Plantation Read Online Free PDF Page A

have dis bum eating outta da palm of ya hand.”
    “Thanks, Abe,” I said, “I’ll let you know how it goes.”
    “With my veal chops? Dat poor sucker don’t stand a chance!”
    I walked home to my studio on Ninety-fourth and Columbus, whistling a little tune. Then I realized I didn’t have anything to drink for dinner and what the hell went with veal anyway? I stopped at a liquor store and poked around until the salesman was finished with another customer. He sold me two bottles of a pinot noir and I was on my way again, buoyed by false confidence.
    When I got home, it hit me. I didn’t have a table and chairs!
    God, was I stupid or what? My first-floor, L-shaped studio was so sparse the occasional visitor couldn’t tell if I was moving in or out.
    I had a sofa and one huge armchair with a hassock, a stereo, no rug, tons of books on board-and-brick bookshelves, and a bed in the alcove. I had two hours to turn the miserable hole into something alluring. I’d ask the doorman what to do. They always knew everything.
    Lucky for me, Darios was on duty. He was from Puerto Rico and, in the true spirit of Latin men, he flirted with me every time I saw him. He held the door for me and took the shopping bag from my hands. I was gonna give him a chance to prove his nerve.
    “Good afternoon, Miss Wimbley!”
    “Darios? I’m in big trouble and I need your help!”
    In the dim light of the basement, Darios and I rummaged through the storage bins of possessions left by other tenants for safekeeping. It could’ve been the home furnishing department at 1 6
    D o r o t h e a B e n t o n F r a n k Bloomingdale’s, I had so many choices. It didn’t bother me one ounce that these things belonged to other people. Tomorrow they’d go back to where they had been.
    “Come over here! This is the Goldbergs’ stuff. They’re in Hawaii!”
    “Perfect!”
    He hauled the rug out first. “You wanna see it?”
    “Nope. It’s a rug and that’s all that matters.”
    We chose a small round walnut table and two ladder-back chairs that were stacked on the side of the chicken-wire pen and within ten minutes my apartment looked one hundred percent better. Darios and I stepped back to observe.
    “Needs plants,” he said.
    “Jesus, Darios, I can hardly afford this meal!” I was living on a tight budget imposed by Mother, probably to make me transfer to Carolina.
    “Be right back.”
    The doorbell rang again and it was Darios with two enormous palms from the lobby. He put them in place on either end of the sofa and I gave him twenty dollars. At the door he said, “I’d rather have just one kiss.”
    “Go on now, you bad boy, or I’ll tell your wife!”
    I only felt like a criminal again for a few seconds. My mind returned to the mission, which was, even though I would have loudly and energetically denied it, to seduce Richard.
    Naturally, I had no tablecloth. I took an old quilt from the closet and it covered the table to the floor. Flowers? Of course not.
    But I had books and that would work. I took three small volumes from the shelves, one of Proust, one of Flannery O’Connor, and the last, a book of Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s poetry. I used bronze bookends of hunting dogs to hold them upright. I wondered if he would notice the Proust.
    Fortunately I had two votive candles, two unchipped plates, and enough matching flatware. Linen napkins? Not a chance. I P l a n t a t i o n
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    used clean red dishtowels, which matched the quilt, sort of, and spray-starched them to death on a towel on the floor. In the end, the living area looked pretty darn cozy.
    Then there was the matter of the bed. You can’t hide a bed in a studio and mine was piled with stuffed animals from my youth.
    No man in his right mind could feel sexy surrounded by Snoopy dogs and Paddington Bears. I stuck them all under the bed and stood back. An improvement, to be sure, but no den of iniquity either. It was a box spring and mattress on a Harvard frame on