The Misfortune Cookie ed-6 Page 6

  “Oh. No wonder I feel like a pumpkin,” I said, still holding his wrist.

  “Uh-huh.”

  “It’s almost morning,” I said.

  But suddenly I wasn’t thinking about the time.

  “I know,” he murmured.

  My thoughts had shifted to how sturdy his arm felt. I hadn’t touched him in a week—except to slap him tonight.

  “I wanted to release you sooner, but um . . .” His voice was a little breathless now. “But it takes some time to . . . uh . . .” He trailed off.

  I looked up into his face and our eyes met. I had stepped closer to him to look at his watch. Now I realized how close. I could feel his body heat. With our gazes locked, I saw the fatigue in his dark-lashed eyes replaced by a spark of something else. Something I’d seen there before. His gaze drifted down to my lips and his breathing changed.

  Everything inside me quickened and my hand tightened on his wrist. Touching him for a moment, even with his wooly sweater between my fingers and his flesh, reminded me of what it was like to touch him elsewhere . . . Everywhere . . . Really touch him. Anywhere I wanted, as much as I wanted . . .

  NO. Stop right there.

  I dropped his wrist like a hot rock and stepped away so quickly I stumbled.

  “Careful.” He reached for me.

  “Don’t,” I snapped, staggering away from his outstretched hand.

  “Huh?”

  I balanced myself against the nearby wall, aware that I was breathing too hard for someone who’d simply been standing around for the past few minutes.

  “Esther?” he prodded.

  “Don’t do that,” I said. “You are not allowed to do that.”

  “Okay,” he said quickly.

  “Just don’t.”

  “I won’t,” he promised.

  “Good.”

  After a pause, he said, “Just so I know . . . What are we talking about?”

  I stared at him incredulously. “I never cease to be amazed,” I said in disgust, “at what a guy you can be.”

  “And here we go,” he muttered.

  “No, here we don’t,” I said. “I’m leaving. Right now.”

  He nodded, apparently perceiving the unwisdom of saying anything more just now. My coat was still slung over his arm. He shook it out now and held it open for me.

  That date-like gesture upset me, all things considered, so I snatched the garment away from him and slipped into it by myself. It was a heavy, knee-length wool coat with a hood. I’d found it at a thrift shop two years ago. It had a ragged hem and a dark stain on one side, and its profusion of buttons and zippers always took a while to fasten and unfasten. But it was really warm and very good at keeping out the icy winter winds that hurtled down the urban canyons created by the city’s tall buildings.

  While I zipped and buttoned, feeling self-conscious as Lopez watched me, I said, “I need to go home and get some sleep. Because then I have to go look for a new job now that you’ve closed down my place of employment.”

  “I was doing my job,” he shot back. “And if Stella didn’t want her restaurant to be shut down, then she shouldn’t have . . . Um . . . never mind.”

  Apparently my expression had made him recognize the folly of justifying tonight’s events to me at this particular moment.

  Lopez sighed and, in an apparent attempt to placate me, said, “Look, maybe some acting work will turn up soon. You’ll get some auditions and . . . and . . .” After taking a good long look at my face, he said in defeat, “I probably just shouldn’t speak, huh?”

  “No. And that shouldn’t be a problem for you.” I picked up my daypack. “As I’ve learned this past week, you’re really good at not speaking to me.”

  I turned away and stalked toward the exit, eager to get out of here—and away from him, before I either hit him again or else burst into tears.

  “Esther! Wait!”

  I heard his footsteps behind me, but I didn’t slow down, let alone turn around. I had a dark feeling that tears might triumph in a few more seconds, and I didn’t want him to see that. Being around him kept reminding me of the night we’d spent together, which made it that much harder for me to bear everything that had happened since then.

  “Esther, stop,” he said, right behind me now.

  When I felt his hand on my arm, trying to halt me, I tried to jerk away from him. “Leave me alone!”

  He tightened his grip, pulled me to a sudden stop, and turned me around to face him.

  “Don’t!” I yanked myself out of his grasp.

  “Sorry, sorry.” He raised his hands, palms out, and took a step back. “Sorry, but this is important. There’s something . . .” He looked uncomfortable. “Something I . . .”

  Against my will, I felt a little flutter of hope unfurl inside me. “Something you want to say?” I prodded.

  “Yes.” He nodded. “Something I want to say.”

  I hesitated only a moment. “Okay. I’ll listen.”

  “Good.” He took a breath . . . but seemed to have trouble getting started. “Um . . .”

  I waited, running his lines for him in my head: I’m sorry. I should have called. I’m a toad, a worm, a dung beetle. But I’ll do anything in the world to make it up to you. Can you ever forgive me?

  That would be a good beginning. I waited for him to start there.

  “There’s something I keep thinking about . . .” he said tentatively.

  I can never apologize enough for the way I’ve treated you. I don’t deserve it, but even so, I’m begging you for another chance.

  I liked that. He could riff on that for a while. And then he’d need to explain what the hell had happened. Since it was obvious his tongue hadn’t been cut out by marauding bandits, I tried to think of some other acceptable excuse for his failure to call me. Maybe . . .

  As soon as I left your apartment, I was abducted by aliens and taken to the mother ship. They didn’t release me until tonight. Nothing less than that would have made me go a whole week without calling you after what happened between us.

  Hmm. Maybe not.

  I frowned as I tried to think of a more plausible reason that would be equally acceptable.

  Nothing came to me. I started feeling vexed with him again.

  A week! A whole week.

  “Well?” I prodded, thinking this had better be good. Really good. “What are you trying to say?”

  “Are you still taking the pill?” he asked in a rush.

  I blinked. “What?”

  “We didn’t use anything that night. You know—protection. And, uh, I didn’t ask at the time . . .” When I didn’t respond, he added, “It’s something we should talk about.”

  “Oh, now you want to talk,” I said, feeling fresh outrage rush through me. “All week, you couldn’t be bothered to speak to me! But now that you’ve arrested me, you’re feeling chatty.”

  “Could we please stick to the subject?” he said irritably. “Just for a minute?”

  “I am on the subject!”

  “Are you still taking the pill?” His voice was getting louder. “That’s all I want to know!”

  A man being led past us in handcuffs looked at us with interest. So did the cop who was escorting him.

  Lopez noticed and made an exasperated sound. “Great. We’re the floor show again.”

  I waited until those two men were out of earshot, then I demanded, “How did you even know I was taking birth control pills?” We had never discussed it.

  “I saw them in your bathroom a few months ago.”

  “You’ve got no right to search my bathroom!”

  “I didn’t. You left them lying out,” he said. “I noticed them when I was, you know, using the bathroom.”

  “Well, you shouldn’t have noticed,” I sputtered, too angry to care how lame that sounded. “It’s none of your business.”

  “It is now,” he pointed out.

  “So this is what you’ve been thinking about?” I demanded.

  �
��Yes.”

  “This is what you wanted to say to me?”

  “Yes.”

  I thought about hitting him again.

  When I didn’t answer him, he said in exasperation, “Fine. Let me put this another way. Could you be pregnant now?”

  There was a roaring in my ears for a moment, and then everything went silent. I stared blankly at Lopez, suddenly feeling drained and empty. The combination of anger, humiliation, and hurt that I’d been juggling for days caught up with me, as did my fatigue, my financial stress, and my anxiety about finding another job soon enough to keep myself going. I felt ready to collapse, and I could hardly form a coherent thought. I swayed a little, feeling a bit dizzy.

  “Are you okay?” He reached out to steady me, then evidently remembered my reactions tonight to his attempts to touch me, and stopped himself. “Esther? You look a little . . . Are you all right?”

  “Yeah. I’m just really tired.” My voice sounded dull and distant to me. I felt dull and distant now.

  Lopez rested his hands on his hips, looked at the floor, and let out his breath slowly. “All right, look. Maybe this isn’t the time—”

  “I’m still taking my pills.” I’d been on that prescription for several years. It helped stabilize my erratic cycle and control my symptoms. “And I’m definitely not pregnant.” Nature had made that quite clear in recent days.

  He nodded. “Okay,” he said quietly.

  I knew I was really mad at him, but I just couldn’t feel it now. Everything had shut down. I just wanted to lie down and go to sleep. Nothing else mattered.

  “Are we done?” I asked wearily. “Can I go?”

  “Yeah. But I want you to wait here a minute, okay? I’m going to get a squad car to take you home.”

  Since I couldn’t afford to waste money on a cab, and the logistics of getting home by foot and subway at five o’clock on a frigid winter morning seemed overwhelming just now, I nodded my agreement.

  A few minutes later, Lopez escorted me outside, where it was dark and bitterly cold, and put me in the backseat of a squad car. A uniformed policewoman was behind the wheel. Her male partner sat in the passenger seat. I nodded in response to their brief greeting.

  Lopez said to me, “They’ll wait in the street until they’re sure you’re inside your apartment. Turn on a light so they’ll know, okay?”

  I nodded again, too tired to speak.

  He said to the cops in the front seat, “Miss Diamond lives on the second floor, and her living room faces the street. Don’t leave until you see the light go on.”

  “Understood, detective.”

  And then, despite how apathetically exhausted I was now, Lopez managed to enrage me one last time.

  “I’ll call you,” he promised me.

  It was like being poked with a cattle prod. My temper ignited immediately, my energy suddenly renewed. “I can’t believe you! The nerve. The gall! The—”

  “I just said the wrong thing, didn’t I?” he guessed.

  “It’s exactly what you said when you left my bed a week ago,” I fumed. “And then you never called!”

  “He slept with you and then didn’t call?” said the policewoman at the wheel of the squad car. “For a week?”

  “That’s right!” I said.

  “God,” said Lopez, “I just hate my whole life right now.”

  “Men,” said the policewoman.

  “Oh, come on,” said her partner. “That’s not fair. We’re not all like him.”

  “Take Miss Diamond home now,” Lopez instructed them. “Right now.”

  “Men,” I agreed, as Lopez slammed the car door shut and walked away.

  I fumed in stony silence all the way home, huddled in the backseat of the police car while the two cops in the front seat bickered about . . . I don’t know. Mars, Venus, men, women, Lopez, and me. Something like that.

  After I let myself into my shabby but welcoming apartment in Manhattan’s West Thirties, I turned on the light, then went to the window and waved at the bickering cops in the car on the street below, so they’d go away.

  My daypack by now felt like it was stuffed with bricks. I slid it off my shoulder and dropped it on the floor. Then I headed toward my bedroom, unzipping and unbuttoning my coat. As soon as I slid it off my shoulders, I shivered. My apartment was freezing. I quickly stripped off my clothes, leaving them lying in a heap on the floor, and donned heavy flannel pajamas, followed by a thick, fuzzy bathrobe. After a quick trip down the hall to the bathroom, I crawled into bed, still wearing my bathrobe, and collapsed facedown on my pillow, so relieved to be there.

  I was just drifting off to sleep, trying to banish the random thoughts and images that were floating through my head, when I realized who hadn’t witnessed my embarrassingly public fight at Bella Stella with Lopez about extremely private things. Who hadn’t been in the police van, either, along with me and the other prisoners.

  Once again living up to his nickname, Alberto “Lucky Bastard” Battistuzzi had escaped OCCB’s sweep of the Gambello crew.

  When the cops barreled into the restaurant, shouting “NYPD!” and everyone else started screaming in response (in particular, I remembered Ronnie shouting, “It’s a raid!”), Lucky had been in the men’s room, trying to clean splattered lasagna off his clothes. Alerted to what was happening, he must have made his getaway.

  I assumed the cops had all the exits covered, but it didn’t surprise me that Lucky had managed to slip away undetected. He was wily, experienced, and quick-thinking, and he knew that building well. He was also, well, lucky.

  I wondered where he was now. He presumably couldn’t go home, and I doubted he’d gone to Victor Gambello’s house—that would be too obvious to be safe. Besides, for all we knew, the cops were executing a search warrant there, too.

  Well, wherever Lucky was tonight, I thought drowsily as I drifted off to sleep, I hoped he was all right.

  4

  Laoshi

  An elder teacher, sage, and role model who has devoted his life to knowledge and wisdom.

  Job hunting was not going well. Employers were letting go of holiday staff in the early days of January, not hiring new people. I filled out applications online and in person. I applied at restaurants, retail stores, and temp agencies. I answered employment ads and looked for signs in windows. Some places with “Help Wanted” signs posted told me that those notices were left over from last month and should really be taken down.

  “Gee, y’think?” I muttered.

  Other places said they just weren’t hiring. “It’s the economy,” they’d tell me with a resigned shrug.

  Some places had already filled the positions I inquired about. With so many people looking for work these days, I supposed this wasn’t surprising.

  While overpaid politicians with self-righteous smirks and media pundits with patent-leather hair, all of whom had enjoyed paid holidays last week, daily shrieked insults into TV cameras about the lazy, no-good, leeching poor and unemployed of America, I skidded across icy pavements and waded through ankle deep slush each day, looking for work.

  Every morning, I left my apartment around nine o’clock, after mixing my breakfast smoothie from a discount container of nonfat yogurt and a bag of fruit I’d found at the back of my now-empty freezer. For thirty minutes each afternoon, I’d “grab lunch” by pretending to be a shopper at the upscale food emporiums where they handed out free samples. At night, I’d get home around nine o’clock and heat up some beans and rice for dinner.

  Naturally, during my darkest moment one evening, when I was morosely wondering if I’d ever work again at all, let alone as an actress, my mother called.

  She has an uncanny ability to sense when I am at my lowest and immediately phone me. And then she manages to make me feel even worse. It’s her gift.

  “You should have known better than to work for a criminal organization,” she said after I explained as briefly and vaguely as possible what had happened to my job.

  In
other words, it was my fault that I was out of work now.

  I tried to change the subject by asking a few questions about things in my parents’ lives back in Madison, Wisconsin, where I’d been raised. My father is a history professor at the university, and my mother is a youth employment counselor. They’re active in the local community and bedrock members of their synagogue.

  But my mother was not to be thwarted in her efforts to find out just how bad things were going here.

  “So you haven’t had an audition lately?” she asked. “Not any at all? None?”

  “No, Mom, not for a month. Things have been slow.”

  She decided to send me money. I declined the offer with thanks—sincere thanks, in fact.

  My parents didn’t understand my lifestyle; but, to give them credit, they loved me anyhow, and they didn’t fight me on my choices. My mother was critical and my father was bewildered, but they had recognized me as a mystery child many years ago, as someone who’d been born into their family via some cosmic joke, and they had decided to accept it. (Jews are good at enduring. Not silent about it, but good at it.)

  My only sibling, Ruth, was four years older, and she was much more the sort of person they had expected to raise. Married to a Jewish lawyer in Chicago, she was a professional woman with two small children and a good salary. (She was also invariably so stressed out that on the few occasions I saw her, I always had the jitters for days afterward.)

  I appreciated that despite their not understanding me—and despite their phone calls not always being a source of undiluted joy for me—my parents accepted that I had chosen this path in life and was committed to it. They tried, in their way, to be supportive and show an interest in my work.

  And I had always felt that my obligation in our silent pact, since life is a two-way street, was not to trouble them with the problems that inevitably arose from this lifestyle. I knew they wouldn’t mind sending me money now and then; but I thought it just didn’t seem right to ask or accept. It somehow felt a bit like asking to them help me cover the cost of converting to Christianity and getting baptized. (Well, without the hysterical threats of self-immolation that my mother would immediately start shrieking in such a situation.)