Pam of Babylon (31 page)

“Yes, I just didn’t recognize the room.” She paused, thinking. “Will I be able to bring my furniture here?”

“Of course, Mom! I already called a moving company to empty out the apartment, and then we’ll decorate your room together. We’ll go to the house tomorrow if you are up to it, okay?” She reached out for her mother’s hand and gave it a squeeze. “What should we have for dinner? I don’t feel like cooking tonight,” Pam said.

“Oh, I want to cook. I love cooking in your kitchen.” Nelda got up to rummage through the refrigerator.

Pam sat back and picked up her book again. Her mother in the kitchen was a good thing. She would be busy for an hour fixing dinner for them both, killing two birds with one stone. Pam would gladly relinquish that task to her.

Sandra was not having as much success at being left alone. She ate her meal from Zabar’s, barely tasting it. But when she was through and had sipped her tea, she felt better, less anxious.

“Okay, you have one more chance to speak. If you don’t hurry up here, I am going to boot you out or call the police, whichever comes first.”

“You won’t have to do either. I’ll tell you why I came here.” He straightened up, pushing his tea mug away and looking at her nose. He was afraid if he looked her in the eyes, he would be unable to say to her just what he had come here for. He wondered what he
had
come to her apartment for. He laughed a soft, friendly laugh. “The truth is, I came here to read you the riot act about flaunting a baby of my brother Jack, all over the city. Now, I don’t see what I was so worried about. I do need your help regarding my business. That hasn’t changed. But your personal business…the baby…well, I guess I was a little crazy there for a day.” He leaned back in the chair. Sandra looked at him. He didn’t resemble Jack at all. She didn’t know how to respond to his request, either, but didn’t want to let the dialogue get too intense. She thought if she kept it about business, it would be easier to get rid of him.

“What kind of help?” she asked.

“Jack was going to field some clients my way. He said he had some old Upper East Side clients that I could take over. I need the business. We are having an off year since my dad died.”

“I’ll look at the files on his desk in the morning. Do you know whom he was referring to? We have a lot of clients on the east side.” She stood up, pushing her chair back and reaching for the tea things. Bill firmly grabbed her wrist as she went to take his mug.

“Don’t get up yet,” he asked of her. She looked down at his hand on her wrist, and pulled away.

“It’s time for you to go.” She left the mugs and her dinner there on the table and walked toward the door. Turning her back on him felt dangerous, so she stepped aside and motioned toward the door with her hand. Bill got up and walked to the door.

“I’m sorry” was all he said, turning the knob on the door to let himself out. She didn’t say anything to him, but when he was gone, she locked the door and made sure the chain was on and then ran downstairs and double-checked the door to the patio and the locks on the window. While she was down there she smelled something foreign, musky, and almost male. She needed to open the windows up to air the place out but was afraid to. She hated it that he made her feel frightened. Not knowing what to do, she called Pam. She told Pam about the encounter, and then at least someone knew that he had been there, in case anything happened.

Pam was angry. She thought Sandra would be safe, but if she felt uncertain, she told her to get a car and come to the beach. They talked for an hour, rehashing the afternoon, still undecided about what information to reveal to what was left of the family.

The next morning, the first thing Sandra did when she got to the office was go to Peter and ask him if he knew anything about Jack’s offer to his brother. He said it was the first he had heard of it. They went to Jack’s assistant, Jenny, who also didn’t know anything about sending clients to Bill Smith.

With Jenny’s help, Sandra and Peter spent the next three hours going through every file Jack was working on. There wasn’t one client that Peter was willing to release. Sandra didn’t feel in a position to do it without his approval. So that ended it. Sandra stayed behind in Jack’s office to straighten up the mess they had made with files, when another envelope, this one under the gun, caught her eye.

36

I
n Hell’s Kitchen, Marie was beginning her day by getting to work on time. She felt some relief that her mother was at Pam’s; it meant that she didn’t have to travel to Brooklyn every night to check on her. She had a pile of technical reports to edit, which were boring and monotonous. What had seemed a full and exciting week the day before she now loathed. She went to her little office, almost a cubical, and closed the door. She contemplated how many more years she would have to do this.
Twenty? Twenty-five? Fuck! Eight hours was too long to do it, to sit on this uncomfortable chair, in this stinking office, in a horrible part of town.
She got up from her desk, picked up her purse, and left her cubical. She passed by the receptionist and told her she was leaving for the day for a family emergency.
Fire me
, she thought to herself.
I don’t give a shit.

The sidewalks were relatively empty at this hour; the unfortunate people who would be down there at that time of day were either looking for a job or lost. There were no coffee shops, no chain stores, not even a McDonald’s. There was no place to shop and nothing to buy.
Why did I ever agree to live down here?
Jack told her again and again that she would grow to love it.
He was so full of shit.
He wanted her here so he could come and go without being observed by anyone who knew them. She had lived there for almost twenty years and still hated the neighborhood. These exact thoughts went through her head every day as she walked to work and again in the evening when it was time to go home. The only way she could tolerate it was by going a few miles uptown and shopping or going to movies or visiting her only friend, a guy lucky enough to live on West End Avenue. Digging her cell phone out, she pressed his number and put the phone to her ear. He picked up on the first ring.

“Shouldn’t you be typing or something?” he said without saying hello.

“Thanks, Arthur,” she replied with a tinge of sarcasm. “Actually, I left for the day. Do you want to do something?” She stopped walking toward her apartment, hoping he would tell her to come uptown and spend the day.

“Oh, sweetheart, I can’t! I would love it, but I have a date! After all this time, I have a date!” Arthur, at the end of a long-term relationship, would sooner cut off his hand than cancel.

“Great! Who is it?” She didn’t care and was disappointed he wasn’t available to her.

“Someone I met on the Internet, where else?” he said. “Look, sweetheart, I have to hang up. We’ll get together Friday night, okay?” She agreed, and they hung up. She did not want to go home, but didn’t have anywhere else to go. Her life was ruined. She had no friends to speak of and had betrayed her sister beyond forgiveness.
Who was left?
She turned back to the sidewalk and continued her walk home.

Pam woke up to the smell of coffee brewing. She took her time getting ready, returning to her old routine of primping to perfection. She chose a white pique shorts set with a short-sleeved shirt and white leather sandals. The weather was reported to be warm and sunny, a good beach day. She had the rest of the week to get through, and then her darling children would both be home for the Fourth of July weekend. She wanted to get her mother situated up in the guest apartment so she could have some privacy with the kids. They would have to put some boundaries in place in order for this to work. It would be so much better if her mother were the one to suggest them. She went out to the kitchen to see that her mother had made coffee and also pancakes. Pam, who rarely ate more than a piece of fruit in the morning, decided to just eat and be grateful. She’d start back at the gym that day.

“Good morning, Mother! Look at this! I’m going to be as fat as a pig if this keeps up.”

“This is a special day, our first day together! I won’t cook like this once I’m in the apartment.” Was she reading minds now? “Do you have anything that needs doing today?” If Pam scurried, Nelda bustled. How her house got into the state it was in was a mystery to her daughter. Unless loneliness was to blame, Pam wasn’t seeing anything that would have made her mother give up as she had at home in Brooklyn. After breakfast, with a false sense of security, she got her purse and left for the gym and grocery shopping.

Bill Smith arrived at his office early. He was confident that Jack’s girlfriend would call today. There was no reason for them not to honor Jack’s wishes. He spent the first hours going over a spreadsheet that clearly illustrated that he either had to increase their incoming revenue or face bankruptcy. The humiliation of that, the pure terror of having to move his mother out of that house, sell it and the contents, and possibly lose the house he and Anne lived in brought a physical response that dictated an immediate run to his private bathroom.

When Sandra hadn’t called him by one, he called her. He’d given her the morning to locate the clients or files or whatever the hell it was Jack was working on. But she wasn’t in the office, and the receptionist wasn’t giving out any details, having been warned after his last visit.

“Can you just tell me, is she out for lunch?” But, no, she wouldn’t even reveal that. Bill was furious.

“Goddamn it!” He shouted after she had hung up. He searched for the paper that he wrote her address and phone number down on. But there was no phone number. She didn’t have a landline; it was just her cell. He wadded up the paper and threw it on the floor. He’d call Pam. Nelda answered the phone.
Oh shit
. The last thing he needed to do was talk to that dotard.

“Hi, Mrs. Fabian, its Jack’s brother, Bill. How are you?” He was gritting his teeth, trying to hold back.

“Bill? Bill? Is that Jack’s brother’s name?” She was clearly confused.

He raised his voice, thinking yelling would help her understand him. “Is Pam home?” He demanded.

“No…no, she just left for the gym. What do you want?” He contemplated asking her if she knew Sandra and then just hung up the phone. He had no patience left for talking to an old lady. He’d go back to Sandra’s house. He had to know. They were in serious trouble. He was late with loan payments on the mortgage he’d taken out on the Columbus Avenue mansion to keep things afloat the past year. Dad had driven the business into the ground. He didn’t understand the concept of change. There was nothing left, no clients and no revenue. They were broke. Jack had given his mother a couple thousand dollars a week to pay the staff, buy food, and keep up appearances. Now that was gone. If he could prove that the business was still viable, that they had clients, he could last another month, maybe two. He had to know. He grabbed his car keys, choosing to drive himself to Sandra’s apartment, which was just few blocks from his office, rather than getting a cab. Illegally parking in front of her building, he ran to the door and pushed her buzzer. There was no answer.