The Opposite of Drowning

by Erin McRae

  Of course, that was not what happened.

  “Forget this,” Dennis said eventually, setting the bottle and both their glasses aside.

  “Mm?”

  “It’s miserable in here. Go make us tea. I’m going to fix the fire.”

  Harry was grateful for straightforward instructions. He was equally grateful for the flames crackling merrily in the hearth when he came back into the room holding two empty mugs in one hand, the kettle in the other, and a package of loose tea in his teeth.

  “All right,” Dennis said, once they were settled back side-by-side on the couch, their steaming cups held on their knees. “Tell me more about her. And why you’re not dating her.”

  “She works with me,” Harry said, voicing one of his chief concerns. “I realize other men wouldn’t care, but –”

  “You’d hardly be the first person to carry on an affair in that office.”

  Dennis wasn’t wrong; publishing was a hive of incestuous and ill-advised entanglements on the best of days. But Harry had a whole arsenal of reasons to squash this infatuation while there was still time. If there was still time. “She’s so much younger than me.”

  “Harry. That’s a feature not a bug.”

  “No it is not.”

  “Speak for yourself,” Dennis said. As if he would ever date anyone so much younger.

  Harry frowned. “Don’t you understand I don’t want to be that man? A woman half my age, who I work with. I’m about to turn fifty, and my best friend is dying. That should cause me to question my motives.”

  “I’m right here,” Dennis said sharply.

  “One of my best friends,” Harry corrected, glad really for the reminder, however uncouth. He wouldn’t be alone in the world without Steven; he’d just be without Steven.

  “Better. Now finish confessing about the girl.”

  Harry sighed heavily. “What am I supposed to say? That she’s like a third hand or an organ I didn’t know I had? As if she’s some trivial accessory to my stunted heart and disorganized life? Because it’s not like that at all. I don’t enjoy her company because she’s young and beautiful. My life is filled with beauty, most of it far more appropriate.”

  “Fuck appropriate. What’s this really about?” Dennis asked.

  Harry blew out a heavy breath. “I can’t stop thinking about Mallory.”

  “Oh God.” Dennis sounded shocked, like he’d forgotten here in the early dawn what Steven’s illness meant for his wife.

  “Yes.”

  “Well, fuck.” It was representative of how well Dennis knew Harry that he didn’t say anything more. The moment wasn’t about comfort, but shared irritation.

  “My thoughts exactly.”

  “Please know,” Dennis said, so softly that Harry almost had to strain to hear him, “that I’m only saying this because it’s three in the morning in Rome and our lives are absurd.”

  “Yes?” Harry asked. He felt, for some inexplicable reason, afraid of whatever Dennis was going to say next.

  “When events and circumstances intrude into our lives, it’s important to respond to them. Don’t make the mistake of thinking of those intrusions as only terrible things. Just because we’re all getting older, that’s no reason to think everything is cancer.”

  “Was that supposed to be uplifting?” Harry asked.

  “Yes?”

  “Try again when I’m sober?” Harry felt impossibly fond.

  Dennis reached for him, insistent that he tuck his head down onto his shoulder. “Always.”

  Eliza

  THE ENGAGEMENT PARTY on Saturday night was so aggressively New England in nature that it was held in the private room of a well-regarded seafood restaurant. Eliza had been to several of these things, for cousins and girlfriends of hers from college, and had never loved them. Evenings in hot, crowded, noisy rooms were unpleasant enough. Such rooms were even worse when she was the center of attention.

  She had dressed carefully for the evening, in a jewel-toned A-line dress. But as she and Cody greeted guests she was aware that all anyone was looking at was the ring she wearing for the first time on her left hand – and wondering what it had cost.

  Cody, for his part, spent the evening being congratulated as though he’d made a particularly good political deal which, Eliza had to admit, he had. A wife who could host dinner parties and show up on his arm on the campaign trail and at fundraising events was a definite asset.

  After the speeches, which were endless and boring and involved little more than her saying thank you after the men had gone on and on, Eliza fled to the bathroom. She needed to touch up her makeup and, more than that, she needed a moment to herself. She was reapplying her lipstick when her phone rang in her clutch. She fumbled to silence it, mortified that she’d forgotten to turn off the ringer before dinner, then saw who was calling.

  “Harry, what the hell do you want?” she hissed into the phone, holding it carefully with one hand while she blotted off her excess lipstick on a bit of paper towel with the other.

  “Oh, shit, hi. You’re on the phone.”

  “It’s still vaguely daytime hours on the East Coast, what were you expecting? Why are you awake?”

  “What time is it there?” Harry asked, sounding baffled in the extreme. Eliza realized, with a jolt of mingled horror and delight, that Harry was almost certainly drunk.

  “Nine. At night,” she added, to be clear. Harry might need it. “What’s going on?”

  “Everyone was boring me, I went through my phone to distract myself, and you’re the only one I want to talk to who isn’t in this house already. Or dying. But let’s not talk about that.”

  Eliza frowned at her own reflection in the mirror. “Thank you?” she said hesitantly. Then she asked, “Are you okay?”

  “I’m old, drunk, and cold.”

  Before she could stop herself, Eliza started laughing. The woman next to her at the long mirror gave her a scandalized look. Eliza, still laughing, retreated to one of the low sofas along the wall of the powder room. Beside her was an end table bearing a box of tissues and expensive potpourri in a hideously rococo bowl. Maybe it was just his mention of death, but Eliza was unpleasantly reminded of a funeral home.

  Once her giggles subsided, Harry gave a wounded-sounding huff.

  “What did you expect?” Eliza demanded. “Your publisher doesn’t pay me to be sympathetic.”

  “How are things with Philippe?” Harry asked, as if either of them cared.

  “Very well, considering I’m on holiday and haven’t talked to him or looked at my work email for a week.”

  “Your dedication astounds me,” Harry teased.

  “In case you hadn’t noticed, it’s Christmas, and no one has done any work in days. Including you.” For some reason, their usual banter was grating on her and she wanted to yell or cry. This week had been too long already, and she still had to get through Christmas and New Year’s before she could go back home.

  Maybe the powder-room tissues were more necessary than she had given them credit for. She plucked one from the box and rolled it between her fingers, oily lint sloughing off and clinging to her skin.

  “Are you all right?” Harry asked, his voice quiet and concerned.

  She laughed again, although this time damply and not at all loud. “Yes, thank you, why?”

  “You sound miserable.”

  “Since when are you my therapist? I’m just tired.”

  “What have you been doing?” Harry asked, his voice warm and languid now. Eliza could picture him reclining lazily on a sofa in some ridiculous Italian villa, a wine glass in his hand and a smirk on his face.

  “Party planning.”

  “For Christmas? I thought your mother would take care of that. Or her army of event planners, at least.”

  “No,” Eliza said. She suddenly felt cold, nerves or guilt or adrenaline – or all three – spiking through her body. She still hadn’t told Harry she was engaged. And until now she could have passed that
off as – it had never come up, it wasn’t official yet, they were work friends who didn’t tell each other personal things. Except they clearly were if she was hiding in the bathroom at her own engagement party so they could talk.

  “No,” she said again. “An engagement party.”

  “Lovely. Who’s getting married?”

  “Me.”

  There was a sharp intake of breath that Eliza could hear over the phone all the way from Italy.

  “Oh,” he said. Then, “Best wishes to you both.” Eliza couldn’t read his tone. Or rather, there was nothing to read; it was pure charm and politeness, and the good breeding to know that in their circles one never offered congratulations on the occasion of a marriage.

  “Thank you,” she said.

  “When?”

  “Next summer. Not this coming one, the one after.”

  “Ah.”

  Suddenly, all their banter and ease was gone. Eliza let her head fall into her hand – the one with the tissue still balled up into it. She wanted to apologize. She wanted Harry to ask for an apology so she could yell at him for his possession and presumption. But neither of them said anything.

  “I miss you,” she said finally. “I have to go.” Before Harry could say anything else, she hung up.

  ON NEW YEAR’S EVE, a postcard arrived from Harry. The postmark was from before Eliza had confessed her engagement to him, and the picture on the front was of the Italian coastline. She turned the card over with equal parts eagerness and dread, both wanting and not wanting something that would make Harry’s actions or her own confused feelings make more sense. All that was scrawled there, though, in Harry’s looping old-world script, was wishes for a merry Christmas and a happy new year.

  Eliza slipped the postcard into the book of short stories she’d brought for bedtime reading, and went back to getting ready for the New Year’s party she and Cody would be attending. Plenty of time to worry about Harry – and what to do about him – on the train back to New York.

  Chapter 6

  A Meal for Penitents

  Harry

  AFTER TEN DAYS IN ROME it was nearly a relief to be back in New York, with its familiar grey skies and ugly, icy streets. A new year and a chance for a new beginning, Harry told himself as he sat down at his office desk. An opportunity for a few half-hearted resolutions he already didn’t plan to keep and an inbox overflowing with unread emails.

  Many of the emails were from Eliza, but they were strictly about business matters. Since their conversation on the phone the night of her engagement party, they hadn’t spoken at all. And judging by her brisk, businesslike tone, they were not going to talk about that call, or anything else personal, now that they were back at work.

  Which was likely for the best. There was nothing more Harry could say about Eliza’s engagement, even to himself. He had already convinced himself he wasn’t going to pursue a relationship with her before that data had emerged. And Harry didn’t do the sort of relationships that might end in marriage. There was, therefore, no reason to regret and every reason to rejoice that Eliza had already made a good match for herself. A match with someone presumably her own age, who could offer support and companionship far longer than he could.

  So, at least, Harry told himself. And had to keep telling himself as he prepared to encounter Eliza in person for the first time since the holidays. Rather than dropping by his office, she sent him a meeting invitation through the company scheduling system. On one hand, the advance notice spared Harry the suspense of anticipation and surprise. But on the other, he already missed their casual ease with each other’s time and space.

  Eliza arrived at his office, laptop and notes in hand as though this were a meeting that would require actual discussion about digital prototypes. She looked lovely as always, and Harry hated that his first reaction upon seeing her was to flick his gaze down to her hand and the ring that now rested there.

  It was quite the rock and surrounded with accent diamonds to boot. The glitter and bright gold of it didn’t suit her at all, but Harry knew better than to say such a thing.

  “Best wishes again,” he said once Eliza had sat down in the chair opposite his desk and not her more usual perch in his armchair. “If I’d known, I’d have sent a gift for the party. Or at least a card.” His tone was mild; he genuinely did not mean it as a reproof, just a statement of fact. Still, there was something brittle about the smile Eliza gave him in return.

  “It’s quite all right,” she said. “We’ve been engaged for almost a year already, actually. The party was to make everything official. There was an announcement in the Boston Globe.”

  “Not The New York Times?” Harry asked, moving things around on the ever-present mess of his desk so she would have room for her laptop and steno pad.

  “Oh, no. You can only have an engagement announcement or a wedding announcement in the same paper, so the wedding announcement is going in the Times, of course.”

  “...Of course,” Harry said after a beat. And then, in spite of all that was strained and odd between them, he laughed. “God, you really are from the same fucked-up place I am, aren’t you?”

  “Where was your engagement announcement placed?” Eliza asked, a grin dancing at the corner of her mouth.

  Harry blinked at her. “What?”

  “Your engagement announcement, when you....” She trailed off. “You were married? Or maybe still are?”

  Eliza floundering was as startling as her assumption. Harry shook his head.

  “No. No, I’ve never been married. Or engaged for that matter.”

  “Oh.” Eliza was clearly taken aback. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have assumed.”

  “Don’t be. I’m hardly offended.” He couldn’t wait tell Meryl about this. She’d laugh forever.

  “Why not?” Eliza asked, with the brashness that Harry loved but suspected often made her life awkward.

  “Aside from a general desire to avoid the absurdity of such things as protocols for announcements in the paper?”

  “Yes,” she said firmly. “Aside from all that.”

  Harry paused, wanting to be careful of how he answered, lest it sound like a judgment on her own choices. Or an attempt to make it competitively clear he was hardly lacking for companionship opportunities in his own life. “I have a friend. Who is also unmarried. And she always says that in her case it’s because she has no interest in doing the small ugly parts of life with the people she actually loves.”

  “And is that true for you, too?”

  “Not entirely,” Harry said. “But it’s close enough.”

  Eliza propped her elbow on his desk and her chin on her hand. Harry wondered if she was mimicking his own gestures on purpose. In any case, he wished she would stop.

  “Tell me more,” she said.

  “Like what?” If charging ahead and starving the elephant in the room to death was the way they were going to go, so be it, but Harry felt uneasy.

  “Is there anyone you do actually love? This friend of yours, perhaps?”

  “Meryl is essential to me. But I don’t love her in any way that involves big shiny jewelry, no.” Harry indicated Eliza’s ring with a little jut of his chin.

  Eliza frowned and wiggled her fingers.

  “It’s very impressive.” Not only was Harry failing to starve the elephant, he’d just fallen down a pit with it. The only question was whether he was about to get trampled.

  Eliza looked up at him, her eyes wide. “It’s hideous, isn’t it?”

  Harry laughed, panicked. “I’m not going to answer that.”

  Eliza took a deep breath and sat up a little straighter. Primly, she fixed her gaze on him again. “Well, then, it seems we’re agreed.”

  SHE’S ENGAGED, Harry sent to the Miscreants.

  Ten minutes later Steven had dug up the Globe announcement and sent it to the entire list. Harry had the worst friends in the world.

  Eliza

  ELIZA COUNTED IT AS a personal victory when sh
e was able to derail the weekly department head meeting by showing off the early prototypes of the apps an indie game developer had started work on. Harry jabbed enthusiastically at the tablet being passed around as he played the demo level of the game designed to promote Philippe’s books.

  “It’s probably not the food truck he envisioned,” Harry said wryly.

  “No, but every level a player passes unlocks a recipe, we can do in-app purchases, and if Philippe wants to do digital sauce coupons in there, we can make that happen. It’s a win all around; everybody gets to make money.” Eliza was pleased to note the nods of approval, however reluctant, coming from the people who had been most opposed to the idea of phone games. “Also,” she went on, clicking through her notes on her laptop. “I couldn’t resist the gaming draw of extreme dog grooming – you know, design your own dog, that sort of thing. I actually think it could be one of those unexpected internet obsessions. We are going to have to talk more about the look and branding of the game for the true crime line, however, because... yikes.”

  There were some chuckles from around the table. Eliza took that as a win, too, although the problem of making a game about crime without it being too gory or violent was a real one.

  “When can it be ready?” Ioanna asked.

  “The developer for the food truck game will have an initial version we can go live with in eight weeks. Ten at most.”

  Ioanna nodded, flipping through her calendar. “That’s perfect. You can debut it in Paris.”

  “I’m sorry?” Eliza tilted her head at the apparent non-sequitur.

  Ioanna nodded down the table at Harry, who suddenly seemed to be focusing on the tablet in his hands with extraordinary interest, though his hands were no longer moving. “Harry will be going to the Paris Book Fair in March. So we’ll already have a presence there, and a Paris event will be the perfect place to roll out a game to promote our French cooking books.”

  “Of course,” Eliza said automatically, knowing it was her job to be agreeable to this plan after Ioanna had helped steamroll objections to the games in the first place. But Paris with Harry? That was everything and nothing she wanted all at the same time.