M.D. Poole's Blog, page 2

7th installment

2022 !! HAPPY NEW YEAR !

It’s also a new year in JUST ACROSS THE STREET IN NEW YORK CITY. Here’s the 7th installment from my novel, ready for re-release on February 2, 2022. If you like it, please share it. Thanks so much for your support. Have a great year. xoxo

§§

“Dad, do I have time to wash my hair?”

Her hair always looked the same to Mike, big, red, and frizzy wild, but he turned away from the window to answer, “Can you do it in 15 minutes?”

“I’ll be front and center in 12,” Sherri called, running toward the bathroom.

Mike took another sip of Glen Livet. He’d gone over the lines for Seth fifty times, it seemed like, but he couldn’t seem to loosen up.

He was on a schedule, even though it was Sunday. He had to have the girls back to Joanie’s apartment by 6 p.m. His call-back audition was at 1:45. He’d thought he was a genius when it dawned on him to let the girls go to a movie while he went to the theater.

Sherri and Fran had been with him the entire holiday week before Christmas. With help from Pat Knolles, Mike had decided to tell Joanie he wanted the girls with him all summer. She’d forwarded the request to her lawyer, and he hadn’t received a reply. Apparently, divorce was more expensive than marriage, and just as slow.

He finished his drink and smiled. The longer she dragged out the divorce, asking for the moon and the stars, the longer he’d have to prove her wrong about his fathering capabilities. At least, neither of the girls had gotten pregnant or hooked on heroin during these months of legal haggling. Both girls loved him and loved being with him, he was sure.

Fran came out of the bedroom wearing blue tights and high boots, pulling a down jacket over her long black sweater. “Are you ready for your audition?” she asked her dad. She was blond, tall and slim, like her mom.

“Don’t worry about me,” he said, flapping pages of On The Couch in the air.

“Do you want me to look at the script while you practice the lines?” she asked.

Mike was saved from explaining that the lines were X-rated when Sherri rushed in, fluffing her hair, saying, “I’m ready. It’ll dry on the way.”

“Are you sure you won’t catch cold with wet hair? It’s 28 degrees,” Mike said, sliding his jacket on.

“She goes out like that to school all the time, Dad,” Fran answered. “She’s got the constitution of a rock.”

Sherri grinned, “A diamond, she means.”

Fran was the beauty. But at 14 years old, Sherri had her own kind of quirky, red-headed good-looks. She was shorter than her sister, with a big butt that she liked to swing around.

Mike knew Sherri would be no problem during the summer. She’d entertain herself at the YMCA, or read, or go to movies. He wasn’t so sure about how the summer would pan out with Fran. But Pat had assured him during several therapy sessions that he shouldn’t worry about summer since it was the middle of winter.

When they got to the movie theater, Sherri told the lady at the ticket window, “Two for Dick Tracy please.”

Mike peeled off the dollars for the matinee price.

Instead of taking the bills from Mike, the cashier stared at him, then said, “It’s you.”

Mike glanced over his shoulder and turned back to the cashier, feeling confused.

Fran poked her dad in the ribs and said, “She recognizes you from the Vietnam Memorial interview on the news.”

“Dad, come on.” Sherri pulled at his sleeve. “Get the tickets. We’ll miss the previews, Dad.”

“Here’s the money. May we have the tickets?” Mike said to the fat woman in the glass cage. The cashier continued to stare while she punched out the tickets, and he felt himself blushing. At least she wasn’t shooting questions at him about being dead.

He handed the tickets and change to Fran. “Get popcorn and cokes,” he told her. “I’ll meet you here when it’s over.”

Fran kissed her dad’s cheek and said, “Break a leg at the audition.”

Taxis were scarce the day before Christmas, and Mike considered it a lucky sign that he found an empty one in less than a minute. His adrenalin was pumping when he stood in the middle of the room facing the director and two assistants, flexing his muscles and shrugging like he imagined a cocky manual laborer would do. His eyes went cool and the lines rolled off his tongue.

YOU WANT TO FEEL ME? I MEAN MY BICEPS, DOC. MY BICEPS.

MY ARMS ARE LIKE CONCRETE FROM ALL THE WORK I DO. THE WORK GETS MY HANDS DIRTY. I LOVE GETTING MY HANDS DIRTY. I GET HOME AND THEY’RE BLACK WITH DIRT. PUSHING THAT SHOVEL INTO DIRT, HARD, OVER AND OVER, MY CALLOUSES ARE DAMN HARD.

DON’T WORRY, I WOULDN’T RUB THEM ON YOU, DOC. I WOULDN’T NEED TO USE MY HANDS TO GET YOU DIRTY. I COULD JUST LOOK AT YOU AND YOU’D FEEL DIRTY. NO? YOU DON’T BELIEVE ME? I DID IT WITH MOMMY.

SHE’D COME IN ALL CLEAN, SMELLING LIKE SOAP, AND I’D SHOW HER MY HANDS, MY DIRTY HANDS, HOLDING ‘EM THIS CLOSE TO HER FACE, THIS CLOSE TO HER PRETTY, CLEAN TEE-SHIRT, AND I’D TELL HER, “HEY MOMMY, I’M GONNA GET YOU DIRTY.” I’D SAY IT SLOW.

I’D LET HER WATCH ME WASH MY HANDS. I’D WASH EACH FINGER, LIKE THIS, REAL SLOW, AND I’D NEVER TAKE MY EYES OFF HER, AND I’D SAY, “THE CLEANER MY HANDS GET, THE DIRTIER YOU’RE GONNA GET.”

YOU’RE NOT LAUGHING, DOC. HOW COME? IT ALWAYS MADE ME LAUGH, TO SEE MOMMY BEGGING TO GET DIRTY.

Mike laughed deep from the bottom of his gut as he finished the scene. The laugh was real, because he knew he’d nailed the audition.

§§

Marsha Winston drank New Year’s Eve champagne with three friends and 60 strangers in a six-room apartment in Murray Hill. Starting at midnight, one of the 60 kissed her for 20 minutes, from lips to breasts, until she decided to leave the party.

With the crisp air clearing her head, Marsha was glad the next day was a holiday.

Inside her apartment, she skipped the crossword puzzle, her normal sleeping potion, and flopped into bed without washing her face, falling soundly asleep.

When she woke up, she thought it was sirens making all the noise. Then she remembered it was New Year’s Eve, and she figured the noise was a bunch of loud drunks on the sidewalk. Marsha rose farther out of her groggy fog and realized it was someone knocking on her apartment door.

“You’re shitting me,” she said to herself and looked at the digital clock: 2:44. She pulled the covers up to her nose, smelling the lavender scent from the laundry detergent. She hoped the reveling rapist would go away without hurting her. All her senses were on alert. Then she heard crying. No. Not crying. Moans, and groans, followed by shrieking.

If she ignored it, she thought it would go away, whatever it was. After all, it was New Year’s Eve. Everybody was crazy on New Year’s Eve.

Five minutes later, she sat up on an elbow, and dialed 911 by touch in the dark.

“Yes, hello,” she said when the dispatcher answered. “There’s someone screaming outside my apartment.”

The calm, firm voice at the other end of the emergency number asked her address, asked if she knew who it was, and if she understood what the screams were about.

Marsha paused on the last question. Were the screams crazy or were they scared? The tone had changed. From the bedroom, she couldn’t be sure what was going on, and she didn’t want to walk toward the door in the living room. “I think the person’s calling for help.”

Then the dispatcher asked if she was willing to give her name. Marsha took the split second to decide to tell the truth instead of making up a fake name.

“I’ll send a car over. Can you let us in the building?”

She’d have to get out of bed to do that. But the police would take care of her if it was a murderer in the hallway, so she agreed, “Ring my apartment. I’ll buzz you in.” Marsha wondered if she sounded logical and clear, or hysterical and scared like she felt.

“How long will the car take?” she asked, but the emergency operator was gone.

Marsha snuck out of her bed, as if someone were watching her. She slid on a pair of sweatpants to go with her pajama shirt, and searched under the bed for sneakers, to be ready if she had to talk to the police in person.

The noise stopped when she had one sneaker tied, and she rolled her eyes, thinking she was going to look stupid when the cops showed up and the problem had disappeared.

Then the shrieking started, louder than ever. Marsha tip-toed through the kitchen into the living room.

The shrieks changed to moans, and Marsha heard the words, “Help me, help me. Please.” Marsha’s heart took a leap, then she heard it again, “Help me. Marsha. Please.”

Marsha panicked. How could the person know her name? Through the peep hole in the door, she didn’t see anything.

The voice was bawling at the bottom of her door, a woman’s voice, like she was in agony.

Against all the safety training she knew, against all her fear, Marsha unlocked the door and opened it an inch.

Curled in a ball on the floor, moaning and screeching, was her landlady’s daughter.

Marsha dashed into the hallway, putting her arms around the woman before she realized the floor was wet and bloody.

Lydia’s daughter didn’t speak through her cries, but her eyes pleaded with Marsha. One of her hands was locked against her chest, and the other one clutched up at Marsha’s shirt as if she wanted to stand.

In an instant, Marsha understood: Carolyn Duffy, the fat woman she so often peeked at in the back yard, the daughter her landlady demeaned with constant curses and criticism, Carolyn was dying. Maybe Lydia had stabbed her? Or was she shot?

She couldn’t wait for the police. Marsha shifted into autopilot, ripping open the building’s front door, and running to the corner. Early morning of New Year’s Eve, could there be a taxi? She stood in the middle of the street, not noticing how cold it was.

The holiday gods were with her, because an empty cab was heading south on 7th Avenue. Marsha waved it to turn on West 22nd Street, and she beat the cab to her building, yelling, “I have to get my purse.”

Marsha’s adrenalin was pumping. She lifted Carolyn to her feet like an ailing pussy cat, shuttling her out of the hallway. When the driver saw Carolyn, he refused to touch her.

“Don’t be a fucking asshole. Hold open the goddammed door,” she barked. The cabbie did as he was commanded.

Marsha shouted directions in his ear, and the driver did his job, flying through the streets of late night New York, running red lights, down to St. Vincent Hospital’s emergency entrance on 12th Street.

Throwing a fist-full of bills at the cab driver, Marsha was out of the taxi before it stopped. She raced through the emergency doors, screaming, “Help, help, outside, help,” and returned to the cab without waiting to see who was following her.

The blood that covered her hands and half her face attracted more attention from the staff than her voice. A young man in scrubs appeared with a wheel-chair at the open back door of the taxi, asking Marsha what happened.

“I think she’s dying. Get her inside,” Marsha directed, while the driver sat in the front seat looking the other way out his window.

The orderly looked at the bloody woman and said to Marsha, “Not dying. Not yet at least. She’s having a baby.”

§§

Marsha’s jaw dropped open at the idea of Carolyn Duffy having a baby, but she refocused to help the orderly heft the half-conscious woman out of the back seat. Figuring it would save time, Marsha handed the admissions person her insurance card and gave her own name, address, and phone, for the registration.

Working with roses had been a good career for Marsha. She was able to characterize any plant in the family Rosaceae, from single-flowered roadside species to the most hybridized horticultural form. She could evaluate and analyze information fast and form conclusions with no problem. But at this instant, Marsha didn’t know what she was doing, and at the same time, she felt fully alive.

She watched through a half-closed curtain while a team of medical people examined Carolyn, gave her injections, and hooked her up to various machines and monitors. Then she had to step aside, as they surged out of the cubicle, rushing Carolyn’s gurney toward an elevator.

Sinking into a chair in the emergency waiting room, Marsha noticed the couple across the aisle staring at her. The man two seats away with an ice pack on his jaw was staring too. Marsha blushed, realizing how loud and demanding she had been when she’d run in the emergency room. Then it dawned on her how she looked, pajama shirt, old sneakers with laces half-tied, sweats, and no coat. She smelled the aroma of blood on herself, looked at her bloody hands, and understood it wasn’t her voice that was attracting attention.

She found the restroom, and in the mirror, she saw the reflection of a zombie version of Lady Dracula. “God, you look you’ve been through a shit storm,” she said out loud. She washed up as best she could, then went out to clear up the registration she had falsified to get Carolyn admitted fast.

The admissions lady was not happy to find out there was a woman without insurance documents being operated on. Marsha was too drained to do more than shrug at the problem and say, “Well, it’s too damn late now, isn’t it.”

During science classes in graduate school, she’d watched films about childbirth. She’d been embarrassed in the co-ed classroom, watching a patient’s legs spread open as she writhed in sweat, screaming. The woman gripped the edges of the sheet covering her breasts like it would save her life. The camera focused on the pregnant woman’s crotch.

Marsha remembered seeing a pale, small saucer where the woman’s pubic hair should have been. A nurse cradled the saucer in her palm, and Marsha realized it was a head. The nurse wiped goo and blood from the head, and then another lump appeared. It was a shoulder. Suddenly, the nurse’s hands were full of a gelatinous mass which slowly took shape as a slimy and tiny baby-doll shape.

The medical people rubbed, clipped, and wrapped. She’d seen the film in three different biology classes. Her favorite part was when the lump became a shoulder.

That was all she knew about pregnancy and childbirth, but she understood screams and blood. Where had Lydia been? Why hadn’t she heard her daughter’s shrill pain? Maybe she’d gone off to a mean people’s New Year’s Eve party. Better, maybe she’d gone on a cruise to hell, Marsha thought hopefully, then felt ashamed of the thought.

§§

“Hello. This is Toulousa Bell. Is Carolyn there?”

Toulousa was using the phone in the Triplex office. Her boss Max Gambardella was taking January 1 as a holiday, and Carolyn hadn’t shown up for work. The first day of the year was the third busiest day of the year, after Christmas Day and July 4, and they were 50 minutes away from opening the door without enough people to manage the crowd.

There was a cough on the other end of the line, then a screechy voice answered, “Carolyn’s sick.”

“Ms. Duffy? Can I talk to her?”

“She’s not here.”

Toulousa was confused. Was Carolyn sick or was she out doing something? “Is she on her way to work? She hasn’t gotten here.”

Lydia replied, “I told her it’d go wrong.”

Then Toulousa heard a click. The lady had hung up on her. She started to hit the re-dial button, then stopped. Instead she called her own apartment in Jamaica.

“Joe,” she sighed, relieved to hear her brother’s voice. “Is Sharon off today?” she asked, explaining to him that they were short-handed at the Triplex.

“You’re asking her to stop watching football?” Joe quipped.

“And you too. I need you both here.”

“I could bring Coco too, and Granddaddy Papa, if you’re passing out paychecks.”

Toulousa didn’t bother to answer. Instead she demanded, “How fast can you get here?”

When she went out to the lobby, Pete was staring out the glass door at the crowd forming on the sidewalk. His eyes were wide, showing a lot of white. “I don’t know how to work the ticket machine,” he told Toulousa. “What if they riot when they find out they can’t get tickets?”

Toulousa said, “A SWAT team is due in a few minutes.”

Pete blinked slowly and frowned.

“I’m joking, Pete. Don’t unlock the door yet. Stay cool. I’ve got people coming to help.”

“Where is she? She never misses work,” he said. The wrinkle in his black forehead made him look older than his 18 years. “I’m worried about her.”

“I’m trying to find out what’s going on,” she said, starting a batch of popcorn. Then she ran back to the office. Toulousa shook her head, thinking about the conversation she’d had with Carolyn’s mother. Then she snapped her fingers and guessed what was going on – Carolyn’s baby had arrived, and her mother was pissed. The baby wasn’t due for another four weeks. She hoped it was an early baby, and not something worse.

Toulousa picked up the heavy Yellow Pages book, searched under hospitals, and dialed the number for Saint Vincent’s, the one closest to the Triplex.

In less than an hour, Toulousa’s brother was clicking out tickets to customers, and Sharon was behind the concession counter juggling candy bars, popcorn, and soda like a magician.

Toulousa pulled on her coat.

Joe’s lop-sided grin flashed. “This is harder than rocket science, Toulousa.”

“Don’t give me your college-boy lip,” she growled, hiding her smile. Toulousa went to the front door of the theater, “Pete, are you okay with my family taking over for me and Carolyn? I’ll fix it with Max tomorrow.”

Pete nodded and said, “No problem. Are you coming back?”

Toulousa looked at Pete’s sweating forehead. “You know, you can come with me. Joe can tear the tickets after he punches them out.”

Pete aimed a frozen smile at a customer and ripped the ticket in half, then reached toward to the next person in line. “No,” he said to Toulousa. “I’m no good in hospitals. Really. But call me when you see her, okay?” He swiped his shirt-sleeve across his forehead. “Tell her I need her.”

Toulousa agreed and started out the door, but Pete grabbed her arm. “You think she’s going to be okay? It’s too early for her to have the baby. I want her to be okay.”

“I’ll call you,” Toulousa said.

6th Installment

What a wild ride we’ve had this year. I’m celebrating the end of 2021 with the 6th installment from JUST ACROSS THE STREET IN NEW YORK CITY. There’s more to come next year while I await the re-release of the book on 2 February, 2022.

WINTER 1990

§§

He arrived at the Off-Center Theater on 11th Avenue, far, far off-Broadway, with its black double doors and no marquee. Inside Mike climbed two flights of stairs to find the theater offices, and one more flight to get to the theater’s rehearsal space.

The Off-Center Theater had a reputation for producing new plays that got picked up by bigger theaters or film companies. It was a funky place, but audience regulars included Al Pacino and Herb Gardner. Mike went through his monologue from Last Chance for the audition team. He paused when he was finished, knowing he’d nailed the character, enjoying a couple of seconds of satisfaction.

Usually after auditions, Mike followed protocol, saying “Thank you” and leaving. But this time, unsolicited, Mike said, “I’d like to read from your script,” and he added with a grin, “if you don’t mind.” He went on, “I’m interested in the role of the ditch-digger.”

The three people sitting behind the long folding table, with piles of actor headshots and resumes at their elbows, conferred with each other as if Mike hadn’t spoken.

Mike stood silently in the middle of the room. The audition space was gloomy, an empty six-sided room, one of them covered in mirrors. It had a high ceiling and dull wood floor, with a single window looking out on a brick wall.

A woman with graying blond hair sat with her arms crossed over her chest. A young woman held out a script toward Mike. The goateed man behind the table told Mike to read from page 11.

No one said anything more, but Mike knew the chance to read from the script meant they liked his work. He turned his back to the table and found page 11 in the script of On The Couch. When he turned back toward the table, he started to read the words of Seth, the ditch-digger.

SO YOU WANT TO KNOW ABOUT MY FIRST TIME? I DIDN’T THINK A CLASSY WOMAN LIKE YOU WANTED MEN TO TALK DIRTY. I CAN LICK YOUR BODY TOO IF YOU WANT.

OKAY, OKAY. I GET IT. THAT’S FOR LATER. NOW ALL YOU WANT IS TALK, RIGHT?

TALK. THAT’S NOT MY CAN OF GASOLINE USUALLY. WITH THE GUYS MAYBE, BUT NOT IN A ROOM LIKE THIS. NOT IN A BUILDING WITH AN ELEVATOR, ALL THESE FANCY TELEPHONES AND SHINY ASHTRAYS. YOU PROBABLY HAVE CARPET IN THE BATHROOM.

YEAH, YEAH, MY FIRST TIME. LET’S SEE. I WAS YOUNG. THE GIRLS WERE CHASING ME AND WHO WAS I TO KEEP MYSELF AWAY FROM THEM, YOU KNOW?

SO THERE WAS THIS ONE CHICK THAT I SNIFFED AROUND. SHE WAS YOUNGER THAN ME. I’D STAYED BACK A COUPLE OF TIMES IN SCHOOL, SO ME BEING OLDER MADE HER THINK I’D BE GOOD, I GUESS. YOU KNOW, BIG GUY, TOUGH GUY, THE GUY WHO WORKED WITH HIS HANDS.

SHE WAS RIGHT TOO, OF COURSE, ABOUT ME BEING GOOD. I KNEW ALL ABOUT IT, WHAT WAS S’PPOSED TO HAPPEN AND ALL.

SHE WAS SHORT, HAD DARK HAIR THAT KINDA TURNED UNDER AT HER SHOULDERS. SOMETIMES I’D CURL SOME OF THAT HAIR ON MY FINGER WHEN WE WERE TALKING OR SITTING AROUND, LIKE WHEN WE’D GO DOWN TO CONEY ISLAND TO WATCH THE ROLLER COASTER SCARE PEOPLE.

Mike walked around the room as if he were looking out a picture window lost in a memory. He kept his face expressionless, but he knew his eyes were switching from innocent to angry to wild. The role was a middle-aged man remembering a young man in love, and he knew the part, even though the details were different from his own reality.

SHE HAD HAZEL EYES. I HADN’T KNOWN A PERSON WITH HAZEL EYES BEFORE HER. I DIDN’T KNOW WHAT TO CALL ‘EM TIL SHE TOLD ME “HAZEL.”

HER NAME? I DIDN’T THINK YOU’D WANT TO KNOW HER NAME. YEAH, I REMEMBER IT. MOMMY. WE CALLED HER MOMMY. HER NAME WAS ANNE, OR MARY, OR SOMETHING, BUT SHE HAD THESE JUGS THAT WERE LIKE WATERMELONS, YOU GOTTA BELIEVE ME, AS BIG AS TWO GIANT SOFT WATERMELONS.

DAMN STRAIGHT, I TOUCHED ‘EM. HOW’D YOU THINK I KNEW THEY WERE SOFT IF I DIDN’T TOUCH ‘EM? ANYHOW, THE JUGS WERE HOW COME WE CALLED HER MOMMY. ALL THROUGH JUNIOR HIGH, HIGH SCHOOL TOO, MOMMY. EVERYONE CALLED HER MOMMY.

“Thank you, Mr. Levale, that’s enough,” the young woman behind the desk said. “Very nice. Call-backs will be Sunday before Christmas. If we select you, would you be available to start rehearsing the 2nd of January?”

“Sure, I could make it. Thanks. I enjoyed it,” Mike responded. “And it’s Levine. Not Levale. Mike Levine. What’s your name?” He was breaking another audition rule asking for names, but he was pumped-up from the reading.

The young woman gripped her lips together, but managed to say, “Angela Herrick. Thank you.” The thank-you was Ms. Herrick’s sign-off, her wave goodbye, her signal for Mike to get out.

“And I didn’t catch your name?” Mike said, speaking through an invisible barrier to the other woman, the one with the gray-blond hair. He said the words as if he had no idea that actors usually backed-off from the decision-makers of a play, even a small non-union play, or maybe more especially in a small non-union play where reputations were to be made.

Ms. Herrick stood up, her way of saying “clear the premises now, or else,” but the other woman answered, “My name is Lori Vaughn. I’m the director. Thanks for coming in today.”

Mike grinned, repeated her name, and left, feeling high. This time, instead of calling Pat Knolles in a cloud of depression after the audition, he went across the street to treat himself to a glass of scotch. He had an hour before meeting Glenda Frazier for dinner, and he was certain that his luck would hold up after they ate.

§§

Joe gave Coco a bottle and changed her, then handed his baby off to his sister Toulousa before going to a morning study session.

Toulousa opened Beloved to page one and started reading to Coco whose tiny cocoa-colored hands waved in the air like she was reaching for butterflies. She’d read Tar Baby the week before. A couple of years back, Toulousa had read Sula and The Bluest Eye. She had a policy of reading only one book by an author, but sometimes, she couldn’t help herself and kept on reading others.

Granddaddy Papa came in and settled in a chair to listen to the story. A while after the baby’s eyes closed, and his did too, with his breaths making his chest rise and fall slowly. Toulousa read, turning page after page about Margaret getting to Ohio.

“Wha’cha reading, Toulousa?”

“Where’d you come from, Jonquil?” Toulousa asked, startled.

The girl sat on the arm of Toulousa’s chair and snuggled close. She talked low to keep from waking Coco and Granddaddy Papa, “You told me you’d take me to see Dick Tracy.”

Toulousa’s eyes got big. Time had snuck by her. She was supposed to be at the Triplex by 10h30. “You’re right. And we have to go right now to get to the theater quick.” She gave the girl’s cheek a kiss. “Go find Mamie for me, will you?”

Without jostling Coco, Toulousa put the book in her bag. Her hair was pushed back with a yellow scarf, and she was wearing her purple skirt with a white blouse. Except for tying up her sneakers, she was ready to leave.

“You should’ve been gone by now,” Mamie said, coming in the room.

Toulousa smiled. “Coco wouldn’t let me stop reading.”

Mamie took the sleeping baby, and Toulousa added, “There’s gonna be a new baby soon.” She stood on her right foot like a heron, tying the laces of her left shoe.

“Boy or girl?” Jonquil asked.

Toulousa switched feet. “This one’ll be a boy, I think. I’ll introduce you to the mama, when we get to the Triplex. You’ll like her.”

Mamie put Coco on the pink-checkered blanket on the floor, next to the couch where Granddaddy Papa was snoring. “If you like her, we’ll like her, baby and all,” Mamie said. “Bring her home when you can.”

Toulousa kissed all the cheeks in the room, without waking anyone, and hand in hand, she and Jonquil made their way to the subway, where a train was waiting for them. They walked into the Triplex at 10:29, both grinning.

Toulousa took Jonquil to the back of the ticket booth and pulled the curtain aside. “Carolyn, meet Jonquil. She’s a whiz at New York trivia. Jonquil, meet Carolyn. She’s lived in New York all her life.”

“Trivia?” Carolyn asked.

Toulousa nodded and gave Jonquil’s arm a prod. “Tell Carolyn something she doesn’t know about New York.”

Jonquil ducked her head shyly, and without looking up at Carolyn, she said quietly, “Before 1920, if you wanted to change your apartment, you had to wait until Moving Day. May 1 was Moving Day for everybody here.”

Toulousa cocked her head and said, “See? I told you. She’s like a New York encyclopedia.” She turned to her niece. “This is the woman I told you about.”

Jonquil’s hand went over her mouth, and her eyes got big.

Toulousa laughed and explained to Carolyn, “I told her a baby was coming.”

“You’ll be the mama?” the little girl asked, pointing at Carolyn’s belly.

So, it wasn’t a secret anymore, Carolyn realized. She shrugged and nodded her head.

Jonquil tugged at Toulousa’s sleeve, and whispered in her ear.

“She wants to know if you’ve got a name for him yet. She thinks you should call him Jonquil Junior.”

Carolyn looked sideways at Jonquil. “You’re joking, right?”

Jonquil nodded bashfully, glad that Toulousa’s friend understood her humor.

“I’ve got to get to work behind the counter. And you, sweetie, you have to get into Dick Tracy quick.” She saw the pout on Jonquil’s face. “Because you don’t want any popcorn, do you?”

“Please, please, please, Toulousa, yes, popcorn, please.”

Toulousa slid into her red vest with the camera on the pocket, and started flipping switches on the popcorn machine. She checked the oil level, and scooped kernels into the popper. Three minutes later, enough time for her to polish the counter and re-arrange the candy bars, Toulousa watched the popped corn overflowing from the popper. Dumping the whole batch into the glass cage and scattering salt, she pulled a plastic bag from her big purse and filled it for her niece, before starting the popping process again. The smell of fresh popcorn lured customers over. Toulousa got busy, and Jonquil walked into theater # 2 smiling.

§§

By the time Joanie kicked him out, Mike hadn’t had sex for months. He’d thought it had been his fault, and not just because he screamed in his sleep. No. Joanie told him he was over-sexed, and under-sexed, and a pervert, and too bland in bed, too fast and too slow. And Joanie never had an orgasm, no matter what.

But he’d found out that there wasn’t anything wrong with him. Plenty of women were happy to have sex with him. Tonight for instance, Saturday night.

Normally, both girls stayed with him from Friday afternoon till Sunday afternoon. But Fran was at a birthday slumber party for one of her classmates, so he and Sherri ate take-out Chinese while they watched Doogie Howser, M.D. Then they played a game of Scrabble, which Sherri won.

Sherri went to the bedroom around 10:00, and Mike saw the bedroom light go out just after 10:30. He was nursing his third scotch in the white easy chair in the almost-dark living room when the doorbell sounded lightly.

Mike buzzed in Hattie Shaw.

“How was your show tonight?” he asked, leading Hattie to the couch. He loved performers. It was a kick to start a date at 11:00, as if he led a Bohemian life.

Peeling off her coat and tossing it on the arm of the couch, Hattie said quietly, “The set went really well. My agent showed up. I’m singing there four more nights. He signed me for a gig in the Poconos next week.”

Hattie leaned over and unbuttoned the top of Mike’s shirt. While her fingers dipped into the curls of his chest hair, she asked him, “How was the time with your daughter?”

If Joanie found out that he had women over during nights that the girls were with him, she could make a stink since the divorce wasn’t final. But with Hattie’s fingers squeezing his nipple, he didn’t care. He finished his drink in a gulp. “Let’s not talk about babies. I want you.”

Hattie harrumphed, “They’re hardly babies.”

He leaned in, lifted Hattie’s chin, and kissed her to change the subject. She kissed back, running her tongue over Mike’s teeth and sucking gently. Without pulling away, she took his shirttail out of his trousers, and finished her work with the buttons.

She breathed in his ear, “I guess you don’t feel like talking tonight.”

Mike unzipped his pants.

“I’ll be back in a second,” Hattie said, heading to the bathroom.

Mike unfolded the couch and fluffed the pillows into place.

When Hattie came back, she climbed naked into bed next to Mike.

20 minutes later, panting, Hattie plopped down on his hairy chest. After a minute, she said hoarsely, “Sometimes I think you’re going to rip my head off or break my back, the way you push and pull on me.”

He was about to apologize, when Hattie went on, “I’ve never felt such passion. I love it. I love the way you make me feel.” She nipped the end of his earlobe with a kiss, and with a sigh, she rolled off his body onto the bed.

With effort he moved, pulling off the condom, dropping it into the empty highball glass on the lampstand next to the arm of the sofa bed. He tried to program his memory to get rid of it in the morning before Sherri woke up.

Hattie said she’d be right back, and Mike listened to the creak of the floorboards, then the water of the toilet and the sink.

Like all of his dates, Hattie knew she had to leave long before the morning arrived when his daughters woke up. The girls were his excuse, whether they were with him or not. Alone, he could sleep without worrying that a woman would find out about his Nicky nightmares.

When Hattie returned to the living room, dressed except for her shoes, Mike handed her a Manhattan, her favorite cocktail. “You never forget what I like, do you?” she asked him.

Mike took a sip from his scotch, then pulled her close, and rubbed his naked body against her clothes. “It’s impossible to forget anything about you,” he said. It felt like a line from a play or a TV commercial, but it worked. Hattie wound her arms around him and kissed him deeply.

“I’ll let you know when I get back from the Poconos,” she told him.

He walked her to the stairway and waited until she disappeared at the next landing to close and lock the door. Back in bed, Mike relaxed against the damp and wrinkled sheet and gave up trying to figure out if he preferred Hattie to Juliet, or Michele, or Candy, whether Barbara was better than Faith or Nancy. He sighed and slept without dreaming.

5th Installment

This installment of JUST ACROSS THE STREET IN NEW YORK CITY heats up, not X-rated but beyond GP. I hope you lean back and enjoy it during the holiday season. The re-release of the entire book will be February 2, 2022.

§§

Mike mailed 45 headshots to casting directors every month. Martha Swope Photography Studios had transformed his dark Jewish face into a Mediterranean playboy that got him an average of six auditions a month. It wasn’t great for a full time actor, but for an accountant who didn’t have an agent, it was fabulous.

He kept a spreadsheet of his auditions, listing which monologue he used, the names of the directors and assistants, potential pay, theater or film, and what reactions he got.

Mike’s newest monologue was from Last Chance, and he repeated silently wherever he went, riding the bus, before meeting with clients, or shopping for groceries:

I TOLD SUSAN SHE SHOULD LEAVE BECAUSE SHE WAS TOO GOOD FOR ME, BECAUSE SHE NEEDED SOMEONE WHO COULD TAKE CARE OF HER, SOMEONE WITH MONEY.

SHE BELIEVED ME. SHE KISSED ME ON THE CORNER OF MY EYE, RIGHT HERE. I CAN FEEL HER LIPS, THE SOFT PUFFY SKIN PRESSING AGAINST THIS SPOT.

ALL I HAVE TO DO IS TOUCH THIS SPOT AND SHE’S ALIVE TO ME AGAIN. FLASHES OF US IN BED JUMP IN MY HEAD.

WHEN SUSAN WALKED OUT THE DOOR, SHE SAID, ‘GOOD-BYE. I LOVE YOU.’

IT WASN’T UNTIL I WAS HALF-WAY THROUGH MAKING A POT OF COFFEE THAT MY LEGS COLLAPSED. I FELL. I COULDN’T BREATHE. I CRIED. SUSAN LEFT ME, AND IT WAS ALL MY FAULT.

YOU’RE THE FIRST WOMAN I’VE BEEN WITH SINCE SHE WALKED OUT THE DOOR THAT DAY.

SUSAN STILL FILLS MY MIND. I’M SORRY. IT DOESN’T HAVE ANYTHING TO DO WITH YOU. I LIKE YOU, BUT I CAN’T STOP THINKING ABOUT SUSAN.

YOU ARE SO BEAUTIFUL THAT IT MAKES MY TEETH CLINCH TOGETHER. MAYBE I COULD LOVE YOU. WHEN I SIT NEXT TO YOU ON THE TRAIN, OR TOUCH YOUR NECK HELPING YOU ON WITH YOUR COAT, I WANT TO BE IN LOVE WITH YOU.

I LOOK IN YOUR EYES, AND I WANT TO BE IN LOVE WITH YOU, DOLORES.

HELP ME FORGET SUSAN, DOLORES. HELP ME.

He liked the monologue. It was half-sorrowful, half-sexy, five seconds short of two minutes.

Mike told the Liberty Tax receptionist that he was going to lunch and an appointment after that. His audition was scheduled for 2:30, so he had enough time to go over the monologue again.

16 other actors sat in the hallway waiting their turn with the director of the indie film to be shot in New Jersey next month. When he was invited in at 3:10, Mike’s hands were sweating.

After the audition, at the corner of Broadway, leaning on a lamp post, Mike couldn’t stop the tears from flooding his face, and he called his therapist. “I was terrible, Pat. The words came out, but I wasn’t there, I just wasn’t there.” He didn’t say it, but the thought crossed his mind that it should’ve been him instead of Nicky who had taken the bullet all those years back. “I think it’s the end for me, Pat.”

Holding the phone to his ear, Pat Knolles let Mike cry. He knew that in a city of 15 million people, public tears weren’t unusual. He’d seen it often and imagined the scenarios: a weeping woman walking up Riverside Drive carrying an empty cat box after her 17-year-old puss died of kidney failure; a father wandering toward the #1 train near Canal Street, his arms wrapped around himself, hiccupping sobs because in family court he’d lost custody of his four year old boy; a woman bawling on the steps of her apartment building after being fired from the job where she was in love with her boss. Mike wasn’t different from the others, feeling their dreams fall apart in the streets of the Big Apple.

When Mike calmed down some, Pat told him to go home and take a shower, then maybe go to a movie. “Or,” he added lightly, “you could go back to work.” He did not say, “Get over it,” or “It’s not the end of the world.” His psychology training taught him to stay away from those phrases, but they snuck into his mind.

Mike sniffled and tried to pull himself together. “I’ve got another audition in a half-hour. I’m going to cancel it.”

“Because you’re such a bad actor?” Pat asked, his ironic tone sliding in.

Mike sniffed. “You’re telling me to go to it.”

“You might as well go. You’re not going to feel worse than you do now, right?”

“Sometimes your bed-side manner is tough to take,” Mike said.

Pat smiled to himself and kept silent.

“Okay. I’ll try.”

“Good,” Pat said.

Before he headed to the subway station, Mike went in the Irish bar across the street for a dose of self-confidence.

Finishing off his second scotch, Mike took off his jacket and tie and rolled up his sleeves. Then he ordered a double and unbuttoned his white shirt so his chest hair showed. When he looked at his watch, it was time for the evening news, and he decided he ought to see the weather forecast.

SUMMER 1990

§§

“Have you told him yet?” Toulousa asked before Pete arrived at the theater.

Lowering her eyebrows, Carolyn stared at Toulousa and kept silent. She thought no one had noticed. For her, the only change was her tight waistband.

Toulousa nodded at her friend. “Yes, I knew almost two months ago, Carolyn. A pregnant woman smells different than the rest of us.”

“I smell?” Carolyn asked, shocked.

Toulousa shook her head back and forth making her dreadlocks swing, “No, honey. You smell good. Real good. It’s just a metaphor. Your cheeks are rosy, you look strong, and I couldn’t wait any longer for you to tell me your secret.”

Carolyn rubbed her palms together nervously and asked, “Did you tell Pete?”

Toulousa smiled. “Of course not. I bet he doesn’t have a clue. You know, he’s just a dumb kid.” She saw Carolyn pull back, and she rushed to say, “I just meant to say he’s young, without much experience. Don’t you think you need to tell him he’s gonna be a daddy?”

Carolyn knew Toulousa was right. She’d realized what was going on when she missed a period. She’d started talking to the baby when she missed the second period, petting her stomach as if it were a sleeping puppy, but only when she was alone. She didn’t tell anyone. A superstition nibbled at her that someone was going to take the baby away.

“Have you told your mother?” Toulousa asked.

Carolyn’s eyes darted left and right, like she was a wolf trying to escape a trap. A fierce protective tightness pushed into Carolyn’s throat.

Toulousa shook her head. “What? Are you gonna show up one day and say ‘Surprise!’?”

Pete came in the front door just at that moment. “Surprise what?” he said, coming up behind Carolyn and putting his arm around her waist. “It’s a good Sunday out there, huh?”

He was right. It was sunny and cool, in the mid-70’s.

“It’s a good Sunday in here too,” Toulousa said, giving Carolyn a raised eyebrow. “Right, Carolyn?”

Carolyn turned her pale blue eyes to look into Pete’s brown eyes. She loved his black, curly eyelashes. “I’ve got a surprise,” she said to him.

He cocked his head sideways and asked, “Good or bad surprise?”

Toulousa held her breath, hoping for the best.

Carolyn couldn’t keep herself under control. Her lips spread out in a big grin, showing all her teeth.

“Okay. A good surprise,” Pete said. “So tell me. Or do you want me to guess?”

Carolyn took a breath and said it flat out, “We’re pregnant.” She spread her hands over her stomach.

Pete’s brown eyes got big. They shifted back and forth between Carolyn and Toulousa. “For real? A baby? We’re gonna have a baby?” He put his free hand on top of Carolyn’s, and she nodded her head Yes.

“Yippee!” It was a holler. If the theaters had been full, everybody would have heard it. Pete let go of Carolyn and started doing a jig, like a leprechaun who’d just found the rainbow’s end.

Toulousa let out her breath, Carolyn’s smile stretched broader, and life was looking good.

All day and through the evening, Pete skipped or danced or swaggered over to the ticket booth in between tearing tickets, to give Carolyn little pecks on the cheek, touching her hand or her belly. That night, after Max left with the deposit bag, he took Carolyn to the couch in the office as usual, but the sex went slower. He asked Carolyn to explain changes she was feeling. He had her point to where she thought the baby was growing, and he wanted to know how he could make her happy.

While he nuzzled under the lolling weight of Carolyn’s right breast, she wove her fingers into his dark kinky hair. She kept repeating, “I’m so happy.”

When Pete winked at Carolyn on their way out of the theater to go home in separate directions, she was still smiling. 15 minutes later, letting herself into her apartment, she dropped her face into neutral. “I’ve got your back,” she said to her belly, trying to reassure the baby.

AUTUMN 1990

§§

His client asked so many questions, he was late leaving for his audition. On the sidewalk, before he had a chance to hold up his hand to hail a taxi, a yellow cab turned the corner and stalled, then died in the middle of the intersection. The driver tried twice to start the engine, spitting out the words, “Fuck and fuck,” over and over, “Fuck, fuck, and fuck,” loud enough to be heard through the closed window. Then suddenly, the driver threw open the car door, got out and walked away, leaving two women in the back seat with their jaws hanging open.

Mike watched the 30-second scene. Then without thinking, he stepped into the driver’s seat and closed the door, announcing, “You’re getting a free ride, ladies.” The two women wore blue-jean chic, with jewelry hanging from their ears, necks, and arms. Before they had a chance to open the door next to the sidewalk, Mike turned the ignition key, and with a roar, the cab’s engine fired up.

He didn’t pay attention when the brunette in the back seat hollered, “Wait!” The other one screamed, and the brunette continued, “What the hell are you doing? Stop right now. Stop and let us out. Stop!”

Revving the engine, Mike kept driving, to 3rd Avenue, past Lexington to Park, then Madison. The second woman slapped at the grill separating the front and back seats. Mike formulated a plan to whiz to West 31th Street and 10th Avenue, so he’d have time to practice his monologue before the audition.

 But the cab, a Plymouth Fury, stalled out again near the Marble Collegiate Church at 5th Avenue.

Immediately, the brunette was out the door, yelling at the driver’s window, “Who are you? Jesus god, man, you’re in trouble, you’re going to pay for this, there are laws! Kidnapping! Car theft!”

The second woman remained in the back seat, leaning her forehead against the top edge of the front seat, rolling her head back and forth, screeching in fear, “A lunatic. A lunatic stole our taxi.” She panted hysterically, “A crazy man, crazy, crazy, crazy.” Her hysteria morphed into laughter.

“April,” the brunette said, reaching into her friend. “April, calm down.”

April sputtered and choked. “We’ve been kidnapped by a madman in a broken taxi. He’s a nut.” She had to put her forehead on the seat back again, holding her stomach and cackling.

The brunette stood by the car, looked at her friend, then at Mike who rolled down his window and grinned at her.

The brunette pouted and said, “You should wear a mask if you’re going to high-jack women.”

April hiccupped in the back seat.

“Do you have a business card?” the brunette asked sarcastically with her hands on her hips. “We might need another ride.”

Mike reached in his back pocket and pulled out his wallet. He handed the brunette his card through the window: “Owner/Manager/CPA – Liberty Tax.” Then he extended a second card through the cash slot to the woman in the back seat and said, “Hello, April. Everything’s okay. My name’s Mike Levine.”

 April’s laughing eased up enough to read the card, and she said, “Liberty Tax?” She choked on a laugh and looked around the back seat wildly. “An accountant kidnapped me. A crazy accountant with a stolen taxi.”

“I don’t usually steal cars,” Mike said. He stepped out of the car door and stuck out his hand to shake with the brunette. “I’m trying to get to an audition on time. Sorry I startled you.”

April screeched, “Don’t let him touch you, Faith. I’ll call the police.” She struggled to climb out of the cab while she searched through her purse for her phone.

The brunette slit her eyes. “Yeah, right, an audition. An accountant going to an audition.”

Mike flashed a smile.

The brunette shrugged and said, “April, we’re okay. Nothing happened.”

April dropped her purse, spilling keys, tissues, 2 lipsticks, and a cell phone on the pavement. She grabbed at the phone and started scrolling on the screen.

The brunette rolled her eyes and said, “Put your phone away, April.”

“I promise to call you if I get the part. But I’ll need to know…,” Mike dropped his eyes so his eyelashes spread on his cheeks before he looked up with a twinkle in his eye, “…to know how to get in touch with you.” Then he repeated their names, “April and Faith. I’ve been looking for two beautiful women to fall in love with.”

April took a deep breath and re-read Mike’s card.

Mike looked at his watch. “Let me buy you a glass of wine. It’ll be my apology,” he said, pointing to the Pink Tree Café across the street. He was sure, as far as good luck was concerned, finding two women was better than a heads-up penny on the sidewalk.

Before April finished her white wine, she was giving her number to Mike, promising to meet him the next night after work.

§§

She decided on the walk home that she would tell her mother the truth.

Lydia was in the kitchen, reading the Daily News at the Formica table. Carolyn sat down next to her. No one said anything.

Finally, with her shoulders slumped in a curve, Carolyn said, “I’m having a baby.”

Lydia didn’t look up from the paper for almost a minute. When she did, her scaly skin was grayer than usual. “What did you say?” she hissed, like it was a threat.

Carolyn knew her mother had heard. “In three months.”

Lydia leaned back in her chair, and her sour expression turned into a grin. “You’re the new Virgin Mary? You’re pregnant by Prince Charming waiting at your door? You wouldn’t know pregnant if it slapped you in your ugly face.” She went back to her reading.

But when Carolyn kept sitting silently at the table, Lydia looked up again.

Carolyn said, “My boyfriend works at the Triplex.” The sentence contained her entire life story.

Lydia shifted her eyes back to the paper again and said, “Don’t imagine that I’m rich, but I’ll pay for the operation. You can pay me back.”

“No,” Carolyn said. It was the first time she’d ever said the word to her mother.

Lydia stared at her daughter. “Well, you can’t expect me to pay to get rid of your mistake if you don’t pay me back.”

“I’m having it.”

“You’re having it?”

Carolyn nodded.

“Don’t be an ass. What did the man tell you, the one who knocked you up? That he loved you? Ha! You’re a dirty slut, so you cranked open your legs for some low-life pervert.” She cackled at the image of her daughter spread-eagled.

Carolyn told her mother, “Pete’s nice.”

“You’re daft, girl. The son-of-a-bitch will leave you. You’re stupider than I thought if you think he’ll stick around someone like you.”

Carolyn didn’t argue with her mother.

Lydia slammed her hand on the table. “I’m not going to support another mouth in this household. You’re gonna get rid of that baby,” and she slapped Carolyn’s belly.

Carolyn whined and backed-up, getting out of her chair to retreat. She wasn’t as stupid as her mother thought. She knew abortions were impossible after four or five months. “It’s too late,” she whispered. Carolyn wrapped her arms over her stomach and left the kitchen, heading upstairs to her bedroom without looking back.

Lydia scratched at the cherry-wood banister and screeched, “You take care of this, or you won’t be coming back here, you understand?”

Carolyn closed her door. She’d take care of it, in her own way.

4th Installment

Here’s more from my novel JUST ACROSS THE STREET IN NEW YORK CITY. Do you recognize parts of the Big Apple yet? February 2, 2022, the re-release date for the book moves a bit closer. Yeah!

§§

Mike finished shaving and tried to ignore the bags under his eyes. The Vietnam Memorial wasn’t what had kept him awake. He’d had Nicky dreams the previous night.

He shifted his tired mind to the divorce papers spread out on the dresser. Mike had wanted his marriage to work. When he had stood in front of the preacher in the white church in Somerset, New Jersey, saying “till death do us part,” he had meant it. But now, Mike didn’t know how he’d done the marriage thing for 19 years. If he didn’t resent Joanie so much for wasting years of his life, he’d thank her for kicking him out. Five more months and the divorce would be final if all the child custody details could be negotiated.

Mike put a tie in his coat pocket and locked the door behind him. He didn’t need his car to get to work, because the new bachelor apartment was only a bus ride across town to Liberty Tax at 29th Street and 2nd Avenue.

Mike’s shrink’s office at 6th and 59th was further from his new home. “What am I going to do with them for the summer?” he asked Pat Knolles during the week’s early evening session. He didn’t like the whining tone in his voice, but he couldn’t stop. “I mean, I love my kids, but I have a life of my own now. It’s not just work five days a week, and auditions and rehearsals. I’m a free man now. You know, I have women in my life. What am I supposed to do with two teenage girls?”

Pat leaned back in his naugahyde chair, crushed out his cigarette in the ashtray, and nodded. Ten months before, he’d run personality tests on Mike at the request of a divorce lawyer. The evaluation had shown Mike was neither a maniac nor a psychopath, to the disappointment of Joanie Levine.

After the court-ordered tests were out of the way and Mike had been authorized to spend time with his daughters, Pat had been surprised that Mike made a follow-up appointment, then another, and another.

In Pat’s humble opinion, Mike Levine was in the midst of emotional fallout from a family trauma. It was made worse because he complicated his life trying to be an actor when he had a better-than-average career as an accountant. But Pat Knolles didn’t try to change his clients. He just wanted them to be comfortable with their choices.

“They’re too old to send to summer camp,” Mike said to Pat who sat with his hands in his lap, listening. Mike paused, thought, and revised, “Or at least Fran is. Another year and she’ll be at college, using dope and screwing around.”

Pat tried not to smile and said, “Maybe she’s doing those things already, Mike.”

Mike harrumphed. “Just because I get laid several times a week, doesn’t mean my daughters fool around. They’re serious girls.” As soon as he said it, he looked at Pat for confirmation. What if Fran and Sherri were getting in trouble? What would he do? It would be Joanie’s fault, for destroying their home. Mike could feel his stomach tightening up.

He changed the subject, “I’ve got a date tonight. Do you want to hear the details about the one I had last night? And I mean ‘had’ her,” he added with pride. Flashes came to him of Bonnie crying out in pleasure.

“No,” Pat answered. He paused long enough to light a cigarette, letting his one word answer sink in. “I’m more interested in your sleep after sex. How are you coping with the dreams about young Nicky being shot while you two were roaming the woods?”

Mike shriveled. “The women always leave after we fuck, Pat. I don’t want to sleep with anyone. I’d die if one of them heard me gasping and crying during a dream. And when Sherri and Fran spend the night, well, you know, it wouldn’t be right for the girls to wake up in the morning with some bimbo in the apartment.”

“That’s what you think of them?”

“Well, sure. They need to respect their dad. They don’t need to know about my private life.”

“I was talking about the bimbos. You choose bimbos to have sex with?”

Mike rolled his eyes. Leave it to a shrink to latch onto some word and make a big deal out of it. “No, they’re not bimbos. That’s just a figure of speech. The one last night works at Peat Marwick. I mean, she’s a secretary, but she’s okay.”

“And the one tonight?”

Mike didn’t pay attention to the sarcasm behind the words “the one.” He answered, “I met her at a bar last week. I think she’s a designer or something.” The truth was, he didn’t know what Susie did for a living. But he recognized the twinkle in her eye when he bought her a gin and tonic at Gansevoort Rooftop Bar. “After a couple of drinks tonight, I won’t have to by her dinner. No doubt about it.”

They talked twenty minutes more, with Pat listening, nodding, and sometimes tossing out questions about Mike’s dates or his nightmares.

He liked Mike, and he told him so, “You’re a good-looking, intelligent man with a sense of humor and a medium-sized ego. That’s better than most of my clients.”

“Isn’t that a breach of ethics, or something, telling me that?” Mike quipped.

“I want us to talk more about your daughters, and how you’re going to handle them being with you all summer. But that’s for next week,” Pat said. Closing off the therapy session, Pat walked Mike to the door, patting him on the back.

§§

Marsha Winston had lived in Manhattan for almost 18 years, arriving for graduate school and never leaving. At first sight, she had fallen in love with New York’s cavernous valleys between the cliffs of buildings, the tunnels cut through the granite and brick, and the whirlwinds along the thoroughfares.

She learned the city by walking its streets, from Coliseum Book Store to the Metropolitan Museum, from Wall Street to Little Italy, up to Dykeman and the Cloisters, through the theater district and around the green market at Union Square. The streets were full of pedestrians who never looked at each other.

Marsha liked the general anonymity of the 15 million Manhattan residents. She saw familiar faces every day in her neighborhood and on her route to work, giving her a sense of community. People saw her come and go with grocery bags, and noticed her at the living room window when she watered and fed her roses. But she didn’t know them, they didn’t know her, and she liked it that way.

During high-school in Wisconsin, Marsha used to drive to the Piggly-Wiggly to buy two weeks’ worth of food for her and her dad, bringing it all home in the back of the SUV. But she had long-ago shifted to the grocery shopping ways of New York City, heading on foot to the Big Apple supermarket, and picking up a few things at the butcher shop or the fish shop on her way back. Sometimes, she bought enough to have it delivered, but usually, she kept it to one or two bags, light enough to haul home herself, just enough for a couple of days.

Today she was carrying home a bag with flank steak, sour cream, a package of dinner rolls, two potatoes, and an envelope of stroganoff mix. Tiny pale green leaves showed on the street’s tree branches, but she still had a clear view into apartments where curtains weren’t pulled. On a second floor window in the building on her left, she saw a woman with dark hair and a big nose, dancing with earphones on. On the right, on the first floor, an old lady stared out of her window, holding a tabby cat. When Marsha looked left again, she saw a man in a third-floor window, bare-chested, a glass in his hand. And next door to him, the woman in the orange vinyl chair watched television, as always.

She let herself into her building and unlocked the apartment door. She cooked, arranged herself on the couch with a plate of stroganoff and a glass of Zinfandel, and put Raiders Of The Lost Ark in the cassette player.

When the movie was finished, from her bedroom window, Marsha watched her landlady’s daughter stand in the backyard in the full-moon light that mixed with the security-lamp glare. She couldn’t figure out what the fat woman was doing out at 11:20 p.m.

She herself should have been sleeping because in the morning she had to meet with prospective replacements for her assistant Lonny Berne who was going on maternity leave in two weeks.

Marsha checked the rose bush next to her bed and murmured, “Aphids? You’re shitting me!” She pulled a small spray bottle of soapy water from the bedside table, spritzed the bugs she saw, and cleaned the leaves. Then she rubbed lotion on her hands and climbed into bed, opening the World Federation’s newsletter to see which cultivars were showcased this month. She was half-way through the details about Dr. Andrea Mansuino’s 1956 Aïda rose, when she heard stomping on the ceiling above her bed.

Then she heard a shrill voice, “You cow. You must think we’re rich. How can you eat so much?”

Marsha couldn’t imagine someone saying such a horrible thing. Lydia’s daughter was more than pudgy, she dressed as badly as her mother, and she was plain as a pig, but that didn’t mean she should be called mean names. Lydia’s voice seeped through the ceiling again, like venom coming through lace, “You’re a stupid blob. I can’t stand having you around.”

Hearing the mother scream at her grown child made Marsha cringe. She tried to turn her attention back to the journal, but her ears were on alert. She couldn’t hear whether the daughter replied. Marsha imagined dialing 911 to report child abuse, except she knew they’d laugh when she explained the child was in her 30’s.

She had dialed 911 years before when her own mother had collapsed in the kitchen, but her mom was dead before the ambulance got her to the emergency room.

Marsha had filled the sugar bowl from the bag on the shelf. Her mother loved morning coffee, loved it sweet and hot. Marsha had thought she was being a good girl, that she’d get praised and petted for filling up the sugar bowl.

But before Marsha sat down to eat breakfast, her mother had gasped and fallen out of her chair in a twitching heap, foam coming through her clinched teeth. The police took her father, her father the pharmacist. It had been his arsenic that had killed Ms. Winston, arsenic from the shelf, arsenic in his store’s paper bag.

For six months, Marsha had been too scared to tell what she’d done. She didn’t like living at her aunt’s house. Aunt Di didn’t make her wear long johns under her clothes like her mother did, but Aunt Di cooked scrambled eggs for lunch sandwiches. That was almost as bad.

Six-year-old Marsha wanted to go back to her own house, but she couldn’t as long as the police kept her daddy. So finally, she told about the sugar jar. She remembered crying in the office of the lady judge in black robes, repeating over and over again that she hadn’t known it was poison, that she hadn’t known.

She didn’t tell the judge that she was glad. If she had known enough to plan it, she would have. She hated the long johns her mother forced her to wear. She wanted to evaporate every time the girls in gym class made fun of her about those long johns. When her daddy finally came home, the poison seemed like a happy accident to Marsha. She promised herself she’d never wear long johns again. That was 30 years ago, and she had kept her promise.

“My knees are swollen, my hair’s falling out, I’m worn down to a nub, and I won’t take any more of your lazy stinking crap.” Lydia’s screeching brought Marsha back to the present. “You get your life together, or I’m putting you out of here, like I should’ve done years ago.” Marsha aimed her answer at the ceiling, “You’re a piece of shit, Lydia Duffy. Your daughter would be lucky to be rid of you.”

3rd Installment

Half-way through December, and here is the third installment of my novel JUST ACROSS THE STREET IN NEW YORK CITY. What a pleasure to share it with you before its re-release on 2 Februray, 2022. I love the cover art by Sanaan Mazhar

SPRING 1990

§§

MARSHA WINSTON

When she walked through the slushy grey snow to 23rd Street to catch the cross-town bus, Marsha Winston fought with her umbrella until it flipped inside out in the spitting March wind, breaking three of the spines. “Shit,” she said out loud to the world in general and tossed the useless thing in the corner trash barrel stuffed with other umbrellas sticking out at bizarre angles.

At 1st Avenue, she transferred uptown to the M15 bus and finally made it to the American Rose Institute. Harvey Shoat the receptionist called out “Hello, Marsha” when she went through the door. ARI had 34 employees, and they all knew her name, including the janitor and guard, but all Marsha could muster in return to their greetings was, “Shitty weather,” and she went straight to the coffee room. She knew she looked like she’d been dunked at a county fair, but she didn’t care. She needed caffeine.

Carrying a cup of unsweetened black coffee, she headed to her office to peel off her soaked sneakers and coat. She looked at the reflection in the glass door of the bookcase. “You look like shit,” she said to herself. “No one’s going to want to take your picture.” She shrugged and added, “It’s okay. The O’Keefe will be the star of the show.”

At 11:00, Marsha put on high heels and went to the conference room to face six reporters from National Geographic, The Horticulture Research Journal, The German Rose Project Quarterly, Scientific American, The New York Times, and The Audubon Society Journal. Five ARI employees waited in the room too.

From the head of the seminar table, the still-damp assistant research administrator of ARI introduced herself and started her presentation the same way she always did: “I wanted to open with a joke about roses, but all the ones I know are old and tired. Do any of you have a rose joke you can tell?”

Her colleagues knew her technique for getting the attention of visitors so they stayed quiet. Liz Graham from The New York Times spoke up, “Emily Rose sat on a pin. Emily rose.”

There was a beat of silence in the room, then sniggering started, groans followed, and laughter too.

“That’s one I haven’t heard, Liz, and I like it. Simple and wonderful,” Marsha said, still grinning, “just like the new Georgia O’Keefe rose.” From that transition, she rolled into her speech, “The cuttings on the table show that she’s a double-flowered climbing rose similar to the old Sally Holms Rose from England, and just as easy to grow.”

The audience murmured appreciatively, and Marsha went on, “As you can see, its abundant flower is peachy white. The stipule is small and fleeting.” Marsha’s dark hair fell over her right eye, and she pushed it back. It was frizzy from getting rained on. “I particularly like the feathered leaflets of the plant. You see how they’re glossier than typical.”

She figured she was on a roll because the reporters were taking notes instead of sleeping. The room smelled great. Marsha forgot about being soggy and described how long the plant had taken to develop and the remarkable resistance of the new rose. She loved publicity for her flowers and talked like she was on stage at the Oscars.

She flashed a smile and closed with, “The Institute is scheduled to present an O’Keefe plant to the First Lady on her birthday, the 8th of June. We’re certain that it will end up in the White House Rose Garden. You are all invited to the presentation event.”

That was Marsha’s way of dismissing the reporters, but they didn’t leave. She wasn’t surprised. She knew what they were waiting for, so she pushed a potted cutting of the O’Keefe into the hands of each visitor, and they all left happy.

After work, standing at the bus stop shivering in the cool evening, Marsha was still vibrating from the reporters’ appreciation, but her adrenalin had deserted her. Her back and feet hurt as if she were 68 instead of 38 years old.

In her apartment, Marsha watered her plants and put away the laundry, then showered. By 7:30 she was ready for her 8 p.m. date with Greg Cohn, the sculptor she’d met the week before at an opening at the Met. By 7:50, she was at the bar at Carmine’s on West 44th Street with a martini in her hand. She liked being early so she could watch her date’s reaction when he thought he was late.

Greg’s eyes popped open wide when he saw her waiting, but he recovered with ease, gliding up to her and guiding her toward their table. The two bottles of Frascati wine made the dinner conversation easy, with Greg talking sports and weather, Marsha going on about her recent excursion to Washington D.C.’s National Gallery of Art. After sharing the calamari with white sauce and the manicotti, they each tried the other’s dessert, cheesecake for him, strawberry shortcake for her.

Greg savored his last bite and said, “Next time, I’ll get a slice of the shortcake.”

Marsha was tired and happy and answered, “Oh, no piece for the wicked.”

Greg cocked his head, confused.

Marsha waited a beat for him to understand, got no response, so she explained, “Peace, get it. A piece of strawberry shortcake. It’s a joke. Piece and peace. No peace for the wicked.”

Another few silent seconds passed with both of them taking a breath. Then Greg asked, “Coffee?”

“Do you live close by?” Marsha answered.

She wasn’t surprised when he nodded to the waiter and asked for the check.

After a short cab ride to East 36 Street, they rode an elevator to the 12th floor, and without coffee or chitchat, they fell onto Greg’s bed on top of the duvet. Four minutes later, Greg put his hands under his head and murmured, “You were fantastic.”

Marsha did not return the compliment. She talked to herself during the cab ride back to West 22nd Street, “Four minutes, what a shithead. Four minutes is the time for finding a T.V. channel, not for a romantic encounter after dinner. What are you, Greg Cohn, a 12-year-old adolescent? You’ve never had sex before?” She glanced into the rearview mirror to see whether the driver was listening to her monologue. More quietly, she repeated, “Four shitty minutes.”

By the time she got home and added Greg to her list of lovers, she had become pragmatic. “An excellent free dinner,” she announced to the kitchen as she made herself a cup of decaf coffee, black, no sugar.

§§

Grumbling to herself, Lydia knocked at the door of the apartment beneath hers. She didn’t understand why tenants refused to put the rent check in her mailbox on the first of the month. Why did she have to ask for money on the third or fourth day? Marsha Winston wasn’t the worst she’d ever had, but she sure wasn’t the best. Lydia knocked on the door again.

“Open up. I know you’re there. I saw you come back from the store with groceries.” Lydia surveyed West 22nd Street all day from her bay window on the 2nd floor.

Marsha had muted the television when she heard Lydia Duffy stomping down the steps. She was careful not to do anything to make the witchy landlady happy. She listened to the banging on the door while she filed her fingernails on the couch in the living room.

Marsha’s street-level apartment was a floor-through, three nice rooms plus the smallest kitchen in Manhattan. The apartment didn’t get much light, but it was plenty big enough for Marsha to have lots of potted plants, mostly rose bushes of course, but a schefflera and a king sago palm soaked in artificial light rigged up in the middle room.

From the window in the living room, she could see the trees with their pale leaves lining West 22nd Street. She had a clear view into several apartments on the other side of the street. While she listened to Lydia banging at the door, she looked in a third floor window at a woman in an orange vinyl chair facing a television. Marsha had watched the woman watch T.V. for eight years.

When she first moved into her apartment, she tried not to take note of her neighbors. But it was impossible. The bars across her windows were supposed to keep her safe inside. Instead they seemed magnetic, pulling her to the world outside.

Finally, she heard Lydia stomping back up the stairs to her own apartment, screeching, “You go to hell. You can’t con me, you bitch.”

Her landlady lived overhead in a two-story apartment. Marsha never understood how someone like Lydia Duffy, with her balding head and hanging skin could own an entire building in Chelsea, a lovely old brownstone with a real backyard. It was a treasure worth millions, but still the scrawny woman dressed like a hag, never went out, and had the manners of a rat.

Through the ceiling, Marsha sometimes heard Lydia screaming, telling her daughter how worthless and ugly she was. Other than Lydia and her daughter, no one else came into the building. Marsha thought a mother like that should be hung, or worse.

She took glee in making Lydia wait a couple of extra days each month for the rent. The $970 check for her 700 square-foot apartment was already written and signed, but she’d hold it a while longer before sliding it in the Duffy mailbox. Marsha smiled, unmuted the T.V., and picked up The Sunday Times crossword puzzle.

§§

Marsha didn’t know that Lydia’s father had arrived in New York 100 years ago from Ireland with a suitcase full of money he’d made from betting the horses. Old Duff had bought foreclosed properties around the city and padded his fortune with rent money from other immigrants, until the Irishman was shot dead by a bookie. His wife was hit too, leaving 15-year-old Lydia to manage the rental properties.

Through the years Lydia collected rents, spitting in the face of anyone who gave her grief, but finally, taxes and maintenance caught up with her, so she started selling the buildings, one by one.

Lydia never married, but there had been one man who spit back at her before he dragged her into his apartment. After a few hours, she left with a black eye, and nine months later, Lydia was a mother. She raised the baby in the same West 22 Street apartment where she’d grown up, a home with parquet floors covered with fine old oriental rugs.

The front door of the Duffy apartment opened into a dining room, flanked by the kitchen and living room. Oak tables, silk curtains, and china filled the rooms. The woodwork and doors under the fourteen-foot ceilings were crafted in cherry wood, and the original 1845 cherry staircase led to three upstairs bedrooms and a big white-tiled bathroom where an easy chair and lamp table faced the footed bathtub. An iron staircase led from the back of Lydia’s kitchen down to the backyard.

Servants lived in tiny rooms under the roof back in the time when Lydia was born, and they worked in the low-ceilinged space at street level. But that era was long gone.

To convert the first floor into an apartment, Lydia had covered the 7-foot walls with wood-paneling, so upkeep was minimal, no painting required. She didn’t allow tenants in the backyard, and to stay free of cockroaches and rats, she folded the cost of an exterminator into the rent.

Lydia grumbled to herself, “I will not jump through legal hoops to get that stinking bitch evicted. I will not. But she better watch out or I’ll change my mind.” She figured if she got rid of Marsha Winston, she could squeeze $2000 out of some naïve ingénue.

Lydia let herself back into her apartment, then crabbed her way down the wrought-iron steps from the kitchen into the backyard. The shriveled woman pulled weeds with clawed fingers, wisps of her scraggly hair flying in the breeze. When she saw a stream of water come down from the kitchen landing, she looked up and screeched, “You lazy slob, you’re just now mopping?”

She made her way to the stairs and started up, hanging on the iron rail with one hand and the other hand flailing in the air, “How’d I get stuck with a no-good daughter? We’d live in a pigsty if it was up to you.” At the top of the steps, she hollered, “Get to work, girl. And clean up the dishes. If you’d get your fanny moving, you wouldn’t be such a fat cow.”

Watching her daughter wipe her hands on a dish towel, Lydia shook her head from side to side. “Do you think the pennies you bring home from that so-called job cover what you cost me? Most people earn their space on this earth, young lady.”

Marsha listened to it all from downstairs. It wasn’t as bad in winter when the windows were closed, but from April to October, she heard Lydia’s rants. She didn’t know why the mother kept the daughter around. For that matter, she didn’t understand why the daughter put up with the mother.

Marsha moved to the bedroom at the back of her apartment and kept working on the New York Times cross-word puzzle. A stream of wash-water splashed outside her window. Then she saw Lydia on the steps, walking into the sunshine of the backyard carrying a basket of wet clothes, slumping her way to the rusted clothesline stretched east and west between the two fences. The crabbed woman pinned three white blouses to the sagging line, then socks and underwear.

Marsha watched and cringed when Lydia hung white nylon panties, full-cut from thigh to waist. She imagined Lydia taking the panties down when they were dry, counting out half for herself and half for her daughter, without any distinction.

It was just as well Marsha didn’t have backyard privileges. For one thing, the space was a wasteland, with a couple of tufts of grass coming through the rocky dirt, and three dead bushes along the back fence. If she spent time there, for her own sanity she’d have to cultivate a garden, full of roses and bulbs and a luxurious carpet of grass, with a few small fruit trees. It would be nice to sunbathe in private, but it was better to keep as far away from Lydia Duffy as possible. She thought she’d kill herself if Lydia were her mother instead of her landlady. That was an exaggeration, but not by much.

§§

Sherri and Fran were with him at the news studio Saturday morning. The producer said it would increase the human interest if his daughters sat with him during the interview. At a saucy seventeen, Fran Levine loved it, preening as she waited for the interview. Sherri was the problem.

The producer shot a command toward younger Levine girl, “When Mary Lou asks your father how he found out he was listed on the Memorial, lean into him and take his hand.”

“Dad, what if someone sees me?”

Mike said, “It’s true. Someone may see you, Sherri.”

“Of course someone’s going to see you, sweetie,” the producer said loudly. He thought the kid was shy, and he went on, waving his big hands in the air, “This is New York City. I don’t do things people don’t watch.”

Sherri wasn’t being coy. “What you’re asking me to do is exploitation. It’s not right.”

The producer looked at Mike Levine who shrugged. He turned back to Sherri who had her arms folded across her chest. Adding a couple of decibels to his volume, the producer said, “All you’re doing, kid, is sitting next to your goddamned dad.”

“Hold on there,” Mike jumped up, his fists clinched. “You can’t talk to her that way.”

Before he finished his sentence, a dark-haired woman stepped in front of the producer, flashed a set of teeth, and offered her hand. “Hi there, Mr. Levine. I’m Mary Lou Fredrick.” She turned and went on, “And you must be Sherri, right?” She gestured toward Fran. “Is that your sister?”

Sherri took a breath and nodded.

“Come on over here,” she said to the girls, like she was calling them to open Christmas presents. “This is going to be great. We’re going to show how this monument thing has affected your family. I bet you’re glad the inscription is wrong, huh?” she asked, winking at both girls.

Sherri looked over her shoulder at her father, her chin quivering. “But Dad, what am I going to tell David? He’ll see me being exploited for ratings.”

Mike put his arm around Sherri and said, “How about this? We’ll invite David to the apartment tonight. You can decide together whether you want to watch the news show or not.”

“Really, Dad?”

Mike nodded.

Sherri turned to the reporter. “Okay. I guess it’ll be okay.” Then she added, “I hate being called ‘sweetie’ and ‘kid’.”

Mary Lou Fredrick patted Sherri’s shoulder, gave Mike an appreciative glance, and told Fran, “Your blond hair looks fabulous.”

The producer counted down with his fingers, three, two, one, and the camera rolled with Mary Lou Fredrick asking Michael Levine, “How did you tell your daughters that your name is on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, the famous monolith inscribed with names of 300,000 Americans who died during our involvement in the ten year ‘conflict’ in Southeast Asia?”

He wanted to repeat what he said at cocktail parties, that he’d be happy if the government sent him dependent survivor benefits every month. Mike always smirked when he said it, and then asked for another drink to help drown memories of shells exploding, the smell of shit rising from dead bodies, and the pools of blood that sent him back to memories of Nicky’s gushing red neck.

But he said what he thought Mary Lou wanted the T.V. audience to hear, “I’m just happy to be alive. My family and I, we mourned with all the other families who lost someone listed on the Memorial. Their deaths were a loss for all Americans.” By the time she had gone through the interview the third time, he knew it all by heart.

On the 6:00 o’clock news, Channel 2 ran a segment about Michelle MacDonald, glamour actress with the botched face lift, who had committed suicide the previous week. After a commercial break, the newscast switched to a shot of the Vietnam Memorial in Washington, D.C., fading into the spot about Michael Levine.

Mike mouthed the lines of the interview while his daughters and David watched the taped newscast. If it had been an interview about a successful play he was in, or if it had shown him and his daughters wearing Statue of Liberty costumes in front of his Liberty Tax storefront, Mike would have been thrilled to be recognized. But no, his 15 minutes of fame came from a government mistake.

2nd installment

Wow! I loved the positive reactions to the first installment of JUST ACROSS THE STREET IN NEW YORK CITY. The re-release of the entire novel will be on 2 February. Until then, I’ll keep posting.

Here’s the second installment. I hope you enjoy it.

§§

“Mamie,” Toulousa called out, slamming the bathroom door shut with her foot, “I have to head to the train in 15 minutes.”

Mamie rubbed her hands on a dishtowel and asked, “Anything good playing now?” She’d been hearing Toulousa’s tales about the Triplex films for three weeks. In her lifetime, Mamie had been to a movie theater two times, once to see Gone With The Wind, and the other time for 2001: A Space Odyssey.

“Same old, same old,” Toulousa answered. “You have to come to the Triplex and see for yourself one of these days. You’ll love the ladies bathroom, Mamie. It’s big. Five stalls big.”

The grey-haired woman picked up a knife to chop kale. “I don’t need to visit your Triplex. I’ve got you telling me everything I need to know.”

Toulousa transferred Coco into Mamie’s arms, kissed the baby’s cheek, and said, “I know. It’ll take Fred Astaire rising from the dead to get you into Manhattan to see a movie.”

She slid into her purple coat, wrapped her green scarf around her dreadlocks, put two apples, a lump of cheddar cheese, The Accidental Tourist and The Postman in her bag, and headed to the Jamaica-Van Wyck station.

The 45-minute ride to and from the Triplex let her read without distraction. It was one of her favorite times of day. Work was a favorite time of day too. Time with her family was a favorite, and she also loved sleeping. Shopping wasn’t a favorite, but she didn’t shop much. She was lucky that way.

She was on the last chapter of Anne Tyler’s book when she walked into the 23rd Street Triplex fifteen minutes early for her shift.

The theater had history on its side. Its three screening rooms had been on the north side of the street between 8th and 9th Avenues for 15 years before Lowe’s invaded the neighborhood with its modern four-story theater on the south side of 23rd Street. Toulousa checked in with her boss Max Gambardella in the office behind the concession area. Max sat on the brown couch bought from a discount store on 14th Street, reading the New York Post. He sat behind the desk only when he ordered movies. Toulousa had figured out that Max did the same mix every week: one blood-and-guts picture, one kid’s film that showed in the afternoons, replaced by a chick-flick at night, and one big box office picture. Sometimes the big box office film was only medium-sized.

§§

MIKE LEVINE

The digital clock said it was 3:47. Mike Levine commanded himself to fall asleep, immediately, now, without delay, promising himself the nightmare wouldn’t come back. The command didn’t work.

He refused to close his eyes because behind the eyelids, Nicky was screaming. Mike had his hands on his friend’s his neck, and blood gushed out from between his fingers.

He knew when he woke up, it wouldn’t be Nicky screaming, but himself, and Joanie would be shaking him, ordering him to move to the living room couch so she could get some sleep.

But Joanie wasn’t in bed with him. She had delivered the divorce papers to him at work at Liberty Tax ten months ago. “Don’t bother coming home,” she had said. “I changed the locks on the apartment door, and the doormen know you’re not to enter the building.”

Nicky had lived in Mike’s dreams for 30 years, eclipsing all other people and events including his divorce, so he stayed awake as usual.

§§

CAROLYN DUFFY

Pete Turnbull smiled as he tore a customer’s ticket at the theater entrance. He stood up straight and felt important in his Triplex uniform.

When the lobby was clear, Pete swaggered to the concession counter and held out his plastic bag to be refilled with popcorn. He made minimum wage, like Toulousa, and he liked the free food.

Toulousa took the bag and said, “You need Black Luster. It covers pimples better than whatever you’re using.”

He pretended to ignore what she said, but he filed the brand name in his memory. “Have you seen Hunt for Red October yet?” he asked.

Toulousa held up the cover of Jumanji for him to see and said, “I read. You should too.”

“I read textbooks,” he said, cramming a handful of popcorn in his mouth.

“They don’t count as books.”

“What do you mean? They’ve got words,” Pete said, grinning.

“Okay, you convinced me,” Toulousa joked back, showing her big teeth. “And you read the credits at the end of movies too, right?”

“Movies are better than books,” Pete answered.

Twirling around on her highchair to face the lobby from the ticket booth, Carolyn asked, “How many times have you seen Pet Sematary?”

The kid scratched his head, thinking. “Three or four times. ‘Course I’ve never seen the start or end.” It was true. He always left films in time to tear tickets for the next showing. “I gotta do my job if I wanna keep it.”

Toulousa shook her head and went back to her book. Pete carried his popcorn to the ticket booth curtain to share his guess about the end of Born on the 4th of July with Carolyn. “I bet everybody forgives Tom Cruise and he becomes famous, maybe even he gets elected to Congress. I mean, after all, it’s Tom Cruise. He’s a star, so it’ll end happy.” He liked how Carolyn listened to his opinions.

Carolyn liked listening. She’d sold tickets at the Triplex for almost ten years. Two years ago, Max put her in charge of the nightly, weekly, and monthly financial tallies for the theater. She’d been listening to Pete since Max hired him ten months back.

Pete took off the jacket of his uniform and went to theater #2 to open the doors around the time the credits were rolling for Pet Sematary.

Carolyn said in a stage whisper, “Pete’s nice.”

Toulousa held her place on the page with a finger and repeated, “Nice. What do you mean ‘nice’?”

Carolyn shrugged and looked over her shoulder to make sure no one was waiting for a ticket.

Toulousa turned down the page of Jumanji. “He’s a boy, Carolyn. You know that, right?”

Carolyn was not a girl. She was a few years past 30, and she lived with her mother. She was not experienced in the romantic world, but she wasn’t a virgin. Nine years back, on a rainy November night, she’d been walking home after her shift at the Triplex, when a soldier in a fatigue uniform wandered up to her, stinking of whiskey, and slugged her jaw with his fist. He held her up, half-conscious against him, and banged her fast and hard. It didn’t matter that her coat hid her pants pushed down below her knees because nobody walked by.

After he dropped her to the cold cement of the sidewalk and disappeared, Carolyn stumbled to the door of her apartment building on 22nd Street and leaned against the bell. Her mother buzzed her in, and when Carolyn collapsed inside the apartment, Lydia said, “Serves you right,” then disappeared into the kitchen.

After that night, Carolyn’s gentle character continued unchanged. She dressed like a big Easter Egg, wearing a different color of elastic-waistband slacks every day, with a white cotton blouse under her Triplex vest. Under the blouse were big soft breasts, like two award-winning bunnies, hanging down, big and comfortable.

Toulousa gave the ticket seller a once-over. Even from across the lobby, it was evident that Carolyn’s blond hair was clean and her pale blue eyes were bright. Her fingernails were clean too.

“You and me, we’re the same height,” Toulousa said.

A smile played at Carolyn’s mouth, and she nodded. “I’m 5’ 10”.”

Toulousa went on, “Pete’s about 5’7”. He probably weighs 130. He’s a dwarf compared to us.”

Carolyn’s eyes fluttered down to her lap, and her face muscles fell into a frown.

“But you’re right. Pete’s nice. He’s a nice guy.”

Something shifted in Carolyn when Toulousa agreed that Pete was nice.

After the final feature of the evening started, Toulousa counted the candy, cups, hotdogs, and money. Carolyn finished with her ticket count and went to the office for Max to check the tallies.

Toulousa was shining the glass counter tops when Carolyn passed by on her way out of the office, carrying her purse and coat. Pete leaned on the wall next to the men’s bathroom. He always stayed late till the three films ended and the theaters were clear, so he could lock up for Max.

“Have you watched this one?” he asked, pointing to theater # 2 where Pet Sematary was playing. He was holding a full bag of popcorn, and he wasn’t talking to Toulousa.

Carolyn shook her head No.

Pete said, “It’s good. I’m going in until Born on the 4th of July lets out at 11:45. You want to come sit next to me on the back row?” His eyes were sparkling and his eyebrows danced up and down.

Carolyn nodded. She was tired, and she didn’t want to watch a horror movie, but she wasn’t in the mood to go home either.

Toulousa recognized the signals of young seduction, but she kept her smile hidden while Carolyn followed the boy into the theater. She’d have a story to tell Mamie Bell when she got home.

§§

Carolyn sat down on the back row next to Pete and took off her shoes, leaning her head against the concrete wall behind them, hoping cockroaches didn’t crawl down her shirt collar.

The movie was full of blood and creatures. Teenagers filled the seats in the afternoon, but for the late-night show, only eight people sat in the dark theater.

Pete whispered, “We haven’t missed too much.” Without taking his eyes off the screen, he put a handful of popcorn in his mouth.

Carolyn closed her eyes, grateful to be in a cushioned chair with arms.

“I saw it again Tuesday night, right up to the end, so I can fill you in later about the first part,” Pete continued, leaning over to talk in her ear.

She liked the warm air she felt on her cheek from his mouth. She leaned toward the voice, her eyes still closed.

Pete flinched. “Jeez, Louis going in the woods gets me every time. You okay?” he asked, putting his hand on Carolyn’s knee.

Carolyn hadn’t seen a thing and wasn’t scared, but it seemed nice that he was concerned about her. Nice. Like Toulousa said. Nice. She rolled her head from the wall toward Pete’s shoulder and took a deep breath. He smelled like something familiar, like mint maybe. It was his hair grease, she decided. She put her nose behind his ear to get a better sniff.

“Scared, huh?” he asked, feeling Carolyn close. “Remember, Gage is just an actor. He doesn’t really die, and he doesn’t really come back.” He didn’t take his eyes away from the screen, but to protect her, he stretched his hand across both of Carolyn’s legs, holding her thighs close to his seat, to make her feel safe. “But he’s telling the truth about Jud’s wife.”

Carolyn’s eyes fluttered open for a split second, and she caught a glimpse of a kid munching on a corpse and decided to return to relaxing, with Pete’s hand rubbing her leg in an automatic motion while he watched the movie.

Pete’s attention shifted. He realized his hand was getting warm making bigger and bigger circles on Carolyn’s lap. He heard Carolyn’s breathing transform into a pant, quiet and moist, at his ear.

While Louis was carrying Rachel’s body to the burial ground, Pete and Carolyn both had their eyes closed. They weren’t listening to the on-screen screams in the dark theater.

Carolyn’s bottom lip held the edge of Pete’s ear against her top teeth. Pete shifted to pull her tongue into his mouth, and he shifted again. There, on the back row of the theater, Carolyn twitched and swayed in rhythm with the young man’s body until she felt electricity shoot from her legs to her abdomen. Pete collapsed.

They wheezed for a few minutes. Then Pete said, “Oh my god, is that the scene with Louis playing solitaire?” He twisted half-off Carolyn to see. “I’ve only got two minutes until the other show lets out.” He rolled into the seat next to Carolyn. Pete took hold of her hand, “That was great. I never knew it could be so great.”

He tucked his clothes back together, kissed her cheek, and left.

Carolyn told herself she should move, but before she could do anything, Pete came back with a roll of paper towels. Then he went to open the doors of theater #3, leaving her alone to clean herself up during the end of Pet Sematary.

She was ready when the lights came up after the credits rolled. Leaving the theater wearing her coat and carrying her bag, Carolyn took Pete’s hand for a half-minute. “I liked the movie,” she told him.

He winked at her and answered, “Maybe you wanna see it again sometime?”

By the end of the next week, they stopped using the back row. The couch in the office worked better, after Max left with the bank deposit. Pete winked at Carolyn before she went home every Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday, and Sunday.

1st installment

While I wait for the re-release of my novel JUST ACROSS THE STREET IN NEW YORK CITY on 2 February, I thought I’d give a weekly installment from the book . Here’s the first !! I hope you like it.

By the way, the fabulous cover art is by Sanaan Mazhar

WINTER 1989

§§

TOULOUSA BELL

She hefted her purse to the other shoulder to walk upstairs from the subway at 23rd Street. The Manhattan street was wider than in Queens, wider and but not cleaner. Dog poop, empty brown bottles, and broken umbrellas were scattered on the sidewalk. She turtled into her wool muffler against the grey clouds and cold air.

At the Triplex, she wanted to bust down and dance. She would’ve done it in her Queens neighborhood, but she chose to look mature walking into her new job. In two weeks when she got her first paycheck, she’d pay the gas and electric bills for the seven people in her apartment, with enough left over to buy books.

Toulousa stood up straight and went into Max Gambardella’s office with her hand stuck out for a shake. Max responded by putting a red vest with a movie camera sewn on the breast pocket into the hand and pointing to the concession counter.

After an hour of selling Milky Ways, 3 Musketeers, Junior Mints, Gummy Bears, four sizes of popcorn, soda pop, and hotdogs, Toulousa Bell was an expert at the cash register. She’d always been talented with numbers, words, and people. Adding junk food into the mix was a no-brainer. Her skinny hips and dreadlocks swayed with the rhythm of the jingling coins she counted out as change.

At the first lull, she took a plastic cup out of her bag and filled it with coke. Max had told her at the interview that there was one perk with the job: she could eat all the popcorn and hotdog buns she wanted. Not the candy or hotdogs. Those were inventoried every night and matched up with the money. The soda cups were counted too, but the employees could drink soda as long as they didn’t use theater cups. She intended to take advantage of this perk.

Swallowing two gulps, she studied the space outside her counter. A black kid swept up popcorn from underneath the water fountain in the waiting area. It was a “split level” theater, with one step going down from the concessions to the screening rooms. Another step led down to two 25-cent video games, the bathrooms, and a black leather bench. The Triplex’s red carpeting and wallpaper made it feel like an old tavern.

From the left, a fat blond woman came out from behind a red curtain revealing a glimpse of the ticket booth. Toulousa called over to her, “Do you want a hotdog bun?”

The big blond looked over her shoulder, then pointed to herself, like she was asking whether the question was aimed at her.

“Yeah, you. You want a hotdog bun? I’m gonna have one before the next batch of customers arrive.” She loaded a bun up with mustard, ketchup, and relish, held it out, and said, “My name’s Toulousa Bell.”

The fat woman’s eyes dropped to her feet when she said, “Carolyn Duffy.”

But then her eyes crept upwards. They were pale blue eyes, lighter than a blue snow cone, lighter than the Manhattan sky. They were like fishbowl water. Those blue eyes fixed on the dreadlocks. She had never been this close to someone with dreadlocks before.

Finally, Carolyn spoke, “Could you add mayo?”

“You’re the first person I’ve met who mixes mayonnaise with ketchup and mustard, but my motto is ‘I give you what you want’.” She rolled the cuffs of her white work shirt back showing off skinny wrists, squirted white stuff on top of the green relish, and handed the concoction across the counter.

Carolyn took what was offered, but Toulousa held onto her end of the bun for a split second and quipped, “So this is how you keep your girlish figure?”

Carolyn felt like she’d been slapped. Her pudgy face fell so the blue eyes disappeared, and she dropped her end of the bun.

Toulousa reached across the counter, grabbed Carolyn’s hand, and put the bun in it. “That’s a joke, honey. The truth is, you look good to me.” She smiled at the blond, displaying all her big teeth. Yes, she liked the way Carolyn Duffy looked, as if she were bread dough going into the oven.

Carolyn sniffed the bun, took a bite, and nodded a thank-you.

The rest of the morning, in between pulling out candy bars, filling coke cups, and popping corn, Toulousa felt Carolyn Duffy looking at her through the crack between the red velvet curtain and the ticket booth wall.

When Toulousa wasn’t busy with customers, she read The Vampire Lestat. She was a reader. She was never bored as long as she had a book, and that was never, because she didn’t go anywhere without two or three library books in her bag.

She held her book steady when a kid came out of theater # 2 where National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation was showing. He stood in front of the concession counter, waiting to be noticed. Toulousa kept her nose in the book, turning the pages, one at a time.

The kid coughed to announce his presence. Then he tapped a coin on the glass countertop. Finally he said, “You, lady. You gonna help me here or what?”

Toulousa looked up from the book and said, “Who you think I am? Your momma? Get your own popcorn.”

Carolyn Duffy watched the mini-drama from the ticket booth, until Toulousa cracked a big smile and called out to her, “It’s nothing. I’m joking with him.”

The kid curled his lip, “Big fucking joke.”

“Your momma let’s you talk like that?”

He didn’t shrink. “My momma gave me money for a Baby Ruth.”

“Well, here’s your Baby Ruth,” Toulousa said, pulling one out of the counter. Then she scooped popcorn onto a big napkin. “And I’ll give you some free popcorn if you go the rest of the day without saying ‘fuck’.”

He slapped a $5 bill on the counter and answered, “I don’t want your fucking popcorn.”

She grinned and gave him his change. “You’re a smart guy. That’s good. Don’t ever let anyone buy you.”

He looked at the tall skinny woman sideways and took his change.

Toulousa winked and told him, “Get outta here. You’re missing the movie.”

The kid left, and Carolyn disappeared behind her curtain.

§§

When she got home from her first day at the Triplex, Toulousa smelled chicken roasting and heard Coco crying. Without taking off her coat, she dropped her bag next to the playpen and scooped out the baby, swinging her up to the changing table. Two minutes later, Coco gurgled, happy and dry.

The baby’s bean-brown skin was the same color as Sharon’s eyes. Sharon was Coco’s momma. Joe, Coco’s daddy, had black eyes, just like his big sister Toulousa. Joe’s skin was black too, like Toulousa’s. Well, almost black. More than dark brown, sort of gun-metal black.

Joe had one more year to finish his computer science degree at NYU. Sharon worked part-time at the snack bar of the Jamaica YMCA on Parsons Boulevard, not far from the apartment where she lived with the Bell family on 153rd Street at 90th Avenue in Queens, New York.

A year back, Sharon had danced into the kitchen of the Bell apartment where Toulousa was frying eggs and chirped, “I missed my period.”

Toulousa had grabbed Sharon’s hands and joined in the dance. “You and Joe are going to have a baby!” she chanted. “I bet she’ll be fat and healthy.”

“She?” Sharon had asked and gotten a wink as an answer.

Toulousa had been right. The baby girl was already two months old.

With Coco balanced on her hip, Toulousa leaned down to kiss the cheek of the woman stirring jerk sauce at the kitchen stove.

“How was Day One?” Mamie Bell asked, without missing a beat with the sauce.

“I finished the book I started on the subway ride going in. The boss let me work without hanging over me, the money matched the register at the end of the shift, and my co-workers, a young guy who’s the usher and a fat woman selling tickets, they’re good.”

Mamie nodded and said, “You can trust fat people.” Mamie was big — real short but real big. She stopped stirring and looked up at her daughter. “You, you’re an exception. You’re the only skinny person I trust.”

Toulousa grinned. “You’re right. I’m honest. At least most of the time. And I’m skinny.”

“Bean pole skinny,” Mamie said, turning back to the stove. “You’ve been skinny since you were born. I thought you were a snake or one of those long dogs when you were coming out of me.”

“A dachshund?”

“Yeah, a dachshund.” She glanced over her shoulder, “But you were a little girl baby, not a dog, and I loved you at first sight.”

“Is Sharon home yet from the YMCA?” Toulousa asked.

Mamie shook her head No. But it didn’t matter, because all of the Bell’s in the apartment helped with Coco, and that included 13-year-old Jonquil who sat at the kitchen table.

In the Jamaica neighborhood of Queens, Jonquil had something she didn’t have at her home on the island of Jamaica. Back there, she had six brothers, all wanting to get at her. In New York, Mamie made sure no one touched her.

The not-touching rule included Toulousa of course, lying next to the 13-year-old on the fold-out couch at night. Toulousa entertained her young cousin with New York City history every evening. Jonquil’s favorite bed-time story was how the Statue of Liberty’s arm crossed the Atlantic for the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia in 1875, and ten years later, the rest of Lady Liberty arrived in New York from France in 350 separate pieces.

Toulousa challenged Jonquil to find a story about New York that she hadn’t heard. The girl had surprised her a couple of times already.

“How was school today?” Toulousa asked Jonquil.

The girl growled at the math book staring at her from the kitchen table. Then her expression cleared, and she said, “In history class I learned a New York fact. Wanna hear?”

“Tell me,” Toulousa said.

Jonquil pulled one leg up under her on the kitchen chair and said, “Did you know that the first subway opened in New York in 1904, and Italians sold the first pizza here in 1905.”

Toulousa grinned. “That’s interesting. Not as good as the Statue of Liberty but good.”

“Wait. It gets better. Since then, the price of a slice of pizza and a subway token have always been about the same.”

“You mean when one price goes up, the other goes up too?”

Jonquil nodded. “Yeah. Weird, huh?”

“That’s one I hadn’t ever heard. You’re doing good, girl.”

Jonquil looked back at the math book, chewing on the eraser of her pencil, but Toulousa could see the smile on the girl’s face. It was tough for Jonquil to catch up with the other students in her new school, but she was determined and hearing praise from her aunt helped.

Jonquil wasn’t the first child to show up in Queens from the old neighborhood in the Caribbean. Mamie Bell’s husband was killed before she came to the United States, and since then, Mamie presided over the New York household, even though Granddaddy Papa was the oldest in the apartment. Mamie had raised five children in Queens and cooked for a steady stream of people who joined her table. It was Mamie’s rule that anyone was welcome in her home if they needed a safe place.

Toulousa swung Coco over her left shoulder, hoisted a basket of laundry onto her right hip, and headed to the laundry room in the basement. While the clothes swirled in the washer, then the dryer, she fed Coco a bottle of formula. Coco’s hands danced around the bottle, and her eyes fixed on her aunt’s face, as if she were listening while Toulousa read aloud from The Bonfire of the Vanities.

When the dryer clicked off, she loaded the basket with Coco and the clothes, and hauled them to the elevator.

1st installement

While I wait for the re-release of my novel JUST ACROSS THE STREET IN NEW YORK CITY on 2 February, I thought I’d give a weekly installment from the book . Here’s the first !! I hope you like it.

By the way, the fabulous cover art is by Sanaan Mazhar

WINTER 1989

§§

TOULOUSA BELL

She hefted her purse to the other shoulder to walk upstairs from the subway at 23rd Street. The Manhattan street was wider than in Queens, wider and but not cleaner. Dog poop, empty brown bottles, and broken umbrellas were scattered on the sidewalk. She turtled into her wool muffler against the grey clouds and cold air.

At the Triplex, she wanted to bust down and dance. She would’ve done it in her Queens neighborhood, but she chose to look mature walking into her new job. In two weeks when she got her first paycheck, she’d pay the gas and electric bills for the seven people in her apartment, with enough left over to buy books.

Toulousa stood up straight and went into Max Gambardella’s office with her hand stuck out for a shake. Max responded by putting a red vest with a movie camera sewn on the breast pocket into the hand and pointing to the concession counter.

After an hour of selling Milky Ways, 3 Musketeers, Junior Mints, Gummy Bears, four sizes of popcorn, soda pop, and hotdogs, Toulousa Bell was an expert at the cash register. She’d always been talented with numbers, words, and people. Adding junk food into the mix was a no-brainer. Her skinny hips and dreadlocks swayed with the rhythm of the jingling coins she counted out as change.

At the first lull, she took a plastic cup out of her bag and filled it with coke. Max had told her at the interview that there was one perk with the job: she could eat all the popcorn and hotdog buns she wanted. Not the candy or hotdogs. Those were inventoried every night and matched up with the money. The soda cups were counted too, but the employees could drink soda as long as they didn’t use theater cups. She intended to take advantage of this perk.

Swallowing two gulps, she studied the space outside her counter. A black kid swept up popcorn from underneath the water fountain in the waiting area. It was a “split level” theater, with one step going down from the concessions to the screening rooms. Another step led down to two 25-cent video games, the bathrooms, and a black leather bench. The Triplex’s red carpeting and wallpaper made it feel like an old tavern.

From the left, a fat blond woman came out from behind a red curtain revealing a glimpse of the ticket booth. Toulousa called over to her, “Do you want a hotdog bun?”

The big blond looked over her shoulder, then pointed to herself, like she was asking whether the question was aimed at her.

“Yeah, you. You want a hotdog bun? I’m gonna have one before the next batch of customers arrive.” She loaded a bun up with mustard, ketchup, and relish, held it out, and said, “My name’s Toulousa Bell.”

The fat woman’s eyes dropped to her feet when she said, “Carolyn Duffy.”

But then her eyes crept upwards. They were pale blue eyes, lighter than a blue snow cone, lighter than the Manhattan sky. They were like fishbowl water. Those blue eyes fixed on the dreadlocks. She had never been this close to someone with dreadlocks before.

Finally, Carolyn spoke, “Could you add mayo?”

“You’re the first person I’ve met who mixes mayonnaise with ketchup and mustard, but my motto is ‘I give you what you want’.” She rolled the cuffs of her white work shirt back showing off skinny wrists, squirted white stuff on top of the green relish, and handed the concoction across the counter.

Carolyn took what was offered, but Toulousa held onto her end of the bun for a split second and quipped, “So this is how you keep your girlish figure?”

Carolyn felt like she’d been slapped. Her pudgy face fell so the blue eyes disappeared, and she dropped her end of the bun.

Toulousa reached across the counter, grabbed Carolyn’s hand, and put the bun in it. “That’s a joke, honey. The truth is, you look good to me.” She smiled at the blond, displaying all her big teeth. Yes, she liked the way Carolyn Duffy looked, as if she were bread dough going into the oven.

Carolyn sniffed the bun, took a bite, and nodded a thank-you.

The rest of the morning, in between pulling out candy bars, filling coke cups, and popping corn, Toulousa felt Carolyn Duffy looking at her through the crack between the red velvet curtain and the ticket booth wall.

When Toulousa wasn’t busy with customers, she read The Vampire Lestat. She was a reader. She was never bored as long as she had a book, and that was never, because she didn’t go anywhere without two or three library books in her bag.

She held her book steady when a kid came out of theater # 2 where National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation was showing. He stood in front of the concession counter, waiting to be noticed. Toulousa kept her nose in the book, turning the pages, one at a time.

The kid coughed to announce his presence. Then he tapped a coin on the glass countertop. Finally he said, “You, lady. You gonna help me here or what?”

Toulousa looked up from the book and said, “Who you think I am? Your momma? Get your own popcorn.”

Carolyn Duffy watched the mini-drama from the ticket booth, until Toulousa cracked a big smile and called out to her, “It’s nothing. I’m joking with him.”

The kid curled his lip, “Big fucking joke.”

“Your momma let’s you talk like that?”

He didn’t shrink. “My momma gave me money for a Baby Ruth.”

“Well, here’s your Baby Ruth,” Toulousa said, pulling one out of the counter. Then she scooped popcorn onto a big napkin. “And I’ll give you some free popcorn if you go the rest of the day without saying ‘fuck’.”

He slapped a $5 bill on the counter and answered, “I don’t want your fucking popcorn.”

She grinned and gave him his change. “You’re a smart guy. That’s good. Don’t ever let anyone buy you.”

He looked at the tall skinny woman sideways and took his change.

Toulousa winked and told him, “Get outta here. You’re missing the movie.”

The kid left, and Carolyn disappeared behind her curtain.

§§

When she got home from her first day at the Triplex, Toulousa smelled chicken roasting and heard Coco crying. Without taking off her coat, she dropped her bag next to the playpen and scooped out the baby, swinging her up to the changing table. Two minutes later, Coco gurgled, happy and dry.

The baby’s bean-brown skin was the same color as Sharon’s eyes. Sharon was Coco’s momma. Joe, Coco’s daddy, had black eyes, just like his big sister Toulousa. Joe’s skin was black too, like Toulousa’s. Well, almost black. More than dark brown, sort of gun-metal black.

Joe had one more year to finish his computer science degree at NYU. Sharon worked part-time at the snack bar of the Jamaica YMCA on Parsons Boulevard, not far from the apartment where she lived with the Bell family on 153rd Street at 90th Avenue in Queens, New York.

A year back, Sharon had danced into the kitchen of the Bell apartment where Toulousa was frying eggs and chirped, “I missed my period.”

Toulousa had grabbed Sharon’s hands and joined in the dance. “You and Joe are going to have a baby!” she chanted. “I bet she’ll be fat and healthy.”

“She?” Sharon had asked and gotten a wink as an answer.

Toulousa had been right. The baby girl was already two months old.

With Coco balanced on her hip, Toulousa leaned down to kiss the cheek of the woman stirring jerk sauce at the kitchen stove.

“How was Day One?” Mamie Bell asked, without missing a beat with the sauce.

“I finished the book I started on the subway ride going in. The boss let me work without hanging over me, the money matched the register at the end of the shift, and my co-workers, a young guy who’s the usher and a fat woman selling tickets, they’re good.”

Mamie nodded and said, “You can trust fat people.” Mamie was big — real short but real big. She stopped stirring and looked up at her daughter. “You, you’re an exception. You’re the only skinny person I trust.”

Toulousa grinned. “You’re right. I’m honest. At least most of the time. And I’m skinny.”

“Bean pole skinny,” Mamie said, turning back to the stove. “You’ve been skinny since you were born. I thought you were a snake or one of those long dogs when you were coming out of me.”

“A dachshund?”

“Yeah, a dachshund.” She glanced over her shoulder, “But you were a little girl baby, not a dog, and I loved you at first sight.”

“Is Sharon home yet from the YMCA?” Toulousa asked.

Mamie shook her head No. But it didn’t matter, because all of the Bell’s in the apartment helped with Coco, and that included 13-year-old Jonquil who sat at the kitchen table.

In the Jamaica neighborhood of Queens, Jonquil had something she didn’t have at her home on the island of Jamaica. Back there, she had six brothers, all wanting to get at her. In New York, Mamie made sure no one touched her.

The not-touching rule included Toulousa of course, lying next to the 13-year-old on the fold-out couch at night. Toulousa entertained her young cousin with New York City history every evening. Jonquil’s favorite bed-time story was how the Statue of Liberty’s arm crossed the Atlantic for the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia in 1875, and ten years later, the rest of Lady Liberty arrived in New York from France in 350 separate pieces.

Toulousa challenged Jonquil to find a story about New York that she hadn’t heard. The girl had surprised her a couple of times already.

“How was school today?” Toulousa asked Jonquil.

The girl growled at the math book staring at her from the kitchen table. Then her expression cleared, and she said, “In history class I learned a New York fact. Wanna hear?”

“Tell me,” Toulousa said.

Jonquil pulled one leg up under her on the kitchen chair and said, “Did you know that the first subway opened in New York in 1904, and Italians sold the first pizza here in 1905.”

Toulousa grinned. “That’s interesting. Not as good as the Statue of Liberty but good.”

“Wait. It gets better. Since then, the price of a slice of pizza and a subway token have always been about the same.”

“You mean when one price goes up, the other goes up too?”

Jonquil nodded. “Yeah. Weird, huh?”

“That’s one I hadn’t ever heard. You’re doing good, girl.”

Jonquil looked back at the math book, chewing on the eraser of her pencil, but Toulousa could see the smile on the girl’s face. It was tough for Jonquil to catch up with the other students in her new school, but she was determined and hearing praise from her aunt helped.

Jonquil wasn’t the first child to show up in Queens from the old neighborhood in the Caribbean. Mamie Bell’s husband was killed before she came to the United States, and since then, Mamie presided over the New York household, even though Granddaddy Papa was the oldest in the apartment. Mamie had raised five children in Queens and cooked for a steady stream of people who joined her table. It was Mamie’s rule that anyone was welcome in her home if they needed a safe place.

Toulousa swung Coco over her left shoulder, hoisted a basket of laundry onto her right hip, and headed to the laundry room in the basement. While the clothes swirled in the washer, then the dryer, she fed Coco a bottle of formula. Coco’s hands danced around the bottle, and her eyes fixed on her aunt’s face, as if she were listening while Toulousa read aloud from The Bonfire of the Vanities.

When the dryer clicked off, she loaded the basket with Coco and the clothes, and hauled them to the elevator.

2022 Re-release of JUST ACROSS THE STREET IN NEW YORK CITY

Yeah! February 2, my novel JUST ACROSS THE STREET IN NEW YORK CITY will be re-released. Fabulous, huh?

Here’s the new cover and epigraph page for the book:

London is satisfied, Paris is resigned, but New York is always hopeful. Always it believes that something good is about to come off, and it must hurry to meet it. – Dorothy Parker

There is something in the New York air that makes sleep useless. – Simone de Beauvoir

I go to Paris, I go to London, I go to Rome, and I always say, ‘There’s no place like New York. It’s the most exciting city in the world now. That’s the way it is. That’s it.’ – Robert de Niro

When you leave New York, you are astonished at how clean the rest of the world is. Clean is not enough. – Fran Lebowitz

New York is an ugly city, a dirty city. Its climate is a scandal, its politics are used to frighten children, its traffic is madness, its competition is murderous. But there is one thing about it – once you have lived in New York and it has become your home, no place else is good enough. – John Steinbeck

I’ll post preview chapters soon. Keep watching.

2021 and a new novel !

My new novel is now available, just in time for a new year, hopefully a better year, 2021.Enjoy reading THE DENTIST .

Dr. Wally DeWinter is not a competent dentist, he’s not good with patients, and he’s not good at keeping his bank account in the black. So the short plump dentist with frizzy hair moves to the big city, climbs 68 steps to a rented apartment with an adopted dog, and tries the dental business again with the help of mambo dancers, homicide cops, quilt-makers, veterinarians, and even Bette Midler. Yes, that’s Wally DeWinter, and he’s THE DENTIST.

amazon.com/author/m.d.poole