One Fifth Avenue

“If you want to look at it that way,” Billy said.

“How else can one look at it?” Mindy said.

“It’s that word ‘finally,’” Billy said. “It’s not nice.”

“Mom,” the boy said.

“This is my son, Sam,” Mindy said.

“Hello, Sam,” Billy said, shaking the boy’s hand. He was surprisingly attractive, with a mop of blond hair and dark eyes. “I didn’t know you had a child,” Billy remarked.

“He’s thirteen,” Mindy said. “We’ve had him quite a long time.”

Sam pulled away from her.

“Will you kiss me goodbye, please?” Mindy said to her son.

“I’m going to see you in, like, forty-eight hours,” Sam protested.

“Something could happen. I could get hit by a bus. And then your last memory will be of how you wouldn’t kiss your mother goodbye before you went away for the weekend.”

“Mom, please,” Sam said. But he relented. He kissed her on the cheek.

Mindy gazed at him as he ran across the street. “He’s that age,” she said to Billy. “He doesn’t want his mommy anymore. It’s terrible.”

Billy nodded cautiously. Mindy was one of those aggressive New York types, as tightly wound as two twisted pieces of rope. You never knew when the rope might unwind and hit you. That rope, Billy often thought, might even turn into a tornado. “I know exactly what you mean.” He sighed.

“Do you?” she said, her eyes beaming in on him. There was a glassy look to les yeux, thought Billy. Perhaps she was on drugs. But in the next second, she calmed down and repeated, “So Mrs. Houghton’s finally dead.”

“Yes,” Billy said, slightly relieved. “Don’t you read the papers?”

“Something came up this morning.” Mindy’s eyes narrowed. “Should be interesting to see who tries to buy the apartment.”

“A rich hedge-funder, I would imagine.”

“I hate them, don’t you?” Mindy said. And without saying goodbye, she turned on her heel and walked abruptly away.

Billy shook his head and went home.

Mindy went to the deli around the corner. When she returned, the photographers were still on the sidewalk in front of One Fifth. Mindy was suddenly enraged by their presence.

“Roberto,” Mindy said, getting in the doorman’s face. “I want you to call the police. We need to get rid of those photographers.”

“Okay, Missus Mindy,” Roberto said.

“I mean it, Roberto. Have you noticed that there are more and more of these paparazzi types on the street lately?”

“It’s because of all the celebrities,” Roberto said. “I can’t do anything about them.”

“Someone should do something,” Mindy said. “I’m going to talk to the mayor about it. Next time I see him. If he can drum out smokers and trans fat, he can certainly do something about these hoodlum photographers.”

“He’ll be sure to listen to you,” Roberto said.

“You know, James and I do know him,” Mindy said. “The mayor. We’ve known him for years. From before he was the mayor.”

“I’ll try to shoo them away,” Roberto said. “But it’s a free country.”

“Not anymore,” Mindy said. She walked past the elevator and opened the door to her ground-floor apartment.