The Ex

5

Deirdre pushed aside the roiling emotions she’d experienced after seeing David. Their meeting had been less and so much more than she’d imagined in the instant their eyes met.

On Broadway, she gazed through the cab windows at the crowded sidewalks and asked the driver to pull to the curb beyond the next intersection. She paid through the little rounded scoop set in the plastic dividing panel, leaving a suitable tip, and climbed out of the cab.

It felt wonderful to be lost in the middle of all the people, all the energy that swirled noisily around her. It was as if she were protected by movement and blaring horns and masses of humanity. And it was true, she told herself, she was safe here in New York.

A man with a raincoat slung over his arm almost ran into her, swerving at the last second and smiling at her. She smiled back, and he hesitated, then walked on. Deirdre held her head high, her shoulders back, and joined the flow of pedestrians. Workers hurrying back from lunch, shoppers, sightseers…she was one of them, and it felt glorious with the afternoon sun warming her shoulders and glancing brightly off the buildings and the contoured steel of the yellow cabs stuck in the impatient, laboring traffic. There was a strong exhaust smell, but she didn’t mind that. It was better than a lot of smells.

A woman carrying a shopping bag emerged from a revolving door and bumped into her. “Oh, hey! Deirdre!”

Deirdre looked at her and smiled. She’d literally bumped into the one other woman she knew in New York. “Darlene! You’ve been shopping.”

“Charging up a storm. I’m happily addicted to plastic.” Darlene spoke in a clipped, cultured voice that sounded natural to her but probably wasn’t, like a long-ago affectation that had taken root. She was about Deirdre’s height but much slimmer, with a long, elegant neck, slender calves like a teenager’s, and practically no breasts. She wore her hair combed back severely and neatly braided above the nape of her neck. She had the kind of dark-eyed, delicate features that enabled her to get away with that kind of hair style, Deirdre thought with envy. Darlene looked successful, her own woman, rich. It had been one of the first things Deirdre noticed about her when they’d struck up a conversation at the Port Authority Bus Terminal. That and her distinctive voice.

“I just left an old friend,” Deirdre said. “David.”

Darlene looked puzzled. A running man brushed Deirdre, knocking her toward the building. She moved out of the stream of pedestrians. Darlene followed.

“I thought I told you about David,” Deirdre said. “At Port Authority.”

Darlene’s soft brown eyes widened. “That’s true, you did. He’s your ex, am I right?”

“Right,” Deirdre said. “He and I had lunch together, a nice visit.”

Darlene grinned with tiny white teeth. “That’s not the way people usually talk about their ex. Any chance of it becoming more than a pleasant lunch?”

“The bastard got married while I was gone,” Deirdre said.

Darlene was still grinning. “That doesn’t answer my question.”

“Aren’t you naughty?” Deirdre laughed. Two women stared at her and had to walk around her. “Walk with me?” she invited Darlene.

Darlene glanced at a silver watch that fit loosely on her thin wrist, then shrugged. “Sure. I’ve got some spare time before I have to meet some friends.”

Deirdre started to walk, and Darlene fell in beside her. They entered the dark shade of a building, where it was noticeably cooler, then emerged into hot sunlight.

“You still didn’t answer my question,” Darlene reminded her.

“I don’t know the answer,” Deirdre said honestly. There would be some things they’d never talk about, at least for a while.

Darlene smiled at her. “The way you look, Deirdre, you can make the answer whatever you want.”

Deirdre smiled back. “You really think so? I mean, you’re the one with the young Audrey Hepburn looks. Men go for the delicate, breakable type. You’re built like a model or a ballerina, and I’m built like…well, sex.”

“I’d trade anytime,” Darlene said. “The way the world is now, there aren’t many men looking for the kind of woman they’d take home to Mother.”

“You’re serious?”

“Of course. They want to take you home, but believe me, Mother doesn’t figure into it.”

“Except with some men,” Deirdre said. “Mothers can have a terrible influence on some men.”

“David?”

“No. Not him at all. David could always…”

“What?”

“He was always a good lover.”

Darlene stopped walking, causing Deirdre to barely avoid bumping into her. She raised her elegant thin arm and glanced again at her expensive watch. “I’d better get going or I’ll be given up for lost,” she said.

“I don’t want to make you late for your friends,” Deirdre said. She wondered for a moment if Darlene would invite her along.

But Darlene was silent, glancing around. She had such a sweet, clean profile. They moved over and stood on a corner with a cluster of people waiting for the traffic light to change to Walk.

“Are you going to be in town long?” Darlene asked.

“Awhile.”

“Me too, this visit.”

“Her name’s Molly.”

“What?”

“That’s the name of David’s wife. The one who took my place. Molly.”

Darlene stared at her oddly, maybe with disapproval.

“They have a child,” Deirdre said. “A little boy named Michael.”

Darlene was silent.

“I thought you should know.”

“I don’t understand why,” Darlene said.

“You should know about Molly and Michael, as well as about David. But especially about Molly. It will help you understand what’s going to happen.”

Darlene appeared confused for only a second, then shrugged, as if whatever happened, it would be fine with her. “You said at the bus station you were going to find a hotel. Where are you staying?”

But the light changed and she was virtually swept away by the surging crowd before Deirdre could answer. She smiled helplessly at Deirdre and waved.

Deirdre stood on the corner and watched her disappear in the streams of pedestrians that flowed along Broadway’s wide sidewalk like competing currents in a river. For an instant her entire fragile body was visible, striding along with rhythm if not strength. Then only her slender upper body could be seen, and after a while only her head and long, pale neck. And then she was gone.

Darlene reminded Deirdre of a woman who was drowning.