Double Take (6 page)

“He probably just forgot to mention it.”

Sam gave her one of his inscrutable looks but didn't say anything.

1975

“See, there I was, Joey, sixteen years old and I thought I was so sophisticated and cool, but I was actually really naive. I didn't understand anything, not consciously, but I felt it, I mean I sensed it. People would tell me stuff, and then Sam used to hint sometimes. I think he was proud, you know what I mean? He used to say to me, look at you, Cookie, you're going to go to college. And look at me—I never finished eighth grade. But I got all the money I could ever want, I got a house and a Cadillac. What are you going to do with all that college? And then he'd laugh.”

“Yeah, he'd laugh.” Joey imitated Sam's dry laugh.

“And he was right about the college. Totally right.”

“The jury's still out on that, aren't they?”

“No, I think the jury is in. Four years of self-indulgent bullshit. Thousands of my parents' dollars down the drain.”

“You must have learned something there.”

I thought about it. What had I learned? I had learned that I could love someone forever and then just stop. I had learned that no matter how good anything seemed to be at the time, that thing could turn to shit. I had learned a lot about Renaissance art and Romantic poetry.

“Nope,” I said.

1969

Cookie had mentioned it casually. “So, Victor, you gonna invite me to your party?”

Victor looked at her patiently as if he had been expecting this question. “Listen, Rachel, it's not your kind of thing. I mean, there'll be a lot of people who have, well, drugs and stuff.”

“Of course, Victor, that's why it's called a party. Hey, I'm not gonna get wasted or anything, I just want to come.”

He looked at her. “You're not invited.” He wasn't smiling.

She had ended up staying home and watching TV. The party had been busted, and Victor had ended up in jail.

“How'd you like the party the other night?” Sam said the following Monday as they sat around the table listening to “My Way” for the millionth time.

“I didn't go.”

“Oh? Why not?”

“Victor told me not to.”

“Is that right?” Sam looked out the front window and wiped his forehead with a napkin.

At the party, Victor had been arrested for possession of a chunk of hash that had been loose in his pocket. By Monday, he was back on 57th Street, describing his ordeal
and explaining that he had gotten off because his lawyer and the police had decided that the case wasn't worth bothering a judge about.

Sam turned to Cookie and leaned forward. He looked her right in the eyes, which he didn't usually do. “You ever notice anything kinda funny about Victor?”

“Like what?”

“I don't know. You tell me.”

She thought for a minute. “You mean like how his hair is just growing out, as if it used to be short?”

Sam didn't say anything. He lit a cigarette and blew smoke toward the ceiling.

“And like he carries that guitar around all the time but he can't play it? And you know, sometimes I wonder if he's really from Canada. He doesn't have an accent like Fletcher does. And he says this is his first time in the States, but then why would he have a sticker on his guitar case from that antiwar demonstration in Boston?”

He didn't say anything, just blew out a big cloud of smoke and sat in it, nodding to himself.

Shortly after this, Victor disappeared.

1975

Although I had been living on the third floor of my parents' decaying Victorian house for four months, I realized one morning that in all that time, I had not cleaned my room. My parents' cleaning woman had cleaned it for the first two weeks I had been home, but after that I managed to talk her out of it. It seemed wrong to have Angie picking up after me when I was theoretically capable of doing it myself, even if I didn't. I mentioned this to my mother, and she agreed that this kind of social stratification was one of the evils of capitalism. My mother made remarks like this every now and then, vestiges of what my father sneeringly referred to as her Red Youth. I told my mother that having someone clean up our mess flew in the face of all she had taught me about equality and justice. My father asked if anyone had ever taught me how to mop and wax a floor. I said no. He sighed and went back to his newspaper and martini.

The truth was, I liked my room the way it was, with suitcases full of junk I had brought back from college still unpacked and stuffed under the bed; piles of clothes, clean and dirty mixed together; stacks of papers and old sketchbooks; half-full cups of cold coffee with a layer of scum on the top; everything covered with dust. The bed was unmade, the sheets, which I never changed, tangled and dirty. The floor was covered with books I couldn't get through and stacks of records I couldn't bear to listen to because for some reason they made me too sad. Dead plants sat on the windowsills. On the wall across from my bed was the mural I had begun painting in the summer of 1968 and continued adding to until I left for college. It was a mess of psychedelic lettering, slogans
against the war, snatches of poems and songs, paisley, flowers, sketches of the buildings on 57th Street, faces of people I knew. One of them was Bando. At the top of the mural I had painted a bright yellow sun, a rainbow, clouds, stars—a saccharine touch, I now thought. For years, late at night, I had lain in bed staring at this embarrassing crap. It was truly bad art, and I would be the first to admit it, but even my mother agreed it had captured a quality of that time. She wanted to paint over it.

On this particular day, just before Halloween, I decided to tidy up—just a few things, to preserve the ambiance. I brought my dirty coffee cups downstairs and put them in the sink. I took a stack of dirty clothes and threw them in the washing machine, then went back up to my room and surveyed what was left. It didn't look any cleaner yet, so I put away all of the books and records, sorted through more clothes, even made the bed, tossing a dirty Indian-print bedspread on top of it. Then I got the vacuum cleaner and went after dust kittens. An old industrial model with a long hose, it exuded a comforting smell of machine oil and warm filth.

As I stuck the hose under the bed, I heard something attach to it. I pulled it out and found an unopened letter from Michael. I had thrown all of his letters under my bed when they arrived. I was supposed to stay here long enough to save a bunch of money, then go back out to California and live with him while he went to law school. But for some reason, once I came back here it was clear I could never do that. It wasn't that I didn't want to, it just didn't seem possible. Somehow, I couldn't quite bring myself to write and tell him this. So I had read the first two or three of his letters, which discussed the necessity of making plans, something of which I was not capable, and I had talked to him a few times on the phone, but after that I had not opened his envelopes or taken his
calls, as if this would somehow keep him from ever having existed. This letter was covered with dust, and as I slit the envelope with my finger, the paper cut my skin.

“Rachel, Rachel,” it began. I threw it on the floor as if it had burned me, then bent and picked it back up again. “What are you thinking? What are you doing?” I stopped reading. This was exactly the sort of thing I wanted to avoid. I figured he was about to go into some kind of diatribe, but if I didn't actually read this letter it would be as if it had never been written. I reached under the bed and grabbed all his letters, threw them in a paper bag, took it outside to the big garbage can next to the back porch, and shoved it in there, jamming the lid back on so they couldn't escape. Then I went back up to my room, lay down on the bed, and fell asleep.

“Why don't you write back to that poor boy?” my mother had asked me one day. This was the most direct reference she had ever made to Michael and me. I'm sure she was dying to know what was going on, but as she often told me, she and my father were not the type of parents to interfere. She therefore used a method of casual inquiry, to give me the space to talk about it if I wanted to. This was extremely thoughtful of her. It drove me insane.

“I can't,” I said. “There's no postal service between my planet and his.”

She shrugged and went back to repotting a geranium.

I still wasn't sure why every time I ran into Joey, which was fairly often, I ended up spilling my guts to him. I hadn't really talked about Michael with anyone else, not even Emily, unless you counted talking to myself, a bad habit I had recently developed.

“I feel like I can say stuff to you,” I said to Joey.

“It's because you've known me so long,” he said. “We're like family.”

“I think it has something to do with the beer. It's like sodium pentothal.”

“That shit don't really work, you know.”

“Hey, what are you, a pharmacist?”

“No, but I hear it's a great job. Regular hours, good pay. Some of my best friends are pharmacists.”

“I'll bet they are.”

“You could do worse.”

“You sound like my mother. You probably think I should be a pharmacist.”

“What have you got against pharmacists?”

“Nothing. In fact, I don't think I've ever even met one.”

“What about when you get you prescription filled?”

“Okay. Then. Geez, Joe, don't fuck with me, I'm hanging by a thread here.”

“It's like you're afraid of growing up or something.”

“I don't think I'm in any danger of that. And by the way, you're still sounding like my mother. You know what she suggested the other day? She said I should try to get a job at the university press designing textbook covers.”

“What's wrong with that?”

“Have you ever really looked at a textbook cover?”

“Can't say as I have.”

“Well, it's always some goddamn impressionist painting with a bunch of fucking flowers in it.”

“You know, you swear a lot more when you've been drinking.”

“You got a problem with that?”

“No, ma'am.”

“Anyway, if I get a job at the university, that means I have to stay here, doesn't it?”

“What's so bad about staying here?”

I didn't have an answer for that.

“So you were engaged to this guy Michael?”

“We were not engaged. We were in love. That's the technical term.” I managed not to slur my words. “We had a tacit understanding.”

“I like that. Tacit understanding. That's pithy.”

“I'm not trying to pith.”

“What's that mean, anyway? Tacit understanding?”

“I have no idea. I think it meant we agreed to live happily ever after.”

He laughed. “Nice work if you can get it.”

“I was supposed to go out there and live with him while he went to law school. I guess I was supposed to get a job or something, and then we would hunker down while he was in school, and then we would get married and have the statistical average number of children. I guess. I mean, I guess that was the plan. We'd never really talked it through to its logical conclusion.”

“So what's wrong with that? Sounds kind of nice.”

“You think so? Well, here's the catch. What was I supposed to do while he went to law school? Have you ever been to Davis?”

“Where's that?”

“I don't know. Somewhere in Northern California. Everyone rides bicycles, and they wear ski parkas and do yoga and eat lots of granola.”

“Places like that scare me.”

“They scare me too. They're too—too—”

“Nice?”

“Yeah, that's it. Nice. Nice, nice, nice.” I took another sip of beer. “I just can't see myself there. I mean, I couldn't. Past tense. He said, well, it's only for three years, but shit, three years—I've only been here five months, but it feels like a million eons.”

“I know what you mean.”

“You know, I get the feeling you really
do
know what I mean. Everyone else tries to talk me out of how I feel. Emily's always telling me to either go out there or shut the fuck up about it. She thinks I'm ridiculous. Do
you
think I'm ridiculous?”

“Doesn't matter what I think. What do you think?”

“Definitely.” I laughed my new laugh with the tinge of hysteria I was beginning to hate. “I mean, it's not exactly like I'm doing anything with myself here. What the fuck, I could probably get a waitress job out there.”

“You are a damn fine waitress.”

“But I can't see me doing that.”

“Waitressing?”

“Hanging around, waiting for Michael to finish law school. At the end of three years, he's a lawyer. And what am I?”

“What are you now?”

“Why do you always ask me questions I don't have an answer for?”

“Why do you think?”

We both started laughing. I lay my head down on the table. It felt cool and sticky against my forehead.

1975

“You're late, Rita.”

“I'm not late.” I didn't bother to correct Nicky about my name. I didn't give a shit. “I'm exactly on time.”

“Well, you should have been early. It's Tuesday.”

“So what if it's Tuesday?”

He waddled away cursing in Greek.

“He's insane,” I said to Saida, one of the other waitresses, who was standing at our station drinking a cup of coffee and smoking a Virginia Slim. She smiled and nodded. She had recently arrived from Tunisia and spoke no English, which suited me fine. She was one of the few people I could talk to. I tapped my temple.

“
Il est fou
,” she said.

“
Oui
,” I said. “
D'accord
.”

“Rita!” I heard Nicky's voice from out of nowhere. “You're on the counter.”

“Thanks, you're a pal.” I hated the counter. Everyone sat there for hours drinking endless cups of our putrid coffee, then undertipping me. I would have to race back and forth pouring refills and wiping Formica as waves of electricians, plumbers, cops, and students came and went, telling me their problems as I passed. Their problems, which were always much worse than mine, sometimes made me feel better. Sometimes they made me feel like I had accidentally strolled into hell.

I said
à bientôt
to Saida and went behind the counter.

“Thanks, baby,” said Tee, the woman who was on before me. She had a night job to get to. She handed me a rag that smelled like mildew. “Have a good one.”

“You, too.”

“Hey there, Rachel,” a voice said behind me. It was my favorite customer, Oscar, a weird little man with mournful eyes. Every day he came into Diana's and ordered a dish of Jell-O; I was pretty sure it was the only thing he ate. Even though his tips could only be described as negligible, everyone adored him. He treated us with respect and gratitude, as if every little thing we did for him was a special treat.

“Raspberry today,” I told him.

His eyes lit up as I brought him his little metal dish. I liked to watch him eat because even though it was only Jell-O, he savored every mouthful. Sometimes after he'd gone, I'd get myself a dish and try to imagine what it tasted like to him. Unfortunately, to me it just tasted like fake-fruity, metallic slime.

“You're so easy to please,” I said, handing him a spoon.

“It's an art, honey.”

I inquired about the health of his cat, who had been sick with a mysterious wasting disease. He said she was better, and was telling me more than I really wanted to know about her internal state when a bunch of cops came in, all wanting coffee to go. There wasn't enough left in the three pots Tee had left, so I poured all the dregs into one pot and made more. Because coffee was free for cops, they drank a lot of it, and sometimes even managed to scrape up a little change between them to tip me. “What the hell, I don't need your money,” I often said to them. “I make eighty cents an hour.”

More electricians and plumbers were pouring in—mid-afternoon was their break time—and filling up my three booths across from the counter. As soon as the new coffee was made, I poured it all out for the cops, but it was still not enough, so I made another pot. I dashed back to Oscar to offer him more water, which was all he ever drank. His friend, a jolly fat man in a blue jumpsuit that said “Matt” on the pocket, sat down next to him.

“Life's a tough titty, but I need the milk.” Matt said, twinkling at me. He always greeted me with a strange aphorism. “Let me get some coffee when you got a minute.”

I gave Matt some new coffee, putting his cup into the stream that poured from the machine, sneakily so the cops wouldn't see that he was getting fresh coffee before they did. I gave it to him, then turned back to the machine and poured the pot of dregs that had been congealing for hours into some styrofoam cups for the cops.

“Having a good day?” someone asked. I whipped around and found Joey at the counter.

“Hey, this is a great day, probably the best day of my life so far. What can I get you?”

“I don't really want anything. I just came to see you.”

“Oh come on, have something. How about some Jell-O? Or an order of saganaki? I'll set it on fire for you, it's really cool.”

“If you insist, I'll have some coffee.”

I poured a cup of the new coffee and brought it to him. He sipped and made a face. “What do you do to this stuff?”

“That's our little secret. Want some Lipton's tea instead?”

“I'll pass. I just came by to see if you wanted to go to a movie with me tonight.”

“A movie? You mean like a date?”

“No, I mean go see a movie. No big thing. You want to come?”

“Sure, yeah, I'd like that. What movie?”

“Well, there's a new Charles Bronson flick playing up north.”

“Up north? Alaska?”

“I mean the North Side. You like Bronson?”

“Love him.” I had no idea who he was.

“What time do you get off?”

“Nine-fifteen if I push it.”

“Great, we can just make the ten o'clock show.” He stood up. “What do I owe you?”

I saw Nicky glaring at me. “My treat,” I said.

“Thanks. I'll pick you up at nine-fifteen.” As Joey left, a couple of the cops who were still waiting for coffee nodded to him. I took two dimes out of my apron pocket and handed them to Nicky.

“I don't want your boyfriends hanging around in here,” Nicky said, closing his fat hand around my dimes.

“He's not my boyfriend, he's just a friend. I don't have a boyfriend. I'll never have a boyfriend again. Unless it's you. You want to be my boyfriend, Nick?”

“You think I'm crazy?”

“Yep.”

He scuttled across the room to get away from me.

I returned to the counter and found Matt standing there, ready to go. “Double or nothing,” he said. He took a shiny new quarter out of his pocket. All his quarters were shiny and new. He spun the quarter on the counter. He did this every day.

“Heads.”

“It's tails. Sorry, baby.” He put the quarter back in his pocket.

“Oh well. Thanks anyway.”

“Don't feel bad, honey,” he smiled. “Maybe you get lucky next time.”