Manhattan Lullaby (6 page)

And, now that she had had some time to think about it, she had decided that, psychos notwithstanding, she didn't think she had coped all that well with the situation herself. Pausing only long enough at the container of an accommodating ficus tree to remove the very last smidgen of sherry-soaked sole from her stomach, she had fled into the street without even a polite good-bye. Dating was obviously going to be a lot different now than it was the last time she had tried it, when all you really had to worry about was holding on to your virginity, not your sanity, never mind your dinner. Maybe, she decided, she should write to herself for some advice.

Dear Maxine
,

Last night I had dinner with Dr. Strange Love and threw up in one of his jardinieres. I forget. Is this what dating is supposed to be like? Is it just me or have the times changed that much
?

Becoming Neurotic in New York

“You look tired,” said Jeffrey, leaning against the doorframe, his hands stuffed casually into the pockets of his fashionably pleated trousers. And then he winked knowingly. “Had a heavy date last night, eh?”

Maxine ignored the wink. “Let's just say he was a dead weight. And how did you know I had a date last night?”

Jeffrey shrugged. “Trixie told me. You know Trixie—all ears to all people. And I figure, if you're in a dating mode, you might say yes to me one of these days, so I made it my business to find out who it was with. Guy was a little long in the tooth for you, wasn't he?”

“Actually, it was his memory which was a little on the long side,” replied Maxine as the cloying taste of lemons suddenly resurrected itself in her mouth.

“So, why not go out with me?”

“I don't do daycare dates, Jeffrey. Now either tell me what you want or get out of my office.” She hoped her voice held the tone she intended—pleasant but firm. After all, his attentions
were
flattering and there was no point biting his head off for paying her the compliment of finding her attractive, but at the same time she had no intention of encouraging him, or anyone else, for some time.

“I'm not in your office. I'm in the hallway.” He smiled again, teasing her, and she noticed for the first time that he had a slight gap between his front teeth, like Topol. “And if I told you what I wanted it would curl your hair,” he added suggestively, dropping his voice to a more intimate level.

Maxine shook her head in amazement. Young people. “Is everybody under thirty in a permanent state of arousal, or is it just you?”

“Hey, what can I say?” He took his hands out of his pockets and shrugged, palms up. “I take one look at you and—”

“And what?” came a deeper voice from the other side of the wall.

Jeffrey Mondavi jumped. Before he could move from the doorway, Maxine saw a shadow looming over him through the opaque glass wall. In a moment Harry appeared.

“Uh … uh …” Jeffrey grasped around to finish the sentence. “And I, uh, realize that, uh, if I work hard enough I might … might have a column of my own … one day?” His voice tapered off. His face had taken on the dusky glow of embarrassment. “Well, gotta go. Time is money.” He looked half fearfully, half hopefully at his boss. “Nice suit,” he grinned, running a knowing hand along the lapel. And then he was gone.

Maxine waited until he was out of earshot before she let out the laugh. He really was sweet. Too bad he was just a kid.

“What was he doing, asking you to the senior prom?” inquired Harry as he took Jeffrey Mondavi's place on the doorjamb.

“I'm not in the mood, Harry, so before you start let me warn you that I'm experiencing premenopausal symptoms this morning and your life is hanging by a thread.”

Harry decided to acquiesce to the hormonal threat and change the subject. “I just stopped by to ask you how your date went with the good Dr. Berman.”

Maxine nodded. “It went. Enough said.”

Harry got that pleased expression on his face that said
I
told you so
. “That bad, eh?”

“How bad or how good it was is none of your business. Now if there's nothing else, I have work to get on with.”

But Harry remained where he was. What did she mean, how bad or how
good
? “Actually, I, uh, really came to ask you to lunch.”

“Lunch?” Maxine regarded him with suspicion. “The last time we had lunch was the day after Bradley's bar mitzvah, which puts it about a decade and a half ago. Don't tell me it's time again, already?”

He shrugged off the sarcasm. “We are the parents of the groom, after all. I thought a little celebration was in order. But if you're too busy …”

Maxine regarded him for a moment, weighing the situation. “I don't know, Harry. All my instincts tell me that you've got something up your sleeve. But maybe as parents of the groom we
should
celebrate a little. Where were you thinking of taking me?”

“The Rainbow Room.”

“The Rainbow Room?” That threw her for a minute. The Rainbow Room was their “special place.” When they were younger they always went there when there was an occasion to celebrate. And he had remembered. After all this time. “Oh, Harry, we haven't been there in years. What a lovely idea.”

Harry shrugged his best “ah gosh” shrug. “What can I say?”

The Rainbow Room, which occupies the sixty-fifth floor of the RCA building, was so old it was new again. Or at least it was on the way to being new again. Gone for the moment were the aubergine silk walls, the little tables for two that perched on the edge of the dance floor, the stars, the glamour, the romance, the furniture. Of course, the tall trademark windows still stretched the floor-to-ceiling views off into infinity just as they always had. And the huge crystal-drop chandeliers still flashed prisms of light from one glass column to the next, filling the room with countless tiny replicas of its namesake. But other than that, everything else had changed.

Maxine looked around her in disbelief. “Very funny, Harry. Very funny.” She turned to her ex-husband. “
This
is your idea of lunch at the Rainbow Room?”

Harry held up two hot dogs and two sodas. “This is lunch. And this
is
the Rainbow Room,” he said, gesturing at the view and dripping mustard.

Maxine clutched her leather gloves tightly in both hands. “Harry, I don't know if this has escaped your notice, or if you're trying to be funny in that peculiarly slanted way of yours, but this place
IS UNDER CONSTRUCTION
!” She had to shout the last part of her sentence because less than two feet away a carpenter had started driving screws into dry wall with an automatic drill.

Harry nodded, shouting back.
“I KNOW. IT WON'T BE FINISHED”
—the carpenter stopped drilling and Harry stopped shouting—“for another month yet.”

“Then you owe me lunch
IN ANOTHER MONTH!
” cried Maxine against the sound of the drill.

Harry tried to explain, but Maxine started purposefully toward the bank of elevators.

“Wait!” cried Harry, waving the hot dogs and broadcasting a spray of sauerkraut across the unfinished floor. “Hey, wait a minute.” He caught up with her by the elevators.

“Maxine, come on. Where's your sense of adventure?”

“My sense of adventure? I already used up my adventure quota for this month, last night.” She punched the
DOWN
button. It failed to light up. She punched it again.

“Ain't it workin'?” asked a blue-jeaned workman in a hardhat.

“Are the doors opening?”

“Hey, Vinnie,” called Hardhat to someone in New Jersey. “What's up wid de elevator?”

“Ain't workin',” replied Vinnie from five feet away.

“Ain't workin', lady.”

“Thank you for clearing that up for me,” replied Maxine with measured civility. “Now that we have established a diagnosis, do you think we could have a prognosis?”

“Huh?”

“When—do—you—think—it—will—be work—ing?”

“Oh, I get it. Uh … They're testing de cables. A half hour, maybe an hour, should be O.K. den.”

Reluctantly, Maxine turned to her ex-husband. “Well, I suppose you got your own way again. We're stuck here for the time being and if I didn't know better I'd say you arranged it that way.”

Harry looked innocent. “Maxine, would I …”

“Did you put ketchup on one of those?”

Harry held out the one in his left hand. “Ketchup, mustard and sauerkraut. Just the way you like it.”

Maxine took the food. “Thank you.” She looked around. “Do you suppose we can get a table without a reservation?”

Twenty minutes later they were sitting on two up-ended crates, on what would soon be, once again, the famous revolving dance floor, finishing off their sodas.

“Not that I'm trying to be nosy or anything, but do you think you could tell me now just what gave you the idea for coming up here in the first place? I've never been taken prisoner for lunch before,” said Maxine, checking her face in her compact and dabbing a fleck of mustard from the corner of her mouth.

Harry looked sheepish. “Well, since you've been such a good sport, I might as well tell you. I decided to do a story on the reopening of the Rainbow Room for the December issue. You know, the whole before-and-after thing with pictures and a history of the old place. It is kind of a landmark.”

“So was the Statue of Liberty, but we didn't have lunch on top of the scaffolding.” Maxine applied a fresh coat of lipstick.

“Well, the truth is that I assigned the story to Joyce, but she got back late last night from the China trip and she wasn't feeling too good this morning. Picked up some kind of a Beijing bug, I guess. So I thought that I could kind of check it out for her, have lunch with you …”

“That explains why
you're
here, but it doesn't explain why
I'm
here. Now, what have you got up your thirty-six-inch sleeve, Harry Kraft?”

Harry reached out and took her tiny, soft hand in his. “Remember when we used to come dancing up here when we were first married?” He squeezed her hand gently and looked deep into her eyes. “You used to wear that yellow dress with the white polka dots and the little black bow in the back.”

“You remember that dress?” Maxine was amazed. In all the years they had been married he had never remembered their anniversary, her birthday, or any of the dates, sizes or preferences that women know indicates the continued attention and affection of their mates. But he remembered the yellow dress.

Harry nodded. “Maybe it's because I'm getting older, or because our son is finally getting married, but lately I've been remembering a lot of things.”

Maxine, whose memory wasn't nearly so attuned to their former life, probably because she hadn't been practicing as hard as Harry, mused out loud, “I wonder whatever happened to that dress?”

“I wonder whatever happened to—”

But before he could finish, Maxine felt a shudder running through her body, as if some distant and powerful force had her in its grip. It was, yes, there was no other way to describe it, as though the earth had moved! “What was that?”

Harry looked deeper into her eyes. “Did you feel it too?” he murmured.

“You folks O.K.?” called Hardhat from across the room. “Don't worry. It ain't an earthquake. They're just testin' de dance floor. See if it still works.”

“I hope it works better than the elevators,” replied Maxine as she tried to disengage her hand from Harry's. But he held on and continued his deep searching look into her eyes.

“Shall we?” he whispered in that way that he had that used to really melt her margarita.

Something was happening here that she hadn't counted on and had no idea how to handle. Old feelings were beginning to stir. Safe, familiar feelings from a time before the Solly Bermans and Jeffrey Mondavis of the world had complicated her life. But even though she could feel herself being drawn backward into the haven arms of the well-worn and comfortable Harry, she held back. “Shall we what?”

“See if the dance floor still works.”

And before she could protest, Harry pulled her lightly to her feet and guided her out onto the floor. And as the old motor cranked back into service and the floor shuddered and began to turn ever so slowly beneath their feet, he began to sing “Sentimental Journey” softly in her ear.

Maxine closed her eyes. Twenty years ago when Harry used to sing that song to her, right here in the Rainbow Room, she was a young wife, in love, with the whole future ahead of her. Now that future was all in the past. With a sigh she leaned against him and closed her eyes, and he held her tighter still while the two of them drifted around the floor on a cloud of memories.

After a few minutes of dancing and a little familiar stroking in the small of her back, Harry slowed down until they were just marking time in one spot. Gently he reached down and tilted Maxine's chin upward. Then slowly he bowed his head down toward her face and placed his lips gently on hers.

As the fragrance of sauerkraut and mustard assailed his nostrils, he pressed harder and more insistently, the lines of their mouths coming together in a well-worn groove. For a moment Maxine responded, accepting the kiss and returning it. Then, suddenly realizing where she was and who she was with and what year it was, her eyes snapped open almost at the same moment as her teeth clapped shut. “What the hell do you think you're doing!”

Harry's eyes opened, but he held his lips firmly mashed against hers and managed to answer. “Did you sleep with him?”

“
Arrrrghhh
!” replied Maxine, pushing him away at the same moment that the dance floor, with an ominous grinding noise, shimmied to a halt.

“Gonna have to do somethin' about dat motor,” said Hardhat to Vinnie.

“So that's what this is all about! All this remembering. All this singing and dancing and sauerkraut and ketchup and … and … You, you just wanted to know if I slept with another man.”