“I love it,” he said. He held it in his hands gently, gingerly.
“It’s also a compass,” I said. I pointed to the hands.
“In case I get lost.” He looked at me, but he wasn’t laughing.
“So you can always find your way back,” I said.
He took my palm. He kissed my fingertips. When a mariachi band started playing, Tobias held out his hand: “Dance with me?”
The restaurant was small, maybe ten tables total—and it was late, past eleven.
He pulled me in close to him. He was wearing a checkered shirt, one I knew he didn’t like, but that I loved and commented on frequently. I knew we were at a cheap taco stand, sharing an entrée and filling up on free chips. I knew we were twenty-nine and maybe too old for this, but in that moment I felt like I was exactly where I needed to be. Tobias was home. It was as simple as that. The rest, I reasoned, would fall into place. Who would worry about money when you had love?
“What are you thinking?” Tobias whispered as he dipped me.
“That we should be in Mexico,” I said. “Tulum, maybe Cabo. Or the Caribbean.”
“Mmm,” Tobias said. “Tell me more.”
“You, me, the island breeze. Midnight swims.”
“And?”
“Bikinis only.”
“Sometimes not even those.”
“We could stay at one of those hotels with big canopy beds that just have curtains for doors.”
“What about bugs?” Tobias asked.
“This is paradise island, baby,” I said. “There are no bugs.”
I felt him stiffen in my arms. For a moment I didn’t get it, what had happened, and then it hit me. The vacation was fictional. He had thought I meant we should go to Mexico for real, we should take a vacation, and in that one comment I’d expressed to him that I knew we wouldn’t. We didn’t have the money; of course we wouldn’t. But he was still buying into the fantasy. The idea of but maybe, perhaps, what if?
I thought about Paul in that moment. I was ashamed I did. I thought about our trip to Portland. How we’d stayed at the Heathman like it was no big deal, eaten out at nice restaurants, and gone to two concerts, just because. We’d been to San Francisco and London, too. It was all so simple, so seamless, and not for the first time, I missed that—the type of partnership where I didn’t feel like the weight of our world was on my shoulders alone.
Two weeks passed, and then two more. Tobias busied himself with setting up the site. He was home all the time, working on his computer. He said he’d just get it up and running and then send out an announcement.
In hindsight, I should have known. Tobias was creative, passionate, extraordinarily talented, but he was missing the link—the thing that hooked that talent to a viable means of income. When he had had the job, and Wolfe before that, there had been structure, order, a system to fall into. He hated the system, but he didn’t understand that every business, no matter how creative, needs one.
The photography business was something I had learned piecemeal from my years of living with him. In some ways I was perhaps more equipped to see Tobias’s career than he was. Most photographers build their portfolio while still assisting, that much I knew. They began to get jobs from under their bosses—the fallout, so to speak. The gigs that were too far to travel or paid too little or were for a publication that was under the radar. Those jobs lead to more independence, which lead to more opportunity—more contacts. And so it went. But it hadn’t for Tobias. Because he had left Wolfe and then worked for someone whose clientele he wasn’t interested in. And now, diving completely into his own work, without a system behind him, was risky, particularly for someone like Tobias, who was so susceptible to the ups and downs of his own internal landscape.
In the beginning of his freelance stint he threw himself in full force, and I admit, however naively, to feeling buoyed by his enthusiasm. I knew better, but that knowing felt like a betrayal of Tobias, of his talent and my love for him. I ignored it. I watched as he spent thousands he didn’t have—that we needed for rent, for the wedding (we had set a date for the spring at a little church in Park Slope we had passed on a walk and liked)—on new camera equipment. I rationalized that he needed to spend money to make money. I pored over his computer with him, looking at city shots he spent his day taking. They were beautiful. Old men and their grandchildren. Waiters at West Village cafés that made the city look like Paris. Graffiti art. He was going to look for work, he said. He was going to go on desk sides and submit to magazines. He knew all the players. It was just a matter of time before he got his first solo shoot. I believed him.
But as the weeks went on, the plan began to morph. It wasn’t about jobs anymore. He didn’t want to take another soul-sucking gig, he said. He couldn’t do it again. He started taking pictures. Constantly. He missed a dinner with Kendra and her boyfriend. He canceled on a drinks night David and the new guy, Mark, had planned. All he did, all day and night long, was shoot.
“When do you think the Web site will be ready?” I asked him weeks later. I had just come home from work. Penguin and Random House publishing houses had merged not too long before and people were getting laid off left and right. I thought my job was safe, for now—they hadn’t quite attacked editorial yet—but it was just a matter of time before they did. I didn’t have my own list, at least not an impressive one, and I knew I’d be a hard sell at a competing publisher at the next level. I’d have to start as an assistant editor all over again, and I was nearly ready for a promotion. I was coming to the end of my twenties, too. And I had saved nothing toward the future I wanted. Not money, not time, not even vacation days. I spent everything hoping one day, what? Something magical would happen? Tobias would hit it big? I wasn’t even sure what he was doing anymore.
“I don’t know,” he said. “I think I need more material.”
“Really?”
I regretted it as soon as I said it. I could feel the attitude in my voice. He gave me a withering look—like I didn’t understand, like I couldn’t. I took him in in his sweatpants, and I thought that maybe he was right—I didn’t get it. I was someone who supported artists as my profession, but I wasn’t one.
“I can help,” I added, trying to override, rectify. “I know artists. I help writers all the time. We could put an ad in The Village Voice, on Twitter—you could do some commercial shoots to supplement.” I snuck that last part in, but he wasn’t even listening.
“I think what I need is an exhibit,” he said. “I went up to Queens today and shot a bunch.” He pivoted his computer so I could see. There were hundreds of photos of the World’s Fair grounds. They were beautiful. I did my usual supportive swoon—“Wow,” “I love this one”—but as he clicked through I started to feel less and less generous. Why couldn’t he have spent the day photographing a wedding? A bar mitzvah? A dog’s birthday party, if it paid? The city was full of people willing to shell out dough for his skills—and I resented that he felt above all that. That I had been at work and he’d been here, thinking of galleries and pictures and not bills.
“What kind of exhibit?” I asked when he was finished.
“You know, a show,” he said. “Somewhere I can showcase my work and invite the bigwigs.”
“Where?” I asked. I had no idea what he meant by bigwigs. Who said if he had a show any of them would even come? Didn’t he already have those contacts anyway? Every next step felt like one to the left. I was beginning to think he didn’t even want clients unless they were Vanity Fair.
“NYU,” he said. “My friend Joseph works in the administrative department at Tisch and said he could put it together.” He sounded defiant.
“Tobias,” I said. “I can’t carry us for much longer.”
“I know,” he grunted. “That’s why I’m working day and night to get this business up and running.”
“Great!” I said. “Fine.” I took my own computer into my lap. I had an edit I needed to finish for my boss. And I wanted a glass of wine. A
nd to take a bath. And to stop talking about this.
“Sound more like you believe in me,” he said under his breath.
I pretended like I hadn’t heard him, and he went in the kitchen to make pasta or a sandwich or something and then went into the bedroom and by the time I finished the edit, he was asleep.
I confessed at work the next day to Kendra that I was stressed about money. I’d covered our rent myself for two months, which was half of my life’s bond savings. I didn’t know if I could go a third.
“You need to lay it out for him,” she said over coffee and doughnuts behind closed doors in her office. Kendra had recently been promoted to full-fledged editor, a title I should have had based on how long I’d been there. But I also couldn’t deny that the situation with Tobias was affecting my productivity. It was ironic: I needed the job more than ever, but I was performing at half mast. It took me three hours to do something that should have taken one. I was distracted and afraid. Yes, fear was behind it all. I was scared all this would come to a head—and then what?
“It’s too much to manage alone,” Kendra continued.
I licked some caramel off my finger. “He’s so sensitive right now,” I said. “He thinks I don’t believe in him.”
Kendra shook her hair out. She had recently let her bangs grow, and she had this punk-rock look now that worked on her. She was still seeing Greg. “Do you?” she asked. “Believe in him?”
It was a question I should have answered automatically. Of course I believed in him. He was the most talented artist I knew. I had been convinced of his talent since the moment I saw his first snap at the UCLA student exhibit. But I also knew I was biased. I loved him. I was invested in a way that couldn’t allow me to be impartial. And I also knew that talent wasn’t enough. I had met and read many talented writers over the course of my nearly four years at Random House who never made it through the gates. Some submissions were spectacular, but we couldn’t publish everything, and more often than not the savvy writer, the celebrity, the one with the Twitter following and well-curated Instagram presence was the one we signed.
I wanted to believe, the way I had, the way I thought Tobias did, that talent would one day win out—that every great manuscript, photo, painting eventually saw the light. But it got harder and harder to hold on to that vision.
“He’s amazingly talented,” I told Kendra. That much I was sure of. “I just don’t know if it’s enough. He thinks the world will fold at his feet, and it just doesn’t work that way.”
She nodded. “If he were taking concrete steps to build a business it would be one thing,” she said. “But I get the feeling he’s just out there playing with his camera. It feels like he’s taking advantage of you.”
The words caused me to plunk down my doughnut. That wasn’t Tobias. He would never wittingly use me in a way that didn’t benefit us both. But she was right about the fact that I needed to talk to him, be real with him. I couldn’t continue on like this—I was hemorrhaging money I didn’t have, and I still had hopes of us getting married in the spring. I still wanted a wedding—as trite and unaware as that sounds. I had blinders on. But isn’t that part of love? Refusing to see the parts that are so dark, so grim, they would send you running? Or is it that you see them and love anyway?
10:57 P.M.
“I HAVE TROUBLE WITH PEOPLE LEAVING,” I say. I feel more vulnerable than I did an hour ago—I think, as I look around at us all pulling at our desserts, that we all feel a little bit softer. Time is closing in on us, and I need to be honest about the things in myself that need to be brought to the surface. “You and then Tobias.” I nod at Robert.
“And me,” Jessica says.
I look at her.
“What?” she says. “I left, too. You think it’s my fault. That I should give you more or I abandoned you or you need too much from me, but that’s not how I see it,” Jessica says.
“How do you see it?” Audrey asks. Her tone is soft, motherly.
“We grew up,” she said. “We weren’t living together anymore. I got married.”
I thought we were done with this when she asked why I’d included her, why she was here, but the pain between Jessica and me runs deep. Probably because the history does, too.
“I know all of that,” I say. “But you act like you don’t care, like our friendship is a nuisance to you. We only see each other when I suggest it. Sometimes I’m afraid that if I stopped calling you, we would never speak again.”
“That’s crazy,” Jessica says, but she doesn’t seem convinced by her own words.
“Is it?”
“I have a baby, okay? My life is different. You never understand that.”
“It was that way before the baby. You’re supposed to be my best friend, but Kendra knows more about what’s going on in my life than you do.”
Jessica blows some air out of her lips, like a low whistle. “You’re incredible,” she says. “You’re never responsible, right? It’s never your fault. People are human, Sabrina! They screw up and they’re not perfect and they’re selfish and sometimes they’re doing the best they can.”
Next to me, Tobias pinches the space between his eyes, at the top ridge of his nose.
“Jess,” I say.
“Fine,” she says. “We’ll just sit here and listen as you trash us and nod and apologize. It’s your dinner, right?”
Her words hit me like a sucker punch. “I’m sorry if I need too much from you,” I say slowly. “But I don’t have a family. My mom is three thousand miles away; I live by myself…” My voice catches and I hate it, hate that I’m so vulnerable here, hate that I can’t seem to just stand up on and move on. Hate that she’s right—that it’s not her responsibility, of course it’s not. She can’t fix it, even if I still keep wanting her here. “And I need you sometimes. And I don’t always want to have to ask. I don’t want to feel like hanging out with me is some kind of chore for you.”
“It’s not,” Jessica says.
“Isn’t it? Did you really want to be here tonight? Did you even want to keep up this birthday tradition?”
Jessica looks at me. For the first time I see how tired she looks. There are dark circles under her eyes, and she looks like she hasn’t slept in days.
“I wanted you to have a good birthday,” she says, which of course is not an answer.
I don’t have the answer either, though.
“There are things I have to do now or my life stops working,” she says. “I know that’s not what you want to hear, it’s just true.”
“I miss you,” I say.
Jessica runs a hand through her hair. “I miss you, too,” she says. “I just don’t always have the energy to do something about it.”
A waiter appears to my side. “Are you finished?” he asks me. He points to the soup of ice cream in front of me.
“Yes,” I say.
“You’re so hard on me,” Jessica says.
“That’s exactly how I feel about you,” I tell her. “You never agree with anything I do.”
“That’s not true,” Jessica says. “I think you’re amazing. Your career, I envy it. I miss having a life like that.”
“But you’re so happy in Connecticut,” I say.
“Am I?” she asks. “You’ve been to visit me three times in as many years. How would you know?”
It’s true, I never make it out there. She never invites me, either, but what came first? My unwillingness to go, or her unwillingness to extend herself?
“I’m sorry,” I say. “I really am. I didn’t…”
“I told you, I don’t blame you. This is just what is right now. I don’t think there is a ton for us to do about it.”
“But what if we just keep drifting apart and never find our way back?”
Jessica sighs. She looks at me, unblinking. “Or what if we do? Can’t we believe in that for a change?”
TWENTY-TWO
“WHY DON’T YOU BORROW OUR CABIN?” Kendra said to me at work. I was compla
ining that the city was feeling claustrophobic lately, but in truth it was our apartment. When Tobias wasn’t out taking photos he was in the chair editing them. Lately I felt disappointed when I’d come home and find him there—which gave me a sinking feeling every time. “My parents never use it. You could just go up there this weekend and clear your head.”
I thought about drinking wine by a fire, locking my phone away, and listening to the wind or trees or whatever nature sounded like—it had been far too long. It was November and the beach was the last time I’d left the city. “That sounds amazing,” I said.
“Great, I’ll bring the keys tomorrow.”
I came home intent on telling Tobias my plan. I thought he’d be happy to have the weekend to himself—and that it would be good for us to spend some time apart.
I walked in the door and the Mambo Kings were playing—salsa music I loved. I could smell the garlic and oil and a mix of spices only Tobias could wield.
I dropped my bag down and tossed my shoes off. His back was to me over the stove, and he immediately turned around, a wide grin on his face.
“My queen,” he said. “Welcome to paradise.” He put his hands on my waist and guided me to the counter, where a blender full of margaritas sat with two waiting salt-rimmed glasses. “We couldn’t get to Mexico, so I brought Mexico to us.” He held out a glass to me.
“Yes, please.”
He filled mine up and then his and then held his glass out to me. “Viva margaritas,” he said.
“To us,” I said.
Instead of taking a sip I hooked a hand into the collar of his T-shirt and pulled him in for a kiss.
He set his drink down and lifted me off the counter stool, winding his hands down my back and tugging me in closer.
“I’m cooking,” he said against my mouth.
“Not anymore.”
It had been almost three weeks since we’d had sex—a record number for us, and one I knew was indicative of something wrong in our relationship. We put a lot of emphasis on sex—or I did. It was good, really good, and when we were in that space together I felt as sure as I ever did about our rightness. When we were out of it I felt fractured, disconnected.
The Dinner List Page 17