The Tourists

by Jeff Hobbs

  “Fashion printing, like…”

  “Printing colors on fabrics for designers.” David thought about it. “Basically. Yeah.”

  “Don’t get too excited,” James warned David. Then to me: “Davey made his wife write him a business proposal before he forked over the”—he turned his fingers into quotation marks—“necessary start capital.”

  David thought about something and slowly turned to James. “‘Forked over’?” he asked, eliciting a groan. “You think it’s bad practice for someone to write a business proposal? Especially a woman who has never run a business before?”

  Before James Gutterson could tack on the words But she’s your wife, I asked, “And how’s it going?”

  David paused thoughtfully again. “Well, it’s not in the black yet. Maybe sometime late next quarter?”

  “Economy’s shit for small businesses,” James said.

  “Fashion’s not exactly small business,” I lamely argued.

  “Samona’s piece is,” James said. “You know how many fashion print studios there are in this city?”

  “A lot?”

  “Three hundred and fifty-seven,” David answered very quietly.

  “And how many modeling agencies?” James pressed.

  “Forty-two.” David sighed. “We’ve been over this, Jimmy.”

  “It’s called a niche market.” This was directed at me, again with fingers as quotations.

  I had finished the bottle of Shiraz. I was going to have to take a subway home. I was still hungry.

  “Look, she’s having a good time with it,” David said. “She’s doing fine.”

  That last part was the answer to my initial question. But when David felt like he had to add, “We’re doing fine,” in a voice that suggested the opposite, so many new questions arose. Then he turned back to James to address his earlier comment. “The proposal was just to get her thinking about it clearly. It was a road map.”

  “Well, she must know the turf pretty well.” I offered this as a rebuke to Gutterson’s lack of faith. “I mean she used to be a model, right? They know how the business works.”

  “She only modeled for a little bit.” David was defensive and looking at me strangely now. “Not even a year.” Then he put his fork down and regarded me very seriously before asking, “Did you know Samona well?”

  And then I was mindlessly wiping my mouth and reeling to come up with some sort of nonanswer that would direct the conversation elsewhere, but Gutterson suddenly looked up from the dessert menu and blurted out, “David needed her back home for him. Davey needed someone to cook dinner or at least nuke leftovers.” James put the dessert menu down and announced he wasn’t going to get anything because he was watching his weight.

  David sighed and agreed. I wanted another drink.

  “How’d you hang on to her?” James asked while we waited for the bill. “I mean when you were working trading-floor hours and she was running around town with all those good-looking young guys?”

  David was pulling out his credit card, motioning for me to put my wallet away. “What? I’m a senior citizen suddenly?”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “Look, there was no competition. Most male models can’t read let alone form a sentence. What did I have to be jealous of?”

  There was a long pause. “Read? Who the hell reads?” James finally asked.

  “People read books,” I said. “People read the paper.”

  James ignored me. “You’re so full of shit, Davey. You read the fucking Wall Street Journal. What did you talk about that was so interesting?” Even though James was just fooling around, there were under-currents of cruelty to his bland, baby-faced facade. “What made you so much more captivating than these male models that Samona of course had absolutely no interest in? Please, tell us.”

  David pondered this, leaning back in the chair, tipping the front two legs an inch off the ground. Dear God, I thought. You could roll a boulder through this place while waiting for a reply from David.

  “We were in love,” he said.

  I couldn’t help but add significance to his use of the past tense.

  I stopped a waiter and asked for a Peroni. I hadn’t eaten anything that day and the chicken breast I ordered had been about the size of my thumb and after a bottle of wine I was feeling light-headed.

  “Most male models are gay anyway,” I threw out.

  “Yeah.” David glanced at me as if we had a mutual understanding. “It’s a…gay culture.”

  “Really gay,” I stressed.

  “Right,” James said, smirking. “Not what I’ve heard, guys, but whatever.” The waiter put a plate of biscotti on the table with my beer and the check, with instructions to pay for the beer at the bar. Both James and David were looking at me expectantly wondering why I had ordered it. As I finished the beer—and thought about ordering another—it occurred to me that David Taylor was simply not the kind of guy who would even consider his wife might be cheating on him, and as James cleaned up the biscotti plate and went on and on about how most male models are straight (he was right, of course) and ice hockey and how easy and simple everything had been back at Cornell, all I could do was stare across the table at David and think: He’s a good guy with the slight flaw of being boring. David Taylor—complacent as he was—did not deserve to be fucked over by Ethan Hoevel—a talented little fag who could get anybody he wanted. Suddenly I was overwhelmed by sadness and I was sorry I had called David and I was ashamed by it all: the expensive meal and the useless banter about the Web site and my measly résumé and hate-fucking and models—because beneath everything was the fact that David Taylor’s wife was cheating on him with a former classmate of ours, and I felt as if I were the only person in the world who knew how sad and cruel Ethan Hoevel could really be.

  When the bill came and David said he could expense it, James looked over his shoulder as he filled out the receipt.

  “You gotta tip more than that, Dave.”

  “Pardon?”

  “That’s fifteen percent,” James said. “You should leave at least eighteen.”

  “I come here all the time.”

  “In that case you should leave twenty. It’s not your money. Plus it’s good karma,” James said grimly. “And God knows we need it.”

  David harshly scribbled an amount. “Eighteen percent. That’s reasonable.” And then, as he stood up from the table, “Karma my ass.”

  As we left the hostess called out, “Have a nice day.”

  I walked them to their office at the corner of Fifty-first Street and Seventh Avenue.

  “Take care, buddy.” James hit me lightly on the shoulder. “E-mail me that résumé. It’s James-dot-

  Gutterson at Leonardco—one word—dot-com.” And then, because we both knew the offer was probably no good, he simply walked away.

  David stood with me as I lit a cigarette.

  “You shouldn’t smoke.” David said this after I had already taken three drags.

  “You’re right.” I didn’t want the cigarette anyway—lighting it had been an automatic response to being drunk. I stubbed it out in the ash can next to us.

  He looked at me in a curious way that was becoming increasingly familiar and said, “I’ll tell Samona you said hi.”

  When David walked into the building on Fifty-first and Seventh Avenue, he turned back with a puzzled expression, like he had one more question, but then he changed his mind and navigated a series of revolving doors. I watched as he buzzed through security with his automatic employee key card. He turned back once more—again with puzzlement—before disappearing in the direction of the elevators. Then I walked toward Times Square looking for a McDonald’s.

  4

  AFTER THAT LUNCH I pursued editors with rare diligence. I called contacts to bully my way into some bigger magazines—my noble and lofty ambitions including Esquire and The New Yorker and Rolling Stone. The Fashion Week piece in Maxim last February might have paid two months’ rent but it
failed to jump-start my career since it had ultimately been cut to shreds (it was all pseudo eye candy, cluttered and cheap-looking bullshit), and I blamed Ethan Hoevel for trying to salvage my little life by plunging me into that world for seven days. I had to force myself to believe that I had amassed an impressive collection of articles; I had to force myself to believe that they were worth sending out.

  And I suppose the motivating factor for all this was the feeling of uselessness that gripped me as I awoke from my nap after that lunch at Corotta with David Taylor and James Gutterson, lying on my mattress staring up at the water-stained ceiling and asking myself what in the hell led me to set up a lunch with an old friend just to try to decipher whether he knew the same awful secret I did. I came up with an answer immediately: I didn’t work enough.

  (But that wasn’t the real reason. The real reason I had set up that dull lunch in midtown was more complicated because it was tied to Ethan Hoevel and Samona Ashley. Their presence had hovered over that meal—in fact it had been more distinct than any of the men sitting at the table.)

  I tried to push them all from my mind by latching onto a new article pitch that seemed to carry some weight: the pollution problems at the Gowanus Canal in Brooklyn. I had read a brief article about this in the Times that morning and it stayed with me: the situation was supposedly “dire” and the local population was “suffering” and kingdoms of rats were appearing “everywhere” and contaminated water seeped through the earth and was flooding the basements of housing projects along the northern rim of Brooklyn.

  That same afternoon, in a rare and impulsive burst of activity, I took the L train out to the Gowanus Canal, but I couldn’t concentrate. The rotting dock pilings, the pair of orange sneakers abandoned on the muddy banks, a broken fishing rod, a used condom—useless details were all I noticed, and they drew me back into the realization I’d been dodging all day: nothing I could write would change anything in Brooklyn. In fact, nothing I could do would ever change anything—it was that simple. And as I stared out over a large putrid stream of water flowing slowly past me, I knew that this included the tiny soap opera involving three people I knew in college.

  As a writer, by nature, I was supposed to be attuned to people’s lives. I was supposed to observe from the fringes, figure out what intrigued me (as I’d naively lectured my father once), then pull back in order to translate their little stories, find what was funny or hopeful or romantic or pathetic or sad, make them ring true enough to mean something, and then give them a title.

  But the flaw that incapacitated me—it hit me now as a revelation, while I stood in a puddle of algae pulling the condom off my shoe with the fishing rod—was that New York hadn’t taught me yet how to be alone. This was what kept me corralled in the purgatory of club openings and fashion shows: I spent all my time trying to get past the velvet rope and through the door, always angling closer—but closer to what?

  What did it matter if I was concerned with David Taylor and Samona Ashley?

  What did it matter if I’d been in love with a girl once, and the girl had walked away from me and forged her life with a guy I’d run track with in college?

  What did it matter if that girl was now having an affair with Ethan Hoevel? I couldn’t change people—not the core of them. I could only listen. I could only watch. I was just another East Village burnout who drank too much and was approaching thirty and who just wanted to forget about everything and uphold a semblance of moving on in a jaded, hectic city.

  After walking up and down the Gowanus Canal muttering to myself and lighting cigarettes in this state of mild self-loathing, I went back to Tenth Street.

  I stared into my blank computer screen before deciding to clean my studio. This ended up taking only fifteen minutes. There were things under the bed—clumps of hair, a stack of change sticky with something—that I simply couldn’t deal with. Disgusted, I went back to the computer and spent half an hour deleting old files: articles I had written years ago for defunct periodicals like Golf-Pro and New York P.M. I promised myself I’d start eating three meals a day. I promised myself I’d start working out again. I promised myself I’d drink less. I promised myself I would avoid three former classmates from Yale.

  But then a voice announced, “You’ve got mail!”

  From: David. Taylor@Leonardco.com

  To: readyandwaiting@hotmail.com

  Sent: Tuesday, May 27, 8:57 PM

  Subject: Fwd: 15 Monkeys

  hey pal, today was fun. sorry about james. i thought he might be able to help. anyway here’san invo for a cocktail party—you might want to come. samona will be there. it would be good forus all to catch up. regards, d.

  6 PM Wednesday, June 2, at 988 Fifth Avenue, Apartment 12D. Cocktails to celebrate the purchase of N.W. Reinhardt’s “Fifteen Monkeys.”

  RSVP to: rtor77@aol.com

  ============================

  This message is for the sole use of the intended recipient. If you received this message in error please delete it and notify us. If this message was misdirected, The Leonard Company does not waive any confidentiality or privilege. The Leonard Company retains and monitors electronic communications sent through its network. Instructions transmitted over this system are not binding on The Leonard Company until they are confirmed by us. Message transmission is not guaranteed to be secure.

  ==========================

  I wrote back the next day.

  Thanks. Appreciate it. Maybe will see you there.

  A reply came just a minute later.

  you need to rsvp if you’re gonna come. d.

  I didn’t write back.

  People who wrote e-mails without capital letters irritated me. Who was too busy to hit the shift button?

  The following Tuesday afternoon—the day before the Fifteen Monkeys party—Ethan returned my call from three weeks earlier. I’d been waiting to hear from the Events Page editor at New York magazine in response to the pitch letter I’d halfheartedly sent on the Gowanus Canal, so I picked up the phone fast. I kept a landline just for these calls because a 212 area code seemed more respectable and less desperate than the mobile alternative 917—a minor illusion.

  “Hey.”

  I recognized the voice immediately. “Ethan.”

  “You called?” he said and didn’t wait for me to answer. “Want to come to a gallery opening tomorrow night?”

  “What’s it for?” I asked tersely.

  “Some interior design thing. I have to go for clients. I don’t really want to go but it shouldn’t be bad. Plus we should catch up. It’s been too long.”

  “You didn’t call me, Ethan. That’s why it’s been too long.”

  “Oh, stop it. You know I don’t always call back right away.”

  “But that doesn’t make it nice.”

  “Nice? Who has time for nice? I’m busy. Christ, I don’t know why I even bother with you sometimes.” He breathed in, then exhaled. “Look, you wanna come or not? We can meet after my class.”

  (For almost a year, Ethan had been teaching an industrial design class at the New School.)

  “Will Stanton be there?” I regretted asking this right away.

  Ethan paused. I could actually hear him smiling. “He might have something else going on that night.”

  “I guess you two aren’t as attached as you were before,” I said. “I mean, a few months ago you were giving each other—what? Three? Four nights a week? But I guess it’s hard with the new girlfriend and all.”

  “Stanton might actually give you a call today,” Ethan said, letting my comment fly into nothingness. “That was the other thing I wanted to tell you.”

  “I don’t want a call from Stanton.” I sighed. “Jesus, Ethan—”

  “Do you want to hurt Stanton’s feelings?” Ethan asked, genuinely interested.

  “I didn’t know he had feelings.” I stopped, relented. “Look, I barely know him, Ethan. Why in the hell would Stanton be calling me?”

  “His cloth
ing line is starting a run in that new Urban Outfitters near you. He wants to check out the displays and I told him you’d probably be around.”

  “There’s an Urban Outfitters in the East Village?” I muttered.

  “I think you two should get to know each other better.”

  “I’m busy today.”

  Dead air floated across the wires.

  “What are you doing, Ethan?” I suddenly asked. “You’re trying to pawn your so-called boyfriend off on me because of Samona?”

  The dead air kept coming but I could hear Ethan breathing and I couldn’t tell whether he was amused or pissed off and then everything was interrupted by a beep. Someone was calling me.

  “Look, Ethan, I’ve gotta go,” I said in a rush. “I’m not hanging out with Stanton and I’ve got to take this call. Bye.”

  “I’m just saying it’d be nice if you went—”

  I hung up before Ethan could say any more.

  I screened the call thinking it actually might be Stanton, but it was the Events Page editor’s assistant at New York magazine. She said they “enjoyed” the Gowanus pitch but “probably” wouldn’t be able to “find space” for it in any of the fall issues, yet they were looking forward to “discussing” it next year. Meanwhile, I was thinking that if they’d even read the pitch letter, they’d know it would be entirely outdated by next month.

  I decided after the message was left that screening calls was bad karma, and since Stanton wouldn’t be calling my landline anyway, I answered the next call a half hour later, uselessly hoping it was the editor calling back because they had suddenly found space.

  It was Stanton on his cell coming down Tenth Street.

  “Ethan gave me your landline. Can I come up?” he asked. “You know I’ve never actually seen your place.”

  “I haven’t cleaned it in a long time and it’s pretty nasty.”

  “I like pretty nasty.”

  “I’ll meet you on the street.” I sighed, knowing that Stanton was the type who’d wait outside my building until I came out.

  When I got outside, Stanton was up against the railing on the stoop. The Doberman from downstairs had its head buried in his crotch and was growling, and Stanton, of course, was laughing. The Doberman’s owner was pulling on the leash as he said “Down boy” until Stanton started flirting with my neighbor, which caused my neighbor to yank the dog away. Expressions like the one on Stanton Vaughn’s face were not the reason the guy from downstairs sat on the stoop with his dog all day—he liked people to lose their cool and suffer. And then it happened: the dog relented, wagging its stump of a tail and pawing at Stanton, who had, as usual, won the round—something else tamed.