Come With Me

by Helen Schulman

  The first time she’d married, her ex was at the end of high school. Her mother got that one annulled real quick. The second time she married him was out in Durham, after college, and Phillip and the gang had traveled all that way to stand by her. It was in a church, with a big white dress, and seven bridesmaids. That was the one that was supposed to stick.

  When Phillip finally sat down, she’d been drinking Hitachino Nest Japanese Classic Ale after her first few cosmopolitans had gotten her lit and kept sending her to the ladies’ room to pee. But then she’d eaten her ribs and a bunch of the other snacks Phillip had ordered for them, and now she was steadier, just tipsy enough to feel flirty and bold.

  “Well, now, Cindy,” said Phillip, and he leaned in and looked at her with his warm brown eyes, like the inside of M&M’s when they got melty. “I was afraid that if you were there in the audience at the ceremony and the reverend said, ‘Anyone present know why these two should not be joined together in holy matrimony,’ I wouldn’t have been able to hold my peace.”

  She’d laughed then. She threw back her head and showed off her throat.

  “What about the second time around, Philly?” Cindy said. “You and Melinda? How’s that working out for you?”

  “I won’t lie to you,” Phillip said, slowly. “The marriage’s gone bad, Cin. The boys are spoiled. If I were to tell the truth”—he looked her in the eyes again, those damn brown eyes of his, plain and kind, weirdly gooey—“and I could never not tell the truth to you. I knew it was a mistake at the start.”

  “Oh, Philly,” Cindy said, and she patted his hand. She legitimately felt bad for him. “Then why the hell did you go through with it?”

  He curled his fingers around hers, before she could withdraw her own hand and hide it in her lap.

  “Melinda was pregnant. I wanted kids.” He picked up her beer with his other hand. “Do you mind if I have some? Cotton mouth,” said Phillip.

  “No, sure,” said Cindy. “Take it, take it all. I’ve had enough. Take it, hon.”

  He took a deep sip out of her glass, which was still frosty. She loved when they served beer in frozen mugs.

  “I understand wanting a family,” said Cindy. “Nobody wanted a baby girl more than I did. Lily’s the reason I stayed so long, you know, in my previous situation.”

  She picked up the glass now and took a sip herself.

  “Love that baby girl,” said Cindy.

  “You should, a pretty girl like that. She looks just like you.”

  Lily was pretty. Cindy took pride in her prettiness. She was happy for the comparison. She liked it when people said that Lily resembled her.

  “I can understand getting married to have a family,” Cindy repeated herself.

  “Well, that sure is nice of you,” said Phillip. “So maybe you can understand this part, too.”

  It was a statement, but he said it like a question.

  Cindy nodded. She was ready to be understanding. Plus, she was curious.

  “The girl I’d loved all those years wasn’t ever available,” he said, looking into her eyes seriously now. “I’d given up on hope.”

  That’s when she’d texted Lily: Phillip and I are gonna go grab some dinner

  That next morning, Cindy also gave up on hope. She woke in the model apartment next to Phillip, in the great big king-size bed, with the fancy sheets she’d chosen herself, looking out the floor-to-ceiling window at the entire Dallas Arts District and watched the day break and the lights start to go on in all the surrounding buildings. While the sun rose, streaking the horizon orange and pink, she wondered how long it would take for it to go up high into the sky, high enough to shine its thick beam of white-hot sunlight right onto the very window she was looking out of, and what would make that light bend and boomerang back down onto the Nasher Art Museum across the way and through those special skylights, and begin to burn the fragile and now hurting, maybe even ruined, art inside. It was a million-dollar view.

  Phillip was sleeping with his back to her. She could see some hairs on his shoulders, the muddy mix of acne scars and freckles beneath them. She now knew that below the soft lilac duvet, sandwiched between the world’s softest sheets, top and bottom, Phillip’s skin was white like a baby’s right where his trunks should have been. If they’d only gone down to the lobby mezzanine last night, he could have worn some (there was a dresser full of extras in the locker room), and she the high-neck tankini that she kept at the office because she loved to take a refreshing dip once in a while, and they could have camped out by the eighty-foot pool, swum, lounged in the hot tub, and dozed on the chaise longues. Right now, in fact, as the sun rose higher and higher, they could be enjoying the Museum Tower’s exceptional amenities like hand-squeezed orange juice and coffee brought by waiter service, instead of being upstairs in bed having done what they’d done. Last night, Cindy learned a lot of things, like below the outline of his trunks, Phillip was as freckled and pocked as he was above the waist, kind of like a Twinkie, what was down there in the middle—which was still snowy and unmarred from the sun—seemed young and pure and innocent. Except it wasn’t.

  Finally, after all those years of him wanting her, Cindy had slept with him. But instead of waking up full of hope, realizing that they were truly meant to be, and looking forward to confiding in all their mutual friends that she’d had her own private “aha” moment the minute she’d stepped off that elevator at Five Sixty, with Phillip waiting there for her and all, and him saying, “Now, Cin, don’t be scared”; instead of daydreaming about how she’d go out for coffee with Melissa as they strategized the melding now of her and Phillip’s two families; she knew better.

  It hadn’t exactly been a revenge fuck, but it had been close to it. Cindy had been his mountain to climb, and he’d climbed it, all right. He’d gotten directly on top of her and pushed in and pulled her hair and covered her mouth with his hand when she’d gasped, and then he’d fucked the shit out of her. “I always wanted to fuck the shit out of you,” he said. “Now, shut up and let me do it.”

  She shut up then. And she shut her eyes. In her head, she was hiking out by Tomales Bay, her ex at her side, carrying little baby Lily in the forest-green baby backpack that some of their friends back home had sent as a baby gift. The water was blue and the sky was gray. Later they would stop for oysters at one of the stands and picnic tables that lined the Peninsula. You could shuck them yourself and drink great cheap Chardonnay that you’d picked up at the grocery store. Her ex had the most beautiful eyes. Her daughter had inherited them. He was a fucking rat-bastard prick, but he’d never done anything like Phillip just had.

  Cindy looked at Phillip’s shoulders, they were moving gently with his breath. He was still sleeping. She carefully swung her legs over the side of the bed, found her dress on the floor, and slipped it over her head. She got down on her knees on the rug and looked for her panties, but she found only her shoes. She held them in her hands as she padded softly around the room, taking her purse off the bedside table—her side—and looking around the floor and where the drapes met it, the chrome and lavender velvet love seat by the window. She couldn’t find her underpants. Quiet as a cat, she walked out to the foyer, glad that each apartment had its own elevator access, and rang. The elevator door opened, and she entered it.

  It was still early. Most of the penthouses had not sold yet. So, Cindy used the passkey she always kept in her purse and pressed the button to PH, another model apartment that she’d helped design. This one was traditional, and it was stereotypically gorgeous, but traditional wasn’t Cindy’s thing, which is why she’d picked the modern one for last night. Stepping out of the elevator, she headed straight for the bathroom. She hung her dress off the gold-plated hook she’d picked out. She stepped into the marble shower and unwrapped the fancy decorative soap that no one was ever expected to use. The hot water felt good on her face and neck and she let it run down her hair, even though it would necessitate another blowout. She rubbed the soap rough and har
d under her arms and between her legs.

  The shower took fifteen minutes. Cindy used the fluffy white towels to wrap up her hair and powder-puff the landing strip of her bush. She opened her purse, pulled out her lipstick, and even though her hands were trembling, she was able to apply it to her lips and cheeks for blush. She took out her comb and combed out her still-wet hair. Slicked back that way, it looked shiny and straight by design, like she’d gelled it on purpose. Then she slipped the dress back on—she was forty-two, and sixteen and a half years ago she’d had a baby, but her boobs were still high enough that she could wear whatever she wanted and did not need a bra. She tidied up the bathroom—except for the soap, no one could possibly notice, so she rewrapped it in its elegant wrapper and put it in her purse. Then she slipped her feet into her pretty new shoes and exited the bathroom.

  In the entry foyer, she pressed for the elevator and held her breath, but luck prevailed, the elevator and the concierge’s desk were both empty. She walked straight down the hall to her office. There was a wrap she kept on the back of her desk chair; sometimes with the AC cranked it felt like a meat locker in there. It was a pink pashmina, and she draped it around her so that if anyone entered the office and she were sitting behind her desk they wouldn’t notice that she was wearing the same dress as the day before. Then she turned on her computer and started answering emails.

  Phillip had not written to her. Maybe he was still asleep. Maybe he had already gone home and crawled back into bed with Melinda. Maybe, like she had, Phillip had gone straight to work. With any luck, he had died in a car accident.

  Lily had texted several million times. where r uuuuuu?

  Cindy wrote back: stayed out so late i went straight to work

  She fleetingly thought about calling, but by now Lily was on her way to school, and they weren’t allowed to use their phones during the day or they’d get suspended. Besides, what would she say?

  Business first, thought Cindy. She loaded up Excel. She had a budget to write.

  After a while, Cindy noticed that her hands were still trembling, even as she typed. Lack of sleep, she said to herself. I must be hungry. She picked up her phone and called the Tenants Lounge.

  “Joe,” she said, “Cindy here. Any goodies left over up there this morning?” There were always more croissants and mini jam jars than customers.

  He said, “Sure, Cindy, and we’ve got some fruit and coffee, too, would you like me to bring you up a tray?”

  “Well, aren’t you a gentleman,” she said.

  She made sure she was on the phone to nobody when fifteen minutes later he knocked on her glass door. She waved him in with a big smile, then made a castanet-like chatterbox hand signal so he’d realize she couldn’t talk.

  Joe was cute and foreign, the other workers called him José, but he’d asked her to call him Joe, so that’s what Cindy called him, and would continue to do so until he told her otherwise. He put the tray on her desk with a big smile—he’d made it so pretty! A carefully folded napkin and even a little rose in a little bud vase on the tray, like she was one of the tenants. Cindy gave him a big smile, mouthed “Thank you!” and blew him a kiss. Now, wasn’t this nice man one of the people Donald Trump wanted to send away? He was a single dad, two boys, and she was a single mom. Every once in a blue moon they had a real conversation. But today was not one of those days.

  After Joe left, Cindy hung up the receiver, sick to death of that dial tone. She could still hear its echo in her ears as she put a couple of sugars in her coffee and a lot of cream. It tasted sweet and comforting that way, and the cup warmed her hands, and then she went back to work.

  Around eleven thirty she called Housekeeping. Unless he’d had a heart attack, by now Phillip was definitely out and about.

  “I have a high roller on the fence so I let him do a sleepover in model apt two. Yep, the Moderno. Will def need servicing. Thank you.”

  For a moment, she wondered about her panties, but screw that, he could have ordered in a Russian prostitute, for all anyone cared, she was sure if the walls could talk . . . Housekeeping had seen it all before, anyway.

  She decided to drive home, grab lunch, and change.

  She left her office with the wrap still on, waved to the concierge, who was tending to Mrs. Allen, one of the biggest pain-in-the-ass tenants, and mouthed to him “bye-bye,” then took the stairs down to the parking garage. There was no one around and the staircase was un-air-conditioned, like the garage, and the wrap was making her sweat, so she unwound it and carried it over her arm.

  Then she walked over to her designated spot and got into her car. Everything was easier after that, even the little wave she waved at the parking attendant she hadn’t noticed leaning on a pillar as she passed him on her way out. There were a million and one reasons why she could still be in the same dress as yesterday, she thought. Probably he hadn’t even noticed anyway. She tried to remember if she’d seen him the day before but came up empty. She knew this kid, he was a nice kid, he went to college at night. He was too polite and southern to ask her later, anyway. He’d been brought up right.

  Lily was sitting outside the condo on the front cement stairs near the grass and trees that landscaped each redbrick unit as Cindy walked up from the carport. Lily was in pajama pants and one of her boyfriend’s water polo team sweatshirts. She had her cat on her lap and her phone in her hand.

  As Cindy walked closer, she could see that her girl had been crying. A lot. God have mercy on her, but Cindy’s first thought was, What now?

  “Lily, honey, why aren’t you dressed? Why aren’t you in school? I hope you haven’t been out here all morning.”

  She stood over her daughter as the tears started running freshly down Lily’s cheeks. Cindy sat down next to her. “Honey, baby, talk to me.”

  Lily looked up at her in anger. “Talk to you? Talk to you? I’ve been calling and texting you forever!”

  “I told you Phillip and I were grabbing dinner.”

  “Dinner? It’s after lunch!”

  “It is? I didn’t realize it was that late. There was plenty of traffic . . . Now, why the hell aren’t you in school?”

  “I didn’t know what happened to you. You never came home! I was scared to death. I was worried about you.”

  Cindy leaned over; she moved the silky hair behind Lily’s ear. “I emailed you in the morning, baby,” and in an instant Lily’s arms were around her neck and she was breathing wetly into Cindy’s shoulder.

  “You’re going to get boogers on my new dress,” Cindy said. But she said it sweetly, like a good mother. Like one who didn’t care about a silly thing like a new $290 dress. She reached into her purse and pulled out a pack of Kleenex.

  “Now blow your nose like a good girl,” she said.

  And Lily did.

  “I’m sorry I scared you. But it’s not like I haven’t stayed out nights before. I’m a single woman, I’m allowed to date.”

  “He’s married, Ma.”

  “I know that, hon. We just all had so much fun, we stayed up to watch the sun rise. Then since I was still jazzed, I thought I’d go into work and catch up on some stuff and then I took a shower in the spa to wake myself up, but these new shoes pinch, so I came home to change. It never occurred to me I’d find you here waiting. I thought you’d just go on to school.”

  I have diarrhea of the mouth, Cindy thought.

  Lily started weeping again.

  “Sweetie, something else is wrong. I can feel it.” The girl immediately looked down. Cindy reached out her hand and took Lily firmly by the chin and gently tilted her face back up so that they met eye to eye.

  That’s when Lily told her about Kevin. How Jack and Kevin had been out all night and Jack had dropped him off at school, but Kevin hadn’t gone to school. Jack didn’t find out until third period when he showed up at water polo practice. She meant, Jack knew another Paly kid had jumped in front of a train, but he hadn’t known that this time the kid was Kevin, until he got to the pool
house.

  “What?” said Cindy.

  “Yes,” said Lily, nodding her head. Her eyes pleading: now do you understand???

  “Kevin,” said Cindy. “The Chinese boy?”

  “Asian-American, Ma,” said Lily. “He was born here.” She sounded exasperated. “You know Kevin Choi. He’s Jack’s best friend.”

  “Oh, my God,” said Cindy. She put her head in her hands. “That poor mother.”

  Lily started to cry again, and Cindy draped an arm around her shoulder.

  “What’s with those kids in Palo Alto? It’s like it’s contagious. I’m so glad we moved away from there.”

  “Oh, Mama, there’s more,” said Lily. She said it like a wail.

  “Okay,” said Cindy.

  “I can’t,” said Lily.

  “You can’t what?” said Cindy. “What? What more can there be? Lily, honey, I’ve been up all night.”

  Lily handed her mother her phone. As soon as she did, Lily picked up her stupid cat and snuggled him close to her mouth, her pale pink lips brushing his white fur. That cat was the most docile creature on God’s green earth.

  Cindy picked up the phone. “What am I supposed to do with this? You want me to read the text?”

  Lily nodded into the fur. If it were any other day or time, Cindy would have made a joke about the white fur looking like a beard, Mrs. LilyRose Claus, but right then it made no sense. No sense at all. She looked down at the phone. There was a text from Kevin.

  i couldn’t tell him

  “‘I couldn’t tell him,’” Cindy read out loud. “What couldn’t he tell who? When did he send this to you?”

  Lily spoke into her cat. It was as if she were a cat ventriloquist, the words coming out of the white cat’s white-whiskered mouth. “He sent it this morning. I was waiting in your bed for you to come home. I didn’t answer it. I wanted you. I didn’t know he was going to lie down in front of a train.”

  “He lay down in front of a train?” Cindy shook her head, still incredulous. “These parents put too much pressure on these kids.” Lily’s body was shaking like a leaf. “Honey, calm down. You’re scaring me. Who’s him? Who couldn’t he tell?” Cindy was feeling panicky now herself. “Lily? You mean, Jack? Kevin couldn’t tell Jack?”