Twelve Rooms with a View (35 page)

In spite of the tidy suit, Len was starting to look and sound completely psychotic. I couldn’t believe it; he was like a different person. I wanted to shout at him, I’m taking care of your moss, you asshole! But that would not have helped my situation. His angry exhortations were having their effect on the mood of the room. Some of the photographers in the back were shoving each other to get a decent shot; many were just holding their cameras above their heads and firing off their motor drives, hoping they’d end up with something worth printing. But some of the reporters at the back were feeling left out, so they started shouting questions really loudly, partly out of frustration and partly so they could be heard. “Has the building started eviction proceedings?” a skinny girl in a red jacket shouted. I wanted to hit her, but I was beginning to worry that someone would notice that the evil pretender and interloper was standing right there spying on the proceedings, and they’d mob me.

Which actually is what happened next, just not to me. Someone up front tried to answer the skinny reporter’s question with what may have been the last shred of reason in the room. “No one is being evicted!” he shouted, but then there was a kind of swelling up and movement near the front door; one of the tenants was coming home, and those of us back by the elevators were getting shoved. Seriously, it’s not like there were a hundred people there—I don’t know how many were there, maybe thirty—but the foyer of the Edge is not a limitless space. That one extra person seems to have been the tipping point. Or maybe it was
who
she was, because suddenly all the reporters started to shout and turn their attention toward the doorway, where the beautiful Julianna Gideon was trying to make her way in.

I had seen her only a couple times, but this crowd was made up of the kind of society writers who know where you live and how much money you have and how old your family is and what parties you go to
and what charity events you attend. In any event, they all knew who she was, and, more important, they cared. “Miss Gideon! Miss Gideon!” they shouted, which in the moment honestly sounded sort of obscenely polite, given that they were shoving around her like a crazed soccer mob and sticking their cameras in her face ruthlessly. “Can we get a comment about the controversy? Have you met any of the women who now claim part ownership of the building? Will you support the co-op board if they attempt eviction proceedings?”

I couldn’t even see Julianna at first, but then I spotted that beautiful head of hair, her face tucked down against her shoulder, as she gently tried to make her way through the swarm. She wore a soft rose-colored coat, which had been pulled open by her struggle with the crowd, and she carried a couple of expensive shopping bags that kept getting caught behind her, so she kept turning back to murmur, “Excuse me, so sorry, excuse me.” She would try to move forward, then get dragged back, people were shouting, and then she threw back her head, releasing her face from all those dark curls with an almost angelic despair. Her face went all white and her knees buckled and she started to go down.

Who knows what might have happened—she had fainted, no question, and people were being careless indeed. But Frank appeared out of the crowd and caught her. She fell into his arms, and he picked her up and shouldered his way through the mob, carrying her the last few steps to where I was standing in front of the elevators. Her head was tipped back, and her curls fell gracefully around the epaulets on his doorman’s uniform. I had enough presence of mind to swing the elevator door open for them and swing myself in behind. The reporters were closing in, and Julianna wasn’t the only one who needed to make an escape. “What floor is she on, Frank?” I said fast, reaching for the buttons.

“Eleven,” he told me.

Just then a hand reached in and stopped the elevator door from closing. “No no no no,” I begged, half under my breath. I actually smacked the hand, hard, and then tried to pry the fingers off the sliding panel as I shoved my body in front of Julianna and Frank so that no one could push their way in.

“Would you relax! Tina,
Jesus
, owww.” I looked up from the fingers
still clinging to the edge of the panel to see who was blocking the crowd of reporters, which looked small and insignificant now, a bunch of society scribblers trying to make something out of nothing. “You gonna bite me?” Pete asked.

“I was thinking about it.”

“I’m sure. She dropped these.” He shoved in the two elegant shopping bags—pristine, with corded handles, one from Barney’s, the other from Bergdorf Goodman—which had slipped from Julianna’s grasp.

“Thanks,” I said.

“Wait wait, is this yours?” he asked. And he pushed in the bag I had been carrying—the brown paper shopping bag containing his mother’s Balenciaga dress and alligator clutch and her pearls. I felt myself turning red, but he didn’t know; how could he know.

“Go on, get out of here,” he said, tipping his head toward the call buttons. He turned his back to me and held up his hands, blocking access to the shouting reporters. “Back up,
back up
, you fucking piranhas,” he ordered.

“Is that one of the other heirs?” somebody asked, putting two and two together.

“I don’t know, is it?” he wondered. I didn’t hear anything further. The door closed, the elevator lifted, and we left him and the ensuing chaos behind.

H
IGH ABOVE THE CITY, WITH SWEEPING VIEWS OF THE PARK SIMILAR
to my own, the Gideon apartment was a haven of peace and light. Every one of the rooms had been “done,” apparently by some famous designer, in a palette of gold and white. You walked into the living room and felt like you were floating.

Frank was still carrying Julianna in his arms. She had revived to the point that she could insist he put her down, but not with any real force. “I’m fine, really, Frank, I promise, this is so silly,” she protested, as she leaned her cheek against his chest. I had opened the door with Frank’s master keys, which he tossed to me in the elevator with almost alarming speed and accuracy, as if he had been preparing for this moment his entire life. In any case, he tossed me the keys and I knew what to do with them. I grabbed her bags and he held on to Julianna and we brought her safely home, where he laid her on a milk white sofa in front of a bank of windows overlooking the world.

“I was so frightened,” she said, smiling up at him. Frank knelt beside her and pushed a strand of curling hair off her cheek.

“You’re all right now,” he said.

“I’m perfect now,” she said. “Thank you.”

She reached over and held his hand. Frank just stared at her, his face so full of wonder you truly thought the universe might stop. They had completely forgotten that I was back in the corner by the door; both of them were clearly so content just looking at each other. I almost shouted, “Kiss her! Kiss her!” but there was no time.

“What is going on here?” someone announced, behind us. Before I could even turn to say hello, Mrs. Gideon with the steely gray hair swept by me to join her daughter on that pristine couch. When Julianna lay on
it, it looked like a bed, but as soon as her ferocious mother sat next to her it looked like a throne. It had strange paw-like feet that you noticed only when Mom was sitting there.

“Oh, mother, I’m fine,” Julianna began. Mother cut her off.

“You’re clearly
not
fine, someone just carried you into your own apartment. What happened?” Mrs. Gideon turned on Frank and me as if we were the problem here and not the solution. She was a fairly frightening person, truth be told. She kept asking questions, but they didn’t sound a bit like questions; every word out of her mouth sounded like a complete accusation. She was honestly no fun at all.

“There was a crowd down in the lobby, things were a little upsetting,” Frank explained.

“Yes, things are upsetting, people in the building are upset, my understanding is that it’s being handled, Frank, I don’t know what it has to do with you,” Mrs. Gideon snapped, standing. “And I don’t appreciate your bringing
her
into my home.” She barely flicked her eyes in my direction; I was beneath her, and besides, she was having too much fun giving Frank a hard time. “Surely you know that I would consider that inappropriate.”

Frank was completely mortified. “I … I … I …,” he began, but she was having none of it.

“You’ve done enough,
now go,”
she ordered.

“Mother. Please.” Julianna sat up, her cheeks turning the palest rose. I’m telling you, that girl knew how to blush. Her pink cheeks were just the slightest shade lighter than her rose-colored wrap. Sitting up on that white couch, she looked like a flower. “Frank took care of me, I don’t know why you would speak so harshly to him,” she said, laughing a little in a way that took all the sting out of her mother’s accusations. “I don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t been there, Frank. I was really frightened and it was so silly to faint.”

“You
fainted?
I’m calling the doctor.”

“I’m fine now, thanks to Frank. I am very grateful, Frank, really I am.” She stood up and held her hand out to him with a simple elegance. He took it in both of his own, too overwhelmed to speak. Honestly, if
her hideous mother had not been there, I think he would have fallen to his knees in a worshipful daze. But Hideous Mother
was
there. And she was done with us.

“Well, I don’t know what happened,” she said. “But if you say Frank was helpful, I’m sure he was. Here, Frank, wait there for a minute so I can get you something.”

“Oh—no, please,” said Frank. But Hideous Mother had already stalked to the entryway, where I was standing and watching, and picked up her purse from a useless-looking sticklike table perched just inside the door. She smiled at me tightly as she turned, making sure I knew that even if I had fooled her pretty daughter, I sure wasn’t going to fool her. But she really didn’t have anything to say anymore; she was just ready to get rid of both of us.

“Here,” she said, holding out a five-dollar bill in Frank’s direction.

Frank’s face went white, then a deep, truly indescribable color seemed to pass over it like a wave. To give him his due, his expression did not change. But for a moment he seemed unable to speak or move.

“Mother,”
whispered Julianna, completely mortified.

“What?” said Hideous Mother. “He’s the doorman and he was very helpful to you.” She twitched the five between her fingers in an insanely insulting breath of a gesture. “You just said so yourself, sweetheart. I think it’s completely appropriate to offer him a tip.” She took another step toward Frank and gave the bill yet another little flick. The whole performance was so shocking I couldn’t look away.

“You dropped your bags,” I said, holding up the Bergdorf’s and Barney’s bags with a sudden humble but loud goodwill. “I’m going to leave them here by the door, okay?”

“Oh—” Julianna started.

“Frank, you were going to let me into my apartment, remember? I am so sorry, I locked myself out. So stupid. What a great apartment you have, it’s so pretty, I didn’t at all mean to barge in, I just, Frank was going to help me with my keys and then your daughter fainted.” I reached out and grabbed Frank’s arm, to get him to move. With a quick, sharp shrug he pushed me aside, but at least it got him going. He strode past Hideous
Mother, and me, with every shred of Latin American pride that was left in him and his uniform. As he clearly wasn’t going to pause, I scurried along. He did not give himself permission to look back even when Julianna called after him.

“Thank you, Frank, thank you!”

“If you want to thank him so much, I don’t know why you wouldn’t let me tip him,” Mrs. Gideon admonished her, behind our exit. “Honestly, Julianna, your affectations have gotten completely—” The door slammed her voice shut. Frank was at the elevator now, pressing the button with a fierce and uncompromising rage. Blessedly, it was right there, and we didn’t have to wait. We both stepped into the elevator, and I hit 8. Frank hit L. We traveled in silence for a moment.

“Boy,” I finally said. “What a witch.”

“Hopeless,” he whispered. “Hopeless.” He sagged then, leaning against the paneled wall as if it were the only way he could continue to stand. When the elevator dinged for my floor, I reached over and pulled him up, put his arm over my shoulder, and half carried, half walked him out at my landing. Then I let us into my apartment, using his keys.

He was mumbling to himself, some sort of protest, I think, but my Spanish is not all that good when someone talks fast. It sounded sort of like, you have to let me go I have to get downstairs and do my job, but it could just as easily have been a grocery list. In any case he was in no condition to face anyone down in the lobby, much less that crowd of howling society reporters who were most certainly still on the premises. So I shut the door behind us and pushed him into my sweet empty enormous front room, propping him up against one of the windows that have the really good view of the park.

“Here, wait here, Frank, I’m going to get you something to drink, okay?” I said. He just kept talking to himself. I headed for the kitchen, where I knew there was a nearly full bottle of vodka stashed in the freezer.

As I raced through the little TV room, a head popped up off the couch. “Hey, you’re home,” said Jennifer as she cheerfully set down a mystery novel. I had forgotten that she was planning to show up, so her sudden appearance sent my heart rate through the roof.

“Oh, Jennifer,” I said, holding my hand to my chest in an attempt not to die from the scare she gave me. “Oh.”

“You told me to come,” she reminded me, a little worried now.

“No, I’m really glad you’re here,” I said. “Oh. Really glad.” And I was. Even though my heart was still racing, it was not lost on me that finally, maybe, I had an ally. At the very least, for the first time ever in the Edgewood, I had someone to come home to. “Come on,” I said, heading for the refrigerator. “Frank’s in the front room. He’s a complete mess.”

“The
door
man?” she said, following me obediently.