“Gray! Gray!” Abby yelled, standing on her tiptoes and waving her arms furiously in the air. “It’s Abby! I’m over here! Can you see me? Thanks for the tix, babe. You were great! Better than Humphrey Bogart or Cary Grant. Way better than Marlon Brando!”
If Gray actually saw Abby waving out in the hall, or managed to hear any of her enthusiastic accolades, it was impossible to tell. He was completely surrounded by fellow cast members and other well-wishers, who were all kissing him and slapping him on the back and sticking to him like glue. (When the vultures sense you’re taking off for the top, they all want to hitch a ride. At least that’s what I’ve been told. I can’t speak from firsthand experience since I’m still squirming around on the bottom.)
“Oh, it’s no use!” Abby said, finally lowering her waving arms and coming down off her tiptoes. “He can’t hear me. Those no-neck monsters are making too much noise. And I’ll never get into that dressing room. It’s packed tighter than an old maid’s hope chest.”
“There’s no more champagne, either,” I whined. “And nothing to eat.”
“Come on then,” Abby said. “Let’s make like a tree and leave. I’ve got some more gin at home and we can grab a pie at John’s.” (She meant John’s Pizzeria, which was on Bleecker, right across the street from us.)
“Sounds good to me,” I said. “But what about Gray? I thought you wanted to give him your ‘up-close and personal congratulations.’ ” My tone was just the teensiest bit sarcastic. I swear.
“I’ll do it tomorrow,” she said. “I’ll hop over to his apartment in the morning, before he has to leave for the theater. And you’ll come with me, you dig? He lives real close to us, just a couple of blocks away on Christopher Street.”
I didn’t say anything. It was sweet of Abby to invite me, but I had no intention of tagging along to watch her give Gray a gooey french kiss (or whatever else she had in mind). Tomorrow was Saturday! I didn’t have to go to work. I didn’t have to hop around all day serving coffee to my demanding male bosses and coworkers. I wouldn’t have to work like a slave to compose all the captions, proofread all the galleys, file all the invoices and photos, rewrite and retype all the head staff writer’s boring and ungrammatical stories, and fend off the oily art director’s offensive advances and annoying jokes about my name.
No, tomorrow was the first day of a long, luxurious holiday weekend. It belonged to me, and I was going to do what I wanted to do. I planned to sleep until noon, take a cool shower, put on a sleeveless blouse and my cool new capris, pop into Chock Full o’Nuts for an iced coffee and a datenutand-cream-cheese sandwich, then spend the rest of the afternoon in an air-cooled library or museum.
Ha! I might as well have planned to go swimming with Frank Sinatra. Destiny had a very different agenda in store for me, and there would be nothing cool about it.
Chapter 3
I WAS AWAKENED AT NINE INSTEAD OF noon. Somebody was ringing my buzzer and throwing something-or, rather, a lot of little somethings-against the screen of my open bedroom window. I opened my eyes and stared up at the ceiling, wondering who I was, where I was, and why my entire, near-naked body was slick with sweat.
“Paige Turner!” a familiar voice shouted from the street below, giving me a pretty good clue to my identity. “Are you dead or alive? If you don’t come to the window this minute, I’m going to freak out and call the cops!” Another round of hard little somethings blasted into my window-screen insert, knocking it loose from its unstable moorings and sending it crashing to the floor.
I groaned and rose to a sitting position, swinging my sweaty legs over the side of the bed. Bed, I said to myself. I must be in my bedroom… Hot, I slowly comprehended. It’s hotter than a furnace in here. I dropped my feet to the floor and tried to stand up. “Yikes!” I shrieked, as my feet came down on several round little somethings and rolled right out from under me.
I fell flat on my rear like a sack of potatoes.
And that’s when I saw all the radishes on the floor.
Huh?! Radishes?! What the holy hell is-
I was crawling over to the window to see what was going on when another batch of little red missiles came hurtling through the screenless opening, pelting me in the face and chest.
“Hey, Paige!” Abby hollered. “You’d better get up right now! Angelo doesn’t have any more radishes. I’m gonna have to switch to turnips!” (Angelo, I should tell you, is the owner and sole proprietor of the fruit and vegetable store under Abby’s apartment.)
I hurriedly pulled myself to my knees and leaned over the sill, sticking my head all the way out the window. “Are you out of your mind?” I screeched, gaping down to the sidewalk where Abby was standing. (My bedroom is on the top floor of our tiny duplex, directly above my living room and two floors above Luigi’s street-level fish market.) “What the hell are you doing down there? Why are you ringing my buzzer and throwing groceries into my bedroom? I have a door, you know! Can’t you just knock on it like a normal person?”
“I tried that, you dodo. I practically knocked a hole in the damn thing! But I couldn’t wake you up. No matter how loud I pounded and shouted. And your phone must be off the hook or something. All I could get was a goddamn busy signal. I didn’t know what was going on! I thought you had a stroke and died!”
At that particular moment, I sort of wished I had. I was so hot and sweaty and achy and groggy that being conscious was a pain in the ass. Literally. (My radish-induced flop to the floor had bruised my bottom bigtime.)
“So, what do you want?” I said, heaving a thunderous sigh. “Make it snappy. I’m going back to bed.”
“Oh, no you don’t! I want to talk to you! And I can’t keep yelling to you from down here. I’m disturbing the peace!” She was right. A slew of nosy neighbors and morning shoppers had begun to gather on the sidewalk around her. “I’m coming upstairs,” she said. “Come down to your door and let me in.” Before I could protest, she disappeared inside the building.
Cursing under my breath and kicking radishes out of my way, I staggered out into the hall, grabbed my robe off the hook on the bathroom door, and hurried down the steps to the main floor of my apartment (i.e., the single narrow room that housed the kitchen, dining, and living areas combined). Abby was already at my front door, banging on it with her fist (or maybe her head).
I pulled on my robe and yanked the door open. “This better be good,” I snarled, giving her a really dirty look.
If Abby noticed my indignation, she didn’t let on. She just breezed into my kitchen, plopped herself down at my yellow Formica table, lit up one of my L &M filter tips, and asked if I had any coffee.
“Yes, but it isn’t made,” I said, growing angrier by the second. “I don’t usually perk a pot of coffee while I’m sleeping.”
“Then, you’d better perk some now,” she said, exhaling a stream of smoke in my direction. “You look like you need it.”
Aaaargh!
“I do not need it!” I growled, stomping my bare foot on the linoleum. “The minute you finish telling me whatever it is you have to tell me, I’m going back to bed. And then I’m going back to sleep. So, I don’t want any damn coffee since it will just keep me awake.”
A look of pure desolation fell over Abby’s beautiful face. “You mean you’re not going to Gray’s apartment with me?”
“No. It’s too hot and I’m too tired. I took the phone off the hook for a reason, you know. I really need to get some sleep. Now I’m going back to bed.”
“But you said you would go with me!”
“No, I didn’t.
You said I would go with you.”