Bright, Precious Days

by Jay McInerney

  “Thanks a bunch. You’re sure you’re okay?”

  “I’m okay. I’ll watch the boys.”

  He felt unsteady, his legs weak. He tested them, walking down the hall to the living area, where the boys were sitting on the couch, staring at the TV screen, each thumbing his own video game controller.

  Just then, the elevator door slid open and Corrine emerged in her running gear. In the light of his new knowledge, he half-expected her to look different, but she looked much as she had when she went out forty minutes ago, only sweaty and flushed. With her hair pulled back in a ratty bun, chest flattened in a running bra, she certainly didn’t look like anyone’s mistress.

  He didn’t know if he could face her, until he did.

  “It’s so humid out there,” she said.

  So, there was still weather.

  “Wash came over with the kids,” he said.

  “That would explain why he’s standing there next to you. Don’t hug me,” she said to Washington. “I’m all gross and sweaty.”

  “Sweaty’s good,” Washington said.

  Sweaty was not good. Sweaty was a word that summoned images of Corrine engaged in carnal congress. It was a horrible word. Before he could turn his mind around, he couldn’t help picturing Corrine in several lurid tableaux.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked, examining his expression.

  “Jack’s dead,” Washington said helpfully.

  “He got killed in a crash on the West Side Highway early this morning,” Russell added.

  “Oh, honey, that’s terrible. I’m so sorry,” she said, embracing him. He found himself flinching from her touch, and it had nothing to do with the sweat. “You must be devastated.”

  “I’m not sure what I feel.”

  “Poor baby,” she said. “What can I do?”

  Washington said, “Any chance you want to take the girls to see Nights in Rodanthe, starring Mr. Richard Gere?”

  “Thanks, but I have to go to Union Square to supervise the Greenmarket rescue.”

  “What,” he asked, “or should I say whom, is the Greenmarket being rescued from?”

  “We rescue, so to speak, unsold produce and food products from the farmers’ stalls at the end of the sales day, before it gets dumped in the garbage. How’s Veronica holding up?”

  Washington shrugged. “She’s freaking out.”

  “Surely they can’t let Lehman go under.”

  “We’ll know soon,” Wash said.

  “Russ, I hope you’re good to watch the boys,” Corrine said.

  He nodded reflexively as she walked past him on her way to the bedroom, realizing suddenly that he had no idea if this was the truth—if she was really going to the market. How many times had she lied to him? How many times had she gone out under some pretext to see Luke? Fucking Luke. He couldn’t decide whether to be relieved that he wouldn’t have to spend time with her right now, or outraged by the possibility that she was embarking on another rendezvous with this Luke. Would she be wearing her bra? The goddamn bra.

  Waiting for the elevator with the two girls, Washington said, “I’ll give your love to Diane.”

  Russell wondered how long it would take Corrine to notice the bra on the laptop. Would she see the e-mail? He realized it had probably come in after she’d gone out for her run, since she wouldn’t have left it there on the screen. Would she put the two ostensibly disparate pieces of evidence together? Ripped bra, incriminating e-mail? This prospect brought, if not exactly pleasure, at least a brief cessation of pain. Did he want her to suffer? Yes, he decided, he did, just as he was suffering.

  He managed to avoid her for much of the next hour, before she finally left for wherever she was going, and apparently she was just as eager to avoid him. Jeremy and Mingus, meanwhile, were lost in a make-believe world that he found himself envying.

  He poured himself a glass of vodka and sat at the kitchen counter, where he was still sitting when Washington and the girls came home.

  “How was the movie?”

  “It was pretty good, but she was kind of old,” Storey said, opening the refrigerator.

  “They were both old,” Zora said.

  “Hey, Diane Lane is nine years younger than your distinguished dads,” Washington said.

  Zora cocked her head and regarded him with mild curiosity, as if waiting for the rest of his rebuttal, then followed Storey back to her bedroom, the boys following in their wake.

  “You want a drink?” Russell asked.

  “I’m good,” said Washington. “Are you really okay? You looked all fucked-up.”

  “I found an e-mail. I think Corrine’s having an affair.”

  “Corrine?”

  “I don’t know what to do.”

  “You’re sure about this?”

  “Pretty sure.”

  Suddenly the boys burst out of their room and charged back into the room, brandishing plastic swords.

  “I’ve gotta get them home. Let me know if you want to catch a drink later.”

  Russell nodded.

  “Damn,” Washington said. “I can’t say I saw this one coming.” He hugged Russell, slapping him on the back, before herding his kids into the elevator.

  “Why did Washington hug you?” Jeremy asked as the doors closed.

  “We do that sometimes,” Russell said.

  For the rest of the afternoon, Jeremy acted as if he sensed something amiss, while his sister seemed eager to preserve the illusion of normalcy, although later, when the two of them were alone, she asked her father what he was going to do.

  “I don’t know yet.”

  “Are you going to get divorced?”

  The word, uttered aloud, was shocking. As he tried to formulate an answer, he saw the tears welling in his daughter’s eyes. He took her in his arms and held her. “I wonder if Diane Lane is single?” he said.

  41

  STILL STUNNED BY THE NEWS about Jack Carson, Corrine was peeling off her jogging clothes in the bedroom when she noticed her bra hanging from the laptop, which seemed odd. She remembered putting it away last night. Lifting it up, she saw that the cup was torn. Hasty as it had been, her disrobing at Luke’s hadn’t been violent, and she recalled it was intact when she’d taken it off again, later, at home.

  She glanced at the computer screen and saw a new message from Luke: Last night was amazing. When had that come in? It hadn’t been there when she’d logged on. And how could she have forgotten to log off? She erased Luke’s e-mail, even as she realized that it was probably too late. How else to explain the bra on the laptop?

  Had Russell seen that message? Oh God, please don’t let him have.

  She’d attributed his dazed aspect to Jack’s death, but now she saw, to her horror, another explanation—but it was too terrible to consider. What was she supposed to do? How could she possibly face him? She couldn’t. It seemed preferable to throw herself out the window.

  She tried to think of an innocent explanation for the e-mail. Could she just deny? She’d been lying for so long, why not just keep on? And yet she knew she couldn’t. It was over. The only way she could possibly even start to redeem herself was to begin telling the truth. Or at least stop lying, which was significantly different. If she told him the whole truth, she was afraid their marriage wouldn’t stand a chance.

  But what to do right now, at this moment? She couldn’t imagine walking out there and facing him now that Washington was gone. Or was he? If Wash was still here, she could at least get out the door without a confrontation, and then consider her options.

  She slunk across the hall to the bathroom, not seeing anyone, hearing only the beeps and chirps of a video game. In the shower, she wept, and curled into a ball on the tiles, wishing she could dissolve and disappear down the drain, to be spared the shame and the mortification, the horror of facing Russell and seeing the accusation and the hurt in his eyes. She prayed for a brief respite, a postponement of the inevitable. She hoped to escape the loft without incident, so that she co
uld have time to formulate a response while going about her business at the Greenmarket, though she wondered how she could possibly concentrate on the simplest of tasks, much less present a socially viable front.

  Ten minutes later, she thought her knees would buckle as she came upon him in the living room, sitting motionless in the armchair beside the couch, watching a football game, which was strange, since he seldom watched sports. Seeing the look on his face when he glanced at her, she realized it wasn’t so much his expression as the sense that he was clearly trying to suppress his feelings, that his contemptuous smirk was a mask that barely concealed more frightening emotions.

  “I’ll be back in a few hours,” she said.

  He turned back to the television without answering.

  —

  Arriving at Union Square in a daze after missing her subway stop, she tried to immerse herself in the simple tasks of schmoozing the farmers and herding the volunteers, but throughout the afternoon she felt almost paralyzed with remorse and dread. Though she tried to convince herself that Russell knew nothing, she couldn’t help believing the opposite. Not knowing was agony. At one moment she wanted to plead illness and rush home and the next she wanted to postpone her return for as long as possible.

  Finally unable to bear it another second, she deputized one of the volunteers to finish the rescue and grabbed a cab downtown.

  When she arrived home, Russell was sitting alone at the kitchen counter. As soon as she saw his face, she knew she was busted.

  “The kids are with Washington and Veronica. I didn’t want them around for this.”

  She didn’t even have the heart to ask what this meant? She stood with her head bowed, waiting.

  “Are you having an affair?”

  Even though she knew this was coming, Corrine thought her knees would buckle beneath her.

  “I was.”

  “You were.”

  “Russell, I can’t even begin to tell you how sorry I am, and ashamed.”

  “Who’s Luke?”

  “Does it matter?”

  “Of course it fucking matters.”

  “You met him at the benefit for his charity at the Waldorf. Luke McGavock. He started the Good Hope Foundation.”

  “Jesus Christ, that was, like, two years ago. Has it been going on all that time?”

  “He was living in South Africa. I only saw him a few times.”

  “Saw him. It sounds like you did a hell of a lot more than see him.”

  “Russell, I’m so so sorry.”

  “I want you to leave.”

  “Can’t we talk about this?”

  “We just did. I want you out. Pack a bag. I don’t want you under this roof.”

  “Russell…”

  “I mean it. Get out.”

  —

  She hardly remembered packing the small bag she was carrying when she arrived at Luke’s building. It hadn’t occurred to her to wonder what she’d do if he wasn’t there.

  “Oh, Luke,” she said, starting to sob when she saw his face.

  “What’s happened?” he asked, taking her in his arms.

  When she finally gathered the composure to blurt out her story, he seemed nonplussed. “I suppose it was inevitable,” he said.

  Holding her arm as if she were an invalid, he walked her over to the couch. The financial news channel was blaring from the big TV on the wall. A crawling banner at the bottom of the screen read: LEHMAN STOCK IN FREE FALL, MARKETS IN TURMOIL. He picked up the remote from the coffee table and muted the volume.

  “Tell me exactly what happened, my love,” he said, taking a seat beside her.

  As she started talking, he glanced up at the television screen. And later, she would realize that was the moment he lost her. Not that he’d actually possessed her up until then, or that she even for a moment had considered what the recent crisis meant for her relationship with Luke, but as they spoke, it became clear that he had, that in his eyes the exposure of the affair was an opportunity rather than a calamity. Later, she could think of a fistful of reasons why she couldn’t be with Luke; he was a man who was used to having his way, a man who moved from conquest to conquest. She believed he loved her, but she didn’t necessarily believe in the durability of that love. He was Déjeuner sur l’Herbe and she was Interior at Arcachon. Ultimately, she would understand and enumerate her reasons for giving him up—the most elementary one being that he wasn’t Russell, but also because at that crucial moment he’d turned away from her and was looking instead at the television screen.

  She would stay for another hour, and Luke would try to convince her that, painful as it might be for Corrine and her family, Russell’s discovery was as the lancing of a boil, a slicing of the Gordian knot, a fortuitous resolution of a lingering quandary. Now, he suggested, the primary obstacle between them had been cleared away, and while, yes, it wouldn’t be an effortless transition, he was here to make it as painless as possible. He spoke words of solace and comfort, holding her and expanding on their future, and through her agony she heard him distantly, his voice fading in and out of her consciousness, as if he were speaking to her across a body of water buffeted by intermittent gusts of wind.

  42

  RUSSELL TOOK A SORT OF perverse satisfaction from the economic crisis, feeling that his own personal misfortunes mirrored those of the nation, glancing at the banner headline of The Wall Street Journal: CRISIS ON WALL STREET AS LEHMAN TOTTERS, MERRILL IS SOLD, AIG SEEKS TO RAISE CASH. And flipping through the Post, a headline closer to home: DRIVE FAST, DIE YOUNG: BAD BOY ARTIST & AUTHOR IN FIERY CRASH. The night before, after Corrine had left with her suitcase, weeping, and the kids, whom Washington had brought back home, had gone to sleep, Russell sprawled on the couch, watching the controlled hysteria of the commentators on CNBC. He raised a tumbler of Maker’s Mark to the screen and toasted: “Let it all come down, baby.”

  In the morning, he woke up on the couch with a dry mouth and a piercing, almost unbearable awareness of Corrine’s betrayal. He lay there, paralyzed with self-pity, until Jeremy came out to roust him and interrogate him about his mother’s absence.

  “Will she come home tonight?”

  “We’ll see. Now get dressed, or we’ll be late for school.” Russell wasn’t emotionally prepared to discuss the situation this morning.

  After taking the kids uptown to school in a taxi, he took the subway back down to the office. He didn’t expect to accomplish much, but neither could he bear the thought of being alone in the loft all day. His staff, sensing his misery, attributed it to Jack’s death, and after expressing their sympathy, they gave him a wide berth. He tried to imagine what he was supposed to do. He wanted to call Corrine and berate her, demand that she explain herself. He also wanted to punish her with silence, to make her suffer the agonies of wondering what he was thinking. In the meantime, the company’s accountant called to tell him he needed cash by the end of the month, that their line of credit was tapped out. His best and perhaps only hope was Tom Reynes, with whom he had a meeting that afternoon.

  As he hung up, Jonathan Tashjian appeared in the doorway. “Is this a bad time?” he asked, prompting Russell to laugh mirthlessly.

  “Yes, it is,” he said, “but come in anyway.”

  “I’m sorry about Jack.”

  “Not like we couldn’t see it coming.”

  “You’ve got a lot of requests for comments and interviews.”

  “I’m really not in the mood today. Tell them to call Knopf. They’re the official publisher now.”

  “We’re the publisher of his first and so far only book and you’re the guy who discovered him. Not to mention the fact we got more than three thousand orders this morning.”

  The effect of Jack’s death on sales hadn’t occurred to Russell until this moment. The inevitable spike might, if nothing else, buy the company some time. And talking to the press could raise McCane, Slade’s profile and bolster the illusion that it was solvent, and relevant.

  “Let’s go
through the requests,” he said as Gita buzzed and announced that Phillip Kohout was on the line.

  Jonathan’s expression reflected his own feelings: distaste and disbelief. He hadn’t spoken to Kohout once since the day the Times broke the story, though there had been many conversations with his agent, and his lawyers.

  “Tell him to fuck off,” Russell said.

  —

  He kept thinking Corrine would call at some point, but at the end of the day he was still waiting. Not that, if he were in her position, he’d know what to say. But it was her role to try, to beg for understanding and forgiveness.

  A beautiful woman on the sidewalk, her shapeliness nicely defined by tight-fitting black yoga togs and a tank top in honor of Indian summer, turned out to be Hilary, lying in wait for him as he left the office. Russell paused in mid-step, mouth agape, unable to mask his surprise.

  “You haven’t returned my calls.”

  “I’ve got a lot going on, Hilary, in case you haven’t heard.”

  “Yes, I’m sure you do.”

  “And I’m about to be late for an appointment.”

  “We need to talk.”

  “I think I said everything I wanted to say the last time we talked. I thought we agreed that it was a one-off. I gave you a month’s rent. I thought you were going to get a job.”

  “I’ve been trying. That’s one of the things I wanted to talk to you about. I’m applying for a job in PR at HBO and I need a recommendation. I know you know people there.”

  “I suppose I could do that.”

  “But I really need a loan in the meantime.”

  “Is that what you call it—a loan?”

  “I’m desperate,” she said, catching his wrist. “I’m going to be evicted.”

  “I’m desperate, too,” he said. “You have no idea, Hilary. I’m at the end of my fucking rope. My friend Jack Carson just died and my wife’s been fucking another guy for I don’t know how long. I kicked her out of the loft, and the kids are a mess. My business is about to go under. And in case you’ve had your head up your ass and haven’t heard, the whole global economy’s headed into a meltdown.”