A Woman Like Her Read online

  Mrs. Collins poured a tall glass of water, sat down on his lap, and leaned her head against his shoulder.

  “Let’s go to bed. It’s been a long day of waiting for you,” she murmured.

  Mr. Rivera went into the bathroom and changed into a new pair of pajamas that were waiting for him, nicely folded, on the marble counter by the sink. Then he joined Mrs. Collins in bed.

  “They’re beautiful, but you shouldn’t have.”

  “I saw them at Barneys, and I was sure they’d be perfect on you.”

  “You’d think they were tailor made,” Mr. Rivera replied, admiring the hem of the pants.

  He slid under the covers, checked that the alarm was set for five a.m., and turned off the bedside lamp.

  “How is she?” whispered Mrs. Collins.

  “She was calm, almost cheerful. The doctors adjusted the dosage again. She thought I was the guy who painted the hallway and told me I did a good job. She still remembers she likes the color blue.”

  “And what about your book, do you know who did it?”

  “It’s the nurse, or the maid, or maybe they’re in it together, I’ll figure it out tomorrow.”

  Mr. Rivera snuggled up next to Mrs. Collins, closed his eyes, and went to sleep.

  Sometimes phantom leg pain would keep Chloe awake at night. But this time, it wasn’t discomfort that kept her up. Sitting in bed, she was practicing her lines, adding gestures and motions that went along with what the characters expressed in the novel’s dialogue.

  She went back to the beginning of the chapter, adopting a low tone for the voice of Anton. In the book, the young stable hand was about to try to impress the girl he was courting. When the girl mounted her horse and galloped off, Chloe closed the book and put it down on her bed. She threw off the covers, got into her wheelchair, and went to the window. She looked out at the street awash with the rosy light of dawn. A man was walking his dog, and a woman hurried past him. A couple in evening attire emerged from a taxi.

  Chloe sighed and drew the curtains. Her eyes fell on the book. She was an invisible actress, a performer trying to pursue her career in a different way than most.

  She went to the kitchen to make some tea.

  The water was just coming to a boil when there was a crash in the service stairwell followed by a shout of pain. The latch of the service door was too high for her to reach. Chloe tried but wasn’t able to raise herself up with one arm. She pressed her ear against the door and listened: a small moan, then silence.

  She backed up her wheelchair, quickly turned around, shut off the gas, and raced to her father’s room. She banged on the door. Mr. Bronstein jumped out of bed and opened it, his hair tousled.

  “What’s going on?”

  “Come on, hurry!”

  She led him to the kitchen and explained that she had heard someone fall in the stairwell.

  Mr. Bronstein rushed down the stairs. Four floors later, he shouted up to his daughter to call 911.

  “What happened?” she yelled, furious that she couldn’t find out for herself.

  “No time to explain, I’ll unlock the door for them!”

  She rushed to her room, grabbed her cell phone, and made the call. Then she returned to her window and pulled open the curtains.

  Her father was waiting on the curb, and she could hear the wail of a siren. An ambulance pulled up to the building. Two paramedics ran through the service door, following Mr. Bronstein.

  She went back and forth between her bedroom window and the kitchen four times.

  The paramedics came out again and loaded a stretcher into the back of the ambulance. On it was a man with an oxygen mask over his face.

  Chloe waited for her father at the door of their apartment. He appeared at the end of the hallway.

  “No elevator,” he panted. “Mr. Rivera is in bad shape.”

  The Day They Changed My Bandages

  Dr. Mulder asked me if I wanted to see my knees, explaining that some amputees wanted to and others didn’t, so I decided to compromise and just look at one of them.

  I knew what I had lost, but I wasn’t aware of the extent of my injuries. Where my legs ended, my skin looked like a lunar landscape. I was in shock. Julius had left the room. Maggie put a compress on my forehead, and Dad went into the hallway with Julius, maybe to let us talk woman-to-woman or maybe so I wouldn’t see him cry.

  Then Maggie told me that, in the coming days, painkillers would be my best friends, but only for a short while. I shouldn’t get too attached to them. I was fascinated by the good hearts of the people who treated me. Maggie called me “honey pie.” In fact, my knee looked like an oozing honeycomb. Each time the doctor removed an inch of bandage, he asked me if it hurt. I have to admit their compassion was very comforting. If only I could have taken them both home with me … but my homecoming was still far off.

  I held Maggie’s hand, crushing her fingers as she told me that I was a real pro and I was doing great. When Dr. Mulder removed the last bandages, the pain was so intense that I threw up my breakfast. Julius had come back into the room, and Maggie handed him the basin. How romantic! I don’t remember anything else. Maggie said that I had gone through enough, and she quickly gave me some drugs. She stuck a syringe into my IV, and I took a deep dive into oblivion.

  When I opened my eyes again, Julius was still there. I wanted to know if I had slept for a long time, as if it mattered. What really mattered was knowing how long he had stayed with me. He looked at me closely and said, in a frail voice that didn’t sound like his, that it would be a good idea for me to wash my hair. Then he sobbed, and I consoled him. He kept on saying he was sorry. Sorry for what? I told him he shouldn’t be, it wasn’t his fault. But he kept on insisting that nothing would have happened if he hadn’t canceled our trip to Italy because of his work. I pointed out to him that I could just as easily have gotten run over by a car, especially since Italians are crazy drivers. Then he blamed himself for not going with me. What difference would it have made? I still would have been the one running the race. Why do people always feel guilty when something bad happens? Maybe it’s their way of mourning for a life that will never be the same again. Before and after. Thinking of after, I looked straight at Julius and told him that he didn’t owe me anything. He asked if it was okay if he washed my hair, with Maggie’s help. Apparently it still smelled like 2:50. I didn’t know how else to refer to what happened, other than the time my watch stopped.

  5

  At 6:15 a.m., Deepak entered through the service door, went down to the basement to put on his uniform, and came upstairs to start work. But, despite an ordinary beginning, this morning would not be like the others. The lobby was abuzz: the Clercs, the Williamses, and the Zeldoffs were talking with Mr. Bronstein; Mr. Morrison was half-asleep, leaning against the wall; and Mrs. Collins was frantically pacing back and forth. Only Miss Chloe was absent. All this excitement left Deepak speechless, until a puzzle brought him back to reality. Who had brought everyone down to the ground floor, since his colleague was nowhere to be seen?

  Mr. Bronstein was the first one to notice him and came over with a downcast look.

  “My dear Deepak, I’m sorry to say there was an accident. Mr. Rivera fell down the service stairs.”

  “What on earth was he doing in the service stairs at five a.m.?” exclaimed Mr. Williams.

  “That doesn’t matter now, we just need to know if he’s okay,” replied Mrs. Clerc, who had come downstairs in her negligee.

  “What did the paramedics say?” asked Mrs. Williams, coming to her husband’s rescue.

  “Not much, but it looks like his right leg was fractured. He was conscious, though a bit stunned. I spoke to him—he knew what was going on,” said the professor.

  “Thank God. Let’s hope he makes a full recovery,” Mr. Zeldoff said in a low voice, discreetly ogling Mrs. Clerc’s cleavage.

  “I hope they do an MRI,” his wife added, discreetly kicking him in the shin.

  “Which hospit
al?” Deepak asked evenly.

  “I told them to take him to Beth Israel. One of my friends is a doctor there,” answered Mr. Bronstein.

  “Okay, I’m sure you all want to get back to your apartments. We’ll have to make two trips. Let’s do this systematically,” Deepak announced, like a ship’s captain in the midst of a storm.

  He did a roll call of his passengers: the Zeldoffs, Mr. Morrison—who was sleeping while standing up—and then Mrs. Collins … Deepak looked around for her and saw her rummaging about behind the desk. She opened the drawer, slammed it shut, and got down on all fours to search on the floor.

  “May I help you?” Deepak whispered.

  Mrs. Collins had just found what she was looking for. She got up and handed him a paperback book, which he quickly slipped into his pocket.

  “You can count on me,” he said solemnly. “Could you do me the favor of waking up Mr. Morrison on your way to the elevator?”

  About one hundred vertical meters and a few minutes later, Deepak was finally alone in his elevator. He lowered the folding seat, sat down, and buried his head in his hands. He would have to let his wife know that he’d be coming home late. The residents would need his services to go home at the end of the day, and then he’d head over to the hospital. Who would operate the elevator at night? How long would the residents be willing to take the stairs after his shift ended? He didn’t have any answers, and a vague sense of foreboding squeezed his chest.

  As the day went on, life almost returned to normal. Deepak made his usual rounds. He took the Clercs’ housekeeper upstairs, brought down their golden retriever, and handed it off to the dog walker. At nine a.m., Mr. Groomlat arrived in the lobby.

  “You don’t look yourself this morning,” the accountant said as he stepped into the elevator.

  Luckily his office was on the second floor and Deepak didn’t have to answer.

  At ten a.m., Mr. Williams needed him. Deepak was on his way to the eighth floor when Mr. Zeldoff rang. There was no reason to stop the elevator—people hated going up when they wanted to go down, so he picked him up on the way back down. Mr. Zeldoff and Mr. Williams greeted each other for the second time that morning.

  “Seriously, what was he doing in the staircase at five a.m.?” muttered the Fox News commentator, who never missed a chance to suspect someone of something.

  “I have no idea,” sighed Mr. Zeldoff, who rarely had any ideas, except in the presence of Mrs. Clerc.

  Deepak could feel their eyes on his shoulders, or maybe his hat. He was careful to say nothing, except to wish them a nice day as he slid the gate of the elevator open. The two men parted on the sidewalk.

  A bit later, the Clercs left together, as always.

  Mrs. Williams worked from home, Mrs. Zeldoff didn’t work at all, Mrs. Collins never went out in the morning, Mr. Morrison never left before three p.m. when he was hungover, and the Clercs’ cleaning lady didn’t run her errands until lunchtime, after she’d finished vacuuming. Deepak had some free time.

  He settled in behind the front desk, pulled the old phone book out of the drawer, and called the hospital.

  This morning was definitely not like the others. Something else happened. Something that hadn’t happened in a long time—so long, in fact, that Deepak couldn’t even remember the year. The Bakelite telephone rang. Deepak stared at it, intrigued, and finally picked up the receiver.

  “Have you heard any news?” Mrs. Collins fretted.

  “I called the hospital. He’s still in surgery, but he’s stable.”

  He heard a sigh of relief.

  “I know how you feel. Call me back on this phone between two thirty and three p.m. The lobby will be empty,” he whispered before gently setting the receiver down.

  Then his cell phone started vibrating, too. It had to be Miss Chloe. Back when the elevator was first built, no one worried about people in wheelchairs. The elevator call button was too high for her to reach.

  Deepak went to pick her up on the ninth floor. She was waiting on the landing.

  “I think it’d be nice for someone to be there when he wakes up,” she said as the elevator descended.

  “That’s very thoughtful of you.”

  “I heard him fall, I was in the kitchen when—”

  And, since this morning was not like any other, Deepak shed his legendary reserve and interrupted her.

  “It’s the boiler. It starts up at five a.m., and the steam rises through the plumbing. Since the pipes on the fifth floor are too close to the wall, they vibrate and make a terrible racket, as if someone’s hammering the wall. You have to hit them to get the noise to stop. That must have been why he slipped.”

  “That makes sense, but why are you telling me this?”

  “I think Mr. Williams is wondering why Mr. Rivera was in the stairwell.”

  He went outside with Chloe, hailed a cab, and helped her inside.

  “Don’t worry, a broken leg isn’t very serious,” she said, holding the door open.

  “You’re the last person I’d argue with on the subject, but at his age, it can be a big deal.”

  “I’ll give you a call and let you know how he is.”

  Deepak thanked her for going to the trouble and went back inside, more shaken up than he cared to admit.

  Chloe watched Mr. Rivera sleep, facing away from the window. She remembered that when she was in Mr. Rivera’s situation, in the hospital, after the color started returning to her cheeks, she would often gaze at the top of the maple tree right outside. She saw the seasons pass: the new spring leaves, the green fullness of summer, the ruddy hues of fall, and the black wood of winter.

  A nurse came in to check his IV, and while she took his blood pressure, Chloe asked her how he was doing. The nurse hesitated before replying that he would recover full use of his leg. After she left, Chloe felt a rush of panic.

  “Everything’s going to be fine,” she murmured, unsure if she was talking to Mr. Rivera or to herself.

  Mr. Rivera’s eyelids fluttered open, and then shut again with a wince. Chloe wanted to escape, but she felt frozen. She was about to call her father to come pick her up when a woman appeared in the doorway.

  She was wearing a tweed skirt, a white blouse, and a sweater. She waited a beat, then walked over to the bed and smoothed out a wrinkle in the sheets.

  “He’s been a part of my life for thirty years, and I barely know him. Isn’t that strange?”

  “I don’t know,” Chloe stammered.

  “My husband talks about him the way you would talk about a brother, a brother you see every morning and every night.”

  “I’m not a family member,” Chloe said.

  “I know who you are,” Lali replied, sitting in one of the chairs. “He likes you very much. My husband, I mean. I’m sure Mr. Rivera likes you, too—you can’t be all that different at night, can you?”

  “You’re Mrs. Deepak?”

  “Mrs. Sanjari. Deepak is his first name. To be fair, he does call you Miss Chloe. I’ll stay with Mr. Rivera. You ought to get yourself home—you look pale.”

  Chloe didn’t answer. Lali stood and pushed her wheelchair into the hallway.

  “I hate hospitals, too,” she said, directing her toward the elevators. “Would you like to go grab a cup of tea?”

  “I think I’d like that very much.”

  When they left the hospital, Chloe spoke up.

  “Thank you, but I don’t like being pushed. It feels like I’m being taken for a walk.”

  “You didn’t mind before, so if it’s okay, I’ll keep pushing you a bit longer, especially since we have a few blocks left to walk, so to speak.”

  “Where are we going?” asked Chloe.

  “I know a place with wonderful pastries, and since it’s several blocks away, we can burn off the calories in advance.”

  “With you pushing me, I’m not going to burn off much of anything.”

  The strange name of the pastry shop was ChikaLicious, which amused Chloe. That, a
long with Lali’s kindly air of authority, made her think of an Indian Mary Poppins.

  “Why are you looking at me like that?” asked Lali as she tucked into a piece of cheesecake.

  “Like what?”

  “I skipped lunch, and besides, I love the cheesecake here.”

  “It’s not that.”

  “I’m not how you pictured me?”

  “I didn’t picture you at all. Deepak is so private.”

  “My husband has known you since you were a teenager. He takes you up and down in his elevator morning and night, and he calls you a cab every time you need one, rain or shine. He brings up your packages, asks how you’re doing daily, and your only excuse for not knowing about his life is that he’s a private person? My next-door neighbors are Cuban, they have three children and two grandchildren, and the neighbors above us are Puerto Rican, she’s a teacher and he’s an electrician. There are twenty-four apartments in our building, and I know who lives in every single one.”

  “You might be surprised at how much I notice. If you only knew how many hours I spend shut up at home—though I actually prefer watching the people on the street to the people downstairs from me. But I can tell you that the Zeldoffs are religious fanatics—and bigoted to boot. If a light bulb goes out, they pray for it to get changed; if their door squeaks, they pray for Deepak to oil the hinges; in fact, they pray for everything so they don’t have to do anything themselves. Mr. Morrison is a drunken dandy, an alcoholic with a taste for culture but no idea what’s happening around him—a real character. The Clercs are a French couple who have lived in New York for a long time. They have an art gallery in Chelsea. I like them a lot. They’re stuck in their own little bubble: very lovey-dovey, and they certainly don’t care who notices. Mrs. Clerc wears low-cut dresses that catch Mr. Zeldoff’s eye. My father notices them, too, actually, but you didn’t hear it from me. Mrs. Collins seems to be a merry widow—she always has something nice to say. She used to have a bichon frise that barked all day long. When it died, Mrs. Zeldoff thanked God, but then Mrs. Collins’s parrot started barking instead. And the Williamses—oh, the Williamses! They take themselves very seriously. Mr. Williams is a correspondent on the business desk for Fox News, so naturally he knows everything about everything. My father says he’s a moron who thinks all of life comes down to business. Dad knows what he’s talking about, he’s an economics professor at NYU. As for Mrs. Williams, she’s a crafty one. And such a phony. Every time I see her in the elevator, I secretly push my wheelchair forward to roll over her toes, and she’s such a hypocrite that she doesn’t say a word.”