Bright, Precious Days

by Jay McInerney

  One of Corrine’s biggest fears was that she would start to judge her daughter, that she would hate in Storey what she hated in others. Every bit as troubling was that Storey seemed to be getting very judgmental of Corrine, criticizing her tics, her dress, her habits at every turn. They’d always been so close, but suddenly Storey seemed to be pulling away. Whenever she let herself remotely fantasize about a future with Luke, she had only to imagine Storey’s reaction in order to squelch it.

  Leaning over to pick up her napkin, she was surprised, as she righted herself, to see her face in the smoky mirror behind Casey, as if for a nanosecond she didn’t quite recognize the middle-aged woman, so like her, only slightly older. In her heart she was still twenty-seven, or thirty-three. At most forty-two. She’d always resisted the idea of getting work done, but maybe it was time to start thinking about it. There was a lag, a long delay between the calendar and her image of herself. Every few years her age consciousness lurched forward, propelled by some event or encounter, without ever necessarily catching up to the present.

  “Have you been having sex with Russell?” Casey asked.

  She leaned forward and whispered, “I can’t even remember the last time. A few months ago he was complaining that I didn’t put out, and now he seems to have lost interest. Maybe I’ve let myself go a little.” A busboy arrived with bread, but they both waved him away as if he were Satan himself.

  “Have you thought about getting your eyes done?”

  “Do I look that bad?”

  “Not yet, but it’s time to start thinking about these things. You don’t want to wait until you really need it. Preventive maintenance is the thing.”

  The waitress brought their wine and returned almost immediately with their salads. “Would you like fresh pepper?”

  They declined in unison.

  “I can’t believe they still go through that ridiculous pepper ritual,” Corrine said. “They were doing that when I first arrived in the city, except the pepper mills were gigantic then.”

  “It was the big eighties. Big hair, big shoulder pads, big-ass pouf dresses. Big Rubirosas.”

  “According to Vogue, the eighties are coming back.”

  “They’ve been coming back for years,” Casey said. “I love this salad.”

  “Russell says truffle oil is just olive oil flavored with a synthetic chemical compound that mimics the taste of truffles.”

  “What a killjoy. Someone was trying to tell me yesterday that Splenda isn’t actually made from sugar and I said don’t tell me what it’s made from. It can be made out of camel shit as long as it’s zero calories and tastes good.”

  “Love Splenda.”

  “Now if we could just get somebody to invent a zero-calorie Chardonnay, life would be just about perfect.”

  —

  That night, Russell was making a risotto for the kids, instructing a rapt Storey, who stood beside him at the stove on a step stool, the two of them taking turns stirring the rice, while Jeremy sat at the table doing homework with Ferdie in his lap—a domestic tableau that seemed specifically designed to dissuade her from her illicit plans. She could join them, sit and talk with her husband and the kids about their day, but instead she was leaving them to meet her former lover, under the guise of a girls’ night out. Her day seemed to have a French theme—she might as well light up a fucking Gauloises, right here.

  She would have felt better if Russell hadn’t taken this occasion to compliment her appearance. “Looking good, honey. It must be true—girls dress for other girls.”

  Storey glanced up from her stirring. “I’ve never seen you wear so much makeup.” Her tone seemed slightly waspish. Was it her imagination, or was there also a touch of suspicion? They really needed to spend some mother-daughter time soon—tomorrow, or at least this weekend.

  Corrine was wearing a baby blue A-line halter dress that stopped just above the knee, which she’d bought after lunch today at Century 21, and a pair of Gucci pumps with a four-inch heel that Casey had passed down to her last month after deciding they pinched her toes. Under the scrutiny of her husband and daughter, she was conscious of how much time she’d spent primping for the evening.

  She was a terrible person.

  “Why do you look so sad?” Jeremy asked.

  “Just sad to be leaving you.”

  “Then stay.”

  “Can we watch Survivor?” Storey asked, sensing an opening.

  “You know the rules. It’s a school night.” Not to mention that she thought it was a ridiculous show, despite the fact that some of her friends were obsessed with it.

  “But we’ve done our homework and you let us watch last week and now we need to see if Gillian gets voted off the island.”

  “I’ll leave that up to your dad,” she said, not wanting to give in, but knowing that Russell would take the path of least resistance.

  The elevator shuddered to a stop on the ground floor, where she encountered her neighbor Bill Sugerman, who was clutching a laundry bag with one arm and a squirming toddler with the other. “Hey, Bill, how’s it going?”

  He sighed and grimaced. “This isn’t exactly what I pictured, you know, when I thought about my life.”

  Unprepared for this burst of candor, she stood slack-jawed as he walked past her into the elevator.

  —

  She arrived at the Carlyle a nervous wreck, feeling short of breath as she rode up in the old-fashioned elevator with the polite, petite operator in his braided uniform and cap, who looked exactly like an elevator man in one of those New York films from the thirties, delivering Carole Lombard or Norma Shearer to an assignation with Cary Grant or Ronald Colman.

  Her sense of self-possession was further eroded at the sight of Luke, framed in the doorway of his room, his rueful grin made more poignant by the scar and the slightly cloudy, out-of-focus eye. Whether sensing her reserve, or out of shyness, he didn’t embrace her, but merely leaned forward and kissed her cheek. “It’s so great to see you. Please, come in.”

  “It’s nice to see you, too.”

  She surveyed the large formal living room with its view of Central Park and the strident towers of the West Side through the windows to the east, its well-worn, almost shabby Louis Quinze decor. Wildly expensive, no doubt, but not stupidly ostentatious.

  “I love your dress.”

  “Thanks. You don’t know how badly I want to say I found it in the back of my closet, but actually I bought it this afternoon.”

  “Well, why do you sound so unhappy about it?”

  “I’m mad at myself because, well, I bought it for you, because I wanted to look good for you.”

  “I’m flattered and honored.”

  “So why am I mad at myself? I should be mad at you.”

  “I’m not aware of having done anything to incur your wrath.”

  “You came back. You called. You constitute a moral dilemma.”

  He turned and walked to the little bar alcove, where a bottle of Dom Pérignon was chilling in a sweating silver bucket, and poured out two flutes. Jesus, that stuff, room service, cost as much as her dress—probably more. Was it appropriate to be celebrating a divorce? Without having resolved this question in her mind, she accepted one of the flutes and sipped.

  “I understand. But I hope you’ll still have dinner with me.”

  She walked over to the window and looked out over Central Park. “Have you ever noticed how much more interesting and flamboyant the Upper West Side skyline is than the Upper East, all these great whimsical buildings along Central Park West, the Majestic and the Beresford and the Dakota with their towers and turrets and their mansard roofs. The buildings over here are much more monolithic and uniform.”

  “Kind of like the people who live in them,” he said.

  “As you did not so long ago.”

  “That’s how I know. I’m a recovering Upper East Sider.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means, I guess, I left my job, and my circ
umscribed world here, because I wanted to broaden my vision. Does that sound pretentious?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Well, my first attempt to escape has ended in failure.”

  “Just because your marriage ended, it doesn’t mean you failed. I’m sure you learned a lot. The foundation is a wonderful accomplishment.”

  “Yes and no. I imagined myself as a hands-on philanthropist, working with the people I was trying to help, but now I see myself sort of gradually fading away. I mean, yes, I’m going to endow the foundation, sure, but if I’m honest with myself, I’ve kind of lost interest in running the thing day to day. It was all part of the African adventure, which started to lose its allure after my accident.”

  If he hadn’t accused himself of fickleness, she might have thought as much herself, but she appreciated the self-awareness implied in this account. “Some people are good at starting things, but not necessarily at running them.”

  “I think Giselle was part of that whole African fantasy. Safari girl, athletic and outdoorsy.”

  They were standing at the window. He gestured at the seating area; she sat on the couch, while he took a seat on a facing club chair, drumming his fingers on the arm.

  “Where is she now?”

  “In London, but she wants to move to New York. She’s a citizen by marriage, so she might as well.”

  “Great. Maybe we can all have lunch.”

  He looked at her blankly.

  “That was a joke. Why doesn’t anyone ever know when I’m joking?”

  “Sorry.”

  “And what about you? What are you going to do?”

  “Actually, I’ve gotten pretty involved in the Obama campaign. Fund-raising from my old cronies.” He stood up, walked over to the bar and leaned against it.

  “That’s very cool.”

  “I was suddenly worried you might be a Hillary person.”

  “Why, because I’m a woman?”

  “No, just because I’ve always imagined that we have similar views and tastes, and I would have been slightly disappointed if we hadn’t picked the same candidate.”

  “That was a good answer. And yes, I’m actually an Obama person.”

  “Great minds think alike.”

  He was pacing around the room; she wondered if he was nervous, or merely restless. “Does this mean you’re moving back?” she asked warily. She wanted him back in the city, even though she knew it would complicate her life tremendously.

  He nodded. “I thought I might look for an apartment downtown.”

  Why is everyone moving downtown? she wondered. “At least you can afford it,” she said.

  “Is that a jab?” He sat down on the couch now.

  “No, I’m just saying we’ve so outgrown our place and we can’t afford anything bigger in the neighborhood, since we’re competing with movie stars and hedge funders.”

  “Maybe I could help.”

  “Luke, you know I can’t accept that kind of help from you.”

  “I don’t see why not.” He tapped his foot soundlessly on the rug. “I’d like to think you wouldn’t categorically rule out the possibility in advance.”

  He went to the bar and refilled her glass with champagne.

  “I don’t want to feel like this divorce is about you and me,” she said.

  “It’s not about you and me. But it’s not not about you and me.”

  “Just to be clear—she’s not leaving you; you’re leaving her?”

  He nodded, sat down again.

  “I feel terrible.”

  “Me too. But I also feel relieved. And hopeful. Is that a terrible thing to say?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Sitting beside her on the couch, he was close enough that she could smell him.

  “I can’t pretend I don’t want you,” he said, looking pained.

  “Just to be clear, do you mean you want to sleep with me?”

  “I think I actually meant more than that. But, yes, of course.”

  “Maybe if you did, you’d get me out of your system,” she said. She was remembering how much she’d always wanted him, and feeling a resurgence of that desire. It was involuntary—but there it was.

  “I don’t think so,” he said. “But I’d love to try.”

  He leaned over and kissed her; she liked it as much as she’d remembered.

  She recoiled at the rasp of the buzzer, startled.

  Luke got up and opened the door, ushered the man with the cart inside, assuring him that they could remove the chafing dishes and set the table themselves, shoving a bill into his hand and firmly guiding him out. After closing the door, he walked over to the couch and lifted her in his arms and carried her into the bedroom. At last, she thought, disloyally, a man who’s not obsessed with eating, although this turned out to be not entirely the case. He eased her down on the bed and removed her dress and her panty hose before going down on her.

  What followed validated the fantasies of the years in between this and the last time they’d made love; afterward, as she lay panting on the bed, she said, “Goddamn it!”

  “What’s the matter?”

  “I was hoping it wouldn’t be as good as I remembered.”

  “I’m sorry I haven’t been a disappointment to you.”

  “Well, anyway, now we can just go on with our lives.”

  “I’m not so sure about that,” he said.

  23

  THE SHADOWS GREW LONGER in the windy canyons of TriBeCa, and soon it was time to throw away the shrunken, collapsed pumpkins and bring the winter coats out of storage. Although they’d been eager to go trick-or-treating again this year, Jeremy and Storey announced over Thanksgiving dinner that they were too old now for The Nutcracker—a family tradition since they were toddlers.

  December was the swiftest month, the days growing shorter as the invitations and the obligations mounted, hats and coats and gloves laboriously donned and doffed, Christmas cards signed and addressed, presents chosen and purchased. And the parties, which by the middle of the month came to seem like work, waking to the alarm parched and headachy and chilly in the dark, too soon after the last cocktail, the last farewell; frost veining the windows, chilled air leaking through the gaps in the warped, paint-layered frames, burrowing deeper in the covers and moving closer to the hot lump of your husband.

  All the new restaurants that year seemed to be hangar-size Asian fusion spots decorated with giant Buddhas and aquariums stocked with predatory fish, but tonight the boys had chosen a faux-rustic place in the Village, the interior of which resembled a Provençal farmhouse. Cylinders of brown paper bound in twine turned out to be their menus, which faithfully listed the source of all the ingredients, most of them organic. Corrine’s duck hailed from Bucks County, Pennsylvania.

  “Are you done with Christmas shopping?” Veronica asked her as their husbands dissected the bill of fare.

  “Almost. Storey, naturally, picked her own, a princess bed from Pottery Barn that’s supposed to be delivered tomorrow, and assorted slutty accessories from Juicy Couture. Jeremy’s getting a cell phone—I forget what kind; Russell did that—plus some horrible video games. On the other hand, I haven’t finished the Christmas cards.”

  “I can’t believe you still do cards.”

  “Russell insists. You know how he is about Christmas.”

  “We do it all online—shopping, e-cards.”

  “I wish we could visit my mother online and dispense with the actual trip to Stockbridge.”

  “That’s still on?”

  “Afraid so. I go up a day or two early to spend a little extra time fighting with Mom, then Russell and the kids come Christmas Eve and we leave as early as possible on the twenty-sixth for five days skiing at Killington—a package we bought at the school auction.” The Lee clan, she knew, was going to Saint Barth’s, their own destination last year.

  After dinner, the four of them retrieved their coats and wraps from the coat check and bundled themselves against the col
d, their misty exhalations like empty speech balloons as they walked past the Greek Revival town houses on Downing Street and waited for a cab on Varick. The chilly air revived her and reminded her of other wintry city nights—the sidewalk debates about the next stop, the farewells to friends, the last cigarettes, and, suddenly very specifically, of a cold night long ago not far from here when, leaving a long-since-shuttered bistro, they’d passed a young boy huddled, shivering, in a shadowed doorway and she’d stopped to ask him if he was okay, Russell palpably irritated by what he called her “missionary impulse,” suspicious of all sidewalk mendicants, the boy so young, barely a teenager, saying, finally, “I’m cold,” and she’d unfurled her scarf and stooped to wrap it around his neck, turning to look at Russell, and to his credit he’d understood, taking several bills from his wallet and handing them to the boy, the memory warming her even as it made her unbearably sad for the lost boy and for the years that had disappeared between that moment and this.

  “What’s the matter?” he said now, pulling her close. “Are you crying?”

  “It’s just the cold,” she said.

  —

  “I’m glad you’ve patched things up with your sister,” Jessie said, pouring her first vodka of the day, four fingers in the same heavy juice glass she’d been using since Corrine was a kid. It was four in the afternoon, the commencement of cocktail hour, apparently. Once upon a time, it had kicked off at 6:00 p.m., but at least there was still some boundary. Before pouring her first drink, Jessie had watched the clock over the kitchen stove while the minute hand clicked toward its apex, although there was no numeral to mark the twelve o’clock spot—the numbers were piled in a jumble at the bottom of the clock face, which bore the legend Who Cares? I’m Retired. It was one of the few furnishings that had changed since Corrine was in high school. And in fact, Jessie wasn’t quite retired, still putting in a day or two at the antiques store she ran in Stockbridge, or so she claimed, though more and more she left the management of it to the lesbian couple who’d worked there since graduating from Bennington a decade before.