THE SUBWAY PLATFORM WAS JAMMED. On a bench in the center of it slept a reeking homeless man whose clothes had all turned to the color of sludge, while an old woman in a cheap coat and orthopedic shoes stood nearby, probably going home after a long day at work.
That put me into a foul mood. In another time, the old woman could have prodded the vagrant with her cane and shamed him into giving up the bench: On your way, young man. In the nineties, you couldn’t be sure the vagrant on the bench wouldn’t jump up and blow you away, or shove a screwdriver into your skull. Where oh where is Batman when you really need him?
Kissing Burke made me feel sort of sick inside, a feeling intensified by the presence of several young couples in love on the subway ride home. Antiromantic epithets formed in my head as I watched them, and I had a sudden urge to warn them: Stop! Go back! Abandon yourselves to meaningless sex! But just then the Susan Brave light flashed on in the back of my brain, the light that warns me I am crossing a line from cynical single to bitter spinster. I checked my thoughts.
Susan Brave. Why was Griff investigating her? Susan, Joanne—both people who had paid special attention to me the night of the party. Now I knew why. They thought Griff had given me something on them.
Susan, Joanne, and me—the only people I knew for sure he was investigating. What did we have in common, aside from the fact that we were all women, roughly the same age, single, in television, and had all, at one time or another, worked for Greg Browner?
We had all worked for Greg Browner and it was fair to assume Greg had hit on all of us.
Perhaps Paul Mangecet did hire Griff to investigate us, I thought, as the train lurched and staggered through the semi-dark tunnel. Maybe he wanted control of Greg and Greg’s stock and was trying to get the goods on him. Not only would Mangecet get Greg’s stock, but he could get Greg’s “credibility” and win more of the stockholders to his side. So maybe he wasn’t investigating us so much as he was investigating Greg, and we were just part of the web.
Who else was in the web? Madri Michaels sprang instantly to mind. She and Greg were co-anchors for a while. In fact, he had “found” her at an affiliates’ convention and brought her to ANN to anchor weekends, before he elevated her to sit on the evening news throne next to his a couple of years later. I took it as a given he had not only put the moves on her, but that he had succeeded.
When Greg hit on me and, in a fairly obvious way, indicated it could help my career, I didn’t file a complaint against him and I didn’t really talk about it.
I know, I know. I seem like the type to file a complaint, but I didn’t, and precisely because I am that type. I have a reputation as a … bit of a troublemaker and I didn’t think anyone would believe me, a lowly writer with a known bad attitude—and a history of insanity in her family—over him, a millionaire and a media force.
I have wondered since if I should have complained, if it was, you know, my duty as a woman. But I’d been lobbying for a reporter slot and after the stuff with Greg happened and I was fired from his show, they plugged me into the weekend reporting slot. I didn’t want to make waves.
This was starting to make sense to me. Griff knew we wouldn’t complain. We were women who had been sexually harassed in some fashion by Greg Browner and, out of our own self-interest, kept quiet.
When I came up from the subway that night, I had this eerie feeling I was being followed.
At first it didn’t frighten me, because it was relatively early, about eleven-thirty. I expected to see a lot of people when I turned onto Avenue B. But instead of the usual people hanging out on street corners, congregating around burning trash barrels to keep warm, the streets were deserted. The weather had turned colder and driven most people inside.
I turned around slowly and saw a tall man walking in the shadows by an abandoned building. I couldn’t make out his features, although when he walked beneath the streetlight I thought I caught a glimpse of a tweed overcoat. Damn. I’d been in such a hurry that morning I’d forgotten to put my cologne in my bag, and I couldn’t find my Epilady.
Up ahead I saw the red-and-yellow awning of a bodega, a little mom-and-pop Hispanic grocery, and I ran up to it and ducked inside. Behind the counter, a fat man in a yellow T-shirt sat leafing through a Spanish magazine. A portable black-and-white TV was turned to a Spanish game show and all the contestants were laughing at something the host had said.
The man looked up at me suspiciously. I acted like a customer, walking down the shelves of Café Bustelo, dried yucca, guava paste, and blue-and-yellow Goya cans towards the steel and glass cooler in the back.
Behind me the front door squeaked open and a little bell rang. I froze midstep and looked up at the round, fish-eye mirror wedged in the corner above the cooler to see who it was. It was a kid, a teenager, maybe five feet tall.
I relaxed and let out a deep breath, then took a can of coffee and went back to the counter. Above me, a heating vent blew a gust of warm, dusty air.
“Is that all?” the man asked. A tinny cheer rose from the TV set.
“Yeah,” I said. I glanced out the window but couldn’t see the tall man. Maybe I wasn’t being followed, I reasoned. But in the event I was, a can of coffee in a plastic bag could be a weapon.
Burke, after surveying my umbrella, my poison ivy, and my spray cologne spiked with cayenne pepper, once asked me if there was anything that couldn’t be a weapon if it fell into my hands. The only thing I could think of was Jell-O.
“To you, the world is just full of weapons, isn’t it?” he said.
Yep, and the world is full of reasons to use them, I thought now, as I left the store, prepared in my heart to bludgeon a man to death with a coffee can if necessary.
But the man had vanished.
As I approached my apartment building, I heard footsteps and took off running and when I did the footsteps stopped. But as I fumbled with my keys at my front door, I felt a hand on my shoulder and a woman’s voice behind me said, “Robin? May I talk to you?”
I wheeled around.
There was Amy Penny, bundled up against the cold in a preppy camel-hair coat, standing behind me blowing warm air into her gloved hands.
“You scared the shit out of me,” I said.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “May I come in? It’s really important.”
“Oh, why the hell not,” I said. I was really aggravated now, but I wasn’t about to leave her alone on my street. With her Upper East Side dress and affected ways, in my neighborhood, she was a property crime just waiting to happen.
“No point freezing your ass off out here.” I opened the door for her.
“That perfume you’re wearing,” she said as we waited for the elevator. “Is that … L’Heure Bleue?”
“Yes,” I said. The elevator came.
“I thought so,” she said, and started crying.
Mr. Grooper from the third floor got off as I shepherded her into the elevator. “Don’t cry for Christ’s sake. Please? Tell me what’s bothering you, and then tell me why I should give a shit.”
But Amy Penny was crying so hard she couldn’t talk through her convulsive sobs.
“This is my floor. Come on,” I said, leading her through the dim hallway. I opened the apartment door and waved her in.
“Don’t mind the mess. I never do. And don’t talk too loudly. The woman downstairs …”
“I didn’t know what else to do but come here,” she blurted.
“Have a seat,” I told her as I threw my coat onto a pile of newspapers. The poor girl looked helplessly at the sofa, which was covered with magazines and clothes.
“Just brush them off onto the floor,” I said. “Seltzer?”
“Thanks.”
“Tell me why you’re here.”
“This is really awkward,” Amy said. I handed her a glass and she dipped her beak before resuming. It was amazing how she could drink without getting her lips wet.
She continued nervously. “Burke has been spending a lot of time away from home the last week and he’s been really moody too, ever since the New Year’s party.”
“So?”
She didn’t hear me. “I just knew he was having a change of heart,” she said, tearing up again. “And then I realized he was cheating on me.”
“Man, he doesn’t even wait for the body to cool off, does he?”
“It isn’t funny!” she said sharply. “I know what’s going on. Madri Michaels called me last Friday when she saw you and Burke at Keggers so I followed him. I saw him come in here and I saw him leave! I beat him home, just barely, but when he walked in he was reeking of liquor and … and … L’Heure Bleue. I know it was L’Heure Bleue, because I went to Macy’s at lunch today and smelled it. And then he kissed you tonight in front of people I know at Keggers.…”
It was delicious. She thought her fiancé was cheating on her with his wife.
She started to sob again and only the pathetic sight of her tears kept me from laughing out loud at the ridiculousness of the situation, at the two of us sniffing around each other like dogs over a sorry piece of animal carcass like Burke Avery.
“Robin,” she said. “Are you having an affair with Burke?”
“Oh, for Christ’s sake,” I said.
“You know what I mean. Are you?”
“No. Burke and I were discussing the Griff case. We drank a bit and he helped me get home because I drank too much. He probably soaked up L’Heure Bleue in the taxi.”
“But Madri said—”
“Madri is full of shit, okay? Burke and I are not reconciling.”
“How can I believe you?” she asked, then she turned her dewy, fresh face and looked up at me with her Bambi brown eyes.
“It’s not me you have to believe,” I said. “Listen, I don’t like you. So you understand that if I was a malicious person I’d tell you I was having an affair with Burke. I’d give you dates, times, and motel room numbers. But I’m not sleeping with Burke. Believe me when I tell you this, Amy. He really hurt me and embarrassed me. That jerk kicked me when I was down. All’s fair in love and war, and people fall out of love and it’s nobody’s fault and all that, but I’d dance naked at Sing Sing before I’d take him back.”
“Would you really?” she asked, apparently cheered by this thought.
“Yes.”
I wanted to hate her and I would have been ruder to her, but she was being very nice and in contrast I felt like a bit of a bitch.
“Frankly, Amy, I don’t think he’s worth all your tears. You’d be better off with a less good-looking, less mixed-up fellow.”
“No, I wouldn’t.”
“Oh yes, you would,” I insisted. “Living in a constant state of jealousy isn’t a nice way to live.”
“I know,” she said softly. Our eyes met. “But I can’t leave him now. I’m pregnant.”
I groaned. “He didn’t mention that little detail to me.”
“He didn’t want to tell you. He thought it might hurt you because you can’t … you know.”
“Have children … the conventional way.”
“Yes.” She burst into tears again. “I’m sorry you can’t. I’m sorry, Robin. I’m sorry, so so sorry.”
“Well, it’s over. Forget about it. Burke must be really happy. He always wanted to be a daddy.”
I was behaving very reasonably, I thought, but inside I was burning: I wasn’t humiliated enough already, now you tell me my husband has impregnated his fertile young fiancée. What other hell lay in wait for me?
“I’m sorry I bothered you,” she said, taking a monogrammed handkerchief out of her purse and delicately wiping her eyes.
“It’s all right.”
She probably wasn’t such a bad sort, I thought. I was probably biased because my heart got broken. The image of Burke and Amy together flashed in my mind, and for the first time it looked right to me. Well, not right, but it didn’t make me feel sick anymore.
“Did you follow me from the subway?”
“No. I waited outside for you, inside the doorway of the video store on the corner, until I saw you come up the block.”
“Oh.”
“I’m really sorry to bother you this way. But I had to know. I’m carrying his baby.…”
“I get the point,” I said. “Congratulations and all that. Forgive me if I’m not completely overjoyed.”
“I’m so sorry. You know, I couldn’t help but fall in love with him.… I wasn’t trying to break anything up.”
“Yeah, he’s got a way about him, doesn’t he?” I said.
I changed the subject as I didn’t much feel like saying nice things about Burke to salve Amy’s feelings. Besides, I just realized Amy could be very useful to me.
“Listen, Amy, I understand you shared a cab with Madri on New Year’s Eve. Who got dropped first, you or her?”
“She lives a little closer, so I dropped her. Why?”
“Did you see her go in?”
“Yes,” Amy said.
“Hmm. But she could have gone in and come back out after you’d left, couldn’t she?” I mused aloud.
“She had to change to go on to another party, she told me. So when I had to leave early, she was happy to go with me.”
“Oh. Amy, I’m sorry if I drove you away from the party,” I said, immature enough to try to salvage some small victory from this whole situation.
“You didn’t. Not at all,” she said. “I said it was flu, I know, but really it was morning sickness. They call it morning sickness, but it hits at all different times.”
“You had morning sickness that night, and you got into a New York taxi?”
She smiled. “I’d already thrown up my dinner. Madri brought me a glass of soda and Eric helped us get a cab.”
“You threw up in the ladies’ room?”
“Well, not in the cab,” she said.
“A lot of people throwing up that night. Susan, for example. Did you happen to see her in the next stall?”
“I don’t remember seeing her,” Amy said.
It didn’t matter, because I remembered now; I’d gone into the ladies’ room, and it was empty. I made a note to call Susan.
“Hardly anyone knows about the pregnancy yet. You won’t tell anyone, will you? I have my image to consider and the divorce isn’t final.…”
“Not if you don’t want me to,” I said.
“This is difficult for you. But you know, there are silver linings. You can date again. And you get rid of your in-laws.”
I didn’t want to let her off this easily, but she’d managed to find our common ground here. My soon-to-be ex-in-laws, who live in East Percy Township, New Jersey, the preserve of pearls at lunch and the Pat Nixon hairdo.
“Have you met Eileen and H. A. yet?” I asked.
She nodded and smiled a small, wicked smile. “They don’t like me so much. When Burke left you, Eileen was … um …”
“Ecstatic,” I suggested.
“Um, well, happy. But then she met me. I don’t come from a pedigreed family, you know. I come from people who did fifteen cents’ work for every nickel they got paid.”
These folksy aphorisms of Amy’s were kind of her on-air trademark, that and her repeated assertion that she came from “salt-of-the-earth working people,” despite the fact that she looked and behaved like an Upper East Side princess.
“You know, my father was a salesman. He couldn’t give me an expensive college education,” she continued.
She was very defensive about all this. I gathered these were all the things she wished she had said to Mrs. Stedlbauer—Eileen.
“I had to work my way up. Like you did, Robin.”
It’s true I didn’t grow up rich. My father had a college education, but we never had any money. By day he taught high school math, by night he toiled in the garage, “trying to make the world safe for children like you,” as he explained it to me. When he died, he held the patents on two safety valves for natural gas equipment and this generated enough income for us to subsist. I have worked since I was fourteen to help support myself and my mother, and I still send her a check every month.
The Stedlbauers, on the other hand, had money, money that had been in circulation for longer than my people had even been in America, which apparently meant something. Eileen seemed to see me as walking anarchy. She was constantly worried that I was going to say or do the wrong thing and bring shame upon my husband, her precious only son.
For example, when we left after Christmas dinner one year, she handed me a book and said, “I thought you could use this.”
The book was Vogue’s Book of Etiquette, 1948 edition, in which I found this gem:
The whole relation of men to women, as far as etiquette is concerned, is based on the assumption that woman is a delicate, sensitive creature, easily tired, who must be feted, amused, and protected, to whom the bright and gay side of the picture must always be turned.
The table of contents had several listings flagged with red stars and little comments in Mrs. Stedlbauer’s perfect finishing-school handwriting, such as, “Formal dinner settings and dinner etiquette are still relevant today! PLEASE read, for your sake.”
Jeez. A couple of wrong silverware choices at the dinner table and a knocked-over glass of ice water and the woman thought I was Fred Flintstone. I was so offended. I told Burke I was tempted to show up for the next Christmas dinner wearing a black leather catsuit, pentagram earrings, and one extra-long Lee press-on nail with which to scoop up cranberry sauce.
“You know, Amy, I have a book you’ll want,” I said, and went to get it. “Eileen would want you to have this. They have to like you now that you’re, you know …”
She opened her mouth to say the word and I held up my hand to stop her. I didn’t want to hear it again.
“Do you know if it’s a boy or a girl?”
“It’s a boy,” she said.
“Eileen and H. A. will enthrone you.”
I walked her out and as soon as she was gone I went to the phone and called Susan, leaving a message on her machine. Then I started thinking about Burke and Amy, about how I’d trusted him and how I stopped trusting him.
It had been almost a year since I really seriously started to suspect Burke was cheating on me. You know, the classic signs. He was working late a lot, he was distant and preoccupied when he was with me, there were a lot of random hang-up calls at all hours. When I confronted him, he cut me off indignantly. He was merely “cultivating a source,” he said, which in one sense could be the truth, depending on how literally you take the statement and how dirty your mind is.
Amy was already worried about Burke cheating on her, and they hadn’t even gotten married yet. The irony—and though I had resisted, she was still probably right. She could have him and welcome. I wanted a man I could trust.