Riverside Park (5 page)

 

Celia's alarm went off at 2:15 p.m. She dragged herself out of bed, showered and put on her Captain Cook's uniform, which consisted of tight-fitting black jeans, a long-sleeved blouse (with billowed sleeves and plunging neckline;
aye,
like a pirate), and tucked a clean black-and-white bandana in her back pocket, which she would put on at the bar. She knew she should call home to wish everyone “Happy Thanksgiving,” but if she did then she'd have to talk to all the relatives and deal with the questions her parents had not come up with satisfactory answers to: When was Celia going back to school? Was she seeing anyone special? Had she decided on her career?

She called her mother's cell phone. She knew it would be turned off but she also knew her mother would check it later when she hadn't heard from Celia. “Hi, everybody. I just wanted to say Happy Thanksgiving and tell you that I had a very nice day here but missed you guys and now I'm going to work. I hope dinner was good and Uncle Keith didn't break any chair legs in the dining room or anything again. Love you!”

A cold wind blew at her back as Celia walked to Columbus Avenue. Sometimes the wind off the Hudson was so strong between West End Avenue and Riverside Drive people had to walk backward to reach their buildings. And this was only November. Just wait.

The restaurant was busy but the bar was slow. “Three Diet Pepsis, a Shirley Temple and a zombie,” one of the waiters said, putting in his order. “Identify the unhappy patron at
that
table.”

It was a nice group that worked here. Most of them had come to New York to be actors.

Celia flicked the channels of the two TVs over the bar. She
turned the sound up on the NFL game and turned the sound off on the college game. The busboy brought in a couple racks of clean glasses and set them down on the bar. “Do you want me to put them away?”

“Not until you're twenty-one,” she told him, smiling. Jason was terribly shy and young for his age, but he was a good worker.

Celia hefted the trays down into the bar and started putting the glasses away.

“Um,” Jason said.

She looked up. “You'll be in the back?”

“Yeah,” he said.

“Thanksgiving is the first day of Suicidal-Thoughts Season,” a regular sighed to Celia. He was divorced, this one, and had moved into the city after his wife in the suburbs threw him out of the house. Why, he was not saying, but Celia suspected it had something to do with the way he drank. Celia almost never expressed an opinion about anything that mattered to her customers—like the way they drank—because the tips were much better if she didn't.

“I'm just thankful Thanksgiving's only once a year,” another regular said from across the way, a heavily made-up woman with many miles on her. She'd been working at the Board of Ed for twenty-five years. She drank the house rosé over ice. She once told Celia she hung out at Captain Cook's because it was a nice place, the people were nice and if she
should
happen to find a man in here sometime then she would feel a lot safer about getting to know him.

Another regular, the unpublished writer, came in and sat down at the bar. He had on a tie and jacket, which was unusual for him.

“Happy Thanksgiving,” Celia said. “What may I get you?”

“Arsenic or new in-laws,” he said, loosening the tie. “Irish Mist on the rocks.” He rested his elbows on the bar, watching her. “My agent's going to fire me,” he said glumly, “I just know it. Asked me if I wanted to meet him for a beer. He lives around here.”

“You're meeting him here?” Celia asked, pouring the whiskey. “On Thanksgiving?”

“I figure he wants to get it over with and tell me I'm going to be a fucking insurance salesman for the rest of my life.”

“And with that kind of language not a very successful one,” Celia observed, making everyone, including the writer, laugh. She wiped down the bar in front of him and slid a saucer of Chex Mix toward him. “He's not going to have anything bad to say,” she said, “not on Thanksgiving Day. He wouldn't have called you.”

“You think?” He was looking up at her with a kind of gratitude that translated into excellent tips. But that was not why Celia had said it; she meant it. She felt sorry for him. He'd been trying to sell something he'd written ever since she started working here.

“When's he coming?”

“I haven't called him back yet.”

“Call him,” Celia told him.

“You think?”

“It's Thanksgiving, I'm telling you, he must be calling with good news.”

“I don't know what it is you should be doing for a living, Celia,” the guy thrown out of the house in the suburbs said, “but it's sure not this.”

Celia tossed the towel into the laundry bin and gave him a saucer of the peanuts she knew that he liked. “Why not this?”

“For starters, you sound like Martha Stewart and look like one of those women on
Friends
.”

“She does,” agreed the lonely Board of Ed lady.

“Thank you,” Celia said.

“Celia used to go to Columbia, you know,” the writer said. Celia imagined he was building her credentials up in his mind so he would do what she had advised and call his agent back.

“Ceil,” a waitress said breathlessly, careening into the bar. “I need two margaritas, a strawberry daiquiri and a mudslide as fast as you can make 'em.”

“Got it.”

A cold blast of air came in when the door opened. Celia glanced over and saw a man in overalls and a parka coming in. Keeping his coat on, the man slid onto a stool and briskly rubbed his hands. “Tenant blows uppa his stove and blamesa me. On a Thanksgivinaday, this I don't need.”

Celia poured him a draft.

The second bartender for the night shift appeared. “Sorry I'm late, Celia.”

“You haven't missed much,” she said, putting ingredients for the daiquiri, margaritas and mudslide in three of the bar's six blenders and passing the order on to him because it was time for her break.

“Think it'll get busier?”

“Not until nine, when people get back into the city,” she said, untying her apron and putting it under the bar. She went into the kitchen where, as usual, the crew was careening about swearing in different languages. (Their chef's dyslexia was pretty bad.) Celia walked over to the dishwashing area. “Jason,” she called, and then she left the kitchen and headed for Mark's office. She unlocked the door and went in.

She was standing examining the shift calendar on the wall when he knocked. “Come in and close the door,” she told him.

He did as he was told.

“And lock it,” she added, walking over. While he was turning the dead bolt Celia placed her hand on the small of his back and felt him freeze. “Yes, I want to,” she whispered into his ear. “Very much.” She let her hand slide down and smiled to herself. Amazing.

She led Jason over to the low filing cabinet that also served as a makeshift table in the office. She sat down and pulled him to stand between her legs. And looked up at him. And smiled.

The teenager's eyes were half-closed and his breath ragged. It had been two weeks since the last time. While he just stood there Celia undid his belt, his pants, worked his zipper and then pulled his jeans down.

She took a sharp breath when she looked down. He tried to help her take his Jockey shorts down but his hands were trembling and Celia pretty much had to do it. As she sat back up it brushed the side of her face. She took hold of him and smiled, looking up. “You're really something,” she whispered. Then she hastily stood up to take off her jeans and panties and moved back down onto the file cabinet. Jason grabbed at her thighs to pull her legs up and she scarcely had time to guide him into place before he shuddered and caved.

One of the hazards of an inexperienced teenage boy. The upside was Jason had been a virgin, free of disease, and now only knew the most acute desire to get into her. Which was fine with her.

“I'm sorry,” he whispered.

“It's okay,” she whispered back, pulling his head down to rest on her shoulder, “because you still feel so good inside of me.” She was looking up at the clock. She had maybe ten minutes. She shifted, tightening her legs around Jason to keep him there, and started to whisper things to him. Nice things. About him,
about his size and how he felt inside of her, about what she wanted him to do to her. It was not long before she felt him growing large again. The progress was slow but steady, and although he was not quite yet fully erect, she started moving against him because she had grown tremendously excited. He began thrusting back, making her moan a little, which got him more excited, and his increasingly harder thrusts made Celia's hips start to rise. She told him what was happening to her, what she was feeling, and then Jason became almost frantic, rhythmically banging the cabinet into the wall. She cried softly into his neck as she came and then shuddered violently; moments later he grunted loudly and collapsed on Celia, damp with perspiration.

Celia rolled out from under Jason and went into Mark's toilet to get some paper towels. She dampened some and used them to clean herself up and then wordlessly brought some out for Jason. She went back for the can of Glade and sprayed the air. It smelled of fake roses and when she looked at Jason they both laughed.

“I HATE IT
when you say things like that, Mrs. G,” Rosanne told her eighty-nine-year-old former employer, longtime friend and roommate.

“I only said that it
appeared
the young foreign gentleman has a crush on our dear Amanda.”

“And Amanda'll never notice because she never does,” Rosanne said. “But now you're gonna make me worry about what's gonna happen when Mickey Muscles makes his move out there in wherever the heck she is.” Having only lived in Detroit and New York City, Rosanne DiSantos was not a fan of the country.

“Connecticut,”Mrs. Goldblum supplied, sipping her cocoa. “Amanda is quite capable of taking care of herself.”

That shows how much you know about how she used to be
, Rosanne thought. Amanda was like another person since she met Howie, and even like a third person after the kids started coming. As much as Rosanne wanted to believe the
old Amanda was gone forever she still worried a bit now and then.

Rosanne had known Amanda and Howie for over fifteen years. When she earned her living as a housekeeper, they had been separate clients; Amanda was living by herself and Howie had been married to a first-class bitch that Rosanne hated.

Mrs. Goldblum's forehead furrowed slightly. “What is it, dear?”

“Oh, nothin',” Rosanne said quickly, forcing a smile. “I was just thinkin' how guys are always gaga over Amanda's boobs so she must be handling them, just like you said.”

Mrs. Goldblum carefully replaced her cup into the saucer with a smile. “I might not have expressed it in quite that way, Rosanne dear, but I do understand what you mean.” After a moment her smile faded. “And perhaps it's nothing.”

Rosanne shot a look across the table. “Perhaps
what
is nothing?”

Mrs. Goldblum withdrew the lace hankie she kept tucked in her sleeve and patted her nose with it. “It's just that I've lived such a long time.”

Oh, no, here we go again
, Rosanne thought. Everyone got older, of course, but somehow she never thought it would happen to Mrs. G. She had always been a little frail, yes, like a little bird, but these “talks” she had started giving lately were giving Rosanne the creeps. Like she was trying to cram things into Rosanne's head at the last minute.

Rosanne couldn't think about life without Mrs. G. (How dumb was that? A licensed practical nurse who can't deal with people dying?) What had begun as a solution to the problem of an older widow with a rent-controlled apartment far too large for her and a single mother without a proper place to raise her young son had become over the years a very real
family. Mrs. G had been one of her housekeeping clients, too, back in the days when Rosanne's husband, Frank, had been alive. (The Stewarts had been on Monday, Amanda Miller on Tuesday, the Wyatts on Wednesday, Mrs. Goldblum on Thursday and the Cochrans on Friday.) This apartment had been Rosanne and Jason's home for over a decade and Mrs. G was like a mother to her and a grandmother to Jason. Jason even called her Gran.

And what changes had unfolded! Jason went from six to seventeen years old and Rosanne went from housekeeping to night school to becoming an LPN at Hudson Hospital. The fact that Rosanne hated nursing was besides the point. She had risen from a blue-collar living to become a professional. People looked at Rosanne differently now. And no one seemed surprised that one of Bronx Poly Sci's academic stars was her son.

Living in an apartment overlooking Riverside Park and the Hudson River had been quite something, too. Particularly since Mrs. G had been living in this three-bedroom apartment for like sixty-five years and her rent was only $1,450 a month, half of which Rosanne paid. What would happen after Mrs. G died was not hard to imagine; they'd already seen it innumerable times. Rosanne and Jason would be evicted and the apartment would be renovated and sold as a condo unit for well over a million dollars.

What would she do then? Rosanne had no idea. Everyone expected her to marry Randy eventually but she preferred the relationship the way it was. Randy was a great guy and everything but while Rosanne worked steadily to improve herself and her lot in life, Randy wanted to keep everything the same. Change upset him. He wasn't stupid, but he wasn't motivated. He was a detective, but worked mostly behind a desk in an administrative capacity. Randy did his job, then left his shift on
the dot to have a beer with the guys, maybe throw some darts and watch NASCAR. He had two kids by his ex-wife that he regularly saw and supported. The thing that really bothered Rosanne was how Randy never seemed to initiate any action on his own; if there wasn't someone always there to tell him what to do next he would basically do nothing.

Randy liked the way their relationship was. They went out on occasion, always saw each other on Saturday night (at which time they very pleasantly got on sexually), and Rosanne always cleaned his apartment so she could stand being there.

So they just went on and Rosanne found it reassuring to have him in her life.

“Okay, Mrs. G, you've lived a long time,” Rosanne prompted.

Mrs. G moved her lips around a little before she spoke.

This had started recently, too.

“It's not good for a husband and wife to live apart,”Mrs. G finally said.

“Amanda's not going to do anything.”
At least I sure hope not
, Rosanne added to herself. “She's got the three screaming-mimis and Madame DeFarge to keep her busy.”

“Hmm,”Mrs. G said somewhat gravely.

Rosanne counted to five. “What do you mean,
hmm?
”

She adjusted her glasses to look at Rosanne and, eventually, stare Rosanne down. “When you live apart, you begin to think outside of the family circle. It's asking for trouble. A wife requires a certain amount of attention and Howard seems otherwise very occupied.”

“Oh, Mrs. G!” Rosanne objected, wrapping her arms over the top of her head in frustration. She let her arms drop. “This is Howie and Amanda we're talking about. They both made mistakes the first time around and they knew
exactly
what they
wanted when they got married. Which was each other. And the kids. They wouldn't hurt those kids for anything and I think it's rotten to even be talking about this!”

“I just worry,”Mrs. Goldblum said vaguely, preparing to rise from her chair.

Rosanne had forgotten to steer Mrs. G into the kitchen chair with arms on it so now Rosanne needed to help her get up without Mrs. G realizing that she
was
helping her get up. Mrs. G had become extremely irritable whenever she tried to help her and had thrown an absolute fit last year when Rosanne installed bars in her bathroom and along the hallways (although, Rosanne noticed, she started relying on them at once).

“At what time may we expect Jason?” Mrs. G asked, now on her feet and reaching for her walking stick. (That's the way Mrs. G was—she didn't use a cane like normal people; she used a walking stick, a skinny little black ebony stick with a silver handle that her granny or somebody used ten million years ago.)

“A little after eleven,” Rosanne said, glancing up at the clock. “They won't close the kitchen until ten.”

“How we will miss him when he goes away to school,” Mrs. G said, moving toward her favorite seat in the living room to pick up her book. As was her habit she would take her book with her into the bedroom to read before going to sleep, but lately she had been falling asleep before getting to the book—or even turning off the light.

The phone rang and Rosanne picked it up and held it under her chin as she cleared the cups and saucers from the table. She'd have to wash them by hand because they were Wedgwood bone china that had belonged to some other ancient relative of Mrs. G's. “Happy Thanksgiving,” Rosanne greeted whoever was calling.

Very carefully she put the dishes in the sink and held the phone with both hands, taking a quick look back over her shoulder. “Yeah, sure. Don't worry about it. I'll be right down. I know it's hard, but you gotta do it. And I'll go with you.” She swallowed. “Don't think about it, we'll just do it and get it over with. I'll be right down.”

“Who was that?” Mrs. G asked, appearing in the doorway.

“Samantha Wyatt,” Rosanne said, replacing the phone in the cradle.

“Is she home from school?”

“Yeah. And I'm just going to run over with her to see her parents. To say Happy Thanksgiving. Leave the dishes in the sink and I'll wash them when I get back.” She kissed Mrs. G on the cheek and headed for the front hall closet.