Josh and Gemma Make a Baby(28)

13





Clive’s Comics is a dump. It’s a cluttered, musty-scented shop with cockroach traps sticking out from under the shelves. I tiptoe around a cluster of the traps and a dead cockroach lying on the grimy tile floor. The lighting is fluorescent and overly bright, showing off all the grime, disrepair and clutter. There are stacks of comics in plastic sleeves, those collectible figure things, and bins of monster trading cards.

I walk to the back of the store and spin in a slow circle. There was no one at the cash register near the front door, and I don’t see any sign of a basement or a fertility support group.

“Hello?” I call out. “Anybody here?”

My shoulders slump a bit when no one answers. I look down at my watch, it’s already a few minutes past seven. I’m late. I left work with plenty of time to spare, but the subway was so crowded that I had to wait for two different trains before I could shove, elbow and forcefully squeeze myself onto the car. Even then, I stood for a good five minutes, smashed in the crowd, with my nose pressed into a big guy’s salami scented armpit.

So, anyway.

I start to walk back toward the front door and let out a short sigh of disappointment. I guess I’m at the wrong place. I can call Joy tomorrow morning and ask for the exact address.

I look up when the bell on the front door rings. A small, bony man, with a large nose and a swagger walks in.

He stops when he sees me, and although he’s so short he should be looking up at me, he makes it seem like he’s looking down.

“What d’ya want?” he asks in a thick Brooklyn accent.

I open my mouth to say something, but I’m not sure how to respond. Is this Clive? Or…

“Um. Are you…? Is this…I’m looking for the fertility support group? Is that here?”

Clive grunts then turns back around and pushes open the front door. I stand still, not sure what to do.

He turns back and scowls. “Come on, then.”

Oh. I hurry after him, my chunky heels clicking on the tile floor. He sees I’m following and starts walking down the street. He rounds the corner, and I take quick steps and try and catch up.

“Thank you. They said the group was in the basement, but I didn’t see an entry, and there weren’t any signs, and…” I stop rambling when the man stoops down and opens up one of those metal cellar doors built into the sidewalks all over the city. You know, the ones that look like old-fashioned cellar doors in Kansas that people dive into when a tornado is coming.

The man holds his hand out like “ta-da!” and gestures to the dark, stone steps leading down into the basement.

Hmm.

I look around. There are plenty of people walking by on their evening commute home. Nobody’s screaming, “don’t go in there! He’ll take your skin!” But I’m feeling really uncomfortable.

“The fertility group is down there?” I ask, and then I lean forward and try to peer down the stairs into the dim basement.

The man grunts, “Go on then. I don’t got all day.”

I shake my head. Nope. Not doing it. Not doing it.

Just then a woman with frizzy copper hair, freckles and a drab gray business suit steps up next to me. She takes a long draw of a cigarette and blows a cloud of smoke out.

“Real crap hole, isn’t it?” she asks.

I turn to her and take a closer look. Even though her hair is bright and her freckles could be considered cute, she holds herself in a way that shouts, “do not mess with me, or I will use your face as an ashtray.”

She’s waiting for me to respond so I say, “The true value of things aren’t based on what they look like, but what they have inside.” And then I inwardly cringe because…honestly, what the heck am I talking about? Who says that kind of thing to a stranger?

She snorts and then flicks her cigarette to the sidewalk. “Great. Another Pollyanna. Just what I need.”

The man, who had been standing by the cellar doors lets out a long sigh. He swaggers away, calling, “Shut the door behind ya.”

“Screw you, Clive,” shouts the woman after him.

I look from Clive’s retreating form back to the woman.

“You’re here for the fertility support group, right?” she asks. She pulls a pack of cigarettes out from her suit pocket and lights one. She takes a long draw and then slowly blows it out.

“Yes?” I say.

She grimaces at me, taking in my bright red winter coat and my hesitant smile.

“Well, come on then. You first. I’ll shut the door.”

I hesitate, but then I hear female laughter from the basement. Real, happy, full-belly kind of laughter and I think, maybe my stupid rambling quote to this woman was right. The true value is found within, and I won’t find it unless I go in.

So, I walk down the uneven stone steps into the basement of Clive’s Comics.

The metal door clatters shut behind me. The woman steps next to me. The entryway is dark, most of the light comes from the glowing tip of her cigarette.

“It’s down there.” She points to a shaft of light coming out of a doorway down the hall. “I’m Brook, by the way.”

I smile. “Nice to meet you. I’m Gemma Jacobs.”

“Alright,” Brook says, then she leads me down the dark, old stone-walled hallway. “Watch out for rats. They bite. And their piss will give you some freakish disease, so don’t lick the floor.”