The Paper Palace

by Miranda Cowley Heller

  “No.”

  “Hello, Anna, Eleanor,” Jonas’s mum says, lips tightening. She’s always disliked me. “I had no idea you two were here.”

  “I’ve been avoiding the beach,” I say. “It’s like Coney Island this summer.”

  “I got here yesterday,” Anna says.

  Jonas’s mother puts a proprietary arm around the girl she’s been talking to. “This is Gina.”

  Anna puts her hand out to shake, but instead Gina steps forward and gives her a big hug. “I’m so happy to meet you finally,” she says, hugging me next. Behind her back, Anna gives me a look of mock horror that Jonas’s mother catches.

  “I ran into your mother at the A&P,” Jonas’s mother says. “I gather you’re planning a winter wedding.” She says the words as if they are in quotes, making sure I don’t miss her tinge of disdain.

  “Yes,” I say. “We’re thinking ice statues and a chocolate fountain.”

  “And not a moment too soon.”

  “I’m sorry?” I say.

  “Well, let’s face it, none of us are getting any younger.”

  “Elle still has a few weeks left before she becomes a withered crone of thirty,” Anna says, sweet as a punch. “But we take your point. Are any of your boys here?”

  “They’re men now,” Jonas’s mother says, as if she’s explaining something to a dunce. “No climbing on the dunes,” she shouts at some children playing at the bottom of the steep dune.

  “It could collapse on them,” she says to Gina. “I do worry.”

  “How’s Jonas?” I ask her.

  “He’s very well.”

  “He’s awesome,” Gina jumps in. “He got a gallery in Chelsea. We are both totally psyched. And we found this amazing loft. It was a ribbon factory.”

  “What kind of work is he doing these days?” Anna asks.

  I vaguely hear Gina saying something about acrylics and found objects, but my mind refuses to focus. The thought of Jonas living with this Gina person fills me with a jealousy I have no right to feel. Physical, palpable. Jonas belongs to me. It’s all I can do not to kick her in the shins.

  Jonas’s mother looks as if she’s just swallowed a large tasty bird. “We are all absolutely delighted.”

  Every bit of dislike I’ve ever had for her—her lack of generosity, her sanctimony, the way she implied to everyone in the woods, back then, that Jonas would never, ever have been out sailing with me and Conrad that day if I hadn’t pressured him into it—comes roiling to the surface. “She had him wrapped around her little finger,” my mother once overheard her saying. I force myself to think about Peter, my lovely, gallant Englishman. His easy intelligence, his beat-perfect irony, the way he cooks a pork roast with salt-crunchy crackling, his worn leather brogues, the way he tugs on my hair when we make love. I manage a clear smile. “That’s great news. You must be so happy for Jonas.”

  “Yes,” she says. “And for Gina, of course.”

  I see him then, walking in our direction through the throng. He’s carrying a brown-paper grocery bag under one arm. A jumbo pack of hot dog buns teeters out of the top. I watch as he scans the crowd. He finds Gina, her back to him, smiles. Then he sees me. He stops where he stands. We stare at each other across the sand. He shakes his head, more in anger than in sorrow—some combination of pain and disgust, as if he cannot believe what I have done, cannot fathom that I broke the promise I made two years ago as we sat on that broken-down pier, drinking beers, looking out over the Hudson, accepting our fate.

  Jonas’s mother sees him now, his eyes locked on me. She taps Gina on the shoulder. “Jonas is back.”

  Gina’s face lights up as if she has never seen anything so wondrous.

  He comes over to her, bypassing me, gives her a long, deep kiss. “I was looking for you,” he says.

  “Anna.” He hugs her hello, hands his mother the buns. “They only had a jumbo pack.”

  “They’ll all get eaten. No one ever brings enough buns to these things.” She heads over to the food table, hands them to a man cooking linguica and burgers. “Buns!” I hear her announce, as if she has just delivered the Holy Grail.

  “Hi.” Jonas turns to acknowledge me last. His tone is friendly, no trace of what I saw on his face. He smiles at me, composed, benign.

  “Hi,” I say, giving him a what-the-fuck look.

  He puts his arm around Gina’s waist. “Gina, this is Eleanor. Elle and I knew each other when we were kids.”

  “We’ve met,” I say.

  “My mother said none of your gang were up this week.”

  “I know your mother hates it when people disagree with her,” I say, my voice bitchier than I’d intended. “But we’re here. I’ve been here.”

  “Gina and I drove up last weekend. I gather from my mother that you’re planning a winter wedding. She ran into Wallace at the A&P.” His voice is cold.

  “I tried to reach you.”

  Gina looks back and forth between us, as if sensing that she is suddenly on the outside looking in. “Jonas is taking me squid fishing later,” she says.

  “Cool,” Anna says.

  Gina looks dubious. “Fishing for squirming things off a pier at midnight?”

  Anna laughs. “It’s very satisfying. You shine a flashlight into the water, and they swarm. You barely have to move the jig. Like shooting fish in a barrel.”

  “Jonas and I used to go all the time.” I smile at him, trying to break through. “You were obsessed.”

  He doesn’t give an inch, just stands there looking through me.

  “If you love it, I’ll love it.” Gina pulls him into her and kisses him like she owns him.

  “Just don’t get inked,” I say.

  “And marinate them in milk overnight before you grill them,” Anna says.

  “I don’t eat seafood,” Gina says.

  Anna looks at me and Jonas. She hooks her arm through Gina’s. “I’m going to go grab a beer. Come. I’ll introduce you to the only two interesting people here.” She pulls her along before Gina can think of a reason to say no.

  * * *

  —

  The summer after I graduated from high school, Anna and I decided to go for a midtide swim at Higgins. The sea was perfect that day. No mung. No churn. We floated in the ocean, cradled by the rise and fall of the swells, as Anna droned on and on about how totally in love she was with her Dyadic Communication professor.

  “I have literally no idea what that means,” I said.

  “It means I want to fuck my professor.”

  “Dyadic.” I laughed, diving under the water. I came up where I could stand.

  “So, what about you, Miss ‘I’m going to wait until marriage’?” Anna called over to me. “Still a virgin?”

  “Of course,” I lied. “And I never said anything about marriage. I just said I wanted to wait until I fell in love.”

  “Then why do you have birth control pills in your bureau drawer.”

  “Why are you looking in my bureau drawer?”

  “I needed to borrow a pair of underwear. All of mine are dirty.”

  “Gross.”

  “Don’t change the subject.”

  “Whatever. I have them just in case.”

  “Just in case you suddenly fall in love for the first time?”

  “No,” I said. And this, at least, was the truth. I hesitated a breath before saying, “Anyway, I already have.”

  “Have what?”

  “Been in love.”

  “Huh. That’s news. But then, why no sex?”

  “It’s Jonas.”

  Anna looked confused. “Wait. That kid who used to follow you around?”

  I nodded.

  “Okay, that’s a bit pervy. Excellent choice on the no-sex thing.”

  “He grew up. But yeah.”
r />   “So, what happened?”

  Standing there in the familiar sea, looking at my beautiful sister, dark hair against the infinite blue, I thought about telling her everything. It would be such a relief. But instead I said, “His mother sent him to camp in Maine.”

  “That woman is so unpleasant. Every time I see her I feel like shitting on her shoes,” Anna said.

  * * *

  —

  I watch Anna and Gina walk away in search of beer, feeling sick to my stomach. I have never felt anything with Jonas but our unique symbiosis, but I don’t know this man. This Jonas has dead eyes.

  “I had no idea you would be here,” I say.

  He stands there, letting me dangle.

  “Jonas. Don’t do this.”

  He stares at me. Says nothing.

  “I called to tell you, but your number was disconnected. I was planning to call your mom to get it. I’m sorry.”

  “For what?”

  “My mother is a stupid bigmouthed cow. I told her not to say anything to anyone.”

  “It’s not a big deal.” He pulls open a bag of potato chips and shoves a handful into his mouth. Offers me the bag.

  “You have every right to be mad at me.”

  “Please. Don’t worry about it. That’s ancient history.”

  “I saw the look on your face when you saw me.”

  “I didn’t expect to see you here. That’s all.”

  “Don’t lie. I hate it when you lie.”

  “I’m not lying, Elle. I was angry at you for disappearing on me again. It was rude. You called me. You’re the one who said we should be friends. It made me feel like an idiot. But I’m over it. It was a million years ago. I was a stupid kid with a stupid crush.”

  “Wow,” I say, my voice teeth against teeth. “That’s a truly shitty thing to say.”

  “I don’t mean it to be. I’m trying to tell you it’s fine. The past is the past. I’m with Gina now. I’m in love with Gina.”

  “She’s twelve.”

  “Don’t do that,” Jonas says. “It’s beneath you.”

  “She doesn’t even eat fish.”

  * * *

  —

  When the night sky is black, and everyone has gathered close around the warmth of the bonfire, I move away into the darkness. I need to pee. I sit on the uphill slant at the base of the staggering dunes, pull my jeans down to my knees, dig a little hole underneath me. The stream of pee vanishes into the sand. As Anna has always said, peeing on the beach sitting down is even better than peeing in the shower standing up. I pull my pants back on and move two feet to my right, sit down again on safer ground. I can barely see my hands, it’s so dark out here. Moonless dark. Jonas and Gina are huddled together at the far edge of the fire. Their faces glow in the golden-orange flicker. He looks around the gathered circle, scanning, and I know he’s looking for me. He starts to stand, then changes his mind. I watch him stare at the deepening embers, watch his eyebrows knit together because he’s had a thought that bothers him, and I know he is thinking about me. This man who saved me. Who I have hurt. Whose trust I’ve now lost. I promise myself that, somehow, I will find a way to make things right.

  High above the tallest dune, a star appears in the sky, faint at first, then gaining strength until it becomes a brilliant jewel. And yet I know it is death I am seeing. The flickering out. The silent gasp. The sputtering beauty. A desperate flame—massive, transcendent—fighting for its last breath.

  27

  1996. December, New York.

  Dawn comes sooner than it should. I lie naked on top of my duvet, stare out the window of our East Village apartment, listening to the spits and hisses of the radiator. They’re predicting heavy snow and the sky has that breathless, dry-ice blankness, as if the air is taking a pause. It’s my wedding day.

  Peter has spent his last night as a single man at the Carlyle Hotel on Madison Avenue with his best man, a posh friend from Oxford who has always seemed suspicious of me—as if the fact that I am American means I must be a fortune hunter.

  Anna is asleep in the living room. I can hear her soft snuffling. She must have passed out lying on her back. Last night we put on our ancient Lanz nightgowns, the ones Granny Myrtle gave us every year for Christmas until we were too old to appreciate their old-fashioned coziness, drank shots of tequila, and talked so late into the night that I’m going to have hideous purple bags under my eyes. Anna is my maid of honor. She and Jeremy have been staying with Mum, who has been characteristically horrible to him, much to my delight. Jeremy has made it almost impossible for me and Anna to have any time together. He makes her do a full hour of yoga with him every morning after breakfast, and even insisted on coming to my dress fitting. On Wednesday, when Anna and I had plans to go to the Russian Tea Room for a girls’ lunch, he surprised her with matinee tickets to Cats at the Winter Garden—even though Anna hates musicals and the show has been running since 1982. “It’s tiresome,” Mum said when I called her to complain. “But that’s what people from California do when they come here. For some unfathomable reason, watching actors singing on stage dressed as animals makes them think they’re getting culture.”

  My cream silk velvet dress hangs on the closet door, still in its dry-cleaning bag. It is long, with a train, cut skintight against my body, the neckline low enough to reveal just too much. Next to it, on the floor, are the $300 satin pumps Anna insisted I buy. They’re the kind of shoes that will never be worn again—the kind you swear you’ll have dyed black after the wedding, but you never get around to it. Instead, dust will settle into the white—dull them, dim them, and they will live like that for years in the back of your closet, slowly going gray.

  * * *

  —

  Dixon walks me down the aisle, handsome and dapper in a morning coat. My father is still excommunicated, though he’s here at my mother’s insistence, sitting in the family pew next to Jeremy. I refused to bend for Mary the Bitch. As I walk up the aisle to my future life, I smile, thinking about how cruelly she will take her revenge on my father for agreeing to come without her. Peter is waiting for me at the altar, and he smiles back at me across the length of the church, happy and proud. I wonder if he would love me if he could see inside my head—the pettiness, the dirty linen of my thoughts, the terrible things I have done. The church is festooned in lilies and thick white cabbage roses that smell like the perfume counter at Bloomingdale’s. I have a sudden image of Anna holding my hand on the steep up-escalator when I was little. She had taken me to try on new Keds while our mother shopped for Christmas presents. We found Mum in Accessories, trying on a pair of red leather gloves lined in cashmere.

  “Elegant, aren’t they?” she said, and put them back on the table. Later, as we stood on the subway platform waiting for the express train, I saw a flash of red peeking out of her coat pocket. On Christmas morning, she opened a narrow box, tied with a green satin ribbon. It was the red gloves. “From your father,” she said. “How on earth did he know?”

  The organist plays Pachelbel’s Canon, possibly my least favorite piece of music. Peter’s request. When I argued that it was pedestrian, he laughed and told me it was a family tradition and that I sounded like my mother, so I had no choice but to relent. Now, pacing myself down the aisle to its treacle strains, I’m annoyed.

  Peter’s mother sits on the Brit side—a sea of women in ugly hats, tulle-ed and feathered, clutching their men closely to them, lips pinched in disapproval at my skintight dress. As I walk, my train collects strewn rose petals from the marble floor. I search the rows for Jonas, hoping he is not here—I’ve invited his entire family. But the snow is coming down hard now, and the church has dimmed to shadows, a stark Netherlandish gray. I face forward, walk toward Peter, so handsome in his lanky old-world self-confidence. I love him—everything about him. The way, when he is excited, the tips of his ears flush red. The length of his g
ait. The way he steadies me, makes me safe. His long, elegant hands. The way he always gives money to beggars, looks them in the eye with respect. The person he sees when he looks at me. Peter’s best man stands too close beside him. He is right to protect his friend from me, I think as I take Peter’s hand.

  * * *

  —

  It must be very late. Out the window, the sky is coal-black. The snow has stopped. Peter is in the shower. I know this because I can hear the water running from the Plaza Hotel bed where, apparently, I have just regained consciousness. I’m still in my wedding gown. My two feet poke straight up from the mattress in silk pumps, as if a house has fallen on me. I have no idea how I got here. I close my eyes, trying to remember our wedding reception. A blur of colorful hats. Platters of oysters on crushed ice. Peter’s mother in a plum-tweed Chanel suit talking to Jonas’s mother. A tuxedoed waiter handing me a crystal flute of champagne, me throwing it back in one gulp and grabbing another from the tray. Earth, Wind & Fire. Anna and I slow-dancing together, slugging champagne directly from the bottle. Watching my father sneak out the back before the toasts began. “Once a douche, always a douche,” Anna had said.

  * * *

  —

  “Peter?” I call out now.

  “Sec,” he calls back. He emerges from a billow of steam, a plush hotel towel wrapped around his waist. “The prodigal alcoholic returns.” He leaps on top of me and kisses me. “Hi, wife.” He sniffs me. “You smell of baby-sick. Might want to take off those shoes. The splatter.”

  “Oh god.”

  He reaches down and takes them off me, one at a time, throws them in the wastebasket. “You’ll never wear them again, anyway. White satin heels? You’d look like a hooker at Charing Cross.”

  “Did I puke at the party? In front of everyone?”

  “No, no. Just the hotel staff and the limo driver. It took three liveried bellhops to carry you into the elevator.”

  “They carried me?”