“He’s not her boyfriend.”
“Whatever that would mean, anyway.” But Freddie was happy to drop the subject. She had her own relatives to worry about. Her brothers and sisters would soon be there, though not for long.
“They’ll be in L.A. for three days, that’s it, three lousy days. It’s probably the last time they’ll see my father, the last time we’ll all be together, and I can’t decide if I wish they’d stay longer or leave after one night or not come at all. I have a fucked-up family.”
“He’s not her boyfriend.”
*
“I’ll miss you,” Karl said.
He was wearing a cashmere blazer. Joy patted his arm. Aaron had favored hearty tweed. She’d always loved his custom-made jackets and suits. Now they called them bespoke. Aaron had looked like a country gentleman, what country she could not have said, but she would have followed him there, she knew that much. She had followed him there, she supposed. The sleeves of his sweaters and tweeds had always been rather itchy to her touch. She ran her hand along Karl’s arm again. “Soft,” she said.
Karl was someone you could call dapper and mean it as a compliment, not a suggestion of fussiness. Marta did right by him. He looked marvelous today, Joy thought, in the spring sunshine, his shoes polished, his blue shirt pressed, his tie a deeper blue paisley.
“It’s a little too wide to be fashionable,” he said when she complimented it. “But I’ve always loved it, so I just keep on wearing it.”
He had admitted to her that he kept most of his clothes for decades, that he had shoes from his college days. He took good care of everything. Shoe trees, cedar closet, sweaters wrapped in tissue. His wife had teased him about it.
“You look very good in blue,” Joy said.
“You look good in every color.”
Joy laughed. They were walking beneath the trees on Fifth Avenue, beneath the fresh new leaves, beneath the sweetness of the air. “The wreck of the Hesperus. That’s what I feel like. In every color.”
Karl pushed his red wheeled walker and Joy kept one hand on it to hold herself steady. In a few days he would be off to stay with his son in Rhode Island. She would be off to her house Upstate.
“I’ve been thinking,” Karl said.
Joy said, “Stop.” She had to catch her breath.
In the park, a group of girls wearing headscarves were playing softball. She watched while the banging in her chest slowed. She took a deep breath. “I don’t know if it’s pollen or my heart. Who can tell anymore?”
“It’s the exciting company you keep.”
“I used to love softball,” she said. The pitcher was winding up. A strike. “Brava.”
Karl laughed. “Is that what they say at Yankee Stadium?”
They started walking again. Joy wished that Marta had stuck around. She was feeling a little strange. She had hung two of her bags on Karl’s walker, but the third one, with Gatto peering out of it, was weighing her down.
“So,” Karl said, “I was thinking.”
“Karl, would you mind if we sat down for a minute? I’m feeling wobbly.”
They made their way to a bench, backs to a stone wall that separated them from the park, but Joy could hear the park sounds clearly, the high-pitched pleasure of children, the squeak of swings, dogs barking, the ping of bicycle bells, whoops and cheers and chattering squirrels. Gatto emerged from the bag and stretched out in a patch of sun on the ground. Joy closed her eyes against the glare of the afternoon sun reflected from the apartment windows across the street. Someone with a French accent asked Karl where the Guggenheim was. The smell of spring was everywhere. And the faintest smell of urine.
“Oh my god,” Joy said, her eyes open. Urine. “I forgot my court date!”
She began to dig frantically in the bag next to her on the bench. “Oh Christ. Oh, how could I do that?”
“Court date?”
“Nothing, nothing, a ticket, nothing…” The dog began barking and scratching at her leg. She pulled the other two bags from the handles of the walker and emptied them onto the bench.
“You’re sure? Can I help … But how did you get a traffic ticket? You don’t have a car.”
“Don’t ask. Gatto, shoosh, not everything is about you.” Joy pulled out lipsticks and applesauce containers. How could she have failed Ben like this?
“Well then, listen, Joy, as I said, I’ve been thinking—”
“Good. Thinking. Good, good.” She was pawing through papers and receipts now, candy wrappers, pamphlets.