Read Online Red Hook by Reggie Nadelson - Free Book Online Page B

believe you made it!”
    â€œI came back for this,” she added, keeping hold of my hand. “And the parents. And I thought Rick needed cheering up. There he is,” she said, gesturing towards the bar where Ricky was standing.
    â€œIs Ricky happy?” Dawn said. “He doesn’t talk to me about his life anymore. I feel he’s so solitary, so obsessed with work. Is he seeing anyone? Does he have anyone? Is there a guy in his life at all?”
    â€œHe doesn’t talk to me much, either,” I said. “How are you?”
    â€œI’m fine,” she said. “I’m, well, I am what you see,” she added, her tone wry now.
    When she married a rich guy who turned out to be an asshole who abused her, Dawn had been an exquisite ambitious girl, a brilliant trader on Wall Street. The creep she had married dealt in illegal immigrants and baby sales, and drugs on a global scale, including Hot Poppy, the worst junk that ever got into the system; Dawn got hooked on it. It was years before anyone picked him up and even then he got off on appeal. I never really felt easy about him being out on the streets.
    I had been crazy about Dawn right from the beginning when I first moved into my loft and sometimes we sat out on the fire escape and fooled around. By the time we had a desperate fling in Hong Kong she was strung out on drugs. She got clean, settled over there, quit her job as a high-powered trader, and bought ahouse up on a hill looking out over the water where she raised her adopted kids.
    Dawn was probably in her forties but she looked older now: she was stocky and her face was thicker than I remembered and there was gray in her hair. She wore a plain gray silk suit, very severe, very expensive, and flat shoes and big diamonds in her ears. Only her eyes looked like the girl I knew. But I could still smell the Joy she had always worn, that drove me crazy the first time I smelled it at her own wedding. Long long time.
    She said, “I’m just like some old Chinese lady now, don’t you think? I look at myself in the mirror, I see my Auntie Petal.”
    â€œYou had an aunt named Petal?”
    â€œYeah, they ran out of flowers. It was a fashion, you know, Chinese girls, little flowers, Flower Drum Song, fuck that shit,” Dawn added. “They were already into weather and stuff when I came along. Dawn. I’m lucky it wasn’t dusk, you know? Or evening. I could have been called Evening. I’ve had too much champagne.”
    She saw me looking at her, and she said, “It’s OK, I have a mirror, you know? And I don’t care anymore. I really don’t care. I don’t have to worry about getting old. It’s a relief.”
    â€œYou look great. You always look great.”
    â€œGive me a cigarette, Artie, honey, You’re such a liar, and so am I. Actually, it depends. Some days I’m glad it’s over, sex, men, business. I take care of the kids, I hardly ever go shopping, I read a lot, I listen to music. I’ve fallen in love with opera, weird considering what a rock chick I always wanted to be. So I’m OK. It’s just when I seeold friends, when I see you, I hate the way I look, but what the hell, let’s get drunk.” She looked around. “Where’s a waiter? You know, my Auntie Petal always said everything starts and ends at weddings, maybe it got to Ricky, you getting married, maybe he feels left out, maybe he feels he’ll never find anyone, and he never will, you know, because he can’t let anyone get close, no man, no woman,” she said. “I should talk. Go celebrate.”
    â€œLet’s have lunch soon. Just us,” I said.
    â€œYes. Of course.”
    â€œDawn?”
    â€œYes?”
    â€œDid you ever know a guy named Sid McKay? Back when? Someone we all knew, maybe, something like that?”
    She glanced at her brother. “Yeah, I remember him. He was twice Ricky’s age.