He had spent a long time working with very rich people, he told her, and for a while he even was one. That was when he met Carolyn, the woman who became his wife, and who to begin with ticked all the boxes.
“But then I started to wonder if the boxes had been on someone else’s list,” he confessed.
She lived to party while he soon tired of it. She slept late but he liked to get up early. She didn’t eat much and he ate like a horse. She loved the Hamptons and he always felt like an alien there. Carolyn brought out a side of Theo he didn’t know he had nor ever wanted to see again.
He’d started to turn his life around, he said, about a year after his divorce, when he woke up one morning and realized he didn’t have a single friend. “And I’m a nice guy. Although back then—you might find this hard to believe—I was a bit of an arsehole.”
“You know, I have a problem with cursing,” Sugar said. “But I don’t find it that hard to believe. Although I have to say it sounds better in Scottish.”
“My mother had a problem with cursing. She said it showed a lack of imagination.”
“She sounds truly wonderful, Theo. No wonder you miss her so much.”
“I wish you could have met her. Never a penny to her name but the original heart of gold.”
“She must have been very proud of you.”
“She was in the beginning, and she would be again now, but if she had seen me in the middle when I was squandering my hard-earned cash on five-hundred-dollar ties and bottles of Krug, she would have kicked me into the middle of next week.”
“You’re lucky to have had a mom like that,” Sugar said, unable to hide the wistfulness in her voice.
“Yes,” Theo said, treading delicately around the subject of Sugar’s own family. “And I’m even luckier to have you.”
Sugar in turn could not believe her own luck, although her ability to completely trust it was still a work in progress.
“Now don’t be mad,” Theo said one morning after bringing her breakfast in bed (thick slices of sourdough toast with fresh farm butter and Idaho honey—his favorite). “But I have someone I want you to meet.”
Her heart sank. “Why would I be mad? You’re not still married are you? Or gay? Or swapping yourself every day with your identical twin brother, also called Theo?”
“Wow,” Theo said, sitting on the edge of the bed. “No. None of the above.”
He took the toast away from her again and held both her hands in his.
“Nothing is going to go wrong between you and me,” he said. “Ever. Well, maybe the normal things like I’m scared of your bees and you’re scared of my shirts but there are no dirty secrets I haven’t already told you. There is no disaster lurking around the corner. I have nothing that can hurt you. I love you, Sugar, with all my heart and soul, and there is nothing that can change that, I promise.”
She kissed him.
“Although if I was going to keep a secret,” he said, “an identical twin brother with the same name would be a really good one.”
They went for lunch at a new place on the Square to meet Theo’s friend. She arrived not long after they were seated, a plump blond woman swathed in layers of expensive black cashmere shawls squeezing her way between the tables toward them.
Theo stood as she approached.
There was something about her that was familiar, yet Sugar couldn’t quite place her. She had a Birkin bag and wore an enormous diamond ring. She did not look like an Alphabet City regular.
“Rosalie Portman,” Theo said, as she checked the chair for dirt before gingerly lowering herself onto it. “This is Sugar Wallace.”
Portman?
“Ruby’s mother,” said Rosalie.
Sugar could barely hide her surprise. Ruby painted her mother as cool and controlling and Sugar had imagined an Upper East Side version of Etta. But this woman was not cool. She was flustered. Her expertly colored blond hair was refusing to stay swept up; she had flushed cheeks and beads of sweat on her top lip. She was nervous.
“I met Rosalie here when I was looking for you,” explained Theo. “All those months ago before the ice cream.”
“You met here in the café?”
“Yes,” said Rosalie. “I come here quite a bit.”
“All the stalkers do,” Theo said.
Rosalie laughed and her face lit up like a Paris streetlight, full of charm and warmth. “Yes, Theo was the first person to make me feel good about spying on my own daughter.” She smiled at him. “In fact, he was the first person I told.”
“You’ve been spying on her?”
“It doesn’t sound very nice but—look, I know you’ve become good friends,” she said, “so I’m assuming she’s told you that we have a difficult relationship.”
“I just tell her mothers always care for their daughters, even if it isn’t always obvious.”
“Thank you,” said Rosalie. “That’s very diplomatic. I appreciate it—and of course I care for her. I love her to distraction in fact but . . .” She lost her composure briefly, then wrangled it back. “You’re obviously aware that Ruby suffers from anorexia.”
Ruby never called it that, but Sugar nodded.
“I still find it hard to believe. She was such a beautiful little girl. Here, I have a photo.” She opened her purse and pulled out a picture of Ruby as a chubby preschooler with long curly blond hair, holding a giant multicolored lollipop and smiling. She looked like an angel.
“And here’s one of her when she was older, just before it began.” In this one, Ruby was wearing jeans and a loose-fitting shirt. Her hair was thick and fell in huge glossy curls over her shoulders but the smile was gone: there was a familiar sort of distance in her eyes. Her face was round and her body was soft and feminine.
“Oh,” said Sugar, swallowing the lump in her throat, because she didn’t bear much resemblance to the Ruby she knew now. “She is beautiful.”
“Isn’t she?” Rosalie replied. “Nothing I ever said could convince her of it. She was teased at school. I made the wrong choice there, I think. And girls that age can be so cruel. I did the best I could but she blames me. I know she does. I love to eat, to entertain, to cook, to shop. It’s the way my mother was too; it was a passion that we shared. But Ruby thinks I made her fat.”
“She doesn’t look fat to me,” said Theo, scrutinizing the photo.
“Nor me. That was taken just after her thirteenth birthday. I had just remarried and actually that had gone quite smoothly but there had been this constant trouble at school. She was bullied, I suppose, and then she just stopped eating. For a while she seemed to actually like the attention. Then she got worse and worse.”
“It must have been scary,” Theo said, handing the picture back.
“To begin with I thought we could deal with it but then I realized it went so much deeper. Sometimes it felt like she was doing it to hurt me, to punish me for loving food so much by starving herself. But other times I could see that she really didn’t want to be like that, that she was trapped, and angry.”
“I’m so sorry, Rosalie,” Sugar said.
“I’m her mother, I can take it,” said Rosalie. “But it’s a very hard disease for a family to live with. My husband has two sons and it was very frightening for them because they loved Ruby; she was such a kind, loving little girl, but the disease stole her away from us all.” She turned her face to hide her tears.
Sugar reached out and squeezed her arm. “She is still kind and loving,” she said. “I see that.”
“Thank you,” Rosalie said, attempting a weak smile. “And I’m so sorry. You probably think I’m a monster. It is not natural to send your daughter out into . . .”
“The wilds of Alphabet City and beyond?” suggested Theo, with just the right levity.
“My parents wouldn’t let me come anywhere near here when I was growing up,” admitted Rosalie. “They used to say Avenue A was all right, but B was for brave, C was for crazy and D was for dead.”
“Flor
es Street is a very safe place for Ruby to be,” Sugar said.
“I know,” said her mother. “And I can see that she’s happier now than she was at home, but she still has anorexia.”
“She has promised to seek help,” Sugar said. “That’s what she said, and I think she really is trying.”
“Ms. Wallace . . . Sugar . . . I am very grateful to you for looking out for my daughter, but I know this disease far better than you, far better than Ruby herself, and she is most unlikely to survive it by ‘trying’ on her own. She needs very specific treatment and, while she would never take a referral from me, she may well take it from someone like you. Which is actually why I’m here. I was wondering if I could enlist your support.”
Sugar breathed deeply. “I’m not sure, Rosalie. I understand, of course, that you want to help her but I would hate to feel like I’m going behind her back.”
“I don’t need to have anything to do with it. I’ve found a woman at a clinic on the Upper West Side—she’s a holistic counselor but she’s also a registered psychologist—and I think she could be worth a try. I’ve spoken to her and she sounds totally off-the-wall to me, which means Ruby will no doubt love her. And she has been getting results. So if you would just consider it . . .” She handed Sugar a business card. “That’s all I ask. You could say you found her. She knows to bill me if Ruby comes to see her. She’ll say she takes pro bono clients in special cases such as hers.”
“You don’t want to come and see Ruby yourself while you’re down here?”
“I would, of course I would, but I don’t think that will help her right now,” Rosalie said. “All I want is for her to get better and I’m not part of that, not now, but I hope to be one day and until then I’ll just wait and, well, I will watch. It’s all I can do.”
Sugar looked at the card in her hands and felt the lump in her throat again. “I don’t think you’re a monster,” she said. “I think you’re a good mom. And when Ruby gets better, she’ll be able to tell you that herself, I’m sure of it.”
Rosalie stood up, a resigned look on her face. “I sincerely hope so,” she said. “Thank you, Theo, for arranging this. And thank you, Sugar. Is that your real name? I confess I find it a little . . .”
“Yes, my mother doesn’t care for it, either,” Sugar said.
“What does she call you?”
“I’m sorry to say, but I’m Sugar regardless.”
Rosalie reached for her hand, and held it. “Don’t be sorry,” she said. “I can tell you’re a good daughter too.”
“If only she knew,” Sugar said, as they watched her leave. “Not that my mama would ever spy on me. She doesn’t even answer my letters.”
Theo took her hand and kissed it. “Bless you,” he said, “for being the only thirty-six-year-old in the world who still writes letters.”
39TH
Lola and Mrs. Keschl were having challah French toast at the Odessa diner on Avenue A while Mr. McNally was with Ethan in the park. Both women liked the vinegary white wine that was served in the old diner and had just drained their first glasses even though it was barely eleven A.M.
“Should I call you Hannah?” Lola asked.
“No, you should not,” Mrs. Keschl said.
“Good. Because that would be weird, right?”
“What is weird is that you have so many patrons going into your balloon shop and none of them are coming out with balloons.”
“Oh, so this is a landlady thing?” Lola plonked down her glass and got ready to be defensive. “You going to read me the riot act? Jesus, I should have known.”
“First of all,” said Mrs. Keschl, “I chose you to live at 33 because I like your name and you and the kid needed a break. No! Don’t interrupt. This is how it works. I still choose you to live there—do you hear me? I still choose you to live there, but if you’re turning the basement into a den of iniquity, that has got to stop. Those are the rules.”
“A den of iniquity? You mean, like, opium?”
“You can still get opium?”
“I don’t know. I don’t do drugs! And I’m pretty sure I don’t do iniquity either! Not anymore. I’m a single mom, Mrs. Keschl. I’m just trying to get by.”
“OK, but you’re not selling balloons yet you have a lot of customers so perhaps you might like to tell me what you are doing down there.”
“Promise not to freak?”
“I don’t think I ever have before, so yes, I promise.”
“Tattoos.” Lola sighed. “I’m doing tattoos. And actually I’m pretty good at it but I don’t even have a diploma or a license or anything; I just learned from my ex-boyfriend back in San Francisco. I started out doing one for this guy Rollo and then his friend Rex liked it so much he wanted one and all of a sudden people started coming to see me and so I started tattooing for money. I didn’t know if it was illegal, I didn’t know you were the landlady, I didn’t—”
“Is this you freaking?” asked Mrs. Keschl.
“I’m sorry,” said Lola. “But the balloon thing isn’t working out.”
“You do better than the psychic.”
“She was a shit psychic,” Lola said. “I went to see her once and she charged ten bucks to tell me I would face many challenges.”
“And did you?”
“Yes, but I could have told her that. She should have said that I would have an idea to open a store right where she was sitting and it would be the dumbest thing I ever did.”
“But if you could make everyone who got a tattoo buy a dozen balloons you could take us all to Florida for the winter,” Mrs. Keschl said.
“They’re just not a balloon-buying crowd.”
“So why not turn it into a tattoo shop?”
Lola blinked.
“You goigeous goils want another top up here?” the Odessa’s pint-sized waiter asked. “I got another vat of this stuff out the back we need to get rid of and you two are the only ones who can stomach it.”
“But I don’t even know if it’s legal to tattoo people if you’re not, I don’t know, licensed or whatever,” Lola said, ignoring him.
“We’ll have one more each and then that’s it,” Mrs. Keschl told the waiter. “By the way, do you happen to know if you need a license to tattoo people?”
“My cousin, Walter, was working at Fioruccio’s Meats in Jersey City one day,” the waiter said, “and opened Hard Knox Ink Studio two blocks down the street the next. Took one visit from the Health Department and a hundred bucks.”
“That was it? Are you sure?”
“He was better at sausages than tattoos, if you ask me, but he stays on the right side of the law. These days, anyway.”
“I never thought to ask anyone,” Lola said as he scuttled off. “You think I could do that? In the basement?”
“You already are,” said Mrs. Keschl.
“What would I call it?”
“What’s wrong with Lola’s Balloons? Gives it an air of mystery. ‘Lola’s Balloons? But why am I here for a tattoo?’ Like a speakeasy, that sort of thing.”
“You’re a genius, Mrs. Keschl.”
“That I am not,” she said. “But I’m OK.” They looked out the window as across the road Mr. McNally took Ethan’s hand and talked him through crossing the road to the diner. “I’m better than OK.”
40TH
On Sunday Sugar enlisted Theo to help her out at the greenmarket. Her stall had become so popular that at certain times of the day she needed an extra pair of hands but also she just loved having him there.
Midmorning a woman in sweats pushed her way to the front and stood, hands on hips, looking at the two of them. “Well, looky here!” she said.
“Hello, ma’am, can I help you?”
“It’s me!” the woman said. “Maria. Chocolate chip, two pints, remember? Hey, Minty,” she called over her shoulder and Sugar saw an old man licking at a green ice cream in the background.
It was the pair from the day she had worked Marcus Morretti’s ice-cream sta
nd.
“So you two finally got it on, huh? And guess what? Since we met that day, Minty and I are walking buddies. Hey, Minty! The cute chick finally got it on with Gerard Butler here. See?”
Minty charged his ice cream. “They always go for the loons. I seen it a hundred times before,” he called.
“Turns out he’s not as loony as I thought,” Sugar said to Maria. “And there’s no pot or poetry either,” she called back to Minty.
“Excuse me, could I please have some of that Rhode Island honey?” A slim young woman was pointing to Sugar’s stocks. “My boyfriend’s mom is from Rhode Island. Maybe she’ll like that. She certainly doesn’t like anything else.”
“Mothers-in-law,” said Maria. “Can’t eat ’em, can’t shoot ’em.”
“Can’t shut them up for more than thirty seconds either,” said the man standing next to her.
“So spit it out. You two getting married?” Maria asked Sugar. “Did he ask you properly this time?”
“I’m not allowed to ask her,” Theo said, handing another customer a tester of elbow cream.
“But you love him, right?” Maria was looking at Sugar. “Of course you do. Look at the two of you. Why won’t you let him ask you?”
“You know I would much rather talk about honey,” Sugar said.
“Apologies in advance,” Maria said to her. “But I’m a real committee person and I can’t let this one go.” She turned to face the other shoppers. “Hands up who wants to hear about honey?” she asked, at which no one raised a single hand. “And hands up who wants to hear about why she won’t marry the cute guy in the bum shirt?” Everyone put their hands up.
“Dish the dirt, sweetheart. The people have spoken.”
Sugar could not deny how happy she was with Theo, happier than she had ever been, freer than she had ever been and it wasn’t that she didn’t want to be Theo’s wife. It was just that . . .
“I’m not ready,” she said, feeling feeble, but Theo put his arm around her and kissed her delicately on the temple because he knew exactly what she was and what she wasn’t.