The Girl in Times Square Read online

  “Like you?”

  “Hmm.”

  “But still?”

  “Well, yes. Still. At the baptisms of my godchildren. I’m godfather to six of my thirty nieces and nephews. I used to have a good time at the weddings of my sisters, my brothers.” Spencer paused before continuing. “When playing tackle football on the lawn of our house in Farmingville with my older brothers and getting clobbered by them. Playing soccer every Saturday for the Hanover Police League. I guess I feel all right when I’m home for the holidays and my mother fusses and frets and my father and I sit and watch a football game, and the kids are climbing all over me, and there is noise. Happy noise. My apartment is so quiet all the time that sometimes I like a little good noise. I like the summer. I hate winter. I’d like to live somewhere where it’s summer all year round. Let’s see, when else? I don’t entirely hate bachelor parties.” He grinned. “And I’ve been to some, how shall I say, joyous ones. Police bowling tournaments. They’re hilarious, too. The guys get trashed and then bowl. You really have to see it to believe it.”

  Lily was listening.

  “Did I answer your question?”

  “Hmm.”

  “What about you?”

  But she was falling asleep. When she woke up next, it was morning and he was gone.

  It was Thursday, January 6, 2000. It was the first day of the rest of her life. Lily would have to learn how to live again.

  All right.

  So what now?

  That chant became interspersed with I’m not broke, which was a bit of a revelation in the unquiet healing mind, in the quiet unhealed body. I’m alive and not broke, so what now?

  I’m alive.

  Grandma called and said, “Well, it’s Thursday. Aren’t you coming?”

  Lily said maybe she would come next week.

  On Tuesday she had to go back to the hospital for blood work. Joy, though now belonging to someone else, came to take her. When Lily protested and said she didn’t have to come anymore, Joy said, “I want to come. I do it for you as a friend, like Spencer. You don’t have to pay me. You don’t pay him, do you?”

  DiAngelo took her blood himself. That’s a hands-on doctor, thought Lily. Usually nurses take blood from patients. Where was that Marcie? But Dr. D. is so thorough, so involved.

  And then she saw the nice new skirt that Joy was wearing, and the traces of new make-up on her face, and the slight breathlessness in DiAngelo that betrayed his unclogged heart. The blood test came back clean—though waiting for the results was the least pleasant thing Lily had to do in the first week of her new life. And Joy smiled, all flushed, and DiAngelo smiled—but not at Lily—and Marcie came in and gave Lily a hug, while Lily looked incredulously at all three of them.

  The nausea persisted and there was no appetite, but there was no more retching, so that was something. Her abdomen still hurt.

  Tuesdays were the worst days for Lily—she held her breath in her stiff fingers—but the first week, the second, the tests came back clean, and her platelets and red blood cells were rising and her white cells were remaining healthily low, her neutrophils were small yet growing, and Joy’s skirts were getting shorter, and Joy was getting thinner, and DiAngelo stopped wearing his track-suits, and the blood tests were still clean, and Joy was smiling, and it was still the dead of winter, and cold, yet some spirited melodrama was going on in the middle of Lily’s blood-testy January afternoons.

  Spencer called on Tuesday to ask about the blood work. Lily asked if he could meet her for lunch.

  “Spencer, you will not believe when I tell you this, but I think DiAngelo has a thing for Joy,” said Lily. They were having pretend lunch at the Odessa. Spencer was certainly eating. Lily was playing with her soup.

  “Stop swirling your spoon, Lil. Eat. I can’t sit here all day. I still have to walk you back and then I’ve got to go to the shooting range.”

  “Did you hear what I said?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well?”

  He raised his eyes to her. “Do me a favor—don’t go into detective work. Where have you been? DiAngelo’s had it for her since she first came in with you.”

  “He has?” Lily said that a bit too loudly. Even the short-order cook came out of the kitchen.

  “Shh. Yes.”

  “Stop!”

  “Would I lie to you about something like this?”

  “I think you would, yes.”

  “Since the first day, Lily.”

  “I can’t believe it! I’m usually very good at spotting things like that.”

  Spencer stared at her steadily, and she became keenly self-conscious until he said, “Lily, I find that very difficult to believe considering how blind you were to things going on in your own apartment.”

  “Oh, no. Once again this.” Lily stood up, pulling her hat over her ears. “I’m done not eating. Let’s go.”

  They walked back, slowly. She had little strength in her legs. Spencer offered her his arm.

  “No, I’m fine, I’m fine,” she replied quickly—just false bravado. But she was done with his charity.

  She found an old sketch in one of her books that afternoon, decided to re-sketch it and then fill it in watercolor on an eight-by-eight cold press board, and when Spencer came to see her the following Tuesday after the blood work, he looked at it for a long time, and finally said, “Lily, what’s this?”

  “Do you like it? I did it last week.”

  Lily could see he didn’t know what to say. “I am very confused by this picture,” he said. “When did you do it?”

  “Last week, I just told you.”

  It was a picture of Spencer with Mary clinging to his arm, in front of a row of flowers at Dagostino’s.

  “Remember I ran into you last summer?”

  “I remember,” he said slowly. “I can see how you might have been able to drum up my likeness, but what I want to know is how did you drum up Mary’s? You did only see her for those two seconds, no?”

  “Yes, I did only see her for those two seconds,” said Lily, smiling. “I re-sketched an old drawing.”

  “Hmm. Maybe you should do a little more of this re-sketching.” He didn’t take the picture.

  “You don’t want it?”

  “You know—I’m going to have a fine time explaining it, so no,” said Spencer. “Because I hate explaining anything.”

  41

  Shopping as Healing

  Whoever said that money did not bring happiness obviously had none. Lily was feeling a little better, a little stronger, eating a little. For the two weeks that she went out every day and came back with stacks of stuff, it brought her great happiness.

  She would go out in her new cashmere tracksuit, in her new black wool coat, her new boots, a new bag, a new spiffy red hat to cover the fuzz on her head. Lily bought earrings and books, and more DVDs, addicted to comedies. She bought Joy a cashmere coat. She bought Amanda an SUV—to drive the girls around in. She bought Anne another month in her apartment. She paid the property taxes on Grandma’s Brooklyn brownstone for five years up front. After two weeks of Gucci and Guess? and Prada three-quarter length red rainslickers (the coolest raincoat ever), Lily was done. She bought a digital camera, a digital video recorder, she bought a stereo and a kitchen faucet because hers was leaking. She bought an iMac. She bought a plush down quilt for the bed, comfy pillows, a throw rug, a vase. Two weeks of shopping and she was done.

  And now what?

  She called him. “Spencer, can I buy you something?”

  “I told you no. Not a thing.”

  “Come on. Don’t be such a stickler for propriety. This isn’t about a detective and his witness.”

  “What is it about then?”

  Good question. “When is your birthday?”

  “Don’t have one.”

  “How about an Armani suit for your birthday?”

  “If you want me to lose my job, go right ahead.”

  He was so stubborn. “I think I want to mo
ve,” said Lily with a sigh.

  “Very good idea. Move where?”

  “I don’t know. Central Park West? Central Park East? SoHo? Chelsea? Where do you think?”

  “Anywhere but that apartment would be good.”

  Just for fun Lily decided to go look at some available apartments. She asked Spencer to come with her because she didn’t want to appear to be the gullible sap she actually was. But though Spencer had agreed to come, she didn’t hear from him that Saturday, and even when she beeped him, he didn’t call her back. She didn’t see him Sunday, which was odd. On Tuesday after her blood work when he did call, he said he would go with her the following weekend, but the following weekend came and she couldn’t get hold of him again.

  “Spencer, where were you?” Lily asked, almost plaintively on Monday. She didn’t want to sound upset, he certainly wasn’t obligated to come with her, but if he said he would, why didn’t he? Was he not as good as his word? Lily hadn’t expected that from Spencer.

  He didn’t answer, and when she pressed him teasingly, he got a funny cold look in his eyes that told her that she was overstepping her bounds, even kidding around. So she quickly let it go and didn’t ask him to come with her again—and he didn’t offer.

  Lily went with Paul and Rachel instead even though Paul said, “Lil, I don’t want you to leave your apartment. What happens when Amy comes back and finds you all moved out and gone?”

  “This is just for fun, Paulie,” she said, squeezing him.

  The real estate woman, Marilyn Alterbrando, asked, “Will you be selling your apartment?” and Lily replied that no, she was only renting at the moment. The realtor’s face soured. “Will you be needing a mortgage?”

  “No,” said Lily, “I’m paying cash.”

  “The apartments we’re seeing today, they’re a bit pricey.”

  “I know.”

  “Oh.”

  Okay, that felt good.

  They saw a loft in Greenwich Village, a studio on the West Side, a one-bedroom in Hell’s Kitchen, a tiny two-room on the Upper East Side, all for a million dollars. “If you have two million, I can show you some really nice places. Maybe you can get a mortgage for the other million?”

  “Won’t need to.” Okay, that also felt very good.

  After two weekends of going around Manhattan, Lily found her dream life: a 5000-square-foot, brand-new floor-through on 64th Street overlooking Central Park, which was going for $9,000,000 without all the options or $11,000,000 with extra crown molding.

  “That’s a lot of fucking crown molding,” said Spencer when he heard.

  Lily liked the apartment so much she arranged for a Sunday morning second viewing and dragged a reluctant but curious Spencer to see it, afterward taking him to the long-promised, long-undelivered brunch at the Plaza—without Mary. They sat at a little table in Palm Court. Lily was monochromally red—beret, rainslicker, galoshes. Spencer was monochromally gray—chinos, shirt, tie. His brown hair was growing out. Her bald head was under crimson cover.

  “So what did you think?”

  “Lily, why do you want to live on the Upper East Side? You’re not an Upper East Side kind of gal.”

  “That’s where you’re wrong, Mr. Know-It-All. I want to be that kind of gal.” The waiter came and asked if they wanted mimosas—champagne and orange juice. Lily said yes.

  Just orange juice and black coffee for Spencer. “You need a bedroom and an art studio. What are you going to do with five bedrooms, formals and a library?”

  “My art needs to go somewhere.”

  “Your art can fit into your closet. You’re not going to be storing this future art, are you? You plan to be selling it, right? Because you can store your non-existent art for a lot less than eleven million bucks.”

  “I want an elevator that goes right up to my apartment. I want park views. I want crown molding.”

  “Why do you want five bathrooms? You’ll have to clean them all.”

  “Well, I don’t plan to use them all. I’ll use just one.”

  “So what do you need five for?”

  “Oh, Spencer! Didn’t you like it?”

  “You don’t need a 5000-square-foot apartment,” he said firmly. Lily and Spencer were having this conversation with waffles on their plates while waiting for their custom-made omelettes, while the violinist and the pan-flutist played a pas de deux of Brahms’s Hungarian Dance No. 1.

  “I didn’t say I needed it. I said I wanted it.”

  “You don’t have eleven million dollars.”

  That was true. Lily’s money just was not going far enough in New York City. Yet New York was all she knew. That was the conundrum. She remained where she was, but one thing was becoming abundantly clear. She couldn’t remain where she was. Amy’s ghost was living with her in the apartment. It started to feel crowded. Now that Lily was healthier, the ghost got healthier, too.

  Lily started to get the ill feeling she was being watched. She started closing all her windows and drawing her shades like the couple across the yard. Turned out they weren’t drawing the shades, they were no longer together. Two women lived in the apartment now.

  Was it crazy, the slight paranoia? Or was it just a rationalization for wanting to move to eleven-million-dollar digs on Fifth? She asked Spencer if he ever found anything about Milo. When he said he had not, Lily became tightfisted. She sold her second Prada bag on eBay, and her second pair of Stuart Weitzman shoes, and her only Tiffany bracelet. She started renting her DVDs, and buying clips for all the snack bags so they wouldn’t go stale. Suddenly life loomed large in front of Lily again, and it was no point throwing away her money—after all, there might come a day when she would need it.

  But though she had sold all her baubles and her beads, she still felt she was being watched, almost as if the two had nothing to do with one another.

  “Everybody has their own karma. Can I help it that I think mine is to die young?” Amy said to Lily once. Forgotten words that would have stayed forgotten, if only, if only Amy had not been missing for nine months. For nine months, every single night as Lily turned out the lights in the apartment and walked past Amy’s closed door to her own bedroom, the words sounded out with her every step—but only in the darkest hours, when she felt ghostly eyes on her. Because during sunlight and during morning, during lunches with Spencer and sketching and shopping, Lily, along with Amy’s childhood friend Paul, continued to cry over homemade margaritas that they hoped Amy was safe somewhere.

  Alive somewhere.

  42

  The Financial and Eating Woes of a Lottery Winner and a Cancer Survivor

  In early February, after a fifth clean blood test and a celebratory removal of her Hickman catheter, and after realizing she could not afford an eleven-million-dollar change of life, Lily decided to seek the services of a financial consultant.

  She was still giving cash to Anne. And Amanda’s husband had called, hemming and hawing, to ask for a “small loan” to jump-start his own body shop in Bedford. There was a nice space becoming available in a good location, but the banks were proving difficult, and could Lily make him a small loan of two-hundred-and-fifty thousand dollars, to change her sister and nieces’ lives for the better? Lily gave him the money so that her sister Amanda would love her again, and call her again. The SUV for the girls just didn’t seem to do it.

  It worked. Lily got some sisterly phone calls. It was worth it, but now she had to think about her future. After all, she had a family to support.

  She picked a name out of the phone book at random. Lily figured the lottery came to her at random, she might as well pick at random the man who was going to take care of that money.

  The man turned out to be a forty-year-old woman named Katherine, a vice president at Smith Barney. She was intimidating and tall, and had perfect bone structure that didn’t come from her bodyfat being eaten away by chemo drugs. She said, looking Lily over carefully, “Please—call me Katie,” but did not become less intimidating. She look
ed at Lily full on and said the sort of correct things that a compassionate stranger might say. Not an awkward moment in Katie’s office, the walls of which were covered in bookshelves but no art.

  Katie and Lily established that if she continued to live in her rat-hole of an apartment on 9th Street, with her current food, utility, entertainment and art supply needs, her yearly expenses would come to $50,000, and that included Christmas and birthday shopping, and an occasional backpack or boots but not both. A safe six-percent return on her remaining six million dollars would yield Lily $360,000 a year. “You can get a mortgage on a great apartment,” Katie said, drumming on her desk with a pencil, “buy boots and bags, go on vacation, give money to charitable causes to offset the capital gains tax, family gifts are not considered charitable contributions by the way, and still have a hundred thousand a year left over for knick-knacks.”

  Lily chewed her lip. Clearing her throat, she timidly asked, “A mortgage, huh? How much would a mortgage be on, say…just for the sake of argument…an eleven-million-dollar apartment?”

  That made Katie stop drumming on her desk with a pencil.

  “About a hundred thousand dollars,” she said. “A month. Over a million a year.” She raised her eyebrows. “I didn’t think we were investing for that.”

  “Perhaps we should invest a little bit more aggressively,” said Lily with an ahem. “Perhaps slightly less safe—but more rewarding?”

  After another hour of looking over various mutual fund plans, and Lily wishing only for her charcoal so she could draw this room and this computer and this woman sitting across from her in a suit and talking about money, they had agreed on a fund that would—provided nothing catastrophic happened in the world—yield Lily between fifteen and twenty-six percent a year in income. That was some serious cash, some meaningful return on investment. Since Lily would need only fifty grand to live on, she could reinvest her dividends annually, and her capital would double every three to four years. In other words, at the five-year cancer survival benchmark, Lily, if she lived frugally—and lived—could buy the eleven-million-dollar apartment for cash and still have money left over for Oodles of Noodles.