Page 16

SIXTEEN

C ookie sets her back scratcher down on the bed and holds the clutch of flowers up to her nose, inhaling deeply. “Oh, alstroemeria. You are the prettiest flowers, but you have no aroma at all.”

“I’ll put them in water,” Eddie says.

“Not yet. Let me hold them a bit longer. They go with my outfit, don’t you think?”

“They do,” he says, and it’s true. The colors of the flowers—yellow, orange, pale scarlet—mirror the stripes of the rayon scarf draped loosely around her neck.

“You lovely boy,” she says, sounding sleepy.

Eddie is feeling tender toward Cookie today, protective. Yesterday was hard for him, but he woke up this morning feeling like it was probably even harder for her. So as soon as he heard Albert’s keys jangling in the hallway, he jumped up off the couch and, managing to avoid Albert, slipped out to buy a fresh bunch of alstroemeria. He waited outside, watching the door until Albert left, before coming back upstairs.

She is in fresh clothes, sitting up on fresh sheets, her hair washed and set, her makeup perfect, all thanks to Albert. She was so disoriented and disheveled and confused yesterday. And cruel. He tries not to think about the way she snapped at him. Like it wasn’t even her. But now, rested and refreshed, it’s like she’s back to the Cookie he knows. But doesn’t want to stray far from her side today. Just in case.

He deflects when she tries to send him out on more errands—a fresh six-pack of celery soda from the Second Avenue Deli, a makeup brush from the beauty supply shop on Mott Street—saying that he’ll do them tomorrow.

“Would you like to open some more get-well cards?” he asks. “Albert left a stack of them in the kitchen.”

“I don’t think so,” she says. She holds out a hand, bangles jangling. “Come here.”

He sits on the edge of her bed, holding her hand, and nods at a photograph on the wall. It’s an image of a very handsome young man with slicked-back hair and a smoldering expression.

“Who’s that?” he asks. Not that he cares, really. He just wants keep her company, to connect.

“That’s Rudy. Rudolph Valentino. A very famous movie star. Everyone adored him back in the 1920s. Albert swears that he had a torrid affair with Ramón Novarro.”

“Who?”

She points at another photograph of an impossibly handsome man, also with slicked-back hair. “Him. Also a movie star.” She spins a ring on her right hand, repositioning it to catch the light. “But who knows if it’s true? Albert is very susceptible to such gossip. But if it is true, it’s a shame they never had a chance. They had to stay in the closet if they wanted to work in Hollywood. Stupid, of course. But that’s how the world was.”

Still is, Eddie thinks.

“Things are different now, they say,” Cookie says. “Maybe that’s true. What do you think?”

Eddie’s face goes hot. He’s not quite ready to talk about sexuality with Cookie, especially not his own. He’s not ashamed of it, and he assumes she knows. But still. He’s afraid that as soon as he confirms it, it’s all she’ll want to talk about, and he wants to keep that part of himself to himself for now. So he shrugs. “I don’t know.”

“Well,” she says. “Maybe some closets aren’t so bad, at least for a little while. A place to be safe, to figure things out, to dream. To invite someone else into every now and then, if you wanted to?” She raises an eyebrow.

Eddie doesn’t answer.

She sighs. “Anyway, Valentino died at thirty-one. My mother said the doctors knew he was going to die because there was no cure for his disease, but they never told him.”

“I would want to know if I was going to die,” Eddie says.

“Would you?”

He doesn’t answer right away. For a flash, he imagines a doctor in a white lab coat telling him that he was going to die in three days. What would his reaction be? Shock? Anger? Sadness? Relief? He pictures himself absorbing the information silently, feeling the world around him begin to soften into mush. He imagines standing up, leaving the doctor’s office, and walking down to the street. He looks up the avenue, and then down it, unsure which way to go first, feeling every minute tick underneath his feet. He feels a surge of bravery and begins to walk across the street, not waiting for traffic to pass. He strolls squarely, calmly, unrushed and unbothered, with more confidence than he’s ever walked with before. He wonders where he’s going, but before he finds out, the image fades.

Cookie is talking. “I would, too. I would want to know, so I had time touch up my lipstick,” she says, and begins to laugh quietly.

Eddie tugs at his collar, uncomfortable. He can feel Cookie looking at him, like she’s waiting for a response, but he doesn’t offer one.

“Did I frighten you yesterday?” she asks abruptly.

Eddie scrunches his shoulders. He’s been wondering if she even remembered yesterday. He wasn’t going to bring it up in case she was embarrassed, or worse, in case she was angry with him. He’s not sure why she would be, but he’s seen it happen before.

“No,” he says, and it’s an honest answer, because fear isn’t exactly what he felt. Concern, panic, uncertainty… but fear? No.

Oh, come on, Eddie. You were scared out of your wits.

Eddie knows this is true, but before he can say more, Cookie speaks again.

“People tell me that they think I’m fearless, and I never contradict them, but it’s not true. Oh, I’m fearless with my outfits, fearless with the way I speak, fearless in how I laugh or cry. But I’m afraid of so many things. You can’t help it, you know. It just happens. It just appears. Sometimes it comes at the right time, like if you’re at the edge of a cliff. Fear tells you to step back. But sometimes fear is a trick, a trap, like when you fear judgment from someone else. You have to reject that fear. You have to step forward then, into the danger, not back and away. It’s hard, but it’s the only way to tame it.”

Eddie looks at his hands. A thousand fears race through him. None of them are a cliff’s edge. All of them are people—perceiving him, assessing him, judging him, shaming him. Each one stings.

“What are you afraid of, Lollipop?” Cookie asks.

“I don’t know,” Eddie says, and it’s not a lie. He’s afraid of so many things, but he’s ashamed of his fear and he doesn’t want Cookie to see that. He wants her to trust him, to believe in him. He wants her to think he’s strong.

“They say Dorothy Parker was fearless,” she says, pointing at another picture, the dark-haired woman at an old-fashioned typewriter.

“I’ve heard that name before,” Eddie says, a faint English-class memory sweeping through his mind like a wisp of steam. “Was she a writer or something?”

“A poet, an essayist, a critic. The smartest person in New York. All through the 1920s she spent her afternoons in the bar at the Algonquin Hotel with all the important writers and thinkers, all the, you know, what’s the word? The intelligentsia. But she was the smartest of all. She ran circles around all those brilliant men.” Cookie reaches under her pillow and retrieves a tattered old paperback with the title Enough Rope . She hands it to him. “This is for you. You can tell because I’ve written your name on the title page.”

He opens it, and she points. “See? Eddie. Right there. I even spelled it right.”

Eddie smiles.

“These are some of Dottie’s most famous poems. Maybe reading them will help you know her when you find her.”

“When I find her? But isn’t she—?”

Cookie leans back on her pillow with a satisfied smile.

“I hope you don’t have plans this afternoon. I haven’t seen the Algonquin in years. But you’d better hurry, if you want to be back by sherry hour with a picture.”