Otherwise Engaged

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Otherwise Engaged Page 3

by Lindsey Palmer


  “You know what Grace Paley said,” Jonathan pontificates, ignoring me. “You write from what you know. You write into what you don’t know.”

  Gabe nods heartily. “That rings so true, I can’t even tell you.”

  I’m still feeling sullied by my encounter with Melinda, and stunted by my professional responsibility to play nice. Also, my stomach rumbles with hunger. Naturally, I take all of this out on Gabe: “So, do Dahlia and Russell end up married with a minivan full of kids?” I regret the words as soon as they leave my mouth.

  Gabe’s eyes widen, and he turns to me, forgetting about Jonathan. “Wait, you read my novel?”

  “Part of it. It’s intriguing.” I say this breezily, feeling anything but. “So it’s about Talia, right?”

  Gabe suddenly doesn’t look like himself. He cocks his head and wrinkles his forehead, assuming a pose that could be named “The Thoughtful Author.” “Well, it’s inspired by her, yeah. I mean, sort of. It’s more about … how can I put it?” I wonder how many times he’s practiced this speech in his head, consciously deciding on the length of each pause, the number of verbal tics to insert in order to sound most off the cuff. “If I had to sum it up, well, I’d say it’s about the relationships so many of us seem to find irresistible, even if they’re not the healthiest, and how what strikes us as sexy and seductive is often at odds with, um—”

  “I told Gabe I’d love to read his book,” Jonathan cuts him off, oblivious. “It seems to have a lot in common with The Story of Maya Z.”

  Right, Jonathan’s novel. The Story of Maya Z is the stream-of-conscious musings of a twenty-something nymphet with a sex addiction. Male critics adored it, praising its authenticity of voice—one even called it a modern-day Mrs. Dalloway—whereas female critics used phrases like “misguided at best,” “reductive and misogynistic,” and “400 pages of mansplaining.” I myself couldn’t get through the first chapter. Still, I realize Jonathan is in a position to help Gabe, so I do what Gabe would never stoop to: “Hey Jonathan,” I say, “would you be willing to introduce Gabe to your agent? He’s helped you achieve such success, and it would mean so much.” Flattery goes everywhere with Jonathan.

  “Of course,” Jonathan says, voice soggy with patronage.

  On the subway home, Gabe and I talk about my boss’ insistence on doing a shot with him, and my brother’s upcoming birthday party, and an ad for a movie we both want to see. Finally, I venture, “Gabe, I have to say, I’m finding it hard to read your book.” I take a breath. “It’s basically a love letter from you to this other girl, a girl who couldn’t be more different from me, by the way.”

  Gabe’s face is at once hurt and understanding. After a pause, he says softly, “I see what you’re saying. But you know it’s just a story, right?” I nod, although I’ve never heard Gabe talk so dismissively about his writing; the way he describes novels he’s read, they sound more real than real life. Gabe seems to want to add something else, but decides against it.

  “I’d find it reassuring to know that, in the end, Russell meets a girl named Dolly or Holly and they live happily ever after. Is that what happens? I don’t mind spoilers.” I poke Gabe under his ribs, where I know he’s ticklish.

  “That’s an idea.” But he says it halfheartedly. He’s distracted, examining the card Jonathan gave him like it’s a golden ticket. I see him lip-reading its contents: “Bill Matherstein, literary agent.”

  • • •

  Friday morning, I’m touring around a candidate for a copywriter position, the short tour since I’m leaning toward no. She pauses in front of the conference room and asks what’s going on in there. Jonathan Wexler condescending to a group of suburban moms, is what’s going on, since some energy bar brand wants to break into the after-school snack market. Even through the soundproof glass, I can detect his false chumminess—As I look at this group, it’s crystal-clear that your children’s health is your number-one priority. Seeing as how you’re the experts, what do the words “healthy” and “natural” mean to you? I was the one who hired Jonathan. Because I knew that to a certain type of person—the type who’d sign up for a product rebranding focus group—he’s irresistible. I see it now on the moms’ faces, and also on the face of this candidate, who’s blushing. “Market research,” I say, deciding definitively not to ask her back for a second interview. “Jonathan is our focus-group guru.”

  Spotting us through the glass, Jonathan ducks out of the conference room and extends his hand. He’s not one to miss an opportunity to meet a pretty girl. “Oh, Molly,” he says, like an afterthought. “I read your man’s book. I found it completely captivating. That Dahlia—so luminous, so sensuous. Tell Gabe I passed it on to Billy Boy, my agent, this a.m.” Gabe sent his novel to Jonathan? And what the hell kind of a review is that? I’m too stunned to respond.

  I continue the candidate’s tour, but twice I have to ask her to repeat her questions. I answer on autopilot, detailing our company benefits and office culture, wishing I could say instead, Forget it, we’re done here. Meanwhile, Jonathan’s words ricochet through my head like boomerangs, fast and hard.

  Chapter 3

  AS THE 7 train careens through the tunnel, Leo’s birthday cake sits precariously on my lap. The thing is six-layered, and has the heft of an infant, although my mom was definitely copied on the email from Lana, saying my brother wanted a small, low-key party for his thirty-third birthday: bowling and beer. My mom, clearly bereft to miss the affair, has overcompensated with dessert ordered from a specialty bakery in Queens. How many calories and grams of sugar must the cake contain, I wonder idly. Lana will cut a sliver for each guest, truly savor her three bites, maybe split another piece with Leo tomorrow, and then box up the rest for him to take to the hospital for the nurses. It’s always a marvel sharing a meal with my sister-in-law: Lana eats happily and heartily precisely until the point of satiation, then puts down her fork with a satisfied smile, the epitome of health and sanguinity. I doubt she’s ever once dieted or felt uncomfortable in her skin.

  When I arrive on her doorstep, Lana’s eyes go wide at the cake box. “Come in, come in,” she says. “Gee, your arms must be sore. Here, put that down there. I just knew Emily would go over-the-top.”

  “My mother? Not a chance! It’s German chocolate, by the way, though she made sure to mention that it was baked right here on American soil.”

  Lana has been part of the family long enough to be allowed to make fun of my mom. “So, it’s not imported from Germany? No Nazis got their hands on it? Phew.”

  I am a careful tip-toer in this apartment, which is curated like the Met, and immaculate as a showroom. I don’t know how Lana has kept in check my brother’s natural messiness, but it’s typical Leo to have found the one woman who’s not only willing to put up with his filth but who manages it so expertly that he comes off like the picture of tidiness. I’m worried about the stack of frosted slabs now perched upon the side table; I can imagine the disaster of chocolate all over their Persian rug.

  Lana distracts me with an assignment to mix drinks. I’m set up kindergarten-style with a row of supplies: vodka, limes, ginger beer, and copper mugs. “Moscow Mules, to complement the German chocolate cake,” Lana says, tossing me an apron that matches her own. “Apparently the party will be Eastern-European themed. Did I tell you the mail-order brides are on their way from Lithuania?” She giggles. “Sorry, not funny. I’m just a teensy bit stressed. Leo got paged and he’s been at the hospital since six. He said it would be quick, but what is it now—7:45? Thanks for coming early to help, by the way. You’re a lifesaver.”

  “Classic my brother to disappear and leave you with all the work. He’s probably at the bar across the street watching baseball.”

  “No, no, it’s one of his patients, this kid Jasper,” she says, suddenly solemn. “Leo says he can’t seem to kick a bad flu. It’s scary stuff.” Lana is always serious about the sanctity of Leo’s work. He’s a third-year resident, training to be a pediatric surgeon�
�I know it’s a very important job, but my brother also loves to be the hero. It’s one reason he and Lana are so compatible; he’s happiest being admired, and she’s an earnest admirer.

  I rub what I hope are soothing circles against Lana’s back. She points to the pitcher of drinks. “Pour me some of that, a tall one.” I fill glasses for us both.

  “Well, Leo will definitely beat Gabe here. His shift’s not over until ten.”

  “How is Gabe?” Lana asks.

  “Good.” I report on our vacation the way you do after several tellings—a capsule version of three highlights—editing out the hopes I harbored about returning home engaged.

  “And his writing?”

  “Actually, he finished his novel.”

  “Good for him. I won’t ask what it’s about—I know writers hate that.” They do? I’m relieved not to have to recount the little I know about the plot. Realizing I’ve been holding my breath, I inhale sharply. “Well, I look forward to reading it.”

  Lana starts telling me about a new line of dresses, all intricate beading and lace for winter. My sister-in-law is a shopper and client consultant for Bella So, a high-end bridal boutique in SoHo. She landed the position back when she was shopping for her own wedding gown and ended up matching several other women with their dream dresses; Bella So gave her a commission for the sales along with a job offer.

  Lana pauses to show me a text from Leo:

  Complications. Stuck here for now.

  Groaning, she gestures for a drink refill. “Everyone’ll be here in twenty minutes. I know it’s just a party, but the guest of honor isn’t supposed to be missing at his own party, darn it.” I can’t help but laugh; this is the closest Lana comes to cursing.

  So, no Leo. The guests arrive and drink up my Moscow Mules, even though they’ve ended up too gingery. There are jokes about Godot and fashionable lateness and the possibility of a grand surprise, like Leo bursting out of that monstrous cake in the corner. Leo’s doctor friends intimidate me for one reason, and Lana’s fashion friends for another, so I mill about drinking too fast and reapplying lip gloss every five minutes. The apartment grows crowded, and there start to be calls to cut the cake, despite the missing birthday boy. But then the doorbell rings, and someone shouts, Hurrah, he’s here! and several others cheer. It makes no sense, like, why would Leo not have keys to his own apartment? But people are chanting, “Leo! Leo!” the doctors and designers united by the drama. So, when Lana opens the door and it is decidedly not Leo, most everyone sighs in disappointment, and then returns to their private pockets of conversation.

  Everyone except me. Because instead of my squat older brother with his perpetually wrinkled pants, and instead of my boyfriend, off of work early and smelling of tomato sauce and garlic bread, there is a vision before me that quite literally makes my knees go weak, so that I have to steady myself against the side table.

  It’s Charlie Ashbury.

  Lana is all polite hostess babble—“I wasn’t sure you’d make it … Drinks and snacks are over there … Let me introduce you around”—but Charlie is paying her no attention at all. Not out of rudeness, although I imagine that’s what Lana assumes. Rather, because even though I am way over here on the far end of the room, blocked four guests deep, and even though my hair is three shades darker than the last time Charlie and I were in the same room together, he sees me. I see him see me. I start babbling silently to myself: Oh, my Lone Ranger, mystery mountain man, defier of every expectation, my poison and tonic, upper and downer, salve and shot in the heart, the one I swore I was done with, the drug I quit years ago, quit, quit, quit.

  The magnetism is palpable between us. As Charlie walks my way, stepping on toes and clunking past shoulders, I’m so frightened, I think I might pee my pants.

  “Hey, it’s Molly.”

  That tobacco baritone stirs up my insides, and my response is a reflex: “Gee golly.”

  Charlie’s laugh spans his whole face, making him look like the Joker. I laugh too, feeling a little loopy: “What the hey is a yokel like you doin’ in the big ol’ city?”

  I have no idea why I’m talking like this. Something has loosened inside of me, relaxing muscles and tendons and a thousand little fibers that I had no idea were so tense. I feel simultaneously like I’ve occupied a stranger’s body and like I’m rooted deeply in my own.

  We stare and stare at each other. It’s been nearly five years, but Charlie looks the same. I remember how he can hold a gaze forever, how he’s perfectly at ease in quiet, and how perfectly at ease he can make me. I break the silence first. “Well?”

  “My oldest friend in the world turning thirty-three? I wouldn’t miss it for the world.” Yeah, right—Charlie didn’t even make it to his own high school graduation. (I know because I searched for him like a hawk.) “Also, I’m contemplating transferring my occupational post, hoping to fraternize with different breeds of fauna and flora, know what I mean?”

  I snort. “So, what, they released you from the Badlands?” This isn’t even a joke. Charlie is a forest ranger in the Badlands, the national park in South Dakota. Last I knew, he lived in a primitive cabin and was responsible for patrolling a section of the prairie so isolated that weeks could pass without a single visitor—the perfect gig for a misanthrope like him, so long as he had access to a steady supply of whiskey. Charlie, the amiable (or, amiable enough) recluse. Yet here he is like a mirage on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, room dense with perfume and conversation.

  “I guess I’ve grown too bad for those birds,” Charlie says, eyebrows raised, eyes like magma.

  “Meaning?”

  “My contract’s up next month.”

  I’m silent. Not because I’ve run out of things to say—that’s never happened in the history of Charlie and me—but because no words seem adequate to the freight train of feelings barreling through me. “I made cocktails” is all I can finally manage.

  Charlie repeats my words like they’re razors on his tongue: “You made cocktails.” His face turns mischievous and a little snide. It’s a look I know well—from high school when he’d catch me eavesdropping on his campaigns to convince Leo to skip school and join him instead to get high down by the lake, from the dance floor at Leo’s wedding when we clasped hands and clumsily grapevined our legs to the hora, and from various tangles of bedsheets over the years. “I don’t think so, Molly.” Charlie pulls a flask from his back pocket and drinks until it’s empty. Spotting the liquor cabinet (although probably he spotted it the moment he arrived, right after he spotted me), he sidles up to it, grabs a bottle of Maker’s Mark, and refills his flask in one well-practiced swoop.

  Lana appears at his side. “I can get you a glass, Charlie. You don’t have to steal our alcohol like some Prohibition-era bandit.” Or like a teenager, I think, remembering how we used to plunder his parents’ booze back in high school. That was half a lifetime ago, I remind myself.

  I pretend not to see the apologetic look that Lana intends for me. I will her to walk away. But she yanks my sleeve and leans in, a tad teetery. “Leo’s not coming home, Molly. Little Jasper needs emergency surgery.”

  I only really pay attention when she slurs “surgery,” and I realize how upset she is, plus drunk. It takes Lana two light beers to get blotto, and the Moscow Mules are stiffer than their sweetness suggests. “How can I help?” I ask, trying to concentrate on her and not Charlie. “Do you want me to get rid of everyone?”

  Lana’s eyes are glassy and unfocused, which I interpret as assent. The sensible thing is to cut the evening short—yes, I nod, trying to convince myself—and that’s definitely what Lana wants, too. “Attention, everyone,” I announce to the room, a little embarrassed. “Leo is officially a no-show. Sorry to say, but the party’s over.”

  Charlie pipes up: “You don’t have to stay here, but you can’t go home.” He must know he’s inverted the line. I feel his eyes on me, and I don’t dare look his way.

  Lana flashes me a look of gratitude, then force
s upon me paper plates and tin foil, and insists I pack up cake for everyone. As I dutifully slice and wrap, licking gobs of rich chocolate icing from my fingers, I’m aware with every sensor in my body of Charlie circling me.

  But then Lana drags me in to the bedroom. “Come lounge with me, Molly,” she says, flopping onto her bed. Her satiny dress rides up and she rubs at her eyes, smearing her mascara so she looks like a vampy burlesque star, an artist’s still life, frameable. Even wasted, my sister-in-law is stunning. “God, we’re getting so old,” she moans, ruining the portrait.

  “Lana, it’s not your birthday, remember?” I say it gently, covering her with a blanket.

  “I know, but …” Her words fade out and she hums the first few bars of “Here comes the bride.” “Down at the store, it’s bride after bride after bride. A conveyer belt of brides, all of them off to walk down the aisle.”

  “Uh huh.” I’m stroking Lana’s hair, hoping I can soothe her to sleep.

  “And then there’s me, standing still, watching it all from the sidelines.”

  “Well, that’s your job,” I say, and I can’t help adding, a little resentfully given my own recent hopes, “And you had your turn to be a bride.” It’s hard to tell if this is just drunk talk, standard work griping, or a larger existential thing. My job is sort of like Lana’s—only instead of a conveyer belt of brides, it’s job candidates, heading toward new positions, not new marriages. But, personally, I like standing on the sidelines, shaking the candidates’ hands and welcoming them to the team. For them, everything is unfamiliar and uncertain, whereas I get to remain where I am, steady, solid, secure.

  “It’s just …” Lana faces me, and for a flash her eyes grow from slits to normal size. “Wouldn’t it be wonderful to always be the bride? To have that wedding ecstasy last on and on, to be the center of attention forever?”

 

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