Ten Thousand Saints Page 0,120

next stop was Seventy-second Street, and he walked out of the car. On the street, he was greeted by the invigorating freedom of being in a new place, a corner he’d never stood on before. This, along with an irrational empowerment—she hadn’t slept with Johnny!—and his anger at her—why had she attacked him like that?—propelled him down the blistering sidewalk. He didn’t know where he was going. He remembered, now that he thought about it, that both beds in their motel room were sometimes unmade. Jude had assumed that they’d been having such ambitious and nomadic sex that they’d simply traveled from bed to bed. He was walking south, the waves of humidity carrying the smell of taxi exhaust and hose-sprayed sidewalk. And also curiosity—why hadn’t they slept together? Who hadn’t slept with whom?

He turned around and began to run. How could he just leave her like that? With the leather pervert eyeing her on the train? What if Di did see her? What if she wasn’t going home at all, but going somewhere to get a fix? He ran all the way to Riverside, then north, but when he got there, she was not standing in front of her building. He stood under the awning next door, catching his breath.

She stopped in the median at Broadway and Ninety-first. Neena was standing at the fruit stand across the street, inspecting an apple. Plastic grocery bags were looped over her arm, and nestled inside an Indian print sling, a baby clung to her stomach. Eliza decided that she would wait here on the curb for Neena to see her. She would let her decide. But she didn’t look up. Would she even recognize her, another pregnant girl on a street corner in New York? Eliza flew across the street, in front of a bike messenger and a honking bus, and stood panting before her. She slipped her sunglasses back on her head. “Hi, Neena.”

The honking had stirred the baby, who fussed in its sleep. Neena took in the whole enlarged shape of Eliza. “It’s you. Goodness, you nearly run me over.”

“I saw you across the street. It must be a big shock to see me.”

“Your mother been very worried. Very angry with me for letting you go.” Neena, weighed down by the bags and the baby, did not offer a hug. “Where you been?”

It sent a strangely warm current over her skin, her mother’s familiar worry, her housekeeper’s familiar iciness. “Vermont, Florida. Everywhere. Who’s this?” Eliza nodded at the baby, who was wiggling in its sling. The baby had the same crimson dot on its forehead as Neena, and tiny gold studs in its earlobes.

“Grandchild,” said Neena. “My son’s.”

“It’s a girl?”

“A baby girl. Bala.”

“Bala.” Eliza reached, tentatively at first, and then as though she did it all the time, to stroke the baby’s head. It had as much hair as a full-grown man, and it was as silky and warm as the spun sugar Neena used to make. Her little eyes were closed, and she looked as though she were fighting a difficult battle in her dreams. Eliza had never, ever touched a baby.

Suddenly Neena unleashed the largest smile Eliza had ever seen on her face. “She making relief,” she said, bouncing the baby a little with her hips.

Eliza withdrew her hand.

“When your baby will be born?” Neena asked. Her smile vanished as quickly as it had come.

“September.”

“September when?”

“I’m not sure,” Eliza said.

Neena made a dismissive, horsey sound. “Your mother will be glad you home. I tell her when she calls.”

“No, I don’t want her to know,” Eliza said. “Where is she? She’s not home?”

“She looking for you. In Chicago. She call at my son’s house to check if you call. I helping with the baby.”

“She’s still in Chicago? You’re not staying at my mom’s?”

“I just there to cook in the big oven and water the bonsais.”

Now Eliza could see that Neena’s blouse was wet, where the baby had clamped its mouth on one of her breasts. It was hungry. Eliza lifted the keys from the chain between her own breasts.

“No one’s staying there at all?” she asked.

Nineteen

After weeks of sleeping in the van and in motels and on Rooster’s floor, moving into the air-conditioned sanctum of Di’s apartment felt like a luxurious crime, as though they were breaking into some movie star’s mansion and were waiting for the police to arrive. It was the size of Tower Records, and had things like a Macintosh computer, a laserdisc player, and a