My Ex-Life: A Novel

by Stephen McCauley

  “Should I complain to the management?”

  “You can try,” she said. “But you should read some of the online reviews before you expect too much satisfaction.”

  He’d read some of the online reviews in bed the night before. He’d rarely seen such eloquent or frequent uses of the words “eccentric,” “lumpy,” and “dust.”

  “I’m totally satisfied,” he said. “I like small spaces. I’m going to be a very comfortable corpse.”

  When he told her he thought they should start working on her applications that morning, she said she had to leave for her job at a store downtown.

  “Can I walk you there?” he asked. “I’ll take Opal along. I wouldn’t mind some fresh air and a better view of downtown.” What he really meant was a better look at her state of mind.

  It was still early, but the sun was warm and he felt the summer heat starting to build under the unrelenting sunlight, something that rarely happened in San Francisco. He did love the oddball, erratic climate of that city, a feature that made up for a disappointing dearth of trees on the streets. Tourists were beginning to appear on the sidewalks of Beauport, walking tentatively in clusters and stopping to gaze into shop windows as if they were desperate to find something, anything, they could buy. He liked the fleeting glimpses of the harbor between shops and restaurants; the views had an intimate appeal that made you feel you were being embraced by the scenery rather than being asked to stand in awe of it.

  Mandy proved to be an affable tour guide who knew more about the history of the town than he’d expected. When he complimented her knowledge, she said, “They drill it into us in school, so we’ll have civic pride. They leave out the racism and anti-Semitism.”

  “They usually do.”

  Opal appeared to be a celebrity of sorts, probably because of her disability. People are vastly more tolerant of deformities in animals than in humans, he’d noted. Animals are generally assumed to be blameless and thus forgivable, while humans are assumed to be complicit in their own tragedies. How else could you explain the right-wing attitude toward health care, poverty, and prison? Mandy had a sweet rapport with the dog, although she kept her under tight control when they passed other people.

  Opal’s personality resembled that of a twelve-year-old who didn’t quite believe herself to be lovable and was therefore always testing the strength of her parents’ affection. Her backward glances toward Mandy were eager, her enormous ears alert on her small body, as if she was the one walking them, and she wanted to make sure they approved of her choice of direction. “Come on,” she seemed to be saying. “I’ve got something really cool to show you.”

  If Opal was leading them on a hike, the destination was apparently something called Kenneth’s Kitchen. Most of the other shop windows were stuffed with oddball trinkets and gift items—one definition of “gift” apparently being “useless, unattractive article made by child labor”—that looked as if the store owners had merely dumped a carton of goods behind the glass. Little figurines were piled on top of one another and partly hidden under pillows, throws, and the ever-popular, utterly useless woven basket. Kenneth’s window, on the other hand, contained an artfully arranged selection of colorful flatware, pottery turned with Japanese delicacy and refinement, and boxes of crackers and jams that must have been chosen for the beauty of their packaging and the way the colors coordinated with the pottery. Kenneth, one had to assume, was not heterosexual.

  Opal sat on the sidewalk out front, craning her neck to look inside.

  “The owner gives her treats when he sees us out here. He’s a nightmare, but he likes dogs, which is a good sign.”

  After a few minutes, a small man emerged holding something in his hands. “Please don’t pretend you’re not expecting a snack,” he said. “We’re beyond that charade.”

  He spoke in the tone of fond annoyance one often uses when speaking to pets, but it wasn’t clear to David if he was addressing Opal or Mandy. Either way, he held out his hand, and Opal snatched a biscuit off his palm and chewed voraciously.

  “You know,” he said, this time addressing Mandy directly, “it wouldn’t hurt to come in and actually make a purchase. She obviously enjoys them.”

  “I don’t have a lot of money,” Mandy said. “They’re expensive.”

  “Yes, they are, so you might consider the cost to me next time you drag the dog down here.”

  “I’m happy to pay,” David said, reaching for his wallet.

  “I gave the biscuit to the dog,” he said. “I’m not out here panhandling.”

  His voice had a sharp edge and what David took to be the traces of a southern accent.

  “I didn’t suggest you were. What I meant was, I’d love to buy a bag of whatever that was.”

  Kenneth gave him a look that was either withering or approving and in either case involved a head-to-toe sweep of his body. David guessed him to be in his late thirties or early forties, but boyishness still clung to him, as it often does to men with good hair or unresolved relationships with their fathers. He was tidily dressed in short pants and a green polo shirt, and he wore around his neck a lanyard with a heavy set of keys attached, a little like a gym teacher or an obstreperous camp counselor.

  David followed him into the store. Kenneth’s step had the slight roll of someone who wants to make sure his ass is being observed. Walking into the store was like entering a cool, fragrant aquarium; the floor, walls, and ceiling were all Atlantic blue, and the back wall was glass and opened to the harbor.

  “It’s beautiful in here,” David said. “You’ve done a great job.”

  “Thank you for noticing. I did it all myself. Naturally, it’s not appreciated.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that. Is business slow?”

  “I discuss my income with my accountant and my husband.”

  The last word was uttered with an emphasis that sounded like a rebuke, as if David had made a pass. This was the second time in two days that a pass he hadn’t made had been rejected. Kenneth handed him a small box with the name of the dog biscuits hand-lettered on the front: CAREY’S CANINE COOKIES.

  “They’re artisanal,” he said. In David’s experience, this usually meant an overpriced, undercapitalized product that goes out of production in less than a year. “And vegan.”

  “I’m sure Opal will appreciate that.”

  Kenneth mentioned the price defiantly, as if expecting a shocked reaction. David handed him his credit card, thinking that he’d have to find a way to take them as a tax deduction.

  “Are you the uncle or something?” Kenneth asked.

  “More the something. I’m an old friend of Mandy’s mother. Do you know her?”

  “I know she owns that house on the top of the hill.” David was impressed by the menace Kenneth was able to cram into that single word. “She must have enough rooms up there to do short-term rentals if she wanted to.”

  “I’m sure there’s a lot of that in town,” David said, trying to be noncommittal. Short-term rentals were still controversial in San Francisco, but no doubt Soren would find a way to rent out the carriage house for six thousand dollars a week once David had cleared out and the papers were signed.

  “Some people feel there’s too much of it,” Kenneth said. “Are you and Julie good friends?”

  David paused, not knowing how much of her personal life Julie spread around; but since Kenneth had mentioned he had a husband, David thought he might put himself in a better light by indicating he’d once been capable of intimacy. He wasn’t sure why he wanted to put himself in a better light. Kenneth struck him as one of those hyper-capable men who turn difficult at the drop of a crumb and mask their insecurities by demanding to be treated like little princes. Still, there was something attractive in his narrow body and nicely shaped legs, and he had a promising hint in his eyes that the meticulously pressed clothes, bossy attitude, and Zen window display were compensating for an insatiable need to be dominated. Vigorously. Probably there was some panic thrown
in about aging, too, despite the husband. It was obvious Kenneth had had the misfortune of having been pretty for most of his youth.

  “Julie and I were married,” David said.

  Kenneth handed him back his credit card and evaluated him again. “Briefly?”

  “Briefly.”

  He fiddled with tissue paper and raffia and handed David an artfully composed bag, the keys around his neck jangling. “Nice meeting you. Come back soon.” David was surprised to find himself stirred by the invitation, although quickly deflated when Kenneth added, “Those cookies go on half-price sale tomorrow.”

  After the cool of the store, the sidewalk was even warmer. Opal was tied to a parking meter, and Mandy was leaning into the window of a dusty van. As the van pulled off, David got a glimpse of a profile: male, curly long hair, definitely not a high school student.

  “A friend?” he asked Mandy.

  “Someone who does work at the school. How much did you pay for those biscuits?”

  “They’re cookies. And considering the price, I plan to eat them myself. Sorry, Opal.”

  “I think Kenneth likes you,” Mandy said. “Can you tell?”

  “I didn’t see any sign of that,” David said, although he had sensed something flirtatious in the antagonism. “Besides, he’s not available. He’s married.” It wouldn’t have been appropriate to add that this usually makes a person more available.

  They walked out onto Perry Neck, a spit of land that stuck out into the harbor. The narrow streets were lined with shingled buildings that had probably once been fishing shacks and now sold cheap jewelry and T-shirts and ice cream and other items that one buys only while on vacation and rarely looks at afterward. David found this accumulation of junk inherently depressing, especially when combined with the paintings for sale in the galleries. To a great extent, these depicted Beauport in an idealized fashion, which is to say, without all the commercialization and trinkets and sad art galleries.

  “Which is the store you work at?” David asked.

  “It’s up there a little. I’d rather you didn’t see it.”

  “Why is that?”

  “It has a humiliating name and sells a lot of embarrassing stuff. Plus the owner might be out front in resort wear and sunglasses. The only good thing is, I get time to read.”

  She reached into a pocket on the leg of her overalls and pulled out a copy of one of E. F. Benson’s Mapp and Lucia novels. David recognized the battered paperback as one of his own from decades earlier. He knew the crease on the cover and the circular stain from a coffee cup that had been either his or Julie’s. It was the third volume in the series, Lucia in London. He flipped through it and handed it back to Mandy, swamped with nostalgia and tenderness: he’d read these books, all six of them, aloud to Julie in the living room of their apartment and in bed over the course of the first year they’d known each other. “Did you read the first two?” he asked.

  “I think so. I didn’t pay much attention to the order.”

  “I loved these books once upon a time,” he said. “Your mother did, too.”

  “I love them now.”

  David found it reassuring to hear teenagers tell him they shared his interests. It made them seem more emotionally stable, and made him feel less out of touch. He stopped walking and gave her a hug. “I think we’re going to get along well,” he said.

  “Are you sure? This girl I know, sort of a friend, told me I can be a real bitch.” She said this in a way that suggested she was genuinely concerned about it.

  “I’m sure she meant it as a compliment. You don’t want to be late for your humiliating job.”

  He watched her lope down the street, certain that Amira must have been wrong in her estimation of her, but as he walked up the hill to Julie’s house, he was unable to shake the image of the man with the curly hair driving off in his van.

  15

  Over the next two days, Mandy pleaded that she was too busy with her job and too tired in the evenings to focus on college applications. “But I’m only here for another six days,” David said, to which she replied, “You can change your reservation and stay longer.”

  This response was so immediate and had been made with such conviction, he suspected she was delaying their work to encourage him to remain.

  The suspicion was confirmed when, on the morning of his third day, he returned from the “bathroom-with-privacy” to find his old, musty copy of Queen Lucia on the foot of his bed, the first in the series of E .F. Benson novels Mandy had been reading. Apparently, Mandy had waited until he was out of the room, sneaked in, and left it there.

  He lay back against the headboard and opened to the first yellowed page. “Though the sun was hot on this July morning, Mrs. Lucas preferred to cover the half mile that lay between the station and her house on her own brisk feet…”

  “Brisk feet!” he said aloud. The expression brought the fierce, petty Lucia to life and made him laugh. He read on, remembering even before he got to it that the real reason for her walking was to “cause one of those little thrills of pleasant excitement and conjectural exercise which supplied Riseholme with its emotional daily bread.” There was something ridiculous and irresistible in “conjectural exercise” and “emotional daily bread.” It was encouraging to think that Mandy, despite access to video games and social media, could appreciate this.

  He was transported back to the village of Riseholme and, simultaneously, the living room of the sprawling, rent-controlled apartment he and Julie had shared in New York and the worn sofa they’d collapsed on each evening so he could read aloud to her from these novels. It was telling that some of the happiest times they’d had together had revolved around these fey, campy books, but they’d been genuinely happy hours and romantic in their own way. He had a longing to share this with her again that was so strong, he would have rushed upstairs at that moment to do so if he hadn’t seen her leave for school an hour earlier. He read a few more pages, trying to recall the voices he’d used for the characters all those years ago and the particular passages that Julie had especially loved. How many volumes could he read to her in the little time he had here?

  * * *

  It turned hotter that afternoon, and he sweated heavily as he carried furniture out of his room and into the barn behind the house. The barn appeared to be a structurally sound storehouse of rejected items Julie had bought at yard sales and flea markets—pot buys, or PBs, as she called them. Items of questionable taste and value that had looked too interesting to pass up when she was high, too damaged or ugly to bring into the house once she’d come down, too full of “potential” to get rid of entirely. Like everyone he’d met who shopped for secondhand castoffs, Julie clung to the belief that much of it was of great value to some mythic (and apparently wealthy) collector of these very items. No doubt pot clouded one’s judgment, but as a gateway drug to hoarding, it couldn’t compare to Antiques Roadshow.

  As he was sorting through a box of kitschy ashtrays and some plates printed with boomerangs, trying to decide if Julie would notice if he brought the whole lot to the recycling center, he realized that his own life had been full of PBs, too, even though he didn’t smoke or go to yard sales. There was that eight-hundred-dollar juicer he’d bought online and was briefly convinced would change his life, the massively expensive Swedish mattress he thought would forestall aging. Probably the move to San Francisco had been an impulsive pot buy. And when you came down to it, hadn’t Soren himself been a PB? Handsome, garrulous, and flushed with the magic-hour glow of youth right before it sinks below the horizon, he’d been too tempting to pass up. Instead of admitting his mistakes, David had tried to build a whole life around them. Maybe the ashtrays weren’t the only things that needed to be hauled to the recycling center.

  His phone rang. His friend Michael, returning his call at last.

  “Tell me,” Michael commanded with gruff seriousness. “Anything to report?”

  “Not in the way you mean,” David said. He sat on an ove
rstuffed chair in the hot, far reaches of the barn, releasing a cloud of dust into the shafts of sunlight. “Unless you’ve developed a sudden erotic interest in housecleaning and minor home repair.”

  “Thanks, I’ll pass. I had enough of that in my previous incarnation.”

  Michael lived in an apartment a few blocks from David’s carriage house. He was seven years older than David, but because he’d come out in his late fifties, he was still, in many respects, an adolescent. “Anything to report” meant sexual encounters. Most of what Michael said either referred to sexual encounters directly or sounded as if they did, even something as banal as, “I just had a delicious hamburger.”

  Michael was from Cincinnati. He’d spent the bulk of his life married to his childhood sweetheart, raising two beloved daughters, and working at a law firm doing estate planning for wealthy Ohioans. Then, after a cancer scare, he’d accepted what he’d been trying to deny for decades, had come out, retired early, and moved to the city of his dreams of liberation around the time of the second Obama inauguration. Extricating himself from his previous life had cost him dearly. He could only afford a tiny one-bedroom that was largely subterranean, but because he felt free to live without apology for the first time, he inhabited his own microclimate of blue skies and balmy breezes. He referred to his apartment as the Penthouse and the name seemed to express his sincere feelings about the place.

  David and Michael frequently talked about how much they had in common, by which they meant that they’d slept with a surprising number of the same people. This was the source of conversations that were lewd in content but nostalgic in tone, largely because they were aware of the ways in which their erotic options were rapidly changing. They’d both entered the “daddy” category, but Michael was on the cusp of the “paying customer” category.

  “There must be some homosexuals there,” Michael said. “Lonely, desperate for attention.”

  David knew he had to toss Michael a scrap if he wanted him to agree to his proposal. “There is one,” he said, surprised at how happy he was to mention Kenneth, even obliquely.