Saïd Sayrafiezadeh - New American Stories

“Sir?”

The girl’s voice seemed to echo through the shop. He peeked up. When had she come out from behind the bouquet? He could see her standing on the other side of the tree. She was looking at him through the leaves.

“Are you all right, sir?”

“I maybe — I need a minute.” His mouth was dry and his heart was beating fast. That could be his meds.

“There’s someone who wants to talk to you. Do you think you can take the call? Would you like to try?” She held his phone out with one hand, reaching toward him through the branches.

He had to reach into the tree to meet her hand. He was sweating.

“Hello?” he said into the phone.

“What the hell, Jim?” Susan said to him from the women’s-room toilet at Lorenzo’s.

“Susan, how are you?” he said.

“I’ve been better.”

“I’m sorry.”

“We’re all here, Jim. We’re waiting and waiting for you.”

“I’m doing my best to get there. Have you ordered yet? What are the specials? What looks good?”

“Kate is beside herself. She says the two of you are bankrupt. She says you’ve spent all the money.”

“I haven’t.”

“Don’t lie to me, Jim. Please, don’t lie to me.” She was sniffling, beginning to weep, lightly.

“Stop crying, stop crying, baby,” he whispered into the phone. Then he laid his hand over the receiver and said to the girl, who was still peering down at him through the leaves of the tree, “You’ll have to excuse me one more time.” With a powerful effort of will, he stood upright and came out from behind the ficus. He didn’t dare look at the girl, but he heard her telling him, as he pushed painfully past her toward the door, that it looked like his wife’s American Express card wasn’t working, either — and was there any way for him to pay for the flowers?

He waved his hand, motioning that he’d return. He stepped out into the cold on Broadway. He pulled up his overcoat’s shawl collar. The door to the florist’s closed behind him.

Back at their table for four, Kate and Elliot had hit a snag.

“Let me talk to him,” Elliot said. He had his elbows on the table. He’d drunk almost none of his Scotch.

“That’s not a good idea.”

“Give me your phone.” He held out his hand.

“I’m on hold.”

“Kate,” he said.

“Leave me alone.”

“As you wish,” he said, leaning back in his chair, and she burst out at him, “How can you act like this? You’re a doctor. How can you be so unfeeling?”

He said, “What does my being a doctor have to do with my feelings?” (She rolled her eyes at this, but he didn’t appear to notice.) He went on, “I may be a doctor, but I’m not your husband’s doctor.”

“His name is Jim, remember?”

“I think you’re drunk. That’s what I think.”

He got up from the table, patted his pockets — checking for his own phone — and said, “Goddamn it, I do research. I don’t treat patients. He has excellent doctors. I’ll call him myself.”

When he’d gone and Kate was alone, Lorenzo arrived with Susan’s Cosmopolitan.

“Everybody has gone away and left you,” Lorenzo said, and Kate chirped back, “Everybody’s gone!”

“Let me bring you another Manhattan.” Lorenzo placed Susan’s cocktail on the table and picked up Kate’s empty glass. Kate managed a little smile. She held her phone to her ear. “Jim? Jim, are you there?” she whispered.

Six blocks downtown, Jim was on the line to Susan. “I’m here, I’m here with you, baby,” he assured her. In fact, he wasn’t thinking of sleeping with her again. Oh, he’d loved sleeping with Susan — that wasn’t the problem. But that evening his body was compressing: The weight of the air was on him, flattening his libido and his trust in humankind.

“Susan,” he said. “Susan.”

“What is it?” she said. Her voice filled the stall. “What is happening? Is it happening? Is it happening to you now? I’m so scared. What do I do ?”

“Susan,” he said. “Susan.”

He explained to her that in a few minutes he was going to calmly walk back inside the florist’s and steal a mysterious and beautiful bouquet that he and an angel had made for Kate. He’d helped the angel, he pointed out. He was feeling honest. He acknowledged to Susan that he was speaking metaphorically when it came to angels — in order to seem aboveboard and keep her trust. He needed her to be cool when he entered the restaurant, he told her. Then he ended the call and switched over to Kate.

“I’m coming,” he said.

“I’m glad,” she said.

“I love you,” he said.

“I love you, I love you,” she said. She was alone at their table.

She said, “Have you talked to Elliot?”

He said, “I haven’t heard from him.”

Elliot, in the meantime, had been unable to get through, Jim’s phone lines having been taken up by both their wives. He’d left two messages already, one saying, “Jim, call me, all right?”; the other, “Jim, will you call me?” His third attempt got through, but Jim didn’t answer. He heard the beeping, plucked the phone away from his ear, glanced at it, saw who was calling, and said, to Kate, “It’s him. There is no way that I want to speak to him right now.”

“I understand,” she said. Then she said, “Just get here, dear, and have dinner with us. We all need food. We need to eat.”

He said, “Has he taken care with you, since I’ve been gone?”

“Gone?” she said.

“I don’t know how else to put it.”

She asked, “Will you stay where you are, until people come?”

“Don’t send an ambulance,” he said to her.

He put his phone in his pocket. He turned and faced the door to the flower shop. A few people swept past him on the windy avenue — or so it seemed; his thoughts were with the pain beneath his temple. He wanted to put it out. He could imagine different ways to do this. This was how it was when his mind turned to high open windows or unlocked rooftop fire doors or breaks in the chain-link fences lining bridge walkways.

He took a step forward. The door was made partly of glass, and he could see into the shop. It occurred to him that it would be easy to break the window with his fist and deliberately cut up the veins in his arms. Instead, he put his hand on the doorframe and pushed. He stuck his head inside. He was acting guiltily, though he knew there was no reason to, not at the florist’s — he hadn’t done anything yet. Still, he snuck in, ashamed.

The girl was nowhere in sight. The bouquet looked bigger than it had the last time he’d sized it up. How would he manage to get it up Broadway in his trembling hands? Beside it on the table — careful, he had to be careful — were the girl’s pruning shears, as well as regular scissors and a small sharp knife.

He told himself to let those things lie.

Uptown at the restaurant, Lorenzo brought Kate her drink. She asked for bread, and apologized to him for taking so long to order dinner. “We’ll all be here together soon,” she sighed.

She was right about that. Elliot had given up trying to reach Jim, and the cold had driven him back inside. He was threading his way down the aisle to their table. Susan, too, would return, as soon as she had peed. Pride had made her unable to while on the phone.

And that left Jim, who had no desire to become a thief. Might he, instead, offer something in barter for the flowers? His wristwatch wasn’t worth much. His overcoat was brand-new, and cost well more than the watch and the bouquet combined. He decided to leave an IOU, promising to come back another day with money, or if not with actual money, then with a clear idea of when one or another of his or his wife’s credit cards might again be active and usable.