Manhattan Lullaby (14 page)

Reaching up, she stroked her palm along the side of his face and finished it off with a little motherly pat. “You're a good boy, Bradley. A good boy.”

He opened the door to let her out. “Knock him dead, Ma,” he said, and he watched her walk down the hall to the elevators, tottering just a little on the unfamiliar heels.

The China Grill is located on West 53rd Street on the ground floor of the CBS Building. Because of this prestigious connection to a major network, the place attracts those who wish to eat as well as those who wish to be seen while they are eating and those who wish to observe those who wish to be seen. It was, in other words, just the sort of place where Jeffrey Mondavi loved to hang out.

When Maxine arrived, therefore, Jeffrey was already hanging out, leaning casually against the long bar, looking every inch the successful young Manhattan male. He was dressed in the capacious unicolored uniform of the moment, which is to say that his shirt was the same color as his suit and his tie, and his trousers looked like there was enough room inside for at least one more person.

Maxine saw him before he saw her because he was busy being
seen
by a table occupied by four young women who seemed to consist mostly of long hair and longer legs. She hesitated by the door for a moment, undecided whether to plow on through the crowd or stand there and wait until his eyes wandered in her direction. While she was waiting to be discovered, she looked around. She had never been to the China Grill before, or for that matter to any place that even vaguely resembled it.

From the towering ceiling hung a series of elliptical objects that may have been either light fixtures or a fleet of hovering extraterrestrial vehicles. An underwater effect was created by the stillwater-green of the soaring marbleized walls and the sunken-city-of-Atlantis tessellated floor, through which wandered a series of quotations from the journals of Marco Polo, in long, thin snakes of darker tile. Maxine didn't know that was what they were, of course, and probably wouldn't have cared if she had—the only Polo that she was on familiar terms with was the brand name.

She wondered briefly if she might be any good at writing restaurant reviews. But after a few moments of silently reciting her impressions of the decor, she realized that this might become a permanent pastime if she waited for Jeffrey to come and get her, or even to notice that she had arrived. So, with more bravado than she actually felt, she pushed her way through the densely packed restaurant, noticing as she went that nearly every woman in the room was wearing black.

At least I got the color right, she thought, approaching on Jeffrey's blind side. And it wasn't until she placed a tentative hand on his arm that he became aware of her at all.

“Jeffrey?” It was half question, half greeting.

“Maxine!” He turned at the sound of his name and then swooped down and gave her a big kiss on the cheek, nearly knocking her off balance. Then he moved back a little and looked at her. “I always said you were the best-looking woman at
Destiny
. And trust you to know that Bleak Chic is all the rage in this place. Black is back with a vengeance this season.”

The compliment relaxed her a little, as did the fact that he had now completely turned his back on the table of four girls. He looped a proprietary arm around her waist. “Love the earrings,
chérie
,” he whispered, leaning close and letting his hot breath fog up the faux for a few seconds. “Care for a drink?”

Maxine decided that a drink was definitely what she cared for—probably two—compliments and attention being relaxing only to a certain point. She did a half turn to look behind the bar, feeling as she did so the warm form of Jeffrey Mondavi closing in behind her with the silent precision of a bank vault thumping shut. But she dismissed the increased proximity, putting it down to the fact that the China Grill was not much less crowded than the country from which it drew its name.

She occupied her attention instead with the activity behind the bar. At one end was an open kitchen with perhaps a dozen chefs and chefettes frantically stir-frying, grilling and wokking and then tossing their results with vast quantities of rice or noodles. To Maxine it looked as though they were not so much
cooking
the food as
assembling
it, which was to her indicative not just of the current state of the kitchen but of the society in which it existed. Nobody had time to do things the old-fashioned way anymore. A trend that seemed to apply equally to eating and procreating.

At the other end of the bar, where she was standing with the increasingly proximate Jeffrey, an impressive array of bottles testified to the international tastes of the clientele. And on the back wall were additional glass shelves to accommodate the dozens of exotic liqueurs and liquors that were no doubt de rigueur with the Bleak Chic set, including one whole shelf given over to imported single malt scotches with names like Cardhu, Glenfargh, Knockando and Laphroaig, the pronunciations of which were difficult at best and no doubt impossible if consumed. Maxine imagined that even an aficionado would be reduced to ordering “another third from the left for me and a second from the right for my friend” after not too many drinks.

She turned to Jeffrey. “What are you drinking?” she asked, eyeing the half-empty square glass that sat before him on the bar.

“Water.”

“Water?”

“Well, actually, it's Rokko,” he said, rounding the
o
and letting both
k
's catch briefly in the back of his throat.

Maxine looked puzzled.

“Japanese mineral water,” he explained and then added, “It's the most expensive one they have. Six bucks a bottle.”

“Six dollars for a little bottle of water!” Maxine had some trouble swallowing that. She thought to herself, when I was first married, for six dollars I could feed Harry and me for a week. She said to Jeffrey, “If they charge six dollars for water, what do they charge for the drinks?”

“What difference does it make? My women go first-class—all the way.” And he gave her a little wink. “You like wine? They have a very good California Chardonnay here, Grgich Hills, Napa Valley '84. Or if you like French, the Chassagne Montrachet '85 is excellent.”

His accent was perfect and perfectly rehearsed. Maxine had the definite impression that he had said the same line a few times before. Probably in front of the bathroom mirror.

“Are you going to have some?” Since her own experience with wine did not extend much beyond Mogen David, Maxine was uncertain which if either she should choose so that her vineal ignorance would not be quite so obvious.

Jeffrey shook his head. “I never touch alcohol,” he stated monastically and then added, looking deep into her eyes, his pupils contracting to tiny thrusting dark points, “I find it dulls the senses.” And he let the word
senses
linger on his tongue, ending it with a slight sibilance as he pushed the tip of his tongue suggestively against the gap in his front teeth.

“I'll have a vodka and tonic,” said Maxine, quickly looking away. “With lime.”

By the time their table was ready Maxine had had two vodka and tonics, and Jeffrey had done his bit for the trade deficit, matching her drink for drink with his imported designer water. She was feeling better and he was feeling her, with little rubs and pats here and there. Rather, she reflected, basking in the warm glow of the vodka, in the same way one pinches a melon to see if it is not overripe.

For the most part, though, she ignored these little liberties because Jeffrey, as it turned out, was an excellent listener, and it had been a long time since she had had anybody who wanted to listen to
her
. So if he did lean in a little closer than necessary to do it, well, having an attractive young man draped over you wasn't the worst way to pass an evening. It was certainly better than having someone named Rogue spit up on your neck.

But watching all that food being
assembled
behind the bar, smelling the exotic smells of ginger and cilantro, soy and curry, had set her taste buds reeling off onto tangents of anticipated pleasure. At the moment, food and not conversation was her ultimate desire. When the waiter brought the menus, she was more than ready to order.

Jeffrey perused his menu like the expert that he was. Although he already knew what he was going to order, he liked the effect of looking like he was making up his mind anew. Then he waited politely for Maxine to give hers the once-over. It didn't take long before she put her menu back on the table.

“Do you know what you want?” he asked, rubbing warm fingers over the top of her hand. And Maxine had the fleeting impression that he was talking about more than just food. But her appetite ruled the moment, and she ignored the implications in his touch and relayed her order. Jeffrey in turn beckoned to the waiter who had been hovering discreetly nearby.

“The lady will have the sautéed foie gras and the grilled Colorado lamb with the jade sauce. And I'll have the raw Beijing oysters in black sauce and the dry aged Szechuan beef.” He handed the menus back to the waiter, who tucked them under his arm and finished writing the order. But before he could leave the table Jeffrey stopped him. “On second thought, make that a
double
order of the oysters.” Both he and the waiter looked briefly at Maxine. “And another round of drinks too.”

While Jeffrey was busy devouring his second plate of raw oysters, Bradley was frantically searching for the thermometer. Rogue had woken up screaming and hot, and even Bradley, who knew next to nothing about babies, knew a sick one when he saw one. Finally he found it and thrust it into the mouth of his son.

But, as he quickly discovered, taking a baby's temperature is not a simple task. When babies are sick they cry, and when they cry they open their mouths—a lot. And Bradley could not get an accurate reading. Either Rogue had a fever of 104 or a temperature of 82, which meant he was comatose even though he wasn't. Either way, it was a bad sign.

Frantic now and more than a little frightened both by his own ignorance and by the screams emanating from the infant, Bradley did the only thing he could think of. He bundled up the baby and headed for the nearest Emergency Room.

When he got to the hospital, which happened to be called Our Lady of Perpetual Miracles, no doubt a very reassuring name for any who consigned themselves into its care, he was relieved to find that, it not being a full moon, a Saturday night, Halloween or the playoff of a major sports event, instead of the crowd he had expected to find in his what-else-can-go-wrong frame of mind, the Emergency Room was all but empty.

He hurried through the waiting room, across the gray tiled floor, past the drab green walls, the sagging couch and the coffee table with one miserable
Time
magazine folded open at an ad for Blue Cross and rushed up to the desk, which harbored a large black woman encased in a blindingly white uniform, her hair pulled back in a tight, tight bun. The deskplate announced “Admitting Nurse”; her nameplate defined her as Miss McAdams.

“Can I help you?” she rumbled in a voice deeper than anything Bradley had heard since the last time he had seen an interview with Larry Holmes.

“It's my baby. He's sick,” cried Bradley, stating the obvious and thrusting the bundle that was Rogue forward for inspection.

Nurse McAdams waved the bundle aside. “Have a seat,” she boomed, indicating the lone worn chair in front of her desk with one hand and extracting a fresh yellow form from her drawer with the other, a gesture she performed with all the grace of a symphony conductor leading his favorite orchestra.

Obediently, Bradley sat down, cuddling Rogue protectively to him, overwhelmed with feelings of guilt, fear and something that, had he been a mother, he would have identified immediately as maternal instinct. The baby had stopped crying now, and Bradley found that even more alarming. “I don't know what's wrong. He—he's got a temperature, I think, and—”

“The
doctor
will decide what is wrong with the child,” stated Nurse McAdams, evoking the name of the all-powerful being in the slightly musical cadence that evokes visions of palm trees and beaches and still blue seas. “But first we have to fill out this form.” She picked up a well-sharpened pencil. “Your name?”

“Kraft, Bradley Kraft. Look, couldn't we see a doctor first?”

“
First
, we will fill out the form.” Nurse McAdams peered at him from over the top of her wire-rimmed glasses. It was a look that said that she tolerated no opposition. This was, after all, a hospital, and hospitals are generally not noted for their democratic ideology. She looked back at the form. “Mrs. Kraft's name?”

“Maxine,” replied Bradley automatically. And Nurse McAdams wrote down Maxine next to Name of Mother.

“Child's name?”

“Rogue,” said Bradley, who was anxious to get this over with and get in to see a doctor, an intern, or even a nurse with a large family.

Nurse McAdams paused and peered over her glasses once more. “Rogue?” She rolled the word off her tongue like it had a bad taste and then smacked her ample lips together as if to clear further traces of it from her mouth.

“Is there a problem with that?” bristled Bradley, who, clutching the hot, hot, baby tighter in his arms, was in no mood for explanations or excuses.

“Not for me,” replied the nurse and wrote down Rogue next to Name of Patient.

“How old is the child?” she asked next, this time without looking up from the form.

“Old?”

She looked up and rephrased the question. “When was he born?”

Bradley swallowed hard. Not surprisingly, fear and worry had replaced common sense. He hadn't anticipated this turn of events. “I don't know?” It was a little voice with just a little question mark at the end of it.

“You don't
know
when your baby was born?” Nurse McAdams put down her pencil and folded her huge hands in front of her like a schoolteacher talking to a naughty pupil.