The Last Romantics

by Tara Conklin

  “We never saw a finer bongmaster,” Kyle said. “Am I right, Joey? Am I right? We had some crazy ones.”

  Joe raised his arm and yelled “Kyyyyy-le!” in a loud, gravelly voice. He broke the name into two distinct sounds—Ky-ULL—and repeated it again and again in a kind of chant. Kyle laughed and raised his arm in return, and soon all the other fraternity brothers—thirty at least—in the room followed. As the sound persisted, it warped and changed and became not a man’s name but something else. Something animal and of the moment. A sound distorted by the element in which it was issued.

  Gradually the arms lowered, the chant died down. But Joe continued. Alone, he chanted at the same volume, the same rhythm: “Ky-ULL, Ky-ULL.” From where I stood, I could not see Joe; I only heard his voice.

  Kyle looked uneasily out at the crowd. “Sandrine,” he said into the microphone, “are you out there? I think your man may need a glass of water.” He laughed nervously, and then Ace stepped to the stage and began to introduce the next speaker, his voice loud enough that it drowned out Joe. And then Joe’s voice abruptly stopped and the next speech began, this one from a friend of Sandrine’s.

  The entire episode lasted no longer than five minutes, but it changed the tenor of the room. The party now felt unsettled, on edge, as though the chanting had contained a message that everyone but Joe had understood.

  And then it was my turn. Kyle offered a brief introduction. There was a moment of ruffled silence as heads turned to look for me in the crowd and I made my way to the small stage. I delighted in the weight of all those eyes on me, the attention of Joe’s friends and colleagues, the looks of surprise from his old fraternity brothers: Here was Fiona, no longer tagging behind athletic, smart Renee and dreamy, beloved Caroline. No longer chubby and awkward, now a full-grown woman. You look fantastic, Ace had said.

  “This is called ‘He and She,’” I announced, and pushed a curl away from my face.

  I began to read. I didn’t think about the crowd, or Man #23, or Joe, or Sandrine, or Noni, or the poem as a whole, its meaning, or the feelings I wanted it to evoke (longing and hope and lust and pride), but only about the sound of each indivisible word, the musicality of each, the rhythm. I leaned into the pa-pa-pa of the poem in the way I’d seen other poets, powerful amazing poets, read their work.

  I was nearly halfway through when the noise began. It came from the very back of the room, a ripple of conversation, not loud but loud enough for me to hear a distinct word—boring—said with a laugh. I looked up, and there at the back was a tall, handsome man: my brother, Joe. His body was only half turned toward the stage. Another man stood with him, the two of them swaying, bending slightly, then straightening again as they talked and laughed. Joe’s cheeks were shaded a startling red, and he threw back his head and uttered a loud, sharp Ha! in response to something the other man had said.

  I resumed reading. I ignored Joe and put my mouth closer to the microphone, spoke louder and faster. But a general rustling began. The noise moved forward from the back of the room, slowly at first, a tickling, nervous kind of sound, and then in an instant a switch flipped, an organic process was triggered, and the entire crowd erupted into conversation. I looked up again, and people were turning into groups, chatting and drinking. I saw a hand rise from the crowd to summon one of the waiters who hovered at the edge of the room.

  I didn’t know what to do. I wasn’t finished with the poem. I tried to speak louder into the microphone, but my voice fell beneath the din. I paused in the middle of a line. I looked for Joe, but I didn’t see him. The only person I recognized was my mother, charging toward me through the crowd. She stepped onto the stage with her glass and a spoon and tapped violently.

  “Quiet! Quiet, please!” Noni said. “Fiona hasn’t finished yet. She’s still reading.”

  No one noticed her. No one paused in his or her conversation.

  “Be respectful!” Noni called, her voice shrill, her face red. “This is Joe’s sister!”

  A few people looked up at Noni then. Their faces showed a tinge of guilt and embarrassment as they turned their backs to the stage. I was nearly as surprised by Noni charging onstage as I’d been by her handholding earlier in the evening. Perhaps the emotion of Joe’s impending marriage had affected her. Perhaps she’d had too much wine. Either way, Noni coming to my rescue was the last thing I expected. But here she was, standing beside me.

  “I’m so sorry, Fiona,” Noni said. “It’s a lovely poem. May I read it?”

  Dumbly I nodded and handed her the page.

  As Noni read the rest of my poem silently to herself, I scanned the crowd. Only one face was still turned toward the stage. It was Man #23, Will. He looked at me quizzically, a half smile on his face that was amused but not ungenerous.

  “Fiona,” he said, enunciating carefully. “I liked your poem.” I couldn’t hear his voice, but I made out the shape of the words.

  A waiter obscured my view of Will, and my sight line shifted. Now I noticed, standing far at the back of the room, Joe and Kyle. Kyle was talking very fast, his hands moving emphatically, but I couldn’t make out Joe’s face, only his stance, which was one of resistance. He leaned away to exit the conversation, but Kyle grabbed Joe’s arm above the elbow and held it, the two men locked in some private struggle. Only a few seconds passed, and then Kyle released Joe and turned abruptly away, as though in anger or dismissal. For a beat, Joe remained by himself. He let his head hang toward the ground. Still he didn’t look at the stage. He didn’t seem aware of what had happened, that he had started the avalanche of noise and disregard that drowned out the poem he’d asked me to write.

  Noni pulled gently on my arm. “It’s a wonderful poem,” she said to me. “Joe will appreciate it eventually.”

  Together we stepped off the stage. It was time to leave. I moved steadily through the crowd, head down, to retrieve my coat, my bag. I pressed the elevator button and waited as the tuxedos circulated around me: more champagne, more shrimp.

  At last the elevator pinged, the doors opened, and there was Renee.

  We looked at each other in surprise.

  “Am I too late?” she asked. “Is everyone leaving?”

  “Not everyone,” I said. “Just me.”

  “So I missed the reading,” she said with dismay.

  “Everyone missed it. Don’t worry, it’s okay.”

  “Did Joe love it?”

  I didn’t know how to answer. I didn’t want to cry, not here. She watched my face. She must have seen something, my disappointment and anger and embarrassment, because she leaned forward and grabbed my hand.

  “What did Joe do?” Renee said. “Do you get it now? Do you see?” There was concern in Renee’s voice but also anger. Anger directed at me.

  And then Renee’s face changed into a wide, automatic smile, and I knew without looking that Noni had come up behind me. It was then I noticed a tall man standing beside Renee. His left hand and arm were wrapped in a pristine white bandage and supported by a sling.

  “Fiona, Noni,” Renee said, still smiling. “Meet Jonathan.”

  Chapter 8

  After the speeches and my failed reading, the party shifted into a higher, more potent gear. There was more alcohol, louder music, dancers in the living room, smokers on the terrace. People laughing behind closed doors. A long, snaking line at the bathroom. Ace on his phone.

  “I should get home,” Jonathan whispered into Renee’s ear. He’d met Noni and Joe and watched Renee greet some old Bexley friends.

  Renee nodded. “Just give me a minute,” she said. “I need to talk to my brother.”

  She found Joe outside on the balcony. The view stopped Renee for a moment: the sky so clear, Central Park West like a sparkling red artery separating the neat empty block of the park from the glittering mess of the West Side. It amazed Renee how desolate the park looked from up here, the black heart of the city gouged out, scraped clean, a crater.

  Joe was smoking a cigarette with two of t
he waiters, college students both, who ducked away as Renee approached. The night had turned cold, and Renee shivered without a coat, but Joe was sweating. Dark stains marked his blue shirt under the arms and down the back.

  “Having fun?” Joe asked. He exhaled smoke over the balcony railing.

  “No, I’m not,” Renee answered. “We need to talk about your drinking. And the drugs, whatever it is you’re taking now. Should I ask Ace?”

  Joe snorted. “You’ve had it in for Ace ever since we were kids,” he said.

  “That’s not true.”

  “He’s not a bad guy.”

  “He’s a bad influence. He’s not your friend.”

  “Jesus, I’m not ten years old anymore. I can take care of myself.”

  Renee took a step closer to Joe. “I want to get you some help,” she said.

  “Oh, Renee. Help?” Joe held out his arms wide like a T, as though to indicate all of it: the balcony, the city, the park, the sky. “I’m fantastic. Did you see Sandrine? Isn’t she fucking gorgeous? I can’t believe this is my life. Here. This. I’m doing great.”

  “I’m worried about you.”

  “You worry too much.” He smiled, and the dimples came up. In the dim light of the balcony, he did look like a kid, an oversize kid dressed up in his father’s clothes. “Go home, Renee. I don’t want you here. I’ve never wanted you here, hovering over me.” Now he fluttered his hands like moths. “You’re not my mother.”

  To the east a plane descended toward JFK, its red lights blinking steadily, without urgency, and Renee thought for a moment of all the people contained inside. Eating, sleeping, listening to music, staring out at the night, waiting to arrive. The interminable descent and how shocking it always felt, how impossible, when the plane landed with a jolt and the transition from sky to earth was complete. There were moments in the ER that stretched on like that, past the end of Renee’s shift, past a four-hour night of dreamless sleep, into the next day and the next, on and on until another moment replaced it. Over the course of her medical career, there would be hundreds of these eternal moments. A girl with two black eyes, one broken arm, no shoes. The young woman, a lump in her breast the size of a lemon, the texture of stone. A boy, his name was Alexey, his right hand plunged into boiling water. He is very bad, the father said. How else to teach a lesson?

  Here with Joe on the night of his engagement party, looking past him to the glittering lights of Manhattan and the plane, obscured now by a ragged scrap of cloud, was not one of those moments. Her brother was right: look at all that he had. There was pain in the world, so much, and she had the capacity to ease some of it. Just a fraction, but still.

  Renee turned and left our brother on the balcony. She found Jonathan and rode with him in a cab first to a twenty-four-hour pharmacy and then to his apartment, where she watched as he took his medicine. Then she put him to bed, and then, finally, after thirty-one hours of wakefulness and half doze, Renee was home in her own bed. Asleep.

  * * *

  How long was it before Joe called me? Perhaps two weeks, perhaps three. Every day that passed felt like a slap. Every day a reminder of the reading. Those minutes on the stage in Kyle’s apartment played again and again in my mind, hot and embarrassing.

  When Joe finally called, I was getting ready for work. Sitting on the edge of the bed, I held the phone in my hand and watched Joe’s number flash on the screen. For me to accept an apology, I thought, it must be lengthy and sincere, perhaps even tearful. The poem was long gone, the paper thrown away, the file deleted from my computer. I would never write another word for Joe. Nothing for the wedding, nothing for a christening or graduation. This was what I planned to tell him, as though it would be the greatest insult, the harshest punishment.

  I answered the phone. “Hi, Joe,” I said, the syllables curt and sharp.

  “Fiona—” Joe’s voice sounded strange, strangled, as though he were trying to swallow but could not.

  My roommates had already left for work. It was 9:30 a.m., Monday. I had keys in my hand, my coat on.

  “I think I’m in trouble,” Joe said. “I hit someone.”

  “Hit? You were driving?”

  “No, hit with my hand. I hit Kyle. I punched him.”

  “You punched Kyle?” All at once the morning fell away. “Why?”

  “He fired me. He threw me out of the building.”

  “What? Where are you?” I heard a wail of sirens, but I wasn’t sure if the sound came from the phone, where Joe was, or from the street outside my apartment building.

  “I’m at the library.” Again the strangled sound. He was crying, I thought. A real cry, a sound I recognized from that long-ago day at the pond when I had almost drowned, when Joe cursed his own foolishness, his role in making something wonderful turn to sorrow.

  “Stay there,” I said quickly. “I’ll come to you.”

  * * *

  I met Joe on the stone steps of the New York Public Library, but it started to rain, a heavy, drenching shower, so we ran to a nearby deli, where we sat on plastic chairs and drank watery coffee from paper cups. Joe wore no coat, only a short-sleeved polo, and held no briefcase. Rain darkened the shoulders of his shirt, and his hair shrank to his scalp, making him look cold and small. I shivered at the sight of him.

  “I didn’t mean to hit him,” Joe said. “It just happened. I was just so, so . . . angry.”

  “But why did he fire you?”

  “My numbers haven’t been great. And I’m expensive, Fiona. Kyle is worried that things are getting ready to turn.”

  I remembered the exchange I’d witnessed at the party. “And what else, Joe?”

  Joe paused and rubbed his face with his hands. “He thinks I need to straighten up. Too much . . . I don’t know, partying.” Joe paused. “You know, I was pretty wasted at the engagement party. Did you read your poem, Fiona?” He looked at me with an open face, innocent.

  All at once the anger I’d held since the party faded. “No, I didn’t,” I said.

  “Send it to Sandrine, okay? She’d love to see it.”

  I nodded. Then I said, “Joe, do you think you have a problem?”

  “No,” Joe answered quickly. “Of course I don’t.” There was another pause, this one longer. Then he said, “And Kyle mentioned something about a harassment allegation. My old secretary, Sierra.”

  Sierra? My mind searched for a face, and then all at once, of course. A dawning recognition, a connection between two disparate points. Sierra, the strawberry blond from Joe’s engagement party.

  “She said you harassed her?”

  “Something like that. Kyle said she wouldn’t press charges. If they fired me. Otherwise she might. She threatened him. I think she wants more money, better office, better job. She isn’t that great on Excel, which is the God’s honest truth, so she got moved downstairs into HR. There are no windows down there, none.”

  I did not respond immediately. My brother’s face was red, still wet and raw from the rain. At last I said, “So she’s lying about sexual harassment as leverage for a better view? Is that what you’re telling me?”

  Joe slowly shook his head. “Fiona, Fiona, don’t be so naïve. People do things like this. Women do them. It isn’t uncommon.”

  “I saw you,” I told Joe, “with Sierra. At your engagement party.”

  “What?” He looked genuinely confused. “Oh, behind the screen. Is that what you mean?”

  I nodded.

  He sighed and looked at the floor. “I love Sandrine, I really do. But it’s so hard to say no. Why would I say no? You understand that now, don’t you, Fiona?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Look at you,” Joe said. “Look at how you dress. Look at how you talk to guys. I’ve seen you flirt. You’re practically a different person since you lost weight.”

  This was a new Joe regarding me. A starkly serious Joe with a cold calculation in his eyes. He was judging me, assessing me. And suddenly my brother became a stra
nger. I recognized in Joe the kind of man about whom I wrote most viciously on the blog, the kind who carried himself with an entitlement that masqueraded as confidence. Joe believed that he deserved whatever he wanted—Sierra, Sandrine, an annual raise, a six-figure bonus.

  “This isn’t about me,” I said.

  He rolled his eyes. “I did not harass Sierra. I didn’t. We’ve flirted, yes. She’s a very attractive woman. Once we kissed, a long time ago. We made out, at an office party. Okay? Happy now, Fiona? This was before Sandrine and I were serious. Way before.”

  “Before you were serious? But you were already dating?”

  “Yes. Before we were serious.” He put his face in his hands, and then he sat up straight. “I need to call Kyle. I just need to talk to him. We’re brothers, for Christ’s sake. I know we can work this out.” He punched a number into his phone. I watched his face as the line rang and rang and rang.

  Joe hung up. “I’ll call Derek,” he said.

  And so he did. On and on, friend by friend, fraternity brother by fraternity brother, the wide circle he shared with Kyle: Kevin, David, Lance, Kurt, William, Xavier, Mike B., Mike H., Mike S., Hank, Matt, Camden, Bobby, Logan, Cal. Joe would often bring one or two or five of these boys back to Noni’s house on weekends or breaks, for home-cooked meals and movies. Generally they holed up in Joe’s room or piled themselves in front of the television with beers and bags of Doritos. To me, adolescent hormonal Fiona, they were like great cats, sultry and sleepy, launching into quick, explosive motion before languishing again into blurred half sleep. Eyelids lowered, voices so deep, grunting at one another in monosyllables, like the language of some ancient tribe. They moved with a certainty about their place in the room, their place on the planet. I marveled at it. I wanted it.

  I remember writing in my book, Muscle, tooth, solid, sex, skin, languish, stubble, power.

  No one picked up Joe’s call. His face drained. “They all know,” he said, his voice thin.

  “You can’t be sure.”

  “Yes I can. It’s been . . . what? Two hours since I left. That’s enough time. They all know.”