The Ladies' Man (36 page)

She hesitates, then stands.

“Take your time,” says Scott.

“We're fine,” says Michael.

In the hall, Marty opens the door to the stairwell. “You embarrassed me in there,” he says as she passes. “We have to go back into that meeting eventually. It's going to be awkward.”

“They're my friends,” she says. “You embarrassed me yesterday in front of them by looking right through me.”

“That's what I'm trying to fix. I mean, it's Tuesday. It's not a month later, or a week; I'm one, maybe two days late. I decided to E-mail you—”

“To say what?”

“More or less: ‘Are you free for dinner this evening or any evening this week?' ”

Adele replies, “No, I am not.”

“Just like that? Without a moment's reflection?”

“That's my answer. Sorry.”

But she doesn't look sorry. She reverses direction and ascends one step. “Shall we go back into the meeting now?”

“I didn't know—” he begins, but the door above them opens and
a skinny production assistant with maroon hair clanks down the stairs in lethal-looking platform shoes. “Hold on to the banister,” says Marty.

The girl stares, too new to recognize a quasi-order. “I'm not going to fall,” she snaps.

They wait for her to pass. “I'm not having good rapport with my women employees today,” says Marty.

“No manners—someone should tell her she's snarling at her boss.”

He smiles weakly. “Which I would
never
tolerate.”

When she doesn't answer, Marty asks, “I'm apologizing. I was rude, I was cowardly, I was worrying too much about the politics—”

“Politics!”

“Let me finish. Technically, I'm your boss—do I need to spell this out?—and I was afraid that I had pasted my heart on my sleeve and acted like a jackass, on-air, no less.”

The word “heart” has an unexpected effect on Adele, but her vexed expression doesn't change.

“I'm sorry,” he says. “I guess I misunderstood.”

What has Adele learned lately about dignity being less important than love? Not enough. Her stiff upper lip wants to remain rigid, but possible relief nips at the corners. She can see herself sitting opposite Marty at dinner with this long-standing attachment finally accredited, and gaining the freedom to do whatever next thing they are so moved to do. But all she allows is a brisk, dismissive, “I'll read your E-mail after the meeting.”

Richard calls her midday. He wants to know what's happened on the all-important Tuesday following the barren, silent, disappointing Monday.

“Why?” she asks.

“Why?
Jesus Christ. You have to ask me why I want to know what happened and if you might possibly be feeling better today than you did last night?”

“I'm not.”

Richard waits. “Nothing got said today?”

“I didn't say that.”

“You talked to him?”

“We had a meeting, the usual Tuesday one—”

“But no personal conversation, I mean?”

“It evolved into that.”

“Did he acknowledge anything?”

“Such as?”

Richard yelps, “Such as he's sorry he acted like a jerk! That he's an emotional midget and should let you in on how he feels.”

“How do you know how he feels?”

“I'm a guy! I fleshed out the whole scenario for you—”

“I'm not going anywhere. If he wants to try me again, I might reconsider.”

“ ‘If he wants to try me again …' Try
what
again?”

She says, not without pride, “He asked me to have dinner with him tonight—but with no notice.”

When Richard doesn't answer (How
can a sister of mine have so little aptitude for courtship or coquetry
?), Adele cites chapter and verse: “It's common courtesy, Richard. You do not ask someone for a date on the same day. It's insulting. I have more pride than that. And you know it.”

At four o'clock, she simply leaves. Runs off like a free woman, and would appreciate the symbolism of her own act if she weren't so goddamn sick of being free. Fellow passengers on the subway smile the way they do when they see her familiar face and trademark haircut and perfect posture.
Isn't that …? Don't I know you from …? Aren't you the woman who …?

The man in the fare booth at Park Street shakes his head at “Harbor Arms.”

“On Atlantic Ave.?”

“Aquarium. Green Line to Blue Line to Aquarium stop. Ask when you get there.”

“I know where it is above ground,” she says impatiently.

“Then walk it,” he says. “Keep your girlish figure, if I'm allowed to say that.”

She does walk, toward the water, detouring slightly to take the familiar streets near her father's old firm. Finally she spots Kathleen's
building, then the uniformed man with a whistle in his mouth. Cream-and-brown uniform, shiny shoes, not only hailing taxis but taking charge. She sees him do a thrilling thing: In the middle of Atlantic Avenue, he stops traffic with a balletic pumping of his hand so that a car nosing out of his garage can make a U-turn. The driver salutes him. My sister's boyfriend, she thinks. My sister's lover.

“Ma'am?” he asks as he hops back onto the sidewalk.

Adele keeps walking toward the revolving door.

“Let me,” says Lorenz, whose name tag reads, inexplicably, “Felix.”

Then they are inside, two abreast in his eagerness to guide and sign her in. She says, “You're not Lorenz?”

“It's his day off. Can I help you?”

“I came to visit Kathleen Dobbin.”

Felix bends slightly at the knees to match her height, and points across the lobby.

“I know where I'm going,” says Adele. “I'm her sister.”

“Hey!” says Felix. “Nice to meet you. I knew she had a bunch of sisters. Now I see the resemblance.”

“I'm late,” says Adele. “Excuse me.”

Kathleen is wearing what she went out in the night before, a green peplum jacket over a swingy skirt. Short; not Adele's favorite outfit, a little loud, a little too much yellow in the green. Is she a tad disheveled, too? Kathleen glances up with an automatic smile; looks startled, then alarmed.

Adele says, “Nothing's wrong. I escaped, that's all.”

Kathleen comes around the counter to kiss her. “No one died, then?”

“Not that I know of.”

“You just … left?”

“I didn't feel like working, and I didn't feel like going home.”

“You got my note, right?”

“I did.”

“So it's not like you've been worried?”

“I wasn't.”

“Were you shocked?”

“I'm not Mother,” says Adele. “My being here has nothing to do with your date.” She takes off her raincoat and throws it on the striped stool. “Maybe I came to see if you wanted to have dinner. I thought it was time I met Lorenz.”

“He's off today. But soon …” Kathleen stares at her sister's chest.

“What?” asks Adele.

“What are you wearing?”

Adele looks down. “This. What you see—my white silk blouse and my linen skirt.”

“I meant your bra.”

Adele pulls the neckline away from her chest and looks inside. “It's white and it's comfortable. Some of them hurt my rib cage. Besides, it's one of yours. How bad can it be?”

“With those seams? We can do better.” She goes back behind the counter and reaches into the glass case. “Look at this row. Have you ever seen anything so delicious?” She holds one up to her own chest, cups it over her own breasts. “Under the white silk, delicate with just a hint of something sexy? Here, try these two. Thirty-fours and thirty-sixes in each. Yell when you're ready.”

“For what?”

“For me to check. Go.”

Obediently, Adele takes the bras and crosses to the dressing room.

After a minute she hears, “Need an opinion?”

“No.” Not an opinion, not a new bra, not a soupçon of lace beneath her nearly opaque blouse, not anything.

“I love the Calvin Klein,” Kathleen calls.

Adele glances at the manufacturer's tag. She doesn't do anything but unfasten the covered buttons on her blouse and meet her own eyes in the mirror. Something's terribly wrong with me, she thinks. Maybe there always was. Calvin Klein can't fix it. Richard and Kathleen can't fix it. I certainly can't.

She sits down on the padded bench and leans back against the cool peach wall.

“Hon? Ready?”

She touches the bras in her lap. She'll tell Kathleen she likes this
one. She'll buy it. She'll buy both styles. She'll even wear them, though she doubts she needs seamless lace between her bosoms and the world. Kathleen's calligraphied wall sign asks, “Have you done your breast self-exam yet this month?… How about now?” Adele presses her bad rib with two fingertips until she finds the spot that still hurts.

“Dell? Are you all right?”

“No,” she says softly.

She hears Kathleen say “Shit”; she hears her sister hurrying toward her. She sees Kathleen's hand and green-clothed arm poke through the curtain, signaling something, an imperative—
stay, stop, down
.

“What?” asks Adele. “What's wrong?”

The door chimes. She splints her side and takes a deep breath. On the other side, Kathleen is checking the hem of her silk faille curtain as if it is demanding her meticulous attention, now spacing its rings, now smoothing it with the flat of her hand.

“Good,” she says cheerfully. “Better.” Then, hushed and barely audible, “Don't come out!”

A
dele holds her breath and sits as still as she can. A woman's voice, unfamiliar but not unfriendly, asks, “Was it wonderful?”

Kathleen says, “No comment.”

With one finger Adele hooks the curtain back an inch. A big woman, tall, upswept black hair, a fitted suit with two vents, a smart briefcase.

“We had a great time,” Kathleen says.

“Thank you! That's all I needed—that look on your face. Now I came to spend some money.”

“That's completely unnecessary,” says Kathleen.

Adele squints. Is this woman a threat or not? And if not, where are Kathleen's mercantile instincts?

“I meant it,” says the tall woman. “I scared away your customers and I'm here to buy. I'm treating myself. The market went up two hundred and six points today.”

Kathleen says, not as cordially as she is capable of, “Well, look around. Let me know if you have any questions.”

“Let's start here,” says the woman.

Kathleen takes a considered look at the customer's chest. Finally she asks, “What size?”

“I
think
thirty-four B. Maybe C.”

Even from the dressing room, even from behind, Adele can spot a gross understatement, and can hear in Kathleen's silence prize-winning diplomacy.