Page 24

TWO

B ack at Cookie’s, Eddie is in a defensive posture, leaning against a different kitchen counter, definitely not Theo’s.

“This is your fault,” Albert is saying, or more precisely, hissing, as he rubs another blob of antibacterial gel into his palms.

“I didn’t do anything,” Eddie says quietly.

“ I didn’t do anything ,” Albert mocks, aping Eddie’s voice with an exaggerated whine. “If you weren’t out there sucking up germs—and God knows what else—then Cookie wouldn’t be sick. This could be pneumonia! Do you know what pneumonia means at her age? She could die, Eddie. It could kill her, and that would be on your head.”

Eddie scours inside for the courage to talk back, to stand straight and vigorously defend himself. He doesn’t find much.

“Well?” Albert demands.

Keeping his eyes on the floor, Eddie mumbles, “How do you know she didn’t catch it from you?”

Albert gasps in disbelief, hand at his own throat as if grasping an invisible strand of pearls. He squares his shoulders and glares.

Eddie shrinks, preparing for more venom.

But it doesn’t come. “Just wash your hands,” Albert says, slumping away into the other room. “Wash everything. God knows where it’s all been.”

The doctor arrives a few minutes later. “I never, ever do house calls,” she says. “Except for Cookie.” She closes the door to Cookie’s room behind her, leaving Albert and Eddie in the hallway. They stand in a thick, icy silence, each wishing the other would just dissolve away. They wait no more than ten minutes, but it feels like a thousand.

Eventually, the doctor opens the door and announces that Cookie’s temperature is only slightly elevated, and that her lungs sound perfectly clear. She names the affliction: a common cold.

“It will pass soon,” the doctor says. “She’s as spry and feisty as ever.”

“I heard that!” Cookie’s voice is scratchy but clear. “Don’t call me feisty.”

“I rest my case,” the doctor says, rolling her eyes.

Eddie and Albert exhale in unison, relieved. It’s a fleeting moment of solidarity that dissipates quickly and leaves no warm residue.

The doctor prescribes aspirin, a twice-daily anti-pneumonia pill—a prophylaxis, just a precaution—and rest. “Keep the apartment warm. Keep her cup filled with tea. Soup for lunch and supper, fruit for breakfast. Ginger ale if her stomach gets upset. And no alcohol for six days at least.”

“But she has a glass of sherry every day at four,” Eddie says.

“No alcohol,” the doctor repeats.

“But she’s had sherry hour every day forever.” Eddie grabs a sherry glass from the counter. “She doesn’t have very much. Look how small the glasses are.”

“No.”

“She’ll kill me.”

The doctor squints at Eddie. “I think you could take her.”

“But—”

The doctor sighs. “Half a glass, no more.” She stuffs her stethoscope into her bag and zips up her track jacket. “I’ll be back on Thursday.”

Albert closes the door behind her, then turns to Eddie. “You’re lucky,” he says. He shoves a handful of get-well cards into Eddie’s chest and sweeps out the door behind the doctor. Gone.

Gone, but not forgotten. Albert’s darts found their mark and now Eddie is pacing the apartment with panic acid on his tongue. What if Albert is right? What if Eddie is the cause of Cookie’s cold? What if he picked up a bug at the Algonquin, or on the subway, or at the patisserie? He weaves through the crowded furniture, sits down, stands up, opens the blinds, closes them again, straightens a pile of books, reorients the headless mannequin, turns it back again. Starts over. He should have asked the doctor if he was the culprit. He should have said something, had her examine him, too, had her take his blood or swab his nose or whatever you do to figure out if someone is an infectious killer. What if this really is his fault? What if Cookie gets really sick? What if—? She’ll be fine, she’ll be fine, she’ll be fine. And if she isn’t? Unthinkable.

Let’s stop on that absurd word: unthinkable . No one who ever says it really means it. An unthinkable disaster. An unthinkable situation. They actually mean the opposite of unthinkable, because they’re already thinking it. What you’re thinking is not unthinkable, Eddie. She’s almost a hundred years old. No matter how spry or feisty. But stop thinking it anyway.

He straightens a picture on the wall that’s gone atilt. He steps back, inspects, and straightens it again. Feels good. And then another picture, and another, and—

The peal from Cookie’s flamingo bell shocks him out of his spiral. It’s lunchtime.

“How are you feeling?” he asks when he brings a tray with chicken and rice soup and a few crunchy carrot sticks. The soup is from Albert. He says he made it a week ago and had it in his freezer, but Eddie has his doubts. He thinks it’s from a can.

“I’m fine,” she says, slurping a bit of soup off her spoon. “But this lunch is terrible. Why can’t I have something that tastes like something? A pastrami sandwich maybe?”

“I’ll fix it,” he says, and takes her bowl back into the kitchen. He cuts open a lime and spritzes juice over the soup—a trick he learned back at Sunset Ridge—then crumbles a few tortilla chips over the top and hits it with a little dash of Tabasco before bringing it back in. “Try it now.”

She groans doubtfully and takes a reluctant spoonful, but when the soup hits her tongue her face brightens. She tilts her head, focused now, and has another bite. “Oh, this is much better. This has personality now. Why don’t you have some?”

He makes himself a bowl, and they eat together in silence. When she finishes, she sneezes, twice, shaking the bed, then lies back onto her stack of pillows with a contented expression on her face. “Thank you.”

“What should we do this afternoon?” he asks, clearing away her tray. “We could open some more get-well cards, or we could watch a movie, or listen to music, or—”

“Don’t tell me you’re planning to hang around here with a sick old lady,” she says. “The sun is shining. And you’re young. Go be free. Sit by the river. Take a picnic to the park. Find someone to kiss!”

Eddie scrunches his forehead. A vision of Theo speeds through his head. He shakes his head and looks away, straining to keep his face as blank as he can. “I want to be with you.”

“Well, then,” Cookie sighs. “How about a cup of tea?”

“I’ll fix you one,” Eddie says. “There’s plenty in the kitchen.”

“No. Not the tea in there. I need the fennel tea from Citarella up on Sixth Avenue.”

“But that’s so far. I don’t want to be gone that long. What about at the deli around the cor—”

“Honestly, Lollipop. You are acting like I’m on death’s door, which I am not. I said I need fennel tea from Citarella. Capital-C-i-t-a—”

“All right!” he says, putting his hands up in surrender. “You don’t have to spell it! I’m going!”

“Sixth Avenue and Tenth,” Cookie says. “Right across from the Jefferson Market Courthouse.”

“Jefferson Market Courthouse,” he repeats, pretending that he knows what she means.

She taps the record player with her back scratcher. “‘Ev’ry Time We Say Goodbye,’ please.”

Eddie drops the needle, and Ella Fitzgerald starts to sing. Cookie sings along. “ Ev’ry time we say goodbye / I die a little …” She really leans in on the word die , winking at him. Eddie scowls.

“Just a little joke,” she says, and he can’t help a small smile.

She taps her cheek with a lazy finger, and he kisses it. Her eyes droop as she presses the kiss into her skin.

“Off you go,” she says.

“I’ll be back soon,” he says. He grabs the camera and slips out the door. He’ll get the tea, snap a photo, and be back very soon, before she wakes up.