58
Nora. Nora?”
“It’s Phoebe.”
“I want to call you Nora. Do you mind if I call you Nora?” The man asking her this is the physician who sat casually on a barstool an hour ago under recessed lighting and for six thousand dollars a month spoke convincingly into a microphone about the merits of GSK’s latest erectile dysfunction remedy to a roomful of colleagues, sales reps, and managers. He’s buzzed and standing too close to Phoebe in a crowded suite in the same hotel.
The room is restless, quieter than usual, more reps, Phoebe figures, sobered by the new corporate directive for managers: The bar has been raised to stay employed until further notice; the bottom half in sales will be terminated at the end of the year. Phoebe was in the bottom twenty percent and has been since she started out here.
“Why the long face, Nora?” the physician asks, grabs a full champagne flute from a passing tray, replaces Phoebe’s half-empty one.
Attendance tonight is a box Phoebe needs to check and is the least she can do. She’s here because she still hasn’t heard from JW. This conversation with the physician, well-managed, should pay off. She’ll make an impression that will give her an edge over other reps. She may not become his rep, but he can send her to colleagues with large practices and new patients, which will boost her sales numbers, secure her spot in the top half by year’s end.
But he keeps calling her Nora.
All of the physicians here are men. So are most of the GSK managers, about six or so, and the dozen or more GSK sales reps are women. One of them must be Nora. Phoebe peels her name tag from her chest and sticks it on the man’s forehead. “Phoebe Maguire,” she says.
The company men are managers, and all seem to have sticky product in their hair and wear leather necklaces and probably wax their bodies. A few of the sales reps and managers are playing a game, a holdover Phoebe recalls from orientation for new hires. A woman shrieks, then earsplitting laughter. The game they’re playing is charades and becomes something pornographic when one of the reps allows a young man to lift her skirt while her friend pulls the pants of the same guy to his knees. Someone pours champagne on them.
Phoebe’s district manager stands between two tan, waxed men, clutching a champagne flute. He’s watching her with the physician. He insisted she come tonight. She met him once before, when he interviewed her. Big cheeks, twenty pounds overweight. His receding hairline gives way to a massive forehead that makes his green eyes appear even smaller. The manager grilled Phoebe during the interview about why she wanted to go back in the field: Was she doing it for the money or was she committed to the GSK army? Was she mercenary or soldier? He asked these questions with a straight face. The physicians don’t respect him and the reps resent him. Still he tries. He wears a black silk shirt with zippers on it and a black leather necklace and he’s staring at her. She meets his eyes. His expression doesn’t match the mood in the room, or maybe it does. His gaze is distant, somehow lost. When he notices that Phoebe’s staring back, he raises a glass in a cross-suite toast. She does the same.
Phoebe checks her cell: 11:02 P.M.
“Do you have a curfew, Nora?” the physician asks.
She ignores the question. Her manager is suddenly next to her, his chest pressed against her shoulder.
“They took a month longer than they planned, but it was worth it.” The manager is actually trying to impress the physician with talk about work he says he had done on his condo.
“Your rented condo,” Phoebe interjects.
The physician isn’t listening. Despite standing so close to Phoebe’s manager, the physician isn’t hearing a word he’s saying. He lingers instead on Phoebe’s shoes. They’re silver. “Those are something.”
The manager checks his handheld and reads a message that isn’t there.
The wedding band on the physician’s hand is thick silver; despite its prominence, he leers at her. There’s no subtlety in his approach. His right hand is dug deep into his pants pocket until he removes it, brings it to Phoebe’s chin, and gently rubs something from her face.“Got it,” he says. His eyes are set too close together and he has thin lips with a short neck and his stomach pushes against the buttons of his shirt, which is tucked too tight. “Where back east?”
She says Boston and looks away, and the image that comes to mind is from late last spring: Nick carrying Jackson on his shoulders through the community gardens at dusk, their backs to her. The physician says he went to Harvard, and when she hears this, for some reason it breaks the spell and she says, still distant, “I didn’t.”
The physician starts listing colleges and universities in greater Boston, from the most prestigious and highly selective to the less competitive schools until he gets to Boston University, where she stops him by grabbing his forearm. “It was a fun school.”
He says he was surprised it wasn’t BC or some other Jesuit school and asks if she’s Catholic.
“She’s a heathen,” her manager says. “She was pleasant once, too. Warm even,” he confides to the physician.
The physician is wretched with perspiration over his upper lip and on his chin and leans in to Phoebe and says she feels warm, sliding his arm around her waist, squeezing her. “Strong, too.”
The manager says she was a pro back east. “Stellar,” he says.
And then her manager has his hand on the back of her neck. “Out here, not so much,” he says.
She’s up for auction. She is the prized piece of pharma meat tonight. Yet she’s the hunter, too, and the big game in the room, this vile little mole of a man, may be gettable after all. She runs some quick numbers and concludes that she could land this pervert and ten more just like him and all their patients and she’d still be in the bottom third. Which means, come December, she’d be fired. She finishes her champagne and tosses the flute on the floor next to the sectional.
“Let me help.” The physician takes her hand and holds it.
In this moment, two men, strangers to her, feel compelled to place their hands on her and keep them there.
The physician’s breath is warm when he presses his small wet mouth against her ear. “I’ll prescribe it all. Whatever you’re selling. Come to my office twice a month.” He takes her hand and places it over his crotch and holds it there.
There are forty-five strangers in this room, and her eyes find the red and orange impressionistic print on a wall over the desk. The image is fluid and at first is a compressed face winking at her in the din of the sloppy crowd and shrieks of laughter, and a hand clutching her ass too hard turns the benevolent face flattened on the canvas into a demon, red eyes and long teeth, and the blood in its mouth is her own.
• •
When she hits the bend in the freeway, she accelerates. She weaves through traffic. She wants to drive home. She wants to slip off her shoes and pour a glass of South African wine and walk upstairs to Jackson’s room and sit with Nick and listen to their son sleep. She wants to wake up in the room to the sound of his little voice and Nick opening the blinds and letting the soft morning light fill the room and start their day. She wants to apologize to Nick and admit she’s not nearly as in control as she wants to be. She wants to come clean: She doesn’t trust herself.
She’s still driving, and the long thin silhouettes are skinny palms against the thick black sky she knows is choked with smoke from fires and smog, and the bleak dry hillsides are tinder for what’s coming. She feels small and clutches the wheel too tightly and presses down on the gas and it’s her alone on this stretch of asphalt hugging the sea, splitting the mountains and brush. She is dwarfed by the elements. From under the passenger seat she removes Marina’s pink .38. The weight of it sends a chill through her. She laughs to herself. Jesus. Why did she bother asking for this thing? Marina has two more, so she didn’t hesitate when Phoebe mentioned it. She could fire it into the sky and no one would hear. Aim high,
Nora, she thinks to herself.
59
Phoebe opens an Evite and addresses it to Kostya and Marina, Mai and her husband (whose name she still doesn’t know), and two of her coworkers. She checks the calendar and decides on the second Saturday in November. She calls it a holiday season party, then changes it to “just because,” then changes back to a holiday gathering, then types: Bon Voyage. Because that’s really what it is: a going-away party. She emails Marina separately, tells her to invite some friends. She’ll tell Nick the same, to have some of his sweaty friends come by. Why not? She cranks Pandora on a Led Zeppelin station that reminds her of college. There’s no one home: Jackson is at Mai’s, and Nick is at the house in Sunland. She considers going. She might. She could drive out there and surprise him. They could fuck on the air mattress and she could tell him everything: precisely what she’s been doing with JW and why, and that within a month, weeks, days, their lives will be their own, the way they’re meant to be, if not charmed then glistening by the sea, Jackson sleeping in the orange light of spectacular sunsets.
She doesn’t know Metzger’s email address and doesn’t want him in their house, so she won’t mention the party to him, though he’s sure to wander over uninvited.
• •
It’s dusk and she sips her glass of Terra Blanca outside, stares at the fading orange lights lining the wall of the empty pool, the clear message from Nick that she’s not to be trusted, not only with their commitment to each other but also with the well-being of their son. She walks back inside, closes and locks the sliding glass door, crosses the kitchen, and stands at the rock-climbing wall, gazing at her reflection in the blackness of the kitchen door, waiting for it to explode, something to burst through. The only sound is the icemaker churning, dropping cubes into a plastic bin. Everything is still. There are no more pills to take tonight, no messages to send him, questions to ask, demands or false promises, angles to play. All she can do is wait. She can’t take it.
60
Phoebe meets Nick in the driveway on Carousel Court. She messaged him and he told her he got a late start and instead of anger she responded with nonchalance and sympathy. She wrote: You must be exhausted. He ignored it and texted Mallory instead. He’s been collecting rent checks this morning. It’s been days since he saw her at the Sunland house. He texts her too often and is unsure why. She hasn’t been responding. At first she would reply an hour or two later. Then a day. Now she doesn’t respond at all. Nick asks her what the deal is again. He started texting like this when he was drinking. Now it makes no difference whether he’s sober or not. He asks her how he should interpret her silence. Once she responded six hours later: What is your deal? He fired back immediately: No biggie either way. She didn’t respond, which made him insane. He accused her of judging him. Then said she was just some random girl and who the fuck was she to judge him. Then he apologized. Now, this morning, on his way to pick up Phoebe, he is having an entire conversation with her even though she contributes nothing. Somehow it’s cathartic for him.
At the last red light before reaching Carousel Court, he taps out a succession of manic messages: I dig you, ok? That night was epic.
Let’s be friends. Let’s start over.
Disregard everything I’ve said to date and pretend we just met. Hey. This is Nick. Thanks for giving me your number. Wanna grab a smoothie or something? Do you need anything? Some cash maybe? Wanna go shopping? Let me buy you something nice.
My wife is fucked. My kid’s amazing tho, go figure.
Hello? Are you there? What the fuck? Respond. Once. Like common courtesy. K? I thought you were cool. Whatevs.
There is no response from Mallory.
• •
Nick slows the Forester as he approaches the driveway. Phoebe holds a Starbucks tray with two white cups and an iced macchiato she’s sipping through a green straw. Nick passes her, and when he does, he sees Jackson hiding behind her white sundress. They wave. Nick turns the car around and the two of them climb in.
“No, wait, I’ll drive,” she says.
“I got it,” Nick says, but she’s already out of the car and walking around the front to the driver’s side, so he gets out and walks around the back to the passenger side, gets in, and slams the door closed. He’d rather be in the house, showering then sleeping, dreaming about Mallory.
Nick reaches into the backseat and tickles his son, who says through his laughter “Hi, Daddy” in his little voice. Nick glances reflexively at the face of his iPhone. No response from Mallory.
Phoebe drives west, toward the freeway. Her white sunglasses match her dress, and the brightness of the white accentuates her thin, tan legs and loose-fitting sterling bracelets and thick men’s watch on her left wrist.
“We have the whole day,” she says.
“To do what?”
“I want to show you something.”
“There’s nothing I want to see.”
“It’s a surprise.”
She hands him her phone. A video is cued up. It’s a backyard pool with clear blue water and voices and splashing and Jackson is wearing a red bathing suit and kicking and Mai is leading him, backing away a little farther the closer he gets, until she reaches the wall and he reaches her and she scoops him up, and his wet face and blinking eyes find the camera because Phoebe is calling out to him off-screen and Jackson is laughing, swimming.
“She taught him,” Phoebe says.
Nick is moved by the image of his son flailing with purpose in the deep water. He swallows hard and averts his eyes as he hands the phone back to Phoebe. He exhales and the scenery is a blur and colors blend and for an instant he wonders if maybe it’s not as bad as it seems. “Nice watch.”
The watch on her wrist is not the one Phoebe bought for his thirtieth birthday. That one was thick and silver with a black face, not blue, and it was a Movado, not a Tag Heuer, and he sold it for four hundred dollars when they first got out here. It’s his, JW’s, he thinks. If it is, he might take her out to the Sunland house and throw her in the empty pool. It can’t be.
They reach the freeway heading south. Black signs with orange lettering warn about wildfires. The sky is pale blue and stretched thin, wraps around them. Phoebe is in the left lane, trailing a red BMW too close.
“Let me see it,” Nick says, and reaches across her body for her left wrist.
She nudges his arm, which stiffens.
“It’s his?” He grabs her wrist too hard, wrapping his callused hand around the watch. She screams. The BMW slows. Nick curses. She swerves, narrowly avoids the BMW, horns sounding. Nick curses again. His coffee spills.
“Asshole,” she snaps.
Nick has the watch. He studies it. “This is not my watch.”
She’s shaking her head. “I’m trying, okay?”
Jackson is crying out and Phoebe is reaching back, squeezing his leg, telling him everything is okay. She adds that Daddy got scared and that’s why they both yelled.
“Tell me it’s his or I will throw this”—he snatches her phone—“out of the car.” He begins to lower his window.
“It’s his.”
He screams, throws the watch out the window. Jackson wails. Nick pounds the dashboard with a closed fist, then both fists, until he’s unloading a barrage of punches. Exhausted, he drops his head on the hot dash, looks away from Phoebe, sweat burning his eyes.
“You should have left him with Mai,” Nick finally says, exhaling. “You’re a horrible mother.”
At first she says nothing. Her eyes remain straight ahead, both hands gripping the wheel. Then she says distantly, “That’s not true. I’m a good parent.”
“We’re leaving you.”
Phoebe doesn’t seem to hear him. She is talking to herself. “There’s money for groceries. The house needs to be cleaned. It’s coming together. We’re getting there. And the laundry needs to be folded. Mai i
s there if we need her. It’s good. We’re better.”
“When we get home,” Nick says, “I’m packing his things and mine, and we’re driving back to Boston.”
She’s talking to herself about orientation for new hires and her starting salary and a bonus she seems to think will erase their debts, and as she speaks she nods and leans forward in her seat, and instead of easing off the accelerator and coasting a bit she’s gunning it, pumping the brakes, agitated as she talks about leaving behind neighbors in tents, and guns, and staying awake every night waiting for something horrible to happen to them, to Jackson, for the glass to shatter downstairs as they fall victim to their own home invasion because Nick insisted, refused, and she’s stabbing the air in front of her with her right hand and Nick is reaching for his son’s leg now but, too drained to turn around, leans back in his seat and watches the traffic.
“Refused to honor,” she says, and trails off. “There are basic commitments. Expectations.”
“Goddamn, you need help.”
61
The yellow Craftsman in Laguna Beach sits empty. It’s a Tuesday afternoon and no one on the lush wide street, dotted with purples and whites and reds, a few short palms, black wires and the Pacific in the distance, knows the young family in the white Subaru. No one knows that the man in the backseat with the young boy is a father reading him Harry the Dirty Dog for the third time in an attempt to console him or that the thin, pretty mother on her iPhone peering through the living room window is secretly terrified that she’s making the mistake of a lifetime. It’s just another breezy day off the ocean in Orange County.
Finally, the blue Audi pulls up. The agent lets them inside and waits in the living room while Nick carries Jackson, trailing Phoebe, from one sun-filled hardwood room to the next. In the upstairs hallway the floors creak as they walk. Phoebe has her hand wrapped around the dull silver knob on the white bedroom door, waiting to push it open in some grand gesture.
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