My New Year’s Day was calm and full of positive wishes for a good 2022. New Year events for the characters in JUST ACROSS THE STREET IN NEW YORK CITY were more interesting.

I hope you enjoy the 8th installment.

§§

Marsha glanced at the waiting room clock and decided to ask at the registration desk for news about her pregnant neighbor. The admissions lady scowled at Marsha, but picked up the phone. When she looked back at Marsha, she was almost smiling, “Ms. Duffy is in recovery.”

“Can I go see her?” Marsha asked.

“Are you family?”

Marsha shook her head.

“When she’s out of recovery, you can go to her.” The lady nodded toward the waiting area. “In a couple of hours probably.”

Marsha looked at the clock over the lady’s head. It was 4:57. She followed the signs to the hospital cafeteria to have her New Year’s Day breakfast.

At 7:00 o’clock, Marsha sat down next to the hospital bed. A nurse came in, adjusted the blinds, took Carolyn’s pulse, then arranged Carolyn’s arm under the covers.

“She’ll be groggy all morning,” the nurse said.

Marsha felt groggy too, but strong black coffee had fortified her. “How warm is a baby at birth?” she asked.

The nurse put her hands on her hips and answered with a grunt, “Womb temperature. You can’t tell me a baby joke I haven’t heard.”

Marsha ducked her head, “Sorry. I do that when I’m anxious.”

 “Has the father been notified?” the nurse asked.

“I’m a neighbor. “I’ll contact the family. She’s okay? And the baby?”

The nurse smiled, making her look ten years younger. “Didn’t they tell you? It’s a boy. He’s healthy, but we always keep preemies a few days for observation, in case of complications. It’s just routine.” She looked down at the chart. “She came through the Caesarian okay, but Ms. Duffy will have to stay a couple of days too.”

The nurse was leaving when Marsha thought to ask, “Where’s the baby?”

“Follow me,” she said, padding through the door and along a hallway in her soft white shoes.

At a glass window, the nurse pointed at an incubator on the left side of the room. The baby inside was small, dark, motionless. He seemed like a shadow of the babies near the window in bassinettes, wrapped in white blankets with pink and blue bonnets on their heads.

Marsha didn’t know whether she should call Lydia or go home to tell her landlady about her daughter. Somehow, she didn’t feel right leaving the hospital.

She returned to Carolyn’s room, meaning to sit with her for a few more minutes. When she woke up with a start, her head was lolling to the left, and she couldn’t move her neck at first. Carolyn was looking at her with drugged eyes.

“My baby?” she mumbled.

Marsha swiveled her chin around stiffly. “He’s in the nursery. He’s okay, sleeping in an incubator.” She rang the nurse’s bell on the cord next to the bed. “You haven’t seen him yet?”

“Him?”

Marsha smiled and nodded. “Him. A boy. Yes.”

The nurse entered and said, “How are you feeling, Ms. Duffy? So you’re waking up a bit from the anesthetic?” She talked in a voice a couple of levels too loud, like she was trying to make an old person hear her.

“My baby?” Carolyn repeated.

“When you’re ready to sit in a wheelchair, we’ll roll you out to see him. You can’t hold him yet, but he’s doing well. Would you like a coke to drink?”

Carolyn nodded and rested her head back. Her eyes were closed when she said, “Thank you.” Then Carolyn opened her pale blue eyes and fixed them on Marsha. “Thank you,” she more clearly.

Marsha started to joke, “Now that he’s born, you’ll need drugs more than when you were in labor,” but she stopped. What she’d done for Carolyn Duffy was so far out of the ordinary that Marsha swallowed the light-hearted words.

Finally she replied, “You’re welcome. You scared the shit out of me, and I’m glad I was home.”

In fact, she wished she had opened her door faster instead of listening in fear to the screams for as long as she did. Her voice was low when she asked, “Where was your mother? Where was Lydia?”

Carolyn’s eyes slid shut, and she answered, “Making lentil soup.”

Marsha wasn’t sure she had heard right. “She was in the apartment making soup while you were hemorrhaging in the hallway? She didn’t help you?”

“Lentil soup,” Carolyn said. Then she fell asleep.

§§

Toulousa got to St. Vincent’s, found the maternity ward, and walked into room 234, wearing an orange and pink skirt under a pea coat, with a purple wool scarf around her neck and a black toboggan cap pushing down her mass of dreadlocks. Her friend was in the bed next to the window, a lump under the white blanket. The woman sitting next to Carolyn’s bed turned around to look at her.

Toulousa introduced herself to the white woman in grey sweatpants, “I’m Toulousa Bell. How’s she doing?” she asked, cocking her head toward the bed.

“I’m fine,” Carolyn answered for herself. Her voice wasn’t full strength, but her eyes were focused.

The woman with the smooth brunette hair jumped in, “She means that she’ll be fine after she recuperates from losing a lot of blood. My name’s Marsha Winston.” The corners of her bloodshot eyes crinkled up, and she added, “Carolyn has a beautiful baby boy.

“So I was right. A boy.” Toulousa went around to the other side of the bed, sat next to Carolyn, and took ahold of her hand. “I glad for you, but how come you didn’t pick up the phone and let Pete know when you went into labor?” She looked at Marsha and explained, “Pete’s the daddy, and he’s waiting for news.”

“The Triplex,” Carolyn groaned, closing her eyes. “I’m supposed to be at work.”

Toulousa held up her hand, saying, “Work is covered.”

Marsha explained, “She was outside my apartment early this morning, screaming and bleeding. We got here, and she had an emergency C-section. She wasn’t in shape to call anyone.”

Toulousa looked back and forth between her friend and Marsha. She lowered her voice, hoping Carolyn would ignore what she was about to say, and asked, “Where was her mother?”

In a flash, Marsha liked the black woman. It wasn’t her nature to make instant attachments, especially not to people in outlandish clothes. But she could tell from Toulousa’s tone, she’d discovered someone who judged Lydia Duffy the same as she did.

Marsha glanced at Carolyn’s closed eyes, and turned back to Toulousa. She felt her lip curling up in a growl. “I don’t know. I was getting ready to call her when you came in.”

“Don’t call,” Carolyn said, without opening her eyes.

Toulousa nodded and said, “I called already, Carolyn. She sounded glad you…,” how could she say it? “…like she was glad you were having problems.”

Carolyn stayed silent, but Marsha couldn’t keep her mouth closed any longer. She’d had a few hours to add 2 and 2 together, and realized the arguments she’d been hearing, the arguments where Lydia screamed at her daughter, that some of those arguments were about Carolyn’s pregnancy. “Lydia warned her she couldn’t bring a baby into the house. She wanted Carolyn to get an abortion,” Marsha told Toulousa.

She was half-sorry she’d gotten home from the New Year’s Eve party in time to hear Carolyn’s calls for help. It would be easier if she weren’t involved in a family drama. The other half of her was sorry she hadn’t intervened months ago when she heard Lydia’s tirades.

Carolyn choked and said, “I told her I’d gotten rid of it.”

“I’m not surprised,” Toulousa said. She knew her friend was stuck in a tough relationship with her mother. She squeezed Carolyn’s hand and said, “I think we need to call Pete to let him know the good news. Okay?” She saw a twinkle come into Carolyn’s pale blue eyes. She dialed from the hospital phone and handed the receiver to Carolyn.

“Hello,” she said, closing her eyes with a sigh. “Yes,” she answered. And “yes” again. “A boy.” After a pause, she cooed warmly, then handed the receiver to Toulousa with a sigh, saying, “He’s happy.”

Toulousa asked Pete for the low-down on Joe and Sharon and the crowds. Then she said, “Just a second,” and turned toward Marsha to ask, “When are they going home?”

“A couple of days,” Marsha answered.

Toulousa fed the information back to Pete, said goodbyes, and hung up. “He’ll be here to visit after closing the Triplex tonight. And did you hear? My brother and his girlfriend are covering us at work. Good idea, huh?”

Carolyn pressed Toulousa’s hand, letting her know she was grateful. It didn’t seem possible — she had a baby. And she had two women helping her.

The nurse came in, looked at Toulousa, and asked her, “Are you family?”

Marsha smothered her laugh. To her, two women had never looked less related than Carolyn Duffy and Toulousa Bell — one overweight woman who looked like an Irish baking potato without its skin, and a skinny black woman with Medusa hair and rainbow clothes.

Toulousa smiled at the nurse and said, “We work together.”

The nurse pursed her lips, evaluating Marsha and Toulousa. “You can both stay if you let her rest. She needs to rest.”

Marsha and Toulousa nodded.

When the nurse left, Marsha cut her eyes to Toulousa to say, “I need to go to my apartment. You’ll stay till I get back? It’s January 1, and I want to get my rent check to Carolyn’s mother. She’s my landlady.”

The subtext about Lydia came through. Marsha didn’t care about the rent, but she had some things to say to Carolyn’s mother.

Toulousa showed her big white teeth. “Take a bath before you pay the rent.”

“You don’t like how I smell?” Marsha asked.

“You smell great. You look like death warmed over.”

Marsha smiled.

“I’ll stay here,” Toulousa said.

Marsha got up and kissed Carolyn’s cheek.

“Take another look at him,” Carolyn said. “Please.”

Marsha stroked the big woman’s forehead and left, veering by the incubator room. She tapped on the window lightly and said, “Hey there, sweetie. You’re going to grow up to smell the roses.”

§§

Marsha didn’t bother to turn on the television when she went inside her apartment. January 1, the only thing showing would be football. She shrugged out of her sneakers, sweatpants and nightshirt, and got in the shower, letting hot water beat on her head and back.

With clean body, hair, and teeth, she wanted to climb into bed and hibernate until the next day, but she had things to do.

She found her checkbook and wrote out the $970 rent check. Climbing up a flight, Marsha knocked at Lydia Duffy’s door and waited, then knocked again, with no answer.

“It’s Marsha Winston,” she called out through the door. “I’ve got the rent.”

That’s when she heard footsteps and bolts being unlatched.

“Why didn’t you say so earlier?” Lydia Duffy growled at Marsha through the half-open doorway. “Who’d expect you to be on time with rent.” She stuck out her hand for the check.

Marsha interpreted the sneer on Lydia’s face as surprise. She held the rent check with both hands at chest level, like she was guarding a treat for an expectant dog. “Hi, Lydia,” she started pleasantly. “Just to let you know, Carolyn is doing well. The baby is a healthy boy.”

Lydia’s grey-tinged glower soured into mean-spirited revulsion. She said sarcastically, “Just what the world needs, another man,” and she spit at Marsha’s feet.

Marsha was shocked. She was so dumbfounded looking down at the circle of spit on her left shoe, that she almost missed it when Lydia’s hand reached out to snatch the check from her grasp. But youth won out. Marsha’s reflexes were faster than Lydia’s fingers.

“Your daughter’s alright, after a very close call with bleeding to death. Aren’t you glad about that?” Marsha knew the answer to her question, but asked anyway.

Lydia looked Marsha up and down. She knew the law. She knew she couldn’t get rid of a tenant without a mess of legal rigmarole. But with this one, it was going to be worth it.

The shriveled landlady hissed, “You should be ashamed for interfering in God’s work last night. They both should’ve died. They would’ve, if it hadn’t been for you. As far as I’m concerned, I don’t have a daughter. Now give me that check.” Her claw of a hand pinched Marsha’s forearm so hard that Marsha let go of the check. Lydia didn’t shrink back into her apartment. Instead, she stood proud and menacing in the doorway, sticking her weathered chin out.

Marsha was speechless, frozen on the landing. She’d expected Lydia to be cold, but not to this degree. She started to turn to go back down to her own apartment, but her organized, practical mind got the better of her. She asked, “Can I come in to get some clothes to take to Carolyn? She’s going to have to be in the hospital for a few days.” Even as she said it, the words sounded ridiculous to Marsha.

Lydia’s reply underlined Marsha’s naiveté. Her wrinkled lips receded, and a glint sprang into her bulging eyes. “Who?” she asked, and she laughed, loud and long, closing the door in Marsha’s face.

Stumbling down the steps on rubber legs, Marsha was stupefied at Lydia’s hardness. Inside her apartment, she sat on the couch and stared out the window onto West 22nd Street without seeing a thing except a replay of Lydia’s spit landing on her shoe.

Her hand stroked the leaves of a small rose bush on the table next to the couch. Out of habit, Marsha checked the soil in the pot to see if her plant needed water. It was as if the rose bush spoke to her, catching her attention, and Marsha turned to look at it. There weren’t any blooms. It would be another four months before the buds started showing. But soon, she’d need to fertilize it.

A pale smile curled Marsha’s lips. She shook herself, getting rid of her stupor.

In the kitchen, Marsha turned a chair toward the cabinets. She was convinced it was the smallest kitchen in Manhattan. She climbed on the chair, reached above the cupboards, and pulled down the box of gardening things. She checked, and yes, all the products were there.

She opened the refrigerator and took out a package of chocolate chip cookie dough. Sometimes, after a bad day, she ate the dough raw, but the cookies were best warm and soft. If she wasn’t careful, she could eat a plateful in a single day. Marsha preheated the oven, covered two baking sheets with foil, and started slicing the cookie dough. The first cookie sheet went in the oven, and the aroma of baking sugar and chocolate filled her nostrils.

Then she started preparing the second batch of cookies. Marsha sprinkled a cup of 2 in 1 Rose Flower Care on the second batch of cookie dough lumps spread on the baking sheet.

2 in 1 Rose Flower Care was her favorite fertilizer because it contained Disulfoton. Disulfoton killed aphids like magic. A couple of teaspoons of Disulfoton would kill a medium-sized dog. Marsha didn’t have a pet or children. No one chewed on her flowers or dug in the potting soil, so she never worried about toxicity to mammals.

For luck, Marsha opened a bag of chocolate chips and pressed several into each lump of cookie dough, so they’d be extra chocolaty.

She took out the first pan of cookies and set them aside for herself. The second batch didn’t take long to bake. She arranged the special cookies on a pretty plate and went back up to the Duffy apartment. She knocked and called out, “I have some New Year’s goodies for you, Lydia,” but this time, no one answered.  Marsha tried the doorknob, but it was locked. “You’re going to love what I made you,” she said loudly, knocking again. Finally, she announced, “I’ll bring them back this evening.” With a sigh, she returned to her apartment.