The Housewife Blues Read online

  "You can't be serious," Larry said, his eyes narrowing as if he were unable to shake his nagging suspicion. His brows knitted in confusion. "Hard to swallow, Jenny. Why send it here?"

  "Think about it."

  "Didn't you ask?"

  "I didn't have to. She admitted that it was a present from someone who does not want it traced back to himself." She wanted him to know only the bare minimum.

  "That makes you a part of it," he said, shaking his head, apparently taking another, more benign tack.

  "I did a favor for a neighbor," she began.

  "I don't believe this, after all the warnings. Can't you understand that this is where involvement leads to?"

  She raised both palms. "Please, Larry. I've heard all that before. Frankly, I didn't see the harm in it."

  "You should have consulted me."

  "You would have said no."

  "Damned straight."

  Having dishonored her word, she felt humiliated, angry. Nor was she willing to face any further lectures from him on the subject.

  "I know you don't approve, Mr. High and Mighty," she began. She had always eschewed confrontations, but this was one time, she told herself, that she could not turn the other cheek. "It's too neighborly, too decent a thing to do for a neighbor, a stranger. Don't look at me that way. I didn't exactly commit a murder."

  "No, you didn't," he said, appearing to soften. "You just got involved as a kind of shill, a go-between for a man and his mistress. You've been used. Can't you see that? Do you know who the man is?"

  "That's none of my business." She paused. "Or yours."

  "My business happens to be your business," Larry said.

  Suddenly the events of the evening roared back into her mind.

  "Sure, Larry. I saw that policy displayed tonight. Your business doesn't happen to be my business. It works okay for the goose but not for the gander. Frankly, I think it stinks."

  "You wouldn't understand it," Larry said. He was showing signs of contrition, but it didn't faze her. "Connie is a lawyer," he muttered. "She understands what we're doing."

  "And you all think I'm a dumb ninny?"

  "Just not experienced in these matters."

  "Can't you teach me?"

  "I intend to," he said. "Someday, okay? Now let's get back to the coat."

  "Nothing to get back to. I told you about it. Now let me put it back in the box. Tomorrow I will deliver it and the incident will, I hope, be forgotten." She paused and took a deep breath. "And I thank you for your trust and confidence. It's a wonderful feeling for a wife of four months."

  She took a broom from the closet and began to push the broken shards of glass into a scoop.

  "Considering the circumstances. My wife gets a coat from an anonymous someone. What is a husband to think? Look at it from my point of view." His tone had a hint of pleading about it. "I just hope you learned your lesson."

  She threw the glass into a garbage bag, then turned to look at him. "What lesson is that?" she asked.

  He sighed and shook his head, and his eyes danced everywhere but on her face.

  "Never to get involved. Now you see where it leads."

  She pondered the ad infinitum so-called lesson for a few moments, and as if something suddenly clicked in her mind, she no longer feared his disapproval.

  Perhaps it was for that reason that she allowed him to apologize. It had happened at about 3:00 A.M. or, more precisely, 3:05 by the digital clock that stood on her dresser. He had turned to her, folded himself next to her like a spoon, and whispered in her ear.

  "I'm so sorry, Jenny. I've been a shit. Can you forgive me?"

  She let the digital clock register another three minutes before she responded, attributing his sincerity more to the urgency of his erection, which she felt against her buttocks, than to any feelings of contrition. It troubled her that such an idea should enter her head.

  Nevertheless she demonstrated a kind of semiforgiveness by her acquiescence and her lovemaking fervor. In her heart she wanted to accept his apology. Her reaction to the events of the night continued to be troubling. She wondered if her own sense of inadequacy had set off an unworthy chain reaction of her emotions. Surely she wanted her husband to succeed in his career. Unfortunately both the method and the people he had chosen to achieve this success were, to be kind, suspect. The very suspicion about such things was equally bothersome.

  Perhaps, she decided finally sometime around dawn, she had overstepped her role, invaded his turf, been childish and presumptuous, allowed jealousy to warp her opinions. After all, wasn't Larry working for their future and the future of their unborn children? She was out of line, she rebuked herself. Business had its own rules, its own morality. She was a neophyte in this area. How dare she intrude her negativity on his plan to better them financially? Wasn't he, as her father said, a go-getter?

  In the morning, feigning sleep, she felt his cool lips kiss her forehead. Moments later she heard the door to the apartment close, and she got out of bed. She didn't want to rehash last night's events. Actually she felt a nagging sense of embarrassment. Hours of reflection had convinced her that she was a victim of her own unworldliness, a true Hoosier hick.

  What she needed to do, she decided, was expand her horizons. She knew that Larry meant well with his protectiveness, but all this isolation had left her mentally pinched, hemmed in. Not that she wasn't respectful of his advice and counsel about living in New York. But it was clouding her judgment about people and their motives. What she needed, she decided, was to be open to her own observations. Not that Larry was wrong in his assessment of the New York culture. Her problem, she decided, was that she had no personal frame of reference to understand his evaluations. It was time to embark on some observations of her own, see things through her own eyes.

  Myrna Davis had said that she should deliver the package around noon. This gave her a few hours simply to roam the streets, walk around, with no goal in mind, no task other than to soak up the environment, observe, fill the data bank of her mind.

  She giggled at the idea. The weather was sunny and pleasant, the streets less crowded than on an ordinary weekday. She slipped into jeans, a T-shirt, and sneakers, slung a leather pocketbook over her shoulder, and, pumping herself up with an air of determination, set out on what she now characterized as her private adventure.

  The slight morning chill was bracing, and she walked fast, turning south onto Third, heading downtown. She sensed that her eyes were jumping at every sight, soaking them up, slotting them in her mind.

  Images and sounds crowded into her consciousness. A young Korean man dressing, moistening, and literally shining the fruit on display on the sidewalk in front of his fruit stand; a dark-skinned, Indian-looking man setting out the papers on a newsstand; a middle-aged, paunchy man using a long winding tool to open the canopy over his jewelry store; a young woman in long tights and bouncing pigtail jogging on the sidewalk; a teenage black man, sporting a cocky lope, with a ghetto blaster on his shoulder; green plastic garbage bags, like boulders strewn haphazardly after a violent earthquake, lining the curbs. Through glass windows of cheek-to-jowl restaurants, with a United Nations choice of cuisine, she observed men and women cleaning up, preparing for the new day.

  She tried smiling at the pedestrians she passed, a normal ritual back in Bedford. Unfortunately those people who did not have earphones stuck in their ears seemed equally intense and self-absorbed in their own concerns.

  It struck her that even on Saturday mornings the street energy level was intense. Car horns honked, brakes squealed, and footsteps and voices melded into the din. Sparkles of sunlight cast odd shadows along the high buildings, and an occasional sunbeam caught on a spire, giving it the appearance of a huge match bursting into flame.

  Store windows seemed to overflow with displays of abundance: food, jewelry, clothing, computers, cameras, eyeglasses, artwork, liquor bottles, glassware and plates, stationery—a cornucopia of riches. She felt the contagion of energy, of b
igness.

  Occasionally she caught glimpses of despair, men and women squatting on the sidewalk, their eyes glazed with fatigue and disorientation, or roaming aimlessly through the streets. Lost souls. Yet her compassion seemed blunted by overexposure, and for the first time she sensed how it was possible to become inured, to ignore, screen out, the idea of another's pain and suffering.

  In her mind everything, sights, sounds, smells, seemed magnified, exaggerated, and, after walking twenty-odd blocks, overwhelming. The agenda of this city, she realized, was set by its energy level, emanating from what seemed, even on a comparatively quiet Saturday morning, an overpowering variety of people engaged in an equally overpowering series of events. Even the unseen millions who lived in buildings that lined the way were an undeniable presence, living participants in her observations, both conscious and subconscious.

  There was, she realized also, a sense of laissez-faire lurking in the streets, a lack of formality and discipline. People did not wait for traffic lights to change before dashing between moving cars to cross streets. There were no discernible walking corridors even on the sidewalks, where people simply chose a path to follow without regard to others going in the same direction. Except for the neatly laid out street block patterns, the living tissue seemed to operate in a helter-skelter fashion, like cars bouncing against one another in an amusement-park ride concession.

  Those people who were not self-absorbed seemed feral, their eyes on the alert for predators. She wondered if such thoughts were influenced by Larry's warnings about being defensive.

  There was no taking it all in at once. The city was too alive, too fluid, too varied, to absorb completely, like powerful light refracted through crystal. On weekdays when she shopped in the neighborhood stores, she had been conscious of the crowds and activity but had not opened herself up to observation. It was more manageable, safer, less confusing, to hide behind mental blinkers and Larry's catalog of admonitions.

  Feeling hungry, she went into a coffee shop and sat at the counter, ordered cream cheese on a toasted bagel and a cup of coffee. The man behind the counter filled the order swiftly and indifferently. He was a thin man with a knobbed, bony face and a splotchy complexion that her father would have characterized as a "drinker's" look.

  Although there were other customers at the counter, there was no conversation. All seemed lost in their own thoughts and the task of eating.

  She was nearly finished with her bagel when she noted that the man behind the counter had narrowed his eyes and was concentrating on something happening behind her.

  "Out," the man behind the counter said, his face flushing. "Get the hell outa here."

  "All I want is a cup of coffee," a voice said. She turned and faced an unshaven man in shabby clothes, obviously one of the army of homeless that roamed Manhattan's streets.

  "One lousy cup of coffee," the homeless man said. "To take out. What's the big deal?"

  "Do I have to come out there and throw you out?" the man behind the counter said. Jenny noted that none of the other customers, after a cursory look at the altercation, paid any attention.

  "God bless you, pal," the homeless man said with sarcasm, turning to leave.

  "I'll pay," Jenny blurted suddenly, startled at her sudden outburst. The man behind the counter shot her a look of disdain and shook his head.

  "Bless you, my dear," the homeless man said, showing a gap-toothed smile. He was unshaven and looked about forty, and she could detect a sour, urinous smell that seemed to cling to him.

  She started fishing in her purse.

  "Make it a large," the homeless man said.

  She slipped a five-dollar bill from her wallet and put it on the counter.

  "One born every minute," the man behind the counter said as he pulled a large Styrofoam cup from a shelf and filled it with coffee from a silver urn.

  "You couldn't by chance see your way clear for a sandwich, lady, could you?" the homeless man said. Not a single customer raised his head to watch them.

  The man behind the counter shook his head with disgust. "Don't be a dammed fool, lady," he muttered. "Comes in here once, twice a week to stage this scam. Sometimes, like now, he hits a sucker."

  "He should know what it is to be without means," the homeless man said to Jenny.

  "It's all right about the sandwich," Jenny said, feeling oddly combative and resentful toward the man behind the counter.

  "Can I see a menu?" barked the homeless man.

  "Sure. Be my guest," the man behind the counter said, handing the homeless man a menu.

  "Look at him. Able-bodied. Youngish. He's working a scam out on you, lady."

  "Steak sandwich, okay?" the homeless man asked.

  "Why not? Top of the line. Not his dough," the man behind the counter said, pointedly smirking at Jenny. "If I was you, lady, I'd cut my losses. Make him go for the egg salad."

  "I hate egg salad," the homeless man said.

  "Picky bum," said the man behind the counter.

  "It's all right about the steak sandwich," Jenny said, feeling her throat constrict. She felt less combative now. Customers came and went. She noted that some of them exchanged glances with the man behind the counter and shook their heads. Jenny wondered if they were passing judgment on her. In Bedford this would be considered simple charity, an expected act of compassion.

  "You're a real lifesaver, ma'am," the homeless man said, sidling onto the stool next to her at the counter. His odor at that proximity was nauseating. "People don't understand what it means to have nothing, not even a roof over your head."

  "Get a job," the man behind the counter said as he threw the thin slab of steak on the griddle. It quickly began to sizzle.

  "No jobs out there," the homeless man said.

  "Not in his line, right?" The man behind the counter threw an angry glance at the homeless man. "I mean, how many jobs are around for brain surgeons? Or are you a nuclear physicist?"

  Jenny felt another stab of nausea. She had to get out of there. She cleared her throat.

  "My check, please," she managed to say.

  "Hey, you don't have to go," the homeless man said. "Stay here while I eat my sandwich."

  "You ain't eating that sandwich in here, pal," the man behind the counter said without looking up. He turned the steak over and split open a slab of soft bread, which he buttered, and laid out tomatoes and lettuce.

  "I'd like some sliced fresh onion," the homeless man said, turning his big gap-toothed smile on Jenny.

  "Would you, now?" the man behind the counter said, stealing a glance at Jenny. "Give them a finger, they'll take your arm."

  "When you're down and out, they treat you like scum," the homeless man said.

  Jenny tried to ignore him, wanted to ignore him. The problem was to keep from smelling him. She waited for the man behind the counter to give her her check.

  "In a minute, lady. First I gotta give Prince Albert here his sandwich."

  "Then just take this," Jenny said, putting another five on the counter.

  "You'll have nearly two coming," the man called from the griddle.

  "It's all right."

  "You leaving the change for me?" the homeless man said.

  No, she thought. She didn't want to do that. She felt embarrassed. Worse—humiliated and slightly ashamed.

  "She says for me to get the change," the homeless man said.

  "It's all right," she mumbled.

  She had to get away. Unable to utter another word, she left the coffee shop. For a moment she was disoriented, not knowing which way to go. It took her a moment more to get her bearings, then she headed northward, away from downtown, toward the town house. As she walked, she felt herself collapse inward. Her observation portals narrowed.

  She walked swiftly, but before she had gotten a block or two away from the coffee shop, she was overwhelmed by the feeling that she was being followed. At first she dismissed the idea, although she refused to look back. Just to be sure, she speeded up her p
ace, then began a loping jog. She cut across the street diagonally, hearing screeching brakes and an angry horn, knowing for certain that she had caused the sounds. Still she didn't look behind her. Her fear was two-pronged. She dreaded seeing someone, perhaps the homeless man, following her. But what she dreaded most was that she would see no one following her, a sure sign of galloping paranoia.

  Sweat was running down her back as she reached her street. There was her town house half a block away. With a burst of energy, as if she were running speed laps, she made it to the steps of the town house. At that moment she slowed down but did not make the sharp turn to run up the steps. Instead she ran past the building, deliberately, a clearly defensive gesture. Above all, she did not want whoever might be following her to know where she lived.

  Only when she reached the corner of Second Avenue did she finally muster the courage to look behind her, although she continued to run.

  "Christ," a woman's voice squealed as Jenny slammed into her.

  Turning again, Jenny saw a portly, middle-aged woman carrying a bag of apples. Fortunately the woman did not go down, but the apples hit the sidewalk and began to roll into the gutter.

  "Oh, my God," Jenny cried, holding on to the woman for support. "I am so sorry."

  "Where's the fire, you crazy girl?" the woman said. "You coulda killed me."

  "I am so, so sorry," Jenny cried again, disengaging. She bent and ran after the apples, noting that some of them were badly bruised.

  "Please," Jenny said. "I must pay for them. I absolutely must."

  The middle-aged woman was only mildly placated, but she shrugged her acceptance.

  "This is very embarrassing," Jenny said. "I live down the street. I was just..." As she spoke she opened her purse and looked in her wallet. "Oh, my God. I haven't got any cash. Please. I'm just down the street. I..."