Walking up Sixth Avenue, the group passed a basketball court with a game in progress. Sam forgot about climate change and peeled away to get in on the action. He’d been playing basketball on this particular litter-strewn, cracked asphalt court since he was two, when his father would bring him on spring and summer mornings to teach him how to dribble and throw. “Don’t tell your mother, Sammy,” his dad would say.
“She’ll think we were goofing off.”
Today the pickup game was particularly vicious, due perhaps to the warm weather in which everyone had come outside with their pent-up winter energy. Sam was off his game, and after being elbowed in the throat and knocked against the chain-link fence, he called it quits. He picked up a bagel with cream cheese on his way home, then worked on his website, which he was upgrading to Virtual Flash. Then the buzzer rang, and the doorman said he had a visitor.
The man standing in the foyer had a distinct air about him — seedy, Sam thought. Looking Sam up and down, the man asked if his parents were home, and when Sam shook his head, he said, “You’ll do. You know how to sign your name?” “Of course,” Sam said, thinking he ought to close the door in the man’s face and call the doorman to escort him out.
But it all happened so quickly. The man handed him an envelope and a clipboard. “Sign here,” he said. Unable to challenge grown-up authority, Sam signed. In a second, the man was gone, disappearing through the revolving doors of the lobby, and Sam was left holding the envelope in his hand.
The return address was for an attorney on Park Avenue. Knowing he shouldn’t, Sam opened the envelope, figuring he could explain later that he’d opened it by mistake. Inside was a two-page letter. The attorney was writing on behalf of his client, Mr. Paul Rice, who was being maliciously and systematically harassed by his mother, without cause, and if such actions did not cease immediately and reparations begin, a restraining order would be placed on his mother by Paul Rice and his attorneys, who were prepared to pursue this case as far as the law allowed.
In his bedroom, Sam read the letter again, feeling a white-hot adolescent rage engulf him. His mother was often annoying, but like most boys, he felt a fierce protectiveness toward her. She was smart, accomplished, and in his mind, beautiful; he placed her on a pedestal as the model to whom other girls must compare, although so far he had yet to meet another member of the female species who measured up. And now his mother was being attacked once again by Paul Rice. The thought infuriated him; looking around his room for something to break, and finding nothing of use, he changed his shoes and headed out of the building.
He jogged down Ninth Street, past the porno shops and pet stores and fancy tea outlets. Sam meant to run along the Hudson River, but the entrance to the piers was blocked by several red and white barriers and a Con Edison truck. “Gas leak,” a beefy man shouted as Sam approached.
“Go around.”
The utility vehicle gave Sam an idea, and he headed back to One Fifth. He suddenly saw how he might get even with Paul Rice and his threatening letter. It would inconvenience everyone in the building, but it would be temporary, and Paul Rice, with all his computer equipment, would be the most inconvenienced of all. He might even lose data. Sam smiled, thinking about how angry Paul Rice would be. Maybe it would make him want to leave the building.
At six-thirty in the evening, Sam headed over to the Barnes & Noble bookstore on Union Square with his parents. It was ten blocks from One Fifth, and the publicist wanted to send a car — no doubt, Mindy said, to make sure James would get there — but Mindy turned it down. They could walk, she declared. And reminding everyone of her recent vow to go green, she pointed out that there was no reason to waste gas and fill the air with carbon monoxide when God had given them perfectly good implements on which to get around. They were called feet. Ignoring his parents’ banter, Sam walked a few feet ahead of them, still brooding about his day. He hadn’t shown his mother the letter from Paul Rice’s attorney. He wasn’t going to allow Paul Rice to ruin his parents’ big day.
Sam wouldn’t have been surprised if Paul had done it on purpose.
Outside the store, the Gooch family stopped to admire a small poster announcing James’s reading, featuring the photograph of James taken at the shoot on the day he’d gotten the ride from Schiffer Diamond. James was pleased with the image: He looked appropriately brooding and in-tellectual, as if he alone were privy to some great universal secret. Stepping inside the store, he was greeted by the blasé publicist from that morning and two employees who escorted him up to the fifth floor. They sequestered him in a tiny office at the back of the store to wait while a cartload of books was brought in for him to sign. Holding a Sharpie, James paused, staring down at the title page and his name: James Gooch. This was, he thought, a historical moment in his life, and he wanted to remember his feelings.
What he felt, however, was a little disappointing. There was some elation, a bit of dread, and a lot of nothing. Then Mindy barked out, “What’s wrong with you?” Startled, James quickly signed his name.
At five minutes to seven, Redmon Richardly came in to congratulate him and walked James toward the stage. James was astounded by the size of the audience. Every folding chair was filled, and the standing-room-only crowd swelled around the stacks. Even Redmon was shocked. “There must be five hundred people,” he said, clapping James on the shoulder. “Good job.”
James awkwardly made his way up to the podium. He could feel the crowd like one giant animal, anticipatory, eager, and curious. Again, he wondered how this had happened. How had these people even heard of him? And what could they possibly want — from him?
He opened his book to the page he’d selected and found his hand was trembling. Looking down at the words he’d struggled to write over so many years, he forced himself to concentrate. Opening his mouth and praying he could survive this ordeal, he began to read aloud.
Later that same evening, Annalisa Rice greeted her husband at the door, dressed provocatively in a short Grecian column, her hair and makeup expertly applied so she appeared to have made hardly any effort at all.
The look was slightly tousled and overwhelmingly sexy, but Paul barely noticed.
“Sorry,” he mumbled, heading up the two flights of steps to his office, where he fiddled around with his computer for a moment and then gazed at his fish. Annalisa sighed and went into the kitchen, walking around Maria, the housekeeper, who was rearranging the condiments, and fixed herself a stiff drink. Carrying the vodka, she peeped into Paul’s office. “Paul?” she said. “Are you getting ready? Connie said the dinner starts at eight. And it’s eight now.”
“It’s my dinner,” Paul said. “We’ll get there when we get there.” He went downstairs to change his suit, and Annalisa went into her pretty little office. She stared out the window at the monument in Washington Square Park. The perimeter of the park was encased in chain-link fencing and would be for at least the next year. The residents of the Village had been lobbying for years to have the fountain moved so it lined up perfectly with the monument, and they had finally won their bat-tle. Sipping her cocktail, Annalisa understood the desire and pleasure in the attention to details. Thinking again about the time, she went into the bedroom to hurry Paul along. “Why are you hovering?” he asked. She shook her head and, once again finding communication difficult, decided to wait in the car.