Hanging by a Thread (3 page)

“You even
think
about calling the lawyer and you're a dead man! This isn't your business, Harold Katz, it's mine! And I will run it as I see fit!”

“Right into the ground, the way you're going! And since I sank every dime I had into this harebrained scheme of yours, I'll stick my nose in whenever I damn well like!”

By this point, I half expect to see the hair raised on the back of her neck. Mine sure as hell is. And you should see Angelique's eyes.

“And since I paid you back—three-fold—since then,” Nikky says, barely above a snarl, “butt the hell out.” Her gaze deliberately shifts to mine. “Ellie?”

I rise and follow, managing not to go “Ew, ew, ew” when I have to brush past the man. Who watches us, his little amphibianesque eyes burning a hole in the back of my head, before I eventually hear his footsteps retreat to his office.

How—
why
—the woman puts up with the man is beyond me.

Especially as I notice, when we reach her office, how shiny her eyes are.

I never know whether I should say anything or not, whether she'd welcome my sympathy or spurn it. Pride's an unpredictable thing. But while Nikky might be addle-brained and totally disorganized, at heart she's not a bad person. Medical plan or no, I wouldn't still be here after a year if she was. And nobody deserves to be talked to like that. Ever. Well, except Harold. Or your average despotic dictator.

Then she pulls the substitute swatches out of the FedEx en
velope with shaking hands, and my conscience shoves me from behind.

“Nikky, I—”

But she shakes her head, cutting me off.

“I don't…” She clears her throat, then smoothes her hand over the polished cotton. The roses are similar to the original, if a bit smaller and redder. But the green is this yucky olive that brings to mind things nasty and distasteful. “I don't think this one's too bad, what do you think?”

“I think…” Oh, hell. “I think you should call the rep and tell him you're holding them to the original contract. Or you'll sue.”

Nikky's head jerks up, the ends of her silver hair brushing her silk-clad shoulders. In her own, paralyzed way, she looks as flabbergasted as I feel.

“You agree with Harold?”

Since I'd always figured I'd have a better chance of agreeing with Rush Limbaugh than Harold Katz, you can image what this revelation is doing to my insides. “I think he…has a point. Even if I do have issues with how he makes his points.”

That gets a short, airy laugh. “You don't have to be so diplomatic.”

“Yes, I do. I need this job.”

Another laugh, this one with a little more substance to it. Nikky sinks into her chair, a high-backed swivel number in a gorgeous flame stitch fabric. She twists the cap off a bottle of designer water, then digs a pill box out of her purse. Hell, if I had to live with Harold, I'd probably be scarfing down whatever the la-la drug of choice is these days like M&M's.

She takes another swallow of water and replaces the cap. “Why?” she says, all smiles. Wow. Must be good stuff. “Why do you agree with Harold?”

“Because—” I pick up the substitute swatch. “Because this is total crap compared with the original. Because something tells me they
are
pulling a fast one. I mean, think about it—
why should they yank the pattern when you've got how many hundreds of yards on order? Unless—”

“Unless a bigger designer saw it and pulled rank. So they're only
telling
me it's no longer available. I have figured that out.”

She doesn't seem particularly surprised. Or disturbed. I, however, am both. Her lips curved at my obvious distress, she gestures for me to sit, then takes a cigarette case from her desk; five seconds later she's calmly blowing smoke away from me. “Darling, in the scheme of things, six hundred yards is nothing. Especially if another house comes along and orders twice, maybe even ten times that. I don't know….” A stream of smoke cuts through the air. “I can't really blame the supplier for wanting to make the other guy happy, right?”

“But you've been a loyal customer for twenty years….”

“Because they're willing to work with me and my smaller orders.” She leans forward. “Sure, there are other fabric houses I'd rather use. You think they'd give me the time of day?” The cigarette smoke stream jumps as she sinks back against the chair. Frowning, she brushes an ash off her left breast, then looks at me. “I've got more clout than some, less than others.” A shrug. “You learn to compromise. Pick your battles. Contrary to what Harold thinks, pitching a fit isn't going to endear me to them. Or keep me in business.”

“So you just…back down?”

“I prefer to call it playing smart. However…” Her fingers brush the fabric, then shove it away, as though it's toxic. “I may be second best, but I'm not stupid enough to pick something that's gonna make
my
dress look like the knockoff—”

Somehow, I manage to keep a straight face.

“—so we start over.” Squinting, she crams the cigarette back in her mouth and says around it, gesturing toward the teetering piles on the long table over against the far wall, “Hand me the Volare book, wouldja? Let's see what we can come up with.”

I do, but as I root through the rubble, I have to ask, “But isn't it a little late to switch fabric on the stores now?”

“Like they care. You find it yet?”

I have, miraculously enough. I hand it to Nikky, who thunks it onto a six-inch pile of jumbled papers. Where they'd come from, I have no idea, since I'd just straightened up yesterday. “So,” Nikky says, the cigarette dangling from her lips, pool-shark fashion, “We chuck the roses altogether and go with…” She flips through the book. “A plaid, maybe? Or something completely different, like…” With a grin, she turns the book around, yanking the cigarette out of her mouth with a flourish. “Hats. These are cute, right? Is there any green in it?”

I shake my head. She grins.

“Yeah, hats. It's brilliant.” With a wink, she grabs her phone and punches a single digit. Ten seconds later she's going, “Lenny! Nikky. How are you? Good, good… Listen. Here's the deal. Forget the roses…yeah, yeah, I don't like this sample you sent over, it's very Target, you know what I mean? So instead, send me swatches of…” She randomly flips through the book, rattling off a dozen numbers. Then, as if she couldn't be bothered, “And this cotton with the hats…number 2376, just for the hell of it. They all available? You're sure? Great. And I can have the swatches tomorrow?” She gives me a thumbs-up. “You're a doll, Len. Take it easy, now.”

She hangs up, stubs out her cigarette, and smiles at me.

“I don't get it,” I say.

A low laugh rumbles from her throat. “I know everybody thinks I'm a ditz. Including you, you're just nicer about it than most. But let me tell you something…” Again, she leans forward, and I see in her eyes exactly why she is where she is. “People let their guard down if they think you're stupid. Then
they're
the ones who do the stupid stuff, you know what I mean? Lenny has no idea which of these I'm really interested in. And by the time I clue him in, it'll be too late for anybody
else to get one up on me again. And I think I like the hats better, anyway.”

I think she's kidding herself. But hey, not my business.

“Anyway, so when the swatch comes, you'll scan it and send it to the buyers, tell them the other fabric came in flawed and this is what we're switching to, and that'll be that—”

Her eyes lift over my head, to her office doorway. The hair on the back of my arms bristles.

“Problem solved?” Harold asks.

“Yes, Harold,” she says, then adds, “By the way, Marilyn left a message on my voice mail, said seven was fine, she'd meet us at the restaurant.”

“How'd she sound?”

“Who can tell over voice mail?” Nikky says with a shrug. But her mouth thins in concern. “In a rush, though. As usual.”

“She gets that from you, you know. Never knowing when to stop.”

That's okay, folks, don't mind me.

“Mar's a big girl, Harold. She doesn't need Daddy clucking over her like some Jewish mother.”

“Yeah, well, maybe if the Jewish mother she's got was doing her job, I wouldn't have to,” he says, then walks away.

I get up, making noises about getting back to my work so I can leave on time tonight—

“He would die if I left him,” Nikky says softly.

“Um…what?”

“I know what you're thinking. That you can't understand why I put up with his crap. Well, I put up with his crap because he needs me. And what can I tell you, it feels good to be needed.”

Okay, fine, I can buy that. To a point. Otherwise, how could I constantly deal with Tina and Luke's string of crises? Why would I be
here,
for God's sake? But there's a difference between being needed and getting off on self-flagellation. And
before I realize it's coming, I hear myself say, “But the way you let him yell at you—”

“That's right. I
let
him yell at me. Because I make the money and I bought the house in Bucks County and I'm paying for our daughter to go to NYU and yelling at me is the only way he can still feel like the protector.”

Right. A protector who constantly tears down the person he's supposed to be protecting? I'm sorry, but this is seriously not working for me.

“Oh, ditch the outraged expression, Ellie,” Nikky says with a gravelly laugh. “It's all…posturing. He's never laid a finger on me. And he did put everything he had in this business when I started out. Everything. If I live to be a hundred, I will always owe him for that.” Then she looks at me, hard, like a teacher awaiting my response on an oral exam.

“So…you're happy?”

Her laugh startles me. “God, you're so young,” she says, and probably would have said more if her phone hadn't rung just then. Grateful for the interruption, I scurry out of her office and back to my cubby-of-the-week, wondering how fast I can get my work done, wondering what's up with Tina and Luke, wondering why a woman like Nikky Katz would be so willing to settle for…whatever it is she's settling for.

And thanking my lucky stars I'm not like that.

T
he bad news is, it takes me nearly an hour to make the trek on the A train from midtown Manhattan to Richmond Hill. The good news is, our house is only a few blocks from the subway stop. And it's at the end of the line, so if I pass out—which has happened more than once—the conductor usually gives me a poke to make sure I get off.

Except for a few months, I have lived my entire life in this neighborhood. I don't hate it, exactly, but the place is like quicksand. The harder you fight to get out, the more it sucks you back in. I've watched too many of my friends from high school settle into virtually the same lives as their parents had, even if they moved to another neighborhood, to Ozone Park or Forest Hills or Jamaica. Not that there's anything wrong with that, as long as you're sure that's what you want.

I don't.

And yet my entire body betrays me, sighing with relief the
minute I set foot on Lefferts Boulevard. For good or ill, this is home, has been my entire life, and there's something to be said for leaving the stresses of the city behind on the train. I can almost hear them, banging and howling as the train pulls away on the elevated tracks overhead.

I breathe in the bitterly cold, damp air as I clomp along, my toes freezing in these damn shoes (you will rarely find me in flats—without heels, I look like I'm standing in a hole). Pushing out a crystallized sigh, I pass the duplexes that were pretty much all single family homes when I was a kid, now almost all turned into apartments. Cooking smells accost me as I walk, cruelly taunting my empty stomach—East Indian, Caribbean, Asian stir-fries, the occasional whiff of something solidly middle European. We live near the end of the block, our pair of semidetached houses the same baby blue with white trim as they have been ever since I can remember. Twin front yards flank identical stoops, each just about big enough for ten blades of grass and a tub of marigolds or impatiens in the summer, although the Nyugens installed a small, gurgling fountain on their side last summer. We have a garage, in which resides a 1979 Buick LeSabre that my grandfather drives maybe three times a year, that I drive when there's absolutely no way I can avoid it.

After my grandfather returned from the Korean War, when my father was six, he used a VA loan to buy the half that Leo, Starr and I live in now. When the Goodmans next door decided to move to Jersey in '73, Nana and Leo bought the other side for my parents and sister, who was then a year old. The rationale was, since my father and grandfather were now partners in the shoe store over on Atlantic Avenue, why not live close to each other, too? I've often wondered how my mother felt about this arrangement, especially as she and my grandmother did not get along. Of course, my grandmother never got along particularly well with anybody, save for maybe my sister.

I pass Mrs. Patel's, across the street and a couple houses
down from mine, trying to remember when she first put up the plastic flamingo. Junior High, I think. Brightly illuminated by a pair of spotlights, he leans rakishly in her speck of a yard, still dressed in his Santa Claus hat.

The windows in both of our houses are lit up; a muted salsa beat throbs from the Gomez apartment, from what had been our living room when I still lived there. My gaze shifts to the other side, where I live now with my daughter and grandfather. And out of nowhere the thought comes,
What if you never leave this house? What if you end up marking every season for the rest of your life by whatever outfit Mrs. Patel's flamingo is wearing?

My blood runs cold. Home is all well and good, but your
childhood
home is someplace you're supposed to be able to come back and visit, not rot in—

“Hey, you! You forget where you live or what?”

That's Frances. Scardinare. Luke's mother. Figures she'd get home the same time as me. Not that I don't love Frances, but sometimes there just isn't room in your head for anybody else.

But I smile anyway. Between Mrs. Patel's spotlights and these damn halogens, the street's lit up practically like it's daytime. “Just trying to figure out if I've got the energy to haul my butt up these stairs, that's all.”

“I know what you mean.” Frances passes her own stoop, her long, thin arms weighted down with several grocery bags. Let me tell you, when I hit my late fifties? I should look half as good as Frances does. Not that I will, considering she's a good head taller than I am and has all this incredible bone structure. And
legs.
Even after six kids, she's still a size ten. Without dieting. And since she started earning her own money selling real estate a couple years ago, she dresses well. Has her hair done at Reggio's once a month, too, this really flattering, layered style that sets off her big eyes and high cheekbones. And somehow, it stays looking good between cuts. Me, my hair already looks like it's growing out by the time I've tipped the shampoo girl.

Still clutching the bags, Frances holds out one arm for a hug, her wide mouth splayed in a huge grin. My heart does a little skip: when my mother died and my grandmother didn't seem any too hot on the idea of filling the gap in my life, Frances did, like a mother cat taking on an extra kitten. The woman scares the snot out of me, but I would not have survived my teenage years without her. Or at least, I doubt anyone else would have.

She lets go, a frigid breeze toying with her dark hair. “Did you hear? Petie and Heather are finally getting married!”

Pete's—nobody, but nobody besides Frances can get away with calling him “Petie”—the brother after Luke, a year younger. Heather Abruzzo was three years behind me, I think, but her older sister Joanne used to hang out with Tina and me from time to time when we were teenagers. “No! When?”

“June, when else—?”

My front door pops open; with an affronted, “Geez,
finally!
” my daughter shoots out of the house and down the steps to the icy sidewalk, fusing to my hip. I hug her back, noticing she's in her nightgown and Elmo slippers.

“Get back inside, you'll catch your death!”

Through her glasses, reproachful, and slightly pitying, brown eyes roll up to meet mine. “You don't catch colds from the cold. You catch 'em from
germs.
”

I do know this, actually. But it's unnerving hearing it from someone who's still short enough to ride the bus for free.

“Maybe so.” I scoop her up into my arms—it's like picking up a dust bunny, she's so light—and kiss her on her cold, freckled little nose. I want to eat her up, even as the thought that we're stuck with each other forever still gives me pause. “But you could get frostbite,” I say, “and that would be a lot worse, 'cause then your toes'd fall off.”

That gets a considering look. I can tell she doesn't quite believe it, but is this really a chance she wants to take?

“Go back inside, Twink,” I say, putting her down, feeling like a fraud, wondering if I'd feel less like one if she'd been planned. If I could tell her the truth about her father. If I
knew
the truth about her father. “I'll be up in just a minute, I promise.”

“Swear?”

“Swear.”

She trudges back up the stairs, a tiny, shivering figure in flowery flannel, only to turn and threaten me: If I'm not inside by the time the big hand's moved to the next number, she's coming to get me.

After the door closes, Frances laughs. Then she says, “You're getting home kind of late, aren't you?”

“It's not seven yet,” I say, but she gives me this reproving stare, her mouth all screwed up, then sighs.

“You work too hard.”

“And you don't?”

“My kids are grown. Or nearly.” Her five oldest sons are out of the house; the youngest, Jason, is seventeen and probably wishes he was. “It doesn't matter if I'm not there to cook their dinner.” I laugh, and she rolls her huge, almost black eyes. “Okay, so maybe I never did cook their dinner, but at least I was there. And speaking of dinner—” she shifts her bags to one hand, flexing the fingers on the other “—we're going up to Salerno's, you and Leo and the baby should come with us. Our treat.”

Frances and Jimmy are always like this, wanting to take us to dinner, their treat. Of course, my grandfather is just as bad, which gets to be a major headache when he and Jimmy start fighting over the bill.

“Starr's already in her jammies.”

“So she'll get dressed again. It's barely seven. What's the big deal?”

“Leo did brisket.”

“Which is always better the next day, right? So come on, you
look like you could do with a night out. And if you're there, we might even be able to enjoy our meal without looking at Jason's sulky face all night.”

An understatement if ever there was one. My needing a night out, I mean, although I know what she means about Jason's sulking, too. Poor kid. Adolescence has hit him harder than all his brothers combined. Not that the Scardinare testosterone surges didn't terrorize the neighborhood for several years—there was an eight-or ten-year period when there were at least four teenagers in the house at any given time—but I guess it's harder on Jason, being the baby and not having his older brothers around all that much. He's like a walking David Lynch movie—very dark, very weird, with lots of incomprehensible erotic undertones. If I hadn't baby-sat for him when he was little, he'd probably creep me out.

To further complicate things, I think he has a crush on me. He's over here constantly when I'm not at work, following me around, his big moony eyes peering out at me through his straggly black bangs, like prisoners who've lost all hope. Think Nicholas Cage in
Moonstruck,
then multiply by ten. And like Cher, I want to smack the poor kid and yell “Snap out of it!”

But I don't have the heart.

Then I remember, with a sickening thud, the main reason, or reasons, I can't leave the house tonight: Tina. Whom I'm supposed to meet in a little over an hour.

“Mama!” Starr's shrill little voice darts out from the doorway. Her hands are on her hips. “The big hand's moved past
two
numbers! That's
ten minutes!
”

“Another time,” I say to Frances.

She sighs and shakes her head, then turns toward her house, shouting, “Dinner, here, Sunday, Heather wants to show off her ring,” over her shoulder as she goes.

And I head up the stairs, wondering how somebody with no discernible personal life can have so many demands on her time.

 

An hour later, I'm by the front door, slipping my father's coat over an outfit more appropriate to Pinky's—Levi's, slouch boots (with heels that could double as shishkebob skewers), a dark red vintage mohair sweater I found on eBay for ten bucks. I don't know why I prefer older clothes to new, other than the obvious fact that I can't afford to buy new. Nor do I know anybody who can. I mean, I read
Vogue
and think,
chyeah,
right. Not that I don't think some of the stuff is seriously hot, but Jesus. Even if I weren't a foot too short to wear any of it, by the time I could afford it, I'd be so old I'd look like a freak in it, anyway. I mean, two grand for a fringed skirt shorter than something I'd let my five-year-old wear? Please. And let's not go anywhere near the six-or eight-or fifteen-hundred-dollar handbags. You're supposed to be afraid that somebody might steal what's
in
your purse, not the purse itself. Or am I missing something here?

So I wear old, cheap and/or free stuff. Mind you, having never harbored a secret desire to look like a bag lady, it's old,
good-looking
cheap and/or free stuff. I do have, if I say so myself, a certain flair. For the ridiculous, perhaps, but at least nobody can accuse me of looking like everybody else.

Or around here, like
anybody
else. Sorry, but I don't do big hair.

Any
way…by the time I read Starr the next chapter of
Through the Looking Glass
—interrupted a billion times by her pointing out words she recognized—and did two thorough monster sweeps of her room (there's a big hairy purple one with a snotty nose and “sticky-outty” teeth who's been a real pain in the butt lately) and tucked her in, it's too late to eat, and my stomach is pitching five fits.

My grandfather, who's been vacuuming the downstairs rooms, glances up from winding the cord into a precise figure eight, over and over, around the upright's handles. It drives me
nuts when I use the machine after he does. I keep telling him, it takes twice as long to do it this way, why not just loop it around the handles and be done with it? All that matters is that it's up and out of the way, right? But he insists it's neater the way he does it, that's the trouble with the world these days, nobody takes the time to do anything carefully.

“You're going out?” he says, hauling the Eureka out of the room.

“Yeah.” I cram an angora beret over my hair, yelling out, “Just to Pinky's for a bit. Tina asked me to meet her there.”

Leo returns, plopping down into his favorite armchair and picking up the Nintendo controller. A second later, one of the Mario Brothers games blooms on the TV screen. The game system's a hand-me-down from some Scardinare brother or other. Leo plays for hours, insisting it keeps his reflexes fine-tuned. “What's up with her?”

“Couldn't tell ya.”

He pauses the game to give me a more considering look, although I can't really see his eyes through the sofa lamp's glare off his glasses. But I can sure feel it. You have to understand, my grandfather is by no means some shriveled, sunken little old man. Still more than six feet tall, with a ramrod posture he expects everyone around him to emulate, even seated he's an imposing figure. Age-loosened skin drapes gracefully around features too broad, too crude, to be called handsome, as though the sculptor had been in too much of a hurry to do much more than get the basics down. If he chose to be mean, he would be frightening. As it is, no mugger in his right mind would dare mess with him. Ironic considering that nobody's a softer touch than Leo. I don't dare take him into Manhattan—he'd be broke before he'd been off the train ten minutes, giving everything away to every panhandler he saw.