NOTE: If you haven’t been following this from the beginning, and if you want to know the full sequence of events, start with the introduction. Click on Archives on the right.
Paula Pocock holds the door for a hooded customer of the Ab & Cheek Fitness Center, who lugs in a backpack and bulky gym bag. Paula comes out, pushes her hair out of her face with a quick swipe of her fist holding the cuff of her sweatshirt.
“Surprise! Surprise, Fred! How are you?”
“Keeping dry. You look well, Paula.”
“I was doing okay until my latest workout.”
We stroll the covered walkway as rain and mist blur the Christmas lights decorating the Hadron Shopping Center and parking lot. She limps slightly on her left leg, in pink and yellow SnazE sweats with powder blue SnazE “Top Step” shoes.
“Shall we get out of this weather? I mean do you have time for a coffee or something?”
“Sure, Fred.”
“How about, “Chez Roger?”
“Awesome! That new French place. Yeah, I haven’t been there yet.”
She stops, leans on a pillar and touches my arm.
“Fred, did you know Nadia called me a while back?”
“Nadia, of Nadia Brasov fame?”
“Is she a celebrity?”
We move on towards our French rendezvous.
“Just joking, Paula. I mean she is a subject of interest in the neighborhood.”
“Yeah, Nadia, she might be Nadia Plank by now.”
“Could well be!”
“Yeah, I mean I hardly knew who she was at first. We, like, sort of bonded.”
“How delightful!”
“Yeah, we were on the phone for quite a while. She wanted to know if Niki had contacted me. So, I says, ‘Who’s Niki?’
and she, like, didn’t answer, just says, ‘Have you noticed anyone following you?'”
Paula presses her palms to her cheeks, as I open the door for her at Chez Roger.
“I was like, frozen. I says, ‘there was this weird guy.’
You know, last October at my Mom’s place on Lievens Avenue? I think it was a guy. I says, to her, ‘I caught him looking in the window of our house.'”
“Yes. I remember that incident.”
“And yeah, she says, ‘What did he look like?”
And I says ‘He had on a trench coat and a scarf over his head like a woman,'”
and she says, ‘That’s probably one of Niki’s people.’
and I says, “okay, so who is Niki?”
She says, “Nikita Brasov, the husband I left behind in London.'”
And I says ‘Was he like, Russian or something?”
And she says, ‘Yes Russian, actually, escaped, perhaps, would be more accurate.’
So, I says” How did he find me?”
And she says, “Niki has the connections to find anyone.”
I was like, “That’s really creepy.”
And she says, “Oh, isn’t it just?”
And I says, “What was he doing at my Mom’s place?”
And she says, Paula chokes and takes a breath.
“He’s scoping Chuck out.”
“Why Chuck? I says.”
Paula stops, breathless again and too distracted to answer the barista, Marcel, asking for her order. After a moment we order our coffees, a couple of madeleines, and find a marble top table for two in the back.
“I get the feeling you are back in it!”
“In what?”
“I mean you seem to be reliving the phone call.”
“Yeah! It’s like, happening!”
“How did Nadia get your number? I mean, how did she even know who you were?”
“Chuck told her. I think he told her he was seeing me.”
“Okay, and did he give her your number too?”
“No. Nadia is smart. You know what she did?”
“Tell me.”
“She looked on his phone.”
“You mean she knew the password and all that?”
“I don’t know, but she told me that’s how she found my number.”
“How intriguing!”
“Well, she figured everything out, you know.”
“Yes, she has had an interesting life, too.”
“Well, you know, she’s got that cute British accent. I just love talking to her!”
Paula sips her café au lait and points out a framed ad for ‘Patisserie Roger’ from years ago, hanging on the wall opposite.
“Looks like this was a family business back in France.”
“Right, and we got the last vacant table at this one.”
“Have you done all your holiday shopping, Fred?”
A mother with toddler and numerous packages backs into Paula.
“Oh! excuse me!”
The child breaks loose and runs toward the door. Paula gets up to catch him but her knee pain stops her. She leans slightly on the table with one knuckle. He trips and falls among the people in line for service. Resolute and adventurous, he gets up and disappears beyond the line.
The mother shouts, “STEVIE,” puts her packages down on the floor by our table and walks over in pursuit.
“Look, Fred, he’s gone in back.”
We can see him toddling around making progress towards his next fall. His pants are white with flower down one side. He passes from our view through the window on the kitchen.
The baker carries Stevie back into the store. Paula points to the door.
“His mother went that way.”
Someone else shouts out.
“Roger! Roger! She went outside.”
Paula sits down again with a hand on her knee.
Stevie looks around, squirming in Roger’s arms.
“Let go! I want down!”
The baker’s grip tightens and Stevie shouts,
“You’re hurting, fucker!”
Roger doesn’t relent and skillfully changes his grip, so he has a hand under both of Stevie’s arms. He holds him out at arm’s length in front of him, the way farsighted people do to see more clearly. Stevie kicks in vain. His stubby legs are too short to strike.
“Petit gamin! Comment osez-vous me parler comme ça horrible petit rat!”
“DOWN! I want down!”
His mother pushes through the line at the door and walks over to her child on high.
“I am so sorry, Roger.”
“Okay, madame.”
“Here Stevie,”
The baker unloads squirming Stevie into his mother’s arms. He falls through and she catches him by the crook of his arm. He dangles for a moment a few inches from the floor, screaming.
“LET GO!”
She lowers him to the ground and squats down to talk, face to face.
“Stevie, quiet down. Just quiet down.”
Stevie’s tears come quietly. A young man in a black SnazE tracksuit offers to carry her packages and they all leave Chez Roger to its French ambiance.
“Do you have kids, Fred?”
“No, never did.”
“Did you hear that?”
“Plainly.”
“Where did he learn that? I mean, really!”
“TV, I should think.”
“Hope I don’t have one like that!”
Paula rubs her knee, preoccupied for a while.
“Paula, what brought all this back to you now?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Just memories, you know, and I saw a woman with her scarf over her head when the rain started and it gave me a creepy feeling and I saw you and we haven’t talked since, since I don’t know when, and you know, I just felt like telling you, I guess.”
“Yes, isn’t it interesting how associations play in our minds?”
“Yeah, I guess, Fred. Oh! I have got to tell you this. You know, Nadia was staying with this art dealer in New York when she first got to the States. I can’t think of her name. It’s really weird.”
“Are you thinking of Osiris Tarantula?”
“Right, Spider-Woman!”
“Her son is the one who did Chuck’s sculpture.”
“That’s Boris Tarantula.”
“Right, anyway, Osiris told Nadia a lot of stuff about the art deal.”
“The art deal?”
“Yeah, you know, Chuck’s sculpture, that metal willow tree thing in front of the new house?”
“I thought he bought that through Giuseppe Gloriani.”
“Yeah right, but Iris told Nadia that Chuck was lying to both of them and wanted to get the story straight.”
“Both? Who?”
“Ah, no, wait a minute. Oh, this is so complicated!”
“These deals often are!”
“She asks Nadia, ‘When is Chuck going to pay for Boris’s sculpture?'”
“You mean Iris asked Nadia?”
“Yeah, so, Nadia says to Iris, ‘I don’t know. I assume he paid already.’ Then Iris says, ‘That’s not what I heard from Giuseppe.'”
She also said, because of that, Giuseppe had optioned the Willow Tree piece to two other clients. ‘Yeah, I mean really!’ ”
“Well, good luck, it is cemented in front of Chuck’s place.”
“I know! Then Nadia told me, – and this is so creepy! – Giuseppe took her on a date and tried to get into her pants. Yeah, she says, ‘We started with lunch, then a preview of a Howard Hodgkin exhibition at Gagosian Gallery,’ then she says,
‘We were in the Limo and I find his hand in my blouse.’ She says. ‘Did he think I would go to his hotel?’
I was like, ‘Probably; I mean what did you do?’
“Then she says. ‘I got his hand out of there with my fingernails. Not the fakes either. ‘I was like, ‘Oh! Wow.'”
“And she says, ‘Those were mine, and strong as hell.’
You know, I was like, ‘God Nadia! Did you draw blood?'”
And you know what she said then?”
“Can’t imagine.”
“She says, real casual, ‘Oh I think I found a few drops on, me later!’
‘Anyway, ah….'”
Paula stops for breath again and gulps her café au lait.
“So, then she told the driver to let her out. So, I says, ‘Did he?'”
And she says, ‘That slimy creature told him not to stop; ghastly halitosis you know.'”
So I says, ‘What did you do?’
She says, staying really cool, ‘I started banging on the glass with my rings right behind the driver’s head.'”
Paula drains her cup.
“And you know what Fred? The driver finally stopped and unlocked the doors and she got out, and the driver says to her, ‘Sit in front.’ Then he dropped her off at Osiris’ place.”
“And Giuseppe, what of him?”
“I don’t know. She had to get off the phone.”
