Riverside Park

“I’m sorry,” he whispered.

“It’s okay,” she whispered back, pulling his head down to rest on her shoulder, “because you still feel so good inside of me.” She was looking up at the clock. She had maybe ten minutes. She shifted, tightening her legs around Jason to keep him there, and started to whisper things to him. Nice things. About him, about his size and how he felt inside of her, about what she wanted him to do to her. It was not long before she felt him growing large again. The progress was slow but steady, and although he was not quite yet fully erect, she started moving against him because she had grown tremendously excited. He began thrusting back, making her moan a little, which got him more excited, and his increasingly harder thrusts made Celia’s hips start to rise. She told him what was happening to her, what she was feeling, and then Jason became almost frantic, rhythmically banging the cabinet into the wall. She cried softly into his neck as she came and then shuddered violently; moments later he grunted loudly and collapsed on Celia, damp with perspiration.

Celia rolled out from under Jason and went into Mark’s toilet to get some paper towels. She dampened some and used them to clean herself up and then wordlessly brought some out for Jason. She went back for the can of Glade and sprayed the air. It smelled of fake roses and when she looked at Jason they both laughed.

5

Rosanne DiSantos and Mrs. Emma Goldblum

“I HATE IT when you say things like that, Mrs. G,” Rosanne told her eighty-nine-year-old former employer, longtime friend and roommate.

“I only said that it appeared the young foreign gentleman has a crush on our dear Amanda.”

“And Amanda’ll never notice because she never does,” Rosanne said. “But now you’re gonna make me worry about what’s gonna happen when Mickey Muscles makes his move out there in wherever the heck she is.” Having only lived in Detroit and New York City, Rosanne DiSantos was not a fan of the country.

“Connecticut,”Mrs. Goldblum supplied, sipping her cocoa. “Amanda is quite capable of taking care of herself.”

That shows how much you know about how she used to be, Rosanne thought. Amanda was like another person since she met Howie, and even like a third person after the kids started coming. As much as Rosanne wanted to believe the old Amanda was gone forever she still worried a bit now and then.

Rosanne had known Amanda and Howie for over fifteen years. When she earned her living as a housekeeper, they had been separate clients; Amanda was living by herself and Howie had been married to a first-class bitch that Rosanne hated.

Mrs. Goldblum’s forehead furrowed slightly. “What is it, dear?”

“Oh, nothin’,” Rosanne said quickly, forcing a smile. “I was just thinkin’ how guys are always gaga over Amanda’s boobs so she must be handling them, just like you said.”

Mrs. Goldblum carefully replaced her cup into the saucer with a smile. “I might not have expressed it in quite that way, Rosanne dear, but I do understand what you mean.” After a moment her smile faded. “And perhaps it’s nothing.”

Rosanne shot a look across the table. “Perhaps what is nothing?”

Mrs. Goldblum withdrew the lace hankie she kept tucked in her sleeve and patted her nose with it. “It’s just that I’ve lived such a long time.”

Oh, no, here we go again, Rosanne thought. Everyone got older, of course, but somehow she never thought it would happen to Mrs. G. She had always been a little frail, yes, like a little bird, but these “talks” she had started giving lately were giving Rosanne the creeps. Like she was trying to cram things into Rosanne’s head at the last minute.

Rosanne couldn’t think about life without Mrs. G. (How dumb was that? A licensed practical nurse who can’t deal with people dying?) What had begun as a solution to the problem of an older widow with a rent-controlled apartment far too large for her and a single mother without a proper place to raise her young son had become over the years a very real family. Mrs. G had been one of her housekeeping clients, too, back in the days when Rosanne’s husband, Frank, had been alive. (The Stewarts had been on Monday, Amanda Miller on Tuesday, the Wyatts on Wednesday, Mrs. Goldblum on Thursday and the Cochrans on Friday.) This apartment had been Rosanne and Jason’s home for over a decade and Mrs. G was like a mother to her and a grandmother to Jason. Jason even called her Gran.

And what changes had unfolded! Jason went from six to seventeen years old and Rosanne went from housekeeping to night school to becoming an LPN at Hudson Hospital. The fact that Rosanne hated nursing was besides the point. She had risen from a blue-collar living to become a professional. People looked at Rosanne differently now. And no one seemed surprised that one of Bronx Poly Sci’s academic stars was her son.

Living in an apartment overlooking Riverside Park and the Hudson River had been quite something, too. Particularly since Mrs. G had been living in this three-bedroom apartment for like sixty-five years and her rent was only $1,450 a month, half of which Rosanne paid. What would happen after Mrs. G died was not hard to imagine; they’d already seen it innumerable times. Rosanne and Jason would be evicted and the apartment would be renovated and sold as a condo unit for well over a million dollars.

What would she do then? Rosanne had no idea. Everyone expected her to marry Randy eventually but she preferred the relationship the way it was. Randy was a great guy and everything but while Rosanne worked steadily to improve herself and her lot in life, Randy wanted to keep everything the same. Change upset him. He wasn’t stupid, but he wasn’t motivated. He was a detective, but worked mostly behind a desk in an administrative capacity. Randy did his job, then left his shift on the dot to have a beer with the guys, maybe throw some darts and watch NASCAR. He had two kids by his ex-wife that he regularly saw and supported. The thing that really bothered Rosanne was how Randy never seemed to initiate any action on his own; if there wasn’t someone always there to tell him what to do next he would basically do nothing.

Randy liked the way their relationship was. They went out on occasion, always saw each other on Saturday night (at which time they very pleasantly got on sexually), and Rosanne always cleaned his apartment so she could stand being there.

So they just went on and Rosanne found it reassuring to have him in her life.

“Okay, Mrs. G, you’ve lived a long time,” Rosanne prompted.

Mrs. G moved her lips around a little before she spoke.

This had started recently, too.

“It’s not good for a husband and wife to live apart,”Mrs. G finally said.

“Amanda’s not going to do anything.” At least I sure hope not, Rosanne added to herself. “She’s got the three screaming-mimis and Madame DeFarge to keep her busy.”

“Hmm,”Mrs. G said somewhat gravely.

Rosanne counted to five. “What do you mean, hmm?”

She adjusted her glasses to look at Rosanne and, eventually, stare Rosanne down. “When you live apart, you begin to think outside of the family circle. It’s asking for trouble. A wife requires a certain amount of attention and Howard seems otherwise very occupied.”

“Oh, Mrs. G!” Rosanne objected, wrapping her arms over the top of her head in frustration. She let her arms drop. “This is Howie and Amanda we’re talking about. They both made mistakes the first time around and they knew exactly what they wanted when they got married. Which was each other. And the kids. They wouldn’t hurt those kids for anything and I think it’s rotten to even be talking about this!”

“I just worry,”Mrs. Goldblum said vaguely, preparing to rise from her chair.

Rosanne had forgotten to steer Mrs. G into the kitchen chair with arms on it so now Rosanne needed to help her get up without Mrs. G realizing that she was helping her get up. Mrs. G had become extremely irritable whenever she tried to help her and had thrown an absolute fit last year when Rosanne installed bars in her bathroom and along the hallways (although, Rosanne noticed, she started relying on them at once).

“At what time may we expect Jason?” Mrs. G asked, now on her feet and reaching for her walking stick. (That’s the way Mrs. G was—she didn’t use a cane like normal people; she used a walking stick, a skinny little black ebony stick with a silver handle that her granny or somebody used ten million years ago.)

“A little after eleven,” Rosanne said, glancing up at the clock. “They won’t close the kitchen until ten.”

“How we will miss him when he goes away to school,” Mrs. G said, moving toward her favorite seat in the living room to pick up her book. As was her habit she would take her book with her into the bedroom to read before going to sleep, but lately she had been falling asleep before getting to the book—or even turning off the light.

The phone rang and Rosanne picked it up and held it under her chin as she cleared the cups and saucers from the table. She’d have to wash them by hand because they were Wedgwood bone china that had belonged to some other ancient relative of Mrs. G’s. “Happy Thanksgiving,” Rosanne greeted whoever was calling.

Very carefully she put the dishes in the sink and held the phone with both hands, taking a quick look back over her shoulder. “Yeah, sure. Don’t worry about it. I’ll be right down. I know it’s hard, but you gotta do it. And I’ll go with you.” She swallowed. “Don’t think about it, we’ll just do it and get it over with. I’ll be right down.”

“Who was that?” Mrs. G asked, appearing in the doorway.

“Samantha Wyatt,” Rosanne said, replacing the phone in the cradle.

“Is she home from school?”

“Yeah. And I’m just going to run over with her to see her parents. To say Happy Thanksgiving. Leave the dishes in the sink and I’ll wash them when I get back.” She kissed Mrs. G on the cheek and headed for the front hall closet.

6

Sam Wyatt

“WHERE DOES SHE find these guys, in a catalog of the weird and the strange?” Sam Wyatt asked his wife.

“I think she met him through work somehow,” Harriet said quietly, putting the finishing touches on a second platter of hors d’oeuvres. They were on a second round because their youngest was two hours late and they were starving. They also had to entertain the latest boyfriend their older daughter had brought home to share their Thanksgiving meal.

Sam Wyatt’s eldest daughter, Althea, was thirty-one, black, Methodist and worked on Wall Street. The guy in the living room had gray hair, was white, and with a name like Donnelly was probably Catholic and had some kook job on Seventh Avenue. Sam always knew they would regret having sent Althea to that Muffy-Buffy school on the East Side for rich girls. Althea had grown up with so few black friends it was no wonder she dated white guys.

Admittedly, Sam and Harriet revolved in a somewhat rarified circle of New York. He may have started life as the youngest of six dirt-poor kids of an army sergeant who died young, but Sam had earned a college degree and today, at sixty-one, was a senior vice president of Electronika International, the second largest manufacturer of electronic office equipment in America. Harriet, whose skin was much lighter than Sam’s, began in the training program at Gardiner & Grayson book publishers and today was Vice President of Publicity, Marketing & Advertising.

“Be polite, Sam, that’s all I ask,” Harriet murmured, picking up the tray of hors d’oeuvres.