Blow Fly

75

THE ATKINS DIET WORKS FINE for Lucy because she has never been keen on sweets and doesn't mind forgoing pasta and bread.

Her most dangerous indulgence is beer and wine, and she abstains from both at Jaime Berger's penthouse apartment on Central Park West.

"I won't force you," Berger says, returning the bottle of Pinot Grigio to the top shelf of the refrigerator inside her beautiful kitchen of wormy chestnut cupboards and granite countertops. "I'm better off without it myself. I can hardly remember anything anymore, as it is."

"I'd be better off if you would forget things now and then," Lucy says. "I'd be a lot better off if I would, too."

The last time she visited Berger's penthouse was at least three months ago. Berger's husband got drunk, and soon enough he and Lucy went at each other until Berger asked Lucy to please leave.

"It's forgotten," Berger says with a smile.

"He's not here, right?" Lucy makes sure. "You promised it was okay for me to come over."

"Would I lie to you?

"Well…" Lucy kids her.

For the moment, their light exchange belies the horror of that event.

Never has Berger witnessed such a display in what was supposed to be civilized socializing. She truly worried that Lucy and her husband would resort to blows. Lucy would win.

"He hates me," Lucy says, pulling a packet of folded paper out of the back pocket of her cutoff jeans.

Berger doesn't reply as she pours sparkling water into two tall beer glasses and goes back into the refrigerator for a bowl of freshly cut wedges of lime. Even when she is casual in a soft white cotton warm-up suit and socks, as she is now, she is anything but easygoing.

Lucy begins to fidget, stuffs the papers back into her pocket. "Do you think we can ever relax around each other, Jaime? It hasn't been the same…"

"It really can't be the same, now can it?"

Berger makes pennies as a prosecutor. Her husband is a real estate thief, maybe one notch more highly evolved than Rocco Caggiano, in Lucy's opinion.

"Seriously. When will he be home? Because if it's soon, I'm leaving," Lucy says, staring at her.

"You wouldn't be here right now if he was coming home soon. He's attending a meeting in Scottsdale. Scottsdale, Arizona. In the desert."

"With reptiles and cactus. Where he belongs."

"Stop it, Lucy," Berger says. "My bad marriage is not somehow related to all the awful men your mother chose over you when you were growing up. We've been through this before."

"I just don't understand why…"

"Please don't go there. The past is past." Berger sighs, returning the bottle of San Pellegrino to the refrigerator. "How many times do I have to tell you?"

"Yes, the past is past. So let's get on to what does matter."

"I never said it didn't-doesn't matter." Berger carries their drinks into the living room. "Come on now. You're here. I'm glad you're here. So let's make it all right, shall we?"

The view overlooks the Hudson, a side of the building considered less attractive than the front of it, which has the view of the park. But Berger loves water. She loves to watch the cruise ships docking. If she wanted trees, she has told Lucy many times, she wouldn't bother living in New York. If she wanted water, Lucy usually replies, she shouldn't have bothered living in New York.

"Nice view. Not bad for the cheap side of the building," Lucy says.

"You're impossible."

"That I know," Lucy replies.

"How does poor Rudy put up with you?"

"That I don't know. I guess he loves his job."

Lucy sprawls on an ostrich-skin couch, her bare legs crossed, her muscles speaking their own language, responding to movements and nerves while she lives on with little awareness of how she looks. Her workouts are an addictive release from demons.