The Groaning Board

the most important question. Maybe she didn’t want to
know and had in some Freudian way avoided asking it.
    Silvestri’s black Toyota sat in a
line of double-parked beauties, mostly BMWs and Mercedeses, in front of
Zabar’s.
    After Wetzon got in and fastened her
seat belt, she asked the question.
    “Was there something between you and
Sheila, Silvestri?”
    He didn’t answer right away, so she
knew there had been. Of course there had been. Metzger’s wife’s single sister.
They would have fixed Silvestri up with her.
    “It was a long time ago, Les,”
Silvestri said, not taking his eyes off the road.
    “Long before I met you,” Wetzon sang
softly.
    “Long before I met you,” he repeated.
A damp fog made the city lights fuzz around them. Beads of moisture formed on the
car windows. They were heading for the Triborough Bridge to Long Island.
    “Was she pretty, Silvestri?”
    “Yes. Sheila was pretty and smart,
and a good guy. You would have liked her, Les.”
    “Were you in love with her?”
    “I don’t remember.”
    “You don’t remember?” His response
upset her. What if she—Wetzon—had died and Silvestri was driving with another
woman and she asked him the same question? Would he say, “Leslie Wetzon? Was I
in love with her? I don’t remember”? Or was she upset for Sheila, the poor
woman who’d died? That Silvestri couldn’t remember if he’d loved her. She
watched him drop the three-dollar-and-fifty-cent toll into the Exact Change
bin.
    So far inward had she turned that
when his hand touched her thigh, she jumped. She placed her hand over his,
feelings the blood rush from thigh to hand to hand. “Silvestri—” she began.
“I—”
    “Chill out, Les,” he said. “What was
then, was then-l What’s now is now.”

Chapter Ten

     
     
     
    “They always
warn you about accidents in the home, but considering what it’s like on the streets in the City, you
never think something terrible will happen to you or your children in your own
home.”
    Artie Metzger’s mother-in-law was a
buxomly attractive woman, even with sad, red-rimmed eyes. Her hair was a little
too golden and her nails a little too long and too red. She was Wearing a black
dress with pearls. On her feet were baby-blue house slippers. Behind her, a
white bedsheet was draped over a mirror. Both the slippers and the mirror,
Wetzon knew, Were a Jewish mourning custom.
    The woman hugged Silvestri as if he
were family; he kissed her cheek and called her Bea.
    “This is Leslie,” Silvestri said.
    “Thank you for coming, dear,” Bea
said, pressing Wetzon’s hand. Beside her stood a gawky boy rapidly approaching
adolescence. It was disconcerting to see he already had his father’s eye
pouches and hangdog look. “This is Aaron, my handsome grandson.”
    “Aaron and I know each other, don’t
we, buddy?” Silvestri shook hands with Aaron solemnly. “Meet Leslie.”
    Wetzon held out her hand. Blushing
deeply, the boy gave her a limp, damp handshake. He didn’t meet her eyes.
    Metzger’s Cape Cod on its corner lot
had been lit like a beacon as they drove up. Cars were parked bumper to bumper
on the driveway and on neighboring driveways, as well as on the street.
Cops—you couldn’t mistake them—sat smoking on the front steps, talking shop.
Although the rules had changed some and cops no longer had to carry their guns
when off-duty, Wetzon observed these guys were all carrying.
    “Sheila was such a wonderful girl,”
an elderly woman told Wetzon over the coffee urn. “Are you a friend from
school?“
    “I didn’t know her,” Wetzon replied,
wondering if the coffee was decaf.
    “Oh, what a shame. She was such a fine
person. Everybody loved her.”
    Everybody except Silvestri, Wetzon
thought. He can’t remember. “So I understand. Is any of this decaf, do you
know?”
    “It’s all decaf, dear, for us old
ones, you know.”
    Wetzon helped herself to a cup. She
was obviously one of “us old ones.”
    Moving away from the coffee urn, she
was confronted by a slim girl of about ten. The girl started to say something
but couldn’t seem to get the words out.
    “Hi,” Wetzon said. “I’m Leslie.
What’s your name?” The child had her hair pulled back in a tight knot on top of
her head. “Jessica Metzger. My daddy said I should talk to you because you’re a
dancer.” Braces contributed to a soft sibilance and tiny dimples on both sides
of her mouth. In her stance was that awkward grace of the young