Chapter 36

ALURA STRACZYNSKI’S ARM clasped firmly in mine, she led me along the city streets, chatting gaily all the while. She was, I had to admit, engaging company. She pointed out passersby she found to be amusing, she window-shopped, asking my advice about that outfit, that painting, that vase, she responded to my occasional quip with a gratifying trill of soft laughter. There was an excitement about her, an electric current that seemed to transfer from her arm to mine. She exuded a sort of joy, as if this walk with me through the city streets, this day of hers, this very life was all she could ever have wanted.

“I have a secret to tell you,” she said, leaning her head close to mine as we walked.

“Go ahead.”

“I think I’m being followed.”

I jerked around to see what I could see and spied nothing.

“Don’t look, you silly. You’ll tip him off. But I’ve noticed him. A greasy little man in a hat.”

“Maybe your husband is worried about your going off to have drinks with strange men.”

“Why would he be worried about that?”

“That’s the way men are.”

“Some men, I suppose.”

We ended up at the bar of a little steak house I had never noticed before. It was one of those places that seemed to have slipped through time unscathed and walking into it was like walking into a different decade. Dark walls, leather booths, thick slabs of beef, ashtrays on every table. The man behind the bar in a red plaid vest had the open, sad face of an old-time baseball player.

“Mrs. S.,” he said in a thick nasally voice when we sat on the red-leather stools. “Terrific as always to see you.”

“Rocco, this is Victor,” she said. “Victor and I are in desperate need of a drink. I’ll have the usual. What will it be for you, Victor?”

“Do you make a sea breeze?” I said.

Rocco looked at me like I had spit on the bar.

I got the message. This was a serious place for serious drinking, a leftover from an era when the cocktail hour was a sacred thing, when a man was defined by his drink and no man wanted to be defined by something as sweet and inconsequential as a sea breeze. Kids in short pants with ball gloves sticking out of their pockets drank soda pop, men drank like men.

“What’s she having?” I said, nodding at my companion.

“A manhattan.”

“What’s that?”

“Whiskey, bitters, sweet vermouth.”

“And a cherry,” said Alura Straczynski. “Mustn’t forget the cherry.”

“No, Mrs. S.,” said Rocco. “I wouldn’t forget your cherry.”

I tried to think of a blue-blooded drinking drink that would satisfy Rocco’s demanding standards. Martini? Too unoriginal. A Brazilian sidecar? Nah. Grasshopper? Rocco would throw me out of the place.

“I’ll have an old-fashioned,” I said.

“Very good,” said Rocco, bowing slightly before sliding off to make our drinks.

“Nice choice,” she said.

“I don’t even know what’s in it.”

“Alcohol,” she said. “And some other stuff. But Rocco makes his old-fashioned the old-fashioned way with only enough water to dissolve the sugar, and one slice of orange. No cherry for you, poor dear. Cigarette?”

“Don’t smoke.”

“Of course you don’t.” She pulled a cigarette from a silver case, tapped it on the metal, lit it. The smoke came out slowly from her mouth, rising like a soft veil. Behind the screen of smoke her features softened and she seemed suddenly younger. “You want to know why I like this place? Because when I light a cigarette here I don’t get stared at like I am a leper. The only drawback is that whenever I enter I get the uncontrollable urge to buy myself a mink stole.”

“I must have passed this place a hundred times without ever going inside.”

“Exactly. I have a studio nearby, a place where I can work without interruption. A room of my own, as Virginia Woolf would have it. I’ve seen your office, you must come up and visit mine sometime.”

“Where is it?”

“Oh, a smart cracker like you will have no trouble finding it if you decide you want to visit.” She stared at me for a moment, her mouth twisting as if appraising a horse. I was almost expecting her to pinch up my lip and check my teeth. “Tell me about your life, Victor Carl. Is it perfect and exciting?”

“Hardly.”

“What is it missing?”

“Perfection and excitement. Isn’t this a little personal?”

“I hope so. We need to get to know each other.”

“Need?”

“Yes. Isn’t that what life should be, Victor? A series of desperate urgencies where everything seems to hang in the balance. Isn’t anything less just a tepid excuse for not doing enough?”

“When I have a desperate urgency, I try to find the men’s room.”

Just then Rocco returned with our drinks. My old-fashioned sat in front of me, squat and bright. I took a sip. Wowza. Stronger than my usual. Rocco winked at me and ambled off to the end of the bar.

“What do you want out of life, Victor?”

“Isn’t this way too personal?”

“Do you want to, instead, talk about the weather?” She roughed up her voice and gave it a cornpone accent. “Oh, it’s a hot one today. Yes it is.”

“People talk about the weather precisely to avoid talking about their lives.”

“That’s my point. Come now, Victor. Don’t disappoint me. I could tell you were different from the first moment I spied you. What do you want out of life?”

“Nice day today, isn’t it?”

“I’ll tell if you’ll tell.”

I squinted and thought about it and grew curious myself. “Go ahead.”

“I’ve known what I wanted from the dawning of my adolescence. I was a peculiar little girl, running home after school to spend my afternoons alone in my room, dancing by myself, or reading and writing, waiting for something better, something pure to take over my life. Can you see me there, Victor, in my room, pining? And slowly that something I was waiting for came and saved me, a decision that would guide every step of my life.”

“To become a meteorologist?”

“Listen closely, Victor. This is important. I decided I would become an artist, I would become Matisse, a fantastic colorist, but with a great difference. Instead of splattering my art on a rough piece of canvas, I would live it. My life is my art, Victor. And I insist that it shimmer like a dream, that every moment be filled with glorious color. I never wanted to merely see beauty in a painting or read of it in a book, I wanted to drink it, breathe it, become it.”

“How’s that working out for you?”

“Surprisingly well. Rocco, darling, another round, please.”

I looked at my drink, still half remaining. I narrowed my eyes and took a gulp. There was something strange in what she had just told me. This wasn’t offhand, none of this was offhand, the meeting, the drinks, the questions about life.

“And this is all related to Tommy Greeley how?”

“Ah, the blunt simplicity of a simple man.”

The drinks came. I snatched down the rest of my first drink, felt my head wiggle just a bit, started on the second. It didn’t seem quite as strong, which was the first sign that it was way too strong for me. Alura Straczynski lit herself another cigarette, inhaled.

“My husband was very agitated after your meeting,” she said.

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

“No you’re not. It is what you wanted, to upset him. And you succeeded. My husband had a very complicated relationship with Tommy. They were like estranged brothers. There was love, there were secrets, there was deep-seated rivalry. But in the end it was the drugs that separated them. My husband couldn’t abide them.”

“How about you? Could you abide them?”

“Drugs? Oh, Victor, haven’t you listened? Drugs were never a part of my life, or my husband’s after we met. That isn’t shimmering brilliance, that is stupidity. Any idiot can paint his life in Technicolor with drugs, at least for a short time. A few ounces of that, a few tabs of this. But where is the art in that?”