A Good Man

by Ani Katz

  * * *

  —

  When I got back to the house, Miriam was waiting for me in the living room. She sat curled up in a corner of the couch, her hands folded in her lap, her feet tucked beneath her, warm light from the table lamp shining in her damp eyes and on the crown of her hair, catching the family diamond on her left ring finger.

  I’m sorry, darling, she said quietly, looking into my face. You’re right.

  She was softer now, gentler, the way I always knew her to be. I moved toward her, folded her into my arms and kissed her, and then we didn’t talk for a long while.

  That night in the kitchen, after Miriam had gone to sleep, I deleted everything. First Ava’s various social media accounts, then the original files for the offending images she’d uploaded to the sugar baby profile—anything that had been saved on her phone or computer.

  At first I went quickly, trying not to absorb any details, but then I paused to look at the main image again, the one I had seen in Dr. Hanover’s office. The pose. The parted lips. The promise to be a bad girl.

  My daughter.

  Acid shot up my throat, and I made it to the downstairs bathroom just in time, my right shin bashing into the toilet base as everything in my stomach was strangled out of me. Afterward, I lay curled on my side with my cheek on the cold tiles and thought of Evie—what had been done to her, what she had done to herself. What I had failed to do for her.

  It was unthinkable that I could ever be so passive again—that I could ever abandon my Ava to the same fate.

  When I was sure I could get up and go on without any more heaving, I returned to my labors. I came to the other photographs, the folders upon folders of my daughter’s portraits. Not selfies; these were no candid, careless snapshots. Each frame had been carefully staged and art-directed, each picture taken by a discerning and trusted hand. There was Ava on the beach, her Giacometti shadow pulling her toward the placid surf. There was Ava lying on her back on a pool float wearing heart-shaped sunglasses. There was Ava grinning as she bit into a burger, her mouth highlighted in red lipstick—whose? There was Ava fingering her dark hair, gazing down in mock modesty to admire the way her pink chiffon slip dress hung from her body. They were images of a girl I’d never met, a girl I did not know. An individual, a separate person.

  I began to delete these photographs as well, cursor hovering over the trash can icon as I scrolled through, each square of life evaporating into a blank at my touch. The same message popped up again and again, each new entreaty rising up faster than I could dismiss it. I clicked again and again, staring at the screen.

  Are you sure you want to delete? This action cannot be undone.

  Are you sure you want to delete?

  Are you sure you want to?

  Are you sure?

  This action cannot be undone.

  III

  Snow is falling. I can see flakes drifting through the hazy amber beacons of the streetlights high above me, soft specks of static falling and falling through the night. The snow falls on my shoulders and hair, dusting me with white as I walk, but somehow I’m still warm and dry. The trees are bare, their feathery black branches like spiderwebs in the orange and lavender sky. Our street is empty and silent, yawningly wide.

  It doesn’t snow like this very often anymore. Not this time of year.

  I come to what I know is our house, although it does not look like our house at all. It is larger than I remember, much taller. A tower. Through an open, lighted window I see my wife, her bare arms hanging down from the sill. She is watching me, holding her breath, keeping herself very still. The window seems impossibly high, like the hatch of an oubliette.

  It’s the same way the window looks from my bed here, that small square of sky so far above me. Early each morning I watch the darkness drain away, waiting until I see the sharp etchings of bare branches revealing themselves, still there.

  My wife is gesturing to me now, jerking her arms, trying to get my attention. Maybe she is calling out to me. She is a shadow, silhouetted by the warm light behind her. I cannot see her face, her eyes, or the movement of her mouth. She touches her throat. And now I see another figure behind her, a wraithlike woman with very long hair. Evie. They are both leaning out the window now, looking down at me, their faces close together.

  Suddenly I know what will happen. I begin to call up to them. I shout at them to stay back, to get inside, to close the window. I plead with them to be careful.

  This time Evie doesn’t jump. She falls. She slips out the window headfirst, her hair streaming like water against the side of the house, pulling her downward. She lands some distance from me, crashing through the hedges, her body shattering into a bloody litter of rock and sea glass, shell and bone. I open my mouth but nothing comes out.

  Then my wife falls, tipping forward over the sill with her hands still at her throat, as if she were gagging, as if the house had vomited her up. She lands in the soft sand at my feet, naked but not bloodied, a cuff of shadow around her broken neck.

  It shouldn’t be too late, I think. I should still be able to save her. I know that if I just gather her up in my arms and carry her back into the safety of the house, she’ll be all right.

  I could have done it. It all could have gone another way.

  I look up and see my daughter standing in the window now. She is facing away from me, turned around to show me the back of her head. My heart seizes, stops. I try to scream to my daughter, but she can’t hear me over the roar of the white-capped waves. I begin to run, racing over the windswept dunes toward the house, but I know it’s no use. I already know she will fall.

  Things move a bit faster now, I’m afraid.

  * * *

  ■ ■ ■

  December in New York City. Strings of yellow lights coat the slender trunks and gnarled branches of the elms on Sixth Avenue. Slow caravans of tourists move through the streets like crowds of pilgrims or refugees, a never-ending crush of bodies streaming up from the bowels of Penn Station and traversing the ten blocks north to the glitchy yet regulated digital fever dream of Times Square. Steam rises from manholes, mingling with the cloying smell of roasted nuts. Profusions of green and garnet holiday coffee cups overflow the corner trash cans. The first early snowfall has melted and refrozen into a brittle skin of soot, concentrated around the curbs and corners where crowds of uncertain pedestrians dawdle and grim-faced Samaritans in shoddy Santa hats ring bells and gesture to rubber cauldrons.

  It is the season for polar bears and white teeth, glitter and cashmere. Billboards show scenes from aspirational family albums: the members of a large, diverse clan pose before their stone manse, uniformed in coordinating tartan and corduroy; newlyweds in fur hats wear herringbone blazers over their holiday long johns as they romp in the snow; children in ski clothes snuggle wolfish hounds the size of horses; leggy, grinning girls link arms in sequins and taffeta, readying themselves for their midnight kisses. There is an unrelenting pressure to purchase, a pressure that masquerades as desire. It whispers, nudges: you too can own the outfit that will make you a sexy new person for the New Year; you too can find the garment that will keep you warmer than you’ve ever been, even though the temperature still hovers in the midforties most days.

  There is an enormous Christmas tree in the lobby of my office building, a twelve-foot Douglas fir frosted with twinkling white lights and silver tinsel, weighed down by the fruit of shiny golden globes. Empty boxes wrapped to resemble gifts cower under the skirt of the low branches. An electric menorah, two of its plastic blue bulbs switched on, crouches all but forgotten on the radiator nearby.

  The tree stays lit at all hours of the day and night. In the past week, I’ve seen it when I leave work around midnight, and again when I return before sunrise. As I come in from the darkened street, past the broad airline-counter reception desk, the empty lobby unfurls before me, its floor like the gleaming lane of
a bowling alley, masonic-style marble inlays marking the path to the elevators, black lacquer and rose. I walk, my legs involuntary, barely conscious of their effort to move as I pass through the card-swipe metal detectors, around the corner into the gilded corral of the elevator bank, then into a waiting carriage to be whooshed upward with a nauseating jolt, to the thirtieth floor.

  Our office spans three floors, renovated to evoke an airy luxury loft. The walls are whitewashed brick, lined with arched windows. Brass light fixtures with Edison bulbs hang over communal desks the size of dinner tables; in the corners and center of each floor are seating areas furnished with black leather Eames chairs and Scandinavian wraparound sofas. Gainsboro gray carpet muffles the murmur of voices and the syncopated birdsong of ringing telephones.

  I have my own office along the western flank of the second floor, my own window that looks across the avenue to a neighboring tower, that gridded tapestry of brick and glass that walls me in. On my weathered oak French panel desk there is a curated arrangement of framed family photographs: the newlyweds on the steps of city hall, five-year-old Ava backstage at a ballet recital, the girls grinning over roadside lobsters out east last summer. The three of us on the beach in our brilliant white shirts, our faces rapturous and smug.

  On the walls hang some choice pieces of Ava’s juvenilia—a watercolor seascape, a Picasso-inspired cubist self-portrait, a primitive I LovE DAdy illustrated by two stick figures, one big and one small, their asterisk hands joined in companionship.

  I always brought Ava in for Take Your Daughter to Work Day, parking her in a corner with poster board, markers, and prints of old ads for her to collage, instructing her to design a campaign for me. At the end of the day, she’d give me her pitch.

  My office, normally very neat, is a mess. My desk is crowded with papers and unwashed coffee mugs liberated from the kitchenette. A few days’ worth of clothing hangs from the coat hooks on the back of the door, and takeout boxes that haven’t made their way into the garbage are stacked beside the leather couch, where I’ve slept three of the past five nights.

  But I’m not in my office right now. I’m one floor below, in the men’s room. The tap of my razor against the sink bowl echoes through the silent tiled corridor of stalls. I gaze at my lathered reflection in the long mirror, pulling the blade over my skin with steady strokes, carefully controlling the slight tremor in my right hand.

  I always loved being in pitch mode, pushing myself through those final frenzied days before the big presentation. It made me feel incredibly powerful to prevail over the base needs of my body in order to meet my deadline and deliver a feat of creative brilliance. I was high on the familiar thrill of sleep deprivation, bolstered by the teeth-clenching rush of coffee and Ritalin and the exquisite frisson of expectation, knowing that today was the day.

  After I shaved, I rode the elevator down to the temporarily vacant twenty-third floor and jogged through the abandoned space, making shark circles around the empty cubicles as the strengthening morning sun began to seep through the windows. I sang to myself, first under my breath, then louder, belting out the merry men’s Anvil Chorus from Verdi’s Il Trovatore at the top of my lungs. So, to work now! Lift up your hammers! On my third lap I punched a laminate partition, exultant.

  Then I went back upstairs, where Carly and Abigail, the exhausted co-queens of my creative team, sat nylon knee to nylon knee on the couch in my office, awaiting my instructions.

  Carly Bloom, neé Moskowitz, was my art director, her third-trimester baby bump an absurd bubble on her childlike body. She’d been adopted from South Korea as an infant by the Moskowitz family of Tenafly, New Jersey, was a graduate of RISD and CalArts. When I’d first met Carly and took in her petite frame and smart-girl glasses, I thought she looked like a pornographer’s idea of an artsy working girl—shy and pretty, just waiting to take off her professional disguise. We worked very well together, Carly and I. She was clever, talented, and excellent at taking direction.

  And Abigail, oh Abigail. My copywriter. She’d escaped from Baton Rouge, leaving the rest of the Landry family to their refinery jobs in Cancer Alley while she attended NYU, nursing her literary aspirations and sleeping first with her teaching assistants, then her professors. She’d told me all this one Thursday evening happy hour, her damp hand clamped on my knee as she licked her lips in a way that someone once must have told her was sexy. Abigail had published a few short stories in literary journals I’d never heard of, had been “almost done” with her first novel for the past two years. She was bottle blond, chubby, desperate to please and impress, the kind of woman who cuts her date’s hair in her kitchen, famished for their love.

  Good morning, ladies, I said in singsong, shrugging myself into the suit jacket I’d hung on the back of my chair. Are we ready?

  They nodded wordlessly, their eyes ringed with shadows.

  Game faces, my dears, I said. Let’s go.

  * * *

  —

  Back in October, when I’d first presented them with my concept, they had been skeptical, listening with their mouths set into unsmiling slots as I expounded excitedly on my vision for the pitch, their own mediocre, rejected ideas spread before us on the conference room table.

  I don’t know, Thomas, Carly said.

  It sounds very . . . dark, Abigail added, careful to choose what she thought was the right word.

  Definitely too dark, Carly agreed. Much too dark for AiOn.

  No, I said, pacing. It’s not too dark. It’s a powerful vision for and about the present moment. It shows what being connected now really looks like.

  But their last campaign was that history of home movies thing with all the pregnant women and dogs, Carly protested. There were babies and puppies in it, for fuck’s sake.

  Exactly, I said. Their last campaign. They’re coming to us for something different. Something memorable, something with social impact.

  It just seems grim, Abigail said. I mean, personally I’m intrigued—I like dark—but I’m not sure people want to be reminded of this shit when they’re thinking about which smartphone to buy.

  I mean, it does do a good job of capturing the zeitgeist, Carly allowed, her small hand resting on the rise of her belly. But I don’t know if the clients will like it.

  Listen, I said, bracing myself against the conference table, leaning over to look into each of their faces. If you two want to make names for yourselves and get ahead in this industry you have to be willing to take risks and be bold. Otherwise there’s no point in even showing up. The world has become more radicalized, and we need to keep up and be more radical ourselves. To be honest, I expected much more from you both. I know you’re capable of doing brilliant things. I know you can be leaders.

  I paused, letting my words sink in. I could tell from the way she tilted her head and lowered her gaze that Abigail was considering it, allowing herself to be convinced. Carly sighed and began to doodle on a piece of scrap paper, the first sign of her eventual surrender.

  Trust me, I told them. It’s going to be great. You’re going to be great.

  In the end, they gave me what I wanted. They always did. And I knew I could rely on them to manage the rest of their subordinates and get things in order with production and the account managers, making sure everyone fell in line.

  Overall, we made a great team. Carly and Abigail worked together much more harmoniously than I had with Brian, who’d been my copywriter before I got promoted to associate creative director. Our partnership had been like a volatile but passionate marriage, our habitual disagreements and long bouts of unresolved tension punctuated by flashes of genius. We’d done some great work together, but ultimately it had been a difficult relationship, impossible to sustain over the long term. Brian was incredibly gifted, but much too sensitive—a tantrum thrower, too quick to perceive criticism where there was none, incapable of rolling with the punches. He was always acting
as though he had something to prove, forever burdened by the oversize chip on his shoulder.

  Things had gotten particularly strained in the last year of our partnership. The tipping point may have been the Citadella cybersecurity print ad. We’d been working late all week, brainstorming for our Friday morning meeting with the associate creative director in charge of the account. The night before, we were still in the weeds, uninspired and dissatisfied. In a conference room, over a cold, half-eaten pizza, Brian and I tried to hash it out, and after hours of dead ends, I finally thought I had something.

  I got it, I said. How about this? We put a cute little girl on some shady-looking block, have her standing in front of an abandoned house, or a boarded-up storefront. You know, make it look like Detroit or New Orleans, somewhere like that.

  As I spoke I began to sketch out the scene, my pen strokes cohering into the outlines of decrepit buildings, the figure of a small child. Brian watched wordlessly, his head down, his arms folded across his chest.

  So she’s out in this scary neighborhood, but she’s surrounded by this magic bubble, I went on, beginning to draw an orb around the girl. She’s safe. The copy can be something about how with Citadella, you’re always safe.

  Brian stared at the drawing for a long moment. He seemed even more pensive than usual, as if he were making up his mind about more than just what was in front of him.

  What do you think? I asked, prodding him. Finally he looked up, looked me in the eye.