That Magic Mischief (11 page)

“Old school, excellent — ”

“Listen, Cybill, thanks for thinking of me, I’m not interes — ”
Thwack!
Annabelle rubbed her bottom.
Would she have to go out into the street to get away from the flippin’ thing?
Only the idea of Nosy Ned kept her in her apartment. She hissed at the plant, and was sure that it hissed back.

“If it’s money, let me tell you, I’ve got a pretty healthy budget for this. Minnehan is making a dramatic comeback, and who knows, if he likes you, it could turn into more. Anyway, the number I’m thinking of is — ”

Cybill quoted a fee that stopped Annabelle in mid-swing, and caused the plant to relax back into its pot, and, if possible, look infuriatingly complacent.

“Oh.” Annabelle sat down on the floor, hard. “So, um. What exactly are you looking for? General interest, or a time-of-day kind of thing, how he is at that moment, or — ”

“Surprise me. Do what you want.”

“This seems a bit too good to be true.”

“So you’d be crazy to turn me down.”

They both laughed, and despite the unforgivable coercion on Kelli and the plant’s part, Annabelle couldn’t help liking this Cybill Franklin-Smith. “Okay, I give up. When and where?”

As they firmed up the scheduling, Annabelle kept the plant in her peripheral vision. It seemed quite calm, and damn it, yes, it was definitely self-satisfied. Hanging up, she turned on it.

“That was manipulative and sneaky! I know you’re behind all this weird shit that’s been going on! And that was my favorite toothbrush! I have had enough of you for one day
and
night, so just … sit there and leave me alone!”

She stomped over to her ‘office’ to fire up her laptop, dug into her bag for her memory stick, and her hand hit — a Polaroid?

An exact duplicate of one of the Polaroids of that slapdash Irishman.

Polaroids do not have negatives. She shivered, and spun around and glared at the plant.

“I threw those in the garbage!” Grabbing it by a corner, she winged it over in its direction. “Since this is obviously your doing —
you
keep it!”

If she hadn’t sailed in to her bedroom and slammed the door … she would have seen the picture get caught.

The breeze off the East River carried a smell that was astoundingly close to nature, the smell of actual water with a touch of actual sea salt.
Amazing
, thought Jamie, ambling down Greenpoint Avenue for home. Live here long enough, and you see — or smell — everything; the next thing they’ll be telling you, there’ll be fish living in that river.

But who needs a river full of fish when you’ve got the city that never sleeps? Jamie laughed at himself, at his own corniness, at the idea that he could still be impressed by this sprawling, impossible place. And that he could still, even after six and a half years, almost seven, feel like he’d only just arrived.

Did he feel as if he belonged? Not sure, now. Not sure. In fairness, he still traded on the accent thing, and thickened it as necessary. It was a bit of a cop-out, but if nothing else, Jamie had enough cop on to know that in this town, you did whatever worked. And also in fairness, if he was in fact being fair with himself, he’d pretty much fled Manhattan, or what he usually called city center, and settled across the river in Brooklyn, in a neighborhood that — be honest — had more in common with Dublin 7 than it did with downtown.

A Polish working-class neighborhood, the tenements and factories weren’t the least bit reminiscent of Stoneybatter’s red brick, two-up two-downs — it was more the quality of the folk, the same family-oriented, hard-working ethic that Jamie knew by heart. They had a lot in common, the Polish and the Irish, even down to the beige, boiled cuisine, but at least the Poles knew how to lash on a bit of horseradish or whatever to give the food a spark. He waved through the storefront glass to Lena Kowalski, the lady in the dry cleaners, and she flapped one huge, muscular arm at him, and starting shouting something he couldn’t hear, and as it was in Polish, he couldn’t understand it either. Since she always shouted, he couldn’t be sure if she was commenting on the weather, or scolding him for forgetting his dry cleaning. Had he left in a jacket or trousers? He’d have to check for a ticket when he got home, and legged it across 9th Street against the light, more afraid of Lena Kowalski than the oncoming traffic.

The pavement. That was pretty similar too. Nice and wide, and bumping up against the front garden walls of the apartment buildings. A bit like auld Manor Street, that led down to Blackhorse Road, that led down to the Liffey. Now that was a river. No cleaner than any of these American rivers, but a river that had a more of a personality than either the East or the Hudson.
And
he had actually seen a school of fish swimming in it. Alive yes, pelting it for the Irish Sea, most definitely, but an entire school of fish.

“Jamie! I got fresh asparagus, first of the season!”

Bobby Malachevski waved a bunch of bright green stalks at Jamie from underneath his vegetable stand’s boldly striped awning.

“The first asparagus of the season? Sure, that’ll cost me an arm and a leg.” Jamie shifted his handful of shopping bags from his right hand to his left.

“A man’s gotta — ”

“Make a living, yeah, yeah.” Jamie put on a frown, and settled in for a nice haggle. Never mind that he had patronized Bobby’s shop since the very first day he’d moved into the neighborhood, it was their thrice weekly tradition, and it would be honored.

“Look at this eggplant — ”

“Aubergine.”

“Whatever.”

“Bobby, I’ve been tellin’ ya for what, almost seven years now, it’s an aubergine.”

“Hey, how come you’re Irish and you call it something French? Hah? Hah?”

Jamie wasn’t sure, so he changed the subject. “I like the look of those red peppers.”

“May wee, monsewer, les peppaires. How many?”

Jamie smirked. “Trois.”

“Trois, by which you mean three, which in the Polish language, the language of the angels, is
trzy
.” Bobby briskly tossed three crimson peppers into a plastic bag, weighed them, and added them to what was going to be a pile of produce — a pile whose cornerstone was a big bunch of asparagus spears.

As they bantered, Bobby added some portobello mushrooms, a bag of basil, another of rosemary, seven ripe vine tomatoes, and, inevitably, a sack of spuds. Jamie shook his head as he paid the man. “You can take the lad out of Ireland, but you can’t take the potato out of his bloody shopping.”

“Food, it’s comfort. Hey, you ever thinka goin’ back, or you here for good?” Bobby handed over the change, and went back to arranging his stalks of asparagus.

“Ah, well. No idea … things changed over there, Celtic Tiger, then changed again … although if I keep up the painting racket, I could get out of paying taxes if I went back home.”

“Are you shittin’ me?” Bobby’s eyes bulged out of his head. After almost twenty years in the family business, he knew a sweet deal when he heard one. “No taxes?
No taxes?
You’re nuts if you stay here, man. No offense, I’d miss your sparklin’ personality, not to mention your vegetable habit, but Jesus wept … no taxes … ”

Jamie left Bobby to mutter into the heads of lettuce, and worked his way toward home. He waved to a couple of the kids on their way home from school, and wondered why he’d let that slip. If he moved back to Ireland, yes, he could claim artist’s status and therefore all the proceeds from his art would be exactly that — all his. He knew that Dublin had changed, grown, improved drastically — but could he really leave all this behind? Was he close enough to being established? If he got an agent he could pretty much live anywhere — work in Dublin, show in New York, sell in Europe … Could he have his Big Apple and eat it, too?

It wasn’t like him to get ahead of himself like that. That was more his Auntie Maeve’s style, always grabbing at his hand for quick scan, pouring tea down his throat for a bit of a reading, whether you wanted it or not. Ah, sure, he loved her, mad as a bag of hammers as she was, adored by the entire family … but also one of the reasons that most of the sons, daughters, and cousins had stayed behind in Éire, as she was safely planted in Amerikay. All but Jamie, and if anything, bless her, she was as good a reason as any to get the hell out of Dodge.

As he approached the converted umbrella factory, the new guy on the third floor was coming out. Jamie settled in for a bit of a chat, but the fella just grunted hello and walked quickly toward the avenue. Jamie caught the door a split second before the heavy metal hit him in the face. Even if he lived here until he died, he’d never understand the lack of conversation.

He grabbed the post off the floor, and began the six-flight walk up to his floor. It wasn’t as if he’d wanted to, like, get into the lad’s business. Just say hello, feck’s sake like, howaya and all that, just being friendly, neighborly.
I’m not looking for a new best mate, but would it kill you to stop for a half a bloody minute for a bit of a chat —

He was still ranting silently as he unlocked the door to his flat.

It was a New York miracle, thanks to Our Lady of the Boroughs — no one in Manhattan, unless they bought in Soho in the Sixties or Tribeca in the very very very early eighties had anything near to this much space. Industrial-sized (although why it required this much space to make umbrellas, he’d never know), with big windows and floor to ceiling columns — it was movie star stuff. The fact that there was no central heating wasn’t noticeable if you grew up in a terrace house in Stoneybatter, and the dust, well, the dust went unnoticed. Who cared if the windows were opaque? Or that walls had been thrown up willy nilly, cutting the space into flat-mate sized pieces? Given the size of Jamie’s family, it didn’t faze him living with five — or was it six? — people. Come to think of it, he hadn’t heard a peep out of the northwest corner in weeks.

The hardwood floor didn’t gleam, but it did seem to go on for miles. The floor to ceiling windows, despite their opacity, let in light from four sides. Exposed brick walls framed the windows, and Jamie had gotten an electrician cousin in to replace the factory-standard fluorescent lighting scheme with something decidedly more atmospheric. He made his way to his living section, which was the largest since he was the one who’d been there the longest. The space had room to spare for his studio space, much less the massive king-sized sleigh bed of hand-carved mahogany that he’d restored by himself, and beautifully so, if he did say so himself. It had taken him ten months and four days to complete the thing, and there was nothing so satisfying as climbing into it after a long day’s work. Except that he’d been climbing into it alone for longer than he’d like to think. Definitely longer than it had taken to fix up the bloody thing.

He threw his stuff everywhere in a seemingly random manner, but knew exactly where everything was. This level of disorganization was, in fact, organization in disguise, and as the second youngest of five, he knew how to masquerade his stuff as junk to avoid getting robbed. It stood him in good stead, as the building had been broken into fairly regularly when he first moved in, but by now the word was out that the sixth floor was a dead loss, and he hadn’t been troubled in ages.

The kitchen was the only place that he kept under what others might call control. To him, it was as creative a place as his studio, and he’d colonized it as soon as he moved in. It took pride-of-place in the center of the flat, and looked as though it had been robbed off of one of those home shows. A top-class food processor shared a pristine countertop with a slow-cooker, a KitchenAid mixer, and a cappuccino maker; his cooker and hob were spotless and the best that a consumer could buy. Garlic and chili peppers hung in bunches from a drying rack above the stove; bottles of flavored, cold-pressed oils lined another worktop, and his selection of vinegars, honey, mustards and other exotic condiments could rival that of any fashionable bistro across the river. He expected that if the art thing didn’t work out, he’d open a restaurant.

And at the top of Jamie’s list of specialties would be the marinated salmon steak with lemon grass, wild basmati rice and honey-grilled leeks and … asparagus, since he’d caved and bought a bunch. The salmon was fresh out of Stosh Zielinski’s fish store, and while he waited for the marinade to seep into the steaks — two hours or so, he was a patient man — he’d chop up some spinach for a salad, maybe with some bacon and boiled egg, and toast some of yesterday’s foccacia for croutons.

As he mused about whether or not to grind some walnuts for the salad dressing, he idly poked through his post. Bills. Right. Phone, gas, electric, the usual. Postcard for a play … ah. Kelli’s website announcement. Catchy turn of phrase on the front — Jamie turned the card over, scanned for a credit, found one in four-point type he could barely read … yeah, Annabelle Walsh. The scribe.

Well, there was nothing for it, since his memory was jogged like this. Being suckered into that ‘brain trust’ hadn’t been his idea of fun … but it hadn’t been a total waste of time. Annabelle Walsh. Irish somewhere, he supposed, and the temper to match. Her face, when she saw the state of his supplies! And her voice was nice. Female. Womanly. And dark blue eyes like, like — Jamie stopped, and felt like a right eejit. Dark blue like dark blue eyes. Feck’s sake. Like. And a tall curvy body … Natural, like. And she was tall, too. Did he mention that she was tall? That was nice. Nice for … well. Lots of things. He supposed.

Annabelle Walsh. Just got dumped by some bloke. Seemed a bit soon, if Kelli was telling the truth, to be … curious. But, he was, in all things, a patient man. He noticed a handwritten note: “I haven’t forgotten our little chat!!!!” Four exclamations marks. And a further note about going to see some play or other to “inspire his creativity!!!” And three more. Would it never end?

He chose to focus on the first half part of the message. Kelli apparently didn’t think it was too soon for Annabelle to jump back into the water. Well, he’d see what Annabelle had to say about that.

And he’d see about helping her to decide.