by Liska Jacobs
“Jesus,” I say, touching the photograph. I had forgotten my first trip to New York City was actually with Charly.
She’s excited now, tucks her feet and watches me closely. “Remember?” she prompts. “There were fifteen of us. We stayed in a hotel that had kitchenettes.”
“In the lobby we could buy gumballs and press-on tattoos from a vending machine,” I say, still touching the photo.
“Yep.” She smiles and points to the plump, enthusiastic woman standing with us in the photo. “She insisted we call her by her first name, Sandy.”
“Miss Sandy.”
“That’s right,” Charly says, laughing. “Like kindergartners instead of seventh graders. We felt very grown-up by then.”
“Hadn’t we wanted a summer trip to Italy?”
Charly nods. “But we failed to raise the funds.”
“And New York City was the consolation prize. I forgot about that.”
“Look at our clothes,” Charly says, and she leans closer to the page.
I’m starting to remember—that we went to some exhibition, that we were learning about Greek gods and goddesses. Had they removed part of an ancient city and reassembled it in the Met—could that be right?
Charly doesn’t remember, but I can picture myself walking through ancient stone arches, able to reach out and touch them. The signs say “Please Do Not Touch,” but there aren’t any ropes or glass. I can stroke the face of Medusa, tickle a lion’s tongue, his nose slightly rubbed off so he looks friendly—the snakes around Medusa’s head are worn too. She looks like those women in hair commercials, all wild-eyed and free. It’s fuzzy, part memory, part dream. Possibly all imagined.
And there is Miss Sandy leaning toward me, saying, Can you imagine working here? Surrounded by all this history? I think there might be tears in her eyes. And I’m thinking Yes, yes. Only I don’t see history, I see beauty—in the coolness of the marble floors, the stately columns and pillars, the museum staff who come from the restricted-access floors with their flashy suits and funky dresses and jewelry, talking with easy confidence, their voices bouncing off the walls and floors. The art was a footnote, not the main attraction. It was the museum itself, the institution, that hooked me.
“I don’t remember an ancient city,” Charly is telling me. “But oh my God do you remember when the Jenner brothers stuck gum on the boobs of Central Park Alice so it looked like she had two pink gummy nipples? I had a crush on the taller one, but they both liked you. Wasn’t that always the case.” She’s laughing, so I don’t think anything of it. “Poor Miss Sandy,” she’s saying. “And when one of the girls—was it Magda? Or Mimi? Whichever, one of them wandered off to buy an ice cream and got lost and it was absolute chaos finding her.”
I’m surprised Charly can recall all this so clearly. It sounds faintly familiar, but it’s murky, like a film I once saw but can barely remember now. The only thing clear is Miss Sandy, who I remember perfectly. A plump high school art teacher who asked for Diet Coke on the plane ride back, reading Aperture and petting the pictures with longing.
Charly lightly strokes her own image with her forefinger. “We were so young. I almost put this one up online, but I didn’t want to share it. You know?”
“Then it wouldn’t be yours.”
“Exactly.” She looks at me with her dark eyes, crow’s feet just beginning at the corners. She looks so sad suddenly. I take her hand. It’s warm, a little damp, but soft like a child’s.
She looks at our hands, clasped together, one tawny and freckled with a wedding ring, the other willowy and smooth.
“Even your hand is prettier than mine,” she says, and moves away.
When Jared gets home with pizza and beer, we’re in our suits, about to get in the Jacuzzi. He smiles, kisses my cheek, tells me I look wonderful.
“Have you been working out?” he asks. I tell him the most exercise I get is lifting a wineglass to my mouth or opening a prescription bottle. This enthralls him.
He drinks whiskey and smokes a joint on the edge of the Jacuzzi, half in shadow, watching me. Charly is trying to tell us about how the real blue jay is native to the eastern United States, but Jared speaks over her. He tells me some story that implies he’s brilliant at his job.
This too is familiar, and I start to get uneasy. Then Jared’s in the water. He swims around his wife to get to me, to ask if I want to share a joint.
Charly gets out. “I’m tired.” Her voice is snappy.
“Come on,” Jared slurs. “It’s not even midnight.” He puts an arm around me. “Oh!” he says. “Better yet, bring out more drinks.”
I can smell him, a sharp scent of juniper and cedar that isn’t unpleasant but is very strong. His arm is hairy, and I can feel it like a wet Brillo pad against my neck.
“Get it yourself,” she says, and shuts the door with a heavy thump.
In the dark with Charly gone, I feel edgy. Why doesn’t he go after her?
I say good night and move away from him. He hesitates. I can’t see him in the darkness, but there’s splashing and for a moment I hold my breath. Then there’s the thump of the door again and I’m alone. I shiver. The water level is much lower when it’s just one person.
12
Sleeping has become treacherous. In dreams everything converges, what’s real and what’s not. You linger at the beginning of sleep, or maybe it’s the end. Everything’s just about to happen. The lines almost touch—if you imagine hard enough maybe they will. That curve of her hip, how the buttock and thigh almost share a line with that other hip, that other leg—everything bestial. Picasso was a madman.
You hear Sibley’s collar, or maybe it’s the elevator, the one just down the hall from his office. Everything hovers at that moment of anticipation, when you know he will cross that space, flushed and demanding, pull up your dress and enter you—one quick thrust so that you always gasp—only now you are the one who needs it, that sense of urgency, one hand pushing you onto the desk, the other searching for your breast, your throat, your mouth. But wait, wait—you exist in that moment of suspension for as long as you can because it will be too short, it will never be enough. It is gone already.
I jerk awake. It’s like waking up in a bed of molasses, everything sticky with leftover dream. Are my eyes even open? The problem with drinking and pills is that at some point you wake up like this. After the moon sets but before the sun rises, when it’s completely dark. Have I died? Has the world whisked me away? And then it hits you all at once: This is my life.
Back at the hotel I could cry and no one would hear me. But at Jared and Charly’s, with the curtains Robby and I picked out for them as a wedding present hanging above me, and Jared’s snoring vibrating across the hall, I’m trapped. I can’t cry here.
I stumble into the kitchen and gulp down a glass of water as if I’ve never learned to drink from a cup. I get the water everywhere, on my nightgown, the floor, the cat.
In the black morning the chrome kitchen is even more unwelcoming. I take the water to my room. It’s already morning in New York, so I text Eric:
What are you doing?
I pull the sheets up to my chin, waiting.
Nothing.
I want to text something else, but don’t. It would be too pathetic. I wish I hadn’t turned Mary’s scarf in to the hotel’s lost and found. I’d sleep better if I had it. I’d curl up like a child with a binky. But I handed it to the girl at the front desk, told her I found it by the pool, I’m sure the owner is missing it. It pleases me to think Mary considers it lost on the east coast when really it’s on the west coast in a bin with sunglasses, hats, and fanny packs.
The curtains glow softly. There’s a knock at the door.
“I thought I heard you in the kitchen,” Charly says. “Is everything all right?”
She’s wearing an oversized man’s robe. She sits on the end of the bed.
“I think I might still be a little drunk.” I can barely make out her face; the light in the room
is so pale, so delicate.
She’s quiet. I wonder if I spoke out loud or only thought I did. She’s looking around the room, sort of staring off.
“I think I’m going to lose Jared.”
“Oh, stop it.”
“It’s true.” She puts her head in her hands.
I reach out but hesitate.
“You saw the way he was with you last night. And you’re our friend. How do you think he is with all the other girls? The ones at work or the gym? I can’t compete with gym girls.”
I tell her to hush; I say he loves her. “He’s always been that way with me—it doesn’t mean anything.”
“I can’t give him children. We’ve been trying.”
“There’s ways around that now,” I say.
She sits up, her long hair stuck against wet cheeks. “We’re doing another IUI next month. That’s why I shouldn’t be drinking—but I already know it won’t work. None of them have.”
She isn’t facing me, but looking out at the room. My hand is still hanging in midair between us.
“This was supposed to be a nursery.”
The morning is brighter now, as if to prove that this is indeed not a nursery, only a sparsely furnished guest room with my clothes thrown around it.
My mouth is dry. I don’t think she can hear me when I say I’m sorry. It sounds like I’m whispering it to myself.
“We got the Prius for family trips. One of the moms at the school gave me their car seat last summer. What am I supposed to do? I can’t take it out—I won’t take it out. The day I do is the day I give up trying.”
I jump when she makes a half-choked sob. She holds her head in her hand, with a low moan. Then she’s looking up toward the window and I can just make out her face in the soft light now—jaw trembling, brown eyes watery.
I’m about to say something, anything to comfort her but feel so horribly unprepared. Inadequate. She inhales sharply.
“The worst part? We have no one here. I mean, Jared has Robby, but who knows what they talk about. I doubt it’s this kind of stuff. Who do I have? Jane?” She lets out a huff, wipes her nose with the back of her robe sleeve. “You know what she said to me? When they were over for a barbeque, Jane and I were by ourselves in the kitchen and she went to pour me wine and I reminded her I couldn’t drink—we were right in the middle of a cycle—and she said, Are you guys still doing that? She said it just like that, like it was some kind of fad. I haven’t invited them over since. If it wasn’t for your visit I probably wouldn’t have invited them out with us again.”
I laugh lightly. “I’m sure she didn’t mean anything by it. Jane strikes me as a bit out of touch.”
“You sound like Jared now. Don’t be so dramatic, Charlotte, he says.” She pushes herself up. “Why am I telling you this? You’ve been home for five minutes and I’m crying all over you.” She turns in the doorway, the early-morning light making her look squat and soggy in her robe. I can tell she’s still waiting for me to say or do something comforting, and when I don’t she pushes her hands together nervously. “I’m making blueberry pancakes for breakfast,” she finally says. “Be ready to go by nine.”
13
Jane and Robby arrive an hour later, all eagerness and well-slept energy. I get the feeling they’ve been over before for what Charly calls her farmer’s market breakfast. You wouldn’t know she had just been saying how close she was to writing them off; they’re talking excitedly about the trip with Robby, who throws me inclusive looks every so often.
“I can’t wait to get sailing,” Jane says, squeezing her coffee mug. Charly offers her a top up, and they share a look of glee over the pot.
Jared stays in bed until it’s just about time to leave, then surfaces in his pajamas, calling for Charly from the living room couch so he can lie across her lap. “Will you make me a cappuccino?” he asks, pushing his head against her so she pets him. “You make them better than I do.”
We get to the marina late. It’s overcast and the gulls and sea lions are crying, the water like glass. Tom’s waiting at the slip entrance looking smug, wearing expensive sunglasses and a baseball cap.
“Hiya, landlubbers,” he says, and swings the gate wide so we can walk down the dock.
Jane is giddy. She’s the first on the boat, first to exclaim how beautiful it is—and it is gorgeous. Tom gives us the grand tour: fifty-two feet long, handmade in Maine with three cabins, a pullout settee, varnished teak deck, cherrywood trim—and a saloon with not one but two wine coolers.
“Do you like it, Elsa?” Tom asks me.
“You can sail this by yourself?”
He smiles, puts a leg up on the U-shaped seat. “I sailed it down from San Francisco—no island trip, let me tell you. The wind was brutal. At night the fog was so thick you couldn’t tell whether light on land was a fog light or a headlight. But I did it.”
“It sounds so exciting!” Jane exclaims. She and Robby have already chosen the second cabin, a cozy two-person tucked in the port side of the boat, directly opposite the one-person berth I’ll be in.
Jane is looking out at the harbor, the various masts and flags and usual marina litter blocking the horizon. “You’ll teach me how to sail, right?”
Tom laughs, a big august sound. “Sure. Come up to the cockpit with me. I’ll show you all the goods. Jared, you want to cast off?”
“Righto, Captain. Robby can help.”
“What should I do?” I ask.
Tom takes hold of my arm, steering me. “You can be in charge of the booze, Elsa. You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” He has that same look from the other night. Angry and turned on. A little shiver crawls over me. He releases my arm and says casually, “Choose something good. The coolers are stocked.”
I try to smile at him, but those blueberry pancakes did me no favors. I can feel them like one big lump. I’m relieved when Jane calls for him and he turns to go.
Charly is rubbing sunscreen onto her face downstairs.
“I’m feeling a little woozy already,” she says.
“That’s just nerves, I’m excited too.” I pat her arm lightly.
“Don’t be gentle with me, Elsa. I don’t want your pity.” She plops on an oversized hat, one with flaps that tie under her chin. She ties it tight, hands me the sunscreen. “Don’t want to age any quicker, do we?”
I shake my head no, and she ducks back out to the deck.
Robby comes down, hands in his pockets, pretending to inspect the cabins. The rumbling of the engine’s loud, so he has to shout, “Nice piece of craftsmanship!”
“Could you imagine living on one of these things?” I wait for him to mention our phone call. “What a life.”
He comes close so we don’t have to yell over the engine.
“If you like that kind of thing.” He shrugs. “I prefer a real job. These guys that inherit never have any authenticity. They’re all pretense.”
“Dial it back, Robby, we haven’t even left the marina.”
The boat bounces gently off one of the buoys tied to the slip.
“Sorry!” Jane shouts down to us.
I busy myself with looking in Tom’s wine storage. He has a good selection. There’s champagne and prosecco, three or four different kinds of white, not one of them a California chardonnay. The labels are all smooth and exotic, and several still have price stickers—in a foreign currency, of course. I choose a bottle that makes me think of country estates and powdered wigs. The label is in French, but the price sticker is in rupees.
“Elsa.” I can feel Robby looking at me.
“Who wants wine?” I shout from the base of the stairs.
“I do!” Jane says. She’s standing at the wheel, with Tom behind her. Jared is sitting just beside them looking miserable and hungover.
“Jared, hair of the dog?” I yell. He shakes his head no.
Tom smacks him on the back. “The Pepto-Bismol will kick in soon. Then I’ll break out the scotch.”
Jared seems less than convinc
ed. The engine kicks up a notch as we make our way through the harbor.
“I’ll bring up some sparkling water,” I shout to him. I can feel Robby waiting for me. Whatever he wants to say, ignoring him will not prevent it. He’s standing in front of the wineglasses, cupping one in each hand, waiting patiently.
“Robby, what would you like to drink? Wine?” I hold the bottle up.
“Sure,” he says, trying to catch my eye.
My cheeks burn. I think maybe I’m sick. This isn’t a hangover; I’m actually sick. Something serious and old-fashioned, like tuberculosis. God, does that sound nice. I’ll go to the hospital and be diagnosed: This is the reason. It’s because of this. And I’ll lie in a hospital bed looking out a hospital window. Don’t they always have a window looking out onto a garden or a busy street or maybe even an ocean? I’ll watch the clouds and listen to the murmuring between the nurses and doctors, all of them confirming there is something wrong. She’s ill, they’ll say. She needs rest, the room smelling of antiseptic and new carpets. A diagnosis. What a luxury.
“Raising sails,” Tom shouts, and there’s commotion above, a great vibration when the motor shuts off followed by a lurch and thrust forward.
The room spins, the bile threatening to come up.
“Oh Jesus,” I say, and turn for the bathroom. “Where’s the toilet in this place?”
But Robby is there, steadying me as the boat rocks violently. The bile recedes, leaving an acidic aftertaste.
“I’m fine—I just don’t have my sea legs yet.” I try to swat him away but he grips me tighter.
We were together for three years before that wedding in the desert, married less than a year. Even those first years dragged—we took the same route home from UCLA every day, and if there was traffic we’d just sit there, all the way down Wilshire, slowly inching forward. Our whole life together stretched out like that. And that inner ringing beat-beating until I thought I might burst. Funny how what seemed never ending feels like a blip now.