Melancholy Baby

Sarah was drinking her coffee black and was lighting one cigarette from the butt of the other.

“Did they have guns?” she said.

“The lawyer-y guy, Lewis Karp — who was, by the way, a lawyer, nice call.”

“He had one.”

“Yes.” Spike reached into his coat pocket and held it up.

“It’s small,” she said.

“Big enough,” I said.

Sarah was silent for a time. Tears began to well.

“People with guns,” she said. “I have people with guns in my life, and people beating me up, and all I’m trying to do is find out who I am.”

“I think you can go back to school,” I said. “I’ll drive you there, and I’ll talk with campus security. No one will bother you.”

“For how long?”

“Long enough for me to find out who you are.”

“You believe me? That those people aren’t my parents?”

“I believe that something is quite wrong in your family,” I said.

29

I called the number Karp had given me for Ike Rosen. Answering machine. I called Information. There were about seventy-five Isaac Rosens. I gave them the phone number and asked for an address. The number was unlisted. They couldn’t give me an address. I called my father.

“Can you get me the address,” I said, “if I give you the phone number?”

“Of course.”

“Wow,” I said, “even though you’re retired.”

“I’m retired, not dead,” my father said. “I’ll call you back.”

It took him five minutes. When the phone rang again, I picked it up and said, “Is this the great Phil Randall?”

“The man and the legend,” my father said. “Your man Ike Rosen lives and, I assume, works on West Ninety-second Street.”

He gave me the address.

“Same phone number?” I said.

“Yes. He’s listed as an attorney.”

“Any other phone numbers?”

“No.”

“Thanks, Daddy.”

“Captain Daddy,” my father said.

“Yes, sir.”

After I hung up, I called Rosen again. Same answering machine. I didn’t leave a message. I couldn’t think how to rephrase, “Did you arrange to have me beaten up?” Rosie was asleep on my bed, between two pillows, so all you could see were her back feet sticking out. It was almost five o’clock in the afternoon. I went and got a bottle of white wine from the refrigerator and brought it with a glass to the breakfast table. I poured some and had a sip. Everything was so quiet that I could hear my wind-up alarm clock ticking by my bed near the other end of the loft. Outside, it was raining, and I looked out my window for a time and drank my wine and watched it.

How did I know Daddy liked me best? Why wouldn’t he? His wife was a bossy nitwit. His older daughter was a snobby nitwit. He and I understood things. We knew what mattered and what didn’t. My marriage had failed. But only once. Elizabeth was on her third husband. And Daddy still loved her. And he loved my mother. In fact, the way he loved her made me think maybe love was irrational. Simply a force that happened to you, like gravity. She was so unworthy of his affection. Maybe he actually didn’t love me best. Maybe he just liked me best. And even if he did love me more than he loved my mother, what was wrong with that. I was more lovable. Why would that be such a burden. Granted, she had the advantage of sleeping with him...

Oh.

That’s why. All my life, the three Randall girls had been fighting for Phil’s affections. Sometimes it seemed as if I’d won. But what if I really won?

Sex.

There’s your heavy burden, Sonya. (I always used my real name when I talked to myself.) Everybody since Sophocles knew that was trouble. I poured some more wine. There was no wind. The rain was unhurried as it fell. And clean. So even if it was in some subconscious, symbolic way the fear that I might actually win the fight for Daddy... what did that do to Richie and me?

I stood and carried my wine glass down to the window at the other end of the loft and looked at the rain from there. I felt like crying. I was breathing hard. A few tears formed and wet my face.

“Well, Sonya,” I said out loud, “there’ll be something to talk about with Dr. Susan next time.” I felt a little guilty. I would never call her Dr. Susan to her face. Rebellion, I guess.

30

Ike Rosen’s home and office was in a nice-looking brownstone on 92nd Street just west of Broadway. I didn’t know what he looked like, so I rang his bell every time a man entered the building. At a quarter to twelve, I rang the super’s bell. He came to the front door and talked to me outside on the top step.

“I’m with Lexington Insurance Company,” I said. “I have a claim settlement check for someone named Isaac Rosen at this address.”

“You want me to hold it?” the super said.

“Can’t,” I said. “I have to hand it to him. And I have to get his signature. Do you know where he is?”

“Probably out chasing ambulances,” the super said. “Nice-looking babe like you. You shouldn’t be hustling insurance payments.”

“Gotta work,” I said. “Can you tell me what Mr. Rosen looks like?”

“You don’t have to work,” the super said. He had thick black eyebrows and receding hair. His green work shirt was buttoned to the neck. “You should have a sugar daddy.”