Slow Motion

by Dani Shapiro

  “Don’t you love me anymore?” he asks, his tone implying that this is a rhetorical question, that of course I still love him and I always will. Lenny imagines he has marked me for life, and he probably has, though not in the way he thinks.

  I am silent, my mind racing. All of a sudden I can’t catch my breath.

  Hang up, I think to myself. Hang up the phone.

  “What do you want?” I ask, sounding smaller than I wish I did.

  “I want to see you.”

  “No, Lenny.”

  “Just for an hour.”

  “No, Lenny.”

  “I’ll meet you at the Oak Room bar at six,” he says.

  I’m in the process of saying No, Lenny one more time when I realize the line has gone dead.

  He is sitting at a corner table, and I see him as soon as I walk into the bar. He grins at me, then tilts his head back and pops a few nuts into his mouth as I make my way to his table. I realize, horrified, that I still care what Lenny thinks of me—mostly of how I look. Does he like what I’m wearing? Am I thin enough? Does he still think I’m the most beautiful girl in the world? He half rises in his seat, then plops back down when he realizes I have no intention of kissing him hello.

  “No kiss?”

  I shake my head and fumble through my bag for a cigarette, mostly to give myself something to do. I can’t bring myself to look at Lenny, who I know is staring at me with a smirk on his face. My cheeks burn.

  A waiter materializes just as I’m lighting my cigarette.

  “The lady will have a Johnnie Walker Black—”

  “Actually,” I interrupt, blowing out smoke, “I’ll have a Diet Pepsi.”

  Lenny looks at me as if I’ve just ordered a urine sample.

  “On the wagon?”

  I don’t answer him. I’m counting the days between drinks; I haven’t been able to go longer than a week before I break down and gulp wine as if it’s water.

  “I just don’t feel like scotch.” I shrug. “I’ve been a little under the weather.”

  Lenny is still smirking. His eyes travel down my throat, skimming past the open neck of my blouse until he is staring at my breasts. I used to like it when he looked at me like this. It made me feel womanly, sexy. I imagined that Lenny’s hunger for me gave me power over him.

  “How’s your mother?” he asks.

  “Better,” I respond. This is what I always say when people ask after my mother these days. Better, of course, is a relative term. My mother can now move her right knee three degrees. But Lenny doesn’t really give a shit about that.

  He reaches across the table and grabs my hand before I have a chance to pull it away.

  “I miss you, Fox,” he says, his big brown eyes welling up. “Can’t we spend a little time together?”

  “We’re together now,” I say, trying to remove my hand.

  “Not like this,” Lenny gestures around the dark paneled room, which is filling up with the after-work crowd. “Let me take you away. Just two nights.”

  “I don’t think so,” I say.

  “Please.”

  I stare wordlessly at the ashtray, my lipstick-smeared cigarette butt. I don’t say yes, but I can’t quite bring myself to say no.

  “One night, then,” he says, as if it’s settled. “Someplace special. Give me a minute, I’ll make a phone call.”

  He gets up from the table and slides past me, brushing the back of my neck with his hand. I watch him move through the bar and out the door. I know the nearest pay phones are downstairs, that I could, in fact, bolt out of here right now and he wouldn’t catch me leaving.

  “Would you like another soda?” the waiter asks. I have drained my Diet Pepsi and am sucking on the ice cubes.

  “I’ll have a Johnnie Walker Black on the rocks,” I say.

  It is midnight and we are driving north on the Saw Mill River Parkway. I’ve insisted we take my car. I think I’ll have more control over the situation that way. Lenny is behind the wheel, driving with one hand. His other hand has crept up my leg and into my panties, where he is absentmindedly playing with me. My skirt is bunched up, my ass cold against the vinyl seat of my father’s Subaru.

  “So what have you been doing with yourself?” he asks.

  He removes his hand from me and downshifts around a curve.

  “What do you mean?”

  “These last few months. How have you been spending your time?” Lenny asks.

  Is he kidding?

  “Oh, I took a little trip to St. Tropez—it’s so lovely this time of year,” I say.

  He looks at me quickly out of the corner of his eye.

  “You fucking with me, Fox?”

  “No, Lenny, what makes you say that?”

  “I was just asking—”

  “I know what you were asking,” I say. “And I find it incredible.”

  “And why is that?”

  “Lenny, I’ve been taking care of my mother every day for the past three months. That’s what I do with my time.”

  He falls silent, both hands now on the steering wheel.

  “I just meant, what are you doing for fun,” he says glumly. “That’s all.”

  I look at his profile as he negotiates the sharp curves of the Saw Mill. He has a soft, jowly face and a thick neck. His hands are stubby, carefully groomed, each nail filed into a perfect pink half-moon. He’s still wearing his suit, and his stomach bulges softly through his suspenders.

  “I stopped having fun,” I say.

  “That’s too bad,” he replies.

  It seems the three scotches I downed before we left the city have done nothing to dull this edgy feeling that I’m doing something stupid and wrong. I have no business being in this car with Lenny Klein, heading for God-knows-where.

  “And you?” I ask. “What have you been doing for … fun?”

  “I don’t think you really want to know,” Lenny says.

  This, he knows, will get me going.

  “Oh, but I do,” I say. “I do want to know.”

  “Well, I spent some time in LA,” he says.

  “And?”

  “Well, I spent some time with a particular young actress in LA,” he says slowly.

  He mentions a name, and it’s one I—and the rest of America—can put a face to: a beautiful, painfully thin blonde who plays an upper-crust vixen on one of the nighttime melodramas.

  “Are you sleeping with her?” I ask.

  I don’t stop to think about why on earth she would sleep with him. Years from now, while running in Central Park, I will pass this young actress, also running. My pulse will race even faster, and I will fight the urge to stop her and ask. But what to ask? Excuse me, but this crazy ex-boyfriend of mine once told me he had an affair with you. Does the name Lenny Klein ring a bell?

  “Here we are,” says Lenny as he pulls the car into the driveway of a small inn, which looks closed for the night. He parks at an angle next to a tree, taking up two spaces. He starts to get out, but pauses when he sees that I’m not moving. I stare straight ahead. With the lights on in the car, I can see my own reflection in the windshield, an indistinct shape with no beginning or end.

  “Are we waiting for something?” he asks somewhat impatiently. I wonder how Lenny handles his eight children.

  “I asked you a question,” I say.

  “What?”

  “Did you sleep with her?”

  This time my voice has acquired an edge.

  “Yes, I slept with her”—he shoots back at me. “What did you think? That I was living like a monk?”

  I close my eyes, images of Lenny in bed with the Hollywood vixen-of-the-moment flashing like cue cards. Once, this would have turned me on. I liked the idea of Lenny sleeping with beautiful women—it made me feel like less of an idiot for being with him. Lenny has narrated his whole sexual history for me, knowing that with each movie star, singer, dancer he claimed to have bedded, his stock rose higher and higher. Whether these stories were anything more than a f
orty-six-year-old man’s wet dreams has never been something I’ve considered.

  I take a deep breath and get out of the car. All I’m carrying is a small purse containing a twenty-dollar bill, my American Express card, and a lipstick. The temperature has dropped since we left the city. I hug my thin sweater around myself. Suddenly I’m exhausted, and all I want to do is sleep.

  “The key is supposed to be under the mat,” Lenny says as he walks ahead of me, then bends forward and rummages around in the dark. He finds it, fiddles with the lock, and lets us in. There is a small lamp lit in the foyer, and an envelope with his name on it propped next to a vase of flowers on the reception desk. He motions me up a narrow, carpeted staircase. I wonder if Lenny has been here before. He certainly seems to know his way around.

  As soon as Lenny closes the door behind us, he pushes my skirt up around my waist and yanks my panties down with his other hand.

  “Oh, Fox,” he moans, nudging me backward, onto the bed. “I’ve missed you.”

  He unbuttons my sweater, his fingers fumbling. He is lying on top of me now, his fly somehow unzipped, and he’s pressing himself into me. I can barely breathe. His stubble is scratching my face, his breath smells of something garlicky, and I turn my head to the side to stop from gagging.

  “What are you thinking?” he whispers in my ear. I know what he wants. He wants me to talk dirty to him, to remind him that he’s in bed with a girl half his age, but I just can’t do it.

  “Nothing,” I whisper back.

  There are weathered beams running across the ceiling, and I count them as Lenny moves on top of me, crushing me. I want to scream at him to stop, to push him off, but instead I just lie there, flopping around like a rag doll.

  Finally he lets out a groan and collapses. For a moment I wonder if he’s dropped dead of a heart attack. But then he lifts himself up and rolls over. I try to breathe.

  He leans on one elbow and looks down at me. Pieces of hair are plastered to his forehead.

  “What’s the matter with you?” he asks.

  “What do you mean?”

  “You’re like a dead fish,” he says.

  I move away from him.

  “Thanks a lot.”

  “It’s like you aren’t even here,” he says.

  “Why don’t you just call your little actress friend,” I say. “I’m sure she can do better.”

  “I may just do that,” says Lenny, heaving himself to a sitting position.

  “Go right ahead,” I mutter, and curl into a little ball, my back to him.

  I try to sleep, but rage keeps me awake. I feel blood racing through my veins, pounding in my ears. The loneliness I’ve felt since my father’s death is nothing compared to this. Lenny leaves the room at some point, then returns, his breath smelling of whiskey. He reaches for me, a hand on my hip, and I shake him off violently. I can’t bear his touch. My side of the bed faces a window, and through the sheer white curtains I see the sky littered with stars, an almost full moon. Branches rustle against the side of the inn, a sound I imagine would be comforting and romantic if I were wrapped in the arms of someone I loved. Lenny has passed out on top of the covers.

  As I watch the shadows play against the wall, I think about the past three months. Try as I might to empty my mind, I find myself reliving the moment I received the phone call, the first time I saw my mother’s face after the crash, the image of the plain pine box with my father inside it being lowered into the ground.

  When the first pale orange streaks of dawn finally appear across the sky, I climb out of bed and try to make myself presentable—no small feat, considering I slept in most of my clothes. I smooth my skirt and button my sweater, splash my face with cold water. When I walk over to the bed, I see that Lenny’s eyes are open.

  “Let’s go,” I say. “I want to go home.”

  Without a word he gets up, pulls on his suit pants, lifting his suspenders over his shoulders. He picks up his briefcase and stands by the door, glaring at me. His eyes are dark pits in the early morning light. We make our way quietly down the narrow staircase and out the front door. In the parking lot, he moves toward the driver’s side of the Subaru, but I stop him.

  “I’m driving, Lenny,” I say.

  It’s seven on a weekday morning, and already there are commuters on the road. I follow signs to Route 684, which will be the most direct way back to the city. I turn on the radio; Lenny turns it off. I smile a tight, sarcastic little smile.

  “You have no idea what you’re losing,” he says after a while. I have cracked the driver’s side window, and the air rushing in smells impossibly fresh.

  “Oh, I think I know exactly what I’m losing,” I say.

  With each mile we drive toward the city I feel lighter. Even though I’m dehydrated and hungover, even though I’ve been up all night tossing and turning in my clothes, I’m more at peace than I’ve been in months. I have no idea what the future holds for me, but I know what it doesn’t hold, and right now that seems like a small miracle.

  We are speeding down Route 684, approaching exit 4 when Lenny tells me to pull over.

  “What do you mean?” I ask, my fingers wrapped tightly around the steering wheel.

  “I want to get out,” he announces.

  “But—”

  “Just do it,” he snaps.

  I pull off the highway next to the exit ramp, my hazards flashing, and as I do so I realize that Lenny doesn’t live far from here, that in fact he probably is within a few miles of home. I can see he’s worked himself into a total froth. His nostrils flare, and his eyes are bulging more than usual.

  “I won’t be calling you again, Fox,” he says.

  He waits a millisecond for me to change my mind.

  “That’s it, then,” he continues.

  I look at him calmly.

  This is how I will always remember Lenny Klein: he gets out of the car and begins walking up the exit ramp, wearing a navy-blue pin-striped suit and carrying a brown leather briefcase, his thick black hairweave almost ripping off his head in the strong May wind. I imagine his getting to the top of the ramp and—what? Sticking his thumb out? Stopping at a pay phone and calling his wife? Concocting some story about abduction and blackmail?

  I carefully pull back onto the highway. I turn on the radio and scan the stations until I find something classical, calming. I can almost hear my father’s voice in my head. Beethoven, he says, the third piano concerto. Tears are rolling down my cheeks, but I’m not sad, not about Lenny, at least.

  CHAPTER

  EIGHT

  The address is scribbled on a scrap of paper, tucked into the bottom of my wallet, wedged beneath dusty pennies, Chinese fortunes, stray Tic Tacs. Church of St. Paul and St. Andrew, Eighty-sixth Street and West End Avenue. I stand a few feet away from the church, sweating on this humid August night, pretending I’m waiting for someone on the corner. As if anyone notices. As if anyone cares. My stomach lurches; I’m sick with fear. I start to walk away, then stop.

  I have been carrying this address around for over a year. It was given to me by a girl I met in acting class who saw the way I drank each time a group of us went out for a few beers. Listen, she said to me once, pressing the scrap of paper into my palm, this may be none of my business, but maybe you want to check this place out. I stuffed it into my wallet, and it was weeks before I looked at it: Alcoholics Anonymous, she had scribbled, along with a few names of churches and times of meetings. Fuck her, I thought. What does she know? And then I neatly folded the paper and left it in my wallet.

  Just before six-thirty, I open the side door where there is a small sign with an arrow pointing down a narrow flight of stairs to the basement. I’ve been inside a church only once in my life, for the funeral of a friend who died in a drunk-driving accident in high school. The crucifix above the door makes me even more nervous. I have no right to be here. This is a place for goyish alcoholics, not a Jewish girl who maybe drinks too much. I wonder what my father would think.


  While I’ve been standing outside trying to make up my mind, dozens of people have walked in, but I can’t imagine they’re going to an AA meeting. They look healthy—happy, even. I’m expecting bums in raincoats, old red-nosed men. AA hasn’t quite achieved the celebrity status that it will over the next few years. It isn’t cool to be an alcoholic. Actors aren’t joking about it on The Tonight Show.

  I want to be invisible as I sidle into the brightly lit church basement. I’m not even sure I’m in the right room; this looks more like a college reunion than a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous. Alcoholic: it’s a word I’ve never even thought, much less spoken out loud. My heart is pounding. I swallow hard over the lump in my throat as I scan the crowded room for a seat.

  A woman about my age holding a cordless microphone stands in front of the room.

  “Hi, I’m Mary and I’m an alcoholic,” she says.

  “Hi, Mary!” the whole room responds in a resonant boom.

  I nearly jump out of my seat, and the man next to me notices and leans over.

  “This your first time?” he asks.

  I shake my head no and hunch down in my folding chair. I don’t want anyone to talk to me. I want to bolt, but I’m afraid if I do they’ll come after me with a giant net they reserve for fleeing first-timers. They’ll drag me back in and the whole room will point at me and laugh. I sink deeper until I can barely see over the head of the woman in front of me.

  Mary the alcoholic starts to tell the story of her childhood. As she talks her words move through my body like water, leaving trace elements I will remember years from now. She’s from a big Irish Catholic family; six out of seven of her siblings are heavy drinkers. Her father died of alcoholism. I picture a dim Irish pub with a neon four-leaf clover in the window, and Mary’s red-haired brothers and sisters knocking back shots of whiskey at the bar. See, I’m not an alcoholic, I think to myself. Jews aren’t alcoholics. I think about my family, and how almost nobody drinks. My father would have a thimbleful of wine on Shabbos, my mother barely touched the stuff. I don’t consider my father’s drug addiction or the vodka on Uncle Harvey’s breath.