The Mentor Read online

  “I’d forgotten how satisfying rice and beans could be,” Charles says.

  Emma smiles at him and, in the glow from the streetlight coming in through the window, he notes again what lovely lips she has, how sensual the lower half of her face is. There’s even the hint of a pout about her mouth, a pout that the rest of her face isn’t sure what to do with.

  “I used to come to places like this when I first moved to New York and had about fifty cents to my name. Funny how you work your ass off until you’ve priced yourself out of the things you really love,” Charles says.

  “Sometimes I sit here for hours, just looking out the window. I find it soothing.”

  “That’s the first time I’ve heard the Lower East Side described as soothing.”

  “It’s the anonymity. I love the feeling in New York of being invisible. Small towns can suck the life out of you.”

  “So can big towns. Be careful, little girl.”

  “But don’t you find it stimulating? As a writer? I mean, look at those two.”

  Charles follows Emma’s gaze out the window to a storefront across the street where a raven-haired middle-aged woman in stretch pants and flip-flops is exchanging heated words with a much younger man with slicked-back hair and a gold stud in one ear. Charles watches them for a moment.

  “A lonely woman and her Don Juan son,” he says. “He hasn’t been home in three days. She’s telling him she’s been tearing her hair out, lighting candles at church. What she really means is that she’s insane with jealousy that some other woman is more important to him than she is.”

  Emma considers Charles’s words for a moment, not taking her eyes off the couple. “I think they’re lovers,” she says.

  “You do?”

  “I think she’s married to a seventy-year-old grocer who brought her here from Santo Domingo. She has a Pekingese and a pet hen she keeps in a cage in the kitchen. One morning she was walking the dog in the rain and decided to take him around the block again even though her umbrella was broken and her hair was getting wet. The young man was coming out of a coffee shop-the one he eats at every morning, even though the food is bad.”

  “Why does he keep eating there?” he asks.

  “He’s a creature of habit. There she was with the Pekingese, her hair plastered down with the rain. Something about her touched his heart-the shoes she was wearing, the way one spoke of her umbrella was bent out of shape. He knelt on the sidewalk and petted the dog. Rain soaked through his T-shirt. He looked up at her and he was lost.”

  “Why lost?”

  “Because he knows he’ll never forget her. On his deathbed it’s her face he’ll see. He wants her to leave her husband, but she can’t. He’s seventy, he brought her here, there’s the hen. She’s telling her lover to leave her, even though every drop of blood in her body wants him.”

  Charles looks at the couple and sees what Emma sees.

  “Is there a happy ending?” he asks.

  “He’ll leave her. His pride. He’ll marry a younger woman, move to Brooklyn; they’ll have babies. One day he’ll be in the city. He’ll see her across the street, walking her dog. Her hair will be gray, but he won’t notice. His heart will stop. It might start to rain.”

  Emma has lost all self-consciousness, is radiant in the dim light of the coffee shop. Her story over, she’s quiet for a moment. Across the street, the couple is gone. Emma turns and looks at Charles, as if she is stepping out of another world. She is suddenly aware of herself again, and her small frame stiffens.

  “I want to see where you live,” he says.

  18

  In Queens, Anne lies with her robe open on the hospital examining table, wondering why she doesn’t feel more vulnerable. The doctor, young and intense, has injected the local anesthetic into her belly, and she can feel the area growing numb. The vial containing Charles’s blood sits on the nearby countertop. How dark and thick blood is.

  “Are you all right, Mrs. Brody?” the doctor asks.

  “Fine, thank you.”

  “I’m going to put some petroleum jelly on your stomach in preparation for the ultrasound,” he says.

  Anne feels the texture of the cold jelly as the nurse spreads it. Then the doctor begins to run a metal wand over her stomach. Anne looks over at the monitor and sees the embryonic life growing inside her. She reaches out and squeezes the nurse’s hand. She’s immediately embarrassed by her gesture and withdraws her hand. The nurse pats Anne’s arm.

  The nurse takes the ultrasound wand from the doctor and he picks up a long needle.

  “Please,” Anne says. “Be careful.”

  The doctor gives her a calm smile. Dr. Halpern has assured her of his expertise. Anne determines right then and there to stick with Dr. Halpern if she decides to have the baby. You don’t have to be rich to get good medical care, she thinks, just lucky.

  She turns her head away as he inserts the needle into her stomach.

  “All done,” the doctor says.

  It’s dark when Anne walks out onto the sidewalk and around the corner to the brightly lit commercial street. Evening shoppers are out in force and she joins the throng. She has a sudden craving for peanut butter cookies and she ducks into the nearest grocery and buys two packs, one of which she tears open and begins to devour even as she waits in line to pay.

  19

  Charles and Emma walk under the cloudy night sky, toward Chinatown.

  “Don’t expect much,” she says as they reach the old brick building. Emma unlocks the front door and begins to climb the stairs; Charles follows close behind. Her anxiety increases with each step. Stay calm, you’ve come this far. Stay calm.

  Emma opens the door and Charles follows her inside. The restaurant’s neon sign bathes the room in a dim crimson glow. She turns on a light and stands expectantly while Charles looks around. The Saturdays she’s spent combing the thrift shops and sidewalks of lower Manhattan have yielded eclectic treasures. The fruit crates cribbed from the Chinese grocer are filled with thirdhand books. A fringed shawl is draped over her bed. There’s a Persian rug worn through in several places, a lamp in the shape of three puppies, an old manual typewriter, a wedding photo of a handsome black couple circa 1910. Her plates and glasses are mismatched and colorful. Until now Emma was proud of her apartment, but suddenly-with Charles Davis there-it looks shabby, depressing, a place where a crazy girl trying to pass for normal might live.

  Emma drops her coat and bag on the bed and goes to the stove. “Can I make you a cup of tea?” She can feel him behind her, standing there, judging her, seeing her for who she is. She fills the kettle with water. The first patter of raindrops sounds against the roof above them. She turns and he’s staring at her.

  “What?” she asks. “What is it?”

  “Nothing.” Then he smiles gently, almost tenderly. “I was just admiring your apartment.”

  “I have Earl Grey and some lovely jasmine I found on Mott Street. Very intense,” Emma says, grateful to have something to actually do. She opens the tin of jasmine tea; its sweet exotic fragrance drifts up into the air. Charles leans in to smell the tea and as he does, he gently touches her hand.

  “I’d better stick with the Earl Grey,” he says.

  Emma turns and reaches for the box of tea bags. She wishes he’d chosen the jasmine, it requires more steps to prepare, would have given her more excuses to avoid looking at him. Reaching for two mugs, she knocks over a small plant, a sad little mum she bought on impulse and couldn’t bring herself to throw away after its single bloom died. The plant falls to the floor, spilling dirt. Emma lets out a little cry. She’s such a pathetic little fuckup. She falls to her knees to clean up the mess. Charles kneels beside her.

  “I’m making you uncomfortable, aren’t I?”

  “I’m sorry. I don’t have many visitors.”

  “I’ll take care of this. You get the tea.”

  She stands up and busies herself with the tea while he cleans up the plant.

  “I’m a
fraid this plant has had it,” he says.

  “With my brown thumb, I’m amazed it’s lasted this long.”

  As she pours the boiling water into the mugs, she notices that he’s crossing the room, approaching her dresser. He picks up the framed photo, the one photo she treasures above all others, the one photo she didn’t want him to notice.

  “You and your father?” he asks, holding up the faded color print of Emma and her stoned, long-haired father on the beach at Lake Canoga-scruffy, weedy Lake Canoga-her father with his goofy smile, his proud, goofy smile, proud of his nine-year-old princess, his baby, his Emma. She remembers that day so vividly, just the two of them driving through the hills to the lake, her daddy getting stoned, reaching over and rubbing her head, singing along with Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young: “Teach your children well… Feed them on your dreams… and know they love you.”

  But then he fucked her over. Too bad. So sad.

  “You look like him,” Charles says.

  “Do I?”

  “What does he do?”

  “I don’t know. Four months after that picture was taken, he left us.”

  “Just left?”

  “He went to work and never came back.”

  “That must have been tough.”

  Tough. “How do you like your tea?”

  “Straight up. Do you have any pictures of your mother?”

  Emma brings Charles his mug of tea and makes a point of sitting in the chair farthest from him.

  “I wish I had some cookies to offer you,” she says.

  “Do you have any pictures of your mother?” Charles repeats.

  “My mother? She keeps promising to send me one, but she’s so busy,” Emma says as casually as she can.

  “Remarried?”

  “Yes.” All these questions make Emma want to scream. Instead she folds her hands in her lap and takes the plunge. “I have a confession to make.”

  Charles looks at her expectantly.

  “I’m a closet smoker. Could you hand me my bag?”

  Charles reaches for Emma’s bag, spilling its contents. A yellow legal pad covered with writing tumbles out, followed by cigarettes, elastic hair bands, a subway map, and a battered copy of Play It as It Lays. Charles picks up the pad. Emma leaps up from her chair and grabs it from him.

  “What’s wrong?” he asks.

  “Nothing,” Emma says, wrapping her arms around the pad.

  “You’re making me very curious.”

  Oh good. “It’s nothing,” Emma says, returning to her chair.

  Charles’s questioning eyes bore into her. “It’s an awfully important nothing.”

  “Oh, all right. Really, it’s just something I wrote, am writing… I don’t know.”

  “So you’re a closet writer, too.”

  “I guess. Not a very good one. Now can we change the subject?”

  “Let me see it,” he says.

  Emma pretends she’s considering it.

  “Let-me-see.”

  And so she does. Charles begins reading. Emma feels goose bumps break out on her arms and neck. Without taking his eyes off the page, he settles into the armchair. The room grows very still. Emma is at a loss as to what to do with herself. He’s reading so intently. She walks as quietly as she can over to the window. Across the street, a cat crouches in the gutter devouring a scrap of food. The New York night feels full of promise, a sea of warm hope delivering Emma from her pain, carrying her to her fate. She turns. Charles is still reading, bathed in the soft lamplight, his lips slightly pursed. He flips a page, and then another. Finally Emma can stand it no longer.

  “May I have it back, please?”

  He cuts her off with a brusque “shhhhh” and keeps reading until he reaches the end. He looks up at her. “Is this part of something longer?”

  “I don’t know. I guess so.”

  “You guess?”

  “There’s more. There’s a lot more.”

  “Would you let me see it?”

  “Charles, you don’t have to-”

  “Read anything I don’t want to. I know that, Emma. But I want to read more of this.”

  Emma goes to her dresser and takes out the pages she’s been writing for so long now. All but the most recent are neatly typed. Her book, her story, her life. She feels the weight of the pages in her hand and then, hesitantly, gives them to Charles.

  “Do you mind if I take these home tonight?”

  Emma shakes her head.

  As they finish their tea, Charles, leaning forward in his chair, tells her about showing his first novel to his writing teacher at Dartmouth. Of how he didn’t sleep for two days while she read it. Emma nods and smiles but finds it hard to pay attention.

  “Walk me downstairs,” he says.

  It’s cool out; the rain has stopped. Charles cradles the stack of papers and hails a cab. He squeezes Emma’s shoulder and says, “See you in the morning.”

  Emma watches the cab pull out into traffic and disappear up the street.

  It’s going to happen.

  20

  Anne is propped up in bed, going over a licensing agreement with a small Vermont furniture maker. She’s having a hard time concentrating. The numbness is gone from her stomach; there’s just a tiny point of tenderness where the needle went in. For a five-hundred-dollar surcharge the company doing the DNA testing agreed to expedite her tests; she’ll have the results in about ten days. She reaches for another disgusting peanut butter cookie and picks up her bedside phone and dials.

  “Hello.”

  “Kayla, it’s me.”

  “I hate you. I spent eighteen hundred dollars today on your goddamn website.”

  “Isn’t it great?”

  “It’s amazing! Just what I need-a whole new way to shop. You’re a genius. And where did you find those gold-leaf tiles?”

  “Deepest Brooklyn.”

  “Wow. But I’m canceling the whole order if you don’t tell me what’s bugging you. Right now.”

  Anne puts her paperwork on the bedside table. She lifts off the covers and sits on the edge of the bed.

  “I’m pregnant… and Charles may not be the father.”

  There’s a long pause.

  “Sorry. I was picking my jaw up off the floor. Tell me everything.”

  And Anne does, spewing out the whole story. When she’s done she feels better than she has in months.

  “That motherfucker Farnsworth,” Kayla says.

  “No, Kayla, that’s too easy. I could have stopped it.”

  “He shouldn’t have put you in that position. But that’s a moot point. What are your thoughts about the baby?”

  “Even if it is Farnsworth’s, I don’t know if I can go through with an abortion. There’s a life growing inside me.”

  “What about your life, Anne? If it’s Farnsworth’s, there’s a chance you’ll hate the baby. Think about the ramifications of that. You know I’m still a little conflicted about my own abortion, but at the same time I know I did the right thing. I’ve never doubted it for a second. It wasn’t the right time and it wasn’t the right man. The same may be true for you.”

  “But it is the right time. I want a child.”

  “But do you want this child?”

  Anne starts to pace around the room. She looks down at the park, its lights twinkling in the dark. What fun it would be to take her little child-would it be a boy or a girl? — to the zoo and the carousel. To share a tuna fish sandwich sitting on a park bench.

  “It’s my child as much as the father’s, Kayla. It’s my baby.”

  “Anne, it’s your decision and you’re my best friend and I love you and I’ll support you in whatever you decide. But remember that you have choices.”

  Anne imagines going to an Upper East Side clinic for the abortion, spending a couple of recuperative days at Canyon Ranch. The whole thing would be over with and she could get on with her life. It seems like such a simple solution. Especially considering the current state of her mar
riage.

  “I’m speaking to a media buyers’ convention in Scottsdale on Saturday. Why don’t I fly to New York as soon as I’m done?” Kayla says.

  An overwhelming sadness descends on Anne. She turns away from the window and sits on the floor, her back against the wall.

  “Are you going to our fifteenth reunion?” she asks, knowing Kayla will grasp her need to change the subject.

  “Hell, yes, it’s the ultimate gloat fest. All those little blond chippies slaving away on Wall Street and in Silicon Valley. We showed ’em, didn’t we, Turner?”

  Anne leans her head against the side of her dresser and closes her eyes. “We showed ’em.”

  “I’m six hours away from buying you a big fat martini. Promise me you’ll call if you want me to hop a plane.”

  “I promise.”

  “Love you, kiddo.”

  “I love you, Kayla.”

  Anne hugs her knees and rests her head on them. The room seems so big from down on the floor. She starts to hum to herself, some half-forgotten lullaby her father loved.

  Then she hears the front door open, followed by Charles’s approaching footfalls. She scuttles into the bathroom, stands up, and grabs her toothbrush. He appears in the bathroom doorway, his eyes shining.

  “Hi,” he says, giving her cheek a perfunctory kiss.

  “Where’ve you been?”

  “I took a long walk.”

  “Do you want me to heat something up?”

  “I ate.”

  “Oh. Where?”

  “I grabbed a bite at a coffee shop.”

  Charles hates coffee shops.

  “I want to do some work,” he says. He takes off his shirt and splashes cold water on his face and under his arms.

  “Oh, Charles? How much longer do you think you’ll need that secretary?”