Эд Макбейн - Privileged Conversation

“Goodnight, Rickie,” she says at last, and reaches up to kiss him, but he turns his head slightly at the very last moment, either by accident or design, and their lips meet. His tongue is in her mouth in an instant, a hot Latin tongue that sends sparks clear down to where she doesn’t want to be feeling anything of the sort. She draws away, and looks at him in surprise, and then says, “Goodnight” again, and goes into the building. He stands on the sidewalk watching her for a moment, and then he shrugs and walks away. Domingo looks a little puzzled, too.

She has lived in New York long enough to know that a spring latch is worthless on the door to an apartment. Her top lock is a Medeco and the one under that is a dead bolt. She double-locks the door, and then draws all the blinds, the ones on the windows facing the street, and the ones covering the single window opening on the air shaft. “Yes, Hannah,” she says, “hello, sweetie, how are you?” and then goes into the bedroom and slips out of her jeans and T-shirt. She leaves her panties on like an old maid afraid to look under the bed, and takes from the closet a silk kimono Ron bought for her in Fort Lauderdale when they were touring Miss Saigon . The kimono is very long, with a sash that belts at the waist. Its predominant color is a sort of saffron, printed with these huge olive-colored tendrils. It feels soft and smooth and slippery against her skin.

Barefoot, she starts back into the living room, and, as she invariably does, stops to look at the corridor wall hung with framed photographs. The picture of the Palace Theatre in London, where she played in Les Miz , shows the big marquee on Shaftesbury Avenue, and hanging under that a photo of the stage door around the corner with its stone lintel and chiseled words shamelessly proclaiming:

Artistes, she thinks and smiles.

There’s a framed photo of the Operettenhaus in Hamburg, where she played in, guess what, Cats , and all around that are pictures of the various theaters in Denver, Minneapolis, Fort Lauderdale, Washington, and Detroit, from when she was touring Miss Saigon with Ron. The biggest picture on the wall is a framed color photograph of Bess. Her sister is nine in the picture, and she looks happy and beautiful in a yellow sundress, but of course that was before she got so terribly sick.

She stares at the photo for a long time, and then she sighs heavily and goes into the living room and over to the wall where her stereo equipment is stacked. From one of the metal shelves there, she takes down a bottle of Beefeater’s gin that was a gift from the stage manager last Christmas, and she pours a hefty two fingers into a fat solid-feeling glass she bought at Pottery Barn.

She carries the glass into the kitchen, cracks a tray of cubes, and drops two of them into the drink. “Cheers,” she says aloud to no one, and takes a good swallow. “Mm, good,” she says, and goes back into the living room and searches through her CDs till she finds Handel’s Water Music , to which she once danced in a recital in Miss Davenport’s dance class in Westport, Connecticut. But that was when you and I were young, Bessie. That was before the Incident , as Jacqueline and I took to calling it after hours of skirting it, and circling it, and finally dealing with it and putting it to rest.

Maybe.

Or alternately, the Bathroom Incident, delicately avoiding the more emotionally laden term Trauma .

The Handel is soft and soothing and suited to the hour, which she knows is late. She lowers the volume. Drains her glass. While she’s standing there, she pours herself another one. Standing there with the drink in her hand, she visualizes herself as a skinny twelve-year-old in leotard and tights, drifting across the large open room that was Miss Davenport’s second-floor studio, mirrors lining one entire wall, windows on the other, flowing, floating to the sound of Handel’s violins, richly romantic when she was twelve, but sounding somewhat stout and stately now. She sips at her fresh drink. Twelve years old. A spring recital. Faint breezes wafting through the open windows. Sweaty little girls drifting. Everything so beautiful at the ballet, “Thank you, Chorus Line, ” she says, and raises her glass in a toast, and sips at it again. Everything so beautiful. But that was before the summer of our discontent, wasn’t it?

The telephone rings.

Don’t be my fucking father, she thinks.

She goes into the bedroom and picks up the phone on the bedside table.

“Hello?”

“Hi. It’s me.”

“Rickie,” she says, relieved, “hi.”

“I just got home. Is everything okay?”

“Yes, fine.”

“No trouble from the nut?”

“Not yet.”

“Maybe we scared him off, huh?”

“I hope so,” she says, and sits on the edge of the bed, and takes another sip of the gin. “That was very kind of you,” she says. “What you did tonight.”

“I just hope it worked.”

“We’ll find out, I guess.”

“Oh sure. By the way,” he says, “we were so busy trying to fool him, I never got to tell you how much I liked the show.”

“Thank you.”

“You really are the prettiest cat in it. Whatever it was he said in his letter.”

“Prettiest kitty, ” she says. “Thank you.”

“You’re also a very good dancer,” he says.

“Thank you.”

“I’ll bet he sees every performance, don’t you think? Judging from the letters?”

“Probably.”

“Probably standing downstairs right this minute. Looking up at your window.”

“Well, I hope not.”

“Probably jacking off in some doorway,” he says. “Where do these nuts come from, anyway?”

The Incident is suddenly upon her full-blown.

“There used to be a kid lived in my building,” Rickie says, “he used to throw bricks down from the roof. Just at anybody passing by. My uncle comes to visit us one day, this crazy bastard on the roof throws a brick down at him. He runs up the roof, my uncle...”

A hot summer night at the beginning of August.

A Sunday night.

Thirteen-year-old Kate is standing in front of the misted bathroom mirror, drying herself in a large white puffy towel.

“...gave me the shirt, by the way.”

“What?”

“My uncle in Mayagüez. The one who told the kid to stop throwing bricks off the roof or he’d throw him off the roof. He’s the one sent me the shirt I was wearing tonight. With the parrot on it. Did you like it?”

“Yes, it was very nice.”

“Yeah, it’s cool.”

Eleven-year-old Bess is submerged in the tub in a sea of white suds.

“He used to be a doorman on East Seventieth, he retired last October, went back to the island. He’s got a house down there, a pool, anything a person...”

Downstairs in the living room, her father is listening to his records.

Gently...

Sweetly...

Ever so...

Discreetly...

Her hand suddenly begins shaking.

“Rickie,” she says, “excuse me, but I have to go now.”

“Is something wrong?”

“No, nothing, I’m all right.”

Her hand is shaking so hard she’s spilling gin all over the front of the kimono.

Open...

Secret...

Doors.

“Kate?” he says.

She can see her sister in the tub, precociously budding, thin and tan and supple, her sweet dear innocent Bess.

“Kate?”

You always were his favorite.

“I’m okay,” she says.