by Jill Kargman
Chase stared at his plate of prosciutto, silent.
“And I’ve been patient, Chase, so patient, and then in that moment I knew Wills would never have kept me waiting three long years; he has more photographs of me in his apartment than you do and I feel so terrible because I wanted it to be you nursing this crush for me, but I realized: You aren’t.”
Chase looked up at her. Her face, her confession, even her sudden honestly about what she had been going through rendered her a total stranger across from him. As the votive light flickered on her pretty face, Chase found her virtually unrecognizable.
“When he saw me looking at his bulletin board of all those pictures—from our trip to Little Compton and then Susie’s wedding at Mill Reef, Wills looked at me in a way that you never do. With longing. And so he kissed me. And I realized I have a history with him, too, and he always wanted me. And I need to feel wanted like that. So we kissed more. And one thing led to another. We both feel terrible about it but agreed I should be the one to tell you. I’m so sorry, Chase.”
Liesel’s eyes glistened with tears as she blinked a stream down her pink cheek. Her polished index finger wiped it away as she stared at him, waiting for his response. She exuded a strange mix of guilt and strength, a sudden confidence Chase didn’t recognize, but that clearly Wills gave her. She was apologizing but not asking for forgiveness. She was there to confess and then obviously go back to the guy who “made her feel wanted.” Chase just sat in silence. He didn’t know what to say. Especially because, as emotions swirled in his head, he didn’t really know what he thought.
Liesel braced herself for a lashing. Would he scream at her? Would he pop like a whistling kettle, jealous steam coming out his ears? Would he go shithouse and throw something? Anything, even smashing porcelain or hurling fish forks, would be better than this reserved silence. What could he be thinking? He simply sat silently, his jaw clenching periodically, Tom Cruise- style.
Inside Chase’s head, he visualized two distinct colors swirling together. One was bilious green, a sickened hue of shocked envy and bitter betrayal. He couldn’t believe this was actually happening. But then, in that poisoned sea, in the distance, there appeared a patch of glowing, pulsating red that slowly intruded more and more in thick foaming waves: a tide of juicy, deliciously red relief.
31
Forty is the old age of youth; fifty is the youth of old age.
—Victor Hugo
After a long and solemn hug good-bye, Liesel left Chase on Madison Avenue with one final “I’m sorry.” There was nothing else to be said.
“It’s okay, Buttercup,” he said calmly. “I wasn’t giving you what you needed.”
“Oh gosh, don’t make me cry,” she said, welling up again. “And please don’t blame Wills. It was probably my fault. I do think, in the end, though, it will all be for the best.”
“I don’t blame either of you, I promise,” Chase responded in all sincerity, as thunder clapped and drizzle started to sprinkle their mutually culpable heads.
“Bye, then,” she said, turning to hail a cab, no doubt to Wills’s apartment.
“Bye,” Chase said through the cab window, which she started to roll up as the rain sprinkled her face. “Take care.”
He closed the door and watched her cab turn the corner. He stood in the light rain, looking for another taxi. He found one quickly, climbed in, greeted the driver, and gave his address in his usual proper manner, as if he’d just come from a business meeting or doctor’s appointment. He sat there, still, looking out the window as the cab wheels spun him off up the avenue and another set spun in his brain. He sat jostled in the pleather backseat, like a wobbly Weeble, rocked from side to side by the driver’s shitty driving. It was a physical echo of his emotional state; his world was rocked but he was somehow stable. Nothing ever knocked Chase Lydon down.
When he got home, the sound of the door closing behind him sounded like a bank vault slamming, heavy and leaded, trapping him in his solitude. He stood in front of the mirror, loosened his tie, and took off each cuff link and pulled out his collar stays. He looked at his reflection. It seemed different. He saw not only his surroundings but also himself in a new way. But he couldn’t label the blistering emotion welling within him. Was it rage? Anguish? Resentment? No . . . it was nothing like that. It was none of those. Or all of those. He didn’t quite know.
He didn’t quite know what to do with himself, either, post-emotional-apocalypse. He couldn’t watch TV. He started pacing. Maybe he could call one of his brothers. He looked down at his vintage Rolex. Ten thirty. Both were no doubt out carousing at Dorian’s. Maybe other friends? But in that moment, not one popped to mind. The thing about Chase was that everyone always came to him. New school? Kids lined up to be his buddy. Girls? There was always one who was in hot pursuit of him. Everyone in his life would initiate plans and call him, invite him drinking, sailing, to every event, but he never would unload a problem or open up to anyone, bromance-style. So while he had had many buddies, Chase realized in the solitude of his apartment, he had no friends. The one person he had ever spilled his guts to gutted him with the blade of betrayal. He certainly didn’t feel up to calling or even confronting his so-called best friend.
But even more shocking than Liesel’s amorous revelation was that Chase wasn’t nearly as pissed as one would imagine he’d be. And not only that, he even had the sensation of having been released, unmetered, magically freed. Now it wasn’t on his shoulders when he told Brooke that Liesel would not be her daughter-in-law; it was Liesel’s own doing, even though deep down, Chase knew he had been pushing her away and having doubts about their relationship all along. Wills, meanwhile, always lusted after Liesel in ways that Chase didn’t. So perhaps, despite the shadowy origins of their kindled sparks, this burgeoning relationship made sense. Suddenly, Chase realized with perfect clarity that in fact Wills and Liesel would be very happy together. And that was that.
It began to rain harder. Lightning crashed outside, and drops spattered his window in pelts so strong it was like Mother Nature was drumming her nails against the thick glass. He sat in his father’s old cognac leather club chair, worn and weathered, staring at the sheets of water on the pane. His now ex-girlfriend’s tearful exodus didn’t even make him feel heavy with sadness, just . . . blank. He didn’t know whether to call someone or read a book or continue to stare at the chaos outside. It was strange, he thought, that the gray clouds were more in an uproar than he was, given the evening’s revelations. The clouds were thrashing and crying in a way he couldn’t.
He felt so drained that he barely moved for over an hour. And then, before he could figure out what to do next and without even consciously thinking about it, he very casually got up and walked out.
“Mr. Lydon, don’t you need an umbrella?” the doorman asked as Chase headed for the torrents of rain in his jeans and button-down shirt. “It’s really coming down, sir. I have a spare here—”
“That’s all right, Tony, thank you,” Chase replied robotically, walking straight out into the flood.
The thick raindrops were so big, they bounced off the pavement, heavy enough to wash away the confusion and the past. He was soaked through instantly without a care in the world. Maybe he thought he would feel something if he steeped himself in the wild tempest he had watched through his window. He stepped through the torrents of rain as if it were any old sunny day, impermeable to chill or discomfort. Sloshing through puddles he strode, five blocks down, two blocks east, until he was there, right in front of the town house in which Eden lived.
32
With mirth and laughter let old wrinkles come.
—William Shakespeare
An orange light glowed from the parlor floor. Chase searched the window for her perfect silhouette, but she wasn’t sitting by the window. He looked for a shadow on an adjacent wall or even the ceiling; just a hazy swath of light cast on an elbow would do. But there was nothing, no sense of her presence within. He backed up a few
steps to crane his neck in case she wandered by the French window. He’d been obsessed; thinking about her body, her long hair, her unbridled confidence and outwardly sexy yet still mysterious vibe. In the previous days, he had forced himself to flush all those thoughts out of his mind, but they burst forth, released by his now-vanished remorse. Thoughts of her flickered on the movie screen of his brain. Her thighs in that short dress. Her skin, her green eyes.
The rain flooded down on him as he stared into the window for what seemed like an hour. His blue shirt was a drenched second skin, the angles of his face like little slides for water to pour down. He shivered a bit, bewitched by the glowing light of the window. And then . . .
“Chase?” he heard behind him.
He turned to find Eden, walking toward him, holding an umbrella she had bought at the MoMA Design Store. It was all black on top but underneath was a bright Magritte blue sky with a few clouds on it. He didn’t know what to say. He had hoped to see her, but didn’t have a plan hatched out. He just looked at her, breathing as the heavy raindrops pelted him.
“You know, stalking is very underrated,” Eden said, stepping toward her soaked suitor and covering him with the umbrella, a shared haven of sunny azure.
Without speaking, Chase grabbed Eden as if in slow motion. He engulfed her under the umbrella and kissed her madly, his wet hand running through her long hair, his eyes closed, blinded by his own passionate attack. It was what he had longed to do at their last encounter. The light on that street corner and the light in his heart both said GO, but in his head, bound to Liesel, it had been flashing red instead. But now in the rain he was no longer linked to another and was bursting to return the kiss he had so abruptly broken off.
As Eden returned his breathless embrace, the umbrella fell to the ground beside them. The blue sky under her umbrella now turned upward as the people it once shielded became waterlogged by the merciless storm. They didn’t care. Chase’s hands searched her warm neck, the soft hot skin of her back beneath her cashmere sweater, as he drenched her with his own wet body. Their clothes were soon soaked through, but each felt the heat of the other through the sopping fibers and the drumbeat of each other’s chest.
There was a deafening smack of thunder. Eden gasped and pulled their lips apart and looked at him with wild eyes.
“Should we go inside?” he asked nervously.
“Sure,” she said, putting her arms back around him. “My place or . . . mine?”
“Your place.” Chase smiled. He followed her through the double doors of her grand but semi-broken-down town house. He bounded up the stairs of her small building’s once-elegant lobby as if the rust-carpeted path were the yellow brick road, minus the midgets. Chase gazed up at Eden; she was rain splattered and smiling, and couldn’t have looked more bewitching. Even if she had primped for hours, she couldn’t have looked more gorgeous to Chase as he entered her apartment. She held his wet hand, leading him excitedly down the hallway and through the living room. It was as if the apartment were hot water and she was the tea: Everything around them was infused with her style, her scent, her magnetic draw; it was an eclectic extension of the woman he was following to the bedroom. There were random bowls of beaded jewelry, ethnic knickknacks, small frames, small frameless paintings leaning on book-covered shelves, old wood-block letters, cashmere throws, pillows galore, chic woven rugs, treasures from around the globe. It was like Eden had the whole world inside her apartment walls: Her spiced sachets and sweet perfumes indulged his senses more than any four-star chef ’s, the jingles of her thin arm full of bangle bracelets better than any symphony’s. The walls and upholstery were covered in warm fabrics with cozy details, from tassels to toasty blankets to the velvet ribbon with which she tied back her long disheveled hair.
As she turned around to face him, his damp cheeks flushed, Eden reached back and pulled the ribbon out, letting her hair down. Chase lunged for her, free and wild, bathed in the warm dim light. He pawed her so fiercely they almost toppled down several times as they staggered to the bed. They rolled into each other on the cloud of her downy comforter, leaving person-shaped rain stains on the coverlet. Chase’s breath was hot and fevered as their kiss deepened. His eyes were closed, his hands grasping her like he would never let go. He had never felt more electrified, and while there had been more than a few pretty girls in his arms, there had never been a real woman. The vixen beside him was a tigress, and with her it was like he had finally come alive, charged in every finger, every hair. For the first time in his entire life he felt out of control, drunk on Eden’s sultriness. He was in the sexual passenger seat, unsure of the slick wet road’s exciting twists and turns.
Eden was happy to drive. Again. After two decades of being Clyde’s sexual pawn, she was in charge. She could feel in Chase’s desperate grasp that familiar sensation of being not just wanted but needed, craved. It was endearing how Chase kissed her so many times all over her body, as if to mark her every pore with his lips, as he lifted her black sweater over her head. She took off her lace bra and tossed it aside, reaching back to him. He was at once burning for her but incredibly tender in his touch, and as he held each of her hands in his and breathlessly interlocked their twenty fingers, she suspended all her worries about their chasm in age. She closed her eyes, threading her hands through Chase’s hair, then tripping down each vertebrae.
She stood up and pulled off her skirt and panties as Chase pulled back to marvel at her naked body. She transcended all fantasy and eclipsed his wildest notions of what it meant to be truly engulfed by another being. He would sign his life away in that moment just to spend his last minutes entangled with her limbs.
“Come on,” Eden whispered, reaching down his pants. He lunged for her with a force so intense, he didn’t recognize himself. He cupped her breasts and ravaged her neck as she unbuttoned his shirt and pulled off his pants. He was in ecstatic shock when she pushed him down on the bed and climbed on him. She arched her back, moving over him. He thought he would finish in a nanosecond but she stopped and teased him, coaxing, as he watched her body above him, reaching up to hold her breasts as she guided him to a fit of fireworks that grew to a culmination of such bodily delirium, Chase almost blacked out and thought for a moment he may have died.
The two collapsed in a heap of dewy bliss, both aglow with patchy apple hues of flushed skin, scratched backs, love bites, and lust bruises that would appear at sunrise. Not bad for a night that began with a dinner seated across from someone else. A sweet girl diametrically opposed to the sexy, iconic woman Chase woke up with. He had dined with Betty Draper but slept with Bettie Page.
33
At 20 years of age the will reigns; at 30 the wit; at 40 the judgment.
—Benjamin Franklin
“OH NO, YOU DI-IN!” Allison squealed.
“Guilty as charged,” admitted Eden, fuchsia with abashment.
“I’m in shock. SHOCK! You totally cougared out!” Allison said, laughing.
“Puma,” corrected Eden, twisting the phone wire in her fingers.
“Oh well, I beg your pardon.”
“Don’t. It’s splitting hairs. It’s all the same. We both know I am a disgusting molester. I’m gross, right?”
“NO! Not at all—this is major! He is to-die-for gorgeous.”
“Yeah, gorgeous and barely legal!”
“Oh, please. Look, you were every guy’s arm candy for years and years. Now you’ve earned the right to be the arm. And enjoy that tasty candy!”
“He is cute, isn’t he?” Eden blushed.
“Um-hmmm.”
“And sweet. And warm. And—”
“Look at you! You never do this! I’m freaking OUT!” Allison said giddily. “Tell me more.”
“I mean, yes, okay, obviously he’s stunning. But he’s also so kind and good,” she mused, picturing his earnest face. “God, he’s also just so wound up. Remember I told you he seemed to have this pent-up passion ready to explode? Well, I was right.”
“He did, didn’t he.”
“Yup. And not just physically. I mean, sure, that was incredible. I just felt like there was this charming sweetness in him, that innocence. Maybe it’s his youth?”
“Come on, he’s twenty-eight, not eighteen! He can’t be that naïve.”
“It’s not that, it’s just a general . . . goodness, I guess. Does that sound so Little House on the Prairie?”
“Guess what: After everything you’ve been through with chucky Otto you could use a little Ma and Pa goodness. And a solid butter-churning, if you know what I mean.”
“ALLI!”
Allison’s eyes flashed with girlish mischief. “The great maestro Otto Clyde would simply die. Just keel over.”
“I know,” Eden said solemnly, the wind suddenly out of her sails. “That’s why I want to keep this all a secret. He’s not ready, I’m not ready. Plus, Chase literally just split up with his girlfriend. And Cole . . . oh my God, he would die, too.”
“He would totally freak.”
“Poor Cole. As much as I miss him, it’s so for the best that he’s in school far away right now,” Eden said, remembering how she had fought him tooth and nail to stay on the East Coast. It was a good thing he was headstrong like his parents and moved west, anyway.
“Oh, I love that adorable Cole. Is he still painting?”
“No, unfortunately,” Eden said, missing her son. “He knows he’s talented, gifted really, but he doesn’t want Julian Lennon syndrome.”