Weeks went by and Arnie and I had dinner together a few times. I surprised myself by being close-mouthed about the whole Luke saga. Instead of eating in, we decided we needed a “feed,” so we went to the famed 2nd Avenue Deli, not on 2nd Avenue and Tenth Street in the East Village anymore, but now on East 33rd, between Lexington and Third.
No New York deli fan can forget the story of the beloved owner, Abe Lebewol, who opened it in 1954 and was known for his generosity in feeding the needy. When he was murdered in 1996 on his way to make a deposit in the bank, it shocked New Yorkers and made headlines. The case was never solved.
Arnie and I gorged ourselves on oversized pastrami and corned beef sandwiches, potato knishes, great coleslaw, and sour pickles. Just as the check arrived, Arnie turned to me. There was an expression on his face I’d never seen before.
“I think I met someone.”
I looked up, surprised. “Way to go, buddy,” I said, a bit too enthusiastically. “Who is she?”
“She works in my office.”
I had been sure he’d say he met her online and I’d been about to give him an I-told-you-so. “A new hire?”
He shook his head. “She’s worked there for almost as long as I have, and I don’t know whether she got a new haircut or something, but we were in the cafeteria line together and we started to talk about the way they didn’t change the oil enough when they fried the flounder.”
I lifted my eyebrows, but I didn’t want to stop him.
“We ended up having lunch together and I asked her if she wanted to have dinner someplace where the fried fish was fresh. I’ve seen her a few times since.”
“Great, Arnie, I hope it works out for you.” Then the little bee stings of jealousy. Now even Arnie had met someone. Jennelle had Daniel. Even Mary Alice was no longer home alone watching the seagulls. She was in the city meeting a male friend who was taking her to dinner and to the Public Theater. Just a friend, but nonetheless an evening out with a member of the opposite sex. And the great makeover queen? Miss Look Perfect Anytime, Anywhere? Home with a DVD from Netflix. At this rate, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences would anoint me master of filmography.
“So you didn’t even need new clothes,” I said, making myself feel even worse. “She likes you for who you are.”
“Well, I did buy the suit you sent me the picture of,” he said, brightening my spirits somewhat. “And I tried to buy the tie too, but they were sold out.”
“You should have told me. I could have gotten it for you wholesale. What’s her name?” I asked for no particular reason.
“Brie.”
I had trouble with certain names, particularly if they were usually attached to things like cheese, rather than people. (Yes, sage is a cooking herb, but it’s more common.) Or, for that matter, if the names were not gender specific (Jordan, for example), leading to the obvious questions.
“Maybe her mother had a craving for brie during her pregnancy?” I couldn’t resist.
“Actually, yes—no, I have no idea,” Arnie said, smoothing his hair. I was making him uncomfortable.
“I’m happy for you. I’d love to meet her.”
“I’m making her dinner one night next week. I’ll let you know when so you can come up.”
• • •
Jennelle emailed me a picture of Luke. It was part of a short item about his show that ran on a downtown paper’s website. I considered printing it out and remembered a friend of mine told me about a psychic who could tell you about your life without meeting you—even if you lived far away—if she had a recent picture of you.
Unsettling was the word that came to mind when I thought of Luke. There was this tension. But was it because he was ill at ease with everybody, or just with me? I stared at the picture. The streaked blond hair, the barest smile. Shyness? Arrogance? Insolence? He never called after I left his house. Would he write? Was he waiting for me to call him?
The first thing he should have done was ask me to have dinner, showing warmth, caring, personal interest to make me feel like a person, not an object in a still life, a pear in a bowl of fruit. So one day if it wasn’t there, it could be replaced by an apple. A fig. No big deal.
Days passed and I went from client to client, closet to closet, putting other people’s lives back on track, ordering their chaos, listening to their frustrations, and helping them become who they could be. Sometimes the benefits of helping others were enough. But not now. My work was hard. It wasn’t glamorous, despite what people thought.
Shopping all day? So fun!
Some days, in fact, I felt like a servant: hooking people’s bras, pulling up their panties, and helping them on with their shoes like a supplicant.
It came as no surprise one morning that I felt a scratchy feeling in the back of my throat. I rummaged through my bag and realized I didn’t have any zinc lozenges. To make matters worse, I was in Soho after meeting a model who needed clothes for her honeymoon. She was always dressed by magazine stylists and designers, she said, but when she had to dress herself, especially for an important occasion, she was completely at a loss.
I was walking down Broadway a few days after we had snow. Much of it was piled on the sides of the street, but there was still a thin layer of ice coating the sidewalk. I took small, baby steps, as if I were playing Simple Simon, taking care not to slip. Very few people were outside. Lower Manhattan seemed to have its own rhythm, not getting up and joining the world until almost lunchtime. Just as I approached the subway, I looked up when I heard the sound of a heavy metal door on an industrial building slamming closed. A woman with long, dark hair walked out. She was wearing a full-length sable coat. She had a long orange scarf wrapped several times around her neck. In her hand was a burnt orange Kelly bag. A moment later, someone tall and blond in a brown leather bomber jacket followed her out. Just before I went down the staircase, I looked back once more and realized who it was.
Luke.