Decaffeinated Corpse

When he ran out of gas (and I’m being kind), I watched Chef Keitel wrap his arm around my daughter’s young waist, pull her against his aging body. My reaction was similar to the one I had watching a snake devour a bunny rabbit on Animal Planet.

“Of course, caffeine has its uses. You don’t always want to sleep, right?” He looked at my daughter and winked. “Sometimes you want to stay up all night long.”

I decided that Chef Keitel’s lewd innuendo was reason enough to kill him right then and there, and I had to restrain myself from tightening that silver chain around his throat until he turned the color of a Japanese eggplant. Instead, I put my hands together and forced a smile.

“May I speak to you for a minute, Joy? It’s about your father...”

I shifted my gaze to Chef Keitel. “So nice to have met you.”

I maintained my rigid grin throughout the exchange, but I felt the time bomb ticking inside me. I walked behind the bar, not sure if Joy would follow. I think she hesitated, but I refused to turn around and look. Then I heard Chef Keitel cry out. He’d spotted Robbie Gray, and the two chefs loudly greeted one another. Locked in animated conversation, they wandered away. Vinny Buccelli lingered for a moment, then followed his boss.

Joy appeared at my side. “What about daddy?” she asked.

“Your friend, Chef Keitel—”

“Tommy?”

I nodded. “Didn’t you notice, Joy, that he’s older than your father.”

I expected an angry outburst—a none-too-gentle suggestion to mind my own business, though not put quite so tactfully. But Joy surprised me. She just rolled her eyes and shook her head.

“I knew you were going to do this,” Joy said in a voice that was dead calm.

“Do what?”

“This. Make a scene. Humiliate yourself.”

“I’m humiliating myself? I’m not the lovely, charming, sweet young girl who’s dating an octogenarian.”

Joy’s lips curled into a superior smirk—an expression that unsettlingly resembled Chef Keitel’s. “Oh, mother. Now you’re being ridiculous.”

Hands on hips, I stepped closer. “You’re young, Joy,” I quietly told her. “You haven’t accomplished much, so you’re using a smug, superior attitude as a way of elevating yourself. That’s fine. That’s what young people do. But don’t make the mistake of thinking you know it all. You have a lot to learn, and I just don’t want to see you learn it the hard way.”

Joy stared into the distance. Since the moment I’d brought up her boyfriend’s inappropriate age, she’d refused to look me in the eye. That gave me hope that somewhere deep inside, Joy knew she was headed down the wrong path.

“I’ve heard this before,” she declared in a bored voice. Then she sighed theatrically. “I’m leaving.”

I held her shoulder. “He’s married, Joy. He’s wearing a wedding band. That means he has a wife—and, I assume, a family.”

“What do you know about anything, mom? When you were my age, you were married, too. Now you’re not. What does that tell you? That things change, that’s what.”

“You’re making a mistake.”

“No I’m not.” She shook off my hand. “I’m leaving.”

“Excuse me.” The voice belonged to Esther Best. I turned to face my barista. She appeared uncomfortable about stumbling upon a mother-daughter spat.

Who wouldn’t? I thought.

“Sorry, boss,” she said. “We’re about out of coffee again, and nobody looks like they’re leaving anytime soon. Should I go downstairs and grind more beans? I would have asked Ric, but I don’t see him.”

I glanced around the room. Esther was right. I didn’t see Ric by the cutting. Matt either.

“Take the cutting down to Dante in the kitchen,” I told Esther. “Tell him to keep an eye on it, and ask him to grind more beans, but only enough for one more go round.”

Esther nodded. I turned to face my daughter again, but Joy was gone.

I tore off my apron and dashed for the elevator. I made it in time to see Joy enter the car and the doors close. I slammed my finger against the button and the doors opened again. Joy frowned when she saw me.

“Joy—”

“Don’t talk to me.”

“But—”

“If we’re going to fight, let’s do it in the street,” she hissed.

There were six other people in the elevator, casting curious glances at us. I gritted my teeth, willing to wait until we got outside—but not a moment longer.

When we reached the lobby level, Joy slipped through the art deco elevator doors before they even opened all the way. I raced to catch up. The Beekman Hotel’s lobby was small, and we were across it and out the front door in seconds. Still Joy kept walking, her heels clicking on the wet sidewalk.

I shivered, wishing I’d brought my coat. The threatening downpour had not yet arrived. Instead, there was a misty precipitation that seemed to hover in the air, turning flesh clammy and clothes damp. The street was busy with Saturday night traffic. Headlights gleamed like halos in the haze as they raced uptown. A Gala tour bus rumbled out of the UN plaza. But the sidewalk was deserted save for a couple coming out of a brightly lit liquor store and a few teenagers across First Avenue, slamming their skateboards on a makeshift jump along the dark sidesteps of Trump World Tower.

“Joy, wait,” I pleaded, running after her.

She stopped dead and whirled to face me.

“Joy, please understand. I only have your best interests—”

“Blah, blah, blah.” She folded her arms. “I’ve heard this speech before. Try something original.”

“Okay. I know this guy makes you feel special. I know that because I know his type—”

“Right. You’ve exchanged, like, ten words with Tommy, but you already know he’s a ‘type’?”

“Listen, Joy. You’re special. Special to me. Special to your father. But not to this guy. He’s an operator.”

“You’re wrong,” she said. “Tommy does think I’m special. He’s teaching me all sorts of new things—”

In the kitchen or the bedroom? I nearly shot back.

“He’s an amazing man,” Joy went on. “It’s you who can’t face reality. You don’t want to let me grow up. Well, you’re going to have to face it. I am grown up. I’m gone.”

She turned to walk away. I grabbed her arm.

“What tales does Tommy tell you?” I asked her. “That his marriage is in trouble? That he’s going to divorce real soon.” I used air quotes on the real soon part. “Does he tell you his wife doesn’t understand him?”

“It’s my life, Mom. Let me live it. What do you care if I mess up. How does that affect you?”

“Oh, Joy,” I said, looking for strength from the heavens. “How can I make you understand—”

That’s when I saw the free-falling body, the black silhouette blotting out the lights of the Beekman Tower like an instant eclipse.

I grabbed my daughter, dragged her backwards with me, up against the building. She squirmed in alarm. “Mom! What are you—”

The body hit the sidewalk with a sickening sound, like an overripe watermelon splattering on a slab of concrete. Joy turned her head, saw the blood, and screamed. I hugged her closer, shut my eyes, and bit down on my own lip so I wouldn’t. Someone in a passing car cried out. I heard the squeal of tires on wet pavement, then footsteps. A hand clutched my arm.

“Are you okay, lady?”

I opened one eye. A black teenager in a denim jacket with the words FREN Z CLUB emblazoned on its pocket stared at me with wide eyes. He had a red bandanna covering his head, a skateboard under his arm.

“I think so,” I stammered. Then I looked at my daughter. Her head was still tucked into my shoulder.

“Damn, that dude just fell out of the sky!” the kid cried. He stared at the corpse.

I could see the victim was male. He’d landed on his side and his head was turned, so I couldn’t see his face.