over his hair, “I need to get in over at Sutton Place and see what’s what. I’m sure things are a mess over there, and somebody needs to get in and start taking care of stuff.”
If you didn’t leave things such a goddamned mess… These were words I’d heard my father scream at my mother when—about two weeks before he vanished—they’d had the biggest fight I ever heard them have, when the diamond-and-emerald earrings that belonged to her mother vanished from the dish on her bedside table. My father (red in the face, mocking her in a sarcastic falsetto) had said it was her fault, Cinzia had probably taken them or who the hell knew, it wasn’t a good idea to leave jewelry lying out like that, and maybe this would teach her to look after her things better. But my mother—ash-white with anger—had pointed out in a cold still voice that she’d taken the earrings off on Friday night, and that Cinzia hadn’t been in to work since.
What the hell are you trying to say? bellowed my father.
Silence.
So I’m a thief now, is that it? You’re accusing your own husband of stealing jewelry from you? What the hell kind of sick irrational thing is that? You need help, you know that? You really need professional help—
Only it wasn’t just the earrings that had vanished. After he vanished himself, it turned out that some other things including cash and some antique coins belonging to her father had vanished as well; and my mother had changed the locks and warned Cinzia and the doormen not to let him in if he showed up when she was at work. And of course now everything was different, and there was nothing to stop him from going in the apartment and going through her belongings and doing with them what he liked; but as I stood looking at him and trying to think what the hell to say, half a dozen things were running through my mind and chief among them was the painting. Every day, for weeks, I’d told myself that I would go over and take care of it, figure it out somehow, but I’d kept putting it off and putting it off and now here he was.
My dad was still smiling at me fixedly. “Okay, buddy? Think you might want to help us out?” Maybe he wasn’t drinking any more, but all the old late afternoon wanting-a-drink edge was still there, scratchy as sandpaper.
“I don’t have the key,” I said.
“That’s okay,” my dad returned swiftly. “We can call a locksmith. Xandra, give me the phone.”
I thought fast. I didn’t want them to go in the apartment without me. “Jose or Goldie might let us in,” I said. “If I go over there with you.”
“Fine then,” said my dad, “let’s go.” From his tone, I suspected he knew I was lying about the key (safely hidden, in Andy’s room). I knew too he didn’t like the sound of involving the doormen, as most of the guys who worked in the building didn’t care that much for my father, having seen him the worse for drink a few too many times. But I met his eye as blankly as I could until he shrugged and turned away.
xviii.
“¡HOLA, JOSE!”
“¡Bomba!” cried Jose, doing a happy step backward when he saw me on the sidewalk; he was the youngest and most buoyant of the doormen, always trying to sneak away before his shift was over to play soccer in the park. “Theo! ¿Qué lo que, manito?”
His uncomplicated smile threw me back hard to the past. Everything was the same: green awning, sallow shade, same furry brown puddle collecting in the sunken place in the sidewalk. Standing before the art-deco doors—nickel-bright, rayed with abstract sunbursts, doors that urgent news guys in fedoras might push through in a 1930s movie—I remembered all the times I’d stepped inside to find my mother sorting the mail, waiting for the elevator. Fresh from work, heels and briefcase, with the flowers I’d sent for her birthday. Well what do you know. My secret admirer has struck again.
Jose, looking past me, had spotted my father, and Xandra, hanging back slightly. “Hello, Mr. Decker,” he said, in a more formal tone, reaching around me to take my dad’s hand: politely, but no love lost. “Is nice to see you.”
My father, with his Personable Smile, started to answer but I was too nervous and interrupted: “Jose—” I’d been racking my brains for the Spanish on