Ark (20 page)

“I was biking.”

“Hmm. You must be parched. How about a glass of wine?”

“It's seven in the morning, Gertrude.”

“When you hear what this letter says, you'll need a drink, too.”

Gertrude led Rebecca inside her apartment, and to the kitchen table where tea steeped in a red ceramic pot. Gertrude pushed the pot aside, uncorked a bottle of red wine, and poured two glasses, forcing one into Rebecca's hand.

“No, thank you,” she said.

Gertrude's cheeks filled with air, and her eyes seemed to expand to a point of bursting. She said, “You've got all this gray in your hair. Is this the look you're going for?”

“Gertrude.”

“What, you think hair color isn't important? The last time I saw you, you were thirty-five. Now you look thirty-six. Did you have a birthday?”

“No. I didn't.”

“My point exactly.” Gertrude stuck a finger in her ear and began scratching there. She said, “I've lost, Rebecca.”

“You've what?”

“They're pushing me out of the building.”

“Who is?”

“They are!”

It was like this: Each of the four penthouse apartments in the building had been experiencing leaky ceilings for years, and the time had come to renovate the roof. Although this affected only those people living in one of the four penthouses, according to the co-op board, it was everyone's roof and the responsibility of payment would be distributed throughout each unit. The board presidents had brought in a number of contractors and the bidding had been highly competitive. The cost of the job seemed extremely fair. What did this mean for the individual tenant? A doubling of the monthly maintenance bill for the next two years, effective immediately.

“That's sixteen hundred more dollars a month!”

“What? Why haven't I heard anything about this until now?”

“Because, Rebecca, you've had your head up your ass. They've been going on about it for almost a year. But I never thought it would come to this. I can't afford that kind of increase. I'll have to sell my apartment and move out of the city. Where will I go? Eastern Pennsylvania? Maine? I knew a man in Flanders once who wanted to marry me. This was thirty years ago. I doubt he's still alive, but if he is, I'll tell him I'm ready to accept his proposal.”

Rebecca put down her wine glass and fixed herself a cup of tea. An extra sixteen hundred dollars a month over the next two years for a new roof was preposterous, but it wouldn't kill her. Her end-of-the-year bonus alone would more than take care of the expense. She apologized to Gertrude. She told her to keep up hope. “It could work itself out.”

“Bullshit it will. They've won.”

“You're still here. Something could happen.”

“Like what?”

“Like a commission.”

“Not likely.”

“I could lend you money.”

“Lend me money?”

“You'll pay me back.”

“No, no, I don't borrow money.”

“You could stay in your home.”

“No. No.”

“Just this one time.”

“I'd rather die.”

“You've got so much stuff, getting out of here might actually kill you.”

“Not true. I'm tougher than that.”

“Why don't you think about it?”

But no, Rebecca wasn't listening. Gertrude had already made up her mind. She would sell her apartment, pick a new town, and move there. “Everyone in the building will be celebrating. ‘Oh, we finally dumped her. Property values are going to soar.' I swear, these people disgust me.”

“I'm sorry about this, Gertrude. I have to get ready for work now. Let me know. The offer stands.”

Rebecca said goodbye and went down the hall to her apartment. Her stepmother had called two more times in the last hour. What could she possibly want? Rebecca wouldn't think about it. She showered, dressed, and left for work. But coming into the office at a quarter to nine, her secretary stopped her. There was a message from Sheila. Rebecca should call her right away. It was urgent.

Rebecca closed her door and dialed her stepmother. The moment Sheila answered, Rebecca apologized for not having called sooner. She said she'd had a busy morning. So what was going on? Was she all right?

“I have to see you, Rebecca.”

“Why?”

“We'll talk about it in person. Can you come over today at three?”

“Come over? Could you meet me near my office?”

“No. All the papers for the lawsuit are here. I need to show them to you.”

Rebecca acquiesced. Then she asked if her father would be joining them. But Sheila didn't answer. She said, “I'll see you then,” and hung up.

A feeling of regret seized Rebecca the moment she got off. She had spoken to herself about it too many times: she wouldn't make appointments with anyone she didn't want to see. A simple rule. And she had just broken it. Rebecca leaned hard to one side of her chair, grimacing. Her whole day was ruined now. How would she get her work done? She had phone calls to make, documents to read. But she had been robbed of her energy.

A minute later, Rebecca got up from her desk and left the office. She went uptown to Café Sabarsky. The restaurant's decor reminded her that she didn't have to leave the city to feel transported to a faraway place and time. Between the chandeliers and tremendous mirrored walls, the selection of international newspapers hanging on wooden rods like drying laundry just behind the grand piano—
Le Monde, Der Spiegel, el Dais
—it all had the effect of sending her over the Atlantic. She sensed her anonymity acutely and was pleased. Her spirits were lifting. She was seated at one of the marble-topped Café tables in the busy dining room, drinking a glass of red wine. Surrounded by so many tourists, she let herself believe that she was in the city of those who dined around her, and not the other way around. Yes—and she imagined that she was feeling more at ease now than she had all day. She flipped open the thick black menu. Perhaps goulash or a bratwurst, then a strudel. She would like a feast.

On occasion, Rebecca wondered what she looked like to a person who saw her out in the world. Inspecting produce in a grocery store, hailing a cab—what impression did she give off to a stranger? Whatever the answer, she concluded that anyone who saw this young couple seated in front of her would have to think they were very much in love. And what about this man bursting through the Café entrance, the strain of a difficult subway commute there in his expression? And this teenage girl hiding from her parents between the upturned collar of her shirt and her knuckles set beneath her chin. Rebecca liked them all.

There was a postcard on the table advertising a cabaret performance the following week, and she thought she would come back and see it. Or perhaps she would get on a plane and go to Vienna. When was the last time she had gone anywhere? Years. But where could she go from here to have more of a foreign land? After finishing her goulash, Rebecca decided on the Oyster Bar. The restaurant had always reminded her of the kind of place Londoners might have taken shelter during a German bomb raid, but with more charming lighting. She'd been many times. However, once inside Grand Central, she couldn't find the entrance. Was it closer to Lexington or Vanderbilt? Which ramp did you follow down? There was a back door, but where was that? She let herself drift onto a platform and stood between two trains, both heading upriver to the Hudson Valley. Conductors in navy uniforms were gathered there. One shouted above the din of the silver machines, asking her where to. Regarding their heavy gray faces, the overworked eyes, she didn't say. That they were trying to be helpful didn't change the fact that they were being nuisances. She wished to be left alone. She turned her back to the conductors, waiting for the quiet feeling of loss which would come when the trains pulled out of the station. However, Rebecca left the platform before either train.

She got directions to the restaurant from a shoe shiner. She went right up to the bar, where it reeked of booze, and told the bartender, “Beefeaters, up, extra olives.” But at the next moment, seeing that Sheila had texted asking where she was, she left the restaurant. One half of the sidewalk was cordoned off for the purpose of construction, and she walked single file in a crowded lane beside an office building, pressing herself to sense the sound and taste of the ocean. The farther she got from the restaurant, the harder this became. But then, across the street from her father's apartment, with the McKim Building—why, here was Rome. At the entryway to the library, she hung her hands on the chest-high, green oxidized metal gate, looking in. And she was there, near the Tevere, and the Villa Borghese, not far from the Vatican. This was the trip she'd been meaning to go on. At last, she had made the time, and taken a grand shortcut, saving more hours than she had to spare. Why did it all seem better now? Painless yet vivid, delicious,
adagio
. She would stay. She desperately wanted to remain. But then she had to go upstairs.

And once inside her father's apartment, the fantasy was over. There was Sheila, explaining how the legal documents were organized, starting with the file cabinet in the living room, then the accordion files in the kitchen, and lastly the binders on the shelf in the bedroom. Rebecca should pay attention to every last word she was saying. Perhaps she wanted to take notes. Regardless, she should speak to the lawyers as soon as possible and be brought up to date on her father's legal affairs, because Sheila was done. In fact, there was a half-packed suitcase open on the floor in the bedroom, and she was collecting her toiletries in a large ziplock bag.

“Your father doesn't care about the lawsuit, and I can't make him care. I've tried.”

“So you're leaving?”

“Yes. Back to Los Angeles.”

Sheila was pulling open all the drawers. Here was a pair of socks, a shirt, a bracelet. She dumped it all into the suitcase. She said she didn't have much time. Her plane departed in three hours.

“Is my father okay with you leaving?”

“Yes, Rebecca. He wants me out of his hair.”

Rebecca had been clutching her purse to her body. But now her arm floated out in front of her, and she asked if Sheila and her father would divorce. Sheila's answer came slowly. She said that sounded difficult and expensive. For now, they would take some time apart, a few months at most. Although who knew, perhaps a longer separation would be necessary. It had been a while since Sheila had thought about her own life. She was ready to start.

“Rebecca, you'll see firsthand how this lawsuit can drain you of all your time and energy.”

“You think I'm taking over for you, is that it?”

“It's that or you can kiss your father's inheritance goodbye.” She said Oliver would never follow through on the lawsuit without someone pushing him to the finish. Rebecca was the only candidate for the job. Unless she could think of someone else. “But of course you can't, because there's no one but you now.”

Rebecca shook her head. She said, “What about the lawyers? Can't they handle everything?”

“No,” Sheila answered, “they can't.”

“Why not?”

“There's a hundred reasons why.”

“Are they incompetent?”

“No.”

“So what, then?”

“Take Jerome. He was with your grandparents when the new wills were signed. And he needs to be convinced to testify. But the lawyers can't even get him on the phone. You probably could. You're friends. He would listen to you.”

Rebecca's head dropped forward onto her fingertips. She told her stepmother that she could be disbarred for meddling that way.

“Think of it as a calculated risk. If your father doesn't get his inheritance, how will he survive? He has no money.”

“I'm sure there's a smarter way to go about it.”

“Well, you're the lawyer. If anyone can figure it out, it's you.”

Rebecca's gaze moved around the bedroom. She said, “Where is my father, anyway?”

“Honestly, I don't know. I've already tried him three times. He doesn't answer.”

“Should we be worried?”

“Worried? Rebecca, this is what he does! Just yesterday he told me he was going out to get staples, and he didn't come back for six hours. That's when I realized I couldn't do this anymore.”

Rebecca brought her hand to the side of her head. To alleviate the pain behind her eyes, she went into the medicine cabinet in the bathroom and took an aspirin. She drank from the faucet and dried her face on her forearm. She returned to the bedroom. Sheila was on her knees, zipping up the suitcase. Rebecca thanked her. “You've done a lot for my father.”

“Yes. And now it's your turn, Rebecca. With a case like this, you'll have to be creative. Doris's lawyers are very good.”

“Well, I haven't committed to anything.”

“Don't be coy. This is your case to win now.”

“Not true.”

“Then let your dad go to the poor house.”

“The poor house?”

“He's got nothing.”

“I know.”

“You do? You don't act like it.”

“All right, Sheila. I have to leave. You have a nice flight.”

Rebecca let herself out. She took the stairs down. In the lobby, she stood before a mirror and brushed her hair. Were her eyes bloodshot? She took a step closer to the mirror and saw that they were, yes. Maybe it was because of the martini? Perhaps lack of sleep? Or Sheila? That was it. Her stepmother's mouth, a force of nature, which would not stop with its assumptions and its demands, had caused the blood vessels in her eyes to burst. She reached into her purse for her sunglasses. Raul, the doorman, asked her where she was heading now.

“Back to the office,” she said.

“You know, you look a little under the weather.”

“Oh?” Rebecca touched her face. So everyone could tell. How bad was it?