What I Did for Love (11 page)

Safely locked away from the world, I went to the back of my bedroom closet, which held yet another room behind its back wall. What had been an “owner’s closet” to store things if the apartment was sublet, had been made to disappear. It just looked like a back wall now, but it was actually a pocket door, beautifully designed to be unnoticeable. Unhooking the latch, I rolled the wall to one side. There was a clothes pole at the front of the closet, a low set of drawers against one side, and boxes of shoes on the floor.

I moved aside the clothes, each outfit in its own plastic bag, and stepped over the boxes into the tiny dressing room that held a diminutive vanity table and cushioned stool. The walls held shelves with different wigs in their round shiny black boxes, and rectangular clear plastic boxes with various hats and caps. All of the clothing was from department and chain stores, ordered on line and sent to our postal drop. Bredon had a matching room hidden in his penthouse. Before he moved from his old apartment where he had also had a closet like this, he had it removed, opening up the area to make it look like a part of the
deep walk-in closet, no traces of the secret storage remaining. The new tenants would never know.

We lived in a kind of paranoia, a lifestyle more like spies than normal siblings after the air crash. We did all we could to hide from the ghoulish curiosity of reporters, from brash, intrusive people we did not know, who saw themselves as well-meaning, who proffered sympathy and banalities and sometimes “religious” consolations that drove us crazy. After the bombing a torrent of newspaper reporters had clustered at the survivors’ houses. For days there were programs streamed and on television, with panels of experts discussing the terrorists, the flight, the passengers, whether one or more passengers had been targeted. The newspapers, and some commentators, milked every detail for its possible shock factor. There were constant attempts to reach families of the lost passengers by phone, twitter, text when a cell number could be found.

I was in such a shaken condition that after a short hospital stay, I was sequestered in our great-aunts’ house in Riverdale, while Bredon worked to keep the media craziness from reaching me. He hired his own technical wizard to block every digital attempt to access us.

Then it was a matter of not being bothered when we left home to go outside, to walk or take a car or a cab. When we appeared on the street there were “death stalkers,” those perverse freaks who were fascinated with the deaths and grief of the famous. Hating their eager, vulgar attempts to engage us in conversation, we had devised our plans for disguises, inspired by our parents’ friendships with several actors, and our own school plays.

We had the help of “Toro” Tomàs, now a character actor in movies and television dramas, who had been Bredon’s prep school classmate. He had been bullied for his size, and declared stupid, clumsy, inferior, by the dreadful snobbish older students who seemed to lack conscience or compassion. Tomàs’ parents were rich, and had sent him to the U.S. to give him the best
private education possible. Unknowingly, they had consigned their son to the misery of difference and foreignness.

The heartlessness of some of the boys, raised in rich entitlement, led them to mock anyone who somehow provoked their dislike. It had enraged Bredon, who had come to Tomàs’ defense. Our parents’ wealth, and my brother’s own tall, handsome elegance became a protective shield for his tormented friend. Tomàs had never forgotten. When Bredon had contacted him after the bombing and the assaults by the press, he found his way to us by one of the unseen entrances to our building, and spent an evening teaching us about disguises, telling us what things to buy and how to use them. He had brought some make-up with him, and made Bredon’s face look like that of an old and nondescript man, showing us how to “age” or “de-beautify” ourselves. I was so grateful for his genuine concern for us, and I adored his great size and the gentleness he showed us. His gratitude and friendship for Bredon were obvious, never spoken, touching my heart forever. When he was leaving I kissed him with a peck on the cheek, having to climb on top of the sofa cushion to do so, to his delighted laughter, catching me so that I could slide down his arm back to the floor. It was the first time since the bombing that Bredon and I had actually been able to laugh, and then to hug this man, a stranger to me, but someone whom I realized would always be devoted to Bredon.

The clothing and make-up along with back doors became the way we avoided notice when we wanted to go out alone. The wigs were another matter. Those were ordered through Ren, Bredon’s friend and our doctor. The wigmakers assumed Ren was filling orders on behalf of his patients who had lost their hair to cancer or other illnesses, and Ren knew how to do the measurements for the under-nettings and the wigs. The good human hair wigs were very expensive and they did their work well. Once the wig was on, it was indistinguishable from natural hair.

For Bredon there had been a variety of men’s wigs. Ren had
even gone to a costume shop to purchase a bald man’s mask, a fringe of “hair” around the bottom of the large bald spot, and he worked with Bredon to incorporate that into one of the wigs. For me, the wigs were short and long, blonde and black and brown and red. Two were purposely purchased for the ability to make them into “hair” that was messy and unkempt. If we looked poor, or old, or hollow-eyed, wearing shapeless clothes, people would avert their eyes from us when passing. We could travel quickly and quietly, simply walking freely, no one bothering to notice us. I did this a couple of times when I needed to roam about the city, just to cope with my own restlessness, and it gave me a rare and blessed anonymity. In the early days after the bombing, disguise became my defiant answer to the sickening curiosity, and presumption, of “sympathizers.”

It had been a long time since I had used these disguises. Bredon had given up on them quickly, for his financial dealings made concealment unsuitable for a man who needed people’s trust. I could more easily escape notice, and had altered my appearance many times in the year after our parents’ deaths.

We had taken other steps to avoid public notice. Bredon had used his governmental connections to get each of us a false federal identity card. We were John and Mary Cole, names so obvious as to be unnoticeable. Bredon did not want to risk getting us false passports, but the cards were acceptable substitutes when identification was required. And as John Cole he set up a post office box, and opened a bank account for each of us with a debit card and checking attached. Our bank statements would come to us separately at our post office box, and we each had a key to the box. I did not know how much this would help me in the future, but it was a fortunate decision.

A message-only telephone line to which Bredon alone had access, was the contact he listed for the accounts. The social security numbers we used had belonged to our dead grandparents. As the “Coles”, each of us had savings, checking and a
debit card. The signature cards and applications, obtained through Bredon’s own bank branch, were already signed. We had practiced old-fashioned cursive signatures, and made copies to remind ourselves of the way John and Mary Cole signed their names.

Eventually the person at the bank who had opened the account would have forgotten about it. We counted on that, and by agreement, took turns using the checking accounts only once in a great while to cash a few hundred dollars, to avoid having the bank’s computers flag the accounts for inactivity. The slowly accumulating deposits made in cash were to provide for some possible future case when we needed to draw money quickly without also drawing attention to our real identities. We did all this to help us should an emergency occur, should we need money quickly to disappear from public view, to be left alone to lead our lives in privacy.

For my meeting with Rand today, I would resume my post-bombing practice of disguising myself to avoid recognition and attention. With surveillance cameras everywhere, it was ever more difficult to hide from view. I would need time to make myself into a street kid of no distinction, and then get to Rand’s house using the subways. So I began early, first using a hand towel to remove the small dust that had accumulated in the closet. I just gave everything a quick swipe, including the vanity table, and began.

I wound my long hair around my head, the wig cap snugly fitted over it, and then selected a wig that was a shag-pixie combination, a poorly-done haircut, in a washed-out blonde. A baseball cap and dark glasses would conceal my face, no makeup. I put little earrings on, tiny circles that could have been piercings. I snapped on the belt of an under-the-shirt pouch that would lie flat against my stomach, and hold my credit cards, I.D. and cash, and where I would also stow my apartment key. It had thin straps if I wanted to hang it around my neck, but for this disguise, I sat
it low around my waist, its bottom half tucked into my panties. It was easily covered under a long-sleeved cotton shirt that fell straight to mid-hip. I pulled on department store jeans that were just a bit too large to show my figure and that were baggy at the knees. In the larger closet were molding strips, and a small hollow area behind one of them where I hid cash. I took several bills of various denominations to fold flat into my wallet, and more bills to put in one deep side pocket of my jeans. My tiny phone, with Rand’s number entered, went into the other pocket. My path downtown would be by subway, and I would buy a Metro Card using cash, to avoid any credit card record of my purchase. I pulled on white socks, and scuffed running shoes. The days were growing warmer though this year we had many unusually cool days and evenings, so I took a standard type of navy blue hoodie, zipped up but draped over my shoulders, its sleeves tied together over my chest. I had put on the plainest white cotton bra and panties. No perfume. I wondered, smiling grimly to myself, whether Rand would be repulsed my scruffy plainness.

I decided to wear the dark glasses both outside and in the subways, making me even less wholesome a figure. I re-latched the closet and paced the apartment, getting myself used to the tightness of the wig cap, walking around to get used to wearing ill-fitting clothes. The trick, I had found, was to imagine another life, to create myself as a young person of no particular standing, a city child, with origins somewhere in the five boroughs, ordinary and unremarkable.

When I slipped out the back doors of my apartment and building I already had a travel plan fixed in my mind. Taking the Number 1 train, I jumped off at 31
^st
Street and went down the block to the St. Francis church, noted for its daily Breadline that fed so many. Downstairs in the church, at the Shrine of St. Anthony, I pushed a small offering into one of the alms boxes, and said another prayer to the Saint, that Bredon would find
ethical investors and all the money he needed for his project. Back on the train, I went to 14
^th
Street, big signs on the platform saying Union Square.

Up on the streets again I walked to an F train, and down the steps to the train that said Coney Island, taking it to East Broadway. After that, I would walk as though aimlessly, in a circuitous route that wound toward Rand’s house. The sidewalks were more or less crowded, the ebb and flow of people thinning as I neared the luxury area of apartment buildings, an enclave of a neighborhood where almost no stores could be found, and the foot traffic considerably diminished as a result. This was unfortunate for my plans, so I looped around and came up the side street toward the gate. I clicked the speed number for Rand.

“I’m a few yards away. Look for my baseball cap,” I said without a hello or any other words, and snapped the phone closed.

I got to the gate, the street thankfully shaded by the buildings all around. Hearing the gate click, I slipped in very quickly. I moved rapidly out of sight of the street to the shielding trees and bushes and the flat stone path to Rand’s door, which clicked ajar at my approach.

I knocked anyway, a few brief raps, and Rand pulled the door open, standing there squinting at me, caught between amusement and anger, his anger clearly winning. He stood back to let me enter, still no words between us. I felt the surge of attraction as I passed by him and went unasked to sit on the sofa where we had made love an age ago, a few days ago. The room was as beautiful as last time, fresh flowers, the air clean-smelling, everything clean and polished. Whoever tended this place was a treasure. I was trying to control my reaction to Rand, my desire mixed with my own anger, distracting myself by thinking about housekeeping, all to no avail.

Rand sat on a chair in front of me, and I felt warm, my heart speeding up. I did not want to look directly at him.

“Do take off those glasses, Dray,” he said in an acid tone.

Oh, God, is anything ever easy?

“And would you take off the wig?”

I wanted to scream with my conflicted sadness and embarrassment. “It’s difficult to get it back on,” I answered, and sat without doing anything.

Rand made a sound that was like a contemptuous snort, which felt like a blow. I felt close to tears, another surprise to me, I who had trained myself not to cry in front of anyone except Bredon, and only when we were sharing hours and memories. I sat there in too much misery to say anything.

With a look of impatience, resettling himself into his chair, Rand said, “I am willing to bail your brother out.”

“He doesn’t need ‘bailing out’,” I almost hissed. “From what I understand, he just needs you to keep your word in the capital agreement.”

“In other words, keep my part of the bargain – even if it’s a bad bargain.”

“I’m not crazy about the other partners either,” I said, “but once the project is launched, lots of others will be there to jump in and buy up your shares, and Bredon’s, and you’ll both be out. Even if you don’t make a profit – though I’m sure you will – you’ll break even.”

He was taken aback. I don’t think he realized that I knew anything about that rather vicious financial world in which they operated, and his eyes showed their grudging respect for what I had said.