The Slave (5 page)

She left the garment bag with
the bellman downstairs and took a cab all the way home. It was
extravagant, but soon she would have no need for the money she had
so painstakingly saved over the years.
Why not splurge
, she thought, sitting back and
watching the traffic.
I should go to town! Have lunch at Lutéce, maybe.
If there’s time.

Home was a modern building in the financial
district, not far from the South Street Seaport. She looked around
her one bedroom with a moment of indecision, and decided to make
her calls first. Might as well get the really hard part out of the
way. She changed into jeans and a T-shirt, pulled her Rolodex out
and started calling.

It was a regular roller-coaster ride of
reactions. Of course her boss at the auction house was pissed.
Couldn’t she at least give them two weeks’ notice? And who was it?
Was it Christie’s? Would she at least give them a chance to match
the offer? Robin bit her lip and lied, and felt a little guilty.
But in reality, she knew that they would have no problem filling
her job, and that after a few days her co-workers would get used to
her absence as they all got used to the eternal shuffle in the art
world.

That done, she called the super and told him
that she would be vacating within the week. As expected, he
stuttered and shouted his own outrage and swore dire circumstances
should he have to place a call to the owner corporation, but her
willingness to let the security deposit go caught him by
surprise.

This is not so
hard
, she
thought, dialing the third storage company and getting their
prices.
I
guess it’s really kind of easy to leave town in a hurry. Not that I
know I’m leaving town. Hmm, that’s a thought. Do Marketplace slaves
ever go out? What if I don’t leave town and I end up seeing people
I know? What would I say if they invited me out for a drink, asked
me what I was doing?

“
Hey, lady! You still there? I said
you can get the lease as long as you want.”

“
What? Oh, yes, yes, thank you. I’ll
call you back later,” Robin said, returning to the
present.

You think too much about the
wrong things
, she scolded herself, laying the phone down.
You didn’t think
about how to manage this properly, but now you’re thinking about
what might happen if you get accepted and if you get sold and if
that person lives in town and if and if and if.
And meanwhile, the next number
on the list was her Mom and Dad’s.

She decided to spend some time packing.

That job wasn’t easy at all, and by
lunchtime, she knew that Lutéce was out of the question. She called
one of the Chinese places that delivered menus under her door every
week and ate General Gau’s Chicken right out of the box while she
divided her belongings into Pack, Give Away, and Throw Away piles.
Then, she spent more time on the phone, calling various charity
organizations that provided pick-up service. Only one could send
someone today, so they got several boxes and bags of clothing,
kitchen items, books and office supplies. The young men were very
friendly and grateful, and she was even more pleased with herself
when they gladly accepted $50 to take her “throwaways” as well, and
dispose of them somewhere.

And it was only after they left that she
realized that not once did she imagine them overpowering her and
ravishing her on the floor of her apartment. She giggled and dove
back into her work, trying to get as much finished as she could.
The Rolodex remained next to the phone, stubbornly flipped open to
the card she left it on.

By 5:30, she admitted defeat. There was no
way she could get anything else out of the house today. So she
showered again, dressed simply, and threw a carry-on bag onto her
bed. She had thought all day about what to take, and the items she
put in the bag were gravid with memories. Three books went in
first. One, an anonymous Victorian novel, the second a fairy-tale
romance, the third a collection of short stories about gay men. All
were about surrender and mastery. All of them were worn with
handling. A leather collar, bearing a golden “M” in gentle
scrollwork followed. A small box of jewelry. A woven leather
wrist-cuff, worked into a complex mystery braid. Her favorite
pillowcase, dusky rose in color, a whispery cotton that felt smooth
and comforting beneath her cheek. Then, she tossed in her latest
journal and a box of her favorite pens, her address book, wallet,
and banking items. Her passport and ID. Her prescription
medications she tossed in just in case, and followed them with her
spare reading glasses.

It was such a minuscule collection, really.
Hardly the markings of a complex life.

The Rolodex seemed monstrously huge next to
the phone.

But there was no time now!
Robin locked the door and ran to the elevator, trying to close out
all thoughts of the one job she hadn’t even thought of all
day.
Maybe
tomorrow
,
she said to herself, waving down a cab.
Or the next day.

She stopped at the hotel, as she had
planned, and picked up Parker’s garment bag, and then continued on
uptown. The West Side traffic was hellish, and she kept glancing at
her watch the whole ride. But she arrived in the neighborhood with
plenty of time to spare, and the doorman in the beautiful old
building only gave her the slightest look as she walked into the
stately lobby.

It was a beautiful pre-war
building, and as she admired the scrollwork inside the elevator,
she idly wondered about the costs of living up here.
Nothing I could
afford
, she
noted while she looked for the apartment number. She used both keys
and let herself into a spacious, airy home with a long hallway
leading to a living room that had a magnificent corner view of the
river. Below her, trees swayed in the park and cars rumbled past on
the expressway, but the river gleamed, a dark, sparkling line of
reflections.

This is beautiful!
Robin dropped the
luggage and ran over to the windows to look out and down.
I could never,
never afford a view like this!
She turned into the room to look around.
Whoever decorated this room knew enough not to take away from the
visual centerpiece. Woven rugs lay scattered across a pale,
polished wooden floor, and the furniture was arranged so that no
one needed to sit with their back toward the scenery. Natural
canvas and heavy wooden frames dominated the look, rather
southwestern. A desk stood in the corner opposite the windows; it
would never lack for natural light.

Robin spotted several genuine
pieces of antique painted pottery on a shelf in a glass-fronted
cabinet, and the framed photos on one wall were classic (if
somewhat standard) Ansel Adams. On the other hand, there was a
definite lack of western kitsch
in the room―no bronze replicas of
Remington statues, no horseshoe mandalas strung with colored yarn
and rabbit fur scraps. It showed not only an interest, but a
knowledgeable one, guided by a sense of authenticity and money. It
could have been brought together by a good decorator, except that
some of the collectible pieces were just slightly out of period and
style, something a perfectionist wouldn’t stand for.

Slavery must
pay
, was her
first thought.
Funny, though. I hadn’t figured Parker for the southwestern
type. I would have guessed he was an anglophile, and had a place
filled with big comfy chairs and a zillion books, all arranged by
topic, author and edition date. And, thinking of the man... well, I
guess he’s not here yet.
A glance at her watch showed that he wasn’t due
for another fifteen minutes.

OK, that leaves me a few seconds to learn my
way around. First, grab the garment bag and search for the master
bedroom.

All in all, the apartment was one surprise
after another. The larger bedroom was dark and subdued, almost as
though it knew that its own view of the building across the street
was rather pitiful. But the decadently huge walk-in closet and
dressing room which most New Yorkers might have comfortably used as
another bedroom, held clothing for a man and a woman. And the man,
judging by the length of the raincoat hanging behind one door, had
to be taller than the shorter-than-average Mr. Parker.

And the dresses are just not
his style
,
Robin added mentally. She followed that disrespectful thought with
a slight nudge of shame, but hung the garment bag up without any
more immediate speculation. And on her way out, she did notice that
there was what seemed to be a single-sized futon folded neatly on a
rack in one corner of the room. There was no corresponding futon
frame, but neither was there a chest or anything to take up space
near the foot of the bed.

The other bedroom door was
locked. With visions of pirates and secret rooms dancing through
her brain, she went to investigate the kitchen, where, to her
delight, she found a fancy Italian cappuccino machine on the
counter.
Oh
good, I’ve always wanted to use one of these
things
, she
thought, examining it.
It doesn’t look that hard. Mmmm, café latté for
breakfast. Espresso after dinner. Looks like life as a slave won’t
be too terrible.

Her musings were interrupted by the sound of
keys in the front door, and for a moment she panicked. He was right
on time, but she had no idea what to do! Should she go out into the
hall and greet him? Stay where she was? Kneel? Be relaxed and
casual? She heard the click of his boot crossing the threshold and
a jingling sound of keys, or maybe that was his jacket; it had two
chains looped around one shoulder....

His jacket! I should go take his jacket!

She dashed out of the kitchen, bumping into
the swinging door with one elbow and rounded the corner, trying not
to look rushed. Chris was in fact standing with his back to her,
and already starting to shrug the jacket off his shoulders. She
came up behind him and caught it, drawing it down his arms.

“
You should have been here a little
earlier,” he said, pointing to a rack affixed to the wall. She hung
the leather jacket up and blushed.

“
Yes, sir, I’m sorry.”

“
Not nearly as sorry as you will be in
the future if you fail to meet me at the door. Make some coffee.
Have you eaten dinner?”

“
No sir, I haven’t. Would that be
regular coffee?”

“
Yes, leave that monstrosity alone and
use the Krups. There are beans in the freezer. Have some ready for
me in the living room as soon as possible. Milk, no
sugar.”

Damn, another bad guess. I
would have thought he took it black.
But Robin inclined her head in an
acknowledgment bow and went back to the kitchen to do as she was
told. He looked interesting tonight, a cross between the two looks
she had seen on him so far. His polished engineer boots looked very
correct with the black jeans, and the motorcycle jacket was the
only correct outerwear to accompany them. But again, he wore a
fresh-looking tailored business shirt and a tie.
Yuppie from
hell
, she
thought without warning
. Ivy-league Angels, their motto is, Think
Yiddish, Look British, and Ride American
. Good thing she had to grind the
beans and figure out where the gold filter was and find the coffee
cups, or else she might have actually giggled in front of
him.

Soon, she was sitting on the floor,
cross-legged on one of those wool throw rugs, while Parker sipped
his coffee and watched the lights across the river. She did not
pour a cup for herself, and was not invited to, and she was
embarrassed to the core of her being when her stomach complained
about the lack of dinner. She would have been fine if Chris hadn’t
asked!

“
I’ve sent for some food,” the man
commented, stretching his legs out. “It will arrive soon. In the
meantime, let’s hear what you’ve done today, and what is left to
do.”

“
I’ll need another two days to finish
emptying my apartment,” Robin began. “I resigned today, called my
gym, and got rid of a lot of stuff I don’t need to store away. I
need to visit my bank to store some of my artwork in the safe
deposit box. I figured I’d send the rest to... my family, I
guess.”

“
So you haven’t told them
yet.”

Robin tapped her nose and tried to smile.
“On the nose, sir. I have no idea what to tell them.”

He nodded.

“
It’s just that I’ve never really
vanished on them. I don’t keep in contact that often, really. A
call every once in a while. I try to make it home at least once a
year.” Robin grimaced. “Jeez, it sounds like they’d barely miss me,
doesn’t it?”

“
My guess is that they would miss you
at least once a year,” Chris said. “Some Marketplace entrants tell
their family and friends that they are leaving the country. I would
not advise you to rely on this falsehood. Although you may very
well end up doing exactly that, you may also end up being sold to
someone who lives right here, which may leave you encountering
people you know, who will then want an explanation.”

“
I was thinking about that today. I
don’t suppose you could guarantee a buyer outside of the area,
huh?”

The corner of his mouth rose slightly. “No,
I’m afraid not. But the market is international. And the northeast
is rather a small part of it.”