Harlem Shuffle(5)

    After checking the basement to make sure Rusty had put the TVs where he’d asked, he retreated to his office. Carney liked to keep up a professional appearance, wear a jacket, but it was too hot. He wore a white short-sleeve shirt, sharkskin tie tucked between the middle buttons. He stuck it in there when he packed the radios so it wouldn’t be in the way.

He ran the day’s numbers at his desk: down what he’d paid for the radios years before, down the money for the TVs and the Brown lady’s furniture. Cash on hand was not heartening, if the heat kept up and the customers stayed away.

The afternoon dwindled. The numbers didn’t fit, they never did. This day or any other. He double-checked who was late on their payments. Too many. He’d been thinking about it for a while and decided to end it: no more installment plans. His customers loved them, sure, but he couldn’t afford the lag anymore. Sending collectors wore him down. Like he was some crime boss dispatching muscle. His father had done some work like that, banging on the front door, everybody on the hall looking to see what the fuss was. The occasional follow-through on a threat…Carney stopped himself. He had his share of deadbeats and was a soft touch when it came to extensions and second chances. He didn’t have the traffic right now to extend himself. Elizabeth would reassure him and not let him feel bad about it.

Then it was almost closing time. In his mind, he was already a block from home when he heard Rusty say, “It’s one of our top sellers.” He looked through the window over his desk. The first customers of the day were a young couple—pregnant wife, husband nodding earnestly at Rusty’s patter. In the market, even if they didn’t know it maybe. The wife sat on the new Collins-Hathaway sofa, fanning herself. She was going to drop the baby any day. Looked like she might deliver right there on the stain-resistant cushions.

    “Can I get you a glass of water?” Carney asked. “Ray Carney, I’m the owner.”

“Yes, please.”

“Rusty, can you get the young lady a glass of water?” He removed his tie from between the buttons of his shirt.

He had before him Mr. and Mrs. Williams, new additions to Lenox Avenue.

“If that sofa you’re resting on is familiar, Mrs. Williams, that’s because it was on The Donna Reed Show last month. The scene at the doctor’s office? It’s really taken off.” Carney ran down the attributes of the Melody line. Space-age silhouette, scientifically tested for comfort. Rusty gave Mrs. Williams the glass of water—he’d taken his time, to ease Carney’s transition into the sale. She drank from the glass, cocked her head, and listened thoughtfully, to Carney’s pitch or the creature in her womb.

“To be honest,” the husband said, “it’s so hot, sir, Jane needed to sit down for a minute.”

“Couches are good for sitting—that’s what they’re for. What line are you in, Mr. Williams, if I may ask?”

He taught math at the big elementary school on Madison, second year there. Carney lied and said he was never that good at math, and Mr. Williams started talking about how it’s important to get kids interested early so they don’t get intimidated. Rote, like it came from some new teaching manual. Everybody had their pitch.

Mrs. Williams was due in two weeks with their first. A June baby. Carney tried to come up with a folksy bit about June babies but couldn’t pull it off. “My wife and I, we’re expecting our second in September,” he said. Which was true. He pulled the picture of May from his wallet. “That’s her birthday dress.”

“Truth is,” Mr. Williams said, “it’ll be a while before we can afford a new couch.”

    “No harm in that. Let me take you around,” Carney said. Not to feign interest after a glass of water would be impolite.

It was hard to conduct a proper showroom tour with one party anchored in a spot, panting. The husband shrank from the merchandise when he came too close to it, as if proximity plucked money out of his pockets. Carney remembered those days, everything too dear and too necessary at the same time, just him and Elizabeth making their way in the world as newlyweds. He had the store then, paint still fresh; no one thought he’d make a go of it except her. At the end of the day when she propped him up and told him he could do it, he puzzled over these alien things she offered him. Kindness and faith, he didn’t know which box to put them in.

“The modular setup makes every inch of your room livable,” Carney said. He sold the virtues of Argent’s new sectional, which he really did believe in—the new saddle finish and tapered legs made it appear to float in the air, look—as his thoughts ran elsewhere. These kids and their striving. Actors did this every night, he figured, the best of them, delivering their lines while sifting through last night’s argument, or suddenly reminded of overdue bills by a man in the fifth row who had the same face as the man at the bank. You’d have to come every night to detect an error in the performance. Or be another member of the company, suffering your own distractions and recognitions at the same time. He thought, It’s hard to make your start in this city when you have no help—

“Let me see it,” Mrs. Williams said. “I just want to see how it feels for a moment.”

She’d popped up. The three of them stood before the Argent, the turquoise cushions like cool water beckoning on a hot day.