Just Friends (11 page)

Other people said confidently that they were “in love.” How could they tell? Mere companionship was not enough; she knew that now. Yet there must be more to love than the skittishness that attended every new affair, the coiled-up excitement that could be triggered into passion by a single glance or the touch of a finger. Passion burned very prettily, but sooner or later the flames went out—or left a scar.

Freya blinked her eyes and hauled herself back into the present. Her breath had steamed a cloudy circle on the window. She wiped it clear with the sleeve of her sweatshirt and turned away from the window. Stop wittering; get packing. She dragged a chair over to the closet and reached for her two suitcases, old friends, stacked on a high shelf. When she yanked them down, dust and debris showered onto her head and drifted to the floor. Damn. She fetched a dustpan and brush to sweep up the mess, and a long apron to protect her clothes, then dusted off her hair and found an old cotton scarf to tie washerwoman-style around her head. It was funny to think this had been a quasi-feminist fashion some time back in the eighties. She wondered if she looked like Simone de Beauvoir.

She made the bed roughly and put her suitcases on top, lids flipped open. The good thing about having no fixed address was that you never accumulated too much stuff. Not for her the rubble of old letters and photographs and theater programs, the personal collection of books with one’s own signature written with increasing fluency on the flyleaf, the balding childhood bunny rabbit, the gewgaws and love gifts, vases, bowls, framed reproductions, and other sentimental nonsense that most people seemed unable to live without. A truly independent woman, Freya told herself, ought to be able to pack up her life in an hour, max. Besides, when you were five foot ten, no one offered to carry your luggage.

Freya filled the two suitcases, staggered to the elevator with both of them, and stowed them downstairs in the doorman’s cubbyhole until she was ready to take a cab to Jack’s. Feeling disheveled, and grumpy with hunger, she stood in the kitchen and chomped eight Ritz crackers in a row; she had bought them herself, so it wasn’t stealing. Her eyes roved around the neat, familiar room. She pictured Michael in the striped apron, sleeves rolled up, meticulously chopping and measuring, frowning over his recipe book like a small boy doing his homework. He was a good cook, and at the beginning this had pleased and impressed her. But recently it had sometimes seemed a burden to be presented with a complicated meal over which she was meant to rhapsodize, when all she’d wanted in the first place was cheese on toast and a good book in bed.

Swallowing hastily, She located her handbag and the two items that she had laid ready on top of the chest of drawers, now empty and otherwise bare. One was a small framed photograph of her mother, glamorous in boots and a Russian hat, laughing in a blur of pigeons: Paris, Place Vendôme, 1972—the last week, possibly the last day Freya had seen her. For a moment Freya held the photo in her palm, staring down at it:
Why aren’t you here?
The carefree eyes smiled back at her. Her mother had been only thirty-one, four years younger than Freya was now, when she died. Freya stroked the cold glass with a fingertip, then carefully slotted the picture into an inner pocket of her bag.

The other item was an airline wallet containing two tickets for England, one for her and one for . . . Well, who? The wedding was less than three weeks away. Freya felt a burst of anger that Michael couldn’t have waited a bit longer to ditch her. She couldn’t go alone; she
couldn’t
. Her imagination raced ahead, conjuring up scenes of embarrassment and humiliation—and that’s when she remembered the hat. She had bought it specially. Where was it? Climbing onto the chair once again, she foraged in the clutter of overnight bags, tennis-ball cans, rolled-up posters and exercise weights until she spied the smartly striped box. She quailed at adding yet another item to her heap of luggage, but without a hat it was unthinkable to—

What was that?
Freya froze, arm arrested in midair. She could hear a distinct metallic scuffling, horribly like the sound of a key in a lock. Instinctively she crouched low and slid off the chair. It couldn’t be!

But it was. Freya felt a faint draft of air as the apartment door opened. She heard footsteps, the rustle of clothing or shopping bags, then a slam loud enough to make her jump. She checked her watch: barely five o’clock, much too early for Michael. Besides, she could smell perfume. She remembered Cat’s theory that Michael might have found another woman, and her own scoffing denial. Or what if it was a robber? No law said that all robbers were men. She grabbed the dustpan and brush, and holding them before her like shield and dagger, edged cautiously into the corridor.

An elderly woman was hanging something up in the hall closet. She wore a neat, old-fashioned suit of celery green, its pleated skirt falling modestly to her plump calves, and had a nimbus of fluffy white hair sculpted like a meringue. Freya must have made some small sound, for the woman suddenly turned, saw her, and clutched a hand to the pussycat bow at her neck.

“My goodness! You practically scared me to death!”

Freya stared. Who was this person?

Whoever she was, she seemed quite unabashed. “I thought you came on Tuesdays,” she said, closing the closet door with a firm hand. She advanced on Freya, head high, a tsarina approaching a serf. “Do. you. speak. English?”

Freya opened her mouth, but no words emerged.

The woman aimed an index finger at her at her own heart. “I,” she said slowly and distinctly, “am Mrs. Petersen, Mr. Petersen’s mother.” She thought for a moment.
“La madre de Signor Petersen. Comprendo?”

Freya’s brain raced. What was Michael’s mother doing here? And why was she speaking in mangled Spanish? Freya knew nothing about Mrs. Petersen except that she was divorced, worshipped her son, and worked as an administrator at some fancy girls’ school in Minnesota. She had consistently refused to acknowledge Freya’s existence. On the few occasions when Freya had happened to answer the phone, Mrs. Petersen had deflected any attempts at small talk with a curt “May I please speak to my son?”—always in a tone of aggrieved suspicion, as if Freya had broken into the apartment and was holding Michael at gunpoint.

“Oh, never mind. Come with me.” Mrs. Petersen beckoned commandingly and bustled toward the kitchen.

Freya hesitated. Did she really look like a maid? A
Mexican
maid? She caught a glimpse of herself in a far mirror, complete with dustpan, apron, and knotted headscarf: not so much Simone de Beauvoir as Mrs. Mop. She allowed herself to be led zombielike into the kitchen where Mrs. Petersen demonstrated exactly how she was to defrost the refrigerator, empty and wipe clean the food cabinets, and polish the tea kettle. Next stop was the bathroom, where Freya was instructed to disinfect the tiles and scrub the toilet.

“Sí, sí.”
She nodded meekly.

When they reached the bedroom, Mrs. Petersen eyed the open closet, and its line of bare hangers, with satisfaction. She checked that Freya’s chest of drawers was empty, ran one dustometer finger across the top, and grimaced. Freya noticed with dismay that her handbag was sitting on a chair next to the chest, conspicuous as an elephant. Giving a theatrical gasp, she ran across the room to screen the bag, and pointed openmouthed at the empty closet. “Pliss, hhhhwhere ees Mees Freya?”

“Gone.” Mrs. Petersen gestured like someone shooing geese.
“Vamoose.”

Freya crossed herself.

“No, no, Juanita, or whatever your name is, it’s all for the best.
No bueno muchacha. Artista.
” Mrs. Petersen frowned.
“Inglesi.”

“Ah.” Freya sighed in condolence.

Mrs. Petersen was now rifling through her son’s clothes, pulling out his suits and laying them on the bed. “I want all these to go to the cleaner’s, understand?
Launderio.
”

“Sí.”
Did the woman think Freya carried the Black Death?

“You get started, then. I have some calls to make.
Telephonio.
”

Freya listened to the retreating tattoo of Mrs. Petersen’s heels. Then she took off the apron, folded it, and placed it in the middle of Michael’s bed, with the apartment key on top. She considered leaving a note, but there seemed nothing to say. Quickly she picked up her purse and hat box, wondering how she was going to sneak out of here. From the living room Mrs. Petersen’s voice rose in a girlish gush. Evidently she and an old friend had been telephonically reunited. Freya lurked just out of sight in the bedroom doorway, ears cocked, waiting for an opportunity to escape.

“. . . not too bad. I have the maid here, getting everything back into shape. I think I’ll rearrange the furniture, too. It’s so important for Mikey to have a fresh start, with no reminders.”

Mikey?
Freya rolled her eyes.

“. . . Of course, it was his decision, Myra. You know I never interfere.”

Ha!

“He knew in his heart that she wasn’t the woman for him. She was always so offhand when I called, you know what these city girls are like nowadays. Well, I say
girl
, but from what Michael told me she sounded quite ‘experienced,’ if you know what I mean.”

Bastard!

“. . . Yes, I do know times have changed. I may not be an Eastern liberal, but that doesn’t mean I’m unworldly. I see those magazines at the hairdresser’s with all the articles about ess ee ex. There are pernicious forces abroad in these United States of ours. We have to fight to protect those we love. My Michael has always been such a sweet, innocent boy. Did I ever tell you that darling thing he said once at Sunday School?”

Only nine billion times, I bet.

“. . . Oh. Well, anyway, I know what’s right for my son: a nice American girl, somebody young and fresh who can make him a lovely home, not some Mata Hari.”

Freya ground her teeth.

“. . . not actually Dutch, no. I understand she’s British. But these foreign women are all the same. He told me she never cooked him a real breakfast, not once. She wouldn’t even sew on a button for him, though she’s been living off him for months.”

By now Freya was burning with indignation. How could Michael have been so disloyal? It was intolerable to think that all the time she had been trying to fit in with his lifestyle, he had been giving his mother weekly bulletins on her behavior. She glared malevolently around the bedroom, center of their supposed togetherness. Her eye fell upon the pile of clothes that Mrs. Petersen had instructed her to take to the cleaner’s. It gave her an idea.

“. . . I imagine it was one of those, you know,
physical
things. But that always wears off, doesn’t it. Which reminds me, how’s Harold? Still enjoying his ham radio?
And where do you think you’re going?
”

These last words were addressed to Freya, who was walking boldly across the living room to the front door. Wedged between her arms and chin was a great heap of Michael’s suits, under which she had contrived to conceal her own possessions. Mrs. Petersen stiffened in her chair. Her eyes bulged with outrage.

For explanation, Freya nodded at her overflowing armful.
“Sí sí por favor y viva españa hasta la vista,”
she gabbled frantically, trying to open the apartment door with her little finger. It was maddeningly resistant.
“Enchilada Lope de Vega agua minerale la cucuracha.”

The door yielded explosively, nearly toppling her backwards. She headed for the elevator at a rapid waddle and stabbed the down button.
Quick!
she prayed, glancing back at the door of 12B, which had slammed behind her and so far remained shut. As soon as the elevator arrived Freya leaped inside, threw everything on the floor, and pressed
L
for lobby. She checked once more to see that she was safe, and nearly froze with horror to see Mrs. Petersen’s white little-old-lady head playing peekaboo around the apartment door.

“The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain,” Freya told her, in her haughtiest English accent, and stepped back smartly. The elevator doors lumbered shut an inch from her nose.

Five minutes later she tumbled into Joe’s Dri-Kleen and dumped Michael’s suits in a slithery pile on the counter. Her arms ached. She felt sweaty and untidy and unattractive and extremely angry.

“Name?”

“Petersen.” Freya spelled it out for him, impatience rising.

“Regular or rush?”

“Whatever’s most expensive.”

While Joe filled out the tickets, Freya rested her elbows on the counter, scowling at a sign that read, repairs on the premises. just ask! What was she doing here? What kind of person took the dry cleaning for her ex-lover, at the behest of her ex-lover’s mother, who thought she was the cleaning lady? An idiot, that’s who. How dared Michael complain about her to his mother! What did he mean,
experienced
?