The Tourists

by Jeff Hobbs

  It is an awakening.

  Ethan gets out of bed the next morning, makes coffee, and finishes up a few project outlines before heading to Parsons to teach a class.

  Meanwhile, he knows that David, dazed, would be drifting back to his office, where he’d stare at the wedding photo. And then he’d be studying the Printing Divine poster. He’d be resting on the couch. He’d gaze out the window.

  Ethan predicts that, a little later in the morning, David would start cruising the Internet looking at Web sites for hotels in Peru—since he’d be curious—and this would lead to minor fantasies about being with Ethan.

  David would then flash through the Minnesota vacation he’d been planning to take with Samona (and that won’t be happening anyway since she’d left him two weeks ago) in bullet points: share a Greek salad at the airport, maybe a Xanax for the plane, get picked up by Samona’s father, talk to Samona’s father about the fraternity days, gently discard her mother’s remarks about Samona’s figure and how much nonexistent weight she has gained, comfort Samona in their guest bedroom that night while she cries.

  Ethan sees the automatic lights above him clicking off. He sees David not moving. He imagines the office remaining dark.

  Later that afternoon, Ethan is finishing up his class at Parsons. An undergraduate design competition is being held this weekend and Ethan moves from desk to desk giving final advice on the various entries.

  He watches as a twenty-two-year-old girl named Lauren, overweight with a very warm face, demonstrates a tomato slicer for him. It looks like a large pair of scissors, but the bottom lever ends in a small spoon which holds the tomato, while the top lever forks into two separate blades which fit into the spoon and, in theory, slice down to cut the tomato into thirds. The problem Lauren has is that unless the tomato’s very ripe, it tends to collapse under the pressure of the blades.

  “You need to seriously sharpen it for now, and after the competition maybe think about spending the money on a finer metal or maybe something synthetic.”

  “But you think it’s okay? I mean, the idea?” Lauren gazes up at Ethan, her eyes wide with attraction.

  Ethan smiles and is flattered that Lauren is scanning him.

  “I really think you’ve got a chance next weekend.” He’s referring to the competition, which is in Philadelphia. “And after that, we might start thinking about a patent.”

  “Really?” she asks. “Will you be there this weekend?”

  Ethan doesn’t know the answer. All he knows is that he has to get out of the Warren Street loft.

  But when he looks up, David Taylor is standing at the door.

  “No,” Ethan tells Lauren. “I’ll be out of the country, unfortunately.”

  Ethan put out his cigarette and flicked it over the railing. I sat there, silent, as usual, and listened to the dreary Coldplay album that was playing in the background.

  “So we’re leaving tomorrow,” he said.

  “And I care because?” It was just a futile pretense, and Ethan’s laughter called me out on it.

  “Because I’d like you to do something for me while I’m gone.”

  “Oh, sure, great, anything,” I blurted out harshly. “Whatever you want, Ethan. I’m here for you, man.”

  “Calm down and listen. Your mission, should you choose to accept it: stay in my loft.”

  “Why would I do that, Ethan?”

  “To distract her.” He squinted at me, sizing up my response. “Plus, you could use a little distraction yourself.”

  “Jesus, Ethan, I have work—”

  “You don’t have that much work,” he countered, and then went on suggestively, “And who the hell knows what might happen if you do certain things right?”

  “I don’t even get what you mean. Nor do I want to.”

  “It’s not that difficult to grasp.”

  “You’re suggesting I live here and maybe get some action from the girl whose head you’ve been messing with. And in the meantime, you’ll be fucking her husband in South America? Am I close?” I rubbed my forehead.

  “Calm down. All I’m suggesting is you hang around here, sublet your studio for a thousand bucks—which I’m under the impression that you need—and keep her occupied. I thought I’d be doing you a favor.”

  “So what? I’m like your little charity case? I’m going to just accept this oh-so-generous offer from you?”

  “You always have before,” he said quietly. “Except it never used to torture you this much.”

  “What about Aidan?” I asked, trying to ignore him and his cruelty.

  “I’d be surprised if Aidan survives another week here. And let’s face it: the guy’ll probably end up in Iraq or something by the end of the year. Iraq, or else choking to death on his own vomit in a gutter near some happy hour in the Village.”

  I crossed my arms and leaned back into the chair. I tried to sound heavy and foreboding. “Didn’t you say just a few weeks ago that maybe you weren’t gay?”

  He leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. “Recent events have led me to reconsider a few things,” he said with a shrug, and then: “Kind of like you did, once upon a time.”

  We heard Samona’s footsteps on the stairs, and I started to get up.

  “No,” Ethan said, grabbing my arm. “Stay for this.”

  Without speaking she came up behind him and rubbed his shoulders until Ethan shrugged her off.

  “Ooh, frigid,” Samona tried to say lightly as she took the empty seat on the other side of him. “Hello again,” she murmured to me.

  Her embarrassment surrounding our last encounter sounded clearly in her voice.

  Sadly, she had no idea how much embarrassment I’d spared her.

  When Ethan didn’t say anything, Samona crossed a leg over her knee and inspected her ankle.

  “Still hurts?” he asked.

  She chose to interpret this as being sincere concern. “Yes.”

  “Have you been icing it?”

  “On and off, I guess. It feels all right.”

  Ethan lit a cigarette.

  “Got one for me?” she asked, trying not to sound pathetic, which, she realized, Ethan was pretty much forcing her to do. The fact that I was sitting on the other side of him observing this only intensified her stiffness. He gave her the cigarette he’d just lit and took out two more—one for me, one for him—but a light breeze kept blowing out the flame from the lighter.

  “We can all share.” She took a drag and handed the cigarette across to me. There was lipstick on the end of it where her lips had been. She turned to Ethan. “I couldn’t help noticing your suitcase is out.”

  I silently passed him the cigarette. He looked at her and nodded. “Yeah.”

  The practiced nonchalance irritated her. Her face wrinkled in a scowl.

  “You’re going somewhere?”

  “Yeah. I am.”

  “And you were going to tell me this…”

  He shrugged with a sidelong glance at me. “Now, I guess.” He handed the cigarette back to her. “There’s some pot downstairs. If you want to smoke.”

  “Are you in the mood?”

  “I could get there.”

  “Do you want to get something to eat first?”

  (I knew that Ethan had actually shared an early dinner with David at Bar Six before they’d each gone home to pack. But I also knew that he’d only eaten a salad—he could still eat more if she made him.)

  “Nice job,” Samona said. “Changing the subject.”

  “What’s the subject?”

  “Not telling me you were leaving…” She turned to me. “I’m sure you knew all about this?”

  “Not…really.” I tried to meet her eyes, but she was staring at Ethan. What surprised me the most—and Ethan, too, I assumed—was that she wasn’t asking him where he was going. He’d already come up with the story—a movie set in Vancouver, which was close enough not to sound shocking and far enough away that she wouldn’t ask to come with him. He’d concoct
ed the details in such a way that she would have to go along with it, and it would be easy for me to uphold the lie.

  Ethan played it mellow and laughed and reached for the cigarette, but she didn’t give it to him. She took another drag and decided to start playing his game.

  “I guess I could be in the mood to eat,” Ethan finally said.

  “What are you hungry for? Thai, Indian—” She blinked at me. “Are you eating with us?”

  “I…can’t take Indian—my stomach.”

  She gave the cigarette back to me. But she’d smoked most of it—all I had was the lipstick, which I flicked away.

  “Doesn’t have to be Indian. We could all go to Balthazar?”

  “I think I’m…not really hungry after all,” I murmured, standing.

  “Me neither, actually.” This was Ethan. “I’m not really in the mood.” He turned to her. “But you two can eat at Balthazar all you want while I’m away. Our old college friend’s going to crash here.”

  She leaned back, startled, and I was carefully attuned to her confusion. It hurt a lot when she blurted out, “But don’t you have an apartment?”

  “Relax,” Ethan replied for me. “I just want him around to supervise my brother.” He added, “This should make you happy.”

  “Where—where are you going to sleep?”

  “There’s plenty of room,” Ethan said. “It’s a big loft.”

  Neither of them moved and Ethan was following a helicopter that seemed to be flying low across the water. Samona just sat there alternating between him and me.

  “What’s the problem?” he asked, laughing out loud. “I don’t know what it is but you’re so hot when you’re disappointed.”

  “I’m not,” she blurted out before realizing how defensive she must have sounded. She lowered her voice, now sensitive to me listening. “I mean, I’m not.”

  “You’re not what?” Ethan asked. “Hot? Or disappointed?”

  “Don’t be mean like that.” She turned to me, on the verge of tears. The look she gave me—and which I’ll never forget—pleaded with me to leave.

  A warm breeze—but cooler than the humid air that had been hovering all month—passed over us as I nodded good-byes and tried to ignore Ethan saying, “I’ll leave keys for you with the doorman.” I walked slowly across the roof, and behind me Ethan glared at Samona. In a condescending tone Samona didn’t know existed, I heard him add, “I’m pretty sure that’s not mean. But let me extend my deepest apologies if you choose to see it that way.”

  “Shut up.” She sighed. “Just shut up. You’ve been acting so distant and now you’re going away and leaving me here with your brother and…him?” (She didn’t realize in her anger that I hadn’t reached the stairs yet—that I could still hear.) “How do you expect me to see things?”

  “I’ll be back in less than two weeks. We’ll figure it out from there.”

  “Figure what out?” she asked urgently, ashamed.

  Ethan lit another cigarette while Samona limped away.

  While I waited for the elevator downstairs, I heard her rustling halfheartedly in the kitchen.

  I knew I would take Ethan up on his offer. And it wasn’t just because spending a week in the same space with Samona was his twisted gift to me.

  And it wasn’t just because I decided (while riding the elevator downstairs, flashing back on the way Ethan was wrecking her) that I was through with being afraid, and that I could still save her.

  There was another reason, almost as powerful.

  Ethan was right: I needed the thousand bucks.

  25

  THE FOLLOWING night, I left my keys in the mailbox for the subletter I’d found online (who was in town from Oregon for a week with her cat) and took my computer and a small duffel bag of clothes to Warren Street. Samona was already asleep, and I stood just outside the closed door, listening to her deep breathing. And after spending most of the night trying unsuccessfully to work (Ethan had been right: there wasn’t much anymore, and I felt forgotten by that world which I’d once been so eager to enter) and ignoring Aidan’s constant badgering after he stumbled in from a night of binge drinking, his eyes bloodshot, I went upstairs and walked around the empty roof deck, scuffing my sandals on the slate, cleaning up old cigarette butts and putting them in empty wine bottles, gazing at the river, and wondering what had been leading me up there all summer—what was the craving that made me so attuned to these stories even though they pained me?

  In the end I supposed that it had a lot to do with the secret we shared.

  Then I went downstairs and drank a bottle of wine in order to fall asleep on one of Ethan’s couches, which was difficult to do amid Aidan’s snoring and my gaze wandering constantly to Samona’s door.

  I woke and smelled strong coffee brewing. I put on jeans and a T-shirt and heard rustling in Samona’s room. And since the door was ajar, I peeked in to see her standing in front of his senior project, and before she noticed me there (I had that much presence, as usual) she took it down—almost dropping it since it was heavier than it looked—and she sat and held it in her lap, running her fingers over the glass, plugging it in and turning it on, and then watching the thick, polished black wing begin to glide up and down. She looked curious and innocent—how does the damn thing work? she seemed to be wondering—and this was when I knocked lightly on the door and stepped into the room.

  “Pretty cool, isn’t it?”

  She stood up, startled, and unplugged the box. “All I did for my senior thesis was a stupid paper on Munch that I finished the night before it was due. And he had to go and make…this.”

  “Dude, are you fucking my brother’s girlfriend in there?” Aidan called from the living room. Out the door, I could see him in his underwear setting up a game of Madden NFL on his PlayStation.

  “I wonder why he keeps it around?” she asked out loud. “I mean, it takes up so much space.”

  “It’s a reminder,” I replied without thinking.

  (Of course it occurred to me that all I had to do was tell her about the project—really tell her about it—and I’d simply be telling an interesting story, and it would put an end to everything.)

  (Of course Ethan had known that I would never tell—not because I was too ashamed, or even because I’d promised not to—but because I was still afraid to risk myself that way.)

  What I said was, “I hope I’m not intruding here. I hope I’m not bothering you.”

  What she said was, “No, I’m actually glad you’re here. Because I couldn’t be alone with—” She gestured into the living room and grimaced.

  Later that afternoon, Samona Taylor asked me to go with her to The Riverview—knowing David would be at work—because she was getting ready for Fashion Week and wanted to remove the rest of her clothes from the walk-in closet she and David once shared, but she didn’t want to “go in that place alone.” We took a cab together, mostly in mildly awkward silence as she locked onto different clusters of people we passed—street vendors, tourists, businessmen on their lunch break.

  “Do you think anyone’s really happy in this city? I mean, truly happy?” she finally asked as we passed Thirty-fourth Street.

  “I think people are as happy as they let themselves be,” I murmured. It was just a bland reply and I didn’t really know what it meant.

  Then we were walking across the grandiose driveway and through the gold-tinted rotating doors of The Riverview. She said “Hi, Gerald” to the doorman and then we passed into the deep and ornate lobby with mosaic floors, and I noticed the way Gerald looked after her with barely masked pity—apparently he knew things, too.

  We went upstairs, and she thanked me once again before letting us in. It was the only time I ever saw the apartment. It was the kind of habitat that reeked of commitments and promises: the solid eggshell walls, the oak desk spilling over with the work David brought home, the armoire packed with satellite cable boxes, stereo equipment, two separate CD collections (they each obviously kept their ow
n, his headlined by Tom Petty, hers by Sarah McLachlan), the balcony that must have been David Taylor’s own sad version of Ethan Hoevel’s roof. Aside from the glaringly out-of-place framed prints (Renoir, Monet, Munch, van Gogh) that Samona had hung all over, and despite all the many attempts to redecorate, the space could have been taken out of the Crate & Barrel catalog.

  Seeing the apartment gave a certain clarity to what I knew about them.

  It made me not blame them—either of them—for the decisions they’d made.

  It seemed to justify—or at least explain—their ignorance and cruelty to each other.

  Samona hurried past the fact that this was where she’d lived for four years (and had been a wife during most of that time), and she assured me, “The only touches of myself in this hellhole are the paintings.”

  “They add a lot to the place,” I replied dully. “I mean, you must know a lot about art.”

  “I don’t know that much about art. What I do know is that I will never live in this room again.”

  Then we moved through the apartment in earnest—her first, then me—at which point she noticed a few key details:

  The number 13 was flashing on the answering machine. “That seems above average,” she murmured. “No one really calls David here.” Her finger hovered over the play button, tempted to listen to the messages until something else caught her attention.

  The power strip behind the armoire had been unplugged.

  In fact, all the power strips in the apartment had been unplugged.

  This led her to the bedroom, where the bed was cleanly made—“He never fucking makes the bed. What the fuck?”—and she started scurrying around, leafing through notepads, opening drawers with the urgency of the heroine in a B-level psychological thriller. A Post-it on the bedside table listed LAN Chile flight numbers and departure times. She opened the closet and saw that David’s suitcases were gone.

  I was standing close behind her between the bed and the closet. Her scent was everywhere.

  “You think he just wanted to get away after you moved out?” I asked. “A spontaneous little vacation to clear his head?”