Read The First Warm Evening of the Year for Free Online Page B

arrived at my apartment with the handkerchief Marian had borrowed, clean and folded, with a note thanking me, saying she wished we could have met under happier circumstances.
    I held the handkerchief up to my nose, and inhaled the scent of Marian’s laundry soap, pressed it against my cheek for a moment, then carefully refolded it, as though it no longer belonged to me. When I left my apartment a few minutes later, the handkerchief was in the inside pocket of my sports coat.
    It was a bright afternoon, warm for the first week in April. I started walking to the corner of Seventieth Street, when I heard someone call my name. I turned and saw Simon sitting behind the wheel of a caramel-colored Mercedes, an SL280, early ’70s. His arm was resting on the window frame, his chin was resting on his arm. He had a day’s beard and he looked tired.
    â€œGet in,” he said, “and I’ll drop you off.”
    â€œI’m going around the corner.”
    â€œI’ll take you.”
    I thanked him, but no.
    â€œI tried to come up to see you, but your doorman wouldn’t announce me. Did Howie scare you that much?”
    â€œWhat’s on your mind?”
    â€œI want to talk to you.”
    I told him I could live without that. He got out of the car, anyway, without bothering to roll up the window.
    I noticed that he was wearing the same clothes he’d worn two weeks before. He reached across the front seat, pulled out a gray overcoat, and put it on. The coat was too large for him. He wrapped it around his body like a robe.
    I started walking away. He came with me.
    â€œBuy me a cup of coffee,” he said.
    â€œYou better not leave your car there. It’ll get towed.”
    â€œIt’s not my car.”
    â€œIt’s some body’s car.”
    I kept on walking and he stayed with me.
    He asked, “What happened to my sister’s things?” a little out of breath.
    â€œWhat things?”
    â€œDon’t be an asshole.”
    â€œShe didn’t own much, and what she did she bequeathed to people.”
    â€œWhat people?”
    â€œWhy do I think you’re playing me?”
    â€œLook, I just need a little closure here. And since you’re responsible for taking care of her . . . po ssessions—” We turned the corner onto Madison Avenue. Simon nodded at the coffee shop across the street. “A cup of coffee. Come on.”
    After we went in and sat down, and Simon ordered a cappuccino, he said, “It was completely by accident that I even found out Laura was sick. The day before I came out here Remsen called and told me she’d died. Can you imagine?”
    â€œI thought you’d seen her in Shady Grove. You said you even spoke to her about the will.”
    He watched the waitress put down the cup, stirred in a spoonful of sugar, all the while keeping the spoon from touching the rim. I noticed the sweet effeminacy in the way he did this, the way he sat, angled snugly in the corner of the booth, the overcoat still wrapped around his body. When he looked at me, there was a slight turn to his mouth, as though his smile were warming in the wings. When he saw me watching him, he flashed it at me. I imagined it was this same smile that had gotten him into the driver’s seat of the Mercedes, and I wondered if he expected it to get him inside his sister’s house.
    â€œI missed her wedding, and I missed her funeral.”
    â€œMaybe you can ask Marian,” I told him. “Maybe she’ll help you.”
    â€œMarian? Marian Thayer?”
    â€œBallantine.”
    â€œAs in Buddy Ballantine?”
    â€œYou were never up in Shady Grove. You never saw Laura or spoke with her,” I said. “She never told you to get in touch with me.”
    â€œI beg your pardon?”
    â€œYou were lying to me.”
    Simon didn’t even flinch at this, and he didn’t bother with an answer. “I saw them when they came out to