The Portrait of a Mirror

by A. Natasha Joukovsky

  If Vivien had been almost anyone else, she might have done well to listen to Grace Cho. Operating without regard for industry trends and market forces by getting a PhD in art history was the Ivy League equivalent of getting a neck tattoo: a tacit renunciation of the professional job market in either an ostentatious display of privilege or absurdly self-confident risk. It was a recipe destined for either spectacular success or spectacular failure. It decidedly did not “preserve optionality.” You were either going to end up a rock star or utterly unemployable, and far more likely the latter.

  But Vivien Floris had been Vivien Floris. Her mother was on the board of half the cultural institutions in Philadelphia, and she’d been the immediate darling of the Art History department. Not shy, just reserved. Plenty of other young women (and one or two young men) had similarly stellar marks (and perhaps better foreign-language skills), but none could match Vivien’s poise and taste and maturity. She had that rare undergraduate ability to engage with her professors politely and yet still as actual people. There was just a hint of sweetness to her, not too much, like a natural flavor. It has to be said that Vivien had the right—exactly the right—look for a budding art historian. Primly polished without being overaccessorized. Pretty. Thin. Classically sophisticated. Her recommenders had been essentially the same as the doctoral selection committee, and her acceptance into the UPenn PhD program had been almost a foregone conclusion.

  She hadn’t gotten in anywhere else, but Penn was a top program. Besides, she only needed one. It was kind of nice having decisions made for you sometimes, so long as they were decisions that you liked. Dale had been thrilled for her, and terribly proud of his own encouragement. It took real self-control to accomplish a long-term goal like that; Dale liked that in a person. He’d gotten into a few MFA programs himself; the best one was in the Midwest. She tried to be as excited for him as he was for her, but while she didn’t want to be responsible for him not going, the truth was she didn’t want him to go. He had also managed to land one of those crazy high-paying entry-level consulting jobs, the kind that all the Wharton undergrads drooled over. It was based in Philadelphia.

  Both of them knew the underlying decision he was making, and Dale had struggled with it rather more than Vivien would have liked. When he gave her what should have been the good news, she found herself instead resenting his struggle with a pang of compunction. Dale had rearranged his life for her. Did she owe him something now? She loved him, yes, but it wasn’t like she was sure if he was the one. Another name hovered disturbingly in her mind.

  The 2012 rumor (ultimately true, prone to exaggeration) that Charles Wesley Range IV was engaged to be married ravaged the Sill Mill faster, if anything, than the news of his father had eight years earlier. The story was of that special variety of disappointing gossip that spreads, perversely, not because people want to know it, but precisely because they don’t. The only anecdote for such misery is its further diffusion, like the old misery loves company cliché but even more irresistible, whereby one finds comfort in one’s own festering scab through its comparison to a raw, open wound. The news of Wes’s engagement was so traumatic for much of the Sill ’02–’08 heterosexual alumna population as to require endless fresh meat, which in turn generated a whole new kind of meta-disappointment when one expected the satisfaction of a relative disappointment differential only to discover one’s audience already had the same scab. Misery didn’t love company then.

  Margot Coddington (Sill ’06) happened to be in Nantucket the weekend of the engagement and ran into the happy couple at Black-Eyed Susan’s brunch. The bride-to-be had great hair and an enormous vocabulary, and Wes seemed devastatingly smitten. They were staying at his grandparents’ estate in Polpis. He had proposed on a postprandial sunset stroll. As soon as the initial elation and tears and everything wore off, she had been terrifically afraid of accidentally dropping the ring in the shallows. The ring was described by Margot Coddington to be a 7-carat (actually 4.3) emerald-cut diamond with elongated side baguettes and fully annular pavé. Margot immediately called her sister Lauren, who, in devastation, sent a deluge of texts to most of Sill ’05, including Kate Manningham, the epicenter of the Sill Mill’s New York chapter. By the time the rumor reached Gillian Whitaker (Sill ’08), the female market was utterly saturated, and in desperation, Gilly turned to the gays. This included Vinny Kim, now the roommate of Sebastian Floris, who—thanks largely to his older sister’s long-term boyfriend—had just started his new job as an analyst at Portmanteau in New York and most definitely recognized the bride-to-be’s name from his hiring class there.

  Vivien never would have connected the events in her mind, but within a week of learning that “like, the cleverest, hottest girl” from Sebastian’s analyst class was marrying Charles Wesley Range IV, Vivien finally agreed to, at least unofficially, move in with Dale, keeping her old apartment strictly for purposes of storage and appearance.

  CHAPTER VII.

  Even before he said anything, there was a physical sincerity to Eric Hashimoto’s contrition. You could feel it in his footfalls as he paced the south window bank of the fifty-second-floor conference room, in the sweat curling over the collar of his new Harris tweed. His designy, wire-framed I-got-new-glasses-for-my-first-real-job glasses sat cockeyed; his tufty coif had been anxiously mussed. Even at six feet he had this underfed hedgehog-like put-him-in-your-pocket adorableness that awoke in both Dale and Diana an almost parental instinct to protect.

  —Dale?

  Eric called to him, moving his lips as little as possible, as if terrified Dale would prove to be someone else. He looked relieved when proven correct, and briefly seemed to relax until registering the girl standing next to him, introduced as Diana Whalen but who, Eric thought, could not possibly be Diana Whalen because Diana Whalen was an enterprise architecture manager. Eric Hashimoto was new to Portmanteau—Mercury Incorporated being, in fact, his very first client and this, his very first project—but he clearly had it on good authority that enterprise architecture managers were not supposed to look like that. His eyes darted from Diana to Dale and back again, trying to spot a ruse that wasn’t there before remembering his current predicament and the unpleasant reality of the moment.

  —Dale, I want you to know, you have to know . . . you have to understand. I am so so so, so sorry. Like, so sorry. But you have to help me. Please. Please.

  This kind of overreaction was almost the hallmark of a good analyst, the natural result of a lifelong will to overachievement combined with deep professional naivete. Diana shot Dale a look to go easy on him and he returned a mask of mock offense that she would even have to ask. There was no need to be so upset, Dale assured him; it was just an internal email. A good learning experience. Partially even Dale’s fault. He should have given Eric more instruction, an example of a strong Introductory Client Br—

  —No no no no no. Not that.

  Eric dismissed Dale’s sympathies with haste, his nose-wrinkling expression of impatience bordering on condescension. The gesture would’ve probably seemed hubristic and maybe even insolent coming from someone else, but Eric’s innocent, blinky hedgehog face allowed him to walk the line in a way that Diana seemed to recognize and appreciate in its primitive reminiscence of her own wiles. Eric Hashimoto continued his defense, arguing that the ICB was pretty well written, in his own personal opinion, before remembering himself once again and, crestfallen, admitting that the transgression to which he was referring was much, much, much worse.

  Dale meanwhile was half-smiling, both trying to suppress his entertainment and preparing mental popcorn. He was somewhat looking forward to learning whatever trifle was so vexing poor Eric, and very looking forward to its retrospective with Diana over lunch.

  Eric took a deep breath, doubling down on what seemed like a Herculean effort not to cry. He motioned for Dale and Diana to follow him to the far-east window bank of the conference room and gestured to the carpet, illuminated like an altar in the morning sunshine. Dale�
�s halt was so abrupt that Diana crashed into him, knocking his left shoulder with her right at the very same moment that he saw what was on the floor.

  —Oh my god, Horace, said Dale.

  Voluminously splayed, in a pitiful orange heap, was either a dead or a thoroughly comatose Pomeranian. Diana did not have to ask. She knew who Horace was. But Eric was obviously beside himself at the receipt of such a human-sounding name, and demanded the subsidiary details of Horace’s identity.

  Dale closed his eyes hard, opening them slowly, as if the creature might, by some act of mercy, stand up and be gone. He moved his middle fingers up his temples, trying to think.

  —Horace, Dale sighed, grinning maniacally at Eric in spite of himself, is our client Prudence Hyman’s service animal.

  Eric Hashimoto was suddenly in full-on self-preservation mode.

  —It wasn’t my fault! Please, I’m sorry, please, it wasn’t my fault! Are you going to fire me? Oh my god, you’re going to fire me. I only left to go to the bathroom for like, one minute! One minute. I wasn’t even here when it happened. And, how was I supposed to know our client had a dog? What was he doing roaming around up here anyway? And . . . excuse me? . . . this dog—this dog cannot possibly be a service animal. It’s the kind of dog a girl would carry in her purse. Um, no offense, Diana.

  —Oh, certainly not, she said, deadpan.

  —What happened?

  —Did something fall on him?

  —Um, I think he ate this, Eric said.

  He pulled from his back pocket a gnarled chewing-gum-style packet of pills and surrendered it to Diana. Four or five of them were missing. It was Eric’s sleeping medication, more or less requisite for post-traumatic tiger-mother helicopter overparented anxiety disorder, he explained. He’d left it in the open front pocket of his backpack, next to Horace on the floor. Dale knelt beside the orange puff and put his hand first on his bony chest, then in front of his mouth. He could feel Horace’s tiny little body under all that fur; it felt a lot less like a stuffed animal than Dale would have imagined. Horace was still warm, but Dale couldn’t ascertain whether or not he was breathing. Diana quietly removed her iPhone from her pocket and fiddled with it intensely for a few seconds before bringing the device to her ear, ambulating mechanically to the other side of the room the way people do when it’s ringing on the other side of the line.

  —Okay, Dale thought out loud, trying to control his panic, so when did you find him? Right before we arrived? Say, five, maybe ten minutes ago?

  —Um, more like half an hour . . . Eric trailed off.

  —Half an hour? Why didn’t you call me? Email me? What were you thinking?

  —But you said not to! You said do not send any more emails until I found you in person. And I couldn’t very well, like, leave him here and go looking for you!

  —You didn’t think that the possible murder of our client’s service animal might, I don’t know, constitute an exception?

  —I had no idea whose dog it was! Look, Dale, I know you’re, like, really really really mad, and you totally have a right to be—but I am reasonably confident this doesn’t qualify as murder. First of all, I don’t think you can be charged with murder when it’s a dog, even—and I’m going to put like a ninety-five percent confidence interval on this—even if it is a service dog—a title, by the way, the applicability of which I personally remain dubious in this instance. And, American Disability Act compliance aside, would you really have wanted me to, like, document this? Not to say there’s anything un toward going on here. This was purely an accident! Put the blame on luck, not crime. What crime is there in error? Accidental death is manslaughter not murder anyway, right? Oh my god. Shit! Does manslaughter extend to a dog . . . ?

  —Eric, Diana said, hanging up the phone. Calm yourself.

  She put her hand on Dale’s arm, silently instructing him to do the same, but having to know it would have precisely the opposite effect. He could still feel his shoulder trembling where she’d run into him, but under this new level of intentionality his arm’s erratic pulsation seemed like an emergency everyone should stop and attend to prior to Horace. Diana had called a vet on Arch Street. She was instructing Eric to empty her bag, to unload all her stuff into his and Dale’s. Eric crouched to help her, participating in the invasion of Diana’s personal artifacts into the territories of their attachés, but reticent to touch her things directly, preferring to hold open the bags for Dale and Diana to fill. Dale transferred an expensive-looking monogrammed black wallet from one of those slick anticonsumerism luxury consumer brands that self-consciously fails to self-identify on its wares. He wasn’t sure which one, and felt a disconcerting stroke of socioeconomic insecurity that made it hard to put down without closer examination. Then there was a brand-new ultra-thin yet fairly seriously cracked iPad. The bottom of her bag was an intriguingly disorganized collection of tampons and cheap hotel pens and bottles plural of Maximum Strength Visine that neither of the men felt comfortable touching but Diana transferred with only a dash of personal embarrassment and no recognition of their own. Finally a battered glasses case emerged from the front pocket, inspiring a startlingly vivid pornographic overlay of Diana qua librarian. Even without a bra, those were remarkably perky tits. Dale’s reverie was interrupted by Diana’s request for his home address and cell phone number.

  —My address?

  —Yes, in Philadelphia. We have to use Eric’s name because of the medication, but your address for the forms. It’ll make sense in a second. Eric? Eric? Pay attention. I need you to look me in the eye. You and I have an emergency appointment at Best Friends veterinary clinic for our dog, whose name is Dale—got that? Not Horace, Dale. And sorry, human Dale, it was just the first name I thought of on the phone.

  Dale could not decide whether to be consciously offended or subconsciously flattered. Diana continued:

  —Eric, we’re a couple who just recently moved to Philadelphia, finally reunited after years of long-distance. We haven’t fully unpacked yet and just as we were about to head out the door for work this morning we saw our darling dog Dale collapse and realized he’d gotten into a box that included your pills. You’ll have to bring them along with you—do you have the packet? Good. This part we need to be fully honest about, obviously, so they know how to treat him. Are you following me?

  Eric was following, if in a kind of frozen awe. Diana adjusted her rings as she spoke, dispassionately moving her wedding band over to her right hand.

  —We’ve only recently gotten engaged, so nothing is set yet for the wedding. We don’t have a date or a venue or anything.

  —Huh?

  —Just trust me, someone will ask. You proposed to me last Friday night in our new house—er—

  Diana threw human Dale an eyebrow.

  —just off Rittenhouse Square.

  Diana studied the address and phone number Dale had written down, reading it aloud to Eric before safeguarding it in an interior zippered pocket of her fleece.

  —Okay, purse is empty then? Hold it open.

  Eric’s hands were shaking as Diana lifted Horace, hoisting him up in a manner so perfunctory it nearly suggested she’d accidentally knocked out a client’s service animal before, like a person who knew how to put out a fire precisely because she was a practiced arsonist. Horace’s foxy little snout separated, his tongue languishing pathetically to the side as his head rocked back. Dale moved to help her, directing Horace’s enormously fluffy tail, which kept ostentatiously curling over the side. Tactilely, Horace fell somewhere, the three of them decided, between a human baby and luxuriant fashion accessory—one, Dale thought out of habit, that Vivien might quite like. Once tucked inside, one had to admit that if Horace was in fact dead, the black leather tote made a rather elegant shroud.

  Diana stood up, positioning the bag on her shoulder. She looked up at Dale expectantly.

  —Don’t worry, ass covering is my specialty, he grinned, handing her back her wallet and feeling a new, strange sense of sere
nity. Just go. As Horace himself once said: Even as we speak, time speeds swiftly away.

  —Dude, what are you talking about? said Eric. I am so confused right now. Horace is a dog.

  —But also a Roman poet, Diana told Eric, before turning back to Dale. Very clever, there. You might also start calling local shelters and pet stores. What you want to ask for is an “adult orange Pomeranian with black points and subtle white markings on the snout and chest.” We need a backup plan in case Horace doesn’t make it.

  —You don’t think she’ll be able to tell if it’s a different dog?

  —I think it doesn’t matter, so long as nobody else can. Hopefully it won’t come to that. But really, think about it, what kind of lunatic would rave that her dog’s been replaced with another one that looks exactly like him? She’ll look crazy if she says anything, so she won’t. No dog at all will be a much, much bigger problem for us. Oh—do make sure Horace 2.0 is male, though. I’ll text you updates.

  She looped her arm tightly through Eric’s, as he looked just about ready to faint. Unless Dale was imagining it, in an almost direct invitation to jealousy, Diana gave him an actual wink, suggestively mouthing “bye” as Parker Remington walked through the door. If he caught Diana by surprise, she barely showed it.