Lady in the Lake(23)

No one asks me out after work. I’m not sure I could have gone if they had. But it would have been nice if someone had asked. I stopped going out with the guys a long time ago and they stopped asking.

So I go home, to the sad, dark house in Northwood, where the woman who inspired “Betty” in my columns, the Lucille Ball to my Ricky Ricardo, sits in a wheelchair, her body riddled with MS. She drinks all day, and who can blame her? In my columns, “Betty” goes to dances, runs around the neighborhood making good-natured mayhem, cooks and cleans. She can’t really clean anymore, much less cook. I do the best I can, which isn’t much. But I don’t want to hire anyone because that means letting someone inside, exposing the lie of the fantasy life I’ve created for the paper, about the jolly house where the wife does scatterbrained things and the husband is a foil and the son and the daughter just laugh and laugh and laugh at it all.

The son lives in California. The daughter died of leukemia when she was three.

That’s what I should have told Maddie Schwartz: Everyone has secrets. I have secrets. I’ll find a way to write around yours. I won’t tell the world that you’re separated. I don’t need to know how you knew they were looking at the fish store clerk. But your source was a man, wasn’t it, Maddie Schwartz? A woman like you—there’s always going to be a man.

My wife and I eat in front of the TV. My story is all over the news. She tries to rally to cheer me on, but she knows and I know how hollow my victories are. A fish store clerk, leukemia—at least, with a fish store clerk, you can imagine closing your hands around his throat, or seeing him go to the gas chamber. I’m not saying I envy the Fines. I never want to see anyone admitted to this horrible club. But they had eleven years, I had only three.

Three years. A thousand days and change.

My column’s due tomorrow. I’m going to write about the time my daughter thought the devil lived in our garage. Did it happen? What does it matter? I don’t have to be accurate about my own life. Who’s going to complain if I get it wrong?





When I was eleven years old




When I was eleven years old, our social studies class had to do reports on the ten largest US cities. Baltimore was number six, but the thing I noticed was the steep drop-off from five to six, Detroit, almost two million people, to Baltimore, which didn’t even have a million. New York, at the top of the list, had almost eight million. Chicago, Los Angeles, Philadelphia—those were cities. Baltimore was a village. The other kids wanted Baltimore, maybe out of hometown pride, maybe out of the belief that it would be easier. I wanted nothing but New York. The teacher put me on Saint Louis’s team, number ten at the time. Do I look like a Saint Louis girl? I was furious. Stupid Saint Louis, with nothing but the Mississippi River and its shoe manufacturing factories. Saint Louis was small-time and I knew I was destined for the big time.

I mention this only to remind you, Maddie, that Baltimore is small, smaller still within its tribes. Everybody in my part of town knew about Ferdie Platt, his eye for women, his fondness for Ballantine’s. He never tried to get with me, but that’s because I was already with someone, someone substantial, and Ferdie was no fool. Besides, he chose women he wouldn’t have to squire, which saved him money. Ferdie Platt was tight with a dollar, as I’m sure you found out. And what kind of woman doesn’t expect her man to take her places, spend on her? Women who can’t go out in public, married women and white women. He really hit the Daily Double with you, Maddie Schwartz.

But Ferdie used to come by the club, my club, the Flamingo. People assumed he was on the take. He was chummy with Mr. Gordon and some other men of that ilk. I dared to ask him about it just the once, when he was drinking at the bar. Maybe I was flirting, I don’t know. It would have been dangerous for us to have a thing, that’s for sure. But I ended up dead, so maybe I should have gone for it, just the once.

I said, sassy as you please: “Just because you drink for free here doesn’t mean you shouldn’t tip.”

“I tip.”

“Not enough.”

Look, he was a good-looking man. If I had realized I had the luxury of choosing men strictly for pleasure, I would have considered him. I bet that never occurred to you, did it, Maddie Schwartz? Choosing the men you sleep with based on your own pleasure is what makes a woman really rich.

I leaned on the bar, which lifted my breasts, already on display in the skimpy costume even I had to wear. He barely gave me a glance.

“I’ll try to do better by you. Didn’t realize my weekly stop-by was creating a grievance.”

“Why do you come by here? It’s not on your beat.”

“Why do you think, Miss Sherwood?”

I said, bold as brass, because being bold was something that had always worked for me: “Because you’re on the take.”

It was funny how he handled that. He didn’t get mad. He didn’t jump to deny it. He just patted his pockets thoughtfully and said: “I think if I were on the take, I would tip much better.”

“That’s not a no,” I pointed out.

“He didn’t say yes, he didn’t say no.” He sang the words, but I wasn’t sure if it was a real song or one he was making up on the spot.

“Is that a real song? It sounds like a real song. Even in your off-key voice.” His voice was fine, actually, but he didn’t need to hear that from me.