Fry Me a Liver (12 page)

I stopped at the Salad Barre for lunch. It was run—no surprise here—by Josephine Young, a retired ballerina who got tired of explaining to people how she stayed so trim. The quote under the name said it all: “Don't eat pig, or like one.”

The place had mirrored walls. There was a ballet barre on each with a plank on top that served as a table. That was standing room, announced by a sign written in Russian and given to her, according to a smaller plaque underneath, by the manager of the Kirov. The interior was filled with small round tables that were topped with old ballet photos and programs, all of them about the owner and her career in various companies around the world. There was no counter and no alcoholic beverages were served. As the menu itself declared, “There is no bar at the barre.” Josephine and her female waitstaff all dressed in a leotard, tutu, and ballet slippers—pronounced
ball
et, emphasis on the first syllable as proper folks do. Meals were served on point. I wondered if half the customers came to see if a tray full of food ever dropped. Not that it mattered. She had a busy and growing operation. She was also one of the restaurateurs I beat for Best Mid-range Restaurant of the Year.

Josephine was a bony five-foot-six. Part of that was the result of her vegan diet, but some of it was also due to the fact that she was sixty-eight and her skin just hung a little looser than it used to. She made a great tabouli salad with tangerine slices and that was what I was in the mood for.

It was just after the lunch rush and Josephine welcomed me with a big, sympathetic smile and wide open arms.

“I am so, so very sorry,” she said.

“Thank you.”

I noticed, then, the tip of a placard with a wooden handle. It was upended behind the trash cans in the kitchen. I remembered Sandy's father, Alex, having said something about an anti-meat protest at his butcher shop the day of the explosion.

“Been out spreading the word?” I asked, dipping my forehead toward the sign.

She looked behind her and frowned. “That was my business partner, Ronald. I have a public face. I cannot afford to be an activist. The only time I protested was in my early twenties when funding was being cut for the Atlanta Touring Ballet Association, which brought dance to schools. It was a very important project.”

“Did you succeed in getting the money reinstated?”

She smirked. “Do these things ever?”

She was right. The only protests that ever made an impact were about civil rights. And the only groups that ever capitulated were those that stood to lose money by angering a consumer group. Ballet dancers were not such a bloc.

I ate my salad at one of the tables which, coincidentally, had a photo of Josephine and Ronald Carroll from the opening of the restaurant two years before. Ronald was a bald, thirty-something trust-fund brat and spotlight whore who cut a big fat arc through the local social scene. He invested in things that made him more money and, just in case things got slow, he involved himself in causes that generated him some heat, like loudly protesting the treatment of pigs and cows.

I often ate at places other than my own, though that was always a choice rather than a necessity. It was a crappy feeling. The place was more or less empty, just a few people chatting after lunch. I was huddled low around the ceramic bowl, which was locally handmade by Native American Chickasaws, yet another plaque on the wall said. My ancestors probably ate like this in the eastern European
shtetls
, protecting their meager meals from grabbing hands, ready to pick them up and run, in case the Cossacks attacked. I wondered how much of
that
was coincidence and how much was genetic memory.

There was a wind chimey–type of bell over the door and it tinkled as I was finishing my salad. I heard low male voices but didn't look up, which is why I hadn't realized that Democratic Mayor Louis Benedict Dunn and an aide had entered the eatery until Josephine said his name. Well, of course. He had to compete with Moss “Com” Post and his Eden Party. Where else would he go for a late lunch but to an organic eatery?

Josephine was all over the mayor, whose eyes were on me as I glanced up. His aide recorded the arrival on his cell phone; no doubt it would be on YouTube within the half hour, showing how Dunn was the sane green candidate. Truth be told, that was not something I disputed.

Dunn walked over and shook my hand. The cell phone was still recording. He said he was sorry and asked if there was anything the city could do to help. I remarked that he could kick Big Jefferson Harkins and the rest of the sluggish, inhibiting Department of Codes and Building Safety in their collective
baitsim.

“Backsides?” The mayor chuckled.

“Other side,” I said. “They come in pairs.” The mayor harrumphed and smiled uncomfortably and walked away, trailed by his flunky. I was pretty sure that remark would not make it onto the Internet.

The two men went to a table as far from me as they could get, while I finished my lunch and checked e-mail and phone messages. There was nothing from any of my employees. I would stop by the hospital after leaving here.

There was a text from Kane. He wanted to know what I was doing for dinner. I decided not to answer it yet. The way things had been going, who knew how I'd feel in six or seven hours?

I paid and said my farewells to Josephine. “Gwen—you understand that, as much as I would like to help, I can't offer you my facilities to store or cook your food. I mean, if you were planning on doing takeout or something.”

“Don't worry about it,” I told her. “It's like a kosher deli. Vegan and meat don't mix here.”

“You do understand, thank you. Just the smell of cooking chicken liver would—”

“Would make your customers sick. Of course.” Odd that she chose liver.

We embraced, and I waved good-bye to the mayor. He pretended not to see me, being buried deep in meaningful conversation—though you can always tell when someone is avoiding you by the way their eyes don't move at all. I shouted a good-bye and, since he couldn't feign deafness, he waved and smiled and didn't bother to return to his discussion. Unlike his buildings department minion, this mayor had no
baitsim
. I drove to the hospital.

When I arrived, I felt like I'd been hit in the back of the head by a baseball bat.

A.J. Two was standing just outside the sliding lobby doors talking to Andrew A. Dickson III, attorney-at-law. Dickson and I had once been on opposite sides of a nasty property struggle. Just the sight of him gave me a heaping of
umru
—apprehension. He was about five-six, bald, African American. Instead of his trademark tan camel hair coat, he wore a navy jacket. Dickson wasn't exactly an ambulance chaser, but he was not averse to following whatever gurney rolled from inside. I felt like making one of those moves I'd seen in detective shows, where you crouch real low and move between the cars to avoid being seen. But then, I asked myself, what did I have to avoid being seen
about
? And didn't I just kvetch about not being seen by the mayor? If they were talking about suing me, let them.

I walked boldly up to the two. Their conversation died instantly, like a mouse in a snap trap. I glanced at Dickson and then turned to A.J. Two. Her eyes were dark and bloodshot. She looked like she hadn't slept in two days. I quietly asked how her mother was.

“She's still in and out of consciousness,” the young woman said.

“You should find out whatever you need to know from the nurses, Ms. Katz,” Dickson said. “Now, if you'll excuse us—”

“Why?” I asked, firing him a look. It was the kind of look I used to give my husband when he was being a shmuck. Yet despite that show of defiance, my stomach dropped as though I'd swallowed a matzo ball whole. I didn't want to add to A.J. Two's woes, but I wasn't going to let this guy, any guy, push me around.

“That is, frankly, none of your business,” Dickson said in a voice that was silkier than his imported tie.

I looked at A.J. Two imploringly. “Don't do this.”

She frowned. “Don't do what?”

“Don't talk to him. We're family, all of us.”

“I know that, Gwen, but—”

“Ms. Katz, please do what you came here to do and leave us to our business,” Dickson insisted.

“Don't interfere, Mr. Dickson,” I insisted right back.

The attorney puffed a little inside his jacket. He reminded me of a burrito in a microwave. “I was about to offer you the same advice,” he said. I turned physically from him. I was afraid I might kick him.

A.J. Two looked at me like the mask of tragedy. “Gwen,” she said softly, “truly, this is nothing that concerns you.”

“Then why did everything suddenly get hush-hush when I walked up?”

Dickson replied, “Because if my client's mother is awake, you will be speaking to her.”

“Your client, huh?”

“That's right.”

“And what if A.J.
is
awake? Isn't that a good thing?”

A.J. Two became agitated. “Dammit, Gwen, that isn't the point! We're discussing the living will she left behind and I don't feel like talking about it more than I have to, okay?”

Dickson stood there, his expression perfectly defining the word “smug.” And I stood there—just barely, on legs that felt like freshly cooked kasha—perfectly defining the word “putz.” I wanted the concrete to consume me, as the Sinai did the sinful Children of Israel. But God wasn't willing to oblige.

“I'm so sorry,” I said to A.J. Two in a voice that was surprisingly strong and repentant. “Jesus, I'm sorry. I'm an idiot. God, am I stupid.”

“No, don't do that,” A.J. Two said. “Gwen, we're all under a lot of stress and you've taken on all of ours on top of your own. I know you were just trying to help me.”

She was wrong about that. I'd assumed they were talking about suing me. I hugged her tight and walked briskly through the doors. Tears spilled down my pale cheeks. I was so mortified I didn't even want to be around myself. To find the last time I was this embarrassed, I had to go back to the second grade when I was playing the piano in an elementary school talent show and went blank on “Tomorrow” from
Annie.
To this day, I can't look at an image of that blank-eyed mop head without cringing.

That wasn't the normal you back there
, I told myself as I walked through the lobby toward the elevator.

Or was it?
Had I been getting crankier by the month, by the week, without realizing it? Had the stress of shootings and land grabs and everything else soured me? Had my staff been too polite to mention it? Was that scene outside the next stop on my descent from a moderately happy Wall Street titaness to what I privately thought of as a mindless organ grinder, chopping liver without enthusiasm?

Oy gevalt
. Big-time.

But this is not the time to take an objective look at your life
, I cautioned myself.
Deal with one little mission at a time. The next minutes are about Thom and A.J., not you.
Which is why I found myself praying that I did not run into Newt, Luke, or Dani while I was there. The cryptic exchange with Benjamin and Grace was still rattling around in my head. I didn't want to deal with that now, either.

Thom's nurse said she was asleep after a restless night. She was recovering but really needed to rest. I asked the young man to tell my manager that I'd been there. He said he would. I went to A.J.'s room. The nurse met me in the hall and told me that A.J. was still unconscious and sedated, but was stable and breathing steadily. I went into the room and choked up. She was breathing as steadily as one could with tubes
shtupped
up her nose. The bruises she had suffered on her cheek, forehead, and bare arms were ripe and ugly. Her daughter had done her best to brush her mother's hair and make her look presentable, but without her bright red lipstick and her brighter smile, without eye shadow and rouge, she looked like an ashen, broken thing. She reminded me of one of those zombies you see on TV.

I sat for a while beside her bed and lightly held her cool fingers in my hand. I moved a thumb along them, felt their texture, was alarmed by their stillness. There were whistling birds outside and chirping electronics inside—beautiful, innocent, taken-for-granted reality on one side and a hard-fought struggle on the other. But we
do
fight. A.J. would fight.

“I—,” I began, then stopped.
This is about A.J. It shouldn't start with “I.”
“I've been thinking about what we were talking about in the kitchen yesterday,” I said softly. “You were glad you have a girl, not a boy. You said you know where your daughter has been because you've been there. Well, honey, you haven't been faced with the kind of situation she's in now. I'm begging you, wake up. Don't make her decide about taking you off life support. I won't make one of my usual smart-ass comments like, ‘If you do that I'll kill you.' Get better. Go back to her. She needs you and so do I. So do all of us.”

“That's the truth,” a man said from behind me. I recognized the voice. It was Newt. I gently put A.J.'s hand on the sheet, rose, and turned. I took in the “street” Newt, one I rarely got to see. The young man was dressed in gray sweat clothes and new Nikes. His dirty blond hair had been finger combed and his brown eyes seemed somehow darker than usual.

“Hey, boss.”

“Hi.”

He stood there awkwardly for a moment.

“Walked here,” he said. “Figured I'd better watch my gas money.”