Alternate Side(76)

“Where’s the house?”

“The DR. The Dominican Republic. That’s where Nita’s mom lives, her sisters, a couple of cousins. They opened a restaurant.”

“That’s a good way to lose a lot of money.”

“That’s okay. He’s got a lot of money now. Not millions, though.”

“I heard it was a million,” said the young guy, coming outside with his sandwich and a can of Pabst Blue Ribbon. “He should have gotten that guy that hit him. He should have made him pay instead of letting him off.”

“He made him pay, fool,” said the older man, cracking a Dr Pepper with a hiss. “He made him pay with cash money. You got a choice between putting the guy away and taking his money, I’d take the money every time.”

“Both,” said the younger man.

“You’re dreaming,” said the other.

Alma Fenstermacher finally asked for the check. “I wish I could stay all day,” she said, as though she meant it. “I miss you. I miss Sherry. You should visit.” She saw the look on Nora’s face and said, “No, I suppose not. That was unthinking. Has anyone told you that the lot is gone?”

“It’s gone?”

“It’s sold. Someone finally made an offer that was simply too large to turn aside.”

“So Mr. Stoller agreed to sell?”

Alma leaned in and smiled kindly at Nora, the way someone smiles at a child who has been good about putting her napkin on her lap and using her fork. “I will tell you a secret,” she said. “Sidney Stoller has been dead for years.”

“Are you certain?”

Alma sat back. “Absolutely certain. I’m his daughter.” Then she laughed, a throaty laugh. “Oh, Nora, the look on your face.” Nora’s mind was clicking like a Geiger counter, going over all the assumptions they’d made on the block: Greenwich, finishing school, one of the Seven Sisters colleges, even a debutante ball or at least a big society wedding. And she realized that, unlike the Wellesley woman, whose story had obviously been proffered publicly for her own reasons, Alma had never provided any of it. The decor of her home, the timbre of her voice, the cut of her clothes: all of them had assembled her biography from the way she was in the world.

“Someone is building a home there,” Alma continued. “The Landmarks Commission has led them a pretty dance with their plans, and the end result is that they’re obliged to build a kind of ersatz Victorian townhouse. I feel a bit sorry for them, actually.”

“And what about the people who parked in the lot?”

“Oh, goodness, they’ll find someplace else. I have to say, the greatest pleasure of the entire transaction, other than the size of the check involved, was listening to George complain. Although of course I didn’t tell him that we were the ones who were selling. The bank sent him a letter about the sale. I didn’t feel there was any point in shattering his illusions.” Alma Fenstermacher kissed her on both cheeks. “I hope we run into each other again soon,” she said to Nora.

“My apartment is right around the corner.”

“Well, then,” Alma said, shrugging into a navy-blue jacket. “You’ll receive an invitation to the Christmas party, as always.”

“That will be nice,” Nora said, and the way she said it, and the way Alma smiled, told them both that Nora wouldn’t go, that she would leave it to her successors, that leaving the block meant leaving the party, and the barbecue, and all the rest. A tiny dead end leading nowhere.

She felt it, felt the weight of all the goodbyes she’d been part of in the last year. “I brought you a farewell gift,” Phil, the spurious homeless man, had said on her last day of work at the museum, and he’d handed her a battered Merriam-Webster’s dictionary, the red cloth binding frayed and faded to a pinkish color. On the flyleaf was an inscription in beautiful handwriting: For Arthur Billingham, on the occasion of his graduation, from his fond parents, June 1939.

“I like reference books,” he said. “No surprises in them—know what I mean?”

“I won’t even ask where you got this,” said Nora, letting the tissuey pages riffle through her fingers.

“Like I keep telling you, a lot of good stuff gets thrown away in this city.”

“I’ll cherish it,” she said.

“I know the big boss wanted to get rid of me. I appreciate that you didn’t let her. Maybe the new person will try. Maybe I’ll move on. There’s a side entrance to the Morgan Library I like.”

“You could try the Met.”

“Nah, the big showy places are bad,” he said. “The cops are always moving you along. And there’s a lot of competition. Those Good Humor guys, it’s like, you want to buy a strawberry shortcake or you want to give a guy a buck for a sandwich. Most people go with the ice cream, the hot dog. It’s hard to blame them. Some of the nice ones buy you food, you know, but I won’t eat that stuff. I mean, street dogs? Come on.”

“I’ll stop by sometime and see you,” Nora said.

“Nah,” Phil said. “That’s not how it works. Maybe sometime you’ll see a guy on a corner and you’ll think of me, and maybe sometime I’ll talk to some lady on the street and I’ll think of you. But we’ll never see each other again, probably.”