LITMIR.BIZ

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out my cell phone and check for messages I know aren’t there. I told Jack I’d be busy all weekend with the Bootcamp and that I’d call him Sunday if the whole thing hadn’t killed me and if not we’d talk sometime Monday. It’s Friday night and I’m annoyed he hasn’t called. I check my messages at home. Nothing. Well, a call from Genevieve that I can barely hear due to the noise in the bar and Olivier’s piercing screams. No wonder Ted is here. I dial Jack’s number but hang up before it rings or my number shows up on his call display and we have to have that stupid conversation again about me not leaving messages.

      Zeitgeist and Precious Finger say their good-nights and stumble off together to the lobby. Eva and Ted are laughing. I lean forward and rest my elbow on the table and my head on my hand, like a girl playing jump rope with friends waiting for the right time to step into the game. I order another drink and scan the busy bar. I feel someone watching me but I don’t turn my head to look, afraid of the hipster boy-waif or nightmare suburban suit guy that I might find standing there. He moves closer and hovers behind me and to the left. I pretend the dodgy artwork on the wall to my right is interesting.

      “Hi, there. Can we help you?” Eva asks.

      “Oh, yes, perhaps. We’d certainly appreciate it.” It’s a woman’s voice.

      I turn to face her, relieved. I smile and look up and then down again, stirring my drink with the Zeitgeistskinny-dick straw. They’re ladies—old ladies, old ladies with orthopedic shoes and red hair the same shade as Eva’s.

      “It’s so crowded and we noticed you weren’t using all of your seats. We don’t mean to impose, but—”

      “Sit, sit, by all means, sit,” says Ted as he leaps from his chair to pull back two for the old ladies.

      The old ladies thank us too many times and offer to buy us a round of drinks, which Ted refuses and instead says that he’d be honored to by them a round. Ted’s using his chuffy voice, which means he’s awfully proud of himself and I wonder why he’s here and not home helping his wife with their screaming child.

      The old ladies’ names are Esther and Lila. Esther takes Ted’s hand in both of hers and shakes it. She does the same with Eva. Then it’s my turn. I tell them that my hands are really cold and Lila seems okay with this and backs away, but Esther grabs my hands anyway and now she knows I lied—my hands aren’t cold, I’m just not an old-people person.

      I learn things about Esther and Lila I don’t want to know. Lila is divorced. Esther is seventy-five; she’s six years older than Lila, who I guess that would make sixty-nine, not that I could tell a day’s difference in their made-up wrinkly faces even if I could look at them for more than a second. Neither woman is married or has children. They do share an apartment, but Lila makes it clear that they’re not funny by which I assume she means lesbian. Esther is quick to add that there’s nothing wrong with being funny, she’s always simply preferred a man’s touch. She looks right at me when she says this. I look at my watch and grab my phone off the table. “I have to call my boyfriend,” I say. My voice is too loud but I can’t shove it back in my mouth so I clod off to the lobby to pretend to call Jack, but change my mind and go outside to smoke and pretend to call Jack.

      I left my cigarettes in my bag at the table, so now there’s nothing to do except stand outside and play with the buttons on my phone. There’s a guy smoking a few feet away. I think about asking him for a cigarette, but he’s a hipster boy-waif, the kind I was afraid might be hovering behind me when it was really the old ladies. I weigh my options. I bum a smoke, he’ll want to talk—people always want to talk. He’ll ask me what I do and I’ll tell him the truth because I’m too tired to lie and I’m still smarting over being busted by old lady Esther for saying my hands were cold. I’ll tell the hipster waif-boy what I do and he’ll be impressed without saying so, like Parrot Girl was when I took her picture. Then I’ll be reminded of Parrot Girl and the goddamn Apples Are Tasty fiasco and the night—not that it’s been stellar or anything—will be unsalvageable.

      “Would you like one?” It’s Esther. I didn’t hear her come up. Old people are quiet and sneaky.

      She holds open a thin gold case filled with cigarettes. I take one. I can’t help myself. “Thanks.”

      She lights it for me with a gold lighter that matches the case and I thank her again. “It’s a lovely night,” Esther says.

      “Yup.”

      “The young girl, Eva—is she your sister?”

      I laugh. “No. She’s … “ What is Eva? “We work together.”

      “You could be sisters.”

      I’m flattered, I suppose, that someone, Esther even, thinks Eva and I could be related. “We really don’t look alike.”

      “It’s not that. My sister and I looked nothing alike. It’s more your presence, your mannerisms.”

      I shrug, not sure what to say, so we smoke in silence for a moment. “That Ted is such a pleasant young man. He said something about putting out that trendy magazine Lila and I pick up all the time, Snap?”

      “We run it together.”

      “Oh, my. Well, congratulations. That’s quite an accomplishment for two young people. Lila and I think it’s a hoot, by the way. Those DOs and DON’Ts always have us in stitches.”

      “I do those.” I take a deep drag on my cigarette. It’s a hoot, they say, the old ladies are in stitches. A taxi peals up in front of the hotel and I consider throwing myself in front of it.

      Lila breaks out into a coughing fit as Esther and I approach the table. It’s loud and audible above the trancy music. People are starting to stare. She doesn’t stop and I look at Ted in panic. Should we do something? Should we call an ambulance? Does anyone know CPR? Esther swats her friend playfully on the shoulder and the two women burst into giggles. “Oh, you,” Esther says and turns to me. “She does this every time I nip out for a ciggie. She hates it when I smoke.”

      “Filthy habit!” Lila says.

      “Sara here was telling me that she takes those photos that crack us up so much,” Esther says, changing the subject as she lowers herself slowly into her chair.

      “The ones in Snap? We love those!”

      “That’s what I told her.”

      “That’s how we found out about this place—we read about it on that fun MUST DO list!” Lila says. She’s awfully excitable and squirming in her seat. I hope she doesn’t have a stroke.

      “Lila’s addicted to magazines and newspapers,” Esther explains.

      “It’s better than being addicted to cigarettes!”

      “And she keeps them all. You should see her library, Sara. Floor-to-ceiling magazines—fifty years’ worth all stacked and in order.”

      “What kind of magazines?” I ask.

      “Oh, everything. But mostly fashion. I was quite the clotheshorse in my day—used to pore over every issue of Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar for inspiration then sew up my own dresses.”

      “And you have all of those? Fifty years?” I would kill—well, maybe not kill, but certainly maim or pay handsomely for fifty years of those magazines.

      “When I was a teenager I would make confirmation dresses for girls in the neighborhood. I spent every penny I made on magazines and material.”

      Esther beams proudly at her friend. “Our Lila was quite the entrepreneur.”

      “Sounds like it,” I say. I look at Lila. Her face is heart-shaped, her features are delicate and her cheekbones high and defined. Behind the mask of age and powder and blush she was probably quite beautiful.

      “Perhaps you’d like to come for tea sometime and take a look,” Lila suggests.

      “That

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