by A. J. Finn
For three minutes she sketches, twice lifting her glass to her lips. “Voilà,” she says, presenting the paper to me.
I study it. The likeness is astonishing. “Now that is a nifty trick.”
“Isn’t it?”
“Can you do others?”
“You mean, portraits besides yours? Believe it or not, I can.”
“No, I mean—animals, you know, or still lifes. Lives.”
“I don’t know. I’m mostly interested in people. Same as you.” With a flourish, she scribbles her signature in one corner. “Ta-da. A Jane Russell original.”
I slip the sketch into a kitchen drawer, the one where I keep the good table linens. Otherwise it’d probably get stained.
“Look at all those.” They’re scattered like gems across the table. “What’s that one do?”
“Which one?”
“The pink one. Octagon. No, six-agon.”
“Hexagon.”
“Fine.”
“That’s Inderal. Beta-blocker.”
She squints at it. “That’s for heart attacks.”
“Also for panic attacks. It slows your heart rate.”
“And what’s that one? The little white oval?”
“Aripiprazole. Atypical antipsychotic.”
“That sounds serious.”
“Sounds and is, in some cases. For me it’s just an add-on. Keeps me sane. Makes me fat.”
She nods. “And what’s that one?”
“Imipramine. Tofranil. For depression. Also bed-wetting.”
“You’re a bed wetter?”
“Tonight I might be.” I sip my wine.
“And that one?”
“Temazepam. Sleeping pill. That’s for later.”
She nods. “Are you supposed to be taking any of these with alcohol?”
I swallow. “Nope.”
It’s only as the pills squeeze down my throat that I remember I already took them this morning.
Jane casts her head back, her mouth a fountain of smoke. “Please don’t say checkmate.” She giggles. “My ego can’t take three in a row. Remember that I haven’t played in years.”
“It shows,” I tell her. She snorts, laughs, exposing a trove of silver fillings.
I inspect my prisoners: both rooks, both bishops, a chain gang of pawns. Jane has captured a single pawn and a lonely knight. She sees me looking, swats the knight onto its side. “Horse down,” she says. “Summon the vet.”
“I love horses,” I tell her.
“Look at that. Miracle recovery.” She rights the knight, strokes its marble mane.
I smile, drain the last of my red. She eases more into my glass. I watch her. “I love your earrings, too.”
She fingers one of them, then the other—a little choir of pearls in each ear. “Gift from an old boyfriend,” she says.
“Does Alistair mind you wearing them?”
She thinks about it, then laughs. “I doubt Alistair knows.” She spurs the wheel of her lighter with her thumb, kisses it to a cigarette.
“Knows you’re wearing them or knows who they’re from?”
Jane inhales, arrows smoke to one side. “Either. Both. He can be difficult.” She taps her cigarette against the bowl. “Don’t get me wrong—he’s a good man, and a good father. But he’s controlling.”
“Why’s that?”
“Dr. Fox, are you analyzing me?” she asks. Her voice is light, but her eyes are cool.
“If anything, I’m analyzing your husband.”
She inhales again, frowns. “He’s always been like that. Not very trusting. At least not with me.”
“And why’s that?”
“Oh, I was a wild child,” she says. “Dis-so-lute. That’s the word. That’s his—that’s Alistair’s word, anyway. Bad crowds, bad choices.”
“Until you met Alistair?”
“Even then. It took me a little while to clean myself up.” It couldn’t have taken that long, I think—by the looks of her, she would’ve been early twenties when she became a mother.
Now she shakes her head. “I was with someone else for a time.”
“Who was that?”
A grimace. “Was is right. Not worth mentioning. We’ve all made mistakes.”
I say nothing.
“That ended, anyhow. But my family life is still”—her fingers strum the air—“challenging. That’s the word.”
“Le mot juste.”
“Those French lessons are totally paying off.” She grits her teeth in a grin, cocking the cigarette upward.
I press her. “What makes your family life challenging?”
She exhales. A perfect wreath of smoke wobbles through the air.
“Do it again,” I say, in spite of myself. She does. I’m drunk, I realize.
“You know”—clearing her throat—“it isn’t just one thing. It’s complicated. Alistair is challenging. Families are challenging.”
“But Ethan is a good kid. And I say this as someone who knows a good kid when she sees one,” I add.
She looks me in the eye. “I’m glad you think so. I do, too.” She bats her cigarette on the lip of the bowl again. “You must miss your family.”
“Yes. Terribly. But I talk to them every day.”
She nods. Her eyes are swimming a bit; she must be drunk, too. “It’s not the same as them being here, though, is it?”
“No. Of course not.”
She nods a second time. “So. Anna. You’ll notice I’m not asking what made you this way.”
“Overweight?” I say. “Prematurely gray?” I really am soused.
She sips her wine. “Agoraphobic.”
“Well . . .” If we’re trading confidences, then I suppose: “Trauma. Same as anyone.” I fidget. “It got me depressed. Severely depressed. It isn’t something I like to remember.”
But she’s shaking her head. “No, no, I understand—it’s not my business. And I’m guessing you can’t invite people over for a party. I just think we need to find you some more hobbies. Besides chess and your black-and-white movies.”
“And espionage.”
“And espionage.”
I think about it. “I used to take photographs.”
“Looks as though you still do.”
That deserves a smirk. “Fair enough. But I mean outdoor photography. I enjoyed it.”
“Sort of Humans of New York stuff?”
“More like nature photography.”
“In New York City?”
“In New England. We used to go there sometimes.”
Jane turns to the window. “Look at that,” she says, pointing west, and I do: a pulpy sunset, the dregs of dusk, buildings paper-cut against the glow. A bird circles nearby. “That’s nature, isn’t it?”
“Technically. Some of it. But I mean—”
“The world is a beautiful place,” she insists, and she’s serious; her gaze is even, her voice level. Her eyes catch mine, hold them. “Don’t forget that.” She reclines, mashing her cigarette into the hollow of the bowl. “And don’t miss it.”
I fish my phone from my pocket, aim it at the glass, snap a shot. I look at Jane.
“Attagirl,” she growls.
19
I pour her into the front hall a little past six. “I’ve got very important things to do,” she informs me.
“So do I,” I reply.
Two and a half hours. When did I last speak to someone, anyone, for two and a half hours? I cast my mind back, like a fishing line, across months, across seasons. Nothing. No one. Not since my first meeting with Dr. Fielding, long ago in midwinter—and even then I could only talk for so long; my windpipe was still damaged.
I feel young again, almost giddy. Maybe it’s the wine, but I suspect not. Dear diary, today I made a friend.
Later that evening, I’m drowsing through Rebecca when the buzzer rings.
I shed my blanket, straggle to the door. “Why don’t you go?” Judith Anderson sneers behind me. “Why don’t you leave Mander
ley?”
I check the intercom monitor. A tall man, broad-shouldered and slim-hipped, with a bold widow’s peak. It takes me a moment—I’m used to seeing him in living color—but then I recognize Alistair Russell.
“Now what might you be after?” I say, or think. I think I say it. Definitely still drunk. I shouldn’t have popped those pills before, either.
I press the buzzer. The latch clacks; the door groans; I wait for it to shut.
When I open the hall door, he’s standing there, pale and luminous in the dark. Smiling. Strong teeth bolting from strong gums. Clear eyes, crow’s feet raking the edges.
“Alistair Russell,” he says. “We live in two-oh-seven, across the park.”
“Come in.” I extend a hand. “I’m Anna Fox.”
He waves away my hand, stays put.
“I really don’t want to intrude—and I’m sorry to disturb you in the middle of something. Movie night?”
I nod.
He smiles again, bright as a Christmas storefront. “I just wanted to know if you’d had any visitors this evening?”
I frown. Before I can answer, an explosion booms behind me—the shipwreck scene. “Ship ashore!” the coastliners wail. “Everybody down to the bay!” Much hubbub.
I return to the sofa, pause the film. When I face him again, Alistair has taken a step into the room. Bathed in white light, shadows pooled in the hollows of his cheeks, he looks like a cadaver. Behind him the door yawns in the wall, a dark mouth.
“Would you mind closing that?” He does so. “Thanks,” I say, and the word slides off my tongue: I’m slurring.
“Have I caught you at a bad time?”
“No, it’s fine. Can I get you a drink?”
“Oh, thanks, I’m all right.”
“I meant water,” I clarify.
He shakes his head politely. “Have you had any visitors tonight?” he repeats.
Well, Jane warned me. He doesn’t look like the controlling type, all beady eyes and thin lips; he’s more a jovial lion-in-autumn sort, with his peppery beard, his hairline in rapid retreat. I imagine him and Ed getting on, laddishly, hail-fellow-well-mettishly, slinging back whiskey and swapping war stories. But appearances, et cetera.
It’s none of his business, of course. Still, I don’t want to look defensive. “I’ve been alone all night,” I tell him. “I’m in the middle of a movie marathon.”
“What’s that?”
“Rebecca. One of my favorites. Are you—”
Then I see that he’s looking past me, dark brow furrowed. I turn.
The chess set.
I’ve filed the glasses neatly in the dishwasher, scrubbed the bowl in the sink, but the chessboard is still there, littered with the living and the dead, Jane’s fallen king rolled to one side.
I turn back to Alistair.
“Oh, that. My tenant likes to play chess,” I explain. Casual.
He looks at me, squints. I can’t tell what he’s thinking. Usually this isn’t a challenge for me, not after sixteen years spent living in other people’s heads; but perhaps I’m out of practice. Or else it’s the drink. And the drugs.
“Do you play?”
He doesn’t answer for a moment. “Not in a long time,” he says. “Is it just you and your tenant here?”
“No, I—yes. I’m separated from my husband. Our daughter is with him.”
“Well.” He throws one last look at the chess set, at the television; then he moves toward the door. “I appreciate your time. Sorry to bother you.”
“Of course,” I say as he steps into the hall. “And please thank your wife for the candle.”
He pivots, looks at me.
“Ethan brought it over.”
“When was that?” he asks.
“A few days ago. Sunday.” Wait—what day is today? “Or Saturday.” I feel annoyed; why should he care when it was? “Does it matter?”
He pauses, his mouth ajar. Then he flashes an absent smile and leaves without another word.
Before I tilt myself into bed, I peer through the window at number 207. There they are, the family Russell, collected in the parlor: Jane and Ethan on the sofa, Alistair seated in an armchair across from them, speaking intently. A good man and a good father.
Who knows what goes on in a family? I learned this as a grad student. “You can spend years with a patient and still they’ll surprise you,” Wesley told me after we’d shaken hands for the first time, his fingers yellow with nicotine.
“How so?” I asked.
He settled himself behind his desk, clawed his hair back. “You can hear someone’s secrets and their fears and their wants, but remember that these exist alongside other people’s secrets and fears, people living in the same rooms. You’ve heard that line about all happy families being the same?”
“War and Peace,” I said.
“Anna Karenina, but that’s not the point. The point is, it’s untrue. No family, happy or unhappy, is quite like any other. Tolstoy was chock-full o’ shit. Remember that.”
I remember it now as I gently thumb the focusing ring, as I frame a photo. A family portrait.
But then I set the camera down.
Wednesday, November 3
20
I wake with Wesley in my head.
Wesley and a hard-earned hangover. I wade my way down to the study, as if through a fog, then run into the bathroom and vomit. Heavenly Rapture.
As I’ve discovered, I throw up with great accuracy. I could go pro, Ed says. One flush and the mess slides away; I rinse my mouth, pat some color into my cheeks, return to the study.
Across the park, the Russells’ windows are empty, their rooms dim. I stare at the house; it stares back. I find I miss them.
I look south, where a beat-up taxi drags itself down the street; a woman strides in its wake, coffee cup in hand, goldendoodle on a leash. I check the clock on my phone: 10:28. How am I up this early?
Right: I forgot my temazepam. Well, I keeled over before I could remember it. It keeps me unconscious, weighs me down like a rock.
And now last night swirls in my brain, strobe-light dazzly, like the carousel from Strangers on a Train. Did that even happen? Yes: We uncorked Jane’s wine; we talked boats; we wolfed chocolate; I took a photo; we discussed our families; I arranged my pills across the table; we drank some more. Not in that order.
Three bottles of wine—or was it four? Even so, I can stomach more, have stomached more. “The pills,” I say, the way a detective cries “Eureka!”—my dosage. I double-dosed yesterday, I remember. Must be the pills. “I bet those’ll knock you on your behind,” Jane giggled after I’d downed the lot, chased them with a slug of wine.
My head is quaking; my hands are shaking. I find a travel-size tube of Advil hidden in the back of my desk drawer, toss three capsules down my throat. The expiration date came and went nine months ago. Children have been conceived and born in that time, I reflect. Whole lives created.
I swallow a fourth, just in case.
And then . . . What then? Yes: Then Alistair arrived, asking after his wife.
Motion beyond the window. I look up. It’s Dr. Miller, leaving the house for work. “See you at three fifteen,” I tell him. “Don’t be late.”
Don’t be late—that was Wesley’s golden rule. “For some people, this is the most important fifty minutes of their week,” he would remind me. “So for Christ’s sake, whatever else you do or fail to do, don’t be late.”
Wesley Brilliant. It’s been three months since I checked up. I grip the mouse and visit Google. The cursor flashes in the search field like a pulse.
He still occupies the same endowed adjunct chair, I see; he’s still publishing articles in the Times and assorted industry journals. And he’s still in practice, of course, although I recall that the office moved to Yorkville over the summer. I say “the office,” but really it would’ve been just Wesley and his receptionist, Phoebe, and her Square card reader. And that Eames lounge chair. He adores his Eames.
That Eames but not much else. Wesley never married; his lectureship was his love, his patients his children. “Don’t you go feeling sorry for poor Dr. Brill, Fox,” he warned me. I remember it perfectly: Central Park, swans with their question-mark necks, high noon beyond the lacy elms. He’d just asked me to join him as junior partner in the practice. “My life is too full,” he said. “That’s why I need you, or someone like you. There are more children we can help together.”
He was, as ever, right.
I click on Google Images. The search yields a small gallery of photographs, none especially recent, none especially flattering. “I don’t photograph well,” he once observed, uncomplaining, a roily halo of cigar smoke churning overhead, his fingernails stained and split.
“You don’t,” I agreed.
He hitched one bristly brow. “True or false: You’re this tough on your husband.”
“Not strictly true.”
He snorted. “Something can’t be ‘strictly true,’” he said. “It’s either true or it isn’t. It’s either real or it’s not.”
“Quite true,” I answered.
21
“Guess who,” Ed says.
I shift in my chair. “That’s my line.”
“You sound like hell, slugger.”
“Sound and feel.”
“Are you sick?”
“I was,” I reply. I shouldn’t tell him about last night, I know, but I’m too weak. And I want to be honest with Ed. He deserves that.
He’s displeased. “You can’t do that, Anna. Not on medication.”
“I know.” Already I regret having said anything.
“But really.”
“I know, I said.”
When he speaks again, his voice is softer. “You’ve had a lot of visitors lately,” he says. “A lot of stimulation.” He pauses. “Maybe these people across the park—”
“The Russells.”
“—maybe they can leave you alone for a little while.”
“As long as I don’t go fainting outside, I’m sure they will.”
“You’re none of their business.” And they’re none of yours, I bet he’s thinking.