Slugfest Read online

  One of the best things about diners in New York (and maybe everywhere) was the dessert case. Gleaming with chrome like Airstream trailers, some were tall with revolving shelves. Others were horizontal and big as meat lockers, only instead of carcasses they held towering carrot cakes, strawberry shortcakes, éclairs, napoleons, seven-layer cakes, coconut cream pies, chocolate cakes with a half inch of icing between the layers and even more on top, and white cakes so artfully decorated all that was missing was the happy plastic couple on top. They were shrines to butter and sugar.

  Despite the ball and chain of my suitcase, I got to Andrew’s Coffee Shop ten minutes early and slid into a booth under the establishment’s Wall of Fame, where autographed pictures of politicians, wrestlers, and neighborhood luminaries looked down on me as I checked out the menu. The dessert case called, as it always did, but the thought of Lucy’s red dress and the possibility of fabric fatigue as it stretched across my middle kept me on the straight and narrow. I ordered coffee and waited for Connie to arrive. The night before she’d told me she’d been to Barney’s and Bloomingdale’s and had gone to Bergdorf’s but never gotten higher than the first floor because she wasn’t comfortable there. Perhaps she really had gotten out the phone book and started with the As in pursuit of the perfect outfit for the reception. If that was the case, I could be looking at a lengthy expedition that would take us from Chanel to Zara.

  My coffee cup was refilled twice and I’d successfully identified all the celebrities in the photographs when I started getting antsy. I called Connie’s room at the hotel and she said she was just leaving. Why was she still there? Fat Frank was driving, and Connie swore she’d arrive in five minutes. She would have been on time, she said, but she and Guy had had a knockdown, drag-out fight that morning—as much as you can over the telephone. Up until that point, I had had every intention of telling Connie about my nightcap with her husband, but she launched into a theory about his bogus early morning meeting, that ended with her threatening to fling lye in the face of the woman she suspected he was two-timing her with. I thought it best to stay silent before she sent Fat Frank to the hardware store for lye.

  The meter was already running. I would give this two hours, even if we only got to the F for Fendi. One hour was too short, as if I couldn’t wait to get away from her and three hours—well, three hours was too long to spend with a woman who wore mollusks on her boobs and thought maiming a romantic rival was appropriate behavior.

  By this time, the formerly nice waitress began to wonder if it had been a mistake to let me occupy such valuable real estate if all I was going to do was guzzle free refills on the coffee, yak on the phone, and study the pictures on the Wall of Fame.

  “Do you need a few more minutes, honey?” she asked. This was waitress code for Are you ever going to eat anything? And My wrist is killing me, why didn’t you sit at the counter so I wouldn’t have to keep walking back and forth with this heavy pot?

  “I’m waiting for someone.” I tried to look hungry to assure her that when my companion arrived, we’d order mountains of food. She glared at the counter in case I missed the hint. I looked, too, and smiled. It was a known fact that smiling, along with saying “I understand” or “I’m sorry,” were three of the surest ways of getting someone to shut up and leave. Doesn’t always work, but it did this time. She walked away, slightly puzzled, and replaced the coffeepot on the Bunn-O-Matic machine, staring at me and muttering to one of her colleagues behind the counter.

  Seated at the counter were a handful of men—solo diners with the look of regulars, there for fuel, not the ambience, and certain that by sitting at the counter they wouldn’t have to make eye contact with anyone. At the far end of the line of stools something caught my eye. A denim jacket, covered in patches. I only saw the back of it because the wearer was hunched over his food and the hoodie underneath was pulled up over his head. I’d seen a jacket like that recently.

  Just then, Connie breezed into the coffee shop, full of sunshine and profuse apologies and yammering on about the members’ reception as if it were prom night and she was hoping to be named queen. That was where I’d seen it, the flower show. The kid whose bag was stashed at my booth was wearing something like it. I jumped up and swept by Connie.

  “Hey! Where are you going?”

  “Have a seat under Hulk Hogan and study the menu. Whatever you get, order the same for me so the waitress doesn’t think I’m a deadbeat. I’ll be right back.”

  As I got closer, I recognized some of the patches on the jacket—Virgin Gorda, Tahoe, Canyonlands, Moab. I tapped the guy on the shoulder.

  “Excuse me?”

  Twenty-seven

  He spun around on the counter stool as if ready for a fight. It wasn’t the kid who’d tried to sneak into the show. It was one of Lauryn Peete’s high school gardeners. The one with the rat.

  “Oh, hi. Sorry. I thought you were someone else. The jacket looks familiar. Are you Jamal? Ms. Peete mentioned your name.” The kid said nothing and gave no sign he recognized me so I kept talking. “Some guy left a bag at my booth. At the flower show. He was wearing a jacket very much like that one. From the other side of the coffee shop I thought you might be him.” Still no response. I unnecessarily pointed to the table where Connie and the waitress were locked in an animated conversation. Jamal barely acknowledged, just the slightest move of his chin upward. “Okay, well, you’re obviously not him. I’ll go.”

  So far my return to New York had had its ups and downs. This was one of the downs. At least in Springfield if you spoke to someone, you had a good shot at getting a civil answer. Here it was fifty-fifty. I suppressed a disappointed shake of my head and walked back to my table, where the conversation was not what you’d call lofty. It was a retelling of the time Soupy Sales, another star on the Wall of Fame, had come in for lunch. I was pretty sure it wasn’t the first time the waitress had told the story, which was anticlimactic after Soupy’s arrival, but it was comforting to know Soupy was “so down-to-earth” despite his exalted status.

  Connie and I ordered, mostly to please the waitress, and when the food came, we dutifully picked at it but left most of it on our plates while she discussed fashion. I listened with one ear but was still fixated on another article of clothing—that unusual jacket.

  What were the odds two people at a flower show had enough fondness for Moab that they’d stitch a large, horizontal patch from Arches National Park across their shoulder blades? Unless they knew each other—or it was the same jacket. The phrase “odd crop of entrants” replayed in my head. Jamal left soon after, without a glance in our direction.

  The call log on my phone still had the number I’d copied from the message board the night before. I dialed it again. This time the message box was full. Well, if the kid wanted his bag, he’d come back to the convention center. Plenty of things were lost and never recovered and, as Rolanda had said, it was probably just dirty laundry anyway. I had more pressing issues to deal with—my new role as personal shopper to Connie Anzalone.

  It was hard not to suck in air when she took out her digital camera, and harder still when she whipped out a second memory card, but they were pictures of her garden and she promised we’d view them only if time allowed. Mercifully there were only 114 pictures of her outfits and accessories, but they might obviate the need for an actual shopping expedition, and when I weighed the time I’d spend evaluating them against the time spent selling Primo’s sculpture, I decided it was a fair exchange.

  With the waitress’s vote acting as tiebreaker we outfitted Connie from her existing wardrobe under the watchful eyes of such celebrity fashionistas as Phyllis Diller, Don Rickles, and the aforementioned Soupy. Connie would look slightly less festive than the late great Fabulous Moolah, an outlandishly dressed lady wrestler who loved the food at Andrew’s, but better than all of them, and Guy would be pleased that no additional purchases were required.

  As an afterthought the waitress asked what I was wearing. My suitcase was un
derneath the table, so I heaved it into a neighboring booth, unzipped it, and pulled out Lucy’s red dress. I held it up with one hand on my shoulder and the other on my hip. I half stood and leaned against the back of the leather booth.

  “What think?”

  The men at the counter were ayes. In fact, all the men were ayes, including the busboy, who was too shy to do more than just nod enthusiastically, which rattled the dirty cups and dishes in the gray plastic tub he was holding but threatening to drop. We had one nay, but it was from a pinched, crabby-looking woman eating a jelly omelet, who said, in between mouthfuls, that it looked slutty. Considering the source we took that as a positive.

  “The V-neck is a little deep. I may pin a silk rose there, just for modesty’s sake.”

  Connie and Nancy—by this time we were on a first-name basis with the waitress—thought that was lunacy and recommended lots of gold jewelry instead and perhaps a white fox fur to jazz it up. I promised to take it under advisement.

  By the time I left the new friends, still chattering, the two hours I’d allotted for Connie’s consultation had been exceeded by forty-five minutes. I was anxious to get back to Lucy’s.

  I felt foolish for having run out the night before and dropping $250 on a hotel room, when I had a perfectly good place to crash for free. Nothing that bad had happened so I was going back, but this time I had a decorating plan.

  In Connecticut I’d head for a Walgreens. In New York, I needed a dollar store. All I needed to do for the rest of my stay was cover Lucy’s windows, and the quickest way to do that was with inexpensive fabric and a roll of duct tape.

  It was what I’d done in my first apartment in Park Slope, Brooklyn. That apartment was an oversized studio with a wall of windows that overlooked a strip of postage-stamp–sized gardens. It also looked directly into the windows of the building around the block. One unfortunate glimpse of a hirsute neighbor in tighty-whities convinced me that a bed, a stereo, and a full-length mirror did not an apartment make. As my mother would have said, I needed window treatments. That same night, with Lucy’s help, I’d duct-taped cheap tablecloths from the local drugstore over the windows. It was early summer, and I can still remember the dancing ketchup bottles and relish jars on the yellow plastic tablecloths because, after all, what’s a picnic without happy condiments?

  I got used to the tablecloths and they stayed up through October until the inevitable visit from my parents, who were horrified to see their only child living in such squalor. It was as if my mother had found me warming my hands over a garbage can fire.

  Not far from the Wagner I had seen a bargain store called Dealtown Discounts. It was sandwiched in between an Irish bar and a Chinese take-out place and the window display was filled with stacks of Pampers, school supplies, personal appliances, and plastic flowers faded from the sun.

  The home goods aisle had nothing larger than napkins and dish towels, but I was short on time. Making a duct tape quilt to cover the window was out. I prowled around the store in search of seasonal goods. Christmas had passed, it was too early for summer merchandise, and, not surprisingly, St. Patty’s Day didn’t focus on eating as much as it did on drinking, so no tablecloths. Leftover green plastic flutes and leprechaun hats weren’t going to cut it. Neither was the store’s major closeout item and special of the week, a purple fleece blanket with sleeves that for all the world looked like someone had killed and skinned Barney. Time was getting short. Worst-case scenario J. C. would let me get dressed at her place, but I wanted to give it one last shot, so I kept looking.

  “Ain’t you going to that party?” It was a young man’s voice.

  I spun around. It was Jamal. Had he been hovering, waiting for me to finish with Connie? Did he follow me to the store? The thought set me on edge, and he was perceptive enough to pick up on it. I nodded. Yeah, I was going.

  “Don’t look so worried. I work here part-time. I just came to pick up my paycheck.”

  I was relieved. His icy manner at the coffee shop had thawed, but not much. Jamal absentmindedly straightened the items on one of the pet food shelves and picked up a box of dog biscuits, shaking it slowly like a maraca.

  “What are you looking for?”

  I spared him the details of my window treatment strategy. “Tablecloths.”

  “Nothing new till barbeque season.” He seemed to be thinking. “Are they for your tables at the show?” I shook my head. I told him I was desperate and didn’t care what the tablecloths looked like as long as they weren’t clear plastic.

  “Hold on a sec.” Five minutes later Jamal came out of the stock room with three dusty packages covered with markdown stickers. I peered inside one of the bags.

  “Happy Thanksgiving.” There were two large oblongs and a round. They’d do nicely. “How much?”

  “Forget it. We’ve already written them off. You’ll be doing us a favor making them go away.”

  “Are you sure?” I looked around as if there was someone else I should ask. Some grown-up. But Jamal was sure. He even offered me his store discount on the duct tape so my window treatments totalled about two dollars. I’d have to e-mail my mother—she’d get a kick out of it.

  As the cashier rang up the sale, I made small talk with Jamal. I tried to stay away from the subject of the jacket but finally couldn’t help myself. I asked where he bought it.

  “Man, I thought you were different, but you’re just like the rest of them. I didn’t steal it, okay?” He stormed off, through a door marked Employees Only, and I was left at the counter with a gum-cracking girl whose entire vocabulary consisted of “un-hunh.”

  Just like the rest of them? That hurt.

  Twenty-eight

  Late that afternoon I dressed in Lucy’s bedroom, shielded from prying eyes by dozens of cherubic Pilgrims carrying muskets. Soon after, I was out the door in a slinky red dress with a red silk flower pinned to the bodice. At the last moment I pulled on a military-style jacket with a lot of gold buttons for extra coverage in case the flower pin wasn’t enough coverage and I grew self-conscious. It either looked chic or goofy, but I had no time to go to the coffee shop for a show of hands.

  * * *

  My taxi crawled to a stop a block from the convention center. Half a dozen limos disgorged their even slower-moving passengers but I was too impatient and hopped out early. It was as if I’d stepped into a movie premiere, only with a fair number of older, less ambulatory people on a green—not red—carpet. I didn’t want to make any unfair assumptions, but I did anyway, speculating that the older attendees were horticultural society members and the younger ones were exhibitors and landscapers. There were even a few television cameras, which experience told me would deliver a thirty-second sound bite before moving on to the next small story of the day.

  A canvas tent had been installed outside the Wagner Center as a checkpoint, where security guards made sure everyone’s papers were in order and gatecrashers weren’t trying to worm their way inside. Luckily I’d remembered to stash my badge in my borrowed clutch purse.

  Lucy’s jacket with its gold buttons and geegaws set off the metal detectors, which continued to sound even after I’d removed it. That sent up a flare to the rest of the security staff, who were on high alert for protesters hoping to disrupt the proceedings.

  I spotted Kristi Reynolds in the distance, but she ignored my efforts to catch her eye. She was welcoming a group of well-heeled attendees, including a sour-faced Allegra Douglas and the other woman I’d met in the ladies’ room. From the look of pained resignation on Kristi’s face, Allegra was giving her an earful. But if Kristi wanted to escape, she wasn’t rushing to my aid.

  I tried another approach with the security guards. “Rolanda Knox will vouch for me. Call her. What could I possibly have hidden under this dress? There’s barely room for me.” One guard in particular looked like he wanted to pat me down to find out.

  “Touché. She makes an excellent point, young man.” I recognized the voice and smiled. It was Mrs. Moffit
t, trailed by her entourage. Apparently Mrs. Moffitt and company went anywhere they pleased. Her tacit endorsement of my character was enough for the bouncer at the door, and the four of us—Mrs. Moffitt, Rick, and a man I assumed was Jensen, her gardener—swept in as a group. Our entrance registered with Kristi Reynolds, who finally deigned to look my way now that I was with someone important. Rick and Mr. Jensen escorted us into the members’ prefunction area, where the earliest arrivals enjoyed cocktails before the floor was opened and the reception officially began.

  “I adore your jacket, dear. It’s Balenciaga, isn’t it?” The building seemed twenty degrees cooler than it had been during setup, so I quickly put the jacket back on but not before checking the label. Mrs. M., as Rick called her, knew her stuff.

  “They keep the room cold for the plants,” Jensen explained, “keeps them at attention, otherwise they’ll wilt.” A certain part of my anatomy was responding the same way.

  Jensen snapped pictures with a digital single-lens reflex camera as he spoke. He was attentive to his employer, but she brushed off his efforts to retrieve a gray cashmere shawl from a bag hanging on the handles of her wheelchair.

  “May I get you a cup of tea, Mrs. M.?”

  “Jensen, you must stop making me old before my time. I’m wearing a long velvet skirt and underneath it a pair of silk long johns.” She turned to me. “Now I’ve done it. I’ve made them both blush. I dearly love to do that. If you want to get me something, Jensen, fetch me a vodka gimlet and one for yourself. You need to relax. And if none of those young pups knows how to make one, I’ll settle for a martini. Very dry.”

  Jensen hurried off, pleased to be of service. It was clear Mrs. Moffitt had good relationships with her staff. “I believe Jensen has a crush on me, but he’s far too old. From the age of forty on, women should start looking for younger men.” She patted Rick’s hand and promised to stop at my booth within the hour after she had made the obligatory rounds. I repeated the number and aisle twice to make sure they remembered.