Blood Count

CHAPTER 29

Y ou look beautiful,” I said.

“Thanks,” she said. “Sorry I’m so late, couldn’t decide what to wear. You look nice, too. New jacket, right?”

Her red hair was up, diamond earrings-I had given them to her a long time ago. She wore a plain black dress, and the skirt swayed when she walked. It had a low back and long, tight sleeves. Around her neck was a gold necklace I didn’t recognize.

In high heels, Lily was as tall as me. I put my arm around her waist. She didn’t push me away, only leaned against me slightly.

By now a band had replaced the pianist. They were good, playing standards, new stuff, Latin tunes. A few people danced. Waiters swooped through the crowd like birds, with trays of champagne and eggnog. Lily and I talked, laughed, drank. For a little while it was as if we were back where we had once been.

Then I saw Carver Lennox signal the band, there was a little drumroll, he put a rectangular package on the bar, and started to talk.

He made a speech about community and Christmas and how he planned to return Sugar Hill to its former greatness, listing the greats who had lived here, how the Armstrong would be the center of it-and 409 Edgecombe, of course, he added, acknowledging those of its residents who were present. He talked about how hard various organizations had worked to bring in supermarkets, and drugstores, how over the last few years everybody in the city had realized what great housing stock Harlem had, and how it was time to honor the past, but also to move on, to stop living in the 1920s, and celebrate a New Harlem Renaissance. He wished everyone a good holiday, and singled out some of the famous and the nearly famous in the room.

He was persuasive; it would have been hard to guess there had been a financial meltdown, that everybody was scared of the coming year. Finally, Lennox picked up the package from the bar, unwrapped it, and held a bronze plaque up over his head, like a trophy. It was the plaque he’d showed me earlier.

“Our new name, to honor our new president,” he said. “We are now the Barack Obama Apartments.”

There was some applause, but a few people turned away.

Somebody behind me said in a low voice, “I heard Lennox is in trouble.”

“Money?” someone asked.

“What else?”

“I heard if he doesn’t turn the Armstrong around before the end of the year, he’s fucked. He’ll have to sell those apartments.”

“He’ll find a way.”

“No, seriously, he is fucked, man. He’s running out of cash.”

“He thinks he’s in with Bloomberg, thinks the mayor will bail him out.”

“Mayor only interested in those church guys, the ones who own big pieces of Harlem, you know? He’s always going to church around here-I mean, Jesus, man, the guy is Jewish.”

When I turned around, I saw it was two elderly guys I didn’t recognize, leaning together, holding drinks.

“Why should we change our building’s name?” one said.

“For Barack,” said the other one.

“I love that man, sure I do, but we’ve had our name too long to change. I don’t like Carver Lennox, the way he just takes hold of everything, the way he just bought his way in, got himself elected president of the Armstrong board, members are all his people,” said one of the old men. “Says it’s to restore the building to his glory days. Truth is, that fellow’s just waiting for us to die.”

“Let’s go eat,” his friend said.

“You’re having fun, Artie?” Lily put her hand on my arm.

“Yes.”

“Me, too.”

As if she’d finally left behind the business with Marianna Simonova, Lily looked happy.

I was guessing she’d had some wine before she came out, and she was lit up. She knew everybody in the room and was flushed with the attention, the way people greeted her, kissed her, shook her hand, beamed at her. She stood near me for a while and kept up a running commentary. “You know who that is, right Artie?” she said, pointing out S. Epatha Merkerson, the police lieutenant on Law and Order.

“So you watch cop shows behind my back?” I said.

“Only once in a while,” she said, turning to greet somebody else.

“You love it up here.”

“Yes, I love the history,” said Lily. But I knew what she had fallen for was a sense of community.

We could live here, I almost said. We could move uptown together. Have a life. Be part of it. Live in a brownstone, on a pretty street with trees. A dog, if you want-Lily’s always wanted a dog. But I kept my mouth shut. I didn’t want to scare her.

“Merry Christmas, Lily,” said a familiar voice, a man’s voice with a Southern accent. I watched as she turned and was embraced by a tall white man in a very good suit, a white man with silver hair and blue eyes like flashbulbs.

“Merry Christmas, Mr. President,” said Lily, flushed with pleasure.

When I spotted her, Celestina Hutchison was crossing the room with Carver Lennox at her side. He showed her to a table as if she were royalty, and she lapped it up.

I went over, admired her silver dress, which was covered with sequins. On her head was a red satin hat, a jeweled Christmas tree pinned to it. People flocked to her, fussed about her.

“Is your husband with you?” I heard somebody ask.

“Lionel? He’s asleep. He was not feeling well. You see, he hasn’t my stamina,” she said, turning away to greet a young woman who came over to kiss her cheek as if paying homage to a grandee. I thought the girl might curtsy. Celestina was holding court now, and I moved away.

Among the crowd I saw more people from the Armstrong. Lily introduced me to a couple from her floor. Massimo, an Italian, was a designer, his partner Sam Cowan, was black, a plastic surgeon. Standing with them was Jeff Smith, a guy with a pleasant face, a goatee, and a big afro, the kind they’d worn in movies like Shaft. He was tall and thin and wore a slim cut brown suit with high lapels. He told me he taught semiotics at City College, something to do with French rap, or Algerian rap, something like that.

Lily told me he’d been a serious radical once, had called himself Jeffrey X. I got the feeling she admired him for it, or once had. Jeff’s Moroccan wife, Amelie, joined us, and so did their two teenage boys, who looked desperate to get away from the grown-ups and were eyeing the other kids bopping around between tables.

“God, I love this city, Artie,” said Lily. “I love the crazy mix of people. I’ve had a lot to drink, you know.”

“Me, too,” I said, and she pulled me along with her as she went to greet still more people.

Earlier in the day, I’d spent as much time as I could talking to people in the Armstrong, people I saw in the elevator or the lobby. The building itself was a favorite source of gossip, complaints, ambition-for a new washing machine, repairs to the roof, irritation at a neighbor’s dog or child. Kids make the best spies; they were always happy to talk. I glanced at the Smith boys, but they had finally crossed the floor to join some other teenagers.

Not everybody in the Armstrong was as prosperous as Carver Lennox, far from it. I recognized a guy from the third floor who was a retired subway worker, a guy named Bassey. I’d run into him in the little parking area out back of the building. Now he told me he was waiting for his girlfriend, a nurse called Shirley. Apparently Mr. Bassey proposed to her regularly. She could be Shirley Bassey, he always said.

Others in the crowd simply hung back, watching. Some made repeated trips to the buffet table, and I saw one elderly woman slip dinner rolls into her handbag.

Latinos, a few Asians, a few whites, and from the chatter you could hear some had been to an opening party at the Studio Museum. Art dealers. Lily pointed out DJ Spooky, a trio of drop-dead-gorgeous girls hanging off his arm.

We giggled, and eavesdropped. Lily had always loved sitting in bars and cafes, listening to people talk. We had confessed to each other a little guiltily that we preferred it to visiting museums or galleries. I’d always thought that some day we’d visit cities I longed to see-Rome, Venice, Rio-and spend all our time sitting in cafes. Or in bed.

Around midnight, Lucille Bernard stopped by with her daughter. In a red dress, Bernard looked fabulous. Younger people streamed in, including one dazzling girl in a jean jacket, a big skirt, and lime green stilettos.

“You’re staring at her,” said Lily, laughing, leaning closer to me. I could feel her breath. I didn’t want anything else.

A short white man in a leather jacket and a tie with vertical stripes, a white soul patch on his raddled elderly face, wandered by, holding hands with a woman who wore a lot of stuff she must have gotten in India-big paisley shawl with glitter on the fringe, hanging gold earrings, some kind of pink silk top. The guy knew everyone, talked loud, used the lingo, dropped the names of musicians, some dead, some still alive. After the next number, he looked at the pianist and said, “Smokin’!”

One of these days I’d find myself jiggling my head and my foot, eyes closed, thinking “Smokin’!” or, worse, saying it out loud. I’d be a finger-poppin’ daddy-o, an old white guy wanting to listen to this music and to be with Lily and not much else.

“He really likes to run the show, doesn’t he?” Lily was looking at Carver Lennox, who seemed to be everywhere, greeting people, seeing them off, dancing with the little girls, pressing flesh. I saw him talk to Jimmy Wagner, who had dropped by. I saw him with Lucille and their daughter. The girl put her arms around both her parents, as if she were the grown-up.

“Are we drinking too much?” said Lily.

“Yes,” I said. “Let’s have some more.”

“Did you see that weird guy?” She took another glass of champagne from Axel.

“What guy?”

“He wished me Merry Christmas, which is why I noticed, and he had such light hair, he looked like an albino. He kept looking at you.”

“I talked to him earlier. He told me he liked the music.”