Riverside Park Read online

  “Once in a while I’ll stop in and have a burger. And watch a game.”

  Amanda walked over to retrieve the kettle, fill it with water and put it on a burner. She needed to warm the silver serving dishes with hot water before filling them. (She had inherited the silver from her grandmother and it made Amanda’s mother happy to see her using it.) “I didn’t realize you frequented bars while we were away.”

  “Oh, that’s me all right,” Howard said, “in the bars, day and night. We’re talking maybe once in a blue moon, Amanda. It does get a little lonely around here sometimes.”

  Amanda did not point out how, as a literary agent, and a very successful literary agent at that (president of Hillings & Stewart), Howard was inundated with people, phone calls and e-mail all day long. And when he did not have some professional soiree at night to attend, he always told her all he wanted to do was go home and collapse. He never said, “I’m lonely so I’m going to a bar.”

  Their living arrangement was becoming an increasingly unhappy situation for Amanda. After 9/11 Emily and Teddy were frightened of tall buildings, airplanes, staircases, fires and crowds. Like so many families, the Stewarts had gone into counseling with the children, but neither parent could bear the idea of not doing everything they could to make their children feel safer. So Howard found a gorgeous house and property in Woodbury, Connecticut, and after some discussion, Amanda and the children moved out there. Before this, it had never occurred to either one of the Stewarts that they would ever live anywhere but in their beloved adopted hometown of Manhattan.

  The children were enrolled in school, and Howard hoped that when Emily and Teddy were older they would attend Taft as day students. There was a wonderful horse farm next to them, Daffodil Hill, where Amanda boarded a horse for herself and a pony for the children. Madame Moliere lived with them as well (the house was huge), so that Amanda could still get some work in on a book she was under contract to write, about the court of Catherine the Great. Howard tried to come out on Thursday nights and go back into the city on Monday mornings. Amanda would bring the children into New York at the slightest excuse; she did not want them to be afraid of the place their parents loved above all others, Manhattan, and more specifically, the neighborhood of Riverside Park.

  Howard grew up in Ohio, where his father had a landscaping business, and Amanda grew up in Syracuse, where her parents were still both professors at Syracuse University. Howard had attended Duke and then book publishing lured him to Manhattan; Amanda attended Amherst and her (closet) gay husband had dragged her to Manhattan.

  Howard’s first wife had money, so he had not been pressed to make a lot of money while he worked his way up at Gardiner & Grayson to become an editor. He quit his job around the same time that his marriage broke up, started a literary agency, and had never looked back. It was with great pride that Howard had bought the Woodbury property on his own; Amanda knew her husband still considered this apartment as belonging to her, and that Howard wished as a family they did not still rely so heavily on the trust fund Amanda’s grandmother had left her. The money Amanda had earned (and still earned) from her first book, a biography of Catherine the Great, was different, Howard said.

  Amanda was extremely proud of Howard. Men liked his well-defined masculinity and sharp, well-educated mind, and women liked his curly hair, beautiful manners, deeply expressive eyes and easy smile. And while Howard appeared to be every inch the sophisticated New Yorker, he was, at heart, still a boy from the Midwest who loved life.

  The Stewarts had come a long way in their marriage. Certainly Amanda had. When she had met her future husband she could scarcely leave the neighborhood. She had suffered a complete nervous breakdown in her first marriage and had retreated into her work and this apartment. Besides her parents, there had only been two people who she trusted enough to let in. One was her housekeeper, Rosanne DiSantos, and the second, her elderly friend Mrs. Emma Goldblum, who would come for high tea. They were still very near and dear to her, and were, in fact, present this day at the Stewarts’ Thanksgiving dinner. If anyone had told Amanda that someday she would be running after three children, driving everyone all over hell and high water in a Lincoln Navigator and volunteering for The Parents and Teachers Organization in the Connecticut suburbs, she would have told them surely they were mad.

  But that was exactly what she was doing.

  Of course, had anyone told her she would ever agree to live apart from Howard for at least four days a week she would have said, “Never!” And lately it was more like six or seven days apart and getting worse.

  “You can do whatever you like while we’re away,” Amanda said to Howard, trying to sound carefree. “I trust you completely.”

  Howard looked at her from across the kitchen. “Ditto, my dear.”

  Amanda only wished she knew why that pretty girl who called her husband by his first name kept parading around in her head.

  Dinner finally reached the dining room table, and given the unusual collection of people they were entertaining went off rather well. Conversation with Amanda’s parents, the professors Miller, could be difficult to follow when Mother got lost in life’s metaphors and Papa wandered through lost civilizations, which is to say, to speak in their respective fields of English and history. Mother Stewart tended to talk about soap operas, so Amanda’s older friend, Mrs. Goldblum, could help out a little there. There were Emily and Teddy, of course; Grace snoozing in her carrier; Madame Moliere, and Miklov, the assistant director of the children’s soccer league in Connecticut. He was from the Czech Republic and the children called him Mickey-Luck. Also present were Rosanne DiSantos, no longer a housekeeper but a hospital LPN, Rosanne’s beau, Randy, a detective in the Bronx, and Rosanne’s seventeen-year-old son, Jason, who had to leave dinner early to go to work at Captain Cook’s. Amanda walked Jason to the door.

  “The tips are really, really good on Thanksgiving,” he explained. Amanda had known this strapping young man since he was two years old. He was attending Bronx Poly Sci, hoping for early acceptance to the University of Pennsylvania to study engineering.

  “Will Celia be bartending today?” Amanda casually asked.

  Jason’s head jerked in her direction. “You know Celia?”

  “She lives in our building.”

  “Oh. Um, yeah, I guess she’ll be working,” Jason said, his face ringing with red.

  Amanda returned to the dining room wondering if Jason was sweet on Celia or if he knew something about Celia he didn’t want Amanda to know. Like the fact that Howard went there while she and the children were in Connecticut.

  Amanda had never entertained uncomfortable thoughts like these until Grace was born. She didn’t care what anybody said; carrying a third child at forty-three had almost finished her. Unlike her first two pregnancies, with Grace she’d been chronically tired and ill. She had also grown immensely heavy and the birth had been difficult, ending in an emergency cesarean. Mercifully Grace was fine, and after a few weeks, Amanda started feeling better. Physically anyway.

  Most of the weight was off now, but Amanda’s hormones—or something—were still out of whack. Her considerable sex drive seemed to have utterly vanished. And there was no way, not with how well her husband knew her, that she could pretend otherwise. And she knew this hurt Howard’s feelings, that whatever sex life they could manage at this point was so one-sided.

  Dinner flowed into dessert.

  “Mickey-Luck’s going to play us tomorrow,” Teddy told Rosanne.

  “He’s going to play you for a fool?” Rosanne kidded.

  “No, in soccer!” Teddy said, laughing.

  “Is that your real name?” Mrs. Goldblum asked the soccer coach. “Mickey-Luck?”

  “Miklov,” he answered.

  “Miklov,”Mrs. Goldblum rehearsed.

  “I’ve got a new recipe for it,” Mother Stewart told Mrs. Goldblum. “Hot or cold, it makes no difference, it’s wonderful meat loaf. Just ask Howard.”

  “With s
occer and riding and music lessons,” Amanda’s mother was saying, “I’m beginning to wonder when these children have an opportunity to play.”

  “I told you I didn’t like the play,” Amanda’s father said.

  “Do you watch All My Children?” Mother Stewart asked Mrs. Goldblum.

  “I watch all the children,” Madame Moliere answered in her heavily accented English.

  “The cheeldren are great,” Miklov said, nodding. “They leesen, they practice and they do goot.”

  Amanda and Howard tried not to laugh but it was difficult. There were so many conversations going on there simply was no thread to follow. Everyone seemed happy, though, which was all that really mattered. Even Miklov, who usually featured a deep sort of Slovak scowl, was smiling.

  He was a good-looking young man of twenty-six whose professional career in soccer had ended in his own country with an ankle injury. Amanda never really understood how Miklov had come to their soccer league but she hoped it would lead to better things. The job did not pay well at all, which was why Howard had engaged Miklov to conduct private sessions with the children, to give him some pocket money. (Well, and to make the children better players.)

  Mrs. Goldblum, Rosanne and Randy departed shortly after dessert and the wife of the building superintendent arrived to clean up. Madame Moliere prepared the children to leave for Connecticut while Amanda endeavored to sort out her parents. Mother Stewart was flying out of JFK very early in the morning so Howard was staying in the city with her tonight. After he dropped her off at the airport he would join his family and in-laws in Woodbury in time for the children’s holiday indoor soccer tournament.

  Howard and Miklov took the bags down to the building’s garage and secured them under a tarp on the Navigator’s roof. Amanda’s father sat in the front seat; Amanda’s mother, Madame Moliere and Grace sat in the backseat; and poor Miklov was crammed into the rear jump seat with Teddy and Emily. Howard made sure everyone had their seat belts on and then walked to the driver’s window. “Drive carefully,” he murmured, giving Amanda a kiss on the lips.

  “I shall,” she promised.

  One of the greatest surprises of their marriage had been Amanda’s excellence as a driver. She loved it. Getting behind the wheel of a car gave her the same quiet thrill as when as a child, she had discovered someone had left the paddock gate open at her grandparents’ farm. It was the thrill of freedom, of suddenly having the way and the means to go wherever she wanted.

  The drive to Woodbury was pleasant and the traffic not too bad. They swung into a rest stop for Emily to use the bathroom and get some gas but then everybody except Madame Moliere and Grace got out for one reason or another and it took a while to load everyone back in.

  When they reached the house, Ashette, their black Labrador retriever, was overjoyed to see them. Amanda dismissed the house sitter, got her parents settled in their room and made sure Madame Moliere had her eye on the children. Then Miklov climbed into the front seat and Amanda drove him home to the Waterbury housing complex where the league had put him up. They talked a little bit about the tournament that started tomorrow. A lot of the children were away for the holidays so Emily and Teddy would probably play their whole games, which was great since Amanda wanted her parents to watch them in action.

  “How are you getting on, Miklov?” Amanda asked him. She had been surprised when Miklov had accepted Howard’s offer of a bus ticket to join them for Thanksgiving dinner. Emily had not been, though. (“He’s all alone, Mommy, oh, so very, very alone!”)

  “I miss my family,” he admitted, brushing his hair out of his eyes.

  “Of course you do,” she said. “And I’m sure they must miss you.”

  “My mother.”

  She glanced over at him.

  “My mother meeses me.”

  “Will you go and see her? For a visit, I mean.”

  “Not yet,” he said, turning to look out his window.

  He probably couldn’t afford it yet. Maybe she and Howard could find some other parents who would engage him for private lessons.

  While they drove through downtown Waterbury Miklov suddenly said, “This is a very happy day.” When he smiled he was very handsome, although his teeth needed some work. She had no doubt that would come in time. Perfect-looking teeth was still a very American thing.

  When she pulled up in front of the dreadful-looking building where he lived she said, “Here we are.” She kept her foot on the brake, waiting for him to get out. She needed to pick up some milk on the way home. Her parents now only drank soy milk. What store would be open on Thanksgiving that would carry soy milk?

  Mickey-Luck undid his seat belt and shifted to face Amanda, making the leather creak. “I will tell my mother about my American Thanksgeeving. I haf—”He looked down a moment and then raised his head to meet her eyes directly. “I say how kind you are.”

  “Our family is very fond of you, Miklov. You’ve made a big difference in our children’s lives.” Because out here they miss their father terribly. So do I.

  Miklov’s eyes traveled down to Amanda’s mouth for just a second and then he turned away, searching for the door handle. When he found it he stopped again and turned around. “You understand how beautiful you are, yes?”

  Amanda’s eyes widened. And then she laughed a little. “Why, thank you.”

  He made a fist and pounded his heart twice. “I feel it there. For you. You are so beautiful.”

  Oh, save it, Mickey-Luck! she thought. It is being American that you think is beautiful, our money is beautiful, this ridiculously expensive truck is beautiful, having a family is beautiful!

  “See you tomorrow,” she told him.

  He looked disappointed as he got out. Then he turned around, ducking his head back into the truck. “People think I am a peasant but I am not,” he said in a rush. “My great-grandfather was a great general. My father went to school, he was a teacher. I am not a peasant, Mrs. Stewart!”

  Somewhat startled, Amanda said, “Everyone knows you are a champion soccer player, Miklov, and an excellent teacher. And in America that is all that matters.”

  Miklov was searching her eyes and it made Amanda uncomfortable. But then his dark mood seemed to lift and he smiled, closed the door and walked away from the truck. He did not look back.

  Amanda took a deep breath and regripped the steering wheel. Miklov was very attractive.

  She set out to find soy milk.

  4

  Celia Cavanaugh

  IT SUCKED BIG-TIME that she had to work. This was the first time in four years that Celia had the apartment to herself over a holiday weekend. But she did have to work, three until eleven tonight, three until two Friday and Saturday, and then three until ten on Sunday. Normally she cleaned up in tips over the weekend but on Thanksgiving? It might be okay today but she knew it would be dead over the weekend. To meet December’s rent she was going to need an extra shift this week.

  Celia and Rachel had been assigned as roommates in a freshman dorm at Columbia University. Celia did not have many Jewish friends in the Connecticut suburb she had grown up in, and Rachel did not have many white Anglo-Saxon Protestant friends in the New Jersey suburb she had grown up in, but they had hit it off in a big way and learned a lot from each other. For example, Rachel introduced Celia to lox and bagels, while Celia, Rachel joked, had introduced her to margarine and instant mashed potatoes. Both girls came from affluent families, had parents still married to each other, and had done well in their suburban training in piano, tennis, skiing and keeping secrets.

  Celia’s father was a partner at a Wall Street law firm, while Rachel’s last name was synonymous with the largest independent truck leasing company in the world. Her father was really, really rich. So rich, in fact, that he had bought a two and a half bedroom apartment on Riverside Drive so his daughter could move out of the dorm her sophomore year. Celia was welcomed to move in with Rachel as along as she paid sixteen hundred dollars a month toward expenses. Celi
a’s father asked why the heck should they pay sixteen hundred dollars a month to let her run wild when Celia could stay in the dorm for six hundred dollars a month and let her mother sleep at night. The girls put their heads together and figured out if they could just find someone who’d pay Celia’s rent for the full-size bedroom, Celia could pay Rachel six hundred dollars a month and cram herself into the tiny maid’s room off the kitchen, and then Rachel would have extra cash her father didn’t need to know about.

  They advertised in the Spectator and the son of a country-western star was happy to pay sixteen hundred dollars to live in such a nice apartment. After Celia’s mother checked it out and the building and the neighborhood, she told Celia’s father she had no objection to Celia moving in. If Celia wanted to live in a closet that was her business, but the Riverside Park neighborhood was now very in, Mrs. Cavanaugh told her husband.

  They moved into the apartment in August and it was really great. Celia’s father built her a loft bed so she could turn around in the maid’s room. Then, on their third night in the apartment, Celia and the-son-of-a-country-western-star shared a couple of bottles of wine, one thing led to another and Celia never slept in the maid’s room again. The next thing she knew, she was smoking cigarettes like the-son-of-a-country-western-star (Rachel put a huge standing fan in the hall to blow smoke back into their bedroom), and suddenly it was November and Rachel was calling Celia at the country-western star’s palatial home outside of Nashville to say that if Celia didn’t withdraw from their English class she was going to get an F because of her absences. Celia wasn’t going to be able to make the time up, the teacher was an asshole. So Celia called the university from Nashville and withdrew from the class. Later when her parents saw the I on her report card she said she had actually gotten a B but the teacher had handed in the grades late.

  The lies came easier and more often. Celia and the-son-of-a-country-western-star were drinking a lot and smoking a lot of pot. Rachel said after this school year that was it, Celia was out. Celia said that was fine, they were going to get their own place anyway. In February the-son-of-a-country-western-star wanted to take Celia to Aspen where his country-western-star parent had a place, but Celia explained she had a huge test coming up in history and couldn’t go. But as she watched the-son-of-a-country-western-star packing his bags she changed her mind and went with him, deciding she’d just figure out what to do about her classes later. The solution she came up with was to call the school from Aspen and explain that she had broken her leg in three places skiing, was being forced to stay for medical treatment and could they please tell her what portion of her tuition could be applied to the following year since it looked like she would have to withdraw from school.