The Girl in Times Square

  There was one more. “Hi, it’s, um, Spencer again. I’m assuming you’re all right, since I didn’t hear from you.”

  Okay, fine. Just fine. Two can play that game.

  Lily got casually dressed up; her hair was growing out. She had been feeling so tired. Ever since she got to Maui. The damn jet lag. The mother didn’t help. But her hair looked dark red and short and choppy and thicker, and she wore summer strappy sandals, and a mini Hawaiian-print silk sheath of a dress she had picked up at the Kahului (!) airport. She put on make-up, earrings and walked to the precinct.

  She informed Carl, the reception officer, that she wanted to file a police report on the man who accosted her in the street. Carl knew her, said hello, asked, already picking up the phone, if she wanted Detective O’Malley paged. Lily glanced up, trying to look through three floors to where Spencer was at that moment. “No, that’s okay,” she said seriously. “Isn’t Detective Sanchez your vagrancy detective?”

  “Yes…but—”

  “He’ll do fine. Could you page him please? Tell him that Lily Quinn would like to file a report.”

  Upstairs on the third floor, it went like this: Sanchez got the phone call, listened carefully, glanced over at Spencer, in Whittaker’s office, having his morning coffee. Hung up the phone, got up, went and knocked on the door, asked if he could see Spencer a moment, and lowering his voice, said, “Carl downstairs just called me because someone wants to file a vagrancy report.”

  Spencer slapped him on the back. “Detective Sanchez, thank you for bringing the particulars of your job description to my attention. Well done. Go to it.”

  Sanchez hemmed and said, “The young woman says she is Lily Quinn. Specifically asked for me, Carl says.”

  Spencer didn’t slap him on the back this time. He stared at Carl and then said, “All right, smart-ass, go back to your desk.”

  “That’s what I thought,” said Sanchez.

  Lily stood very calmly with her hands on the visitors desk as Spencer came down the main stairs. Her heart was beating wildly, and if her hands hadn’t been clutching each other, she knew they’d be shaking, but outwardly she managed to remain composed. He looked…well, he was Spencer. He was in a sharp suit, white shirt, silk blue tie to match the silk blue eyes. His hair was waving, longer. However, he was drawn, and somber, and extremely pale, and the circles under his eyes were darker than she remembered. He came up to her.

  “Hello, Lily.”

  “Oh, hello,” she said nonchalantly. “I thought Detective Sanchez was on vagrancy detail.”

  “Would you like me to get Detective Sanchez for you?” said Spencer.

  “No, no.”

  “Okay, then.”

  They stood for a moment, saying nothing. “So what’s going on?” he finally said, and Lily had to look away from him, because his voice was unsteady. Suddenly this didn’t seem like such a good idea anymore, in front of Carl, who wasn’t taking his eyes off them.

  “Lily,” Carl said, “you haven’t been selling your paintings on Saturdays. My wife went down to see what you had and you weren’t there. You should have seen how many people stood waiting for you last week.”

  “Yes. I’ll be there this Saturday, Carl.”

  “Have nice new things, Lil?”

  “Have some surprising things.”

  Spencer said, “Come upstairs.”

  They walked up three flights of stairs. Lily was more winded than she liked by the time they got to the third floor and had to hold on to the railing the whole way.

  He opened the door for her into the Special Investigations room. Gabe McGill came over. “Hello, Lily.” He glanced at Spencer, then back to Lily. “You’re looking well. Very tanned.”

  “Yes, I had a couple of days away.”

  “Did you have a good time?”

  “Yes, very good.”

  All this said in front of an expressionless Spencer.

  Gabe sat down at his desk, which was right next to Spencer’s. Whittaker was looking at them through the glass. Sanchez, Smith, Orkney, they were all staring. I mean, was there anyone here who didn’t know they had been together?

  Pulling out a chair for her next to his desk, Spencer sat down himself. “So what’s going on?” he said quietly. “How’ve you been? How are you feeling?”

  “Fine, fine,” Lily said off-handedly and loudly. “Great, everything’s great.” She hoped he didn’t see her fingers twisted on her lap. “I just came because I wanted to file a report on a man who I think may have accosted me in Tompkins Square.”

  Spencer sighed and flipped open his notebook. “All right, fine. When was this?”

  “A week ago Saturday.”

  “What time?”

  Lily coughed uncomfortably. “About two-thirty in the morning.”

  Spencer, who was writing this down, stopped, lifting his eyes to her.

  “You were in Tompkins Square at two-thirty in the morning?”

  “It may have been closer to three, I’m not exactly sure. I did not look at my watch.”

  “Reasonable precaution for your own safety is a requirement,” he said.

  “I know.”

  “What were you doing out at two-thirty in the morning?”

  Lily couldn’t tell him. Couldn’t even look at him. She said, “I was going home,” but suddenly the memory of the pound of cherries in her leaden stomach and standing across the street from his darkened windows wondering where he was at two in the morning on a Saturday night, filled her throat with such misery that she got up, and said, “I’m sorry, I have to go now. Do you have enough?”

  Spencer stared baffled into his notebook. “I have nothing. What man? What did he do? Can you describe him?”

  “I think he may have been…M—” But Lily was already faltering. “I think he might have been following me. But I have to go, detective,” she said. “I just remembered, I’ve got to run. I can’t believe what time it is.”

  “What time is it?”

  “It’s going time.”

  He got up, too, but she was already walking away from him, desperately trying to hold herself together long enough to get out of the police station. Spencer didn’t follow her. Which was best, because he wouldn’t have liked to see his calm, even-tempered Lily bawling like a baby, her mascara running in raccoon streaks down her face as she tottered to Second Avenue to catch a cab to go see Paul and Rachel.

  She spent the rest of the day out—with them, having lunch, going to the bookstore, getting Grandma her magazines. After they finished work, they all went out for Indian, and then went back home to her place, where they made margaritas, like always, and talked about Love, and Amy—like always. Lily’s jetlagged eyes were sandpaper, too sore now, even for tears.

  And Milo—he was a new subject to talk about.

  At eleven, the intercom rang.

  Ah. First her heart felt it.

  “Who could that be, I wonder?” said Rachel.

  Lily pressed the button. “Who is it?”

  “It’s me.”

  Lily turned around to say to Paul and Rachel, you better go, but they were already getting up.

  She threw open the door. On her landing stood a disheveled and panting Spencer.

  Lily said, idiotically, “You remember Rachel, Paul.”

  He barely nodded to them; he said nothing. He was still standing out in the beige corridor.

  “Do you want to—um—come in?”

  Spencer was eyeing them, and didn’t.

  “We were just leaving,” said Paul. “Rach, come on, hurry up! How long does it take to put on a pair of shoes?”

  Spencer didn’t come in until they said goodbye to Lily, and were on their way down the stairs. Then he came in. He came in and slammed shut the door, glancing puzzled at the barricades—the chairs and the tables—but his hands were already in Lily’s hair, his face was over her face, and his lips were on her lips. He smelled of alcohol. Lily noticed because she had never smelled alcohol on him before,
but tonight his breath was strong with it. He was gripping her so tightly that as she was whimpering under his mouth, she raised her hands in surrender.

  He pulled her down on the couch and knelt in front of her, and held her to him as if he had been at the front.

  “Where’ve you been?” he said hoarsely, his arms enveloping her.

  “Me? Where’ve you been?”

  “Here. Coming every day to your place, ringing your bell.”

  “Spencer…”

  “Oh, Lily, don’t cry…”

  “Oh, God, Spencer…”

  They made love on their couch with the TV on silent, with Lonely Guy frozen on the screen.

  “How much sugar, Lil…”

  “More, Spencer…more.”

  “How much more…”

  “Empty, empty, empty.” She was clutching him, her hands on his bare back, her mouth on his neck, she was kissing him and not so silently, not so gently weeping.

  “Shh, Lily, Shh.”

  “Now I understand,” she said. “I understand it only now, what you were saying to me then. It wasn’t Steve Martin, it was you saying it. To me. And he stubs his boots on your heart and then boils it and cuts it up into little pieces and feeds it to you and afterwards asks you if it was delicious and you say, oh yes, thank you, it was delicious.”

  “Lily, come on, no.”

  “Yes, Spencer.”

  He picked her up and carried her into the bedroom. “You’ve lost weight,” he said.

  “Good, bad, or indifferent?”

  “Indifferent. I take you any which way.” He got them water, and came to her bed, and kissed her and caressed her, a little gentler now, and went down on her with his maddening whisky-breath mouth, holding her open with his maddening whisky hands, driving her mad indeed, making her come until she nearly fainted, and then making love to her every which way until she was limp, but there was something going on with him, he wasn’t done, he remained impossibly hard, and though she had nothing left—and gave it to him anyway—he still was not done. “Spencer?” Lily whispered, saturated in perspiration, the windows open, her moans carrying out into the summer yard where the cats were listening, “Spencer, what be up with you?”

  “Nothin’,” he said. “Just whisky. Can’t come with whisky.”

  “Well, last call, mister, because I can’t take it anymore.”

  “You’re going to have to take some more, Harlequin” he whispered.

  The cats caterwauled in the courtyard.

  “Spencer…have mercy on me…I don’t have this much time…”

  And finally he had mercy on her.

  And eventually stopped moving.

  He held her so close to him, and she cried again.

  “I’m sorry, Lily.”

  “Don’t be sorry. You have nothing to be sorry for. Nothing.”

  “I do.”

  “Nothing!” she repeated. “I was wrong and selfish. It was all about me, about Andrew, about Amy, me, me, me. There was never anything left for you. I was a terrible friend to you, a terrible everything.” She pulled herself back from him a little to look into his face. They were pressed like papers against each other, shivering.

  She kissed him softly. “Spencer,” Lily whispered. “I’m sorry.”

  He stared at her, barely forming an acknowledgement she heard. She kissed him again. “Did you hear me?”

  “I heard you.” He wasn’t smiling. “Where’ve you been? I missed you.”

  “I went to Maui.”

  He didn’t say anything.

  She made a fist and hit him on the back and started to cry. “How could you not have called me for so long? How could you have just forgotten me, don’t you have any idea about me?”

  “God knows I do. And I didn’t forget you.”

  “How could you not have called?” Lily was sobbing. “Don’t you have any idea how I feel about you?”

  “I do,” Spencer said, his palms fanning her back. “That’s why I didn’t call you. I don’t deserve you.”

  Lily held him in her naked embrace. Spencer asked if she wanted to talk, and she said, no, yes, whatever you want, talk, don’t talk. I don’t care. I never really cared. I just want you near.

  “Lily, please…” he said, turning away. They were quiet, for minutes? For hours? Then she talked.

  She told him about Maui. Suddenly he closed his eyes, put his arm over his face, and couldn’t hear anymore. He moved away from her, he said, don’t tell me anymore.

  Lily didn’t understand what was the matter.

  “Don’t tell me anymore about your mother,” Spencer said at last. “It’s too hard for me to hear. I know all about her.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  Spencer said something, quietly, into his hands.

  Lily thought she misheard him. “Drink?” She sat up in bed. “What are you talking about? You don’t.”

  “Oh, I do.”

  “Spencer, I never see you drink.”

  “Nevertheless.”

  She shook her head. “Stop.”

  He said nothing, but sat up in bed, drawing his knees up, looking down.

  “Spencer.” Lily laughed nervously. “What are you talking about?”

  His mouth tightened.

  “You don’t drink, Spencer. Whatever it is you do, you don’t drink. My mother drinks. I know what drinking is. I’ve just come back from her drinking. You haven’t seen her sitting with the bone in her foot sticking out for days, her very foot bubbling off her body because she was too drunk to know the difference between a stubbed toe and a gangrened toe; and her not wanting to go to the hospital because she didn’t want to sober up, even if that meant losing her foot in the process. Now that’s drinking. You hold a job, you have a life, and you have all your limbs—”

  Spencer interrupted her with a shake of his head. “I have no life. I have work, that’s true. I have work Monday through Friday, and then I have drink. That’s my life. Until you came along, that was my life.”

  “You drink on the weekends?”

  “That’s all I do.”

  Spencer was silent.

  Lily was silent. “It can’t be true. It can’t.”

  The June breeze blew in from the open window, and the cats were wailing.

  “Oh my God,” Lily said at last. She tried to figure it out, she tried to wrap her brain around it. “I don’t understand,” she said. “It’s not my mother’s drinking. You work, you have a job, stress, responsibility. You function, it just sounds like…”

  “You’re right,” he said. “You don’t understand.”

  Lily thought back to all the weekends Spencer had spent with her. His absences, his lapses, his silences, his broodiness, moodiness, his soul on mute and she saw but didn’t see.

  “But you stop for five days a week.”

  “Yes.”

  “And sometimes when you’re here, longer.”

  “Yes.”

  “I’ve never smelled drink on your breath before,” Lily said, catching with shame the pang of desire in her groin. He was telling her of his darkest demons and she found herself craving him. This is what she meant by failing him. Did men do this? You pour out your soul to them and all they want is to get into your pants?

  “I never drank and came to see you before.”

  “Why did you drink tonight, a Tuesday night? For nerves?”

  He smiled slightly. “I’m not in the least frightened of you, Liliput. Just that, since I stopped seeing you…the drink has unraveled me.”

  It has? She stared at him as she would at something she was about to render—consumingly.

  “Spencer, this drinking, is it something serious?”

  “What’s serious?”

  “As in, something you can’t stop?” Lily said it but she didn’t mean it even as the words were coming out. It was just words to say.

  “This is something I can’t stop,” Spencer said.

  “I don’t believe you.”

&nbs
p; “Believe me, Lily.”

  “But you stop every time you go to work, and when you come to see me!”

  “I stop because I know my reward is waiting for me. I stop and as a reward for stopping I drink to oblivion. I drink until I can’t stand up, until either all the whisky is gone or I pass out, whichever comes first.”

  Lily was astonished. “That is how you drink?”

  “That is how I drink.”

  Vehemently she shook her head. “No. That can’t be true. It can’t be true, because that is how my mother drinks. She drinks until she passes out.”

  “Yes.”

  “But, Spencer, my mother is an alcoholic.”

  For a moment there was only the cats crying outside. “Lily,” said Spencer, “I am also an alcoholic. I am the textbook definition of an alcoholic. I cannot not drink. And when I drink I can’t stop. I hide my drinking from other people because they would be shocked if they knew how much I drink. You say you cannot imagine your life without me. Well, I cannot imagine my life without the drink. I have not been able to be in a relationship with one woman for any length of time because of the drink. They all run their course in about a year. As soon as they think they can change me, I’m gone.”

  Lily was watching him. “It can’t be,” she mouthed.

  “Friday night I drink. Saturday the whole day and night, I drink. Sunday I spend sobering up. Sunday is the hardest day I live all week. Which is why when I spend it with you, it’s easier.” Spencer smiled a little then. “A true Harlequin, like a jester, with your comedies and your cancer, you keep me forgetting about the drink. Monday I go to work.”

  “Every Monday you go to work?”

  “Every Monday I go to work.”

  “Never skipped a Monday?”