Astor Place Vintage: A Novel by Stephanie Lehmann Read Free Book Online Page A

like a pretend outdoor garden. Grandmotherly waitresses wheeled around carts of tea sandwiches, and they had the best peach pie for dessert.
    In the nineties, when they announced Altman’s was closing for good, I couldn’t believe it. Hadn’t the store existed forever? Wouldn’t it stay until the end of time? Now it remained only in my imagination, or should I say the collective imagination of those old enough to remember.
    So.
    Dr. Markoff’s voice jolted me out of my thoughts.
    Now I’m going to count from ten to one. When I reach one, you will open your eyes. Ten, nine, eight, seven, five, four, three, two . . .
    I didn’t want to move. Didn’t want to open my eyes. No wisdom had been found. It hadn’t worked.
    When he reached “one,” I forced my eyes open. Had I been in a trance? I wasn’t sure. Maybe I was still in it, but no. This felt like regular, everyday, sucky reality.
    “How do you feel?”
    “Fine.”
    “Do you want to tell me what came into your mind?”
    Red carpets. Dragons. Pie. “I don’t think so.”
    “That’s fine,” he said neutrally. “It’s up to you.”
    But I knew: I’d disappointed him. Failed at my trance. Couldn’t be hypnotized.
    He removed the cassette from the recorder. “Here’s the tape. I suggest you listen to it in the evening before you go to bed. Train yourself to focus on that positive place of wisdom. Eventually, you won’t need the tape; you’ll be able to go there all on your own, and falling asleep won’t be so hard anymore.”
    I sat on the edge of the couch. “Is it a matter of suggestion? The power of suggestion? Isn’t that what hypnosis is all about?”
    “You already know the answers,” he said in his kind, deep voice. “It’s a matter of allowing yourself to hear them.”
    That sounded all nice and reasonable, but I didn’t know the answers, so how could I hear them? I thanked him and showed myself out.

OLIVE
    WHEN I STEPPED outside, the sky looked ominous with gray storm clouds. The stuffy heat inside the store had made me forget about the weather. A man on the corner hawked cheap umbrellas, but I didn’t stop to buy one. Instead, I bustled through the crowds on the sidewalk. At first, the sprinkles felt refreshing on my face, but then they turned into raindrops that rapidly turned into a downpour. Dashing under the marquee of a small shoddy theater, I tried to ignore the barker yelling through a megaphone. “Come on in, ladies and gents, and witness the powers of Lola Cotton, the most amazing mentalist in the world! Next show in five minutes!”
    I had no interest in seeing a ridiculous mentalist.
    “Ladies without escorts welcome!”
    The rain came down in torrents. The box office queue grew longer.
    “Only five cents admission!”
    Lightning struck. I bolted to secure a ticket before they sold out.
    Inside the lobby, a young boy handed out paper and pencils. “Ask Miss Cotton any question, any question at all, and she’ll give you the answer!”
    “Can she predict the future?” asked a bald man with a white beard.
    “You bet,” the boy said.
    I watched the man write something on his paper and seal it inside an envelope. The boy placed the envelope inside a cigar box.
    “Do you have a question for Miss Cotton?” the boy asked me.
    The offer tempted me, but only to prove Lola Cotton wrong. I had no real wish to embarrass her—or myself—so I declined politely and entered the theater.
    The small auditorium smelled like mold, and the pianist yawned while playing ragtime, but at least it was warm and dry. I sat on a hard wood seat in the last row. Soon every seat was filled. By the time a skeleton-thin man in a bone-white suit appeared onstage, I was ready to be entertained. “Thank you for coming to witness the amazing powers of my daughter, Lola Cotton.”
    The audience applauded as Lola came onstage and stood next to him. She wore a simple white tea dress. Younger than I would’ve expected, fifteen or so, she had a