“Sure.”
“I want to go get dressed for the party,” Lily said. “I’ve had enough of the past. They’re all dead, my parents, their friends, their ideals. Marianna was my last connection to all that.” Lily pushed her hair back. “She remembered, she knew some of them, she had even heard of my Uncle Lenny. Another world. God. Now she’s dead. They’re all dead.” Lily looked around Simonova’s apartment. “I won’t come back here. I don’t want to be here again.”
I knew I would come back. I knew there was something here that I had missed. I couldn’t stay away.
CHAPTER 22
T he Hutchisons’ dog was barking. In the hallway, as we crossed to Lily’s place, Marie Louise was cowering against the wall.
“What’s wrong?” Lily asked her.
“It’s that dog. I was coming from the elevator, and the dog begins to bark. Lily, please, make the dog stay away.”
“It’s OK,” said Lily. “He’s inside the apartment.”
In basement light, I hadn’t really seen how beautiful Marie Louise was. She wasn’t more than thirty-five. She wore jeans and a white sweater, over one arm was a beige down coat, over her other shoulder a fake Vuitton purse. She was terrified. Again, the dog barked, and she moved in closer to Lily.
“It’s just Ed, the Hutchisons’ old pooch,” said Lily. “He really won’t hurt you. Artie, this is Marie Louise Semake.” When I shook her hand, it was cold with fear. “She works for several people on this floor,” Lily added and asked if she was OK.
“I think so,” she said. “But, Lily, please, tell me, what is the matter with Madame Simonova? I’ve been trying to phone to her for many hours. I was supposed to prepare supper for her today, but there is no answer, and I have no keys. I tried you earlier, but you did not respond.”
“I’m sorry,” said Lily. “I probably missed your call.”
“Something bad has happened? I feel this,” said the woman. “Is she worse?”
“Yes,” said Lily, then, leaning forward, spoke very softly to Marie Louise, who put her hand over her mouth.
Carver Lennox appeared in the hallway, suddenly, as if he had heard our voices. His horn-rim glasses were pushed up on top of his head, and he seemed to be in a hurry.
“Good, you’re here; I can use some help,” he said to her. “Marie, can you help me out?”
The dog barked again. A look of sheer terror crossed Marie Louise’s face.
“You tell me this is just an old dog, Lily, but this black dog that belongs to Mrs. Hutchison. In my country, this is how evil spirits reveal themselves, in this shape, as a black dog.”
“Marie?” Lennox was impatient. “Are you coming? I can’t wait all night.” He held the door open to let her in. She hurried inside as if nothing could be worse than the sound of the dog.
“Bastard,” said Lily when we got inside her apartment.
“Lennox?”
“Yeah,” said Lily when we were back in her apartment. “He treats Marie Louise like a servant. She was a doctor, Artie. In her country she’s a doctor. Here, she cleans up other people’s shit to support her kids-she has two little boys. She puts up with it, but Lennox is a real prick.”
“Not your favorite guy?”
“He’s on the make all the time.”
“Women?”
“Money.”
“A bastard how?”
“He already has a job downtown, but he develops real estate in his spare time.”
“And the others?”
“What others?”
“In the building.”
“They’re OK. And a lot of them are just old, old and wanting something to do, somebody to talk to. You want to meet them all?”
“Yes.”
“Come to the party tonight?”
“The weather’s lousy.” I didn’t want to drive all the way home in the stinking weather. I had once skidded on the FDR and almost gone into the half-frozen river. I told Lily.
“You don’t have to go all the way home,” she said. “You can stay.”
I was pathetic, eager, desperate. I wondered what she’d do if I kissed her. I couldn’t make a bad move, not this time. “I’ll stay, if you’re sure that’s OK.”
“Great. I’ll call Sugar Hill Inn-it’s a nice B amp;B-I’ll fix a room for you there. That way you won’t have to drive downtown later.”
“Because Virgil will be staying with you?”
“It’s not your business now. I’m not asking you to stay here with me because, yeah, I’m sort of involved with Virgil, OK? We’ve been through this. I can’t do this all over again,” said Lily. “I can only think about what’s happened here, Artie. Please. Just help me.”
“I’ll help you.”
“I don’t want you to feel I’m using you, but I’m scared, Artie, and there’s nobody I can tell except you, and it’s probably wrong of me, I know that. Virgil is a good person, and a nice guy, and I like him. But it’s different.”
“Don’t.” I pushed a strand of hair out of her eyes, as gently as I could. “Don’t apologize.”
“You’d help me even if it had been my fault, wouldn’t you? Even if I screwed up the meds, right? Even if I had killed her, you’d have covered for me, wouldn’t you? Artie?”
“Yes.”
She looked at me. “You would, wouldn’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Right,” said Lily, a grin on her face now. “Anything?”
“Yes.”
“Would you listen to Springsteen for me?” she said. “You never would before.”
“I’d buy all his albums.”
“Would you go to his concerts with me?”
“I’d learn all the words to all the songs, and we would drink beer from plastic cups at the Garden and dance around like all the other middle-aged white people there.” I got up, went to Lily’s CD player, shuffled through the discs, found Born in the U.S.A., put it on, turned it up loud. Then I got up off the sofa and sang: You can’t start a fire, you can’t start a fire without a spark. This gun’s for hire, even if we’re just dancing in the dark
“How’s that?” I said, collapsing back onto the couch.
“That’s lovely. Thank you. You sing just like Bruce.”
“You’re welcome.”
“How come you know the words?”
“I learned them all for you.”
“How’d you do that?”
“I got them off a record cover,” I said. “You feel a little better?”
“I think so, yes. You cheered me up, you really did. You’re a good friend,” she said, and then, out of the blue, she reached over, and put her arms around me, and kissed me on the mouth. Kissed me for a while, her body against mine.
Lily was in the bathroom. I got out the present Simonova had left for her under the Christmas tree. I opened it, found a letter inside. I read it quickly and put it back.
