The Ramblers

by Aidan Donnelley Rowley

  And there it is.

  A door.

  1:03AM

  “Where are we?”

  Her hands shake. She tries to fit the key in the door and finally manages. When she turns the key, she feels the door budge. She pushes it open, walks through. Henry follows close behind.

  On the other side of the threshold, Clio pauses. Her feet sink into deep, succulent carpet. It is quiet and dark, but in the distance she spies moonlight through drapes, a spiderweb of shadows on the floor. Her eyes are quick to adjust and she can make out certain shapes: two low-profile couches that face each other, something floating in between.

  In the far corner, a table and chairs.

  “Where are we?” she says.

  “Where do you think we are?”

  He punts her question back at her, like a shrink would. This feels strangely like a game. She doesn’t answer him.

  “How about home?” Henry says.

  Home.

  One word and her nausea flares.

  “How about our home?”

  She says nothing. Looks back at the door.

  “When did you do this? When did you put in that door?”

  “You’ve been gone almost a month. Felt like a bloody eternity, really. A lot happened when you were off frolicking in the mountains,” he says, flipping on the light.

  Now she can see more. Yes, couches. Between them, a coffee table, its surface stacked high with books. An ice bucket with a bottle of champagne. In the corner of the room, a glass table glistens with six chairs around it. A trio of windows overlooks West Seventy-Ninth Street. Opposite the windows is an empty bookshelf.

  Clio can’t bring herself to speak, but her feet press forward to explore the place. She walks past the living area and into a kitchen. The countertops are a deep green marble. The tiles of the backsplash are rose gold. She opens the fridge and sees a few rounds of cheese from Murray’s, strawberries. She passes a stacked washer-dryer opposite the kitchen and turns into a small room. There is a window and a desk.

  “Clio, come with me,” he says, and takes her hand. They walk back into the living room and he pulls her to sit with him on one of the couches. “You haven’t said a word. What do you think? I realize it’s a bit on the spare side but we can fill it with all the things we love. Your books about Darwin. A marble bust of E. B. White, if we want one. Fuck it, whatever, just please. Clio. Tell me what you think?”

  What does she think? She can’t think. She can barely see. She can barely breathe. With each passing moment, the room grows blurrier around her. She feels her body tensing, her breath growing shallow. “It’s just that this is . . . a lot.”

  “Yes, I see that, but hear me out. I thought I was one way, Clio, that certain woebegone workaholic way I am. Good or bad or bloody indifferent, I figured it was who I am and that I would never in a million years change, but now I feel myself changing and wanting things and you are the thing I want. I want us to be together, I think . . . I mean I look at you and I even think about becoming a father. Having a family. Jesus, those are words I never thought I would say—”

  Clio’s eyes drift down and then to the ceiling. She feels herself swaying and grabs on to the edge of the couch for support.

  “—and I was pretty bloody certain we were on the same page, but now I’m looking at you and you’re ashen and seem as if you’ve seen a ghost, but I love you, I do. I need you. I love you, Clio. I want a life. With you.”

  Is she hallucinating this? Is this really happening? He’s drunk but also strangely clear. Making no sense. Making perfect sense.

  Clio squints and looks away, at the door through which they walked minutes ago.

  “Clio?” Henry says, shaking her, attempting to snap her back. “What’s come over you? What’s wrong?”

  “Is it hot in here?” she hears herself say, stalling.

  “I don’t think so,” he says. “I can check the thermostat though.” He gets up and stumbles over to the wall. “Oh, bollocks, where is the bloody thing? I built this damn room, I should know.”

  Suddenly, she’s very aware of her body, of its movements, of each strained, staccato breath. Questions ricochet like a pinball inside her: Will I faint? Will I throw up? Do I have a dangerous, life-threatening fever? Will something horrific happen to me before I’m able to get out of here?

  It takes her a moment, as it always does, but now she knows exactly what this is, that this has likely been building all night: another panic attack. There have been too many to count, but not a single one since Henry. Her internal chatter rises rapidly from whisper to roar: Calm down. It’s just another panic attack, Clio. Breathe. Calm down. You’ll be fine. Breathe. But what if this time is different? What if it’s not a panic attack at all, but something grave? What if something is fatally wrong? What if this is a heart attack or an aneurysm? Stop, Clio. You know what this is. Breathe. Believe that you’re fine. Be calm. Pick a neutral spot in the room and focus on it. You’re okay. Just wait it out. But what if this time I’m not okay? You’re okay. Every time you’ve been okay, right? Okay. Breathe. In and out. In and out. Think of still water. Think of blue sky. Happy, floating clouds. You are okay. But what if . . . But this time might be different. I have to . . . I have to . . . escape.

  She jerks up to stand and feels herself teetering. A gossamer veil hangs between her and the room; everything is now muted, filtered, faded. Sweat spills from every inch of her body. Her fingertips and hands and arms tingle and then go completely numb. She struggles to swallow. Her chest tightens, locks. The light pouring in from the street spins and flashes. She squints. Objects in the room shift ominously about. She fears that she’s about to fall. Henry’s face is glazed with horror and alarm, but she can’t think about Henry right now.

  Her sole focus: escape. She must get out—out of this room, out of this hotel, out of this situation. She runs back through the door into the other room. She grabs for her bag and Smith’s heels, and keeps flying out the door. She turns just long enough to see Henry jogging after but stopping outside the room. His eyes blaze with confusion. He says something, words that trail her, echoing in her buzzing ears.

  “What the hell, Clio? What’s wrong with you?”

  She eyes the elevator, but it’s too far and too risky. The fire door is closer and she bolts through it, scurries barefoot down eleven flights.

  By the time she reaches the ground floor, she can barely stand. The pain in her legs is now razor-sharp, stabbing.

  She might just die.

  The motion detectors work, thank God, and the door to the street automatically opens as she barrels toward it. Outside, the cold air stings her cheeks. Wind threatens to blow open her robe, but she manages to hold it closed over her bare body. She steadies herself long enough to step back into the heels and hobbles toward the street, where she comes dangerously close to being hit by a car. She throws up an arm to hail a cab. Mercifully, one is quick to pull over. The driver, a young guy with bleary eyes, turns all the way around and peers worriedly through the divider.

  “Everything okay, miss?” he says, concern plain in his voice.

  “The San Remo, please. Central Park West between Seventy-Fourth and Seventy-Fifth,” Clio says, forcing the words out, scrambling to find the lone Xanax that floats in her purse.

  8:27AM

  “I lied.”

  Oh my God. You scared the living crap out of me, Clio. What are you doing here?” Smith says, perching on the edge of her own bed.

  Clio sits up and rubs her eyes, looks groggily around Smith’s bedroom. She vaguely remembers entering the apartment, eyeing the bed in her own room, but then climbing into bed next to a sleeping Smith, a comfort habit she’s had for years. The events from last night play in a steady, sickening loop in Clio’s head. Did she really run off like that in the middle of the night?

  “Do you even remember texting me last night? You said the hotel has a hidden door? Were you drunk?”

  “Slow down . . . wait . . . oh, my head.
Whisper . . . ,” Clio says. Her body is leaden; the Xanax she popped in the cab knocked her out hard. And then it all comes rushing back. “Henry told me he had a surprise and the surprise was an apartment, Smith. The poor guy. He was wasted and waxed poetic about wanting a life together. And what did I do?”

  “Please tell me you didn’t—” Smith says, shaking her head as if she can’t even bear to hear the rest.

  “I did. I ran for the hills. Shit.”

  “See, I told you this was more than a casual fling,” Smith says. There’s a discernible edge in her voice, a hint of accusation.

  “Apparently, he’s more serious about this than I thought,” Clio says, scanning the room, which is painted a dusty saffron yellow, a color Smith has used around the apartment, one Clio’s come to associate fondly with the last decade-plus of her life. Being in the room now feels strange, different.

  “An apartment? But are you serious about him?” Smith asks.

  “I don’t even know,” Clio says. Clio thinks of the nights in Ecuador, of how she longed for him. Yes. But what good is this knowledge now that the façade she’s erected is falling away? Her calamitous meltdown last night has no doubt changed everything. She saw it on his face, that wincing glimmer of recognition. This woman is unhinged. Soon he’ll have to know the truth. And then she’ll be alone again.

  At first, it’s true, Clio was more than willing to be Henry’s latest flavor. She’d thought it through and decided that it would be good for her to fill some of her time with pleasurable experiences. Surely, going out with an attractive, intelligent and worldly man was healthier than hibernating and crying into her bird books or trolling the grief chat boards she rustled up online. How many times could she read another punctuation-free paragraph saying that getting over the loss of a loved one takes time?

  He wanted to see lots of her and she agreed. He took her to see Madame Butterfly at the Met, to sip Guinness at his favorite city pubs. They had picnics in Central Park and spent a night at the quiet Sheeley House bed and breakfast in the Hudson Valley, rode bikes up to the Cloisters, went to see Shakespeare in the Park’s The Comedy of Errors. Henry even became a regular on her Sunday birding tours, disappearing after to work so she could have her time with Smith.

  To say that it wasn’t the right time for her to jump into anything serious was an understatement, but never did she let herself think this would lead to something lasting. Well, that’s not entirely true. More than once, she’d be sitting in her office at the museum or up at Columbia and she’d catch herself daydreaming, imagining a future with this most unusual man, but then she’d put an end to the nonsense; people like her did not end up with people like him outside of the movies. People like him did not end up with anyone. His whole existence was predicated on change, on hopping around from one hotel to the next, on working feverishly hard at the expense of a personal life. There were women, but they were exquisite, disposable accoutrements to his busy life. Models. Actresses. Socialites. Not ornithologists.

  “He mentioned maybe even having a family,” Clio says quietly, aware of the tremble in her voice. The moment the words are out, she wishes she could retrieve them. This is a delicate topic for Smith.

  “But he’s so old. I mean, he’s almost fifty,” Smith says.

  “I know,” Clio says, looking down. “But he’s youthful. Sometimes, I forget that he’s so much older . . . I’m not sure it matters.”

  “Do you think he actually wants kids? He somehow doesn’t strike me as the playground type, you know.”

  “I have no idea. We’ve never discussed it. We’ve never discussed any of this.” Clio swallows and feels herself bristling at Smith’s comment.

  “And might I remind you that you don’t want to have kids?”

  “I never said that,” Clio says, fixing her gaze on the Picasso lithograph Smith’s parents bought her when she turned thirty. “I mean, not exactly. I said that people like me perhaps shouldn’t have kids. That I need to consider the risks. There’s a difference.”

  Smith straightens a stack of books on the bedside table, puts her hands on her hips and lifts the shades, looks out onto Central Park West. Clio sighs.

  “Listen, don’t be upset. None of this matters anymore, Smith. I went full-on psycho in front of him. You should have seen the poor man’s face. Pure horror. I hightailed it out of there like the room was on fire. So now I’ve gone and wrecked it all. It’s over. He’s a practical man with a reputation to uphold. I’ve unwittingly given him an out. I’m pretty sure he’s going to take it.”

  The retelling brings back the nausea. Mere hours later and it all seems like a harrowing dream. When the cab pulled up downstairs, Clio was alert enough to catch the doorman’s reaction to her frightful state. There she was, arriving at one of the most elite buildings in Manhattan in the dead of the night, pale as a ghost in nothing but a hotel bathrobe and glitter heels, a total loon.

  Like the cabdriver, the doorman asked if she was okay because it was clear she was not, but she breezed past him.

  “God, Clio, why didn’t you wake me up when you came in?”

  “I wanted to, but you have such a big week ahead with the wedding and everything—and you know I’ve been through this before. It’s always a matter of waiting it out. Anyway. Enough about me. I was worried when you left the party so early.”

  “Oh, I’m basically fine,” Smith says, turning back to Clio. “Anyway, as Life Coach Laura would say, I must act as if . . .”

  “Fake it until you make it?” Clio says, quoting a Laura-ism.

  Smith hits Clio with a pillow. “Seriously, I’ve missed you. How was the trip? We barely talked about it last night.”

  “It was good,” Clio says. “Tiring. I’m happy I’m back at sea level. The altitude was killer. Angie hardly noticed, of course. Must be nice to be all of twenty-three.”

  “Well, I’m happy you’re back,” Smith says. “You know I can’t deal when you’re off the grid. The truth is, Sally is driving me mad and I have no one to bitch to but you.”

  “You know, I actually missed your bitching,” Clio says. “I can’t believe the wedding is this weekend. How’s the toast coming?”

  “It’s not,” Smith says, sighing. “Not even a trickle. I’m completely blocked, which is bizarre because you know me, I’m rarely at a loss for words. I’m sure it has to do with Asad somehow, some unconscious resentment that’s tripping me up. Fucker. I’m still having dreams about him.”

  Clio reaches out and touches her friend’s hand. “I’m so sorry, Smith.” Smith pulls her hand away and straightens.

  “Whatever. It is what it is. I’m not going to hide in the corner and cry that my little sister is getting hitched before I am just because I got dumped by the guy I was supposed to marry. Life Coach Laura says envy is poison and I refuse to have any part in it. It sucks, but all of this is old news, Clio, and now you have this grand gesture from Henry and you know what? I’m so thrilled for you. You two will figure out a way to move past last night and it will be great. After everything you’ve been through? Clio, you deserve this.”

  Clio listens to Smith’s words, words laced with the very thing she’s denying—envy. Her adamant, Life Coach Laura–fueled positivity isn’t convincing this time. When Smith says, You deserve this, Clio can’t help but wonder if what she really means is I deserve this. This is meant to happen to me. And both of them would have agreed that Smith was supposed to be the first to make the foray into a more settled life. This, the way their respective lives appear to be unfolding, is no doubt a shock to them both.

  “I’m not sure I agree I deserve this, but next time I lose my mind, I will wake you up,” Clio says, attempting to lighten things.

  “No,” Smith says. “No, no. There will not be a next time. We need to find a way to fix this panic thing.”

  Clio nods, but a familiar resentment builds quietly inside her. Her best friend is a fixer, a tweaker, a professional organizer of other people’s lives, but how many times
does she have to explain to Smith that not everything is a matter of fixing and tweaking? There will most certainly be a next time, and a next time, and a time after that. This is who she is. This is who she’s wired to be. It’s not a matter of having a perfectly arranged closet or talking to a life coach or seeing a therapist or meditating, of ingesting copious amounts of Rumi and kale and green tea. She’s spent years doing her own research and still she’s left without an answer to the one question that’s plagued her since she was a girl, since she knew enough to ask. Am I okay?

  “I just can’t stop thinking about the fact that . . . well, about the fact that I lied to him, for one thing,” Clio says. She doesn’t meet Smith’s eyes.

  “What do you mean, you lied?” Smith asks, tilting her head with interest. Clio has been dreading this and now it’s out in the open. She has always been so big on honesty, on how vital it is. After all those years of her parents lying to her about her mother’s illness, her violent mood swings and sudden disappearances, after all those years of going to bed hungry because her mother had promised to make Clio’s favorite meal but had instead left Clio to discover a bare kitchen and her mother locked in her bedroom, it’s been a soft spot.

  “He still thinks Eloise died of cancer when I was a little girl,” Clio says quietly.

  “What? You still haven’t told him?”

  Clio shakes her head.

  “So he doesn’t know anything about her? I mean, why does he think you’re going home on Wednesday?”

  “I told him my dad sold the house and I’m helping him move.”

  Smith gives her an exasperated look.

  “Smith, stop! I feel guilty enough as it is. I didn’t think I’d ever see him again.”

  And she didn’t. She goes back over it in her head as she has a hundred times before, the day they met in Central Park last May.