One Life With Him

by CD Reiss

  We hung up. The ocean pounded the edges of the rocks into smooth stones, a millennias-long process I witnessed for a few minutes before I got up and continued my run.

  Chapter 67

  MONICA

  I’d been away from post-surgery Jonathan before. I’d flown to places I’d never been to and experienced them through hollow eyes and a worn-down heart. I couldn’t say my trip to New York was any different. I was still worn out; I was still dragged home by tight-twisted strands. I was still worried. But something had changed. The worry wasn’t colored a dark grey, and my thoughts of Jonathan weren’t painful. I didn’t feel guilty. I felt alive, vibrating, humming with potential, and I missed him. I missed his company, his laugh, his touch. I missed his enfolding presence beside me. The guilt left a vacuum in its absence, and nature, in its abhorrence, filled it with hope.

  I flew commercial. I wanted to be surrounded by people. I wanted to feel the hum of life in the comings and goings of people: the babies crying; the pilots and stewardesses in their neat little packs, rolling suitcases whirring behind; the bright colors of the snack stand in the artificial lights; and the carpets worn where people walked.

  I didn’t make up a story when I told Jonathan I didn’t need his plane. Instead of saying something facile about scheduling, I tried to express my need, as intangible as it was, and he understood, and agreed, and asked if I was going to fly coach.

  That didn’t seem necessary. Marrying a Drazen had its privileges.

  He’d laughed and held me, offering his team to set up the flights. As close as we’d been in bed, or at play, or when he was rubbing my back and telling me how much he loved me, when I explained why I wanted to fly commercial and he understood, I felt truly married. He understood me. I could tell him even the worst nonsense, and he did more than agree. He became a part of me, tapped into my thoughts, a partner.

  I’d thought I knew what that meant, but I didn’t.

  I was so high, I chatted incessantly with the guy next to me about music and dance. He was a French choreographer, and of course he gave me a definite “I’d be happy to fuck you” vibe even after seeing my ring. But I didn’t care. I wasn’t sleeping with him. I could still enjoy the conversation. I was married to a king, after all. I didn’t have to concern myself with what other people wanted from me.

  A bodybuilder in a suit waited for me at the gate with a handwritten sign that said “Mrs. O’Drassen.”

  “Hi,” I said. “Are you Dean?”

  “Yes, ma’am.” He took my bag. “I’ll drive you to the hotel to drop your things. I’m hired out for as long as you need me, so you can call any time.”

  “Great. There’s a dinner tonight. In Hell’s Kitchen. Can you take me there?”

  “Absolutely.”

  I’d never been to New York, and I couldn’t believe how crowded, tight, old, and yet shiny, spacious, and vibrant it was. And this was just from the window of a silver Rolls Royce.

  Jonathan had set me up at the Stock New York, the sister hotel of the one I used to work at, citing the hotel he’d just sold as “too grubby.” Everything was perfect. The room was huge, slick, with precisely designed proportions and windows that let onto a little patio that I wanted to sit on with my husband.

  Jonathan was in the process of transferring his hotel on the Lower East Side. Hotel D, on Avenue D. His fourth and a huge risk. He shook his head whenever he talked about it. He’d said it was too small for me. Too old, too trendy, too loud—he had a million reasons why I should stay at the Stock. After few minutes of listening to him, I knew why he was keeping me away from D. He didn’t think it was safe. Who even knew why. He’d been known for putting beautiful hotels in up-and-coming neighborhoods like canaries in a coal mine. Maybe this little bird hadn’t gotten out.

  The Stock had every imaginable trend-forward trapping. Wool rugs with barely discernible patterns that looked as if they’d been through a war zone in exactly the right places. Maple and mahogany paneling. Blackened brass chandeliers with frosted glass shades that curved in ways that were surprising and yet inevitable. Good-looking staff in sharp uniforms.

  I was wrung out from the flight, but I shook it off by taking a coldish shower, and I left before I missed Jonathan more.

  “Ah, I know your face!” Omar said when I showed up for the pre-studio dinner.

  Hartley Yallow and the Trudy Crestley were already there, and the table was huge.

  “I know yours too,” I said. Everyone knew Omar’s face. He had classic South American good looks that came from an Argentinian mother and an Italian father. His voice, however, was something no genetic pairing could predictably create.

  I sat down, and we ordered. More people came. I could hardly keep up with the names, because even though I knew them all, I was overwhelmed and in love with that moment. Ivan Braf showed up with his wife, and I envied her presence. I wanted Jonathan next to me, even if he didn’t say a word. It wasn’t that I wanted to steal moments before his death; I wanted this moment to be complete, and without him, it wasn’t.

  But it was good. Very good.

  Quentin Marshall showed up with the guys from The Breakfront. “Monica Faulkner,” Quentin said in his thick Aussie accent. “So happy you could come. Now we all have to take our game up a notch.” He wagged his finger around the table.

  “Oh, I don’t think—”

  “We need her on the chorus,” Omar said, pointing his fork. “Flat out.”

  “You were on the chorus,” Quentin replied.

  “I—” I couldn’t finish a denial.

  “There’s no point having her here unless you showcase her voice,” Omar argued.

  “That’s true,” Quentin replied.

  “Hang on!” I said, putting my fist down. I didn’t watch for their reaction, because I knew I didn’t have a second before they’d interrupt. “Even if all this is true, it’s irrelevant. My name won’t sell the record, and the point is to sell the record. Nobody knows me, so showcasing me gets you nowhere.”

  “She has a point,” Trudy said.

  I nodded to her, and she nodded back.

  “Fine!” Quentin proclaimed. “We rehearse tomorrow and try it out. Once Victory Spontaine gets in, whenever that is, we decide once and for all.” He clacked the ice at the bottom of his glass. “My drink is empty.” He twisted in his seat to look for a waiter.

  I hadn’t realized until that moment that the rest of the restaurant found our gathering very interesting. Black rectangles hovered over heads, and little phone flashes went off. The dinner was publicity. I hadn’t thought of that. I wished I’d worn lipstick or done something with my hair.

  Omar, who was next to me, leaned close. “I’m fighting for you to get the chorus.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you have the most unique voice I’ve ever heard.”

  I swallowed. “Well, my point stands.”

  “If we want to sell the record, it has to be a great record. That’s the number one priority.”

  I couldn’t believe he was saying that to me. Omar D’Alessio. Holy shit. I couldn’t believe he was even talking to me.

  “You’re pretty great, Omar.”

  “I never said I wasn’t.” He put his arm around me. “But there’s room for another.”

  He kissed my cheek, and I felt accepted as a musician and artist. Jonathan was the only thing missing from that moment. I wished he could have seen it.

  Chapter 68

  JONATHAN

  Laurelin puttered around the kitchen, putting ingredients into two blender jars that were meant to hold me for two days. She put measured portions of vitamins, greens, milk, powdered puke, and dried shit into a healthful grotesquerie of layers that would be in the fridge for my reluctant consumption.

  I didn’t have to think about it. I just had to blend it and choke on it. She’d already taken my blood pressure (one-ten over seventy), drawn blood (a monthly task), and hooked me up to an EKG (looked good). The meds for the week were set
out so I didn’t have to count them. The privilege of money. I could pay someone to keep me from the mundanities of my illness.

  “Where’s he taking you?” I asked.

  “We’re driving up to Monterey,” she replied in a singsong voice. “Donny is staying with Grandma, so it’s kind of a last hurrah before I get huge.”

  “Good for him.”

  “I have everything you need here until Wednesday. Then you follow this list on the fridge to make new. I’d make them for you for the whole ten days, but the ingredients are perishable.”

  “I wish they’d perish,” I said in passing just to make a joke. I was looking at the news on a tablet and was on humor autopilot.

  “Oh stop. Be cheerful.” I looked up at her to see her holding up her finger. “Twenty years ago, you’d be the one who perished. And when you complain, people think you won’t do with you’re supposed to when they’re gone.” She winked and went back to arranging my fridge.

  “Are you trying to tell me something?”

  “Attitude is everything.” More lilting vowels to express something serious. “You missed a few days in your log.” She flicked her wrist at my little blue leather book. “You need to take it with you everywhere. Even if you’re going to a restaurant.”

  I rolled my eyes and immediately felt like an adolescent or worse. I ran through the international news as if the tablet was on fire, trying to not feel over-mothered. I hired her to do this. I couldn’t get mad about it. “Okay,” was all I could get out.

  “What is this?” She took a plastic container out of the crisper and held it at my eye level.

  I looked at it then back at the tablet. “Monica’s Brazilian chimichuri. Her mother was over the other night. The two of them ate it like… I don’t know.” I waved my hand. “They slather it on everything like they’re trying to scald their faces. It’s blowtorch-hot.”

  “Oh, that sounds good.”

  “Does spicy food bother you? With the pregnancy?”

  “Nope.”

  “Take it then.” I scrolled through the financials. “We have two.”

  “Really?” She peeled the top off and took a whiff. “Oh my God, this smells so good.” She put it under my nose, and I pushed her away. “Oh, I forgot. Well, I understand. Donny doesn’t like spicy food either.” She put the container in her bag of medicinal crap.

  “Donny’s three,” I said.

  Laurelin shrugged. “He’s a good boy.” She patted my shoulder. “Like you.”

  I didn’t want to fuck my nurse at all. Not even a little. But I wanted to spank her. Hard.

  I turned back to my tablet and tapped the local news, missed, and hit entertainment, which I couldn’t care less about. But I let it load, and probably because Monica’s name was associated with my account, or the wifi, or because it was the top entertainment story of the minute to people who weren’t married to her, her picture was front and center.

  Her and some swarthy guy. His arm was around her. He was kissing her cheek at a restaurant, and she was smiling, looking at the ceiling. She looked happy and carefree. In her element. And on his face? That was a simple prelude to fucking her. I couldn’t take my eyes off the picture and that look in his eye. His fingertip was on her shoulder as if testing his right to touch her.

  I knew my wife didn’t have cheating in her heart. But I also knew men, and that asshole had her body on his mind. He wanted to fuck her. My wife. Mine. I wanted to take his skin and peel it off him. Rip him apart.

  “Mister Drazen?”

  Laurelin’s voice sounded a million miles away.

  “What?”

  “Are you all right?”

  I tore my face from the screen and looked at her. Her brow was knit, and she was packed to go.

  “I’m fine.”

  “I think I should take your BP again.”

  “No, no. I’m fine. Let me walk you out.” I smiled, but I knew no joy reached my eyes. I hustled her to the front door.

  “Mister Drazen,” she said when we got there, “really, you need to avoid stress.”

  “Stress is part of life. Don’t worry. I’m good.”

  She left. I went upstairs and paced. Looked at my watch. Did some math. I couldn’t keep Monica enclosed. I couldn’t keep men from wanting her. She only got more beautiful every day, and men were disgusting creatures who cared for nothing but the daily mounting pressure in their ball sacks.

  I trusted her. With every cell in my body, I trusted her. But when I thought about how I’d almost lost her, how she hadn’t been happy and I’d just kept letting shit slide, I wondered what would have happened if I hadn’t gone to the studio that day and reasserted myself.

  She could be away. She could travel. Her career was necessary to her happiness, and more than anything, I wanted her to be happy.

  So why did that picture bother me? We’d reestablished ourselves. I trusted her. She needed to do her job and make her art. What was the problem?

  The problem was that we had a disconnect, and that disconnect was me. She’d come back to me fully, but I hadn’t broached my side of the distance. I hadn’t gone to her with an open heart the way she’d come to me.

  That was going to change.

  Chapter 69

  MONICA

  The balcony had room for two, maybe three if everyone liked each other. It overlooked a tiny cobblestone street in Chinatown and onto the tops of the beat-down signs in Cantonese. Manhattan had many of the same structures as Los Angeles. They were straight up from the ground at ninety degrees, had corners, straight walls, windows, and roofs. Some buildings were made well and some were sad. But the whole proportion of the place was different. It couldn’t be absorbed by car; it could only be experienced on foot or bike. Then the flower boxes, cornerstones, and cobbled streets took on their natural life.

  I had no business being on the balcony off the studio, since Omar and Trudy were smoking and I wasn’t about to even try it.

  “It gives me my edge,” Omar said. “Biggest secret in music is how many of us smoke.”

  “The other type of smoke, not such a secret,” Trudy said.

  She was a guitarist and could smoke her brains out for all I cared. From Omar, well, I admitted to being a little disappointed. I took so much care with my vocal chords. I could tell when there was a forest fire in Flintridge based on how my throat felt.

  “Does he do this all the time?” I jerked my head toward the inside, where Hartley had abandoned his drums to throw up last night’s party.

  Trudy smashed her cigarette underfoot and blew a cloud carelessly. It landed in my face, and I resisted the urge to wave my hand in front of me.

  “Constantly,” she said. “But he never pukes. I think it’s a flu or something.”

  “Oh.” I tried to not look more worried than any normal person would. Normal people got the flu and just suffered through it. But I had a husband on immunosuppressants, and a flu could kill him.

  “Quentin’s looking for another drummer.” Omar shrugged. “Or Franco can do it.”

  “Nope,” Trudy said. “He’s down with it too.”

  “What is it? A percussionist’s strain?” I joked.

  “All those guys hang out together. It’s like incest without the sex.”

  I didn’t know what came over me, but the words shot out of my mouth before I’d even thought about the logistics. “I know one. He can be here tomorrow. He has something today. He’s really good.”

  “Do I know him?”

  “He’s from LA originally. So probably not. He’s super-hot in indie circles.”

  “Not that husband of yours, is it?” Omar smiled a half moon of perfect white piano keys. It was the third time he’d mentioned Jonathan that day, as if he was trying to gauge my reactions.

  “The only instrument Jonathan plays is me.”

  “That can be good or bad.”

  “He’s a maestro, trust me.”

  I went inside. I’d wanted to learn from Omar, and he’d taught m
e a few things, but I was starting to feel as if it all came with a price. Maybe that price was simple flirtation and attention or maybe he expected more, but I was getting irritated with his off-color comments and sultry eyeballing.

  Everyone was filing back into the studio. There were fifteen actual musicians. Some kept klatches of preeners and hangers-on. Others traveled alone. Add to that the engineers, press, security, and agents, and the room was as hot as a sweatbox and smelled only ten percent better.

  I couldn’t believe there wasn’t a drummer among us, but it was worth a try. I found Quentin in the middle of eating a slab of crunchy fried fish, surrounded by people I didn’t know.

  “Hey,” I said, trying to slink into the tiny room unobtrusively and failing.

  “Faulkner! Everyone out!” He made shoo-shoo motions with his fingers, and everyone shooed. He closed the door behind them.

  I hoped I wasn’t stepping out of the frying pan with Omar and into the fire with Quentin.

  “Sorry,” he said, rooting around his leather messenger bag. “Not a big deal, but I didn’t know what this was, so I didn’t want to give it to you in front of everyone.” He handed me a long, blue velvet box. “This was at reception with your name on it.”

  “Thank you,” I said, taking it.

  He slung the bag over his shoulder. “I have to find a drummer.”

  “No one in this building can do percussion? It’s a house full of musicians.”

  “You have no idea how hard it is to find a good one.”

  “I kind of do.”

  “Evan Arden’s in the bathroom puking his guts out, and he’s on bass. If I can’t find someone within the hour, we’re all going home for the day.” He made motions to leave but was so slow about it. He glanced at the velvet box then back at me. “Sorry, not trying to be nosy.”

  “Not trying?”

  “Even straight guys like a little sparkle. Come on. Don’t hold out.”