“‘Remember when I was young and so were you-ouuu. And time stood still, and love was all we knew-ewww.’” Claire was singing loud and off-key and didn’t realize either of these things until she looked up to see Sasha staring. Claire took an earplug out. “What?” she said.
“Lock your front door, Claire, and what are you listening to?”
“Alan Jackson.”
“What is wrong with you? Are you crying?”
“No.”
“You are. Oh my God. Honey, what the hell is going on? Alan Jackson?”
“I’m not crying. And why do you have wine? I hate wine,” Claire said.
“It’s good for you. Antioxidants. Where’d you see it?”
Claire had already processed the information; she didn’t want to go over it. At this point, it didn’t really matter how or who or what was pregnant.
“It doesn’t matter. He’s like a rat who won’t move for cheese. Ann Holloway explained it very clearly to me. I just didn’t know someone would get pregnant, but of course someone eventually would. You have sex, the sperm and the egg, sometimes they meet up. Who cares? Why aren’t you saying anything?”
“Because I doubt anyone’s pregnant. I’m sure the girl is a nut, she’s trying to set him up, manipulate him into thinking he should care about her and his fake unborn baby.”
“And what if she is?”
“Since when do you believe tabloids?”
“Since I started reading them.”
Sasha sat down next to Claire and slipped out a gold cigarette case from her purse. “Listen,” she said and lit up a pink menthol, “I saw the pictures. She’s not going to risk losing that body.”
“That’s, for some reason, little comfort.”
“It’s the oldest trick in the book, that’s all I’m saying. You get pregnant or, more likely, say you are, you land the guy or at least get his attention.” Sasha handed the cigarette to Claire. “It’s a desperate move but girls do it because, guess what, it works.”
“Like negative campaigning?” Claire took a drag of the cigarette and handed it back.
“Exactly. The energy shifts back in her direction and then, suddenly, a fake miscarriage.” Sasha stood and walked into the kitchen. She got halfway there, then turned back and grabbed the wine bottles. “Men will never get it. Listen,” she added. “You need to really find some better medication. I didn’t want to say anything…”
“I’m fine, with medication. What do you mean you didn’t want to say anything?”
“What are you taking?” Sasha called. Claire could hear her opening a cabinet and pulling out glasses.
“Nothing. An Ambien sometimes if I can’t sleep.”
“Klonopin for anxiety then, maybe.” Sasha popped her head out of the kitchen and gestured with a corkscrew. “In my purse. There’s a prescription. Take two.”
“What do you know?” Claire said, as Sasha’s head disappeared. She set the cigarette on an ashtray, then dug around in Sasha’s giant leather purse and surfaced with a small, unmarked white pill bottle.
“Movie stars fall in love with regular girls in the movies—it’s so sweet—but you’re not in a movie.”
“Okay, Sasha, I get it.”
“In real life, you’re lucky you even had one. It’s like a shooting star, or finding a new leopard species in Borneo or a four-leaf clover, or maybe winning a fucking Pulitzer, I don’t know. But there’s a half-life, honey.” Sasha could be brutal.
“A half-life?”
“Yes, the pleasure of the experience is cut in half in direct proportion to the likelihood of it happening. In other words, let’s find a nice investment banker next time.”
Claire popped open the bottle. Sasha continued.
“He’s not real. He doesn’t even know who you are when you’re not in front of him. You probably have to keep telling your fucking story over and over to him every time you get together. Right? And then he picks up a detail and plunges into it, because that’s what he does. It’s a role, and he nails it because that’s his job and why he gets the big parts, and then you misinterpret that for some greater quality of humanity that you have never quite found in someone else and the reason you have never quite found it in someone else is because it doesn’t exist. Real people don’t have those qualities. Screenwriters make them up and people in Kansas pay ten dollars to fantasize for a few hours.”
Claire glanced down at an old Daily News she’d saved. It was sitting on her coffee table next to Charlie’s urn. It was the photo of a movie star buying lemonade from a little kid. Jack was reaching down, handing him a bill. “Jack Huxley’s $20 Lemonade.”
Claire had just dropped three pills into her palm when Sasha came into the living room, wineglasses in hand, took one look at Claire, and shrieked. Both glasses dropped from her hand and shattered. Claire watched as red wine cascaded like blood across her hardwood floor. She stood up. “Jesus, Sasha. What is wrong with you?”
“Put those down,” Sasha said, eyes wide, rushing across the room. She took the pill bottle from Claire’s left hand, then took her right hand and tipped it over the ashtray so that the three little yellow pills spilled out next to the pink butt. Sasha backed away from them as if they were radioactive. In the background, on cue, Dr. Oz began a story on prescription drugs.
Claire stared at the ashtray. She stared at Sasha, who was wobbling on her heels. Sasha never wobbled in heels.
“Those aren’t Klonopin,” Sasha said. “They’re ketamine, special k, fucking tranquilizers.”
“Jesus, Sasha. Are you trying to kill someone?”
Sasha went pale. “Oh God. Sweetie. Do you remember a few weeks ago—that bruise under my eye? Dr. Struck? I might have been a little upset that day we had lunch.”
“Understatement,” Claire said. “But go on.”
“I might have accidentally given the maître d’ the impression that my husband had beaten me and that I wanted him dead.”
Claire laughed. Sasha did not. “I’ve heard of maître d’s hooking customers up with coke or sex. But horse tranquilizers?” Claire knelt to the carpet and began picking up the glass. “And how long have you been carrying them around? I mean, I know Thom and that assistant … But he … you…” She wasn’t even sure what to say.
“Of course not!” Sasha said. “No! But this man offered to ‘take Thom out’ like we were on The Sopranos or something. He insisted I take the pills. What was I going to do? Tell the mobbed-up maître d’ that he’d made a mistake? What if he thought I’d go to the police?”
Claire laughed so hard, she forgot all about pregnant girls, movie stars, and dead husbands. “By the way, I had two movie stars.” Claire said as she walked to the kitchen to retrieve the rest of the wine.
“What?” Sasha said. Claire handed her a new glass, with a generous pour.
“Yeah. Two new leopard species, two falling stars.” Claire smiled mischievously, remembering how all of this had started.
“Did I miss something somewhere?”
“I accidentally slept with Brad Hess, the night I met Jack at the premiere.” Claire said. “I may have had too much tequila and they were both wearing black.”
“Oh my God!” Sasha shrieked. She clinked her glass to Claire’s. “You’ve had quite a year.” She smiled and shook her head. “Wait a minute—who’s Brad Hess?”
42
The text came, this time from a frontier explorer:
Sorry I disappeared. A lot going on, long story. i’ll be in ny next week and want 2cu. William Clark
Claire replied, Okay. Sure.
When Jack Huxley was in town to promote a movie, the protocols were elaborate, as if a movie publicity tour was actually the G-7 Summit. Invitations were stamped and mailed, there were secret phone numbers to call; there was a labyrinth of winding curves to follow just to say, “Yes, I will be at the event.” This time around, there was a three-day Felliniesque production. There were parties and cocktails and the movie screening, of course. It kicked off at the house
of Glenn and SallyAnn Roberts on Fifth Avenue because Glenn had three billion dollars and a lot of expensive art. It had crossed Claire’s mind that she might run into Walter White. This woman had arranged for Jack to come to her party in the same way people procure ponies for children’s parties. He was high-grade entertainment; there was a premium. Charlie would be appalled at this kind of circus, but he also wouldn’t have missed it for the world. Charlie would either cause a scene or he’d steal it—he knew that to secure a shard of legend meant smashing up against other legends when the opportunity arose. Those who insist on being immortal know all about it. The writer who throws a punch is remembered long after the one who leaves early and goes home, regardless of anyone’s talent. Claire regretted that these two particular men never had the chance to pair up.
Claire walked in alone, Ethan had bailed, and right away she saw him. It had only been weeks. It felt like years. He had his head down. He was leaning against a chair by the door, concentrating on something someone was saying (or keeping his head down so it would appear that way). The man speaking was close to Jack Huxley’s ear; there was noise at the bar. There was a drink in Huxley’s hand. He nodded, listened, nodded again, mimicking concentration, complete attention, pretending he’d shut everything out. Claire had seen this before.
He rolled his drink around abstractly, to move the ice. He made a gesture with his hand. He was someone film critics have described as both “fluid” and “animated.” As Claire watched him, she saw that they were not saying this carelessly. Jack Huxley’s entire body played into each moment. Not one of his parts ever wondered what to do. He moved as if he were choreographed.
There had been a mild scandal in the press recently, but, unlike the fake pregnancy, this was real. The room was buzzing with it. They wanted to be the first to hear it from his mouth. He would get to it when he’s ready, they all knew he will, because SallyAnn and Glenn had three billion dollars. There was a brawl outside a club in Miami, the details were sketchy, but it was seedy. The club, the alley, a garbage Dumpster no less. There were reports that Jack Huxley was not valiant but stumbling. Not polished and neat in his loosened tie and smooth suit, like tonight, but crumpled, his shirt pocked with bar spills. The story in the tabloids was that it was over a girl, and that the girl had to come out and help him back inside. People had to be summoned to help him leave through a side door.
On Fifth Avenue they were waiting for Huxley’s version, the one where a dark brute insulted the maiden and Jack Huxley slew him in one blow. The version where he marched the cheering crowd back in and declared, “Drinks are on me!” The one where Jack Huxley had his driver take the brute to the hospital, got him patched up, and then paid the bill.
Claire had been nervous for him. The mainstream media had picked up the sad bits of the fight. For once he hadn’t been spared. But tonight he was charming them silly, and the moneyed crowd on Fifth Avenue was transfixed. If he moved one way, they swayed; another way and they leaned.
Claire scolded herself for watching, yet she couldn’t stop. One look up, away from his guest, and he would see her. If she walked across the room, to a table, the movement might catch his eye. If she stood too long where she was, she’d look curious. She was exposed. She didn’t want to be caught like this, vulnerable and alone. There was another bar set up, opposite. It was the only possible out, to cross over and order a drink. Claire moved quickly.
“Double vodka, rocks,” she said.
The hired bartender was young and close-shaved with short black hair, the kind of boyish man who played pickup football games in the park during the day and didn’t worry about a career.
“Are you sure? I make a killer martini.” He smiled and showed his perfect white teeth.
“Well, then, I want a martini.”
“I don’t recommend, though, a double.”
She was feeling more comfortable now. “Okay, then. I want a double.”
He laughed.
Claire’s mind wandered as she watched him set the glass up, shake the liquor, scoop three olives with two fingers and thumb.
And then, like it was written in his script, Jack Huxley appeared at her side.
“You don’t like martinis.” His voice felt like a warm towel pressed against the back of her neck. She turned around slowly.
“Actually, it turns out I do.”
There was a hand rested upon her elbow. Nudging a bit, then a bit more, like a boat starting away from the dock.
Claire smiled to herself. She could pull off a good first fifteen seconds. In the first fifteen seconds, she could be clever and confident and capture, if not his whole heart, at least his desire to sleep with her again.
“I wondered if you’d come,” he said.
“I wouldn’t miss it. This crowd, though. Ruthless.” She wondered if the art was real.
“If I stay right next to you, will it help?”
“Are you kidding? It wouldn’t be fair to everyone else.”
“Two stories, then I’m out of here.”
Claire was uncomfortable about the attention his standing near her brought. The Roberts had paid a lot of money for him.
“A perfect point seven?” Jack said. He put an arm casually across the back of a chair, to brace his body as he leaned in. She was surprised. Misconstrued had recently run her piece on Dr. Singh. The piece she’d flown to Texas for, the day Charlie died. How had he come across it? It crossed Claire’s mind: Was he keeping track of her?
“I have to say, I don’t believe it. This ratio theory. The hip and the waist.”
“I bet if you took the measurements of all the women you have known, you’d find they support it.”
Claire had put her back against the wall because she felt unsteady. But this pose had the effect of making her look vulnerable. It was very different, she was aware, from the way other people in the room were moving around and interacting, and it had not gone unnoticed.
“There’s also the theory that if you sample a third of your total number of viable romantic candidates—likely matches based on age, religion, etc.—and randomly propose to any one of them, it’s mating jackpot.”
“You’re clever.” Claire liked this part, when they sparred. “Are you debunking my hip-to-waist theory?”
“Just upping my odds.”
There was a pause and Claire knew she had to head it off quickly because a pause is an opening, an invitation for “Why?”
In the movies you take chances. At well-appointed parties in New York, Claire knows, you don’t.
“You’re right, I don’t like martinis. And yet I’m wondering when it will occur to you, your arm on the chair, watching me cradle an empty glass, to get me another.”
“Olive?”
“Yes, please. Two.”
Soon, then, the other guests closed in on him and for the next three hours, he didn’t come out. A hard circle formed, and a complex migration, whereby people came and went. Spots were ceded, or not, wordlessly. Some moved away, obligingly, some didn’t. There was no taking cuts. Claire saw, occasionally, hard looks exchanged. She watched them all watch the cues. You don’t interrupt. These are his stories, and you don’t take a part in them unless he asks you to.
Three hours later there was no sign of an end to the show, and she’d had too many olives and too much to drink. She’d made small talk with too many acquaintances she didn’t care to see. Jack appeared to be on for the night. There were women stacked in layers and folds in front of Claire. Finally, tired and resigned, she moved slowly toward the door.
But he spotted her. The great hunter saw movement in the brush. “Claire!” he called from the head of the circle he was commanding. The entire room got quiet and turned. “Wait, don’t go.”
The entire room retained its gaze—equal parts curiosity and disdain. Who was this Claire who’d distracted their hero? He beckoned them back and then gave them one more story.
When Jack finally left—yes, with Claire—it was quick like a jailbreak.
Coats went on fast. A few lucky ones got whisked along with them out the door like windblown leaves. People got into cabs. Claire and Jack got in a car, and then the doors shut and the tinted windows were there and then the worrying, curious, niggling eyes disappeared. He could relax.
“Oh my God, I’m tired. When did talking become bricklaying?” He was laughing, his legs crossed and his body pivoted toward her, he yanked at his tie; his movements were beautifully seamless.
An arm went up behind her. Here were his eyes. “I’m not kidding. Jesus … did you hear what SallyAnn-what’s-her-face asked me? Did you hear how many times I had to tell that fucking story?”
For a moment, Claire felt sorry for him.
He was in character, though. He chuckled at these things. He’d be a pawn and find the laugh in it. So she laughed with him, they poked fun, their shoulders pushed together. It was like a warm bath in the dark black leather of the car, in the shadow of Jack’s driver. This is how the womb must feel, Claire thought. Safe and warm, and lovely. Oh how natural his hand felt on her leg, as if they’d been measured and fitted—his hand to her leg. It felt as though it had been months since she’d seen him, and now there was so much to tell, she felt it all bubbling up, she felt like a jeroboam of champagne. So many anecdotes she’d saved up, so many gossipy items she knew he’d enjoy, so many soft little kisses for him to give her on her forehead, on her elbow, on her cheek. So what if he’d disappeared. Who cares about other girls? Claire was just beginning to think where to start when the car stopped short and Jack, with a hand on the door now, and the other still on her leg, was telling her good night. His movements were beautifully seamless.
“I have a hell of a press schedule tomorrow, starts at seven. I’ll have to tell that same story four more times.” He leaned past her and forward, toward the front of the car. “Sal, Claire needs to go downtown. Get her there safe, or I’ll have to kill you.” He asked for her number. What? My number?
Claire knew shtick when she heard it. Sal was probably mouthing the lines. Huxley kissed her softly but quickly and then he was gone. Claire was too bewildered to react. She had words but she couldn’t get them out. Could not manage, even, a simple stammer. But … I thought … wait.
The Widow's Guide to Sex and Dating Page 21