The Best American Short Stories 2020

by Curtis Sittenfeld

  But Carolina wasn’t always so easy or easily arch about her husband’s odd relations with women. Maybe she never was. I met her shortly after she and Quin became engaged, when Todd and I had dinner with the two of them. She made a surprisingly distinct impression; she was an assistant editor at a fashion magazine, nearly twenty years younger than Quin, and I was not expecting to be impressed, except by her beauty. Of course she was beautiful, and very elegantly so. She was half Korean and half Argentine, and aristocratic on both sides; her family owned land outside of Buenos Aires. Her bearing was electric and deeply calm at once. She had a way of cocking her head that emphasized the purity of her facial lines, and the expression of frank, fascinated alertness in her long eyes accentuated their unusual shape (a teardrop, tilted up). She didn’t say very much during the dinner, but she listened with erect intensity, as if her body were an antenna, and her uptilted eyes and ears seemed linked, functioning as a single organ. She was a presence you took seriously, even if she barely spoke, even if she was only twenty-seven years old.

  In spite of this impression, as the engagement became a marriage, Carolina quickly moved into the background for me, even when she made Quin a father. (He was ecstatic at this development, and every stage of it enchanted him; the flow of milk, his wife’s new and natural tenderness. “I’ve never been that focused on breasts before,” he actually babbled to me during a lunch, “but now I see them everywhere, love them, celebrate them, especially hers!”) I saw her from time to time at parties and sometimes at readings, sometimes with her little Lucia, who was beyond striking, with her mother’s pure-black hair and enormous anime eyes that seemed to be gazing into another, better world. Carolina and I were always cordial. Still, she surprised me one evening at an unusually casual dinner I had with her, Quin, and Lucia. The girl was five at that time, and she became very suddenly irritated with her father, to the point that she began to make a scene, even striking at Quin with her tiny fists. “She’s overtired,” Quin explained, and he decided, since they lived nearby, to take her home. When I wondered what had upset the child, Carolina shrugged.

  “She’s a girl,” she said. “I don’t think she enjoys watching her father flirt with every woman he meets any more than I do. Didn’t you notice the way he was with the waitress?” She was in her late thirties by then and her fascinated alertness had been blunted, her erectness slightly compromised. But she was still electrically beautiful.

  “Just so you know, that’s never gone on between me and Quin,” I said. “He’s a good friend. But nothing flirty. It’s not like that at all.”

  And, so simply and sincerely that it astonished me, she said, “Thank you, Margot.” Her husband had actually made this gorgeous woman, the mother of his child, jealous of a broad over fifty.

  But I should not have been surprised. Quin was sometimes seductive with women who were older than me. We once went to a cocktail party given by a warm, well-exercised woman with wonderful deep lines on her face, dishevelled gray hair, and confident red lipstick; she greeted Quin with an embrace that was nearly intimate and held hands with him while they spoke in confidential tones about banal subjects. They parted, and as we headed for the drinks table, he gave me a quick outline of her life: journalist, diplomat’s wife, mother, environmental-cleanup volunteer. A few minutes into our drinks, he told me that the woman and her husband were still having sex, but only when the husband pretended to break into the apartment and rape her while she strenuously tried to push him out of her with her thighs and her lady muscles. “I imagine she could almost do it,” he said. “She’s a strong gal and a fierce yogini!”

  “Did it turn you on to hear about it?” I asked.

  “No. Not especially.” His tone was dry, nearly judicial. “But it interests me. It helps me understand her. Knowing that, I feel I’m better able to help her with her marriage. They’ve been having trouble lately.”

  He said this with perfect seriousness.

  Q.

  Sharona was a girl straight out of the fifties. She even dressed that way, and not self-consciously. I never saw her in pants; she wore skirts and dresses exclusively, modestly cut but given a sexy edge by her high-heeled shoes and boots. Her hair and nails were flawless. She had a heart-shaped face and big dark eyes with a secret expression that wanted to be released—​there was something intense and seeking in her gaze. She wasn’t a real beauty, but she had a beautiful laugh and even a beautiful frown. For her, sex was the core, and that was why she refused to speak of it or evoke it with her presence; for her, the core was “sacred.” She used that word during a conversation at a bookstore after a reading. I’d asked about her boyfriend, the most innocent question first, but where most girls would begin to trust me or try to impress me, she looked at me with mild reproach and said firmly, “That’s inappropriate.” Still, the soft directness of her eyes and voice was more intimate than my question. I asked her if she was religious and she laughed before saying no. I asked her if she prayed. Her expression shifted, a depth change. “Yes,” she said, “I do.” I told her that I prayed every day. I said, “When I want to find out what someone is really like, that’s one of my first questions—​do they pray?”

  “You want to know what I’m really like? You just met me.”

  “I prefer to know whom I’m talking to, yes.” We spoke of the writer who had read his work—​a poseur, she thought. I disagreed, but not too strenuously. I asked if there was anyone in the room she’d like to meet. She said, “Not especially.”

  She accepted my invitation to lunch, then and many times after. She enjoyed talking about books. She enjoyed my appreciation of her mind, which was sincere; she was a delicate and nuanced perceiver. She had a dull assistant’s position at an art magazine that reviewed books (I knew her boss, an unpleasant fellow), and I could feel her pleasure when she was able to flex her intellect. Not ostentatiously but quietly, firmly. And she realized, I’m sure, that I was a good person to cultivate.

  Caitlin and I had been friends for some time by then, but the friendship had become intermittently hard and sparring—​nasty, even. She was in love with a man who seemed to despise her; it was plainly a delusional crush, and I encouraged her to drop it. When she insisted on the legitimacy of her feelings, I said that if it was really love, she should pray to know what was right for both of them and then act on it. Every time I saw her, I’d remind her to pray about it.

  The outcome was predictable—​the usual dreary disaster. She seemed to blame me for it; I can only think this was because I had witnessed her slow-motion humiliation. Even when she found a new boyfriend, the bitterness of that rejection stayed in her heart and made her act strangely around me. She invented a little game: If I had to wear a button with a single word to announce who I was, what would it say? Flâneur? Voyeur? Creep? The severity of the word she chose varied from day to day, as did the “buttons” I chose for her: Narcissist. Opportunist. Crybaby. I remember her smiling as if drunk during these exchanges, and, even though I was never drunk, there was a feeling of intoxication in our bitch-slapping.

  Anyway, we continued to have lunch and to confide in each other. She accepted my professional advice (I was a great help to her), and she, in time, advised me about Sharona. Eventually I helped her get a plum job with a literary agency. On her last day at the office, she wanted to know if I’d still invite her to my parties. I said, “As long as you flirt with me, love.” And we did continue to flirt, though mostly via email. Had lunch every now and then. I didn’t invite her to a party, though. There were others who better filled the spot that she had occupied.

  M.

  There are so many funny or awful stories that it’s hard to stop telling them. The nineteen-year-old who texted him every time she (a) took a shit or (b) had sex with her boyfriend. The girl who texted him to describe her fantasies every time she masturbated (“Okay, it’s hard to type right now, because my hands are shaking . . .”). The time we attended a reading by a young female writer, and Quin, on bein
g introduced to her, stuck his hand in her face and said, “Bite my thumb.” The woman, who was self-possessed, looked at him with disgust and turned her back. I said, “Why did you do that?” He wasn’t fazed. “She’s cute,” he said. “But she’s not game.” He shrugged.

  Grotesque, but at the same time paired with such peculiar, delectating joy. Once, when my husband and I were feeling down, we talked about how everyone we knew seemed ultimately unhappy, or at least discontented. “Except Quin,” I said. “Except him,” Todd agreed. And, putting on his Quin-the-pervert face, he quoted, “Where the bee sucks, there suck I!” We laughed, then sat there, contemplating Quin’s abnormal happiness.

  And why wouldn’t he be happy? He had a gorgeous wife and an exceptional child, and he was an excellent editor, who published some of the best writers of the moment. They tended to be clever niche writers rather than heavyweights, but the quality was undeniable, and some of them had devoted followings. Many of them were writers whom no one else in publishing had believed in at first. Quin did believe, passionately, even morally: “She’s marching for goodness,” he might say, or “He’s marching for sexuality” or “marching for truthfulness.” (Morality was, oddly, important to Quin. He analyzed and criticized people based on their moral traits; “self-centered” was one of his harshest accusations—​an irony, given how much he encouraged people to talk about themselves.) Quin would take up these marchers, pay them advances that were all out of proportion, and exult when they succeeded. Which happened often enough that even writers whom everyone believed in, that is to say, bid on, finally came to him too, without his making much of an effort to land them.

  I remember going with him to a publishing party for one of them, a young black man (“Marching for justice with humor and style!”) whom Quin had positioned for celebrity. The party was held in an art gallery that was showing work by someone who painted imitations of hoary masterpieces, in which she had replaced the original Caucasian figures with famous people of color. I met Quin in his office; I was wearing a skirt and heels and carrying a shopping bag and a little purse. He insisted that I let him carry the shopping bag, because even though I would check it at the door, he thought it spoiled my look—​plus he would enjoy being “at [my] service.” I agreed, and then he said that he thought I should also dispense with the purse, because, although it was small and very nice, it made me look less free. “But I need it,” I said. “I’ve got my wallet and lipstick in there.”

  “Then let me carry them,” he answered, “here.” He indicated an inner pocket of his jacket.

  I hesitated.

  “You’re effervescent tonight,” he said. “But that purse takes something away. It makes you more mundane, less delightful. I want to see you walk through the room giving off an aura of freedom.”

  I said, smiling, “But if I give you my wallet I’m not free. Because you’ve got my wallet.”

  He was right, though. I would have looked and felt more free without the purse. Especially while we were dancing; there was a good DJ, and we danced for hours.

  Q.

  When Caitlin left, a girl named Hortense took her quasi-secretarial position. Caitlin recommended her, in fact; I don’t remember the connection, but somehow they knew each other. Truthfully, I liked Hortense better; she was more confident, less ambitious, prettier, altogether a finer creature (huge dark-blue eyes; plump, tiny mouth; graceful neck; curly hair; musical voice). I suppose out of habit I contrived for us to go on an occasional shopping trip, and perhaps because of Hortense’s wonderful prettiness, I was drawn to stores that were a bit more upscale. On our last such expedition, she tried on a T-shirt and let me come into the dressing area to see what it looked like on her.

  There she stood, young, brimming with confidence in her allure, glowing in the expensive light. The shirt fit her perfectly and I meant to say that. Instead, through cloth and bra, I touched her breast, circling the tip with my finger. Neither of us spoke. I don’t remember the look on her face, just my finger moving and her nipple responding, hardening. Magic elixir. Delicious.

  The moment lasted seconds, and then I bought her the shirt and we went on with our afternoon. But the relationship shifted slightly, becoming closer, less a flirtation and more a true, sweet friendship. By some tacit understanding, we did not go shopping again, and I never touched her again in quite that way. But at lunch sometimes, or even in my office, we held hands while we talked. I liked that a lot.

  It was probably foolish of me to tell Sharona about this incident, but I wasn’t thinking that way then. I wanted to challenge her; I wanted her to understand. We were talking about the word sacred, what it meant to her. It meant something beyond words, she said. Something that was beyond the quotidian but was expressed through it. I agreed. And then I told her what had happened between me and Hortense. I said that it had been, in a small way, sacred to me.

  Her face became very still, her eyes wide. She asked me what Hortense did at the publishing house. How old she was. Would she continue working there? And, finally, “Why was this sacred to you?”

  “I don’t know, exactly. Like you said, it’s beyond words. But I felt it. Awe at her beauty and at being alive. And that this strange thing could happen. Going up to the very line of acceptability and not crossing it.”

  “How do you think she felt?”

  “Maybe a little of the same. Not enjoying it, exactly. But willing. Understanding my need.” I told her that I didn’t think it would happen again, and that was part of what made it special. I asked her if she understood that.

  She was slow to answer, but finally she said, “I guess I do. But I hope you understand that it would never be okay to touch me that way.”

  “Never,” I said honestly. “I would never touch you that way.” I reached across the table and took her hand. We sat like that for a moment, her captive hand softening incrementally. I turned it over and resisted kissing it. The check came. It was a victory, I thought.

  M.

  It’s odd to me that although Caitlin was the one who finally . . . broke Quin, I never heard about her. I don’t think I met her either, and I met countless young women in Quin’s orbit. I did meet Sharona once, and heard about her even more. (Wasn’t she innocent? Wasn’t she special? Wasn’t she straight out of the fifties?Though she was clearly just a standard nineties girl, right down to her silly pop-song name.) Toward the end of their “friendship,” he actually sent me texts that he wanted to send to her, asking my opinion on them. Some of these texts were aggressively teasing; some were nearly pleading, including one in which he compared her refusal to “share” more of herself to the Republican Congress’s refusal to share societal wealth. (That one I definitely told him not to send.) We could spend whole lunches analyzing her behavior, particularly why she wouldn’t let him stroke her back or even take her elbow to guide her through a room. It was the same conversation, over and over: I lectured about respect and boundaries; he wondered how someone could be so “precious” about herself and declared that he would never refuse the needs of a friend. I retorted, “What if I needed you to kneel down and kiss my feet every time you saw me?” He said that he would do it. I said that it could be very awkward. He said that he would do it right there, and then he actually knelt on the floor of the restaurant; when people stared, he explained, “I’m honoring the needs of my darling friend.” He actually tried to kiss my feet. I had to say “Stop!” But I was laughing.

  I heard all about Sharona. But I didn’t know about Caitlin until the lawsuit. “What did you do?” I asked. “Why do you think she is so angry?”

  He shrugged. “She asked what she had to do to get invited to my parties and I told her she had to flirt with me more. I think that really offended her.”

  Of course, the stories in the paper listed many more offenses, including sending Caitlin, while she was still working for him, a video of a man spanking a woman. People were shocked when I showed sympathy for him on that one. I said, “I know it sounds terrible. But
I don’t think it really happened that way. He probably asked her what she likes to do sexually, and she told him she likes spanking. For him, it’d be the most natural thing in the world to send her a spanking video. Yes, it was still rude!” I admitted. “But—”

  Quin said, “I didn’t even ask. She told me on her own. And it wasn’t porn or anything—​it was John Wayne spanking an actress in some old-timey western!”

  Caitlin wasn’t even the one who accused him of actual spanking. Someone else revealed that, in an interview with the Times. That woman wasn’t actually part of the lawsuit, but she certainly made it look reasonable.

  Q.

  If my wife stays with me, I can get through this. I can get through it regardless, but . . . broken, hobbled, without her respect; these are the kinds of words that can pile up on one another when my mind goes in that direction, so I don’t let it. I take my morning run. I keep my head up. Bright light fills my mind. Life is a miracle. It goes on, no matter what happens to one selfish man. “You are Quinlan Maximillian Saunders, and through this you will find a better place.” Carolina said that to me at two in the morning, holding me in her arms, with tears streaming down her face. Earlier that day—​technically, the previous day—​she’d slapped me publicly, in the street. She did this because I’d seen one of my accusers, smiled at her, and said, “Hello.”

  “She smiled at me,” I explained. “I was just smiling back.” And my wife turned and hit me. As hard as she could, with her open hand.

  “Idiot,” she said. She spoke calmly and quietly, though loud enough for passersby to hear. “I guess I can’t let you out, even with me.”

  Later she held me in her arms. But it is in fact the case that she forbids me to go out, and I go along with it, because I know what this has done to her, and what she thinks it will do to Lucia one day—​although I think Carolina underestimates the child.