Anthropology of an American Girl: A Novel - By Hilary Thayer Hamann Page 0,190

fancy clothes, and Mark talked without abeyance—of sailing his boss’s boat to Anguilla, of a ’66 Mustang GT 350 he was thinking of picking up, of someone he knew who’d gotten murdered by the Jewish Mafia. I’d never heard of a Jewish Mafia. My dad had spoken of the Russian Mafia; maybe Mark meant that. He talked about his former girlfriend Diane, a journalist in Los Angeles who’d had breast reduction surgery.

“She had to go out every night,” he said as he worked through a crème brûlée. “In New York it was Xenon, Studio 54, Danceteria. And in L.A., well, you wouldn’t know the clubs in L.A., but she burned through them. Beautiful like Rita Hayworth in the old classic movie Gilda—but shallow. In all the years I dated her, she never once looked at the stars.”

“Why did you stay with her?”

He shrugged. “Everyone wanted her, but only I could get her.”

At the end there was a gift for me—a book on Giotto he’d purchased while we were at the Met that afternoon.

“There’s a chapel in Padua where the walls are covered with Giottos,” Mark said.

“Scrovegni Chapel,” I confirmed.

I noticed for the first time that he appeared unrelated to his sister. Alicia was dark and exotic, like an Egyptian. Mark was neutral in color, with skin that was pale and hair without any particular accent or modulation. He wore it long and back off his face. The color of his suit was the color of his eyes, a grief-stricken gray, like shark hide, and light licked off his eyes, making him appear shrewd, diligent, making him seem to work twice: once for effect and then again for the pleasure of it. His lips were straight and his nose was straight; yet, for all that directness of line, he was obtuse. Everything he said came out as though in code. I was moved by the ease with which he could manipulate me; he held keys to doors I didn’t know I had.

“I’d like to take you there so you can see them in person,” he suggested softly, staring back at me.

Mark became attractive when he referred to money. Money meant attractive things to him—freedom and fulfillment—and a girl cannot be blamed for taking a man as he prefers to be found, for giving in to self-confidence when it makes itself manifest like lightning before your eyes. It’s like being hypnotized.

He assisted me as I stood, placing a hand on my lower back. I didn’t flinch. No one could touch the place that was Rourke’s. No one would ever get through.

“What are you thinking of?” he whispered to my neck.

“Hypnosis,” I said. “I’m thinking of hypnosis.”

37

Rob wanted to know what I was doing that night, did I have plans. It was late April.

“Not really,” I said.

“Fine,” Rob said. “I’ll be over in twenty minutes.”

I came down to sign him in and found him sitting on the security desk, sweet-talking Juanita the guard. Under one arm was a record album, and in his hand was a paper bag.

“Right outside Bedford,” Juanita was saying.

Rob repeated like he didn’t hear right, “Bedford?”

Juanita’s walkie-talkie hissed at her hip. “That’s right.”

“Bedford Falls, like in the Jimmy Stewart movie? The Christmas movie?”

“Actually, just plain Bedford.”

He creaked his neck around. “You had me goin’ for a minute there. Bedford Falls. That’d be like meeting somebody from Mayberry.”

I signed Rob in. Beyond him, through the doors to the street, there was a pull to the night. Like a puppet being lifted to a stand, the earth was coming alive to spring.

I asked Juanita if Rob was giving her a hard time.

“Not at all, honey,” she said.

“Me?” Rob exclaimed. “She’s the one telling me she’s from Bedford Falls!” I pulled him off the desk by his sleeve. He leaned down to her. “You wanna know something? I’ve seen It’s a Wonderful Life a dozen times, but I’ve never made it through Miracle on 34th Street once.”

We boarded the elevator, and the heavy doors knocked closed. It was the first time I’d seen Rob since the previous summer in Montauk. Though I had changed and he had changed, there was a place we shared that was enduring. In that region, we observed the need for caution. In that region was Rourke.

“Ever chew tobacco?” he inquired, staring ahead.

I said that I hadn’t, staring ahead too.

“You’re in for a night.” He shook the suspicious-looking paper bag, dangling it like a mouse he’d caught. “Elephant Butts, it’s a type of chew you can’t get down