Spinning (5 page)

I don’t know how long I thought about this before falling asleep, but I awoke still wondering the same things. I couldn’t have been more baffled by this than if Diane had told me that she’d just beamed back from Alpha Centauri.

“Quack.”

I opened my eyes. The kid stood next to my bed.

“When are we going to see the ducks?” she said.

“You
do
talk.”

“Quack.”

“And you quack. Where’s your mom?” I leaned backwards to look at the clock. 9:13. “Oh, shit.”

“Shit.”

“I mean…quack.”

“Quack.”

Hearing noises in the kitchen, Spring darted from my bedroom, while I reached for my robe. Having been caught off guard last night, I had decided to wear a T-shirt and sweatpants just in case.

In the kitchen, Diane removed bagels from a bag that hadn’t been there yesterday. “Coffee? We just got back. Last night, I noticed a great-looking little coffee place just down the street so, voila: two hazelnut lattes and bagels. We were kinda getting hungry. I got up at 6:00 and Spring’s been up since 7:30.”

“6:00? We didn’t go to sleep until 3:00.”

“Oh well, that’s just me. Still on Central Time.”

“They’re an hour earlier.”

Diane just smiled.

Spring tugged on her mom’s sleeve. “When will we see ducks?”

“We’ll wait for Dylan.”

I was feeling more pressure than I usually felt in this apartment. “As soon as I drink my coffee and have my bagel, we can go.”

Spring didn’t seem satisfied with this answer.

I tilted my head toward her. “Will
half
a bagel work for you?”

Spring rolled her eyes and walked away. Her approach to life was fascinating. Running the demographic charts in my head, I knew what kind of cereal they ate, what kind of tennis shoes they wore, what they thought about the Internet, and why they preferred dogs over cats two to one. I couldn’t recall anything regarding temperament.

Diane took a sip of her coffee. “You really don’t have to go today, if you don’t want to.”

“No, it could be fun. I haven’t been to see the ducks in a really long time.”

“Spring loves the ducks. Last year, she even said she wanted to be a duck when she grew up.”

“Huh. I think I wanted to be a media tycoon when I was her age.”

Ten minutes later, I’d eaten half a bagel and changed. As we exited the apartment, Jim stepped off the elevator. He watched Diane walk from my place toward him and held the doors. “D-Man, what’s up?” he said in greeting. After Diane passed and could no longer see him, he raised his eyebrows a couple times.

I was still at the apartment door, waiting for Spring to retrieve her backpack. “Hey, Jimbo. How are the boys?”

“Fine…”

Spring trotted into the elevator and stood next to her mother. Jim’s eyebrows nearly flipped over his forehead.

“Jim, this is Diane and Spring. This is Jim, my neighbor and a good friend of mine except when we’re in a karaoke bar. I pretend I don’t know him then.”

Jim kneeled next to Spring. “I used to have three boys your age. Unfortunately, they aren’t anymore.”

“Nice to meet you Jim,” Diane said. “Dylan talked about you last night. You make the monkey sounds, right?”

“That’s me, Mr. First Impression.” He slapped me on the back. “Thanks, buddy.”

We said goodbye to Jim and the elevator doors closed. I’d been so distracted by Jim that I didn’t notice that we’d gotten on the elevator while it was heading up. When I looked over to the panel, I noticed all the buttons were lit and that Spring was hiding behind her mother. She poked
her head around long enough to catch my expression, then returned to hiding.

“D-Man?” Diane said, shaking her head.

“You know how guys are when they get together.”

“But D-Man?”

“It beats Jimbo the Monkeyman.”

The elevator climbed one floor at a time, opened its doors for no one and then closed again.

At the top floor, David Barnes, the founder of Barnes, Inc. stepped into the elevator. He had lived here before his company hit the IPO jackpot. Rumor had it that he stayed in the building because he hated the inconvenience of relocating. I had been trying to meet with him for months to pitch him some business.

I nodded good morning, then saw a little finger pushing the rest of the lights on the panel. I cringed while the hand retreated behind Diane.

“Good morning,” Mr. Barnes said, stepping in. I could almost smell the heavy lemon starch in his perfectly pressed shirt. A scowl crossed his face as he gazed at the glowing panel. Then, Spring poked her head from behind her mother. “Oh, hello,” Barnes said, glancing down. “Who are you?”

Spring refused to come out of hiding.

“When I was your age, I did the same thing. Once.”

Spring poked her head around and pointed at me.

Mr. Barnes looked my way, then returned to Spring.

For a moment, I thought Spring would act like any child her age and cry out of terror and embarrassment. What did I know?

Instead, her eyes grew wide and her face red. Then, she burst into laughter. Within seconds, we were all laughing, watching the doors open and close on each floor. Mr.
Barnes even snorted once. This was a man I had never seen leave his apartment without his tie, and I had lived here for two years. He never seemed happy or even agreeable with anything especially something so silly. And yet, he was laughing with Spring.

She had her mother’s smile.

By the time the elevator finally reached the bottom several minutes later, Mr. Barnes was blotting his eyes with the lip of his shirtsleeve and talking to all of us. “Spring,” he chuckled, “you are a beautiful little girl. Enjoy the ducks and the park today. Dylan, Diane, thank you for a wonderful and eventful ride down to the lobby. Dylan, call my assistant and set up some time for us to talk business. Make sure you tell her I said so.”

“Thank you, sir.”

I took a deep breath and looked at Diane with surprise.

“It happens all the time,” Diane said, taking Spring’s hand. “Doesn’t it, Ms. Social? She’s bashful, can’t you tell?”

She was amazing. In my pursuit to get in front of Barnes, I had tried everything from calling him, to sending his office flowers, to dating his assistant and that girl could eat. In a matter of minutes, a little crumb-snatcher had opened his heart, as well as his appointment book. He actually seemed friendly and not like anything I had imagined.

The doorman smiled when we approached him. “Morning, Mr. Hunter, Ma’am. Spring.”

“Morning.” I nodded, but didn’t say anything else because I didn’t want to betray the fact that I didn’t know his name.

“Rudolfo let us in last night,” Diane said, as we passed. “I guess he thought we were safe.”

We stepped outside and I waved down a taxi. Diane had taken me to Grant Park in Chicago on one of those summer evenings when the breeze blowing off Lake Michigan chilled — even through a light jacket. As the sun dropped below the skyline, little sailboats speckled the water with their red and green lights bobbing. We walked from the lakefront to Buckingham Fountain, sipping Merlot from a brown-paper bag like teenagers. Diane liked fountains. I directed the driver to Central Park.

“We’re going to see the ducks!” Spring said.

The driver looked in the mirror, then over his shoulder. “You are? Do you want to go to see the best ducks in the city?”

“Yeah!”

“It’s your lucky day because I know where they are.” Spring leaned over the seat. “You do?”

“Yes. Because I have two little girls about your age who love to see the ducks and the penguins at the zoo?”

“I looooove ducks. Penguins are okay, too.”

Spring and the driver chatted it up most of the way to the park. Diane occasionally prompted Spring with questions, and mostly beamed at her child. I sat back and watched the exploits.

When we arrived at the park, I handed the driver a ten-dollar tip. As he’d promised, we found a huge number of ducks meandering around the Bethesda Fountain just off of 72
^nd
Street.

Walking next to Diane, I noticed the foliage beginning to evolve color. The late summer nights were cooling down. While my favorite season was approaching, these signs meant trouble. It was hard to get a cab when the weather was bad. Flights were delayed. There were puddles and everything got sloppy.

Spring walked a few feet in front of us, scampering intently toward the ducks. Meanwhile, Diane inhaled deeply and then spun, with arms extended as though she were no more than five, herself.

“Um, you might want to scale back on the naked displays of joy. It marks you as a tourist.”

Diane laughed. “But I’m not a tourist. Today is my first day as a New Yorker.”

I found the way she said this to be ridiculously charming and this suddenly made me want to hold her hand. I didn’t usually operate that way. At least it didn’t make me want to spin along with her.

In an effort to get closer to the ducks, Spring had bolted down the steps leading to the fountain. By the time we caught up with her, she’d sat on the lip of the bluestone ledge and stuck her feet in the water. I had no intention of joining her in this, but I did stand along the edge. Mist drifted from the fountainhead onto my face; it was surprisingly refreshing.

After a minute of this, Diane and I sat on a bench where we could watch Spring follow the ducks around the fountain. Many of the other onlookers seemed amused by Spring’s exploits. A few seemed miffed, though. Didn’t we know the little girl could get hurt? Catch a cold? Or even pneumonia? Wasn’t she in violation of at least a couple of city ordnances?

I was about to ask Diane about her plans for finding a job when Spring slipped and fell. I sat up but Diane didn’t move. Spring looked at Diane, saw that her mother wasn’t alarmed and picked herself up to pursue the ducks again.

Diane put her hand gently on my forearm. “Sometimes you just have to let them know that they’re okay.”

“Good thing she wasn’t looking at me. She’d be screaming now.”

Diane smiled and leaned back into the bench. “We would have known if she was really hurt.”

“
You
would have, anyway. She’s all wet, though.”

“She’ll dry.”

I shrugged. Coming to the park was a distinct change from work and my standard routine for a recovery day. Usually on a Saturday, I’d still be sleeping or lying in bed wondering if I’d done anything the night before that required damage control. I leaned back against the bench where I could observe Diane. I wondered when the last time was that she had an out-of-control Friday night. She didn’t seem to be missing it.

I closed my eyes. The sun felt warm and the noises of the city seemed to accent Spring’s laughter like the point-counterpoint of dueling ducks swimming in the fountain. When I opened them, Diane was gazing at me.

“You look very centered.”

“Is that what this is …centered?”

She nodded.

“Yeah, I’ve heard about this. Very exotic. Like eating rattlesnake.”

“Not big on going with the flow, huh?”

I laughed. “You go with the flow, you get washed into the gutter.”

She adopted a sour expression. “Who sold you on that one?” She said this more forcefully than she had said anything to me before. I straightened a bit in my seat. “If I want to be miserable, I’ll be miserable,” she continued with less intensity. “If I want to be happy, I will be. Look at Spring.”

Spring waddled next to the fountain behind a baby duck.

“If ducks make her happy, I want her to enjoy the ducks. Life’s too short not to waddle, if you want to.”

I studied Diane sitting on the edge of the bench watching Spring.

Life is too short not to waddle.
I could see how that would make sense to her.

I couldn’t have dinner with Diane and Spring that night because I had scheduled one with Waverly. The man I’d slammed on the Crystal Creek account wanted me to eat with him to meet his business partner, Mrs. Waverly, and discuss the future. Billie’s toes would have curled, if she knew I’d gotten this jump on her assuming I did in fact have the jump on her. This was precisely the kind of dinner I lived for. I was a bit surprised that my day with Diane and Spring had made me so reluctant to go.

A Saturday night dinner, so early in the Waverly courtship, struck me as odd, but so did Waverly. There was something very retro about him, though it was hard to argue with his success. After a shrimp appetizer, bottle of wine, and grilled sea bass, we had yet to discuss any future.

“… so we told him,” Mrs. Waverly continued. “If you try to change your market line from running shoes to walking shoes, you might as well develop a new recipe for Coke.”

“You’re right, Mrs. Waverly. The fundamentals of marketing never change.”

“More wine?” Mr. Waverly said, while filling his glass.