by Darcy Cosper
“Hank, be nice.”
“Your best friend, on the other hand, knows better,” Henry says. “I know you never had any cool to start with. I know you’re certifiably insane.”
“That’ll be our little secret.”
“So Gabe is spending a lot of time with Ora?”
“News to me if he is. I guess it’s possible. I don’t keep track of his schedule.” Thinking about this makes me want to shriek obscenities and kick things.
“Maybe you should.” Henry makes a ferocious face at me. “Because I’m only allowed to discipline one spoiled rich boy a week, and Bix got in line first. And, by the way, you have a right to know who he spends time with. Anyone would be curious in this situation. It wouldn’t be even a little bit girlie-girlie for you to ask him about it, Jo. Hell, it wouldn’t be girlie for Charlton Heston to ask him. Or Warren Beatty. Or John Holmes, or—”
“Henry, I appreciate your concern, but can we please talk about something else? My head is going to explode.”
“Okay, okay.” She shrugs. “New subject. Did you ever find out what the story was between Ora and Topher?”
“No. He’s called a couple of times at the office, but I haven’t called back. I can’t deal with it right now. I can’t believe the engagement party is next week. I can’t believe any of this.” We stop in front of my building.
“Believe it.” Henry nods and I follow her gaze across the street to a pair of teenagers pressed against the church’s wrought-iron fence, making out like their lives depend on it. Behind them, the blue-plate-special board announces that this morning’s sermon was on the steadfast presence of God. The featured passage is from the Song of Solomon: “I will rise and go to the city to seek him whom my heart loves; I sought him, but I found him not.” I point it out to Henry.
“Unitarians.” She sniffs. “A cousin of mine got married at this Baptist church near Baton Rouge. None of that poetic Old Testament crap for the Baptists. The church had this billboard next to the highway that said Accept Christ as the only redeemer or be damned to the fiery blazing pits of hell for all eternity.’ Or something. Isn’t that charming? We should send Bix down there for a lesson in old-fashioned country manners, don’t you think? My cousins would beat the living crap out of him.”
“He’s actually turning out to be worse than I thought possible. Which really is a feat. But—Henry, what in the hell was Joan thinking going off the pill when he was acting like that? It seems so crazy.”
“Oh, no.” Henry turns to me, wide-eyed. “No, no, no. Don’t you dare make excuses for him.”
“Hey, calm down. I’m not. But for her to do it without telling him—that’s tantamount to a fairly major lie, don’t you think?”
“Little Miss Jojo.” Henry points a finger at me. “You of all people are so not allowed to talk about lies of omission.”
“That’s not fair. It’s so different. I’m not lying. I have decided, on principle, not to bring something up because I don’t think it’s right to do so.”
“You know what? I shouldn’t talk about this now. I love you and I’m a cranky bitch tonight and I am going home to pick a fight with Delia.” Henry makes a face, turns on one heel, and begins to walk away. “I’ll give you a call tomorrow,” she calls back, and waves without turning around.
“Right. Okay. Sweet dreams to you, too.” I stand and watch her go. I glance across the street; the teenagers are gone. I sit down on my front stoop and look up at the windows to my apartment. They, predictably, are dark.
Wednesday, September 12, 200—
IF THERE ARE WORSE WAYS to begin a day, I haven’t yet been acquainted with them. At around four this morning I was awakened by the monstrous clatter and roar of garbage trucks. Since then I have been kept from sleep by the unrelenting whir and chatter of my brain; I feel like a ham radio receiving several dozen simultaneous and overenthusiastic broadcasts on the very unpromising subject of my love life. It’s like a supernatural version of Chinese water torture.
As bad as things are, they will shortly reach an even more profound low, because at this very moment, I am preparing to commit a truly reprehensible act. Here, in our own home. When my beloved leaves, probably within the next ten minutes, I will toss integrity out the window and engage in a full-frontal violation of the relationship’s most sacred principles. Knowing this makes me blush like a nun at a peep show every time Gabe looks my way.
With the bedcovers pulled up to my eyes and the dachshund snoring on my feet, I watch Gabe get dressed, and I consider something Anabel said on Sunday night: If your significant other is having an affair, you can tell. I think, though, that she must use some rare internal radar that gets installed after marriage, because I can’t tell a damn thing one way or the other—though I suppose I could attribute that to sheer stupidity. And if Gabe suspects anything of me, if Ora has told him god knows what about our little screening-room scene at Theo’s wedding, he’s certainly not letting on.
He sits down on the edge of the bed beside me and lays a hand against my cheek.
“You’re all flushed. Are you feeling okay?”
“Perfect,” I say, blushing furiously.
“Sure? You’re kind of warm. And you’ve seemed a little off the last couple of days. You could be coming down with something. Maybe you should stay home today.”
“Nope. I feel fine. Totally fine. Fine, fine.”
“Do you want anything before I go? I could make you some tea.”
“No, thanks though. I’ll get up in a minute.” I try a weak smile. Now I really do feel ill, but it’s probably just guilt. I met an aunt of Gabe’s at his sister’s wedding last month, who suffers from some malaise she called “nervous stomach,” and which she described in unsolicited and impressive detail; it sounded very familiar.
“Okay then.” Gabe kisses my forehead, stands up, and shoulders his bags.
“You going to be out long? Busy day?”
“All day. Couple of different shoots, couple of meetings. I’ll leave my cell phone on, though. Call if you need anything.” Gabe points a finger at the dog. “Francis, you keep an eye on the lady.” He gives me a little wave as he walks out. A moment later I hear the front door close behind him. I stare into space and hold my breath. For the last two days, since Joan’s drunken comments about Gabe and Ora ratcheted up my anxiety to an unprecedented level, I’ve been resisting this impulse. But it’s all over now.
“I am a bad person,” I tell Francis, and throw the covers back. “I give up. Let the invasion of privacy begin.” I pad to the study and collect Gabe’s large appointment book from his desk. The dog follows me, looking suspicious, as I continue on to the kitchen, pour a cup of coffee, and sit down to review the book. I flip back through the weeks to late April and his first known encounter with Ora: a portrait session for the magazine article about hot young writers, the appointment recorded in Gabe’s odd cursive scrawl. I note that he misspelled her name. That doesn’t happen again—not for the follow-up appointment to review those portraits, in which her name is spelled correctly, not for any of the following sessions, where she is identified only by her first name or her initials—a sitting for new author photos, a review to select prints, a shoot for a fashion magazine that she insisted he do, the paperback party. And there’s what must have been the lunch Ora mentioned to Joan, notated by Gabe as an appointment to review the paperback party photos. All of these I knew about. Everything looks above board.
I pour another cup of coffee, return to the study, and commence ransacking Gabe’s filing cabinet. Francis waddles in after me, his tail slung low, and watches as I go through folders of Gabe’s contact sheets and negatives, beset by a hazy fear that naked photos of the nemesis are in my future. I find none—though I do find prints from several of Gabe’s sessions with her, and it takes remarkable will on my part to refrain from reducing them to confetti. Inspired by a faint memory of some old movie, I check his financial files for incriminating evidence on credit card statements and receipts—which turns up
only the shocking amount he spent on my engagement ring. There seems to be an invisible force field around the drawer containing his correspondence. Only the pure of heart can enter, apparently, because I can’t bring myself to look through it. I run my fingers along the tops of the folders, make myself cringe imagining Ora’s prose style applied to the love-letter genre, and close the drawer.
I sit down at Gabe’s desk, slide open the top drawer, and recoil in horror from the precise organization therein. Gabe’s writing implements are ordered by type, size, and color; he has separate containers for three sizes of paper clips; he owns a staple remover and a letter opener, for heaven’s sake. I slam the drawer shut.
“Can this marriage be saved?” I ask a photo of Gabe and me, tacked to the bulletin board above his desk. The photo was taken a little more than a year ago at our housewarming party. We’re standing in the door between the kitchen and the living room; I’m laughing at the camera, Gabe is laughing at me. It’s a nice picture. It was a good party, too; we said then that it was the closest we’d ever get to having a wedding reception. I lean closer and scrutinize our faces, trying to remember what I was thinking at the time. Nothing has really changed since then—I mean our daily lives are the same, how we are together is the same—but somehow everything is different. Thinking about it makes me feel like I do in those dreams where I’m running down a hallway, but as I run the hallway grows longer, stretching out forever, and I run faster and faster, getting farther and farther away from wherever it is that I’m trying to go.
I’m flipping idly through papers stacked on the desktop when I notice a scrap of paper with a large heart drawn on it, carefully shaded in, and pluck it from the pile. My own heart attempts to escape my rib cage in several directions at once.
In Gabe’s handwriting are the initials O.M. Beside them, slightly smaller, the note reads P.S.C. 230 PM; below that are an address and tomorrow’s date. P.S.C? Prehistoric space cadet? Petulant stupid coquette? Please seek counseling? I have just finished copying the information onto my left palm with a felt-tip marker when I hear the front door open, and Gabe’s voice greeting Francis. I catapult myself from his desk to mine, crash-landing into my chair just as he enters the office.
“Hey.” He waves at me. “You’re still here. You decided to stay home after all?”
“Just, um, doing a little work here before I go in. Editing.” I pick up a random sheaf of papers from my desk and wave it at him. “Hard to, you know, concentrate at the office and, yes. You’re back.” I pull the sleeve of my pajama top down over my left hand.
“I forgot a lens I need for my first shoot.” He goes to the closet and pulls a padded bag off one of the shelves. “I don’t know where my brain is today. I can’t focus on anything.”
“Huh.” I narrow my eyes at him. “Maybe you should take a couple of days off. Relax. You’re doing too much. We could both, hey, we could leave tonight—we could spend the rest of the week on Nantucket. Your parents aren’t there now, are they? You want to?”
“Yes,” Gabe says, laughing. “But I have a couple of pretty important appointments. Besides, the engagement party is on Saturday. We can’t miss that.”
“Right. Well, maybe just take tomorrow off. Reschedule stuff? We can play hooky together. Have a picnic in Central Park.”
“I’ll take a raincheck on that. Maybe Sunday?” He waves distractedly and walks out. I hear the door close. A moment later Francis snuffles into the study, where I sit trembling in my chair.
When my fight-or-flight shakes have subsided, I call Invisible to let them know I’m on my way, and climb into the shower, vowing that I have learned my lesson. This was an aberration. I will never again stoop as low as I stooped this morning. And I will certainly not make use of the dubious information inked, blue and blurry, on my palm. Absolutely not. Not under any circumstances.
Just in case, though, I copy the information into my Palm Pilot before scrubbing it away. I swear the dog to secrecy and depart for the office.
WHEN I ARRIVE at Invisible, the front room is unnaturally quiet, and the faces of my little scribes are as solemn as gravestones. Pete tiptoes over to me and leans to whisper in my ear.
“Remember how Charles was all excited last night because he was going out to dinner with your brother?”
“Yes.”
“To that fancy sushi place downtown?”
“Yes.”
“And he thought James was going to propose?”
“Pete. The point.” I hear strange noises coming from the back office.
“Well, I, uh. James. Didn’t, you know, propose.” Pete looks at the floor and scuffs the toe of one sneaker with the heel of the other.
“James dumped him?”
“Shhhhhhh!” Myrna and Tulley shush me at once. I consider turning around, going home, and returning to bed. For several weeks.
“I knew this was going to happen,” I say. The Invisibles nod sympathetically and clear their throats.
“Never introduce anybody to anybody,” I tell no one in particular. “Is it bad?”
“It’s bad,” Damon says.
“Really bad,” Pete says.
“No suit,” Tulley stage-whispers. “No tie. He’s wearing jeans. And sneakers. And no hair product. He’s out on the balcony with Our Lady of the Fishnets.” Tulley nods in that direction.
“Maybe I should just go home for the day,” I suggest to the general assembly. “Seeing me might just upset him more.”
“Coward,” Damon says.
“So? How’d you like to stand proxy for a war criminal?”
“Get in there,” Tulley says. “Remember the Geneva Convention.”
“Oh, fine. Hold my calls. If we’re not back in a couple of hours, send in a hostage negotiation team, okay?” I slink into the back room and out through the window onto our fire escape, where Charles is blowing his nose energetically and Miss Trixie is making sympathetic noises. When Charles sees me, he tries to smile, bursts into tears again, and throws himself into my arms. I let him stay there and pat his back awkwardly until he pulls himself together. He sits up, takes a breath, looks me in the eye. Then his face crumples and he begins sniffling again.
“Charles. I’m sorry. Are you okay?”
“Oh, Joy! How could he? After all that we had together-how could he? After all the time we spent!”
“It was only three months. You should be—hey, I’m sorry. Don’t cry. Hey, come on, it’s okay.”
“Three and a half months,” he sobs. “Four, almost.”
“Four months.”
“Everyone knows the six-week rule,” Charles says, sniffing. “If you don’t break up at six weeks, you stay for twelve weeks—that’s three months. And if you don’t break up at three months, you stay for six months. And so on. So how could he break up with me at fifteen and a half weeks?”
“It’s statistically impossible, darling.” Trixie offers me a Kleenex. I decline.
“Vern, my brother has always defied the odds.”
“He said he loved me! How could he love me one week and then just walk away the very next week?”
“I’m sure he did love you, precious.” Trixie hands Charles another Kleenex. “How could he not love you?”
“Joy.” Charles turns on me with big sad eyes, and I brace myself. “What did he tell you? Did he really love me? Was he lying? What did he say? What did I do? Did I do something wrong? Was I too clingy? Was I too distant?”
“We really never discussed it.” And for precisely this reason, I want to add.
“Never? He never talked about me? He couldn’t have really loved me if he never talked about me with his own sister. I’m such an idiot! How could I have believed him? Never believe anyone when they tell you they love you after six dates.”
“That’s very sound advice, Vern.”
“Oh, my god,” Charles says. “Why are you being so unsupportive? Your brother was horrible to me.”
“Oh, goodness me. Time to run along,” Trixie c
oos. “Arrivederci, darlings.” She dashes inside, and her French doors snap shut. I had no idea anyone could move that fast in stilettos.
“I’m not being unsupportive.” I turn back to Charles. “I’m sorry it didn’t work out the way you wanted it to, and I’m very sorry you’re hurt. But what else can I say? I can’t condemn my brother to make you feel better. And I certainly can’t explain his behavior—I’ve never understood him myself. I can tell you not to take it personally. He’s never been a long-term kind of guy.”
“And you didn’t tell me this when we started dating because you’re a sadist?” Charles says.
“Okay, stop right there. Halt. Friendship foul. This has nothing to do with me. I’m here for you, but I’m not going to take any blame for this.”
“Well, you should. Why didn’t you warn me? Why didn’t you tell him to stay away? How could you have just let me… how could you have let him…?”
“Because you’re adults, and it’s none of my business, and you wouldn’t have listened anyway. You didn’t listen. I didn’t want the two of you to meet, if you’ll recall.”
Charles starts crying again.
“Joy.” Pete leans through the window. “Phone call.”
“I said hold my calls.”
“VIP.” Pete widens his eyes and waggles his eyebrows at me. I glare back, climb through the window, push past Pete, and snatch the phone up.
“Joy Silverman speaking.”
“Baby girl? It’s me. You sound a little tense.”
“Oh, really? I wonder why, James.” I wave Pete out and squint at the fire escape, where Charles is weeping over the railing. “What could possibly be happening here at the office, where I work, every day, side by side, with my business partner, to make me tense, do you suppose?”
“Oh, honey, I’m sorry. Is he taking it hard?”
“No comment. What the hell happened? Everything was going really well, wasn’t it?”
“It was, I guess. He’s a sweet guy. It was nice.”
“Sweet? Nice? You took him to family weddings. You were together almost every night. You’ve been inseparable all summer. You let him borrow your shirts. You’ve never let anyone borrow your shirts. That’s not ’nice.’ That’s serious.”