He learned she was from Texas — the accent in the few words he'd heard from her therefore came as no surprise — twenty years old, single. She lived alone, he read, even eschewing the usual bevy of cats with which the young women of Edelman's acquaintance seemed so obsessed. Edelman was allergic to cats and dogs. He was delighted to discover there was, in this, no barrier to his fantasies.
He spent the rest of the day in a daze, longing for five o'clock, aching to get back home. Thinking about her made his head ache, the way it did before the therapy.
That evening he invented excuses to ride the elevator in his building — three trips to the grocery store on Columbus Avenue, each time for a single item; garbage that must be taken out; over to Columbus again for a newspaper — in the hopes of seeing her. He checked the names on the mailboxes three times; the small cards over the door buzzers twice. She was not listed, might be subletting. He knew of at least three residents on the floors above him who took August off, abandoning the inhospitable city for the Islands or the Cape.
He did not see her that evening, and although he took the elevator at precisely the same hour for the next four mornings — even lingering in the lobby to the point of arriving late at the office on Thursday — she did not appear.
Friday afternoon found him coming home from work, tired, out of sorts, generally pissed off with the world. He worked for DeVere Pharmaceuticals, on Park Avenue South, near 28th. He was good at his work — better than almost anyone else there — knew the mixing of chemicals, had the touch, the art. But there were idiots above him who stood in his way, and his fellow employees were never much interested in the things he wanted to talk about. They'd even scoffed, some of them, when he'd let it slip he belonged to a fantasy and role-playing club.
"That makes sense, for somebody with your problems," Bill Whittaker said, making Edelman regret ever confiding in him.
Adding to Edelman's misery this particular day, he'd made the mistake of asking Carolyn Murray to have dinner with him that evening, an invitation she loudly and mockingly rejected in the middle of the lunchroom.
Life sucks, Edelman thought, riding the subway, imagining all the nasty things he could do to Carolyn Murray, hurtful things that had a lot to do with rage and frustration, little to do with the sexual forms they took.
On top of that, he had not seen Rachel since Monday morning. He was ready to believe he'd imagined the whole thing — not so unlikely as he would have wished, given his history, his problems. There was that time last Christmas… He shuddered at the clouded memory of his delusion. If the elevator encounter was…
There she is!
Coming down 75th from Central Park West. Casual business garb, skirt, blouse, sensible shoes. Hair shaped into a perfect frame for her exquisitely made-up face. Carrying a large stack of library books; seven or eight volumes, Edelman guessed. Piled against her right arm, pushing the breast on that side up into the deep V of her open-necked blouse.
She was distracted, Edelman could see. Her eyes were not on the street before her, on the hose snaking across the sidewalk. Young Sanchez, the summer doorman, was watering the potted plants along the front of the building, talking to a plain-faced girl in khaki cutoffs and a black halter top. The dark green garden hose looped and piled across the sidewalk. Two steps and Rachel would trip, Edelman was sure.
He bolted forward, crying "Look out!" — just as her right toe hooked under the first loop of hose. She snapped back to the present, the place. Her eyes went wide. The library books arced out of her arms. She pitched forward.
Edelman was there. He caught her, smoothly, easily. He was bigger than her by half, a strong man. He caught her as he would a child, she weighed so little. He felt surprise, discovering this; the lingerie ads revealed no shortage of soft, supple flesh.
"Oh!" she said. Edelman felt her legs stiffen to regain weight and control. She lifted herself out of his arms, but he held on to the memory of her.
"Thanks." She smiled the covergirl smile. "That could have been… costly."
Edelman bent to gather her books — economics and real estate — his mind racing. "Costly?" he asked, as if he did not know how damaging to her daily job would be a skinned knee, a scraped cheek or nose.
"I'm a model," she said. She moderated the Texas drawl carefully. He might not even have noticed it, were he not listening for it. "I could have cost myself a few weeks' work. Oh, thanks." She took the pile of books back on her left arm, extended her free hand. "Rachel McNichol."
"Bob Edelman. We… met in the elevator the other morning, didn't we?" Now that he was into the flow of it, fabrication came easily. He could pretend not to know who she was, that it had been her Monday morning. Better than admitting to the wall shrine in his apartment.
"Oh, yeah." Her smile broadened. "You live here, Mr. Edelman?"
"Yes. Third floor." He pointed up, generally. His apartment faced out onto the park, not 75th.
"Then I guess we'll be seeing more of each other, won't we? I'm subletting the Richardson place." She dropped her voice at the last words. Subletting was not allowed in the building. Tenants developed distant cousins, come to house-sit in the summer months.
"Oh, yes," Edelman said. "I know Burt. We played handball a couple of times. I had dinner with him and Carrie last Thanksgiving. In their apartment." They'd seemed close friends, before he sensed a deliberate distancing, and Burt finally told him, flat out, that Carrie was weary of Edelman's moods and preoccupations. He'd seen nothing more of them after that, though he thought he might still have a key to their place, from an earlier time when they were called away unexpectedly and asked him to water their copious plants.
"Yeah. Well… thanks again." She was plainly interested in terminating the conversation. Edelman wondered if he'd somehow put a foot wrong, but he could find nothing wrong in the words he'd spoken. He made a show of stepping past her, as if it had always been his intent to continue toward Central Park.
"You're welcome. See you again." He watched her go up the steps into the shadow of the lobby, waited five minutes before going in himself.
Sanchez watched with raised eyebrows from his place at the end of the long green hose. He shrugged, dropped his voice to be sure no one but his companion heard. "That Mr. Edelman," he said. "An odd one."
The girl just nodded. Everyone knew that.
Saturday Edelman was up before the summer sun poked above the eastern skyline. He put on the jogging outfit he'd not worn in over a year. It struck him as the least conspicuous outfit for what he had in mind.
He went down to the lobby — no sign of Sanchez this early — and out onto 75th. He walked over to Columbus, bought a newspaper from the vendor just opening as he got there. He returned half the length of the block, remaining on the opposite side, leaned against one of the wrought-iron railings below a tall, old brownstone, opened the paper. He waited.
He had to move three times to avoid arousing suspicion. He was running out of places, on that short, residential street, where he could lounge inconspicuously and still be in line of sight to his doorway. After two and a half hours his mounting impatience was rewarded. She came out, dressed much as he was, turned right, began to jog along 75th toward Columbus.
He followed.
It was a glorious, glorious day. She went through an unstructured routine, jogging, stopping, looking in little shops along Columbus and the side streets, jogging some more. Edelman had no trouble keeping up with her. He even went in a couple of the shops, boldness overwhelming him. He tested how close he could get to her, how reckless without her seeing him.