“Write it up. I’ll sign it.”
I closed the door, waved good-bye, turned on the radio, and drove out of the alley. I took Main the few blocks to Washington, where I made a right turn and went straight to Highland.
Morton Downey sang me down the street with Raymond Paige’s Orchestra backing him up. Downey finished a tearful chorus of “Danny Boy” and then tried to sell me some Coca-Cola. Pepsi’s my drink and, once in a while, a beer or two or three, but I’d almost cried at the end of “Danny Boy,” so I promised Morton I’d have a Coke with lunch.
I had no trouble finding a parking space on Fifth and I walked into Roth’s with about two minutes to spare, according to the clock on the wall. It was lunchtime for the insurance companies, lawyers’ firms, shopkeepers, and clerks in the neighborhood. The place was noisy, crowded, and smelled of hot pastrami.
Anne sat at a small table near the kitchen door. Her hands were folded in front of her. Her eyes met mine. No smile. All business. Not what I wanted to see. I weaved my way through the tables, pulled out a chair across from Anne, and sat. She was wearing a brown twill suit, and she had lost some weight. She was dark and more beautiful and serious than I had remembered.
“Thanks for coming, Toby,” she said.
A fizzing glass of dark liquid sat in front of me, a cup of coffee in front of Anne.
“My pleasure,” I said, meaning it.
“I ordered you a Pepsi,” she said, gesturing at the drink before me.
“Thanks,” I said, making a note to keep my Coke pledge to Morton Downey in the very near future.
“I ordered you a pastrami on rye with ketchup,” she said. “If you. .”
“Sounds perfect,” I said over the clatter of trays and dishes and the ramble of voices around us.
“First,” Anne said, looking at me with her warm brown eyes, “I want to thank you for keeping your promise.”
I shrugged and drank my Pepsi.
About six months ago, give or take an hour, I had promised Anne I would stop dropping in at her apartment at all hours of the day or night, would not call her unless I had a real emergency, and would stop sending her poetry which, she said, was “obviously not written by you.” I had, with the agony of a four-year-old who can’t sit still for dinner, stayed away.
“You’re looking good, Toby.”
“You’re looking beautiful, Anne.”
“Thank you.”
A skinny waitress in a wilting Betty Crocker of a uniform plunked our lunches in front of us and hurried away. Anne had vegetable soup and a salad. My hot pastrami came with a stack of fries. I should have been happy, but I knew something was about to be served that I wouldn’t like. I took a bite of the sandwich. It was hot and piled high with thin slices of spiced meat. It didn’t taste half bad for Los Angeles pastrami.
“How are Phil and. .” Anne said after a nibble of lettuce.
“My brother is fine,” I interrupted. “His wife and kids are fine. Sheldon Minck is fine. I’ve got about four hundred dollars. My back is holding up well. I’m seeing the cashier at Levy’s. Her name is Carmen. She reminds me of you, without the smarts. I’m still in the boardinghouse. I still go to the fights when I can and. .”
It was her turn to interrupt.
“Enough,” Anne said, putting down her fork and meeting my eyes.
I took a determined third bite of my sandwich and washed it down with Pepsi.
“I’m going to get married,” she said.
“Congratulations,” I said. “Anyone I know?”
“You’ve seen him,” she said, watching me eat. “I sold him a house. He made me laugh.”
That hurt more than the news that Anne was getting married. I had made her smile a few dozen times when we were married, but no laughs. And I was sure there had been no laughs with her second husband, Ralph.
“Open the envelope and read the winner’s name,” I said between furious attacks on phase two of the sandwich.
“Preston Stewart,” she said.
I didn’t feel like eating any more. Preston Stewart was a contract player at M-G-M. Preston Stewart had been in about two-dozen movies and had starred in two low-budget ones, one a Western, the other a melodrama. He was blond, good-looking with lots of teeth, and, worst of all, he had to be a good ten years younger than Anne.
“Toby? Say something.”
“I heard on the radio that the Chinese have begun translating the
“Toby, please,” she said, gently but firmly.
“What am I supposed to say? I said congratulations. I love you. I want you back. I’m never going to get you. You’re marrying a kid movie actor with. . with teeth, lots of teeth, big white ones. And he can make you laugh.”
“I’m sorry,” she said, pushing her salad around with her fork, not eating.
“And that’s why you called me?”
“I thought I should tell you face to face,” she said.
The skinny waitress was back.
“Everything okay?” she asked, not much caring and reaching for my empty plate. The fries were gone. I had eaten them without knowing it.
“Fine,” I said.
“Coffee?”
“Another Pepsi,” I said.
“Just ran out of Pepsi. Coke or Royal Crown.”
“Coke,” I said.
“Coffee,” Anne said, looking at her watch. “Black.”
The waitress nodded and headed through the door to the kitchen.
“Would you like to know about Preston? It might make it easier if you knew what a. .”
“No,” I said, holding up a hand. “I don’t want to know how kind, loving, rich, and funny he is. Call me a sore loser. Call me childish, which you’ve been known to do. My guess is I’ll avoid Preston Stewart movies for a year and then I’ll start going to all of them, looking for signs of decay or melting, wondering how you two hit it off in bed and if he’s still keeping you laughing down on the beach in your tans.”
“I didn’t think you’d be this bitter,” Anne said.
“You caught me by surprise. I didn’t have time to fake it or tell a bad joke or two. The truth just came out.”
The waitress was back with my Coke and Anne’s coffee. She put the check in front of me. Anne reached over the table for it.
“I invited you to lunch,” she said.
“Do me a favor,” I said. “Let me come out of this with a little dignity. The bill’s only two bucks and change.”
Anne sat back, looked at her coffee, tucked away a wisp of hair behind her left ear, and looked back at me.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “You deserve a break. I hope Preston Stewart is it.”
“Thanks, Toby,” she said.
“When’s the wedding?”
“Soon. When. . if you ever feel better about this, I’d like you to meet Press.”
“One condition,” I said. “I don’t have to call him Press.”
Anne almost smiled.
“His real name is Asher Cahn.”
I nodded and finished my Coke. Anne hadn’t touched her coffee.
“Thanks for caring enough to tell me face to face,” I said, picking up the check.
