Three weeks passed uneventfully after we returned from Montauk. My life no longer felt as if it held any real certainties at all, so I had decided to live as Will had told me, simply existing in each moment, until my hand was forced again. At some point, I supposed, Margot would be either unwell enough or in debt enough that our contented little bubble would pop and I would have to book my flight home.
Until then, it was not an unpleasant way to live. The routines that punctuated my day gave me pleasure – my runs around Central Park, my strolls with Dean Martin, preparing the evening meal for Margot, even if she didn’t eat much, and our now joint nightly viewing of Wheel of Fortune, shouting letters at the Mystery Wedges. I upped my wardrobe game, embracing my New York self with a series of looks that left Lydia and her sister slack-jawed in admiration. Sometimes I wore things that Margot lent me, and sometimes I wore things I had bought from the Emporium. Every day I stood in front of the mirror in Margot’s spare room and surveyed the racks I was allowed to pick from, and a part of me sparked with joy.
I had work, of sorts, doing shifts for the girls at the Vintage Clothes Emporium while Angelica was away doing a sweep of a women’s garment factory in Palm Springs that had apparently kept samples of every item it had made since 1952. I manned the till alongside Lydia, helping pale-skinned young girls into vintage prom dresses and praying the zips would hold, while she reorganized the layout of the racks and fretted noisily about the amount of wasted space in their outlet. ‘You know what square footage costs now, around here?’ she said, shaking her head at our lone rotating rail in the far corner. ‘Seriously. I would be letting that corner as valet parking if we could work out how to get the cars in.’
I thanked a customer who had just bought a sequined tulle bolero and slammed the till drawer shut. ‘So why don’t you let it? To a shop or something? It would give you more income.’
‘Yeah, we’ve talked about it. It’s complicated. As soon as you’ve got other retailers involved you need to build a partition and separate access and get insurance, and then you don’t know who you got coming in at all hours … Strangers in our stuff. It’s too risky.’ She chewed her gum and blew a bubble, popping it absently with a purple-nailed finger. ‘Plus, you know, we don’t like anybody.’
‘Louisa!’ Ashok was standing on the carpet and clapped his gloved hands together as I arrived home. ‘You coming to ours next Saturday? Meena wants to know.’
‘Is the protest still on?’
The two previous Saturdays I couldn’t help but notice there had been a distinct dwindling of the numbers. The hopes of local residents were almost non-existent now. The chanting had become half-hearted as the city’s budgets tightened, the seasoned protesters slowly drifting away. Months after the action had started, just our little core remained, Meena rallying everyone with bottles of water and insisting it wasn’t over till it was over.
‘It’s still happening. You know my wife.’
‘Then I’d love to. Thank you. Tell her I’ll bring dessert.’
‘You got it.’ He made a happy mm-mm sound to himself at the prospect of good food, and called as I reached the elevator, ‘Hey!’
‘What?’
‘Nice threads, lady.’
That day I was dressed in homage to Desperately Seeking Susan. I wore a purple silk bomber jacket with a rainbow embroidered on the back, leggings, layered vests and an armful of bangles, which had made a pleasing jangle each time I’d whacked the till drawer shut (it wouldn’t close properly unless you did).
‘You know,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘I can’t believe you used to wear that golf shirt combo when you were working for the Gopniks. That was so not you.’
I hesitated as the lift door opened. I refused to use the service lift, these days. ‘You know what, Ashok? You’re so right.’
Out of deference to her status as homeowner, I always knocked before I let myself into Margot’s apartment, even though I had had a key for months. There was no response the first time and I had to check my reflexive panic, telling myself that she often had the radio on loudly, that Ashok would have let me know if anything was wrong. Finally I let myself in. Dean Martin came skittering up the hallway to greet me, his eyes askew with joy at my arrival. I picked him up, and let his wrinkled nose snuffle all over my face.
‘Yes, hello, you. Hello, you. Where’s your mum, then?’ I put him down and he yapped and ran in excited circles. ‘Margot? Margot, where are you?’
She came out of the living room in her Chinese silk dressing-gown.
‘Margot! Are you not well?’ I dropped my bag and ran to her, but she held up a palm.
‘Louisa, something miraculous has happened.’
My response popped out of my mouth before I had a chance to stop it. ‘You’re getting better?’
‘No, no, no. Come in. Come in! Come and meet my son.’ She turned before I could speak and disappeared back into the living room. I walked in behind her and a tall man in a pastel sweater, the beginnings of a belly straining over his belt buckle, rose from a chair and reached across to shake my hand.
‘This is Frank Junior, my son. Frank, this is my dear friend Louisa Clark, without whom I could not have made it through the past few months.’
I tried to cover my feeling of wrong-footedness. ‘Oh. Uh. It – it was mutual.’ I leant over to shake the hand of the woman beside him, who wore a white roll-neck sweater and had the kind of pale candyfloss hair that she might have spent a lifetime trying to control.
‘I’m Laynie,’ she said, and her voice was high, like one of those women who had never been able to let go of girlishness. ‘Frank’s wife. I believe we have you to thank for our little family reunion.’ She dabbed at her eyes with an embroidered handkerchief. Her nose was tinged pink, like she had recently been crying.
Margot reached out a hand to me. ‘So it turns out Vincent, the deceitful little wretch, told his father about our meetings and my – my situation.’
‘Yes, the deceitful little wretch would indeed be me,’ said Vincent, appearing at the door with a tray. He looked relaxed and happy. ‘Nice to see you again, Louisa.’ I nodded, a half smile now fixed on my face.
It was so odd seeing people in the apartment. I was used to the quiet, to it being just me, Margot and Dean Martin, not Vincent in his checked shirt and Paul Smith tie coming through bearing our dinner tray, and the tall man with his legs concertinaed against the coffee table and the woman who kept gazing around the living room with slightly startled eyes, as if she had never been anywhere like this before.
‘They surprised me, you know.’ Margot told me, her voice croaking a little, like someone who had already talked too much. ‘He called up to say he was passing and I thought it was just Vincent and then the door opened a little wider and, well, I can’t … You must all think me so shocking. I hadn’t even got round to getting dressed, had I? I’d quite forgotten until just now. But we have had the loveliest afternoon. I can’t begin to tell you.’ Margot reached out her other hand and her son took it, and squeezed it. His chin quivered a little with suppressed emotion.
‘Oh, it really has been magical,’ said Laynie. ‘We have so much to catch up on. I honestly think this was the Lord’s work bringing us all together.’
‘Well, Him and Facebook,’ said Vincent. ‘Would you like some coffee, Louisa? There’s some left in the pot. I just brought some cookies out in case Margot wanted to eat something.’
‘She won’t eat those,’ I said, before I could stop myself.
‘Oh, she’s quite right. I don’t eat cookies, Vincent dear. Those are really for Dean Martin. The chocolate drops aren’t actual chocolate, see?’
Margot barely drew breath. She seemed completely transformed. It was as if she’d lost a decade overnight. The brittle light behind her eyes had gone, replaced by something soft, and she couldn’t stop talking, her tone babbling and merry.
I backed towards the door. ‘Well, I … don’t want to get in the way. I’m sure you all have a lot to discuss. Margot, give me a shout when you need me.’ I stood, waving my hands uselessly. ‘It’s lovely to meet you all. I’m so pleased for you.’
‘We think it would be the right thing if Mom came back with us,’ said Frank Junior.