Eastman Was Here

by Alex Gilvarry

  “Magnificent. I wonder if I can still make you feel dirty.”

  “Oh, I’m dirtier, Alan. I’m filthy. That’s what age and a little bit of confidence do to you. But you’ll never know.”

  “You have a delicious cunt.”

  “Alan, please.” Meredith looked away.

  “Meredith, can I make another confession?”

  “I don’t see how I can stop you.”

  “This talk is giving me a raging hard-on.”

  “Oh, dear. I’m so sorry for you.”

  “Don’t be.”

  He slid over in the booth until their knees touched under the table; it was electric for him, the contact. Meredith began to laugh. “What are you doing!” she said.

  “Is that your foot?”

  “No.”

  “Then it’s the leg of the table. How about that?”

  “Yes, that’s my foot.”

  “I thought we could talk a little closer.”

  “I’m married, Alan.”

  “I know you have a husband. Where is he? I don’t see him. You remember what you said to me back then about being married? Not tonight you’re not.”

  She took her napkin from her lap and dabbed the corners of her mouth. She stared at him with a smile that made him feel ten years younger.

  “What’s your room number?” he said.

  “It’s 6-2-60,” she said. “That’s the month and the day I was married. June second, 1960.”

  “I want to taste your cunt.”

  Her hand went beneath the table and found him stiff through his pants. “You’re not kidding,” she said.

  “I want you out of this dress,” he said. “What’s your room number?”

  “You don’t need it,” she said. “We’ll go to yours.”

  And this is how it went. Meeting in a foreign city. Dinner. Then to bed. Entire weekends, never more than a handful of times a year. He had cheated on his first wife with Meredith, and so in some significant way this was a kind of revenge for Eastman. He was now the mistress. It was exciting and without guilt. Unlike him, Meredith didn’t seem to experience guilt from their relationship, at least she didn’t show it when they were together. She had probably had many lovers during the course of her marriage. But how she was when she returned to New York was something that didn’t concern him and so he tried not to wonder. That was the beauty of their affair. Nights together were pleasurable and without hassle, a weekend in Germany or France or Italy, and when they returned, they went their separate ways, different flights and days, back to their normal lives.

  But when he met Penny in the winter of 1962 after a war protest in Washington Square, he put the brakes on relations with Meredith. He knew with Penny he’d found a woman he could give himself over to. Meredith had sent a postcard to him within his first month of dating Penny—Paris on 22nd the Ritz—M. He didn’t know how to reply. He made an excuse involving his daughter, Helen—she would be visiting—and sent a short letter to Meredith’s office. This seemed to save him for a time. A few months later a letter, typed, came to his home. Rome, Hotel Giacomo on the 11th. Riviera possible on 13th. Would be nice to see you.—M. He tore up the letter before Penny returned home.

  They ran into each other at the ballet at Lincoln Center shortly after Meredith’s last correspondence. Meredith was arm in arm with her husband, David Lazlo, soon to be his publisher, and when she saw Penny cradled in Eastman’s arm, looking up admiringly at whatever he was saying, very much in love, Meredith treated him like a stranger in passing, a stranger whose behavior had severely offended her. She gave an angered look that burned with true hurt. Eastman was embarrassed and couldn’t explain any of it to Penny.

  Shortly after the run-in at Lincoln Center, he couldn’t get Meredith off his mind. He felt like shit, cutting out on their affair without explanation. It was cowardly. He could have just lived his life, onward with Penny. But he wasn’t able to, not with Meredith hating him. In a way, he needed her blessing, an idea he found absolutely ridiculous but altogether necessary. When the mind wants what it wants, who’s to reason with it? He was not in love with Meredith, no, he would never let those feelings overtake him. But she let him do whatever he wanted with her body. She had ownership over him. He didn’t want to lose her, to lose his respect for her. So he tried to make it right somehow.

  When he tried to contact her by phone at her office all he got was silence. She wasn’t there. She was away on business, she was out to lunch, she was in a meeting. What could he do? He was acting like a jealous boyfriend.

  The following spring, a few months into his engagement to Penny, they had a fight so incredible he began to doubt his choice to remarry. Things were thrown—an ashtray, a glass of water, his mother’s pottery, all smashed around the house. The screaming and tears filled his mind long after the fight had passed. For a week he hardly spoke to Penny. She would leave in the mornings to teach her classes at NYU, and when she was back, he would be at the corner bar, smoking and drinking with cops, elevator mechanics, and doormen just off work. On one of these drunken nights at the bar, feeling it wouldn’t work out with Penny, he wrote a letter to Meredith in which he stated, I’m sorry about Paris. He followed the letter with the dates of an upcoming conference in Madrid and the address of the hotel where he would be staying. Perhaps it was premeditated, because he happened to have his address book with all the details on him. On his way home, swaying in the streets, he dropped it into a mailbox and then threw up on the street corner.

  By the time he left for Madrid, he had nearly forgotten that he had written Meredith. It was a letter composed in a drunken state, not one that he would expect a response to. Penny was still acting stale toward him and he left with the engagement in question. What of it? He didn’t care. The troubles in their relationship were sapping his energy, stopping him from focusing on anything, which only angered him more. When he arrived in Madrid it was springtime, and he had a day to rest before meeting with his hosts at the university. On the second night, he gave a mediocre lecture and felt like he had cheated the university of what they were paying him. They took him out to a quiet dinner with academics. One of the faculty members, a Spaniard with a goatee, mentioned Eastman’s relationship with Norman Heimish, and this left Eastman disgruntled. He returned to his hotel in a rancid mood, just wanting to take a hot bath and sulk. But as he made his way through the lobby, the desk man informed him that Mrs. Eastman had arrived and had been shown to his room.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Mrs. Eastman has arrived, señor.”

  He had had the fight with Penny, and for a second he thought there was the possibility that she was sorry and had flown all the way to Spain to apologize. But then there was the letter to Meredith; he suddenly remembered composing it on the bar. Eastman, now conjuring a cold sweat, thanked the desk man and went up to his room. Darkness, but for the slither of light coming from under the bathroom door. Short of breath, he approached the bathroom. The shower was running and he did not know who he would find. He hoped, prayed that it was Penny, come to forgive him. He knew then he did not want to get back into it with Meredith. He stood outside the door for a short while before he pressed on it. In the doorway he let the steam fill his nostrils. Her tall figure through the shower curtain. Soap ran down her body and over her breasts. He pulled back the curtain and stared into her mouse-colored bush. Meredith screamed.

  They had to make up. And why not, she had flown all this way. His disappointment was impossible to hide.

  • • •

  He arrived late and unannounced at the Lazlos’. Meredith came to the door and when she saw Eastman standing there in the hall, a look of dire surprise spread across her face. Her husband had invited him and it was mutually understood that Eastman would not come. The cocktail portion of the dinner party was already under way. In the foyer was Lazlo’s billiard table, where some of the partyg
oers were gathered around in casual conversation. Eastman stepped inside past Meredith. At first he tried to act as if they hadn’t seen each other in years, but it had only been six months since they were both in San Francisco lying naked together. Meredith understood the pretense and carried on as best she could. He had appeared out of context, his mass of curly hair combed down with grease. He wore a navy wool suit on a warm evening, a mackintosh over that. He looked like he was running for mayor of Cincinnati. She decided to treat him as she would any guest. She transformed herself into a stranger and he knew not to take offense and responded accordingly. He was Eastman the author, just a casual acquaintance, nothing more. Her coldness, in fact, helped Eastman keep himself together. He hadn’t the necessary strength for a party after these past few days of trauma and heartache.

  “It’s good to see you again, Alan,” she called, sounding false. “I didn’t know you were coming.”

  “Is that Alan Eastman?” called Lazlo from the living room.

  “Yes, it is, darling,” she said. “He’s just arrived.”

  “Well, bring him in!”

  “Hello, Meredith. Where can I put my coat?”

  The Lazlos’ coat girl came to the door and Eastman took off his mackintosh.

  “You need a tip?”

  “That’s not necessary, Alan,” said Mrs. Lazlo, as the girl took the coat from him. “Why don’t you follow me to the kitchen and I’ll fetch you a drink?” She put on a smile for him. Eastman looked around the apartment at the other guests. Bookish types, socialites, the same bunch of bloodsuckers from 1953.

  Eastman followed her into the kitchen, where hired caterers prepped hors d’oeuvres.

  “I think you should go home,” she said. “You’re not looking well.”

  “What is that smell? It’s like a Bombay whorehouse.”

  “It’s curry.”

  “Christ, you’re serving Indian.”

  “It’s delicious, Alan. There’s meat and potatoes. You’ll love it.”

  Eastman suddenly thought of the prospect that Penny had renewed her relationship with Vaz, the yogi who took them to India. Was he the phantom whose number he had on the matchbook? The one who dined her at the Waverly Inn? It was impossible for him to imagine that Penny would have gone back to Vaz. He would cross-check the phone number with his address book once he got home. Why hadn’t he thought of it before?

  “I’ve been to India, Meredith. I caught dysentery. When I wasn’t shitting I was up all night with fever and heartburn.”

  “Well, perhaps you’ll want to slip out before dinner.”

  He didn’t like her suggestion; her forwardness was now working against him. “I’ll eat bread,” he said.

  She took him by the arm and moved him into a more secluded corner of the kitchen, where there was less commotion.

  “What’s going on, Alan?”

  “I don’t know where else to turn. Penny left me a few days ago. She took the boys. I don’t know what to do.”

  “Oh no. I’m sorry.”

  “You’re the first person I’ve told.”

  “I wish I could say I’m honored. This is tragic. What did she say?”

  “It was like talking to someone I no longer knew. Suddenly everything was weighted on happiness. Was this as happy as she could be? Could she be happier with someone else? Could someone else love her more than me?”

  “Is there someone else?”

  “There’s always someone else.”

  Meredith hesitated. Was she embarrassed by him? No, she’d derived as much pleasure from their rendezvous over the years as he had. It could have simply been his presence in her home with her husband.

  “Do you know who it is?” she asked.

  “That’s what I’m trying to find out. I have a matchbook from the Waverly Inn. Inside there’s a number and I suspect it’s his. I found it in her nightstand.”

  “What about your kids, Alan? When are you supposed to see them?”

  “I haven’t even thought about them. Jesus. You see what this is turning me into? But you’re right. I need to see them. She can’t do this to them. She’s dragging them into some affair she’s having with this scumbag. And the worst part is she’s lying. She’s lying to me! She’s lying to herself! Our two boys caught in the middle. You don’t just break up a family like that. You want to fuck someone, go fuck someone. Don’t break up a family. Am I wrong?”

  “You’re not. I’m very sorry to hear this, Alan. This is very distressing. Excuse me, I have to play host. Here, take a drink.” She removed a bottle of bourbon from the cabinet and poured two glasses.

  For the first time in days he had the healthy desire to have a drink. It was a party, after all, and from the looks of it, a bad one. He’d need the social lubricant if he was going to get through tonight. Meredith shot down her glass right away, composed herself, and left the kitchen. Eastman stood in contemplation of the drink. As a young man, he had had trouble with controlled substances, though he loved to party. He knew not to mix depression with alcohol. But what was he celebrating now? He hated turning to substance in times of depression. Substance he reserved for mind-altering experiences and whenever he needed extreme courage. Perhaps it was just one of those times. He sucked back the whiskey and poured himself another. On his way out of the kitchen he stopped to look over a cook’s shoulder at meat simmering in a lavalike sauce and said, “Easy on the spice, chief. We have Caucasians in the mix.”

  The party was not massive, nevertheless the apartment was filled to capacity. And this was not a small two-bedroom tenement, it was a godlike apartment on the Upper West Side. Casa de Lazlo. It was filled with people Eastman despised and those he half-heartedly cared for. Some young women were in attendance, possibly editorial assistants of Lazlo’s—early twenties, oiled and rosy cheeked. He always treated the assistants kindly and flirted with them when he found the opportunity. It helped his case whenever his name was in question, say in an editorial room, if some asshole bad-mouthed him one of these young eager assistants could stand up for him. He wondered if that’s what occurred when Jay Husskler mentioned his name for the Vietnam piece.

  Within a few minutes in the living room he had finished his second drink and began to feel tipsy. He thought he should have a drink of water, but a waiter came over with a tray of gin cocktails and Eastman, in poor form, took one and began sipping. Weaving through an underwhelming crowd, he found himself in conversation with Lillian Krassner, the critic who often wrote for Commentary, Dissent, et cetera. Lillian had a stern, high forehead, which made her look as if she’d had a facelift, the skin stretched so tight around her face. There wasn’t enough skin to go around. He had always liked jousting with the old broad; she was cold to the touch.

  “You’re looking well, Alan,” said Lillian.

  “I’m drinking gin,” he said. “Ghastly.”

  “I quite prefer it, actually. Especially in the summer months.”

  “You would. What’s shakin’, sister? I feel like I haven’t seen you since Ali was Cassius Clay.”

  “I’m not your sister, Alan. Excuse yourself.”

  “I’m being amiable, Lillian. That was some blow job you gave Heimish in Commentary last month.”

  “I won’t justify that comment. Not everyone writes with a score to settle. At your age, you should know this. Criticism doesn’t work that way, it never has, although I know it seems like it does through your eyes. Even so, don’t tell me you’ve never whored yourself. I think everyone has read quite a bit of your whoring.”

  “I am a whore. And I come cheap. That’s why I can cast the first stone.”

  “I don’t write to please, either. I assessed Heimish’s latest book on its own merits.”

  “You assessed his dick after you sniffed his crotch.”

  “Speaking of whores, how’s that lovely wife of yours?”

&n
bsp; “Good old Lillian. You’re right on the money.”

  “Are you staying for dinner or will you be making one of your famous exits?”

  “If I’m still standing, I’ll be staying for dinner.”

  “Alan, may I talk seriously for a moment? I’m concerned about a rumor I heard regarding you, and I want to express that no matter how much your very being can offend me at times, I certainly don’t want any harm brought upon you. I hope I’m not talking out of turn, Alan, but I am just very concerned for you. Have I ever told you about my friend Alvin?”

  “Why, whatever do you mean, Lillian? I don’t understand.”

  “Oh please, Alan, are you going to make me say it? Your safety. Your life. None of us want that for you, no matter how many people in this room you’ve offended. My friend Alvin was a great journalist, he went over in sixty-six for the Times. He was most certainly eager to go—”

  “Lillian, I still don’t know what you mean. You must be clear, otherwise I just don’t know what we’re talking about. What about my safety?”

  Lillian lowered her voice. “Vietnam, Alan. When I heard I was immediately afraid for you. Not just because of your age, but for anyone to go at this point in the war seems very dangerous.”

  For Eastman, it felt as if a fantasy had suddenly come true. Had Broadwater talked? Had Jay Husskler, the paper’s owner? The only answer he had given the Herald was a definite no. And the only person he had told otherwise was his wife, Penny. The room began to take on a lifeless effect. Conversations seemed to slow down and Eastman knew he was having a bout of anxiety. He felt as if he had been caught in a gigantic lie, but he had not lied to anyone except Penny. And that was his own private plan to get his wife back. Vietnam and Penny were now intimately connected.

  “Lillian, where’d you hear this? Baxter Broadwater?”

  “I think it was Leslie Feldman who told me. Who told him I have no idea. Is it not true?”

  “No. No, it’s not true.”

  “Oh, thank God, Alan. I’m glad it was just a rumor. In that case, enough serious talk. I hope you choke on a chicken bone at dinner.”