“Goodbye,” Nick said.
He hung up and started back to his apartment. He realized that he hadn’t told Sammy that Stephanie had had the abortion. On the street he said hello to a little boy—one of the neighborhood children he knew.
He went up the stairs and up to his floor. Some people downstairs were listening to Beethoven. He lingered in the hallway, not wanting to go back to Stephanie and Karen. He took a deep breath and opened the door. Neither of them looked too bad. They said hello silently, each raising one hand.
It had been a hard day. Stephanie’s appointment at the abortion clinic had been at eight in the morning. Karen had slept in the apartment with them the night before, on the sofa. Stephanie slept in his bed, and he slept on the floor. None of them had slept much. In the morning they all went to the abortion clinic. Nick had intended to go to work in the afternoon, but when they got back to the apartment he didn’t think it was right for him to leave Stephanie. She went back to the bedroom, and he stretched out on the sofa and fell asleep. Before he slept, Karen sat on the sofa with him for a while, and he told her the story of his second mugging. When he woke up, it was four o’clock. He called his office and told them he was sick. Later they all watched the television news together. After that, he offered to go out and get some food, but nobody was hungry. That’s when he went out and called Sammy.
Now Stephanie went back into the bedroom. She said she was tired and she was going to work on a crossword puzzle in bed. The phone rang. It was Petra. She and Nick talked a little about a new apartment she was thinking of moving into. “I’m sorry for being so cold-blooded the other night,” she said. “The reason I’m calling is to invite myself to your place for a drink, if that’s all right with you.”
“It’s not all right,” he said. “I’m sorry. There are some people here now.”
“I get it,” she said. “Okay. I won’t bother you anymore.”
“You don’t understand,” he said. He knew he had not explained things well, but the thought of adding Petra to the scene at his apartment was more than he could bear, and he had been too abrupt.
She said goodbye coldly, and he went back to his chair and fell in it, exhausted.
“A girl?” Karen said.
He nodded.
“Not a girl you wanted to hear from.”
He shook his head no. He got up and pulled up the blind and looked out to the street. The boy he had said hello to was playing with a hula hoop. The hula hoop was bright blue in the twilight. The kid rotated his hips and kept the hoop spinning perfectly. Karen came to the window and stood next to him. He turned to her, wanting to say that they should go and get the Thunderbird, and as the night air cooled, drive out of the city, smell honeysuckle in the fields, feel the wind blowing.
But the Thunderbird was sold. She had told him the news while they were sitting in the waiting room of the abortion clinic. The car had needed a valve job, and a man she met in Bermuda who knew all about cars had advised her to sell it. Coincidentally, the man—a New York architect—wanted to buy it. Even as Karen told him, he knew she had been set up. If she had been more careful, they could have been in the car now, with the key in the ignition, the radio playing. He stood at the window for a long time. She had been conned, and he was more angry than he could tell her. She had no conception—she had somehow never understood—that Thunderbirds of that year, in good condition, would someday be worth a fortune. She had told him this way: “Don’t be upset, because I’m sure I made the right decision. I sold the car as soon as I got back from Bermuda. I’m going to get a new car.” He had moved in his chair, there in the clinic. He had had an impulse to get up and hit her. He remembered the scene in New Haven outside the bar, and he understood now that it was as simple as this: he had money that the black man wanted.
Down the street the boy picked up his hula hoop and disappeared around the corner.
“Say you were kidding about selling the car,” Nick said.
“When are you going to stop making such a big thing over it?” Karen said.
“That creep cheated you. He talked you into selling it when nothing was wrong with it.”
“Stop it,” she said. “How come your judgments are always right and my judgments are always wrong?”
“I don’t want to fight,” he said. “I’m sorry I said anything.”
“Okay,” she said and leaned her head against him. He draped his right arm over her shoulder. The fingers sticking out of the cast rested a little above her breast.
“I just want to ask one thing,” he said, “and then I’ll never mention it again. Are you sure the deal is final?”
Karen pushed his hand off her shoulder and walked away. But it was his apartment, and she couldn’t go slamming around in it. She sat on the sofa and picked up the newspaper. He watched her. Soon she put it down and stared across the room and into the dark bedroom, where Stephanie had turned off the light. He looked at her sadly for a long time, until she looked up at him with tears in her eyes.
“Do you think maybe we could get it back if I offered him more than he paid me for it?” she said. “You probably don’t think that’s a sensible suggestion, but at least that way we could get it back.”
The Cinderella Waltz
Milo and Bradley are creatures of habit. For as long as I’ve known him, Milo has worn his moth-eaten blue scarf with the knot hanging so low on his chest that the scarf is useless. Bradley is addicted to coffee and carries a Thermos with him. Milo complains about the cold, and Bradley is always a little edgy. They come out from the city every Saturday—this is not habit but loyalty—to pick up Louise. Louise is even more unpredictable than most nine-year-olds; sometimes she waits for them on the front step, sometimes she hasn’t even gotten out of bed when they arrive. One time she hid in a closet and wouldn’t leave with them.
Today Louise has put together a shopping bag full of things she wants to take with her. She is taking my whisk and my blue pottery bowl, to make Sunday breakfast for Milo and Bradley; Beckett’s
