Free Sinner's Ball by Ira Berkowitz Page B

himself.”
    â€œAssholes!” DeeDee said.
    â€œWhat are you going to do?” I said.
    â€œSpoke to a headhunter. Told me to suck it up. Too many people chasing too few jobs these days. Especially at my level.”
    â€œIf you decide to quit, there’s always my disability pension to keep us going until you land somewhere.”
    She leaned over and planted a chaste peck on my lips. “A very sweet and comforting thought. But that assumes we eat every third day.”
    â€œAnd not too much, at that,” I said.
    â€œFor now, I’ll take the headhunter’s advice and wait it out. If I can’t write rings around that joker, I don’t deserve the job.”
    â€œI’m really sorry, Allie.”
    â€œDon’t be,” she said. “Besides, you’re right, we should be celebrating tonight. You’ve given me the happiest and most interesting year of my life.”
    I got all warm inside.
    â€œThat’s the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me.”
    I looked at DeeDee.
    â€œYour turn to say something really sweet about me,” I said.
    She brushed a hair off her forehead and pasted an approximation of a smile on her face.
    â€œWhat a guy!” she said.
    â€œThat’s it?”
    â€œNot in the mood.”
    â€œWhat’s wrong?”
    â€œNothing,” she said.
    â€œThen why the moping?”
    She folded her arms on the table and rested her chin on top.
    â€œJustin and I had an argument.”
    â€œOver what?”
    â€œNothing.”
    â€œIf it were nothing, you wouldn’t look suicidal.”
    â€œI haven’t seen or heard from him in a week.”
    â€œEven at school?” Allie said.
    â€œNope,” she said. “And I’m worried about him.”
    â€œDid you call him?” I said.
    She nodded. “His father keeps answering.”
    â€œAnd what did he have to say?”
    â€œI didn’t talk to him.”
    â€œWhy not?”
    She threw me a look indicating rather strongly that I had just asked the dumbest question she had ever heard.
    â€œHe’s his
father!”

16
    D eeDee wrinkled up her nose.
    â€œSmells like dead fish,” she said, as we took in the tired Bensonhurst neighborhood in the late-morning light.
    They were the first words she’d uttered since we boarded the N train an hour before.
    Our excursion to the depths of Brooklyn to see Justin had almost died aborning. First it was on. Then it was off. Then came the issue of what to wear, followed closely by the question of how Justin would react when she appeared on his doorstep. All her issues were discussed and, I thought, settled. But the “dead fish” crack told me that DeeDee was wavering again.
    Most of the houses were attached two-family numbers. A couple had snowmen in front. And more than a few sported a Saint Mary on the half shell on their postage-stamp lawns.Thanks to the Department of Sanitation snowplows, cars were buried up to their windows in hard-packed snow. Overhead, gulls floating in the crystal blue sky searched for a meal. Their prospects weren’t promising.
    Justin’s apartment house, a dreary-looking four-story rectangle the color of soot, was the largest building on the block. An entrance alcove opened on a courtyard. In its center was an ornamental urn surrounded by a small fenced garden matted with long-dead flowers.
    There was one apartment on either side of the alcove. Neither had a number. But the one on the right had a ramp.
    â€œJustin’s apartment is C2,” she said. “On the right.”
    â€œHow do you know?”
    â€œThe ramp. His father’s paralyzed from the waist down.”
    â€œYou never told me.”
    Her eyes suddenly flashed. “Since when do I have to tell you everything?”
    I put her outburst down to hormones and let it pass.
    Her hand reached for the doorbell, then dropped to her side.
    â€œWhat now?” I said.
    â€œYou do