Connections (12 page)

Michelle Kravitz peeled the paper off her straw and methodically rolled it up as she listened. Although she sympathized with Jessica—she wanted to feel as rotten as Jessica did—she knew that in the recesses of her mind, she was gloating. She imagined the fuzzy gray coils of her brain slithering into smirks—a proper scientific image for a psychotherapist! She quickly concentrated on smoothing out the strip of paper, pressing it back and forth with her fingers, pursing her lips to prevent a smile from forming.

“Do you blame me?” Jessica Marcus didn’t wait for an answer. “I mean, what more can I do? It just isn’t fair. All the years of sacrificing. Don’t get me wrong; it’s not that I considered I was sacrificing, because I did it willingly. I did it because I love Clifford. And now it’s finally finished. Or so I thought. He’s a real person. He doesn’t need me twenty-four hours a day. I can have a life of my own. And what happens? Waaah!” She exaggerated a wail.

The woman in the next booth turned around to see where the noise was coming from and caught Michelle’s eye disapprovingly, as if they were teenagers laughing over ice cream sodas and boys, instead of adults having a serious conversation over their Cobb salads. Michelle wanted to stick her tongue out at the woman. God, she was feeling bitchy today. Maybe because she was so disappointed herself.

“It’s unbelievable.” Michelle pushed her plate out of the way. She moved her glass closer and sucked her iced tea through the plastic straw. It gave her time to think of something to say, other than
“At least you didn’t have to struggle. You always had a husband to support you, pay the rent. It’s not my fault that you had to stay home and take care of your son. I never had any choices to make, because I’ve always had to work to earn my own living. And I’ve come a long way, baby. On my own, with no help.”
But of course she bit her tongue over the words.

Folding the wrapper tighter and smaller, Michelle felt herself sliding back into her professional mold. “Maybe you can try looking at it as a new challenge, instead of a defeat. I mean, anyone who could overcome all the obstacles you did—”

“But they were all beyond my control. That’s it, I think. I did what I could do, what I had to do. I didn’t have to decide anything. I just wanted Clifford to be normal, to get better.”

“You’re not giving yourself enough credit, are you? You’ve told me often enough how your husband never gave you any moral support, how you had to do everything practically in spite of him. Well, that’s heavy decision making as far as I’m concerned, going against your husband’s opinions.”

“It
sounds
good but believe me, it was easy. Maybe because I was so determined. For Clifford’s sake. So what do you think I oughta do?”

“Well…”

“And please don’t give me that crap that you can’t advise me. I’m not a patient, remember? I never was.” Jessica’s voice softened. “Tell me as a friend.”

“Okay.” Michelle unrolled the hard little wad and ripped it into tiny pieces onto her plate. “Let me read the letter again…friend.”

“A billion? That’s an incredible amount. Are you sure?”

“Nah, it could be fifty million. Or five million. What’s the difference? Whatever it is, it’s sickening. Maybe it was a hundred million. That’s it. God knows what they do to them.”

“Oh, I don’t want to know.” Eileen covered her eyes with her hands, as if that would stop her from hearing.

“You
should
know. How it’s ever gonna stop if nobody does anything? If they don’t even listen?”

“Maybe this isn’t the best time to discuss it,” Ken Hollis coaxed Rosa.

“When the time? When they all dead?” Her accent became thicker as her anger soared, and she sputtered her words. “Tortured. Maimed. For what? So’s some woman can put gunk in her hair, or they teach some college jerks that you pound a monkey’s skull with a hammer, it gets headaches?!”

“Don’t—please don’t,” Eileen wailed. “I can’t think about my poor baby, about what could happen to him.”

Rosa squinted at her as she shook her finger. “You
should
think about what coulda happen. Why you think they’re doing this? What you think they want him for?”

“What? What are you suggesting?”

“Suggesting? I’m not suggesting. I’m telling.” Still shaking her finger at Eileen Hargan, Rosa turned to Ken Hollis.

“They gonna take this poor lady’s dog, the love of her life, and they gonna sell him to a laboratory, that’s what.”

Eileen threw her head back against the couch with a moan that sounded like it started in her knees.

“And torture him,” Rosa added maliciously.

Ken pulled himself out of the dainty chair. It reminded him of dollhouse furniture. Just like Eileen Hargan reminded him of a doll, with her translucent white skin and neat white hair, illuminated by the button eyes. So shiny, so blue, like colored glass. He knew she was made hard, like porcelain. And just as breakable. He towered over the two of them on the couch and gently touched Eileen’s shoulder. “Come on, now, you’ve got to do this. Not only for your Fibber McGee’s sake but for all your friends.” He patted Rosa with his other hand. “And their animals and all the people you don’t even know who love their pets as much as you do. Well, almost as much. C’mon now, it’s the only way.”

Oh, God, why hasn’t Danny come? Why isn’t he here to help?
But this Mr. Hollis was so nice. He seemed sincere and warm. He didn’t try to humor Eileen by pretending he was a great dog lover or make fun of her for being so worried. No, he could probably be trusted. Why couldn’t her nephew be like him? “Oh, I don’t know. I don’t know. I suppose.”

“You listen to him. You gotta tell. Or nobody’s safe anymore.”

Eileen Hargan blew her nose loudly and then went into her bedroom. She returned and handed Ken four envelopes. “And that.” She pointed to the one Rosa had carried up and left on the little table by the door. “Okay, you stop them.” She sat down next to Ken Hollis and tapped her knee, signaling for Mr. McGee to sit in her lap.

Felix meowed from the top of the toilet tank.

“Sure, easy for you to say,” Laurie teased him. “You don’t have to change the litter.”

He watched her rake the pebbles, leaving smooth tracks in the box. He jerked his head as she swung the seat up, close to him, to shake the plastic shovel over the bowl before returning it to the corner caddy meant for the toilet brush. “And that’s the thanks I get for coming back early, huh? For bringing my stuff home to work here. Keep you company.” She washed her hands and shook the water at him. He tried to claw it. He waited, alert and anxious. She laughed as she sprinkled him again and again. He was sitting on the edge of the tank, his right paw reaching toward the sink, trying to catch the spray. “You’re so dumb.” Laurie opened her folded fingers over his head. “Dumb, dumb, dumb. You haven’t caught it yet, have you? Why don’t you give up?” Oscar followed the trail of her playful voice into the bathroom and joined the fun.

“Okay, guys, gang up on me, right? Well, I’m gonna get you.” She took a hand towel and swiped at them both with it, daring them to catch it, as she dangled it every which way, just out of their reach. A dog would have grabbed it and had a serious tug of war. But Laurie was beginning to enjoy feline grace and agility more and more, as well as the indifference that she had laughingly told Stacy was good for humility—hers, not the cats’.

When the game was finally over, Laurie felt good about playing with them, about playing herself. They were still wound up and chased one another for a while, until Felix curled up on the couch, ready for a nap.

Laurie cleared a space on the dinette table, emptied the manila envelope, and spread out all the brochures and reports and pamphlets and newsletters she’d been collecting from all the humane societies, and wildlife coalitions, and animals’ rights committees, and conservation groups, and animal-protection organizations. Then she took her highlighter and made angry red slashes across the facts she would enter into the computer.

The uptown express on the Lexington Avenue line ground into the Brooklyn Bridge station. The rush-hour crowds, anxious to get home, pushed each other to make sure they got on before the doors closed.

From the narrow, twisted alleys that the rays of the sun never reach to the broad cobblestone plaza of the Seaport, from the judicial aura hovering over the courthouses and state office buildings to the clamor of people examining exotic vegetables and slimy fish on the streets of Chinatown, from the new boutiques and shopping avenues to the smell of money and power on Wall Street to the smell of souvlaki and frankfurters steaming in sidewalk carts, from the bleat of the Staten Island ferry to the splash of water against wood pilings, from the vendors selling their watches and T-shirts to the new glass and steel monuments shadowing them, Lower Manhattan throbbed with its own pulse.

Before she had plunged into the darkness of the underground, Louise stopped for a second to look up at the skyline. The setting sun glinted red on the new World Trade Center and bounced a rosy glow on window glass and building cement angled to catch its reflection. Her heart lifted with her eyes. She wondered how something so astonishing could seem so ordinary. Then she allowed herself to be pushed down the stairs with the mob.

The wave of people rolled to the sway of the train. The air conditioning turned clammy perspiration to ice, freezing the odors of bodies pressed close. Louise leaned her weight against her taut right arm in the stirrup and thought about buying a bottle of bourbon on her way home. Just in case.

Jason slapped water in his armpits and lathered them. He rubbed the foam onto his chest and stuck his belly out so the water would hit it. He wanted to get an early start this morning so he could take care of the paperwork and finish up by the time Suzanne came in. Then at least he could make the meeting at Roosevelt Hospital and be back in time to close the store. He didn’t know how he got invited to join an organization like SAVE. It was a joke that they said they heard he was active in tenants’ rights. Didn’t they realize it was only in his own building? And what did tenants’ rights have to do with AIDS anyway? Or gay rights, for that matter? He didn’t want to get caught up in another cause. Especially this one, which seemed far removed from his life. Well, there was no harm in going once.

It did seem worthwhile—Support for AIDS Victims Everywhere—matching up volunteers to neighborhood sufferers. But why was it necessary, with AIDS so much on the decline today that it was practically nonexistent? If you could call 50,000 new cases a year “nonexistent.” And with HIV under control. If you could call the 34 million people worldwide with AIDS under control. Well, the guy said even though it started as an AIDS thing, it was more for cancer patients undergoing debilitating radiation or chemo treatment. It was performing normal, everyday functions for those too sick to handle them but not sick enough to be bedridden. Walk a dog, pick up a package at the post office, get a suit from the dry cleaners, do a load of laundry, pick up the person from chemo or radiation. He certainly didn’t have to commit himself to anything with them or to spending any time organizing and recruiting, as they suggested. He didn’t have any time, for God’s sake. But it was the dog part that got him. He knew how he would feel if he was sick and not able to take care of Sabrina. It reminded him of POWARS—Pet Owners With AIDS Resource Sources—once a very strong organization but disbanded fifteen or sixteen years ago for lack of need.

A draft hit his back as the bathroom door opened. The curtain slid across the rod. He whirled his head around just as Chris lifted his foot over the rim of the tub. Chris stepped in, reached across Jason to get the bar of soap from its pocket in the wall, and then stroked Jason’s back with it. The soap thudded as it fell to the floor. Chris’s fingers played with Jason’s slippery skin, gently rubbing his shoulders, massaging, sliding to his buttocks, kneading…his finger tracing the crack where his cheeks split, finding the hole, lingering at the opening, retracing its route. Jason’s breath stopped in his chest.

Weak from the steam and the desire rising in his lungs, Jason leaned forward and braced his arms against the tile under the showerhead, the water hitting him low on his back. He heard the squeak of Chris’s knees rubbing the porcelain a second before he pulled his cheeks apart, hard, and tickled his anus with his tongue. Jason flattened his palms on the faucets, his weight against his arms. His muscles made shiny ripples under his skin. Then Chris’s fingers jabbed inside him and pushed his insides out in a jet of white syrup that hit the wall. It hung on the tile. Then slowly slid down to the drain.

Lenny hesitated at his front door, methodically cracking his knuckles one by one. He could turn around and go right back downstairs, and…and what? He really had nowhere else to go except home. But it didn’t feel like home anymore. Not home like his parents’ house was, even after all these years. Not the warmth of a family sitting around a fire, the poppa reading the paper, the mama knitting, and all the children doing their homework or napping or laughing at comic books. Who was he kidding? His family never owned a fireplace in their lives. His mother didn’t knit or crochet. And the children never got along well enough to be in one room doing anything together except fighting. Yet the memories were warm. Or maybe it was the longing for that childhood, or the loss of his own youth, or going back to a time before responsibility and pain and problems.

As the elevator door quietly closed behind him, a sense of hopelessness overwhelmed him. As if his last route for escape was gone. But deep down, he knew better. There never was any escape. Not for people like Leonard Marcus, whose stability and values forced them to endure. To suffer their obligations. Until they died. Or cracked.

Laurie followed the cursor across her screen, her fingers trying to keep in time to the bouncing ball. She didn’t break her rhythm as she glanced at her watch. Since they changed the procedure and no longer allowed the attendant to relieve Stacy, Laurie actually felt better. If she didn’t have an excuse to come downstairs every day, she probably wouldn’t even stop for lunch. Yesterday had been a disaster. But you’d think when she lost track of the time and didn’t come right down after Stacy buzzed her that somebody would have called her to ask where she was. Instead of sitting there until Dr. Pomalee came back with Dr. Stevens, and the patients were piled up. It was so crowded and so noisy that two people paced outside in the street with their large dogs to avoid a ferocious confrontation in the waiting room. But that was precisely why she took charge now. The kids who worked there summers and part-time during school months—even those who wanted to go in for veterinary medicine—didn’t have the smarts to handle the reception desk or schedule appointments. Except maybe Rick. He was good. But he had too many other responsibilities since the other attendant quit.

At 11:55, she exited the program. The main menu came back to the screen with the prompts she needed. She patted the top of her machine in approval. She was just as amazed as she had been the first week that all the information would be filed away. She carried the pile of rabies and distemper reminders she had printed in their self-mailers and went down to the front desk.

“How’s it going?” she asked as she fanned out the morning’s chart folders to get an idea of who had been treated so far. “Busy?”

“Not too bad.” Stacy swiveled her chair around to face Laurie. “Except the damn phone hasn’t stopped ringing. Mrs. Lefkowitz came in for diarrhea and no sooner did she get here than Bruno shit all over the floor. She ran outside for him to finish, but of course I couldn’t find Rick, so I got stuck cleaning it up. It was loose. Like water. Yuck.”

“That’s show biz, huh?” Laurie winked absently.

“There’s more. A first-timer came in with the cutest little puppy. She just adopted it from the Humane Society. Wanted to check her out. The little thing was so scared, she made a puddle, not five minutes after I cleaned up the other mess.”

“Oh, well, at least you worked up an appetite for lunch.”

“Funny you should say that. I was just thinking how I lost it completely.”

“Force yourself.”

Stacy leaned over and stretched her lips in the small mirror taped over her desk just under the reception window. “And most important”—her words were distorted through her open mouth as she applied gloss—“if Dr. Michaels calls from the AMC, get a number and find out when he can be reached. I left three messages for him. Dr. Haberkorn needs to talk to him.”

Laurie ran her finger down the appointment book, wanting to see how much time she’d have before the first afternoon arrival. “Mmm, nobody’s due ’til 12:30.”

“Right, but Dr. Stevens is off this afternoon, and Dr. Pomalee said he’d be back about 1:00.”

“Okay,” Laurie said.

“And Mrs. Bassetti called. She wants to come in to pick up some more Lasix for Princess’s heart. I left it on top of the film, so you don’t have to go hunting for it.”

“Thanks. Enjoy,” Laurie called as Stacy whipped the long handle of her bag over her shoulder like a lasso.