wide and nearly featureless as a highway. There were six lanes of traffic here, all crowded with speeding cars headed toward the city—a distant mirage of gray skyscrapers huddled under a gray sky—or outward bound for the suburbs of Long Island. The few built-up areas that I did pass included the occasional rooms-by-the-hour motel and a used car lot or two sandwiched between old, brick apartment buildings that looked weary and blank-faced as their windows stared into the steady March wind. It was a cheerless walk, but the exercise warmed me up. I felt like my bones had been frozen and were finally beginning to thaw out.
By comparison, the subway ride was relatively short; it took me maybe half an hour to arrive at a stop that let me off near the edge of Chinatown, in a neighborhood that was transitioning from factory buildings and fire-trap tenements that had been partitioned into tiny rooms for immigrant workers into million-dollar-plus loft spaces for the monied hipsters moving down from Soho to take over the blocks around Canal Street. When I found the address Ravenette had given me, it was in one of these repurposed buildings. The structure resembled a pile of dark concrete whose colonnaded façade had been stripped bare and refurbished to emanate a steampunk look that someone must have felt represented the aesthetic of early twentieth-century manufacturing even better than the name of the long-departed box-making firm still chiseled above the entranceway.
I rode the elevator—an iron cage that was another remnant of the past, though the ceiling was now crisscrossed with thin tubes of neon lighting that changed color as you rose from floor to floor—which let me out directly into Ravenette’s loft. If I had expected anything like a gypsy-themed parlor featuring tasseled shawls and tufted chairs, I was apparently in the wrong place. The loft gleamed. An expanse of polished wood the color of honey swept off into a living area that featured low couches attended by small side tables made of what looked like highly polished steel. Here, on one of the couches, perched Ravenette, who rose to greet me.
Just like the loft, she was not what I expected. At least she was a brunette (I mean, “Ravenette”—come on), but she was also movie-star pretty: tall, thin, green-eyed and with the look of someone who is carefully sculpted, from the perfect tangle of long hair that brushed her arms to the pale pearl tones of the french manicure on the hand she extended to me as she ushered me into the living area. One thing about this woman that was not evident to me, however, was her age; she could have been thirty-five or fifty. It was impossible to tell.
Ravenette offered me coffee, and when I said no thanks, she went to a cabinet, brought out a bottle of white wine, and poured two glasses. I took a few sips—it was a lot better than anything we served at The Endless Weekend—and waited for her to lead into the reading she had promised me. Drinks were always nice, but they weren’t what I was here for.
Finally, she settled herself on a chair that matched the color of the couches, a kind of sea-foam hue that served to heighten the intense green of her eyes. She leaned back, placed her arms on the wide arms of the chair, and fixed me with a steady stare. I kept on waiting for her to say something.
When at last she did, her voice featured a different tone than I had heard from her before, and her whole attitude seemed to have shifted; now, she was serious, almost stern. I began to suspect that the genial personality who had been trotted out to appear on the Jack Shepherd show had been put away in a trunk somewhere, like a costume, and now the real Ravenette had taken over. This person did not exude cheeriness, or invite questions. This one spoke in a commanding voice, and she had some unpleasant things to say.
“All right,” she began. “Now I’m going to tell you what you need to know. First of all, you’re lucky—very
By comparison, the subway ride was relatively short; it took me maybe half an hour to arrive at a stop that let me off near the edge of Chinatown, in a neighborhood that was transitioning from factory buildings and fire-trap tenements that had been partitioned into tiny rooms for immigrant workers into million-dollar-plus loft spaces for the monied hipsters moving down from Soho to take over the blocks around Canal Street. When I found the address Ravenette had given me, it was in one of these repurposed buildings. The structure resembled a pile of dark concrete whose colonnaded façade had been stripped bare and refurbished to emanate a steampunk look that someone must have felt represented the aesthetic of early twentieth-century manufacturing even better than the name of the long-departed box-making firm still chiseled above the entranceway.
I rode the elevator—an iron cage that was another remnant of the past, though the ceiling was now crisscrossed with thin tubes of neon lighting that changed color as you rose from floor to floor—which let me out directly into Ravenette’s loft. If I had expected anything like a gypsy-themed parlor featuring tasseled shawls and tufted chairs, I was apparently in the wrong place. The loft gleamed. An expanse of polished wood the color of honey swept off into a living area that featured low couches attended by small side tables made of what looked like highly polished steel. Here, on one of the couches, perched Ravenette, who rose to greet me.
Just like the loft, she was not what I expected. At least she was a brunette (I mean, “Ravenette”—come on), but she was also movie-star pretty: tall, thin, green-eyed and with the look of someone who is carefully sculpted, from the perfect tangle of long hair that brushed her arms to the pale pearl tones of the french manicure on the hand she extended to me as she ushered me into the living area. One thing about this woman that was not evident to me, however, was her age; she could have been thirty-five or fifty. It was impossible to tell.
Ravenette offered me coffee, and when I said no thanks, she went to a cabinet, brought out a bottle of white wine, and poured two glasses. I took a few sips—it was a lot better than anything we served at The Endless Weekend—and waited for her to lead into the reading she had promised me. Drinks were always nice, but they weren’t what I was here for.
Finally, she settled herself on a chair that matched the color of the couches, a kind of sea-foam hue that served to heighten the intense green of her eyes. She leaned back, placed her arms on the wide arms of the chair, and fixed me with a steady stare. I kept on waiting for her to say something.
When at last she did, her voice featured a different tone than I had heard from her before, and her whole attitude seemed to have shifted; now, she was serious, almost stern. I began to suspect that the genial personality who had been trotted out to appear on the Jack Shepherd show had been put away in a trunk somewhere, like a costume, and now the real Ravenette had taken over. This person did not exude cheeriness, or invite questions. This one spoke in a commanding voice, and she had some unpleasant things to say.
“All right,” she began. “Now I’m going to tell you what you need to know. First of all, you’re lucky—very
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