The Ghost of Greenwich Village: A Novel (40 page)

He fell in love. He didn’t write this, but she could tell. Suddenly, his obsession with other writers and his competitiveness with them subsided. They were replaced by a new appreciation for life’s small joys. A spring day in Washington Square Park. A Lord & Taylor tie fished out of a bin at the Salvation Army. A
marshmallow melting on top of a mug of hot chocolate. He stopped observing everything, and began starring in his own story. There were weeks, even months, when he wrote nothing at all.

Then he was drafted for Vietnam. And everything changed.

They didn’t want to send him into battle; they wanted him to write propaganda. The campaign, to be printed on fake Vietnamese banknotes and dropped from aircraft above villages, was to engineer the destruction of the country’s economy. He was told little more, other than that he would become part of “a long, noble history” of military psyops.

Even though the assignment would have saved him from combat, Mike refused. He refused because of Donald, because of the long shadow that propaganda writing had cast over Donald’s life. Donald had said it was the worst thing a writer could do: to use his ability to deceive, to obfuscate. Mike supposed committing his body to fight in Vietnam was a form of lying, too, since it was not a war he agreed with. But it was more honest than using his God-given writing talent to do the opposite of what words were created to do, which was, he believed, to enlighten.

His girl did not understand. If he took the writing job, he would be in Washington, able to travel to New York often. And he would be safe! How could he abandon her for war when he didn’t have to? She implored him to stay. She did his laundry, made him enormous lasagnas that lasted all week, anything to make his life in New York pleasant and comfortable. Unleaveable.

Two hours later, Eve had her elbows on the table, her chin on her fists, just pages from the end. Someone began to dim the lights on the far end of the floor, bringing her back to the present with a start. She wasn’t about to give up the notebook for two weeks. She might not even be in New York that long. Eve took a look over her shoulder. An old man was dozing at the table behind her. She slipped the diary into her bag.

Walking with an air of self-assurance, she left the library without
speaking to anyone. She hurried along West Tenth Street, under the streetlamps, not looking back.

   • • •

Eve hopped onto the last available bar stool at the White Horse. The bourbon tasted rich and warm, like beef. It slid down her throat, all the way to her toes. The men on either side of her offered to buy it for her, offers she politely declined. She opened the journal, skimming hungrily through the last fifteen pages, written while Mike was stationed at Camp Lejeune.

And then, she got to the very end.

• • •

These were the last lines Mike had written. The only other thing in the diary was a yellowed piece of paper, tucked behind the last page. It was folded up into sixths and slightly curved, as if it had been wedged for a long time inside a wallet.

PE

Eve read the lines again, this time softly aloud, feeling the weight of them in her mouth. The man next to her turned to look at her, but everything faded until all she heard was her heartbeat in her ears.

The reference to “Mack.” The girl with the “Strawberry Eye” who married a man “named for a drink.” It could only be Penelope.

Penelope had told her she’d loved someone before her father. It was Donald’s disciple.

Mack had been the reason she’d loved New York so much, and the reason she’d left it. Done the easier thing, picked the sure thing—Gin. She’d given up on the city and herself.

Eve took another swallow of bourbon and swiveled in her seat. She wondered if Penelope and Mack had ever seen each other again. She guessed that they hadn’t.

Penelope’s decision to leave, made right here on this piece of paper, had changed her life. Her guilt over abandoning Mack, even if he had abandoned her first, and her regret over leaving New York, had haunted every single day. Eve and her brothers had suffered as a result. So had Gin, who lived with a woman who was always somewhere else.

Here in New York, Eve lived in the shadow of Donald’s guilt. And Klieg’s. Louisa had apparently lived a life of remorse, too, a life circumscribed by choices she’d made in her youth.

From each action stemmed collateral damage; who knew how much? If Penelope had stayed in New York, when Mack returned from war, he might have kept writing and might have perpetrated Donald’s ideas. Penelope might have become a writer or editor herself, if Aunt Fern was right. And if Klieg had let Louisa make a true choice, what then? If she’d picked him, he could have lived in happiness. If she hadn’t, he might have found someone else, someone who truly loved him. And if Donald had fought for Louisa, what kind of man, and artist, might he have become?

Donald, Louisa, Penelope. Each had seen dreams go up in smoke because they had done what was, in some way, easier. And each had died, if not
of
a broken heart, then certainly with one.

Sooner or later, somebody should learn from all these mistakes.

“Another for you?” asked the bartender.

Eve looked at herself in the smoky mirror over the bar. “No thanks,” she said. “I’m all right.”

   • • •

It was March 1 and she had not sent in her rent check. She wondered what form De Fief’s boom-lowering would take. A slow buildup of harassment? Or a quick strike of some kind? Her real
concern was protecting Donald from any upset during whatever happened.

“I have a little surprise for you.”

“Oh—hello.” Eve hadn’t felt him approach, but his tone indicated he had just arrived and hadn’t heard anything. “What is it?”

“I’ve been keeping secrets from you. While you’ve been at the bakery, I’ve been doing a little work myself.”

“What do you mean?” she asked, heading for the kitchen. She pulled a brioche from the breadbox.

Nothing happened for several moments. Suddenly, inside her head, she felt Donald’s oscillations quicken, then disappear. A beat passed. Then two. Three. She looked around the room, eyes wide. Something in the corner caught her eye. It was one of Highball’s toys, the ball that looked like a Christmas ornament, given to her by Günter. Had it just moved? Eve stared intently at the ball. It quivered. Then rolled. Slowly at first, then with purpose as if on an errand. As it passed Highball’s nose, she jumped up and gave chase.

“Yes, the empty-headed one and I have had quite a time together these last weeks. I was concerned she’d be fearful but she wasn’t. She seemed to sense instinctively that the force was friendly,” said Donald. “I thought you’d like to know that when you’re out, she’s having some fun.”

Eve’s eyes misted over. Highball dropped the ball at her feet, smiling, but before Eve could reach for it, it sped off toward the bathroom. The dog ran after it.

“Thank you,” said Eve.

They took turns throwing the ball until a panting Highball lay down in front of the fireplace with a pleased look on her face and Eve remembered her brioche.

   • • •

That had settled it. That afternoon, when Donald disappeared, Eve prepared for one last “Hail Mary” bid to stay in the apartment.
She opened the French doors to her closet and stepped inside.

The party dresses were in the best shape. She hadn’t ever had much occasion to wear them. Most wouldn’t even need to be dry-cleaned. She pulled a folded garment bag from the shelf over her shoeboxes and unzipped it in one quick motion, like removing a Band-Aid. She knew if she ruminated on every piece—the delicacy of this bodice, the reassuring volume of that tulle, or the memory of her mother wearing a particular cocktail dress as she sat in their garden gazebo deadheading the roses—she wouldn’t be able to part with them. So, very swiftly, she ladled the silks, satins, feathers, and beads into the bag and zipped it up. She did this with three more bags, a total of twelve dresses in all.

“Wowsa,” said Gwendolyn. She was wearing a sixties pop-art shift, yellow and green, which, along with her expression of exaggerated surprise, gave her the spirited air of a cartoon character. “This is stunning. Your mother really was amazing.” She pulled the dresses out carefully and hung them on a series of hooks behind the counter, clucking and whistling all the way. Immediately, she began to check the important things: the labels, hems and seams, whether there was any discoloration of the fabric or loose sequins that needed to be resewn. “They’re beautifully preserved. You really want to sell?”

“Yes.”

“Wait a minute.” Gwendolyn stopped what she was doing and turned to look at Eve. “Do you need money? Because I can lend you some. You
will
get another job eventually and you shouldn’t have to sell off your birthright.”

“I know that. And thank you. But I don’t want help.” This she meant. “Anyway, I need to free up some closet space.”

“If you say so.” Gwendolyn gave Eve a sideways look as she rubbed the fabric of a blue silk sundress. “Let me go through them and I’ll give you a price as quick as I can. Okay?”

“Great. And thank you.”

“Want to grab some lunch?” asked Gwendolyn, looking outside at the rain splattering against the front window. “With this weather, I’ve only had one customer today.”

They left the
Back Soon
sign on the door and walked through the gale, umbrellas bumping, over to Greenwich Avenue. They sat in the window at Tea & Sympathy and tucked into a plate of little sandwiches.

“So,” said Gwendolyn. “I passed.”

“Passed what?”

“My last test. I’m done with all my business courses.”

“That’s marvelous! Why didn’t you tell me when you went to take it? I would have wished you luck.”

“Don’t take it personally. I didn’t tell anyone. I’m superstitious about that stuff.”

“Really?” Eve leaned forward, chin in hand. “I wouldn’t think superstition would stand a chance with someone as practical as you.”

“It’s kind of weird,” said Gwendolyn, choosing a cucumber and cream cheese triangle. “But the older I get, the more sense I find in the nonsensical. I feel like the first half of life is about mastering the natural world. You know. Skills. Office politics. Trial and error. Blah, blah, blah. But the second half is about letting go, I think. Trusting that you’ve done the preparation but also that no amount of preparation can ever be enough. At some point, events will overtake whatever you’ve planned for and you just gotta deal.”

They finished their lunch, and as they drank the last of the Darjeeling in the pot, an arrow of sunlight plunged through the clouds, illuminating their faces. Gwendolyn closed her eyes and basked in the sudden warmth. She looked so beatific that Eve followed suit.

“Guess I should get back to the store,” said Gwendolyn, opening her eyes.