The Bette Davis Club (22 page)

I had pictured the Meadowlands as a kind of paradise. Sounds that way, doesn’t it?
Meadowlands
. Sounds like you’re going on a picnic with Alice and the White Rabbit. I imagined dairy cows. I imagined little lambs springing through the greenery.

But when we got there, it was nothing like that. The part of it that I saw, at any rate, was a mess—a rubbish heap in the middle of a swamp, so jumbled it was impossible to tell where the garbage ended and the marshlands began. And all around was the sickly sweet smell of wet earth, rubbish, and rot.

The truck came to a halt. Dottie pulled a strainer from out of that same black case and began pouring martinis into tin mugs.

“Forgive the glassware,” she said, handing me a mug. “Olive?”

Finn and the other two men came round to the back of the truck. Dottie gave each of them a gin-filled mug. Apparently, this was breakfast in the world of architectural salvage.

After the men finished their drinks, they conferred among themselves. Then Finn declared, “We’re going to have a look around.”

Before I could even register what was happening, the three males struck out across the landfill. “You girls stay with the truck, would you?” Finn called back.

Oh, this was too much! Watching Finn tramp off, I felt a complete fool. There was no way this could be considered a first date. How could I have deceived myself into thinking this was a date?

I gulped down my martini.

Angrily, with no purpose in mind, I clambered out of the truck—and fell face-first into a puddle of ooze and muck.

Dottie gazed at me from the truck. “We’re supposed to search for artifacts, Margo,” she said. “Not mate with them.”

I was wearing my best blue jeans, a white blouse, and under my jeans, knee-length leather boots. The entire front of me was covered in mud. I scrambled to stand up, and my boot scraped against something hard. I looked by my feet and saw a large sparkling pinkish stone, buried in rubbish and sludge. Dottie saw it too.

“What is it?” I said.

“It’s what we came for, dearheart!” Her eyes were big. “It’s Pennsylvania Station! Part of it, anyway. That granite is unmistakable. Cost a lot of lolly in its day.”

Finn and the other two men were already some ways off. We could see them walking along, jabbing with sticks at the mud and garbage.

“Oh, this is rich!” Dottie said. “Little boys hunting for buried treasure. Won’t they be surprised when they see what the womenfolk have found?”

She pulled on a pair of work gloves, then lifted two shovels from the truck bed and handed one to me. “Let’s uncover this ourselves,” she said. “
Seulement nous
—just us.”

An hour later, we had exposed a large slab of rose granite. It appeared to be the ornamented top portion of a Roman-style column. It weighed, I’m sure, over two hundred pounds and was the size of a coffee table.

“
Regarde
,”
Dottie said, gesturing at the granite. “Look what we’ve done. Few activities are more gratifying than digging up the past.”

I was dirty as a coal miner. Dottie had done her fair share of excavating but had somehow managed to stay considerably cleaner. She again reached into that black case of hers and produced a towel and a bottle of water. She offered these to me so I could attempt to wash up, but my efforts were futile. I remained filthy. Then Dottie pulled out a couple of sandwiches.

We sat in the back of the truck, eating lunch and admiring the hunk of granite on the ground next to us. After a while, the men returned.

“No luck,” Finn called. He was walking toward us. “Utter defeat.” He came round to the other side of the truck and stopped and stared at the relic we had uncovered.

“Margo found it,” Dottie said.

“Did you?” His eyes took in how dirty I was. “And it looks like you put up quite a fight to get it.” He bent down and ran his hands over the stone. “It’s splendid!”

I didn’t say anything. For the first time that day, Finn was paying attention to me, and I was flattered. But I was also frustrated and unhappy, disappointed at how the morning had gone.

Finn looked from the granite to me, studying my face. “You’re as silent as this capital,” he said. “What are you thinking?”

“Nothing,” I said. “Random thoughts.”

He smiled. “Those are my favorite kind.”

“Then you should meet my uncle Otto,” Dottie said. “Those are the only thoughts he ever has.”

The men loaded the granite into the truck, and we headed back to Manhattan. We dropped Dottie at her flat in the Village. After that, Finn drove to my street, East Ninth, and parked. Alec and Sam waited in the truck while Finn helped me climb out from the back and onto the sidewalk.

We had just begun walking in the direction of my apartment building when Finn halted. Without a word, he touched my arm and maneuvered himself round to my other side, the side closest to the street. I looked at him.

“Sorry,” he said sheepishly. “My grandfather taught me when a man and woman are out together, the man walks next to the gutter. That tradition probably goes back a hundred years—you know, protecting females from the mud and horses. I must be the last man in New York who still does it. I suppose it’s stupid.”

“No,” I said. “It’s not.” It was adorable, and it made me like him all the more.

We came to my building. Finn held the street door for me. I stepped inside the vestibule and turned to say good-bye.

Finn was half leaning on the outer door. His eyes were shining. “Would you like to have coffee sometime?” he said.

I couldn’t read him. Was
this
the offer of a date? Was he asking me out?

“You mean,” I said, “the two of us? Or would other people be there?”

He laughed. “I thought we two. But bring a friend if you’d like.”

“No, no,” I said, feeling my heart quicken and my face turn red. “The two of us would be fine.”

One afternoon a few days later, we met at a café in Greenwich Village. Finn got there before me. When I entered the place and went over to him, he stood and smiled. He took my jacket, held my chair. I sat down. A waitress took our order.

Finn was an excellent conversationalist. He was brilliant and funny and warm, and that day he talked about everything from Shakespeare to politics to old movies. He told me stories about the history of Manhattan. He quoted poetry. But he was also not a boor; he never monopolized the conversation. He asked me questions about my friends, my life. How was it I had come to live in New York?

I told him the story of my childhood. When I did that, Finn’s face showed such sympathy, I thought I might cry. For the first time in years, someone
saw
me. I felt whole.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “That’s a long time for you to be so much on your own. So isolated. It’s not easy being an outsider.”

“No,” I said, “it’s not.” I looked at my hands.

Finn leaned forward. “But now
you’re
in charge of your life,” he said encouragingly. “What will you do? Do you intend to go on modeling?”

I said I didn’t know.

“You should go back to school,” Finn said. He spread his arms, as though embracing the whole wide world on my behalf. “Get your degree. You’re bright. You could study history—or architecture!”

We visited for over two hours. When finally we stood to say good-bye, Finn hesitated. Once again, I thought he was going to ask me out. But all he said was, “I haven’t enjoyed myself this much, just sitting and talking with someone, in quite a while. Shall we get together like this again? Soon?”

“Yes,” I said. “I’d like that.”

“So would I.” He put a hand to his chest.
“
Ab imo pectore
,”
he said in Latin. Meaning, “From the bottom of my heart.”

And so began our association. Before long, Finn and I were meeting at that same café three, sometimes four, times a week. Our relationship, our friendship—whatever you want to call it—was this endless string of coffee dates.

I never did go to college, couldn’t afford it. But knowing Finn was, in itself, an education. He was a fascinating, remarkable man. Because of the things I learned from him, the books he recommended, the lectures he insisted I attend, my world grew larger. He was my friend, but also my tutor.

I loved meeting Finn for coffee. I enjoyed his intelligence, his wit, his fine voice. I loved just
looking
at him, for God’s sake. But he didn’t ask me out. Not on a proper date, anyway. Not to dinner or the theater or the movies.

Of course, I knew why that was. No one had to tell me. It was because I was too young for him. Not just in years, though that was part of it, but I was also wide-eyed and inexperienced. I wasn’t as brainy as Finn or as well educated. I was pretty enough, but I wasn’t worldly the way, say, Dottie was worldly. I had little knowledge of grown-up living. And despite my English accent, no one who got to know me would ever think I was cosmopolitan.

Even though Finn was kind to me, even though he always picked up the check, held my chair, complimented my appearance, I knew he’d be embarrassed to be seen with me. Embarrassed to present me, a naïve young girl, to his older, more sophisticated friends.

One evening, I was out with a girlfriend and Finn passed us in the street, walking with a friend of his own. Finn nodded hello, but that was all. He didn’t stop to introduce his companion or to ask how I was. And I knew without a doubt it was because my friend and I looked so juvenile.