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TEN

“ O h, don’t worry about Albert,”

Cookie says, her bangles clanking loudly as she checks her eye makeup in her hand

mirror. “He’ll warm up once he gets used to you. Or, maybe he

won’t. Anyway, who cares? I’m the boss here. Hand me that wrap, will

you? I’m cold.”

Eddie takes the paisley-printed blanket from the foot of the bed and drapes it over her shoulders.

“And do you see that stack of cards there? I’m a day behind on opening all these get-well cards.” She hands him a letter opener. “Start opening.”

“I feel bad,” Eddie says, sliding the dull blade into the first envelope. “I think I made Albert mad.”

“Don’t waste your regret. That’s just Albert. He’s harmless, except for that awful sandalwood cologne he’s been wearing lately.”

“I don’t want to be in his way,” Eddie says, though what he really means is why does that jerk have to vacuum so early in the morning in the first place?

“Then don’t be in his way,” she says. There’s a faint annoyance in her voice that makes Eddie tense up. He can’t get on her bad side, not yet, not on his first full day here. She holds out her hand for the card.

“I’m sorry,” Eddie says, hoping it will smooth out her irritation as he struggles to get the card out of the envelope.

“Why are you apologizing?” she snaps. “Did you do anything wrong?”

Eddie swallows. “Sorry,” he says again, still tugging clumsily at the card. “I mean, no, I didn’t. I don’t think so.”

She sighs and shakes her head. “Oh, for pity’s sake. Give me that.”

The card finally comes free from the envelope. It’s an image of a sunrise on the front and the words, While You Rest, Remember… You’re the Best .

She starts laughing. “Is this the most ridiculous card you’ve ever seen? Oh, I love bad cards.”

Eddie picks up another card and starts slicing through the envelope.

Cookie shrugs the blanket off her shoulders. “Too hot,” she says.

“Sorry,” Eddie says. “I thought you were cold—”

“I was. But I’m not now. And by the way, don’t worry. Albert’s not angry at you, not specifically. He’s angry at everything . Just the other day he talked my ear off about how Times Square used to be lawless and exciting but now it’s just full of tourists and people dressed up like Spider-Man. He complained about how no one knows how to be a good pedestrian anymore because they’re all looking at their little google-ma-jigs. Their little phone-a-ma-bobs. He’s mad about how expensive it is to go to the movies, he’s mad about how the neighborhood is nothing but banks and fancy boutiques, he’s mad about how the piers used to be dangerous and sexy but now the whole riverside is spotless and manicured with grass and trees. And he’s mad that he’s getting older, although he has no idea what old even means yet. He’s mad that the past is gone, replaced by the present. And he’s mad that the present will soon be replaced by the future. He hates that time exists.”

“Why does he hate grass and trees?” Eddie asks. “I like trees.”

Cookie lowers her voice to a conspiratorial whisper, like a friend. “Me too. But don’t you dare tell Albert I said so. If you do, I’ll deny it.”

Eddie smiles. “Deal.” He hands her the next card. This one has a cat on the front, hanging from a curtain. Hang in there…

“Oh, dear,” Cookie says, smirking at the card. “Wouldja look at this one? Keep ’em coming.”

He hands her another card, with an image of a little boy engaged in a tug-of-war with a puppy. Pulling for you…

“Oh, they get worse!” She laughs and holds out her hand for another one. “At least they know not to have flowers delivered. I am very picky about flowers, and god knows what they’d have sent over. Birds of paradise, or worse, carnations. It’s alstroemerias or nothing, for me.”

“Alstro-whats?”

“Alstroemerias,” she repeats. “But let’s not talk about flowers. I want to know what’s wrong. And don’t say nothing, because I can see it in your eyes. Something’s wrong.”

“No, I’m just tired.”

Cookie’s expression hardens. “Important rule in this apartment,” she says. “No lying to Cookie. I’ve lived long enough to know a lie when I hear it, and you won’t get away with it. Understand?”

He swallows and nods.

“So?” she says. “What is it?”

Eddie spins through his mind, searching for a way to bring up the strange one-sided conversation happening in her room last night. He doesn’t want to sound like he was eavesdropping.

“Hello?” she says, waving her hand impatiently, bangles clanking. “Sing, Lollipop.”

“Well, I—” He clears his throat. “I woke up in the night and heard some noises.”

“And?”

“And I got up to find out where they were coming from. They were coming from your room.”

“Were you listening at my door?”

“No!” he says.

“What did I just say about lying?”

“I mean, not on purpose. I just wanted to make sure you were okay. It sounded like you were talking to someone on the telephone.”

She stares at him, eyes so steady. “So what if I was?”

“But it was the middle of the night. And the phone is in the kitchen. I was confused.”

She leans back into her pillow, a sly smile pushing through the annoyance on her face. “You’re an astute one, I see. Well. You’re right. I wasn’t on the telephone.”

“Who were you talking to?”

“Is that any of your business?”

She’s right, it’s not. The things he does in his room with the door closed aren’t anyone else’s business, so why should Cookie be any different? “You’re right,” he says. “It’s not. It’s just—”

“You were worried.”

“I’m sorry.”

She looks at her nails. “If you must know, I was talking to Dottie.”

“Oh,” he says. “I didn’t know you had a visitor. I didn’t hear anyone come in.”

“She lives here,” Cookie says, matter-of-factly. She moves a pillow off her lap to reveal a framed photograph underneath it. It’s a dark-haired woman looking over an old-fashioned typewriter with an intense, perturbed expression, as if she is irritated with whoever is taking the picture. “Here she is. This is Dottie.”

Eddie feels his stomach seize. It’s a picture, not a person. What is Cookie talking about?

He looks at the photo, and then at Cookie, then back at the photo. “Dottie,” he repeats slowly.

“I know what you’re thinking,” she says, smiling slyly. “You’re thinking that I am completely off my rocker.”

“No,” he says quickly. “I—I don’t.”

“No?” she challenges.

“I talk to myself all the time,” he says, even though it’s not exactly true. Sometimes he mumbles to himself, like where are my shoes , or I’m so late , but he doesn’t usually talk to himself. His fantasies are all inside. He works hard to keep them there.

“I didn’t say I was talking to myself,” Cookie says. “I said I was talking to Dottie.”

Eddie looks back at the photograph. He squints his eyes and tries to release his own disbelief, to imagine what the woman, Dottie, would look like in motion, what she’d sound like if she spoke. But it is only a photograph, an inanimate object. It can’t carry on a conversation. It can’t talk back.

“And Dottie talks back,” Cookie says, reading Eddie’s mind again.

Eddie searches Cookie’s face for a spark of mischief, a sign that she’s kidding. But all he sees in Cookie is sincerity.

“You might as well know, Dottie is not the only one here,” Cookie says. She points at the wall. “There’s also Monty, and Rudy, and Mae, and Judy, and Sal. As you can see, it’s crowded.”

“I see,” Eddie says, trying to add some lightness to his voice, trying to keep his growing sense of worry at bay. Should he be concerned about what she’s saying? Is this just Cookie’s way? Part of her, what did she call it, eccentric nature? Or is this something more? He thinks back to Sunset Ridge, remembering some of the strange behavior of the oldest patients. They’d sometimes forget where they were, or even who their own relatives were. Sometimes those moments signified dementia, a scary thing to see. But Cookie is thinking clearly. The idea of conversing with a photograph is strange, but she knows it’s strange. And she knows exactly where she is, and who Eddie is. And besides, Eddie, is it that hard to understand? Aren’t you the boy who spends way too much time in his own imagination? The boy who passes the time picturing the intricate, intimate lives of strangers? The boy who hallucinates in taxicabs, on fainting couches? The boy who—

“Do you believe me?” she asks, insistently interrupting his thoughts.

He doesn’t answer.

She tilts her head in defiance, daring him. “Well? Do you?”

He knows there is only one answer she’ll accept. “I do,” he says finally, and the flash of dissatisfaction in her eyes quickly fades.

She flips the picture over and tucks it under a pillow, signaling the end of this topic. He’s relieved.

“Another card!” she chirps, the singsong lilt back in her voice.

He reaches for another envelope. “You have a lot of friends.”

“Thousands. And that’s not even counting the imaginary ones I talk to at night!”

He drops the letter opener. It lands with a soft thud on the carpet beneath.

She winks. “Let’s save the cards for later. You must be excited to get out of this apartment. New York awaits! And I have a few errands for you to run.”

Eddie retrieves the opener and collects the cards into a pile. She’s right, New York awaits!

“What do you need?” he asks.

She points to a pad and pencil on her nightstand. “You better write these down,” she says. “I’m very particular.”

She dictates her list, and he writes it down. She checks his work to be sure, then reaches into the pocket of her dressing gown and pulls out a couple of bills.

“Forty dollars should cover it. And take a tote bag from behind the door there. I have at least a thousand hanging from that hook.”

Eddie takes down a tote, a blue canvas bag with long straps and the words New York Film Festival, 1971 .

“Oh, that was a great year at the festival,” Cookie says. “Everyone was scandalized by Murmur of the Heart . Have you seen it?”

“No,” Eddie says. He hasn’t even heard of it.

“Never mind. We’ll get to it. Now, I would also like you to bring me a photograph of each place you go visit on your errands. I want to know what’s going on out there in the city.”

“I wish I could,” Eddie says. “But I can’t find my phone.”

Cookie scoffs. “You and your phone. No, I want pictures I can hold in my hand.”

“I don’t have a camera,” he says.

She points her back scratcher at the dresser across the room. “Open the top drawer. You’ll find a camera in there.”

Eddie opens the drawer, which is stuffed with handkerchiefs, eyeglasses, lipsticks, brooches, and berets in every color and pattern. “I don’t see it,” he says.

“Look under the switches.”

“Switches?”

“Hairpieces.”

Eddie moves aside a pile of braids and ponytails but only finds a small, rectangular boxlike thing, brown vinyl and silver metal. “It’s not in here,” he says. “All I see is this.” He holds up the little box.

“That’s it,” she says. “That’s the Polaroid.”

Polaroid? Eddie’s confused. He’s seen instant cameras before, at school, and online, but he’s never seen one like this. The ones he’s seen are like gimmicks, like plastic toys. But this feels solid in his hand, heavy, substantial. And it looks nothing like a camera. Where is the lens? The viewfinder?

“Here. Let me show you.” Cookie takes the box and presses a button on the side. It pops open, accordion-like, revealing a lens, a flash, a viewfinder, and a few more buttons. She holds it up to her eye. “Say cheese!” she commands.

He grins obediently, and she presses the button. The camera whirrs and clicks in her hands.

“Now what?” he says.

“Now we wait.” She pats the bed next to her and Eddie sits down. Soon a little white plastic card, about three inches by four inches, emerges from a slot in the camera like a tongue emerging from a mouth. Cookie reaches for it and together they stare as the image slowly, slowly begins to emerge. Just smudges of light at first, and then the outline of a figure. It’s Eddie, standing awkwardly with a strained smile. She stares, wide-eyed at the picture, and then begins to giggle.

“What’s so funny?” he asks, embarrassed.

“You forgot to zip your fly!” she exclaims, pointing at his jeans and laughing even harder.