Bitter Business

from the south side out to Schaumberg, but I thought that the money for that was still a long way away.
    “An apartment, actually.” He ducked his chin and ran his fingers through the dark waves of his hair.
    “Why would you think of moving?” I asked, taken aback. Stephen’s apartment was spectacular: six enormous bedrooms with a view of the lake and a doorman named Randolph who made sure that his dry cleaning got delivered on time.
    “I’m not sure that I am,” he replied. “One of my bankers called me last week to tell me about an apartment that might be coming on the market. A big old place that used to belong to a little old lady who just died. Her family all live in California now and they’re thinking of selling.”
    “So you went to look at it?”
    Stephen lifted his bottle, signaling to the waiter for more beer. “Don’t you ever think about leaving Hyde Park, Kate?”
    “No,” I replied. “I’m perfectly happy where I am.” I was also so busy with work I didn’t see where pointless speculation about places to live would fit into my schedule.
    “What about after Claudia finishes her residency?”
    “She won’t be done until a year from June. I still can’t get over the fact that you’d even think about moving. Your apartment’s gorgeous and you just finished putting in an exercise room.”
    “Doesn’t the grunge of Hyde Park ever just get to you? The winos on the street comers, the car alarms going off all night?”
    “You didn’t say you were thinking of moving to the suburbs,” I protested, “because that’s the only place you’re going to get away from the winos and the car alarms. As for the grange of Hyde Park, I can’t imagine how much of it you actually see. Randolph brings your car around to the front door of the building every morning and you have everything delivered right to your apartment....”
    “I still think you should start thinking about what you’re going to do when Claudia’s gone. Two women living on Hyde Park Boulevard is bad enough, but I don’t think it would be a very good idea for you to stay there by yourself.”
    “We’ve never had any trouble,” I shot back, irritated by his Dutch-uncle routine. I felt like I was talking to my father, with whom I was constantly having to defend my choice of residence. The truth is I love Hyde Park. A truly integrated neighborhood, it is the melting pot in microcosm. Within its six-mile border you can find a little bit of everything that is right—and wrong— with America. Black people and white people, welfare mothers and millionaires, Nobel Prize winners and the illiterate, students and professors all stand in line for groceries at the Co-op and go out for breakfast at the Original House of Pancakes.
    “The other night when I stayed at your place I got up to go to get a glass of water in the middle of the night and I saw two kids going through a woman’s purse in the alley behind your building.”
    “That stuff happens everywhere. Even in the suburbs. My mother told me this afternoon that when Ann Stevens and her husband came back from Palm Springs, they found their housekeeper bound and gagged in the laundry room. A team of thieves had come through and cleaned out the house.”
    “It was just a suggestion,” said Stephen, wisely choosing to drop the subject as our food arrived. I wondered what had gotten into him. As a rule, Stephen was better than most men about not offering unsolicited advice. When I was in law school I’d put my name on the squash ladder in order to get some exercise. I found myself playing mostly men. It never ceased to amaze me that even when I was clearly the better player, in the break between games my male opponent would invariably offer me tips on how to improve my game. It must be, I concluded, something to do with the Y chromosome.
     

23
     
    Monday morning began with a shrill summons to Superior Plating and Specialty Chemicals from Philip Cavanaugh. When I arrived at the plant I was immediately struck by the air of calamity that hung about the place. The reception desk was empty, the administrative wing deserted. Phones pealed unanswered. Finally, I located a single, beleaguered secretary in the tiny alcove outside of Jack Cavanaugh’s vacant office—a heavyset woman with close-cropped gray hair and the studied calm of an air-raid warden during the blitz.
    “Superior Plating and Specialty Chemicals, will you hold please?” was her measured refrain.
    “Where is