A Postmodern Love

by Nick Totem

  He began to worry about her. The anger, suspicion, and fear that had consumed him when she disappeared the first time now remained in the distance, as though after having been with her he had already descended a couple of spirals beyond those emotions, but the way, up or down to hell, remained unknown. He texted her again: Where are you? Please call asap.

  The sight of the San Francisco Bay impressed him with its vastness, so vast that a person could be lost in it and never be found again. Suddenly, he jumped up and raced back to the hotel. He went up to his room, almost expecting to see her in the room, but also panicking a little, as if he had lost his mind and all that he had experienced had been his own imagining. The room was as he had left it, and her things now possessed a heightened realness. On the bed, he leaned against the headboard, took off his glasses, and rubbed his eyes. Visions of Chau the Dog and Quattleberns mangled through his mind, but he quickly pushed them away, and deliberately he banished, too, any idea of conspiracy or some elaborate scam, maybe because he had held her and made love to her. He had been within her breath, within reach of that little mole on her cheek, her bright happy smile tinged by a hint of sadness. Ecstasy from all their time together surged intensely again.

  “Where can she be?” he mumbled. “Something has happened to her.”

  Thomas googled the Savoir Gallery on his phone. He thought about what he would ask Dominic Savoir, what he would say without appearing childish and ridiculous. He sat a long time, trying to suppress an inclination toward thinking the unsavory, and at last decided to call Dominic. The call went to voicemail. He was not sure if Dominic would remember, but he left his name and phone number and asked Dominic to give him a call back. When he was done, he looked around the room that suddenly appeared dingy and demeaning. And the big round mirror held a reality he didn’t want to see. He got up and almost ran out of the room.

  Further down the street, there was a bar with a view of the Bay, and he went in, ordered a Heineken, and settled into waiting again. He sipped the beer slowly, intending to stretch time into that more definitive future, as human nature dictates, when things could be concluded happily, but he still braced for the worst.

  Then the clouds came in, and the afternoon sky suddenly darkened and turned sombre. By the time he left the bar, it was past five o’clock. The few beers that he had managed to sip over the hours no longer had any effect on him. Outside, the wind had picked up and hissed loudly enough that he almost didn’t hear the phone ringing. He didn’t recognize the number. Maybe Dominic was returning his call. He held the phone close to his ear. “Hello.”

  “Thomas?”

  “Lana?”

  “Thomas, I’m sorry I couldn’t call you earlier.”

  “Where are you? What happened?” He stood still in the wind and listened intently.

  “I’m sorry, but my phone went out. I forgot to charge it last night.”

  “What happened to you?” he said against the hissing wind.

  “I’m sorry, darling. I will explain to you when I get back. I didn’t want to disturb your sleep this morning. I can’t talk long. I am borrowing someone else’s phone. I will explain when I get back.”

  “Where are you?”

  “Don’t worry. I’ll be back soon.”

  “Tell me where you are,” he said sternly.

  “I’m . . . I’m at Stanford.”

  “I’ll come and get you.”

  “No. No. I can take a taxi.”

  “I insist. Tell me the exact address. I’ll coming right now.”

  “Very well then, darling. I’ll wait here.”

  It took more than an hour and a half to get to Stanford. Amid the rush hour traffic, his frustration, anger, and suspicion grew, but he contented himself that she was safe. The address Lana had given led him to an apartment complex next to the campus. It was completely dark when he arrived. His headlights lit up the curving driveway, and coming around the bend, he saw her, and the dam holding all his worries dropped away. He had never been more glad in his life.

  In front of the apartment complex, a maple tree stood within a circular bastion of raised concrete; Lana was sitting under the tree. She raised her hand, shielding her eyes from the glare of the headlights. Wearing jeans, the same gray leather jacket, and a colorful scarf, she sat with arms and legs crossed as if trying to make herself invisible.

  He glimpsed her face, full of sadness.

  “Hi, darling,” Lana said as she got in the car. Her voice sounded as if she had left him only five minutes ago. “Thank you for getting me.”

  “Are you okay?”

  “Yes, I’m fine.” She studied the street and added, “Turn right here. Can we get something to eat? I’m famished. I haven’t eaten anything all day.”

  Thomas turned right and didn’t say anything. There were a few other cars on the road. A little further down the street, she directed him to turn again.

  “There’s this all night restaurant. The food is not bad. I used to go there sometimes when I had to study late.”

  He shook his head, and he was unable to hold himself back any longer. “Lana, you’ve got to be kidding me.”

  “Darling, let’s not talk about it now.”

  “No, no. That’s not going to work. I’m sorry but I need to know right now. What’s going on? What happened to you?”

  “I don’t want to talk about it. It’s just a silly thing.”

  “No. You can’t just disappear for the whole day and expect me to forget the whole thing.”

  “I’ve told too much already. There is no need. It was a big mistake. There is no use,” she said firmly.

  “What do you mean? We were getting to know each other.”

  “Well, you know enough about me already. Besides, there is no use. Please let’s not dwell on this any longer and ruin our time.”

  “How can you expect me to just act like nothing happened? You disappeared for the whole day.”

  “Please pull over. I want to get out.”

  “What?”

  “Please. Don’t worry about me, Thomas. I will call some of my old friends. They’ll put me up until tomorrow. You can send my things to Astrid.”

  “Your expensive jewelry?” he said.

  She turned to him. “Yes, it’s quite valuable. But it doesn’t matter. Now let me out.”

  “You know I can’t let you go.” He kept driving.

  “You don’t have to be responsible for me. I can take care of myself.”

  “Please.”

  “You don’t have to deal with me anymore. Stop the car.” Her voice was raised and rough.

  At a stop sign, she opened the door, jumped out, and started to walk ahead. Thomas couldn’t quite believe what he was seeing; he pulled over and, leaving the car running, took off after her.

  “Please stop for a second,” he called after her. As he caught up with her, he took hold of her arm.

  “Just fuckin’ leave me alone, Thomas,” she said without turning around.

  He put his arms around her, hugging her tight. With his face next to her ears, he said, “I can’t let you go.”

  She stood still, and slowly she put her hand up to his face, touching it without seeing.

  A couple of cars slowed as they passed them.

  “Let’s go, Thomas.”

  When they got to the restaurant, whose décor was from the sixties, they found a table in the corner. Brightly lit, it had a scattering of students here and there, in dining booths and along the counter. The menu offered the typical American fast food. After they ordered, they seemed to be trying to think of something to say.

  “I need to go to my sister, Bethany,” Lana said at last, looking down at the table and pushing the pepper shaker around with the tip of her index finger.

  “Where is she?”

  “Near Ann Arbor, Michigan. I grew up there. She’s going to have a surgery. Total bilateral mastectomy. The same procedure I’ll get soon. She needs me now, and I haven’t seen her for seven years. A life
time for us.”

  “I understand.”

  She stared out to the parking lot; Thomas followed her eyes.

  “I came here to look for Cristiano.” Her voice trembled.

  His head jerked back to her. “Oh.”

  “I know. It’s the silliest thing. All that talk of the past just brought back everything. When I woke up this morning, I just felt it so urgently, like he was still there at the apartment, going to classes, having lunch at the cafeteria, or playing his violin in the sculpture garden.” Her eyes exuded a strange shine. “When I woke up, I didn’t know what I was doing there. Like . . . like you weren’t real, though intellectually I knew you were real enough. I couldn’t resist it. The feeling was so overwhelming. I just had to go. I took a taxi. I ran to the sculpture garden. I could almost see him there. My Cristiano.”

  “I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have pressed so hard about your past. It’s my fault.” He touched her hand that was now rolling the pepper shaker between her fingers. With a most casual movement, she took her hand away and hid it under the table.

  “I walked around campus. I went to the apartment. I used to sit in the living room and look out, past that maple tree, waiting for Cristiano.”

  The waiter, smiling politely, brought the food. Thomas ate absentmindedly and then gave up his plate. Lana, however, took mouthful of her hamburger and chewed with her cheeks puffing out. Seeing the way she was eating made him realize youth unrestrained even amid tragedy, and maybe it was another reason he wanted to be with her so desperately.

  They finished the meal without saying anything more. The car wound through the darkened streets around Stanford, the headlights illuminating the trees and the dew descending from a winter sky. Their reticence persisted during the drive back to San Francisco, as they went back into the room and sat on the bed; neither seemed to know what to do.

  She said suddenly, “Will you please drop me off at the airport? My flight is at nine fifteen in the morning.”

  “What? Tomorrow?”

  “Actually, I’ll take a taxi. I don’t want to disturb your vacation. You should relax before you go back to work.”

  “No, no. Don’t be silly. Of course I’ll take you.” He tried to sound normal to hide his shock. How quickly things changed. He couldn’t help gasping and didn’t want her to see his face so he went into the bathroom.

  21

  There are beautiful women everywhere in the world, and there are some beautiful women who make men feel bad to look at, just because their beauty is unreachable. And then there was Lana. Thomas’s gut shriveled as he watched her going through the terminal entrance and disappearing among a crowd of passengers. He drove away from the airport. His mind was blank, stunned by the glare from the cloudy morning sky.

  They had awoken and packed their bags. He had wanted to take her onto Napa for a few more days. He had planned to surprise her with a dinner at the French Laundry, a famous restaurant. As he drove to the airport, a sensation of helplessness overcame him, the same sensation as when he had watched Jeffrey Marshal being resuscitated; there was no word he could say or action he could do to stop her leaving or even to slow it down. He had kept to himself for the duration of the drive and smiled as gently as he could, giving up on fighting or convincing her, or questioning her about when she had arranged all this and bought the plane ticket. For her part, Lana had also spoken very little, and when she did speak, it was matter-of-factly. She had written down her sister’s address and home phone number, as a matter of practicality, just in case he needed to contact her for whatever reason, and he hadn’t said anything, seeing no reason for knowing her whereabouts. At the airport’s curbside, she had given him a hug and a cursory kiss, but it had been her hands that he had longed to kiss, to feel her lips with his, to embrace her tightly and say to her delicate words that would sustain them while they were apart. Instead, he had looked on wistfully, seeing her eyes shining brilliantly in the morning light. That she had looked so ravishing as she walked away hurt him. It had hurt him simply.

  After exiting the airport, Thomas found himself turning south, going back to Los Angeles. Beyond the city limit, the traffic lightened up, and he drove fast, as though he was trying to punish the road, to leave on it his frustration. Alfalfa fields extending to the horizons, vineyards lining up in perfect rows, and then almond orchards with green leaves—the roadside whizzed along his vision, hardly registering in his mind. The cars and the trucks in front of him seemed like obstacles he must pass. He couldn’t give a damn if a cop was hiding somewhere behind a billboard with a radar gun. Grunting and sighing deeply at times, he stepped on the gas on stretches where the freeway was clear, feeling like falling from high cloud to the ninth circle of hell.

  “What game are you playing, Lana?” he mumbled. “What about the last couple of days? What was that all about? Why was it a mistake telling me about your past?”

  It was just past noon when the phone rang. Thomas recognized the number and answered it, “Yes, Mike.”

  “Hey bro. Having a good time?”

  “It’s all right.”

  “Anyhow, they just started on Jeffrey Marshal’s autopsy.”

  “Okay.”

  “I was thinking, if they can’t find any relatives for Jeffrey Marshal. Maybe we should give him a funeral. You know just a simple ceremony with our pastor. Nothing fancy.”

  “That’s a great idea.”

  “All right. Sounds like you’re driving.”

  “I am.”

  “On your way to Napa?”

  “Yeah,” Thomas lied.

  “Okay. Drink an extra bottle of wine for me.”

  It was only a minute later that his mind drew back to Lana’s face with its many nuanced shades, to the feel of her body against his, and to his feeling amiss for something more.

  At last, the sight of his house as he drove into the driveway brought him back to the present, and he jerked up, awoken from a daze. It was past mid afternoon. He entered the house and walked right through it into the backyard. Here, he stood still next to a potted lemon tree and looked beyond without really seeing. She was thousands of miles away now, and even if she were here in front of him, she couldn’t be kept even for a second. She couldn’t be reasoned with, cajoled, or even tempted by anything he had. It’s often said that madness starts when desire meets impotence, and his mind began to buzz again with the soft words—darling, sweet man, Thomas—that had been not so much spoken as carried to him by her perfumed breath, coming from either a depth of love or a practiced craft of seduction.

  Suddenly, remembering something vital, he took out his phone, scrolled down to a number, and texted: Hi Crystal. Do you have some time today?

  The sky had just turned dark when Thomas stopped at Crystal’s place. He got out of the car and went up to the door, not caring if anyone saw him. The house was small, the roof low. The wood along the front and the windows appeared cracked, brownish, and splintered. The door, however, glowed red and new with fresh paint, and the brass knob shined brightly. The red door had been left unlocked, and without knocking, he entered. Inside a faint smell of perfume, strikingly similar to Chanel N° 5, hung in the air. A soft, jazzy vocalization of Billy Holliday beckoned from the bedroom. He sat down on the sofa. A coffee table held thick books of photography; along a wall, a book shelf displayed black and white photos of Marilyn Monroe and Greta Garbo, and statues of exotic goddesses looked on serenely. Things appeared as he remembered. He waited.

  “I’ll be right out, Thomas,” Crystal said, emphasizing his name.

  He realized acutely an implied defeatism in what he was about to do. Anger rose to the top of his head, making him close his eyes tightly only to see Lana’s face looking at him, her eyes as intense as if she had just discovered something new in him.

  The door to the bedroom opened, and Crystal came out, wearing bright green lingerie and red high heels. Her face was made-up and her conventional prettiness was all smiles and teeth. She went into the kitche
n and, after a while, came back with a glass of cognac.

  “It’s nice seeing you again.” She handed him the glass. “I remember you like cognac.”

  “Thanks.” He took a sip.

  She sat next to him. “Do you have the donation?”

  He counted six hundred-dollar bills, and she put them in a box on the top shelf. When she came back to him, she straddled him, inviting him to do as he wished. A strong scent of perfume rose from her breasts.

  He pushed her onto the sofa and said, “Sit down for a minute.”

  “Okay,” she said curtly.

  He sniffed the cognac, then let it run over his tongue and down his throat. He smacked his lips. “It’s good stuff. You’re not going to have some?”

  “I’m okay.” She eyed him uneasily.

  “Yeah. How . . . How did you get into this business?”

  “You wanna talk or you wanna do it?”

  “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to come across like I’m judging you or anything. Just curious.”

  “There’s nothing to tell.”

  “What’s your real name?”

  “Why? You’re going to save me? My white knight in shining fuckin’ armor.”

  “You’re from the midwest, right? I can tell from your accent. There must be a lot of girls from other states, coming here, trying to be in show biz. It must be a tough business to get into.”

  “Guys come to me for one thing, and it’s not for talk. Either we do it, or you’ll have to leave,” she said harshly, but then her eyes grew gentle. “I don’t know what trouble you’re in, but you’ll feel better afterward. There’s no problem in the world that a good fuck can’t make better.” She got on top of him, straddling him again.

  He put his hands on her hips and ran them up her sides. She kissed his lips lightly. Suddenly, his hands took hold of her breasts, and he ripped her bra off, squeezed them hard, and then put his mouth to her nipples. His hands dug into her flesh.