The First Warm Evening of the Year (4 page)

“It's how we like it.” Rita wasn't speaking much louder than a whisper, but she must have thought she was, because she lowered her voice even more and leaned closer to me. “I'd say that's pretty dysfunctional, at least compared to what most people want.”

“I didn't realize you'd given it this much thought.”

“Not that much, actually. It just came to me.”

I
t was about four in the morning. We were in bed, in Rita's apartment. Rita was asleep, one bare leg stretched outside the covers, her breath warm on my face. I enjoyed looking at her tall, lean body, all graceful angles, always so responsive. We'd never gone through that period of adjustment that begins most relationships. We never commented on it, either. We simply enjoyed each other, and took that for granted from the start, much the way we took for granted our being together; never any spasms of doubt and worry if the phone didn't answer, or if a week went by and we hadn't seen each other or spoken—I was pretty sure that Rita went out with other men from time to time. I occasionally went out with other women, although neither of us was stupid or reckless enough to be promiscuous.

Rita turned in her sleep. I could smell the night on her skin. I let my lips touch the texture of her hair. The covers slipped away. I could see her body exposed in shades of black and white. The bend of her arm, the tilt of her neck. I thought how everything about her was lean and spare. Her apartment, her life. And I liked that. I liked Rita, liked being with her. Yet, if I woke in the morning and she'd already gone to work, it wouldn't have bothered me that she'd left without saying good-bye. If I didn't wake up in time to see her leave, Rita wouldn't have been at all bothered by that, either. If, right then, I'd decided to get dressed and go back to my apartment, Rita might be surprised that I wasn't there when she woke up, but she wouldn't have been troubled by it. It was being unattached to each other that kept us together.

I'd thought about this before, but not in a long time. I wouldn't have that night if Rita hadn't mentioned it. But as I lay there I realized that I wanted to miss Rita when I left in the morning and I knew I wouldn't. I wanted her to miss me. I wanted my happiness to balance and be balanced by the happiness of a woman I loved.

Five

T
he following day, a small package arrived at my apartment with the handkerchief Marian had borrowed, clean and folded, with a note thanking me, saying she wished we could have met under happier circumstances.

I held the handkerchief up to my nose, and inhaled the scent of Marian's laundry soap, pressed it against my cheek for a moment, then carefully refolded it, as though it no longer belonged to me. When I left my apartment a few minutes later, the handkerchief was in the inside pocket of my sports coat.

It was a bright afternoon, warm for the first week in April. I started walking to the corner of Seventieth Street, when I heard someone call my name. I turned and saw Simon sitting behind the wheel of a caramel-colored Mercedes, an SL280, early '70s. His arm was resting on the window frame, his chin was resting on his arm. He had a day's beard and he looked tired.

“Get in,” he said, “and I'll drop you off.”

“I'm going around the corner.”

“I'll take you.”

I thanked him, but no.

“I tried to come up to see you, but your doorman wouldn't announce me. Did Howie scare you that much?”

“What's on your mind?”

“I want to talk to you.”

I told him I could live without that. He got out of the car, anyway, without bothering to roll up the window.

I noticed that he was wearing the same clothes he'd worn two weeks before. He reached across the front seat, pulled out a gray overcoat, and put it on. The coat was too large for him. He wrapped it around his body like a robe.

I started walking away. He came with me.

“Buy me a cup of coffee,” he said.

“You better not leave your car there. It'll get towed.”

“It's not my car.”

“It's
some
body's car.”

I kept on walking and he stayed with me.

He asked, “What happened to my sister's things?” a little out of breath.

“What things?”

“Don't be an asshole.”

“She didn't own much, and what she did she bequeathed to people.”

“What people?”

“Why do I think you're playing me?”

“Look, I just need a little closure here. And since you're responsible for taking care of her . . .
po
ssessions—” We turned the corner onto Madison Avenue. Simon nodded at the coffee shop across the street. “A cup of coffee. Come on.”

After we went in and sat down, and Simon ordered a cappuccino, he said, “It was completely by accident that I even found out Laura was sick. The day before I came out here Remsen called and told me she'd died. Can you imagine?”

“I thought you'd seen her in Shady Grove. You said you even spoke to her about the will.”

He watched the waitress put down the cup, stirred in a spoonful of sugar, all the while keeping the spoon from touching the rim. I noticed the sweet effeminacy in the way he did this, the way he sat, angled snugly in the corner of the booth, the overcoat still wrapped around his body. When he looked at me, there was a slight turn to his mouth, as though his smile were warming in the wings. When he saw me watching him, he flashed it at me. I imagined it was this same smile that had gotten him into the driver's seat of the Mercedes, and I wondered if he expected it to get him inside his sister's house.

“I missed her wedding, and I missed her funeral.”

“Maybe you can ask Marian,” I told him. “Maybe she'll help you.”

“Marian? Marian Thayer?”

“Ballantine.”

“As in
Buddy
Ballantine?”

“You were never up in Shady Grove. You never saw Laura or spoke with her,” I said. “She never told you to get in touch with me.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“You were lying to me.”

Simon didn't even flinch at this, and he didn't bother with an answer. “I saw them when they came out to the Coast to play some of the clubs,” he said. “Laura and Steve. They were so in love, I found it unbearable.”

“Stop being evasive,” I told him. “Tell me what you want.”

It was a few minutes after two, the lunchtime crunch was finished, and only three or four people were sitting in booths and at the counter. Simon's eyes never stopped moving, looking around at each person as though he was expecting to see someone he knew—or hoping he wouldn't—looking out the window at the street, then past my head in the direction of the front door. Then at me.

“I'd really like to see my sister's house, some of her things. Before you give them away.”

“I'm not giving anything away. Ask Remsen. I have nothing to do—”

“I'm sure you don't know what you're talking about. Do you know that
Remsen
didn't let me go to her funeral? The son of a bitch kept me away.”

“How could he keep you away?”

Simon lifted the cup, looked into it, and put it down. “By not telling me she died until it was all over.” He took a quick peek past my head. “Did you get to look through Laura's stuff?”

“Let me understand this. You ran out on your roommate, came to New York without any money and apparently no change of clothes, all because you want
what
?”

“Another cappuccino.” He was speaking to the waitress now. “I can only wonder what they—” He watched the waitress walk away, didn't quite sit up, but pulled himself, just a little bit, out of the corner. “I don't want anything. Not from
you
. I only want to go to my sister's house one last time, look at some of the things that belonged to her, just to get some closure.”

“The last time I saw you, you were running away. My guess is you're running away from something now.”

“Because I want to spend a little time at my sister's house?”

“Wouldn't it be easier to leave this alone?”

“Now who's being evasive?”

“I know you're after some
thing
because chances are someone's after
you
. You know what I'm talking about. Howie Greenberg calling in the middle of the night? That car?”

“Don't lecture me about my life.” Simon glanced down at his hands, just for a moment. “God forbid I should have any feelings about my sister. That I might actually want some small token—”

“Contest the will, if you want.”

“This is going to take more than a cappuccino.” He made eye contact with the waitress and asked for a menu. “These people—look, Geoffrey—oh crap.” He sat up and leaned forward.

The waitress came to take Simon's order, I asked for a fresh cup of coffee.

“You and I were never friends,” I told him. “I'm not your friend now.”

“What do you know about Laura and Steve?”

“Your sister entrusted me to take care of her estate. Not to take care of you.”

“That's not all she entrusted you to do.”

“Do you
ever
know what you're talking about?”

“Do
you
ever know what I'm talking about?”

“You're acting like this is the first time we've met. Like I have no recollection of you. And I'm looking at you and seeing what an irresponsible mess you are. And I don't think that's much of a change since the last time I saw you. Tell me I'm wrong.”

The waitress brought over my coffee, and placed the sandwich Simon had ordered on the table. Simon gave it slow consideration and before he took a bite, he said, “You're a very abrasive person, Geoffrey.” He bit into his sandwich. “I grew
up
with these people. I don't need you. I can go there without you.”

“So go.”

He took another bite of his sandwich. “Whether you like it or not, you and I have history together.”

“We have no history.”

“I was hoping you'd be a lot more rational about her.”

“What are you talking about? Can't you just follow a conversation?”

Simon went on eating, and when he stopped he was staring at me, probably because I was staring at him. I could see Laura in his face. The high cheekbones, the soft, full mouth, even the way he lowered and raised his eyes, and that made me think of the times Laura and I had sat in coffee shops like this one. And I didn't know which was more unsettling, that I was missing Laura or that seeing her in Simon's face made me feel sorry for him and how pitiful he looked.

Just for a moment I wanted to help him with whatever he was after, or whatever trouble he was in; but my impulse to get involved with him did not last.

Simon was staring at that spot behind my head again. “You're a lot more like Laura than you think.”

“Meaning?”

“She went back to Shady Grove. For Christ sake.”

“Her husband died—”

“School's out. Get the fuck on with it.” He wiped his mouth. “You really should know what you're dealing with.” He pushed his empty plate to the corner of the table. “I've got to get out of here.” He left me to pay the check.

When I walked outside, Simon was smoking a cigarette and looking into the window of a clothing store.

“You didn't get what you wanted,” he said.

“I didn't want anything.”

“You were going around the corner. I assumed it was to get something.”

I crossed the street and left Simon blowing a mouthful of smoke at his reflection.

All that I wanted was to get away by myself. Fly down to a beach somewhere, sit in the sun and drink cold beer. I wanted to be a stranger to everyone I met, and not have to know about other people's lives and their inconsolable sorrows.

T
hat same night, I went out for drinks and supper with my agent, Roberta; my friend Nancy Shapiro, a partner with an ad agency here in town; and Nick and Amy Brennan, whom I'd known for a couple of years. I'd always liked when the five of us got together, but tonight felt different.

We met at Keens, over on Thirty-sixth Street. Roberta mentioned my trip to Shady Grove, and all they wanted to talk about was how mysterious it was, how fascinating.

Nick and Amy knew someone-who-knew-someone who'd had a similar experience not too long ago, and found out that he was the father of a child he'd never known about. Was it possible that Laura and I . . . Could there be a diary hidden in the house that explained Laura's reasons . . . Was she secretly in love with me and could that be the meaning to the music she'd left . . . Maybe one of the violins was a Stradivarius and worth millions, or both of them . . . Maybe Laura had stashed money somewhere in the house. I should have looked around . . .

Some other time I might have appreciated this, even added my own speculation. Their talk would have amused me. Tonight it sounded frivolous and disrespectful. A violation of Laura's death. I wanted to talk to people who'd known her when she lived in Paris, who'd known the two of us when we were in college, and not have to listen to my friends joke about a woman they did not know and about whom they knew nothing; and while they went on telling me all the things they thought Laura may have hidden away in her house, the things she may have intended when she asked me to help her, I thought about some of things I could have told them about Laura Welles.

It was no accident that Simon once spent a night on my couch all those years ago, and it wasn't because he was late for Laura's wedding, nor was it a matter of my largesse. It was more a matter of his being misled about the details. I never liked what Laura and I did to him that day, but she was my good friend, and I helped her, although it meant that I didn't go to Laura's wedding, either, which was something I would have done otherwise.

Simon had come to town not the day after, but on Laura's wedding day, unannounced, running away from someone or something, which was not unusual as far as I knew, and what I'd come to know about Simon before I'd ever met him I knew from Laura. My impressions of him, my opinions, were made of Laura's impressions and her opinions, like seeing Simon's reflection in the store window, and no more substantial. Laura never told me much about their childhood. To me, Simon was just Laura's beautiful younger brother, a talented seventeen-year-old being groomed for a career in ballet. Laura raved about him the first time I met her.

But I'd only seen him once or twice, the whisk of his body hurrying up and down the stairs, when Laura and I lived in the same building.

It was during our junior year. Laura and I liked to meet at least once a week after classes at a coffee shop on upper Broadway. One afternoon, when it was still winter, she told me that Simon was coming to the city for the weekend. She was hoping Simon would follow her to New York when he graduated high school, and she wanted to show him around Juilliard. She was very excited about my finally meeting her brother.

Laura borrowed one of my futons to sleep on so Simon could have her bed. She'd bought fresh flowers and groceries.

I didn't see or hear from Laura that entire weekend. I went down to her apartment Monday night. When she opened the door, the futon was rolled up against the wall.

Simon had shown up at her apartment late Friday morning, in wrinkled clothes and in need of a shower. He offered an unenthusiastic hello, dropped his shabby overnight bag in the living room, and was about to leave when Laura grabbed him and sat him down. He seemed distracted, wouldn't tell her what was bothering him.

Laura told me that she'd managed to convince Simon to clean up and have lunch in the apartment with her. She started talking about the things they might do that day and for the rest of the weekend, but Simon cut her off, said he had an appointment downtown, and he'd be back in a few hours. Laura waited for him the rest of the afternoon, all that night, and all day Saturday. Simon still hadn't shown. When he walked in on Sunday morning, his eyes were bloodshot, he smelled of stale beer. He wouldn't say where he'd been or tell Laura what was going on. He lay on her bed and slept for the rest of the day. Early Monday morning while Laura was still sleeping, Simon took the bus back to Shady Grove.