Glass Mountain Read online

  “I can’t go home. You don’t understand. It was fine when I was sitting down, I was fine.”

  I nudged her toward the interior. Surprise made her sit, her legs out of the cab, her purse on her lap. “Tell the man where to take you.”

  “No.” Sullen, mulish refusal.

  “It’s not wise not to go home. Even this part of town isn’t safe. You need to go home and sleep it off.”

  She pulled her legs into the cab—“You can’t make me”—and slid across the seat to the opposite door.

  I got in, again holding her by the mink, and pulled the door closed beyond her, and pulled the door closed behind me. Horns honked. “You want a cab or not?” the cabbie asked.

  “No,” she said.

  “Yes,” I told him.

  She giggled. “But we haven’t been introduced,” and tears slid out of her eyes.

  The cab inched closer to the parked cars, letting those from behind pass. One blared as it went by, to let us know we were not forgiven. “Where do you live?” I asked her.

  “I can’t go home,” she wailed.

  I could have shaken her.

  “Mister,” the driver reminded me.

  “It was only champagne. I was only sitting down. I can’t stand up.”

  “Look, mister, you’re costing me money.”

  “I don’t have to tell you.” She wouldn’t look at me. “Nobody can make me. Can they?”

  The cabbie was easier to deal with, so I did that. “Just drive. Anywhere. To the park, take us to the Seventy-Second Street entrance.”

  He pulled out into the line of traffic. Horns greeted him.

  “What are you doing?” She sounded frightened now.

  “I’m taking you for a walk.”

  “I’ll scream. Do you hear me? Driver, stop.”

  He pulled over, cars honked, and she reached for the door handle.

  I held her wrist. “Be reasonable. You won’t go home, wherever that is, you’re drunk—”

  “Am not.”

  I didn’t laugh, but it was an effort.

  “You can’t get drunk on champagne,” she told me.

  I was tempted—I really was—to leave her to her own devices. I think if she had looked drunk enough to throw up, I would have. But she didn’t have that greeny-white, sweating look and I didn’t have anything better to do with the afternoon, so I stuck with her. With it. My knight-in-shining-armor act.

  “You need to walk it off. Or at least walk some of it off.”

  “Not sitting down you can’t, not champagne. Everybody says. I know.”

  “And I’m probably the safest man in a ten-block radius.”

  At that she lifted her face. “Probably twenty,” she said. “Maybe in all of Manhattan. I’m sorry, I should thank you.”

  “You’re welcome,” I said. “Drive on, cabbie.”

  He did, crossing an avenue. She smiled at me, without showing any teeth, all sweet reason. “I’m sitting down. Everything’s all right now. I’m fine now. You can leave me alone. Cabs are safe places, they have to be: the drivers have to pass a test. What’s his name?” she leaned forward to peer at his license. “Leonard. Leonard? Stop this cab at once. Please.”

  He obeyed her, grinning at me in the mirror. At least somebody was enjoying himself.

  “Take us to the park, Leonard,” I said, in my most commanding voice. “The Seventy-Second Street entrance.”

  He hesitated, thinking, then made up his mind and pulled out again. “I hope you’re a big tipper, mister.”

  “But you can’t, you can’t do this. Listen, what’s your name, Leonard? This man is a perfect stranger. I want to go home.”

  I seized on that. “And where would home be?”

  “Uh-uh.” She shook her head from side to side. “You’re not going to trick me that way. You know I can’t go home, not like this.” She turned away from me to glare out the window.

  We got out at the park, where I hoped the presence of many people would be reassuring to her. She marched along beside me quietly enough but plumped herself down on the first bench we came to, coat collar turned up, coat held around her, so that she looked like a giant, overfed mink. She wouldn’t look at me. She didn’t speak.

  I didn’t insist. I was only cooperative. When she got up and walked, I went with her. When she sat, I sat. We circled the pond, walking and sitting. It must have been a couple of hours. Finally, she turned to face me, but she wasn’t looking at me, she was looking at doing what she had to do. “I’m sorry,” she said. “Really, whoever you are. I’m really sorry and I’m really embarrassed too.”

  “Good,” I said. Then she did focus on my face, a brief irritated glance. “Let me get you a cup of coffee, to complete the treatment, and then I’ll leave you alone.”

  That took a minute to sink in. “You’re being very kind.”

  “Very kind,” I agreed.

  “And patient.”

  “And patient.”

  We left the park, crossed over to Madison, and entered the first coffee shop we came to. She wanted to sit at the counter, where she wouldn’t have to face me. She wanted to pay. I didn’t quarrel with her. She blew over the top of her coffee cup, and sipped. “It’s just I’m really embarrassed.”

  “It’s all right,” I told her. I had no idea what she was thinking; all I could see was a mass of wormy curls and the mink shoulder. “Believe me, it is.”

  “I hope I never see you again,” she mumbled.

  “Yes, well, I can imagine.”

  “And I feel rotten about hoping that.”

  “It’s only natural.”

  “I don’t even want to know your name. I’ve probably ruined your whole afternoon too, and all.”

  She sounded about eighteen years old, and those years cloistered. She sounded young, again, and I couldn’t puzzle her out.

  “It’s all right. You’ve bought me a cup of coffee, we’re almost even.”

  She let her smile move from her eyes to her mouth. “How about a bagel, would you like a bagel?”

  “No, thanks. I had a good lunch.”

  When she swung around she didn’t look eighteen. It was a woman’s face, and a woman’s wary expression. “That’s right, you were in the restaurant. Across. I do remember. I wasn’t blotto, just snorkled. Look, I want you to know I don’t do this…that. I don’t go around drinking too much. I never did before. Although there’s no reason for you to believe me, since—but I don’t.”

  Her earnestness required reassurance. “I believe you. I can tell, anyway.”

  “How?”

  “A man knows these things.”

  She stopped short of outright laughter, but not far. “A man of the world…like yourself.”

  I nodded agreeably. “A man of the world like myself.”

  She swung away and lifted her coffee cup. I did the same. The manicure was all wrong for her small hands, nails too bright, too pointed. She was incongruous. The mink was perfect, first-class pelts and tailored for her shortness. Within the mink, she looked dainty and desirable, but the dress…The dress was not a successful effort. She had looked dumpy in the dress, and that hair…but she had wonderful skin, what I could see of it, skin like the traditional peaches and cream, the cream gently warmed. She was beginning to interest me.

  “Do you want to talk about it?” I asked. “A stranger is safer to confide in than a friend, it seems to me, sometimes. Cheaper than an analyst—”

  Her glance, quick up, then quick down as if to conceal its nature, had the ferocious intelligence of a child. It stopped my words in my throat, it was that quick and clear, gone so suddenly I couldn’t be sure I had seen it.

  “No, I don’t,” she said. And smiled at me. “It’s too stupid, even I know that. Of course, even though I know that, I don’t believe it. Maybe I do want to talk about it. After all, I went out this morning to be remade; this is the new me. So obviously I’m not satisfied with myself as I am. Obviously I want to change my life, so maybe I do wan
t to talk. You’re probably right about strangers too. I just don’t meet many strangers. What do you think about marriage?” she asked.

  “Are you proposing?”

  She ignored that as a frivolous response. “Everybody says it’s no big deal, you can always get divorced, but I think it’s a big deal. And what if you got married because it was the smart thing to do right now, and it turned out dumb? If you meet someone later and really love him, but because you’d done the smart thing…see what I mean?”

  “You’re romantic.”

  She shook her head, impatient with me, or with herself, I couldn’t tell. “There’s an analogy: America and the rest of the world, especially developing nations. The smart thing to do is usually just a euphemism for the expedient—measured in terms of profit, of course—but it’s most often shortsighted. Smart, but pretty stupid. I can’t figure it out, because it could be something as simple as not being ready. How can I be twenty-nine and not be ready?”

  Following her mind was proving a challenge. I opted for moderation. “Give yourself time.”

  “How old are you?” It was an accusation.

  “Thirty-three.”

  “Really?”

  I nodded.

  “If I were a man, being that age would make me nervous.”

  It took me a minute, and then I laughed out loud. “Now that you point it out to me, it does.”

  “Are you married?”

  I shook my head.

  “Why not?”

  “Not because I haven’t been looking.”

  She nodded her head, as if the conversation was making sense to her. I thought that when I replayed it in my memory I might be able to figure out more about it. For the moment, it was proving difficult enough just to hold up my end, to follow the cues she was giving me.

  “I wonder,” she said, “why a man wants to marry a woman, a particular woman I mean. It can’t be the same as just love. Is it? Men don’t marry all the women they fall in love with.”

  “Marrying someone may be less threatening than loving her.”

  “What do you mean?” It was that glance again.

  “I have an image in my head of stepping into love, and it’s like stepping into battle, you know? Gun at the ready, and feeling vulnerable, helpless, wary, under attack—like I said, battle. I’d be a lot less frightened of getting married.”

  “You’ve been in love?”

  “Once, probably, but I was so young I can’t tell how valid it was.”

  “You’re the romantic.”

  “That’s not a bad thing.”

  “When I first saw you, I took you for older than you are.” Now she was facing me, considering me. I wasn’t entirely comfortable.

  “Well, I try.”

  “Why?” she asked.

  “I took you for younger,” I said.

  “Well, I’m a cliché,” she said, mocking my tone of voice. “I wasn’t even that drunk, was I? I went out to get drunk and even that I did within safe limits.”

  “Not a cliché. A romantic. Not to worry.”

  “I’m not worried.” She thought for a moment. “A little embarrassed, and not even too much of that by now, but not worried. I’m ready to go home.” She slid off the stool. “Thank you—” and she held out her hand.

  I accompanied her. Out on the street, she held her hand out again and got ready to thank me, but I took her elbow and walked her across the street into a flower shop. She didn’t know how to stop me, mindful as she was of my courtesy to her and her obligation to feel grateful, so I pinned the little spray of white violets onto her coat and went back outside with her, as if we were together by choice, or at least intention; as if we were together.

  People moved around her, distracting her, as she tried again to say her thank-you-and-good-bye. I hailed a cab. “It’s for you,” I forestalled her protest. “Just you. Alone.” I held the door open for her.

  She got in and sat back. I still held the door open. It was a contest of wills.

  “Where to?” the driver asked me, up through his open window.

  I waited. It took her a minute to give in. “Eleven ninety-five Park.”

  She looked me right in the eye as she said it, nothing coy, no attempt to kid herself, and gave me her address. A straight shot.

  I handed the driver a bill and repeated the address to him. She had a hand on the door, to pull it closed, and a little speech to deliver before she left. “I’m sorry I thought at first…I probably should have known better. You’re a prince, whoever you are, a prince in prince’s clothing. Thank you for rescuing me.”

  3

  What the Machine Said

  By the time I had changed my clothes and come back down to the kitchen, the coffee had brewed. I had a cup while I checked the phone messages. Voices on an answering machine are like snapshots, each one separate and singular within its frame of whirrs and beeps.

  Whirr, beep. “It’s me, Mr. Bear. And if it isn’t the most wonderful bear in the world, I don’t know who is. These earrings—honestly, I thought they were fake, but I said to myself, ‘Mr. Bear wouldn’t give anybody fakes, not when they look like this. That’s not the kind of guy he is.’ They can’t be real, but they are, aren’t they? I’ll let you know tonight how grateful I am. You’ll recognize me, I’ll be the one in earrings. And nothing else. See you tonight. I’m having some terrific ideas, Mr. Bear.” Beep, whirr.

  Beep. “Ted, the roses are brilliant. Happy Valentine’s Day to you too, lover. I have to be on the West Coast for the next few days but I’ll call when I get back. We’ll get together. If you want to get ahold of me before then, the office knows where to reach me.” Beep.

  Whirr, beep. “Mr. Mackey’s office calling, Mr. Mondleigh. Mr. Mackey wants me to remind you that under the terms of the Trust he can’t authorize any such sale. Mr. Mackey suggested that you were, and I quote, ‘Trying him on.’ If not, he recommends that you make an appointment with him, during which he will advise you about other ways of raising capital, which he suggests—and I quote again—‘you know as well as he does.’” Beep. Whirr.

  Beep. “Ted. Kyle. The court’s reserved for nine Saturday. Meet you there.” A brief hesitation for thought. “That’s nine a.m., Ted.”

  Beep, whirr, beep. “Nobody, but nobody, has his secretary call to break a date with me. Nobody. Good-bye, Mr. Bear, you were real fun for a while.” Beep.

  Whirr, beep. “Teddy? It’s Carol Hingham, you probably don’t remember me it’s been such a long time, Kyle Singleton introduced us…? But if you don’t remember, it doesn’t matter and besides, I can’t jog a memory you don’t have, can I? So I—The reason I’m calling is, I’m having a dinner on the twenty-eighth. Nothing much, just a few friends, nothing fancy, just—And I’d love it if you could come. Let me know, OK? 614-3025. I’m a pretty good cook, and I think you’d like my friends, they’re pretty interesting people, at least some of them—My number’s 614-3025. Did I already say that? I feel like a jerk.” She cut herself off. Beep, whirr, the machine didn’t care how she felt.

  Beep. “Lisette here, Teddy. I’ve never seen a bigger box of candy. They had to turn it sideways to get it through the door, and I laughed and laughed. Love to you too, Teddy. Give me a call. Soon, hm?”

  Beep, whirr, beep, then a hesitating silence. “Hello, Gregor?” I almost jumped. I stared at the black box as if it could actually see me, catch me out. “This is Mrs. Mondleigh speaking. Theo has invited…us to dinner tonight. I’m concerned that he might have forgotten…you. I’m calling to…We can always eat out.” Beep, whirr.

  Beep. “I’m sorry, Mr. Bear, I shouldn’t have said that, I know I shouldn’t and I’m sorry I did. So I’m calling to say, I just—I got carried away. I guess you know how carried away I can get. Call me quick and say you aren’t angry.” Beep.

  Whirr, beep. “There’ll be three for dinner, Gregor, it’s my parents.” Beep, beep, beep.

  I got to work.

  4

  Introducing My Em
ployer

  Theodore Mondleigh was one of the new school of employers, men who look for a certain camaraderie—as long as nobody forgets who is writing the checks. Who has the power to write the checks. When Theodore Mondleigh hired me, he did so with a frank handshake and the expectation that we would “do pretty damned well together.”

  In fact, what he wanted was someone prematurely stuffy. “I like your dignity, Gregor,” he’d said. Unoppressively avuncular. “You’ll give the place substance.” And a certain éclat. “You’ve had a pretty broad experience.” He could regard me with just enough disdain for both of us to be comfortable. “I don’t know why you’d want to spend your life like this, but I assume you know what you’re doing, and why. Shall we give it a month’s trial?” I had been working for him for almost three years. We were both well satisfied.

  Mr. Theo arrived home that Thursday evening at his usual hour. I took his coat at the door. He went straight on back to the kitchen, where I joined him. A nice-looking man, dark blond hair and blue eyes, a short nose and a blunt chin. He moved with the energy of a good athlete, which he was. “Sorry about the short notice, Gregor,” he said. “Dad has some bee in his bonnet and wouldn’t be put off.”

  “There was no difficulty,” I assured him.

  “Not for you maybe. Nothing to be done about it, though. Are there any messages?”

  “I left them on the tape.”

  “I’m going to get a drink first, and listen in here. I’ll keep out of your way. How about you, can I get you something?”

  I checked the time. “A glass of wine?”

  “Red or white?”

  “We’re having chicken breasts, so white I think. Thank you.”

  “Thank me?” Mr. Theo laughed. “If it wasn’t for you, I’d have to get married.”

  Mr. Theo sat at the breakfast table listening to the phone messages, sipping at his scotch. I peeled broccoli stems and sliced mushrooms and thought about the day’s event.