The Portrait of a Mirror

by A. Natasha Joukovsky

  —Votre table, Monsieur, Madame, said the maître d’.

  It was a table for two, with no sign of the team anywhere.

  —Oh, I’m sorry, there must be some mistake, Diana said before Dale could respond in French. There are six of us.

  —No mistake, Madame. The others, they send the regrets. They have asked me to give this to you—

  It was a note, in Eric’s unmistakably neat, even hand:

  Dear Mom and Dad,

  Sorry to pull a fast one on you like this, but we all thought you could use a night alone without the kids. You seem to really like hanging out with each other, and we thought this would be a nice way for us to say “thank you.” The food here is supposed to be superb; it gets tremendous reviews on Yelp. Besides, the rest of us really wanted to go out tonight, to a place that definitely involves velvet ropes. We’re just going to get burgers beforehand, so the expenses should even out.

  Bonsoir,

  Raj, Rich, Megan, and Eric

  PS—There’s a speakeasy downstairs that will probably be more your speed after dinner.

  Diana let out a wide-eyed sigh and surrendered the note to Dale. He squinted to read it in the soft, crimson light. Champagne in ornate crystal flutes arrived at the table almost as soon as they sat down. The romance of the place was so pronounced that it was embarrassing, as situational accuracy so often is. There was nothing to do but go along with it. Their faux debates on the merits versus pomp of a Full Windsor and whether to get a bottle of Margaux or Châteauneuf-du-Pape turned into real ones, and Diana’s loose sense of etiquette and Oliver Twist appetite eased Dale’s usual anxieties over propriety that he felt in such establishments with Vivien. Chili-pepper ices and egg-yolk concoctions flew on and off the table. Dale lost track of the plates, and Diana lost track of the glasses of wine.

  —Have you finished Anna Karenina yet? he asked over the cheese course. It’s required reading before my novel, you know.

  —What novel? You mean the unwritten one?

  —Yes, yes, but it’s all in my head now; a modern rerendering of Anna Karenina.

  —How are you rerendering it?

  —She resists Vronsky. Stays with her husband.

  —Sounds boring, Diana said with a dry smile. Do you know how you’re going to end it?

  —I’m thinking my Anna will probably kill herself anyway.

  —Ugh, that’s so sexist. Why not have your Vronsky kill himself instead?

  Dale laughed.

  —I’ll keep it under advisement.

  —Or—I know—have your Karenin kill himself, and end it with a wedding.

  —A wedding? Don’t be ridiculous. No one ends novels with weddings anymore.

  Diana was just sober enough to imprint a memory of the speakeasy scene: the warmth of Dale’s enormous, frontier-shifting smile, the way he leaned forward in conspiracy—her mind’s camera zooming in on his every witticism, his appreciation of a good return, the intermittent sips of his highball overwhelming her field of vision until she saw only his mouth, transforming close up and in slow motion into a laughing white beam, the slightly asymmetrical perfection of his bottom teeth teasing her like a wink.

  When a few other couples got up to dance to an especially pretty French song, Dale offered her his hand.

  —Our team is rather observant, aren’t they? Dale said after another drink.

  —Yes. They’ve clearly mastered the art of data-driven decision-making.

  There was a serious note to her tone, like the foreboding transition from a major to a minor key.

  —I wasn’t talking about work, Diana.

  —Neither was I.

  Dale held his breath. He looked at her, analytically. He said it almost in a whisper:

  —Do you want to go back to the hotel?

  —I do.

  Dale and Diana had both thought too much and too critically about the theoretical possibilities embedded in such an evening to be truly said to be “caught up in the moment,” and yet it was impossible not to be caught up in it a little bit. The no-background bar theory was on shaky ground, Diana noted wryly. And Dale had to admit it. Paris isn’t Philadelphia, and the Schuylkill isn’t the Seine. The city of light flickered under the Pont Alexandre III. Even the Louvre, for all its austere grandiosity, felt strange and dreamlike from the far west side of the Tuileries. The gardens rustled in the warm breeze, blurry and impatient.

  —I love the music they play in here, Diana declared when they reentered the Westin lobby. Doesn’t it sound like Tom Hanks is about to uncover a centuries-old secret of the Illuminati?

  —It certainly does not! Dale countered with playful derision. You can’t possibly have mistaken this for some B-movie soundtrack.

  —First of all, The Da Vinci Code totally held my attent—

  —Diana, this is the first movement of the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto.

  —That sounds like something you just made up.

  —Shazam it.

  —Fuck, seriously?

  She gave him one of her epic eye rolls, the kind that Dale had come to recognize, in certain circumstances, as a supreme if begrudging sort of compliment. He shrugged impishly.

  —I told you, I’m hideously cultured, he said.

  —You have to stop saying that. You’re offending my dignity.

  —From time to time, your dignity needs to be offended.

  Diana burst open, indulging in the kind of full-body laughter that conceivably requires a nearby perch for support. Dale’s arm was larger but softer than Wes’s, and Diana could not help but think it had a pleasing, gentle sort of heft. Dale wrapped it around her back to steady her, encircling her waist, calling the elevator without ever looking at the button. The tenor of the moment again shifted into seriousness.

  —What floor are you on? Dale ventured, cautiously.

  —I forget.

  —Do you have a view of the Eiffel Tower?

  —No! she exclaimed, bright again. Do you?

  —Yes. It so happens I got upgraded to a suite.

  —What? And you haven’t shown me all week? I thought we were friends, Dale.

  —We are friends.

  —Are we, though?

  —We’re not not friends.

  —Sounds pretty knotty to me.

  —Very naughty.

  —. . .

  They stood parallel, eyes in perfect alignment, no more moving than marble statues. They were inches apart and willing each other to lean closer still, longing to kiss the image before them, but each deferring to the other. A kiss might be blameless, so long as it was the other person doing the leaning. Was it your fault, really, if someone else kissed you? They longed for at least that much: one kiss, one moment of de minimus elevator intensity—if not twenty-seven seconds then at least seven or eight—without guilt or shame of any kind. Just a proper data point of indication as to whether it was worth throwing another self, another life away.

  They said nothing, but the importance of this moment was brutally self-evident. From a sheer human perspective, you didn’t need a lick of background information to see it with trembling validity: that here were two people most certainly in love, and yet there was something holding each of them back.

  The elevator dinged and, recalling himself, Dale motioned politely for her to exit first, which she did, stopping again just outside, waiting to follow his lead. Dale’s suite was at the far end of the corridor, and she followed him inside. The television was set to the post-housekeeping-service default hotel channel, extolling the exclusive membership benefits available only to Starwood Preferred Guests.

  —That’s not obnoxious or anything, Dale said nervously as he fumbled with the remote. Um, you can see the Eiffel Tower from just over there.

  Diana paced toward the view and assumed the absorbed, craning body language of one who is seriously considering it. But inside, every fiber of her being not already engaged in detoxifying alcohol was hard at work sensing Dale’s unseen presence behind her as he futzed
with his iPhone playlist. A beautiful aria started to play. Diana was in crisis. The action required to cinematize the scene would destroy the movie she’d so deliberately crafted into a life. When Dale joined her at the window, he could see that she was crying.

  —Diana? What is it? What’s wrong?

  But of course he knew. Dale, too, had mustered a greater kind of alcohol-induced James Bond sexual assurance at various points in the evening than he was entirely certain he possessed. The realization that he was only himself came as a devastating relief. Diana wiped the tears hastily from her cheeks, and frantically scoured her handbag for Maximum Strength Visine.

  —Ugh, I’m sorry, she said, obviously angry with herself. It’s just that I—I . . .

  —It’s okay—it’s okay, Diana. I know. You don’t have to say it. Let’s not say it.

  —Yes, right—okay, of course you’d rather we just continue to delude ourselves—keep playing this pathetic little game. Don’t you ever want to acknowledge reality for, like, eight fucking seconds?

  —Diana—

  —No, I’m serious! And I don’t care if this means that you “win” or whatever, by the way. The really, totally fucked up thing about this is—it’s that I—I—

  Diana took a step forward. She gave him the kind of look that lives are rearranged around, the kind that film directors invariably interpret as a smoldering half-pout, but in reality conceive their attractiveness from something other than aesthetics. Diana’s visage had the florid splotchiness of true human supplication, of total and complete transparency and misery and powerlessness.

  Dale did not feel victorious. Quite unconsciously, even against his will, he was experiencing the radical discomfort of considering this scene from her perspective; he was experiencing Diana’s pain as her pain, rather than in its similarity to his own. He wanted to embrace her, yes, but not because he wanted to embrace her. He wanted to embrace her because it was what he deeply, truly felt that she wanted—because it was the only thing he could think to do to comfort her. Had Dale been more readily acquainted with this disorienting sensation, he might have properly identified it as love.

  Unthinkingly closing the remaining space between them, Dale wrapped his arms around her protectively, hushing her sobs, stroking her hair.

  —Don’t touch me! Diana wailed, far louder and more aggressively than the situation merited, and quite in opposition to her own intention.

  She regretted her words practically as she was saying them. Alarmed—frightened even—Dale had released her instantaneously, gradually continuing his subsequent retreat. The heat of embarrassment rushed to Diana’s face and neck, momentarily overshadowing her remorse. The aria ended and gave way to an orchestra. It was that same concerto from the lobby. Four minutes earlier, it would have been a delicious inside joke. Now it was searingly painful.

  Prestississimo.

  —I have to go, she said, brushing at her tears again, turning and exiting the room before Dale could process what was happening, before Diana could process it herself.

  The heavy hotel door did not accommodate reconsideration. There was a petrifying finality embedded in the sound of its closure. Why had she reacted like that, Diana asked herself—and to a gesture so precisely in line with her greatest want? And then why had she made it worse by leaving? The first truly honest interaction they’d ever had—why had she spoiled it? She inched back toward the door, freezing again right in front of it, willing it to open. Open. Open! Was he waiting for her to knock? She should knock. But if he wanted her to knock, why did he not just open the door?

  Dale was less than three feet away on the other side, waiting for her to knock. He could sense her unseen presence, still haunting the hallway. Why wasn’t she knocking? After what had just happened—was she seriously waiting for him to just—to just open it? Absent the visual of Diana’s tearstained face, a paralyzing thought wormed its way into his brain: that the ultimate act of power isn’t getting what you want, but rather sacrificing it willingly. Because that is an act of power over yourself, of power over power. And what kind of mortal has that?

  PART THREE

  CHAPTER XXI.

  Julian Pappas-Fidicia had a great many grievances concerning the Hamptons. The traffic was outrageous. Everyone knew his lily-white skin did not fare well in the sun. He found bathing suits categorically unflattering and difficult to accessorize. The cultural milieu was lacking, and seemed engineered expressly to attract the most vapid, insufferable individuals from within several—and even radically oppositional—demographic segments. It was harder to get a bartender’s attention at Cyril’s than to become a certified investor with the Securities and Exchange Commission. To Julian’s thinking, it was the worst way to spend the Fourth of July, except for all the others.

  Out of some nostalgic collegial habit to economize combined with an unspoken compassion for the underpaid creatives involved, the group from Penn he went with every year invariably sacrificed space for aesthetics when choosing a house—and Julian did indeed almost always have to share a room. This had been inconvenient enough back when it was a genuine budgetary necessity. In the dark ages, 2007–2010, there had always been a diving board and yet he’d rarely been given a bed. From 2011 to 2013, he’d bunked with Harry Sinclair, who was only marginally less obnoxious prior to graduating from Harvard Law and starting to sleep with a CPAP machine. The emergence of Harry’s girlfriend (now wife) Paige had ushered in the 2014 reign of Grace Cho, who spent an interminable amount of time in what would have otherwise been—given Julian’s chronically sensitive bowels—a game-changing en suite bath. The news of Grace’s new beau last fall had initially triggered some concern that Julian would have to share with Jackie Darby, but even Jackie had finally experienced some professional success this year, published a collection of poems, and promptly shacked up with her editor. Gage Thompson—the semi-official Montauk Master of Ceremonies, who had always presented more like a Doctors Without Borders pediatrician than a board-certified plastic surgeon (increasingly renowned across the isle of Manhattan for breast augmentation, and privately, Julian suspected, the artist behind Grace Cho)—was either too kind or too spineless ever to say no, and Jackie’s editor now had to be accommodated in the share house, too.

  Picture him, then, Julian, a “discerning consumer of luxury travel services”—in his words—a “veritable living legend of the Trip Advisor review community,” learning that the nature of his accommodation this year would disappoint even his own harshest expectations. Picture him relegated not only to a bunk bed, not only to the top bunk of a bunk bed, but to the twin-size top bunk hovering over a full-size lower bunk bed. It was a situation “inappropriate to a gentleman [of his] stature”; one guaranteed to double his customary number of roommates, “already 100% over [his] quota.” As the twosome with the longest tenure, known well to all principal attendees of this perennial American freedom fest, the honor of sharing a room with Julian had been bestowed on Vivien Floris and Dale S. McBride.

  We find Julian waddling into this “godforsaken” room now, frowning from behind his round tortoiseshell prescription sunglasses, little beads of sweat collecting on his brow, demanding of Gage Thompson where exactly he is expected to drop the mélange of monogrammed tote bags—known by Gage to be Julian’s “long weekend” tote bags—dangling from his forearms.

  —I can’t be expected to put them way up on my bunk, and I can’t very well put them below on someone else’s.

  —Just put them anywhere, Julian! Dale and Viv won’t care. You worry too much. Have you seen the pool yet? There’s an inflatable swan.

  —Am I expected to delight in an ornithologically inaccurate floatation device at the expense of my personal comfort? Julian barked. I anticipate that next year you’ll want me to sleep in it!

  Gage laughed and relieved Julian of two of his tote bags, setting them down gently in the corner of the room. Julian released the remainder with a dramatic huff, as if to assure his old friend that this gesture was
performed under legitimate protest.

  —There, good. That’s better, right? Gage asked, coaxing Julian out of the room and downstairs. So, how are you, what’s new?

  —It’s been an eventful summer thus far, thank you for asking. I found the perfect pair of white gabardine pants and saw Ex Machina twice. Oh, and I ran the J. P. Morgan Challenge. I’ll have you know that is a 5K race. All of my coworkers thought I couldn’t do it, but they didn’t realize what I could accomplish motivated by pure spite.

  —I thought your boss was a friend, said Gage, sliding the back door open for Julian.

  —Oh, I hate Wes, but he’s a super-nice guy and we get along, Julian explained. He doesn’t make me fill out time sheets or anything, which as you know is a critical factor in my employee satisfaction.

  At first glance the scene behind the house was something of a Slim Aarons photograph, or a latter-day landscape out of Henry James: it was a seat of ease, indeed of luxury, telling of arrangements subtly studied and refinements frankly proclaimed. The pool seemed to flow organically from the cedar-shingled picturesqueness of the house and down into a kind of bay, a lair of sorts for the inflatable swan. White loungers sporting crisp striped beach towels lined the northeast arc, on which the afternoon sun cast long shadows. But it was perhaps the disorder more than the order that made this image so attractive: what might have been an architectural digest of pristine sterility was rendered supremely inviting by the glistening human being fixed in the scene, reading a book on the second lounger from the right, partially obscured by a very wide-brimmed hat.