jackpot Jackpot, followed by lying before, did know Z. lying before, did know Z. In the margin she'd written a phone number that looked familiar. I flipped ahead, then returned uneasily to that page. What did she mean by lying In the margin she'd written a phone number that looked familiar. I flipped ahead, then returned uneasily to that page. What did she mean by lying before before-when was before? My eyes drifted again to that number. I opened my cell phone and dialed it.

"Mr. Halliday's office," his receptionist answered.

I hung up confounded, my brain straining to conjure a scenario whereby a connection between Irene and Halliday made sense: they'd met recently, by chance; she'd hired him for some reason. I myself had written his phone number in the margin of her notebook and forgotten. It had to be recent, because weeks ago I had mentioned Halliday to Irene, and she'd denied knowing him; I remembered that distinctly. And when I'd impersonated Irene in Halliday's presence, he had betrayed no recognition of her name. My mind gyred harriedly, eagerly among these possibilities, but in the end I found myself staring at that word Jackpot Jackpot, an ominous sensation lazing through me like a stench.

Pluto was back, hovering to my left with an air of frenetic insistence. I hardly saw him through the blur of my distraction; I had to finish this. I pressed redial, and this time Halliday picked up.

"How do you know Irene Maitlock?" I asked, not bothering to identify myself. "The Post Post reporter?" reporter?"

There was a long pause, a completely different sort of pause from the ones that took place during our nocturnal conversations. This pause was filled with the creak of Anthony's thoughts. "She interviewed me," he said, "about three months ago."

Pluto was standing directly in front of me. I ignored him.

"I sent her to you," Halliday said quietly.

"Why?"

"I could tell you," he said. "And I will, if you want. But I'd rather give Irene a chance to do it her way."

I felt strange, tingly. Sick. My new life was so small; together, Anthony and Irene made up the major portion of it. And they knew each other-had from the beginning, but kept it a secret. Foreboding fastened leathery wings around me.

But when I thought of Irene, the foreboding eased. She wasn't capable of deception; she was too transparent. Too honest. It simply wasn't possible.

"Okay," I said. "I'll talk to Irene."

"Will you call me, Charlotte? After you're done?"

"What an excellent question."

I closed my phone and sat numbly, staring at the water. Pluto could contain himself no longer. "You find yourself in the coveted position," he declaimed, dancing beside me, "of having a human being owe you his blessed life. Fill my ears with what that feels like."

"No one owes me their life," I said.

"Oh, yes," he said. "Oh, yes, Pluto owes you his." He pulled from his immaculate pocket a check I recognized, a check for $1,000. From Extra/Ordinary.com.

"Randall Joseph Smith," I read.

"That's the name I had back when I got named."

"Wow. So they signed you up." I did my best to sound enthusiastic, despite my seismic uneasiness.

"All these years of waiting, and something finally happens," Pluto said. "Because of you."

"Stop saying that." He was starting to make me angry.

"I love America. I love this crazy d.a.m.n country. Where else does such beautiful insanity enter the realm of the possible?"

"He's doing it for himself," I said, "not you."

"That's the only reason I've got any modic.u.m of faith whatsoever!" Pluto retorted. "If he's doing it for me, he won't do it. He's doing it for himself, there's some possibility it'll actually get done."

"Just don't trust him."

"Trust," Pluto scoffed. "You're telling a homeless guy that's been kicked around by every man woman and child got legs to kick with not to trust? trust? I read every word of that contract before I set my John Hanc.o.c.k to it. Brought my specs and read it right there in his d.a.m.n office. Took me over an hour." I read every word of that contract before I set my John Hanc.o.c.k to it. Brought my specs and read it right there in his d.a.m.n office. Took me over an hour."

Having not read a word of my own contract, I could only be impressed. "He paid me a lot more than he paid you," I said.

That stopped Pluto for a moment. Watching him hesitate, I felt a grinding cruelty whose single goal was to take this pleasure away from him. Because it was false; all of it was phony and false, and he shouldn't believe it. "More than seven times as much," I added.

"Well of course he did," Pluto said, regaining his composure. "You're worth more at this particular point in time. We'll see in the end; I've got every intention of being their number-one guy." He c.o.c.ked his head at me. "I know what you're up to, prettygirl, but you can't hurt me. Don't you see? I'm impervious-it's just not within your power, powerful though you may be." He went to retrieve his laundry bag from his tent.

"The irony of it is," he said, returning, "all this silly money in my hand and I can't even rent a room. I've got to stay homeless until I'm filthy rich. Then I'm gonna buy me a palace with tiles in the shower like you've got. Portuguese tiles, that's what I'm thinking, with little paintings on them. Each tile, I want a different historic scene, the Greeks and the Babylonians, the African kings. I want to stand in my shower and look at the whole mad fantastical evolution of the human race. I want to ruminate over mankind all at one time, with hot water splas.h.i.+ng down my back."

"You've never seen my shower," I reminded him, but he had already walked away from me, grinning.

Irene arrived punctually at the appointed hour; I'd left the door open as usual and she locked it behind her. She wore a plaid dress that contained the color orange and smelled of mothb.a.l.l.s. I liked it on sight.

I held up the notebook.

"Oh, I'm so relieved!" she cried. "I called Thomas, I called the restaurant, I've been ... where did you find it?"

"In your bag."