The Ups and Downs of Being Dead (21 page)

Inside the crown, Robert and Suzanne drifted from window to
window, checking out the sights. In the distance, heavy clouds hung over
Manhattan like a shearling pelt, the undersides darkened as though the wool had
been dragged through the mud.

There really wasn’t much to see, but tourists clicked away
with their cameras at the dull skyline. People posed and smiled and offered to
take group pictures for others. A guide meandered through the crowd answering
mundane questions, like now many stairs were there—354, or how tall was the
statue—151 feet, like they were taking notes for a quiz.

Robert quickly got bored and motioned with his head that he
was leaving. Suzanne followed.

“You know,” she said, “I couldn’t help but notice the door
that was barricaded with a wire cage. What do you want to bet there’s a
stairway up Lady Liberty’s arm?”

She wagged an eyebrow at him.

When he didn’t answer, she said, “They have to get up there
to change the light bulb, don’t they?”

“And of course,” he said, “You want to check it out.”

“Of course!”

He drifted down the stairs, then swept an arm for her to go
first through the blocked door with the bold sign that read: NO ENTRY.

They shinnied up a narrow ladder that did indeed lead to the
torch. The view was no different, but Robert had to admit that it was
exhilarating to know he was someplace few others had been.

Back on the double-decker bus, they managed to go a good six
blocks before Suzanne wanted to get off for Chinatown. Robert decided it was
easier to just go along than continue fighting the tour-a-thon.

“Look at all the junk,” he said, peering through a cluttered
window. “This place alone must keep a hundred Chinese families fed for a year.”

Suzanne wanted to go inside a kite shop, where paper birds,
and dragons, and insects hung suspended from the ceiling.

Next door, a restaurant was slammed with customers dining on
dim sum from roving carts. Plates of lo-mein and stir-fry were slung on other
tables as fast as the waitstaff could carry them out of the kitchen.

“It’s funny how we never feel hungry, isn’t it?” Suzanne
asked as they strolled further along the sidewalk.

“Yeah.”

“I just wish I could smell it all.”

“Me, too,” Robert said. “Especially the fish heads and
chicken feet.” He tilted his head toward a grocery window.

“Oh, look!” He waved an arm to hurry Suzanne along. “Another
kite shop!”

At Washington Square, Suzanne stood under the arch, leaning
way back with her hands on her back for support. Thank God, no one could see
her affected ‘tourist’ stance. Then she flapped her arms and pretended to fly
up to the top where she alighted gently on the toe of her right foot like a ballerina.
Robert joined her, sans the
on pointe
.

“You see all these pictures in magazines,” she said, “but I
never connected the fact that this park is smack in the middle of NYU. What a
fabulous place to go to school.”

“And right over there is Greenwich Village,” Robert said.

That’s when he got an idea.

“Come on, I want to show you something.”

It took him a minute to get his bearings on West 8th Street,
but finally he said, “This looks like the place.”

He led Suzanne through a wrought-iron gate between two apartment
buildings, and into a huge courtyard.

Spreading his arms wide, he gave a little ‘ta-da’.

“This is where Alfred Hitchcock got his idea for the
courtyard in the movie
Rear Window
.
Or so I’m told.”

“Oh, my God!” Suzanne exclaimed.

She drifted up to the second floor to peek into windows, then
hovered overhead to take in the whole scene from the vantage point of where
Jimmy Stewart must have sat in his wheelchair.

“Wouldn’t it be fun to live in one of these?” she gushed.

“Yeah, if you like people spying on you.”

By the time they got back to the Plaza, it was dark. The
wind had picked up, and pedestrians were leaning into it, their coats held
tight at their throats. Robert was half into his Bela Lugosi zone before he
even got to the front door.

But then Suzanne squealed, “Look! Someone’s hired a hack!”

Dear God, some tourists from Antarctica must have thought a
ride through the park would be perfect on a balmy night like this.

Without waiting for Robert, Suzanne scooted back through
rushing traffic and planted herself in the seat opposite the couple.

From their ruddy complexions, and Slavic accents, Robert
guessed they were German. He slumped into the seat next to Suzanne and closed
his eyes.

“You’re not having any fun, are you,” she said.

Stretching his feet out in front, he crossed his arms.

“I just don’t know if I can do this for the next
seventy-five years. I mean, sure, it was fine today. But tomorrow we’ll be back
out again. And the next day. It just sounds so tedious.”

“How can you say that? You have a chance to visit every city
in every state…in every country of the world!”

“That would be great if I worked for Conde Nast.”

“But maybe when you come back, you won’t want to work in the
fashion industry. This is a golden opportunity for you to explore cultures, and
foods, and buildings.”

He tried to stay annoyed, but Suzanne’s enthusiasm wouldn’t
let him.

“All right, all right.” He threw his arm across the back of
the seat behind her, and gazed up into the trees that formed a bough overhead.
Thousands of clear lights twinkled in the bare branches.

The German couple across from them snuggled close, their
hands intertwined over a heavy wool blanket that wrapped around their legs.

“I tried a few times to get my wife to take a carriage ride
with me,” he told Suzanne. “She never would, said the horses smelled. But I
don’t think she could muster up enough affection to hold hands with me that
long.”

“I’m sorry your marriage wasn’t more fulfilling.”

“I don’t know what I expected. My folks never showed any
affection for each other either. I think the more my mom watched those movies
with all the fairy-tale romances, the more unhappy she got with my dad. She
finally ended it.”

“Divorce?”

“No, she killed herself by running her car into a telephone
pole.”

“Oh, my goodness. Are you sure it wasn’t an accident?”

“She was driving on a county road that ran straight through
Indiana farmland. It wasn’t late at night. The pavement wasn’t wet.”

“How awful for you.”

“Actually, it was months before I understood the
significance of the fact that there were no skid marks on the pavement. She was
escaping my dad and his Bargain Barn. She’d had enough of the mud and the stink
and the attitude of rural Indiana. She just gunned that old LeSabre and ran it
into the only thing besides corn.”

* * *

Robert came out of his Bela Lugosi trance the next morning
to find Suzanne standing in front of him.

“You sleep in the lobby?” she asked.

“I’ve already seen the rooms.”

“Well, I’ve decided,” she said, “that we’re going to do
whatever you want to do today.”

He was honored by her unselfish gesture, but he didn’t think
she’d enjoy sitting around Marc Jacobs’ design house all day on the off chance
that Jacobs, or someone similarly famous might show up.

“Why don’t we check out the holiday decorations in the
department stores? We can start with the traditional stuff like Macy’s and
Bloomingdale’s. I’ll save Barney’s for last.”

As he suspected, the windows had lots of winter scenes, and
toy trains, and delighted children decked out in holiday finery. Robert let
Suzanne ‘ohh’ and ‘ahh’ at the little skating bears and dancing snowmen, but he
didn’t let her go inside the stores.

Not until they got to Barney’s where the really cutting edge
designs set the pace for the rest of the country. The window displays were as
bizarre as ever.

In one scene, a caricature of Elvis peeked out of the
fireplace, and Martha Stewart’s head was being carved instead of a turkey.

“Now, we go inside,” Robert said after Suzanne had
scrutinized every inch of the displays.

He stood just inside the front door to let her take in the
massive ground floor.

“I imagine it will take the rest of today and most of
tomorrow to get through all nine floors,” he told her.

Suzanne whirled on him. “Are you serious?”

“No. But that’s how I feel when someone suggests going to a
museum.”

“Very funny,” she said.

“Let’s head up to the second floor. That’s designer women’s
clothes. And third floor if you want to ogle evening wear. It’s up to you on
shoes.”

She didn’t just ogle, she screamed, she squealed, she choked
at thousand-dollar price tags.

“I used to wander through here for hours getting ideas for
Audrey’s. I brought the whole family once for the holidays. Rachel was probably
only seven or eight, but she fell in love with the avant-garde styles. That’s
probably where she got her start.”

Robert drifted over to a fabulous red satin evening gown
that draped elegantly at the waist. He examined the back, and the sash tied at
the shoulder.

“Of course, we had to leave when Robbie smeared chocolate
from a candy bar on the back side of a mannequin wearing white slacks.”

He rolled his eyes as he looked back at Suzanne.

“I paid for the pants.”

Suzanne loved looking at the shoes, even though most of the
time she was either mocking the avant-garde styles or complaining about the
pointy toes and extremely high heels.

She was horrified that women might spend hundreds of dollars
on a small clutch, or sling a handbag the size of a suitcase over a shoulder.

And in the jewelry department, most of her comments were
also about cost. “Who could afford eight hundred dollars for a pair of simple
gold earrings? Target probably has a pair just like that for less than ten
dollars.”

After years of watching Amanda spend money with abandon,
Robert found Suzanne’s frugality almost endearing. But he couldn’t resist
teasing her.

“Now Angie actually did have shoes when she went to school,”
he asked Suzanne.

She took the ribbing well. “Yes, she did. In fact, I paid
over fifty dollars for a pair of Doc Martens that she insisted would last forever.
They did, but the style didn’t.”

At the elevator, Suzanne asked Robert if he wanted to check
out the men’s wear.

With a dramatic sigh, he pressed the back of his hand
against his forehead.

“That would be too painful. Seeing all those suits and ties
and knowing I don’t need them any more.”

After they left Barney’s, they cut over to Fifth Avenue and
walked to Bryant Park, window-shopping at Prada, and Fendi’s, and Sak’s along
the way.

Robert wanted to show Suzanne where fashion week used to be
held, before it moved to Lincoln Center. Standing at the fountain in Bryant
Park, he tried to explain how the whole area was all enclosed in massive tents
twice a year.

“Sounds a little chintzy to me,” she said. “Didn’t it get
cold inside?”

“You don’t understand. It was first class all the way,” he
assured her. “And the parties after the show were incredible. You knew how
important you were by which parties you got invited to.”

“Like the parties on Oscar night?”

“Exactly.” He gave Suzanne his best dead-pan look. “I never
got invited to any.”

By the time they boarded a bus back to the hotel, workers
were flooding out of office buildings. Angry cab drivers honked at the evening
gridlock. Robert thought of the many times he’d hustled to make a connection
during rush-hour. It wasn’t that he was anxious to get home; he was fired up to
get to his next destination. Again he was plagued by uncertainty. Would his
next life be as fulfilling?

He was still lost in his doubts when Suzanne asked him how
he felt about Broadway plays.

“Ugh.”

“Don’t mince words with me, Robert. If you don’t want to go,
just tell me.”

“I don’t want to go.”

She laughed, even though he could see she was disappointed.

“That’s okay,” she said, exaggerating gaiety. “You don’t
mind if I go, do you?”

“What do you want to see? Comedy, drama, avant-garde,
off-broadway. You want to see the Lion King as a musical?”

“I don’t know. It’s just that everyone always said they went
to see a Broadway play while they were in New York.”

“They should have all the shows posted at Rockefeller
Center,” Robert said. “Let’s go see what’s playing.”

Suzanne read through all the choices on a marquee in the
lobby.

“They all sound good. Maybe I’ll do a different play each
night.”

“You’re kidding! That could take weeks.”

Her eyelids fluttered as she smiled sweetly. She was teasing
him. Then she thrust a finger in the air.

“Here’s an idea. What if we did a theater marathon? We start
at a theater, and when it gets boring, we walk out.”

“Who gets to decide that it’s boring?”

“When you start snoring, I’ll know it’s time to leave,” she
said.

“Very funny.”

“It’ll be fun. We’ll see how many shows we can cram into one
night.”

Robert caved. “All right. You’re going to need someone to
show you where the best theaters are, anyway. Let’s start with the Lyceum.”

“Technically,” Robert told her as they walked along West
Forty-fifth Street, “The New Amsterdam is just as old, but the Lyceum is my
favorite.”

To her credit, Suzanne gushed over the pilastered Beaux-Arts
façade of the theater, and the undulating marquee out front. And once inside,
she took Robert’s arm as he escorted her up one of the marble staircases to a
drapery-swagged box.

All the seats were taken, but Suzanne parked herself right
in front at the rail. The storyline didn’t hold her attention for more than
five minutes. But the décor kept her riveted for a while.