Have You Seen Luis Velez?(7)

Raymond raised his right arm high, the grocery cart still attached, and threatened the cabdriver with it. Threatened to bring it down on the hood of his cab, which would damage the paint at the very least.

The cab held still, holding the cars behind it at bay.

“Step up . . . now,” he said.

Raymond and the old woman stepped up onto the curb, and the cab roared into motion behind them, tires squealing. He looked over his shoulder to see the driver give him the finger as he sped away.

Raymond breathed deeply. He had never been so grateful for something as simple as sidewalk under his feet.

“So, another thing I don’t get,” he said. “There are places that deliver food. You could have ordered a pizza. If you have a phone. Do you have a phone?”

“I have a phone, yes.”

“We order pizza all the time. Well. I never ordered pizza here, to our building, because my stepfather won’t pay for it. He says it’s cheaper to buy food at the store and cook it yourself. But when I’m at my dad’s, we order pizza. I go stay at my dad’s every other weekend. And we get all kinds of takeout delivered.”

“Your father is comfortable?”

“Comfortable? I don’t know what you mean.”

“Financially.”

“Oh. That. Yeah, he doesn’t have to pinch pennies like my stepdad. He lives in a really nice building in Midtown. He does okay, yeah.”

“I figured he must be. I don’t order restaurant takeout because it’s expensive. But I certainly would have in the last few days, if I could have. Can you really not guess why I couldn’t?”

“Um . . .” He felt he should be able to guess. She made it sound like he should. But nothing was coming to mind. “I’m not sure.”

“I couldn’t get to the bank. So I had no money with which to pay.”

“Oh. I just figured you had a credit card or a debit card or something.”

“I wish now I did. I was set in my ways. I thought good old cash money was the way I cared to go, but now I see the problems with my stubbornness.”

They walked together in silence for a moment. Past payday loan places and cheap souvenir stands. Raymond could see the awning of a market at the end of the block. Its doors were opened out onto the sidewalk.

“And I also tried knocking on doors in our building,” she said. “Only on my own floor, though, because the stairs frighten me. To navigate them all by myself, I mean. I used to know all of my neighbors. I had friends, but I am afraid I’ve outlived them. But all the people I knew in our building, they have moved now. And three of my very best neighbor-friends have passed away just in the last two months. So strange and sad to be so alone here after so many years. Whatever people live there now do not answer their door for a stranger. Either that or no one lives behind those doors now at all. There used to be a different sort of feel to this neighborhood. I know that from my own experience. But then the mayor wanted to clean up Times Square, you know? So the crimes that he didn’t want there he pushed west, and we are the unfortunate recipients.”

“How long have you lived here?”

“Sixty-seven years.”

“Sixty-seven years!” It came out as something close to a full-throated shout. “That’s before my parents were born! That’s before my grandparents were born! That’s . . .” Then Raymond stopped himself, and felt ashamed of his thoughtlessness. “I’m sorry,” he said.

“You spend a lot of time being sorry, Raymond from the fourth floor. But most of the time I don’t know for what.”

“That came out kind of rude.”

“If you think I don’t know I am old,” she said, “you can put your mind to rest on that score.”



“Which of the cookies are the ones with the lemon vanilla wafer on the outside and the dark chocolate between the layers?”

“That’s these,” Raymond said, taking a package of them off the shelf and placing it in her cart. “I like these, too.”

“Good. I’m glad you do. Because when we get home, you’re going to come inside and have tea and some cookies. And I’ll have no argument about that. It’s just the way it’s going to be. Unless I would make you late for school.”

“It’s Saturday.”

“Is it? Funny how when you don’t work anymore you stop keeping track of such things. So if it’s Saturday, then you have no excuses.”

“I promise not to move any of your things,” he said as they walked to the coffee and tea aisle.

Raymond didn’t like tea, but he had every intention of drinking a cup of it. And keeping his feelings about it to himself.

“Thank you,” she said. “I trust that will be true.”

“Yes, ma’am. I get why it would matter to you.”

“You don’t have to call me ma’am. It seems so formal.”

“I don’t know your name.”

She stopped suddenly, and Raymond had to stop, too. Because they were walking arm in arm. Just as well, because they had reached the selection of teas. A few more steps and they would have passed it.

“That’s right. You don’t. I’m so sorry. I have been very rude without meaning to be. My name is Mildred Gutermann.”