Lady in the Lake(78)
Her parents seemed impossibly distant from her. She seemed distant from herself. Maddie couldn’t believe that she was related to the woman who used to sit in this same chair, eating this same Rosh Hashanah meal, minus her fancy chopped liver. She felt a chill, almost as if a ghost passed through her, but it was the ghost of who she used to be. Forget 1906 and 1966. Maddie couldn’t believe that 1965 and 1966 were part of the same century. She was different. Couldn’t her mother see how different she was?
A week later, on Yom Kippur, she didn’t attend synagogue, although she fasted until sundown out of habit. She then ordered too much food at Paul Cheng’s with Seth, taking home the leftovers, confident that Ferdie would drop by.
He did.
October 1966
October 1966
“When’s your birthday?”
Ferdie and Maddie were in a tangle of limbs, enjoying that first truly chilly night of fall, the night when quilts return to the bed and one leaves the window open a scant two inches. Even here, above the traffic and dirt of Mulberry Street, the air smelled fresh and new.
“Why do you ask?”
“Why wouldn’t I ask? We’ve been seeing each other almost a year and you haven’t had a birthday yet, not that I know of.”
“Only nine months,” Maddie said.
“That’s almost a year, isn’t it?” Amused, but also with a tinge of hurt, as if she were downplaying whatever they had.
“November,” she said. “November tenth.”
“And you’ll be thirty-eight.”
Her turn to be hurt. She didn’t think she looked her age. Ferdie must have realized his gaffe because he added: “I asked for your driver’s license the day we met. I remembered the year but not the date. What do you want for your birthday?”
“Oh, I don’t need a gift.”
“Maybe I need to give you one, have you ever thought about that?”
It was almost instinctive, almost, to begin kissing him, to move her body down the length of his, past that lean torso, that knot of a belly button, down, down, down. It was only later that Maddie realized how many times she had done just this to avoid certain conversations. When Ferdie said anything that sounded romantic, partnerlike, she distracted him with sex. Distracted herself, too. She liked pleasing him because he always pleased her back. Her pleasure had seemed secondary to the other men she had known. Sometimes she enjoyed it, sometimes she faked it, and Milton couldn’t tell the difference. Allan had loved seduction, the buildup. She wondered now, for the first time, if Allan preferred taking virgins because they had nothing to which to compare the experience. As someone’s first lover, one is inevitably the best.
“Thirty-eight is such a stupid age,” she said later. “It’s not forty, yet it’s not not forty.” A beat. “How old are you? When is your birthday?”
“December. December twenty-fifth.”
He didn’t give his age, though.
“Ah, so you probably never have much of a birthday. But December twenty-fifth means nothing to me. We can do what the Jews do, eat Chinese food.” She didn’t add, and go to a movie, although a matinee, then Chinese food, had been the tradition in the Schwartz household.
“In bed.” He seemed glum.
“That’s the old joke. Take your fortune cookie, read the fortune, and add the words in bed. It always works.” He didn’t laugh. “We can do whatever you like on your birthday.”
“I would like—” Her heart almost stopped, terrified that he would ask for something she could never give him. Instead, he buried his face between her breasts, but he wasn’t trying to distract her. “I would like to give you the world, Maddie.”
“I don’t need the world,” she said. “You’ve given me more than I could ever imagine.”
With that, she slipped on a robe and went to fix a tray. The second feature on channel 2 was Devil’s Harbor, some kind of a crime film, while the Moonlight Movie on 11 was Her Master’s Voice, which seemed to be a comedy—mismatched lovers, Shakespeare’s favorite story, but executed at a much lower level. Maddie let Ferdie choose and was surprised when he picked the comedy, already thirty minutes in.
She would be exhausted at work tomorrow, keeping such late hours. But who cared? She didn’t need to be fresh to open mail, answer phones, and fetch Mr. Helpline’s lunch.
“I’m going to get you the best gift,” Ferdie said suddenly, his hand on her thigh. She thought he wanted to make love again, but he continued to watch the movie. At some point, she fell asleep, and when her alarm sounded at six thirty, only the tray with the empty plate and two drained glasses proved that he had ever been there.
October 1966
October 1966
Milton wanted to meet. For lunch, he said, making the phone call himself instead of relying on Seth to transmit the message. Just the two of them, he said. He suggested Danny’s, an old favorite, and Maddie had to explain that she had an hour for lunch, at most, and she almost always ate at her desk. By the time she made her way to Danny’s, she’d have only enough time to order a drink, bolt it, and return to work.
“Dinner, then. Tio Pepe’s?”