The Ghost of Greenwich Village: A Novel (21 page)

Out on the sidewalk, the fresh air was invigorating. They walked, holding hands. No taxis were in sight, but Eve thought they’d find one on Seventh Avenue for the trip over to Brooklyn.

“Hey, look. We’re in front of your building,” said Alex.

“So we are,” said Eve as she continued to walk. Alex stopped her.

“Can I come up?” he asked.

“I don’t think that’s such a good idea.”

“C’mon.”

“Sorry.”

“I’m not, like, expecting anything, if that’s what you’re worried about. We can snuggle up and watch a movie. Order in. Play cards. Whatever you want.”

“That sounds fantastic. Let’s do it at your place.”

“Don’t you have to walk your dog?”

Eve blushed. “Actually, she’s with a friend for the night.”

He smiled. “Oh, she is, is she? Well, more room for the two of us.” He nuzzled her ear.

“The thing is,” Eve said, resting her head on his shoulder, “I’d love to see your apartment.” She couldn’t make it any clearer.

“The guys will be there all night. A half-dozen stinky, cranky computer geeks. We go to press next week. After that, you can come over for a whole weekend if you want.”

“My place just isn’t good for company,” Eve offered, trying to sound both apologetic and firm.

Alex thrust his fists into the pockets of his wool jacket and gave her a look of utter confusion. “Most girls, like,
love
cuddling up for a movie.”

“Another time, really,” she said.

He stood firm, squinting at her. “You know what?” he said. “I have to go to the bathroom.”

“There’s a coffeehouse down the street. Right on the corner.”

“You’re not gonna let me use your place?”

“No. I’m sorry.”

“What are you, one of those ‘Rules Girls’? Not willing to spend a night together until there’s a ring on your finger? I thought that was long over but I’ve somehow dated three of them in the last two years. They just string you along, head games all the way.”

“That’s not it. Believe me.”

“Then you’re
afraid
to let me up.”

“What?”

“The Midwest girl is afraid I’m some kind of New York psycho? Afraid I might hurt you?”

“Obviously not,” said Eve, thinking this was getting ridiculous. “I’m more than happy to go to your place. Remember?”

“That’s pretty convenient, since you knew we couldn’t go there until the magazine was done.”

“Alex, for heaven’s sake. I’m crazy about you. I want to be with you. But we just can’t go up to my apartment.”

“Oh my God.” His eyes opened wide.

“What?”

“I get it.”

“Get what?”

“You’ve got another guy up there.”

“No, I don’t.”

“A boyfriend? Oh, no wait: a husband.”

“No.”

“The last two times we went out, you insisted on seeing yourself home. Why didn’t I put it together? It’s so obvious to me now. You’re cheating on some poor slob with me. Or vice versa. Maybe
I’m
the poor slob. Christ.” He kicked the stoop, seeming
stunned, like he’d never even conceived of this kind of affront happening to him before.

“Where is this coming from?” asked Eve. The sudden bile in his tone had taken her by surprise. She’d guessed he had a temper, but he was starting to sound unhinged. “Are things not going well with the magazine?”

Alex’s face was blotchy. “Fuck you.”

The words hit Eve like a slap and she flinched. She was stunned at this side of him, one she never would have suspected was there. “What’s wrong with you?”

“Nothing’s wrong with
me
.”

Eve swallowed and tried to regain her composure. “Let’s go somewhere and talk about it.”

“I’m done with the talking.”

“Well, then I don’t know what to tell you.”

“You know, I could call up ten girls right now and go to their place.”

Eve looked at him evenly for several seconds. “Then why don’t you do that?” she asked, then stalked up the steps to the front door and went in without looking back.

   • • •

Eve couldn’t help but fume. How could she have misjudged Alex so badly? How could he have misunderstood her so completely? Only after they were apart for a few days did she admit to the absurd fantasies she’d concocted around him. The two of them celebrating Christmas together, New Year’s Eve in Times Square. Even going to work for him at his magazine, penning clever, esoteric “writery” stuff. Becoming a fabulous New York couple.

It was odd. She hadn’t spared a second thought for Ryan after leaving Ohio, had only answered his letters with the odd postcard, but Alex had gotten under her skin. Or, if not actually Alex, the notion of Alex certainly had. And it wasn’t just him; it was his circle of friends. Eve sincerely liked Bix and would have
enjoyed seeing her again, with or without Alex. But she didn’t even know Bix’s last name, let alone her phone number.

Donald was sympathetic at first but by day four, when Eve, in a fit of pique, actually pulled down a suitcase from the top shelf of the closet, he lost his patience.

“Collect yourself! You’re not going home over this nonsense. Look, he was just a boy. All right? Not your personal key to the city. You have to stop expecting so much of people. Alex wasn’t worthy, can’t you see that? And neither is Mark, I hope you’ve realized. Or this patsy Hap McCutcheon. And certainly not Vadis. God help this city if she’s what passes for a ‘real New Yorker’ these days. They’re just people, wandering around and bumping into the furniture like everybody else.”

Eve was only half listening. The unzipped suitcase lay on the bed. She picked out a couple of stray buttons in the corner and bounced them in her palm.

“At your age you shouldn’t be looking for attachments anyway. You should be enjoying the clichés of your relative youth: playing the field, sowing your wild oats, spreading your wings.…”

But this kind of talk just depressed Eve. She closed the suitcase, stoop-shouldered, too tired to even maintain her annoyance. She hated everyone, everything.

The evening was unexpectedly warm for fall, and she peeled off her cardigan as she toddled into the living room. The window was open a few inches, allowing in barbecue smells and party sounds from the other end of the courtyard.

“Donald?” she said, taking a seat at the bar.

“Yes?”

“Where do you go?”

“What do you mean?”

“Where do you go when you’re not here? When you’re not with me. Do you have … friends?” He said nothing. “Hello?”

“I cannot say.”

“Don’t be coy about this, please. I’ve had a bad couple of days. Throw me a bone.”

“I didn’t say I
would
not tell you. I said I cannot.”

“But I mean, are there others there, wherever it is? Other writers maybe? Like John Clellon Holmes? I saw his plaque the other day. Or what about Lucien Carr? He died within the last couple of years.”

“Good God, child,
no
. And if I did, I might run screaming. Lucien
killed
a man, you know. In Riverside Park. Kerouac helped him dispose of the knife. Jack went to jail and his father wouldn’t post bail. So this gal Edie Parker’s father said
he’d
post it if Jack married his daughter. They were married in the clink! Annulled months later. Utter hooligans.”

Eve thought they sounded rather exciting. She’d like to see Mark wave a knife at Giles. “Tell me more.”

After repeated coaxing, Donald relayed a story about a long, strange night with Kerouac and the rest. It had started with a card game during which the stakes kept escalating. When most everyone was out of money, someone dug up some antique swords and the dares became physical. Drunken thrusting and parrying ensued, concurrent with boisterous arguing about how important fear was for good writing.

“And who got nicked in the arm?” he asked. “I did. And all I did was come in with the scotch and sandwiches.”

Without realizing it, Donald had just admitted to being, well, the person sent out for scotch and sandwiches. It explained a lot and made Eve wish she could give him a hug.

“Ginsberg called the Beats ‘the Libertine Circle.’ That’s
one
way to put it,” he said when he was done.

Eve found that, without thinking, she’d been taking down the stories as Donald related them. She scanned them and an idea dawned on her.

Would he do it?

Or was he too jealous of those better known?

“Did you just wonder if I was jealous? Heavens, no. They were wildly talented, yes. But so was I, obviously. I
am
jealous of the time they had. That’s what I wish for.”

“You didn’t get enough,” agreed Eve. “It’s not fair.” But privately she thought, and always had, that there was something else that made him sad. Pain that was rooted in his life, not his death. “So you don’t see anybody else, wherever it is you go?”

“No.”

“What
is
it like, then?”

“It’s not like anything; I don’t ‘go’ anywhere. I don’t understand it and usually have no control over it. This existence is as much of a mystery to me as the last.”

Eve wandered back into the bedroom and lay down. She had never been particularly religious, save for those bedtime prayers as a child, but she had always imagined that
some
secrets were revealed in the hereafter. Highball jumped up beside her, laying her chin on Eve’s stomach.

“Isn’t there some kind of … I don’t know. Explanation?”

“Hah! My dear, anyone who thinks we get all the answers in the afterlife is in for a rude awakening.”

Eve turned out the light and closed her eyes even though it was early. She wanted to ask more questions but already felt herself slipping toward sleep.

“Take it from me, little one,” said Donald, just before she dropped off. “Don’t put off anything, banking on eternal peace in the great beyond. You focus on the present.”

   • • •

“I’m just making tea. Take a load off,” said Gwendolyn. She pulled her embroidered pale yellow shawl with its foot-long fringe around her as she disappeared into the alcove.

Eve hopped up onto one of the tall stools behind the counter and dropped her bag on the floor.

“What’s new in here?” she asked, looking around the store. It was an exuberant space and a bit of a funhouse, with platforms
creating various levels, hidden crannies stuffed with memorabilia, and scarves draped out of baskets hanging from the ceiling. The temperature had finally dropped, and the old radiators were reluctantly stirring, going back and forth from ice cold to hissing with heat.

“That red silk with the notched bodice, I just got in.” Gwendolyn gestured toward a mannequin in the corner as she handed Eve a mug. “Victoria Royal, from Hong Kong. The stories she could tell. And we got a few accessories the other day, too. An old lady on Morton Street died and her niece brought a bunch of her stuff in. But a lot of it is fur and that can be tricky. I’m not sure I can sell a mink choker.”

“So why did you take it?”

“I can’t help myself. I try to be more judicious, but I can’t stand turning anybody away. Telling them their things aren’t good enough is like telling them
they’re
not good enough, and that’s above my pay grade.”

Eve had begun to pop into Full Circle around midmorning every week or two before heading up to work. She and Gwendolyn would unpack whatever had come in and chat about books and boys. Eve was still upset over Alex and was wondering why a bona fide New York boyfriend was so hard to come by. Gwendolyn had suffered two hideous breakups in the last year and was avoiding men altogether.

“I’ve been thinking about this since the last time we talked,” said Gwendolyn, using her label gun to stab price tags onto purses. “And maybe it’s because it’s been a while since I’ve been in a, quote-unquote, successful relationship, but I don’t see why you’d bother with an Alex anyway when you have a Matthias Klieg in your life. Sophisticated, soulful, wealthy beyond belief. If he can get it up at all, I’d say you were in business.”

“Gwen! Please,” coughed Eve, feeling the hot tea, all orange and clove, rise into her nasal passages. “I could never think of him that way. It’s completely wrong. Sacrilegious.”

“Okay, okay,” Gwendolyn said with an impish grin.

“Honestly.” Eve dabbed at her mouth with a napkin. “As if I’d take relationship advice from you anyway, with that track record of yours.”

“Hey. Give me a break. I’m an only child. I have an excuse for being clueless about men. But you’d think someone who grew up with two brothers would understand them a little better.”

“Three.”

“Even more so.”

“Maybe I would if they ever included me,” said Eve. “But they never did. I wish I’d been an only child. I’d have traded lives with you in a second.” She walked over to the red dress for a closer inspection.

“Are you nuts?” Gwendolyn put down the label gun. “I was so lonely.”

“So was I.”

“Because your brothers didn’t talk to you.”

“Right.”

“So what happened when you talked to them?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean when you knocked on the door and barged into their room. Did they just sit there, stone-faced, and make no response?”

“I was not exactly a barger.”

Gwendolyn sighed and rotated her shoulders back. “Look, I don’t know you that well, but it sounds like that’s at least as much your fault as your brothers’, isn’t it? Not everything happens
to
you. One does make choices, you know. I mean, older siblings ignore younger ones; it’s what they do. And it’s the job of the younger ones to refuse to be ignored.”

“This hem has come undone, right here,” said Eve, fingering the back of the red dress.

“Hey. Did you hear what I just said?” asked Gwendolyn.

“Yes.” She’d heard.

Gwendolyn sighed and opened a drawer under the counter that held dozens of needles and hundreds of spools of thread.

“You get uncomfortable whenever the focus is on you. Do you realize that?” She picked out a ripe red and threaded the needle as she joined Eve at the mannequin.

“I can do that,” said Eve, taking the needle.

“You can?”

“I have to touch up my mom’s stuff all the time. And I used to sew buttons on my dad’s shirts and mend his sweaters. I kind of like it, actually.” Eve bent to the task, making swift, even little loops. In two minutes, the dress was good as new. She bit off the thread with her teeth in a practiced motion.