“Because I’m weak?”
“And dishonest.”
“Fuck.” I can’t help myself now and begin to bark, “Hell, Lid. I have loved you bravely and completely and if you can’t see that, if you don’t realize, then I’m sorry.”
Lidia is still sitting on the edge of the table facing me across the room. I flip things around, resort to saying that she’s the one who doesn’t understand how fragile love is, how no love lasts, that even Matt and Cara, even a couple as stout and determined as they are can be wedged apart if the circumstance presents itself, and what Lidia needs to concentrate on is not how I disappointed her but my willingness to try again. “Love is about adaptability,” I argue here, say as Cara at lunch the other day. “It’s about necessary adjustments and how willing I am to try.”
“You only want to try, Eric, because I’m already gone. You should try with Gloria.”
“But I don’t love Gloria.”
“Yes, you do. You know you do and that scares you, too. Stop fighting it, Eric.” Lidia gets up and walks past me toward the door. Her face is completely neutral now, nearly to the point of disinterest, which is hurtful in an altogether different way. “Let’s end this,” she says. “Let’s not say anything else tonight.”
I start to reply but catch myself, I know saying anything further would just get Lidia mad, and, turning my shot glass over for dramatic effect, I nod several times as if this will convince me, heave a sigh, tell Lidia, “All right then,” follow her to the door, and say goodnight.
Chapter Seven
In the kitchen, after their guest is gone, Matt helps Cara clean up. She is silent now, and when he asks if she’s okay, she pauses a moment then smiles unconvincingly and turns away.
In bed, he lies beside her, waiting for her to sleep. The house is quiet. The kids have come home and are now asleep. He thinks back to dinner, thinks about the things said and not said, thinks of the way she looked and how she didn’t intend for him to see. She doesn’t drift off as fast as usual tonight, but stirs instead and reaches for his hand. He gives himself a moment to understand. Most times when they make love she is playful, laughs at the exchange, at how good it feels and how ridiculous this thing they do is, how much she enjoys it and will chuckle in the middle before going somewhere else, somewhere inside herself, as he is, warm and marveled. Tonight her reaching for him is different, conveys a want for clarity in their exchange.
He goes to her, follows her lead, lets her kiss him, touch him, and ask to be touched. He does so until she is ready and then he slides on top, slides inside. She is quiet, much more so than usual. He gives her exactly and only what she seems to need, kisses her neck and shoulders and ears softly until he shivers and comes. She clings to him afterward, still silent, still not saying a word. He thinks she is okay, but when he finally moves off, there in the dark, to his side of the bed, he can hear her, catches her as she delivers the soft exhale of someone almost unrecognizable and far from at peace.
Chapter Eight
Gloria works the early shift at Danny’s. The house feels different when she’s not here. I spend the morning trying to compose a scene about my couple in bed coming to terms with what they can’t quite figure out or confess in anything more than sighs and whispers. The scene is hard. I keep thinking of what Lidia said last night, how she accused me of not believing in love and what sort of nonsense? If I didn’t believe, how could I doubt?
I finish writing and come downstairs, go into the kitchen, stand facing the window, and look out at the yard. The day is clear and I have to squint in order to see a trace of cloud. I think once more about Matt and Cara and our conversation at dinner, and feel that I am making progress, that I am on the verge of proving how all couples are brittle and essentially the same; I do not entertain any thoughts of relinquishing my plan, I am determined despite Gloria’s caution, and to prove as much I find my phone and call Matt.
He is replacing the brick in his garden wall, he tells me. Reinforcing what needs repair. Eli has the day off and is helping Matt now. Together they mix the mortar and level each row. On the phone, I thank Matt for dinner and let him know everything with the Zell is progressing nicely, that it won’t be long, and why don’t we meet for drinks soon and go over the details? We decide on Wednesday at five, agree on Bachman’s. I end the call by wishing Matt well.
I make several more calls that afternoon. Everyone on the Zell committee receives a follow-up pitch from me, my endorsement of Matt is confirmed, and what a great favor I would take it as if they could see their way clear to voting for our local prodigy. I’ve been invited to read in New York and fly out the next morning. Although I haven’t published a book in years, there are stores still interested in having me, and my appearance at the Strand draws a nice crowd. I present a chapter from Kilwater where my protagonist is at a party and winds up accidently insulting the wife of a city councilman. Who knew she wasn’t pregnant? How was I supposed to tell? Such a funny scene, right? People at readings always want to be amused.
I go out for drinks afterward with a handful of writers I know in the city. We are a convivial group, we become loud when brought together, joke freely, make light of one another’s work and reviews, both good and bad. I head back to my hotel with one of the writers, a woman I know less than the others. She has just published a collection of stories, claims to have met me twice before but I don’t recall.
Gloria phones as the woman is dressing to leave my hotel. It is one in the morning and I have asked the front desk to get her a cab. I’ve been thinking about Lidia, and Gloria, thinking about their happiness, about my happiness, about getting laid tonight and what it means. I think about conquests and carrying on, about the point of it all, which is a fool’s question really, and then I ask Gloria why she is calling.
I do this in a tender voice, I am not accusing or complaining but hoping her reason is that she’s been missing me even though I refuse to say I’ve been missing her. In the past, during sex, my level of concentration is heightened by the fact that I am fucking someone new in a setting steeped with adventure, where the promiscuity excites me. Tonight, however, I noticed a definite decline in my delivery, my thoughts adrift, and I had to reapply my concentration, request certain verbal commitments from my partner, divert myself from the diversion as it were until the deed was done.
“Are you alone?” Gloria, too, uses a tender voice when she asks. I tell her yes, and this is true, in every way but one. The woman blows me kisses from the door.
“Liar,” Gloria says, and this is also an accurate assessment.
•
My flight out of La Guardia the next day is delayed and I don’t land until late. Gloria is asleep when I get home. I use the bathroom then go into the bedroom and approach the bed. The drapes are parted just slightly and across the bed is a sliver of moon. I see Gloria there in the light, rolled onto her side, her features in profile clear, a sort of three-dimensional silhouette laid out on the white of her pillow, her hair in flow, her left arm atop the sheet, her legs beneath wrapped around another pillow between her knees. It is a mistake, I know, but I am thinking once more about what Lidia said, about who I love and should love, about courage and fear, weakness and strength. I am tired and vulnerable and all these thoughts and deeds have created a train wreck in my head. Such thinking is never constructive and yet I am curious here, too, and wondering how it might feel. I want only to test the waters, am no more sincere than that, a clinical experiment I assure myself as I take two steps closer and tell Gloria I love her. She is sleeping, of course, and can’t hear.
•
The garden in front of Matt’s house has bluebeard shrubs, oleander, and Carolina allspice Cara has planted. The fragrance as I remember fills the area sweetly. Matt and I are having drinks this afternoon, and I imagine him spending his day first running sprints with the boys, as he told me at dinner, then coming home to write, perhaps later sitting out front reading The Heart Is Strange by John Berryman before finding
his keys and driving downtown.
I arrive a few minutes early and grab a table for us outside at Bachman’s. When Matt shows up, he takes the chair across from me, which puts his back to the sun. Voting on the Zell concluded this morning and for this I have a new strategy in mind, the turn of the screw as it will begin now, I suspect, if all continues to go according to plan. I wait until we have our drinks before raising my glass and issuing congratulations. “You’re in,” I say. “You have your slot. I can’t give you an exact date yet.” I explain our need to extend the invitations to the other authors and confirm who is available when and work from there. “But we want you, Matt, for sure.”
I let him thank me, discuss the terms of the commitment, the lecture he will be expected to give beyond his reading. “Maybe on Bishop.” I suggest then say, “Congratulations again, Matt. This is a huge coup and well-deserved. You’ve worked hard for this and I am certain the other committee members will love you once they have a chance to read your work.”
Matt is in midcelebratory glee when my comment freezes his face like one of those old polaroid shots where the subject is captured forever in a half-executed smile, his eyes squinting and head tipped in surprise. “They haven’t read me?”
“Not yet. But they will. This shouldn’t bother you.”
“But how did I get selected then?”
The question is rhetorical and I don’t bother to reply. “The Zell is significant,” I say. “The name will stay with you now. It’s all about getting your foot in the door and taking advantage of the opportunity.” As I tell him this, I see an additional measure of uncertainty cross Matt’s face. I sip my drink then say, “It’s all good. You’re good. I’ve read you and can vouch for your candidacy.”
He thanks me again, less assuredly this time. “I just assumed,” he says.
“It doesn’t matter.” I have him now, I’m sure, this fragile poet, his ego righteous and ambition untilled. “So they haven’t read you. So what if they don’t know you and are giving you a slot as a favor to me? You can still show everyone what a great writer you are when you have your reading. Don’t worry about what people think.”
“People already think something?”
“I mean when word gets out and those who didn’t land a spot are bitter. It’s nothing,” I say. “Let’s just ignore those who think you’re getting preferential treatment. The writers who miss out this year we’ll keep on our list for next. Hopefully we’ll still have funds. Your invitation is long overdue.”
“Mine?”
“Of course. We need to bring in lesser-known writers. It shouldn’t concern you in the least that the others on the panel are unfamiliar with your work.”
Matt rubs at his wrist. An honest fellow, a weakness, he feels compelled to say, “And yet it does concern me.”
“Don’t let it. No one will hold it against you. Not long term.”
“All the same,” Matt in reply.
I have him now and finish with, “It is all the same. Everyone takes what they can get. It’s how the game is played. Opportunity is about leverage, not integrity. You owe it to your work.”
“Even so.”
“What now? You can’t decline.” I give him the word to use, place it there in front of him as I fully expect him to pick up and offer back to me.
“I’m afraid I have to. Decline, that is.” He does this in a way that makes him appear almost relieved. How innocent he is, this scruff mop of a man who still believes in uprightness, who loves his wife so, his pure bent poems that aim to champion love with all the subtlety of a pudgy baritone standing center stage. How easily this went and how much it is sure to piss Cara off.
I feign disappointment and groan, “What’s that? Matt, wait.” I say that I went to a lot of trouble, which is true, covering my bases just in case, and ask him to reconsider. “Let me get the others to read your work and give an honest vote without pressure from me.” I use the words honest and pressure here, say that we can slot him for late winter or spring, give everyone time, but we have to announce the full list soon.
“Maybe next year,” Matt says. “I do appreciate this, though. I’d just prefer to go through normal channels.”
“These are normal channels,” I say. “Everyone we choose has an insider’s endorsement to get things started. Look at past recipients,” I list here all the most famous writers: George Saunders, Aimee Bender, Colm Tóibín, and Roxane Gay.
Matt seems to physically shrink as I present the list. “All of them are deserving and well-read. They don’t need internal endorsements,” he says.
“Nonsense,” I reply. “Everyone needs a little help from their friends.”
“I understand,” he tells me. “I just think, in this circumstance, people expect more from a Zell recipient.”
“So give it to them. Surprise them.” I bring my sunglasses down my nose and say, “People love a good surprise.”
“Maybe next year,” he repeats.
I finish my drink. It’s early in the evening and I’m already motioning our waiter for another. Before coming downtown I considered the possibility of raising Matt’s hopes about the Zell only to inform him that his talents did not meet our standards, and how disappointed would Cara be? The risk in this was creating empathy over the loss of the Zell and pushing Cara and Matt even closer together. Ultimately, I decide to try something else, suspecting as I did that Matt was always fearful and reticent about the Zell, and having gotten the response I want now, I redirect our conversation, I am good at this, at moving seamlessly, serpentine in my narrative.
I suggest Matt speak with Cara if he’s actually going to decline, and he tells me, “Cara will understand.”
“Well, you know her best.” I slide my glasses back up and adjust my chair. “I envy you, Matt,” I say next. “Relationships are tricky, but you and Cara seem solid. Unconditional support is hard to come by. How many years have you been together?”
“Twenty.”
“That’s inspiring,” I continue this way. “Marriage isn’t easy and don’t I know it. After a while relationships are like trying to keep the shine on a rusty fence post. The challenge is in how to best apply the polish.” I laugh at this then say, “Marriage is a gamble, Matt. You work hard at your relationship, don’t you? You do what you can to make Cara happy. It’s all about keeping things fresh, isn’t it? That’s the key, don’t you think?”
Matt finds my statement an odd digression, though relieved to not have me contesting his decision to turn down the Zell, and he answers, “‘Fresh’? Yes, I suppose.”
“Of course it is.” I clap my hands. “At our core, Matt, we’re restless creatures, intolerant of the mundane, excited by what is new. A marriage needs to understand this or it will turn stale and crumble like an old cracker. Now I’m no expert,” I say, “but there are things I’ve learned, and isn’t it possible the trouble we get into when trying to keep a relationship fresh is that we insist on doing everything together when in reality, Matt, when you stop and think about it, we are actually doing our spouse a disservice when we fail to focus on ourselves?”
Matt is puzzled by my statement, considers for a moment before saying, “You lost me.”
I start again and say, ”When you first fell in love with Cara, you did so because she was new and exciting to you. This excitement is what triggers our interest, and from there infatuation turns to love. Doesn’t it then make sense that to sustain a relationship we owe it to our significant others to remain uniquely ourselves, fresh and interesting? And how do we do that, Matt? Certainly not by clinging to the other person, but rather by continuing to develop our own individual identities. How are we supposed to build a relationship if we become dull and predictable and lose sight of what first attracted the other person to us?”
Matt questions my theory and suggests that I am starting from a false premise, that people don’t lose sight of their personal identities when they marry. “Moreover,” he says, “building a relationship creates its ow
n excitement and identity.”
“Sure it does,” I say, “for a time, but to what end? Most relationships are lazy, Matt. They cause us to surrender a part of ourselves to appease the other. It’s no longer about personal identity and more about avoiding conflict. This is where things go south. We compromise our spirit, surrender ourselves without even realizing at first, and then we wonder why our spouse no longer finds us interesting. As a couple,” I say, “we become absorbed into one and stop thinking in terms of who we are. Everything becomes us and we and this is suffocating. It’s individuality that keeps a relationship fresh. Our personal self is the most important thing we can offer our partner. A relationship by definition means disparate entities coming together, so what sort of relationship is it if one or both of the parties stops being who they are?”
Again Matt doubts my claim. “A relationship means coming together, yes, and working together and being together.”
“Sure, sure,” I reply. “But there’s more to you than being one half of a couple. You had a history before you fell in love with Cara and why should that stop now? There’s something to be said for continuing to create a personal journey outside of a marriage in order to keep the relationship fresh.”
Much as at dinner, Matt has now become uncomfortable with my claims, and, feeling a need to defend against all such suggestions, he tells me, “That doesn’t sound right.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s adversative and narcissistic.”
“Because I favor openness and freedom?”
“Because you place the self above all else.”
“But that’s just it, Matt,” I avow, “I don’t. I’m telling you that a fully realized self, that a liberated self, is best suited to create a lasting relationship.”
Matt isn’t convinced, responds with the obvious, “And you’re a living example of that?”
“I’m a clumsy stooge whose current state proves nothing.”
“Then how am I supposed to accept what you’re saying?”
Liars Page 7