The Way of All Fish: A Novel (34 page)

“Whatcha on, babe? I’d like a taste of it.”

Who was this idiot? She didn’t open her eyes. Fling hair, head back. “I’m on my own self, so leave.” Hands slipping down sides, hair tossing.

“Oooo, well, can your own self spare a little self?”

The guy was so close, she was breathing his air. She opened her eyes, took a look at him. He seemed to be of mixed ethnicity. He could have been Latino, Mexican, Native American. Which showed how much she knew. He wasn’t bad-looking, just hard to define, part of the scene. He had a day’s growth of beard, the stubble beloved by the homeless and the fashion world.

“What’s your name, babe?”

“Babe.” Cindy waved her arms above her head as the lights roiled around their faces. After all the wine she’d drunk at dinner, the double bourbon wasn’t sitting well.

“Babe?” He heh-hehed. “Come on.”

She turned her back to him. He put his hands on her hips. She knocked them off. For about ten minutes, his trial-and-error moves went boringly on. Finally, she stopped with the twisting and shaking, said, “I need some air,” pushed through the crowd, got mashed and her feet stomped on, but made it to and through the door below the steps.

What an experience! Ratboy was gone, probably to snort some coke. She stood flat against the brick wall, shut her eyes, and took some deep breaths, not many, because here was somebody leaning in to her.

“Hey! What do you think you’re doing?”

“What’s it look like?” His stubbled face came close to hers. He smelled of sweat and, oddly, tangerines.

Where was the bouncer? Where was Ratboy? She tried moving her head but couldn’t get away from his toothy mouth. He was kissing her as if he meant to take it right through the brick. Her eyes squeezed shut, she heard some kind of scuffle, sounds of feet shifting, and when she opened her eyes, he wasn’t there. Thinking he must have fainted or had a heart attack from the effort he’d been making to nail her to the wall, she looked around: the stone walk to her right, Ratboy’s chair to her left, up, down. There was no one there. Her dancing partner had disappeared.

She walked slowly back to the heavy door. A couple came drunkenly out, groping each other. Through the door, she saw the rave was still raving.

She hurried up the steps, miraculously flagged down the sixth cab that went by, climbed in, fell back against the seat, and almost said “Grub Street” before she remembered that was a fiction, and told him “Grove Street. West Village.”

Mickey and his little dog opened the door of the cab for her as if it were a limousine. Mickey bowed and touched his hat.

Here was the dancing master! Cindy lay her hand over her heart, so glad was she that she was home and that nothing had changed.

“Evening, miss. You all right?”

“Fine, Mickey, fine. I’ve been out dancing.”

Mickey raised his eyes either to heaven or the high-rise across the
street as he clasped his hands beneath his chin. “Oh, I envy you, indeed I do. Do you know the last time I ever danced was in Prague in the assembly rooms.”

“That’s been years, Mickey. Do you think you could give me a few lessons? We could go up on the roof sometime.”

“Ah. What school of dance were you demonstrating tonight?”

Cindy thought. “It’s this sort of free movement where you’re not really dancing with someone.”

Mickey gave a dismissive wave of his arm. “Those clubs, you mean. That’s not dancing, miss. No, the dance requires discipline.”

Discipline? He should have been in her head; she’d been dictating the terms of her every movement: hips arms head. If that guy hadn’t ruined the evening, she would have ventured to call it a great success.

She bent down to scratch the tiny dog behind the ears. “Good night, Mickey. It’s been a tiring evening.”

“One of those clubs, I can believe it.” He held the door wide and touched his cap again as she passed through.

Cindy felt immensely sad for Mickey, brought from dancing master in Czechoslovakia to doorman in Chelsea.

Her clown fish were lounging on their plastic leaves. Gus was lounging on the bench, waiting for them to make their move.

Cindy undressed and tossed on the old chenille bathrobe and washed her face. Then she padded barefoot to the kitchen and almost got to the Mr. Coffee machine when her door knocker lifted and fell twice. She thought for one awful moment that it must be the guy from Grunge, that he had reappeared and followed her, maybe in his car, maybe in another cab.

She opened a utensil drawer and ran her hand over the big spoons, can openers, looking for a sharp knife, knew none were there, but hell, a knife was a knife. How had he gotten past Mickey? Mickey could be careless, but still.

She went to the door and tried looking through the cracked peephole, which told her nothing. With the chain on, she opened up.

“Cindy.” Joe Blythe was standing there.

She dropped the knife on her toe, and as if her fish had been giving her lessons, her mouth opened and closed, opened and closed. No words were at hand.

He was leaning casually against the doorjamb. “What were you doing?”

“Huh?” Her father had loved the word “discombobulated.” Right now she knew what it felt like.

“What were you doing at that sorry club?” He was chewing gum, making tiny movements with his jaw in the way few people did, as if indifferent to it.

Cindy blinked. Here she was in her tatty blue robe, face washed to a shine. “What? I mean— How do you know?”

“I followed you from the Clownfish.”

Her mouth went back to the fish movement; she felt as if she were underwater. Having come up little by little through the water, she broke its surface and realized she could be seriously indignant: “Followed me? You followed me?” She wanted to say,
The nerve!

“You should stay away from places like that. That guy was trouble.”

Her hands on her hips, she was so busy striking a pose that she overlooked the obvious. A smart retort came to her: “And trouble is your business? Raymond Chandler.” The obvious being that someone had dragged the guy away from where he had her pinned to the wall. Her eyes widened. “You . . . you pulled him off me? That was you? I didn’t even see you!”

“You had your eyes closed.”

She pulled the belt of her robe tighter. “But it happened so fast! You were so
fast
.”

“It’s a skill.”

“When I was dancing, when we were— What were you doing all that time?”

“Having a drink at the bar, watching the people on the dance floor. You call it dancing.”

As if he disapproved. Her eyes narrowed. “You were watching me?”

“Sure. You were really into it. It’s clear you love to dance.” He bit his lip, pulled a pack of cigarettes from his pocket.

She drew closer to the doorjamb, ran her arm up the side, leaned against it, said, “Could I have one of those?”

He shook out another cigarette. “Sorry, I didn’t think you smoked.”

“Why? You barely know me.”

“True.” He put her cigarette, together with his, between his lips and lit them with an old Zippo.

“
Now, Voyager,
” she said. Everyone who ever saw it had been enthralled by Paul Henreid. Men were lighting up two cigarettes at a time for years, she guessed.

He smiled and handed her a cigarette. “That was so long ago, I didn’t think you’d’ve seen it and I could take credit for the double-cigarette light-up.”

She smiled, too, then coughed when she inhaled, then cleared her throat. “I guess there are some moves one can make that are unforgettable. Does that make them immortal?”

He seemed to be considering this. “Wouldn’t that mean a lot of us wouldn’t stand a chance of being immortal? Immortality wouldn’t be there for the common man. You’d have to leave something behind: a movie, a poem, a painting, a handicap, a strike.”

“A strike?”

“I was thinking of Ted Williams.”

Cindy was beginning not to know where she was at all when the door to the exit opened and Edward stepped out. Seeing her in her doorway, he did a double take. “Edward!” she shouted as if the three of them had met in Grand Central.

“Evening,” said Edward. Looking at his watch, he said, “Or morning.”

“This is Joe Blythe. Edward Bishop.” She passed the two names between them, adding, “Edward’s a poet.” She was always pleased to be able to announce that, forgetting that Edward wasn’t pleased. “Poet,” he once said, was a word that seemed to make everybody anxious, hard to live up to.

It didn’t seem to bother Joe Blythe a bit. “I can’t imagine anything more difficult.”

That irritated her. What about her own writing? Could he imagine it was easy getting Lulu out of the car? She took another drag on the cigarette and said, “Writing fiction isn’t a picnic.” A picnic. What a cliché.

“I imagine not. It’s just that poetry is much denser. Every word takes on more meaning.”

“Every word in prose has to count, too.” Her tone was a little strident.

Joe just looked at her.

“Sorry, sorry. I guess I’m being defensive. Edward! Would you like a drink? I’ve got the good bourbon.”

Edward smiled. “Indeed I would.”

“Joe?”

“Okay.”

Cindy fairly flew to the kitchen to collect glasses, stopped for a moment to look at the blocked view through her little kitchen window of part of the Seagram Building, and flew back to the living room for the bottle of bourbon. Hurrying, as if the two of them might disappear in her absence, she poured it in unequal measures, then ran back to the doorway with the glasses squeezed in her hands. There she handed them round, found she’d given herself the one with the most, and quickly exchanged hers for Joe’s.

They were talking about Robert Frost and not paying attention to her, except to say thanks. Then Edward asked, “Would you have any ice, Cindy?”

“Yes, of course!” Another flying round into the kitchen, yanking the tray from the freezer, slamming it against the counter, ice cubes falling on the floor. She gathered up the ones that fell on the counter and whisked them into a dish and ran back to the doorway.

“Here.” She held out the dish. Now they were talking about how long Edward had lived in the building. She dropped two ice cubes into Edward’s drink and held it out to Joe, who warded off the ice with an outstretched palm. She set the dish on the floor and once again draped her arm up the doorway. Thinking of her kitchen window and Manhattan put her in mind of Woody Allen’s film, and she tried for a Diane Keaton expression but was afraid, putting on the silly smile, she looked more like Woody Allen and stopped doing it.

They didn’t notice; they were still talking about the building and, for some reason, looking at the ceiling. She sighed and drank her bourbon.

P
aul had limited success with the psychics on his list.

Martha Frobish, a pleasant woman with graying hair, asked why he thought she’d agree to help him perpetrate a hoax.

“Because you’re a psychic?”

That was just before the door shut in his face on Neville Island. Paul liked the idea of an island just off Pittsburgh’s shoreline. He also liked the Neville Island Bridge. He did not like the psychic.

Nor did she like Paul, obviously.

He’d known his answer would close the door, but Martha had been, after all, a tad self-righteous about her God-given gift.