by James Gregor
“Richard has told me about it.”
“Are you thinking of going for your doctorate?”
Blake shook his head. “Can you excuse me for a moment?” he said.
“Where are you going?” Richard asked.
“To the bathroom. I’ll be right back.”
Blake moved off. Anne looked at Richard.
“Who is he?”
“He’s a friend of mine.”
“You’ve never mentioned him to me before.”
“Do I have to mention every single person in my life?”
“Does he know anything about me?”
“What are you talking about? Why do you always have to interrogate me?”
“That’s your response for everything.”
His phone buzzed.
WHO IS SHE? Blake wrote.
As the waiter passed, Anne flagged him down and ordered a cocktail.
“You’re drinking?”
“Yes, I suddenly feel like I need a drink,” she said. “Who are you texting?”
“I’m leaving if you don’t calm down,” Richard said, putting the cappuccino to his mouth. He’d already had too much caffeine. His hands were shaking but he couldn’t stop. He needed to do something, to commit himself to some definitive action, not just sit there and endure the tremors of his body.
“You’re threatening to leave now?” Anne said. “What’s wrong with you? We’re having brunch.”
“I’m not threatening anything. But I am going to leave if you don’t relax. You’re stressing me out.”
She shook her head. For a minute they didn’t speak. The waiter came back with her cocktail and a basket of bread.
“Could you please toast this?” she said to him. “I always take my bread toasted.”
Blake returned to the table.
“Where’s the bread going?” he asked.
“The bread will be back in a moment,” Anne said. She took a long sip of her cocktail. “I hope you’re not gluten free.”
“I’m not.”
“I love that you can still run into people in a city as big as New York,” Anne said, with a stiff smile.
“We probably hang out in the same neighborhoods,” Blake said, considering. “There’s always some other explanation.”
“Do you live in Manhattan?”
“Brooklyn.”
Richard’s fingers were quivering. He was about to pick up his cappuccino again and then decided against it.
“What neighborhood, exactly?”
“Clinton Hill.”
“It’s nice there.”
“We like it.”
We.
But he could be talking about anybody, Richard thought. We does not have to mean us, me and Blake.
“What do you like about it?” she asked.
Blake mentioned a favorite restaurant, the coffee shops, the bookstore, the nearby market.
Anne nodded. She said there was a disgruntled eccentric, a once-famous actor who was always talking loudly on his phone at the end of her block. That was the main attraction.
“Everything okay?” Blake said to Richard.
“Maybe we should all get cocktails?” Richard suggested.
“Excuse me for a moment,” Anne said.
She got up and went toward the bathroom. Blake watched her go, and then turned toward Richard.
“Is she a little strange?”
Richard shrugged.
“Why did you say we met through friends?” Blake asked.
“Those websites embarrass me.”
“Everyone is online.”
“I’m old-fashioned.”
Richard’s phone buzzed.
WHO IS HE? Anne wrote.
Richard put the phone back in his pocket.
“Are you okay?” Blake said. “Are you upset about something?”
“No.”
“What’s wrong then?”
“Nothing.”
“Do you want to go?”
“I don’t know.”
“You look pale.”
“I’m fine. I’ve had too much coffee.”
“Is it her?”
Richard shook his head. His phone continued to buzz.
“I need to go to the washroom,” he said. “Just give me a second. I’ll be right back.”
“Go ahead,” Blake said, frowning. “But get back before her. I don’t want to be alone with her.”
Richard left the table. The bathrooms were at a fortunate remove from the seating area. Anne was standing in the corner, her phone at eye level.
“What is going on?” she asked.
“You’re behaving like a child.”
“By taking you and your ‘friend’ ”—she made air quotes with her fingers—“out to lunch?”
“We can pay for our own food. Why are you making such a fuss? Don’t talk so loudly.”
“I’m not talking loudly. Why are you whispering?”
He wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. “It’s so hot in here. I can’t breathe in this fucking place.”
“The air-conditioning is perfect in here.”
“Stop saying that.”
“You’re still sweating.”
“I’m sweating because you’re stressing me out.”
“You’re making things up. What is going on?”
“Nothing.”
“This is stupid. Erin and Alicia moved out. I’m all by myself. I’m alone. Where have you been? Something is going on.”
Her lip was trembling. She looked as if she might start to cry.
“I haven’t been doing anything,” he said. “I’ve been busy. I’ve had things to do.”
“You were busy and you weren’t doing anything? How is that possible?”
He put his hands on her shoulders.
“We can’t be together all the time.”
“Why not?”
“Some parts of our lives are separate. They have to remain separate, for our own good.”
“What parts?”
“Stop being unreasonable.”
“You’re twisting things.”
She was like a child who could not calm herself down. She was flapping her arms as she spoke.
“I’m not twisting things.”
“I don’t want us to be separate,” she said.
“We both have lives, Anne.”
“We have a life, together.”
They did have a life together, a life that seemed governed by a rule of inversion, whose weight seemed to increase in direct proportion to the flippancy with which he treated it.
“I’ll come by later, okay? I’ll stay tonight. I promise. You won’t be alone tonight.”
“So I’m supposed to go home now, while you go with him? When will you come home? I’m supposed to wait? What, and watch Netflix?”
Richard’s stamina was beginning to flag. He had so little energy left to obfuscate. It was like with lawyers who defended child molesters, he thought. How could they do it? How could he be doing this to her?
Resignation came over him.
“Can we go back to the table?”
He was exhausted and needed to sit down.
“No,” she said.
“We left him there.”
“He can wait all day.”
“You’re impossible.”
“Are you two sleeping together?”
He felt like he might faint. “Stop being so aggressive.”
“I’ll tell him,” Anne said, her eyes tearing up. “I’ll tell him what we’ve been doing. I’ll tell everyone what happened.”
“Don’t say that.”
He wrapped his arms around her, squeezing. He put his lips to her forehead. “Stop it,” he said.
“I don’t care anymore,” she said.
She exhaled hot blasts of air against his chest, shuddering.
“Don’t say that.”
“You can’t do this,” she said.
“You’re right,” he said, squeezing her tighter.
“I can’t.”
“You can’t.”
“Anne, I’m not going to leave you.”
A man wearing a tie clip walked by and glanced at them before heading into the bathroom.
“This is embarrassing. We should stop,” Richard said. She didn’t say anything. “I’ll come and stay.”
“You’ll stay?” she said, shaking. “You’ll move in?”
She was looking up at him, and he nodded, desperate to stop this display. She hugged him tightly again.
“Good.”
“We all need to calm down,” he said. “Relax.”
She looked at him like an angry child.
“Promise you’ll relax?” he tried again.
“Okay.”
She took in a deep, jagged breath.
“Good,” he said.
“I’ll be all right in a minute.”
“Okay,” he said. “You’ll be all right.”
“I need a minute.”
“Promise you’ll be calm at the table?” he said.
“Yes, I promise.” She nodded and went into the bathroom. Richard returned to the table, where the main courses were already waiting. Blake was on his phone, looking bored and annoyed.
“How is it?” Richard asked.
“It smells good,” Blake said, sipping his cappuccino impassively. “But I haven’t tried it yet. I’m not a Neanderthal. I was waiting for you two. It’s probably cold by now.”
“Sorry,” Richard said, taking his seat. “She’s not feeling well today.”
“Yeah?” Blake said, barely able to mask his indifference.
“You should start. Go ahead.”
“Actually, I think I’ll wait for her.”
They said nothing more for a moment. Richard breathed in through his nose, and out through his mouth.
Looking refreshed if puffy under the eyes, Anne came back to the table and sat down. She unfolded her napkin on her lap and began to slice up the eggs Benedict on her plate.
“Sorry to keep you waiting,” she said, not looking up.
Blake nodded. They ate in silence for a while, then Anne took in a deep breath, seemed to steady herself, and looked at Blake.
“I didn’t ask you what you do,” she said.
“I’m a lawyer. I work at a law firm.”
“That’s interesting work.”
“It can be.”
Anne nodded.
“And, uh, do you study the same authors as Richard?” Blake said.
“Yes.”
“Dante . . . ?”
“Yes, a lot of Dante.”
“Ah.”
Blake sighed.
“Are you a reader, Blake?”
“Sure. Not like him,” Blake said, resting a hand on Richard’s shoulder for a moment. “But I do read.”
Even as the conversation seemed to flow again, all Richard wanted was for a knife to come down through the table and cut the room—the world—into two distinct, quarantined halves.
“Actually, I have something for you to read,” Blake said to Richard.
“What is it?”
“I got it earlier when we were at McNally Jackson.”
Richard always hesitated when a nonreader recommended a book to him. Not that Blake was a nonreader exactly, but all of the books in his apartment were fairly mainstream—a few classics, probably left over from college, popular science texts about concentration and the link between abortion and crime, a fashionable anthology of postmodernism, several hardcover coffee-table books. In the heaviness between them, this worry on Richard’s part about Blake’s reading tastes felt like a comical but almost welcome distraction.
“After you read it, we can discuss what you think.” He removed a large volume from his bag. Taking the square, thick object in hand, Richard nodded. It was Atlas Shrugged.
“Oh!” he said, trying to strike a futile balance between skepticism and enthusiasm, while also trying not to look at the book as if it were some sort of rodent. He couldn’t meet Anne’s eyes. She would surely find Ayn Rand—this gesture of Blake giving him Ayn Rand to read—absurd. The expression on her face would be scornful and amused.
“She does seem to be popular in certain quarters,” he heard her say. “But I’ve never read her.”
There was no obvious judgment in her voice.
“Yes, she does,” Richard said, his face tingling.
“Is she a touchstone for you?” Anne asked Blake.
“I read her now and then,” he said.
“Can I see the book?”
“Here.”
Richard handed it to her.
“That’s heavy. No one writes books like this anymore.”
She opened the flap and read the opening lines. Richard searched her face for the inevitable mockery.
“I’ll give it a try,” he said.
“So much enthusiasm,” Blake said.
“Where’s the waiter?” Richard continued, betting that petty impatience about food in the early twenty-first century was righteous and ominous enough to interrupt almost any conversation, no matter the topic.
“What’s wrong?” Anne asked.
“My food is . . .”
It was a salad, so he couldn’t say it was cold. It was disorganized? What could he say?
“Actually, it’s fine,” he said.
Anne handed the book back to him.
“I’m sure it will be fodder for interesting discussion,” she said.
“At least someone appreciates a good book,” Blake said, shaking his head at Richard.
“You hardly ate a thing,” Anne said to Richard. “Let’s order you dessert.”
“I can’t eat anymore,” he said.
From the table, her glass rose like a transparent satellite dish transmitting a message. She must have been circulating through the streets and preparing her intervention, he thought; she must have been lying in wait.
“I want to celebrate. It’s a celebratory dessert.”
“Celebrate what?” Blake said.
“Meeting you. Today.”
She looked at Richard.
“Shouldn’t we celebrate?”
Blake looked at Richard.
“Here.” She positioned the menu so that they could read it together. “What would you like?”
“I don’t know,” Richard said.
“How about a Toscano?” Blake said, pointing and shrugging. “Gin seems like a good idea.”
Richard couldn’t hear what Blake was saying. Sounds retreated, evanesced. The men in hunting jackets, the women in blouses and cashmere sweaters took on an alien, algorithmic quality as they sat eating, drinking, and talking. It seemed to him that everyone had a life that was impregnably arranged, sensible and candid, anchored by necessary journeys and destinations, while his own was spectacularly fraudulent and estranged.
“Good choice,” Anne said.
She called the waiter over and with a heavily accurate Italian accent ordered the torta di frutta.
“Do you have roommates?” Blake asked when the waiter left.
Ready to spring, sounds veered back and crouched.
“I did,” Anne said. “They just moved out. Now the apartment is finally free. And ready.”
“Ready?”
“For someone else to move in.”
She looked at Richard with a gentle smile.
“But having an apartment to yourself is the dream,” Blake said. “Isn’t it?”
“Not for me.” She shook her head. “Not at all. I don’t like to live alone.”
“Who do you have in mind?” Blake asked.
Richard wished then for someone in the restaurant to start dramatically choking.
“I’ve been trying to get this one to move in for a while,” she said, nodding toward Richard.
Blake’s eyes widened.
“It seems like I’ve finally convinced him.”
“We’ll have to fight over him then,” Blake said, smiling mordantly and possessively.
&n
bsp; Anne laughed, but her voice paused in the air.
“What do you mean?”
“I think I beat you to it,” he said.
Her eyebrows lifted and her face opened.
“I don’t get the joke,” she said.
“I’m not joking,” Blake replied.
She shook her head again. Her face was like a clamshell, ready to recede and bathe in salt water.
“Richard is moving in with me,” Blake said.
The clamshell closed. Anne reddened, as if the joke that everyone around her had instantly perceived still hovered at an intractable remove. This incomprehension was something Richard had never seen on her face before.
Blake turned to Richard, who was pale. Blake linked their arms and said, “We’re going to live together.”
“This is embarrassing,” Anne said. “I’m still not understanding.”
Her voice had turned to a mincing professional discretion stretched over a gaping wound.
“We’re moving in,” Blake said. “What’s not to get?”
“You’re moving in together?”
“Yes.”
She turned to Richard, though she was still speaking to Blake.
“How long have you been planning on moving in with Richard?”
Her face was beginning to lose its battle with distress.
“I can explain,” Richard said.
“Maybe you should,” Blake said, his face also waiting on the edge of something. “I think one of us is very confused. Actually, both of us . . . we’re both very confused.”
“Richard and I have been planning to move in together,” Anne said.
“Is that so?”
“. . . to move to the next step in our relationship,” she continued.
She spoke as if everything that Blake had just said had been erased from the air in which it traveled.
“Your relationship?”
“Anne, stop talking,” Richard said.
“No, go on,” Blake said. “What are you talking about, Anne?”
“I never said I’d move in with her. I never said that.”
“You just said it ten minutes ago,” Anne replied.
“What is this?” Blake said to Richard. “Could you please tell me what’s going on here?”
“Nothing,” Richard said. “Nothing is going on.”
“You told me you were moving in,” Anne said, her words barely audible. “You just told me.”
Her face was a mask over flailing arms and legs.
“I said before that I’m not going to make any rash decisions. I’m sticking to that.”
“Could you please explain?” Blake said. “What you mean by ‘rash decisions’? What do you mean you told her you were moving in?”