The Smash-Up

by Ali Benjamin

  (Lo. Lee. Ta, that tongue trip, palate, palate, tooth. Her name, for the record, was Dolores.)

  Mencken, and Strindberg and smug-ass Flaubert. Roth. Bukowski. That ’80s bad boy who grew, so predictably, into yet another cranky old man. That ’90s postmodern cult hero, who gave that one glorious speech about compassion, may he rest in a peace he denied to the women in his life. Every dude who’s ever written the trope, “she’s beautiful but doesn’t know it.”

  All those brilliants, from every era, invariably white, invariably male, who for all their vast talent couldn’t imagine what it was to be Not-Them. Aren’t these the guys who are supposed to be imagining the world?

  The ones who, having failed to imagine, denied others their voices: the one who shot Joan Vollmer in the face before the world could hear her words. The one who stabbed Adele Morales—the second of six wives, disposable, really—with a penknife, then went on to literary glory while she struggled and died in a tenement house.

  The darlings of the art world: Renoir and Picasso and de Kooning and Pollock and Dalí and Duchamp (Duchamp! Whose world-inverting 1917 Fountain was almost certainly the brainchild of one Baroness Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven, who was weird and clever and practically no one’s ever heard of her). And while we’re at it, let’s talk musicians. Elvis and Chuck and Iggy and Sid, and dammit, some days even you, too, Bruce, for tarnishing an otherwise-perfect song with an eight-word reminder of the inescapability of the male gaze. (I ain’t a beauty but hey, I’m all right? At ease, Boss man, you’re not such a looker yourself.)

  And let’s not even get started on Hollywood. Or D.C. Or Madison Avenue. Or Wall Street. Or Nashville. Or that urbanized stretch of land near the southern San Francisco Bay once known as the Valley of Heart’s Delight.

  I mean, let’s just not. Who among us has the time, or can fully bear it?

  * * *

  —

  Zo leaves the house without saying goodbye. Never mind that expired license, either: fair is foul, foul is fair, apparently. Ethan listens to the slam of her car door, the engine starting. The Subaru backs out of the driveway, turns east, heads down Schoolhouse Hill Road.

  In the silence after she’s gone, Ethan opens his laptop, tries to remember what he should be doing.

  Evie Emerling. He needs to look up Evie Emerling.

  He’s typing the name into his search engine when it hits him: with Alex and Zo gone for the night, he’s got a whole night alone with Maddy.

  HARPER’S BAZAAR: The Great Disappearing Act of Evie Emerling

  Evie Emerling is an enigma. Unless you live under a rock—and maybe even then—chances are good that Evie’s face is indelibly etched into your mind from her starring roles in films in such wide-ranging genres as high-concept sci-fi (Deep Space, Wormhole), Disney (Little Red, Kiss of a Toad), art-house indie cinema (Dancing in Antwerp, The Ivory Hunter), and summer blockbusters (Crime of the Century, Bite the Bullet).

  The multitalented actress, whose blue eyes are so pale they can be downright unnerving, burst into the Hollywood spotlight in the mid-late 1990s. But like a meteor that flames out after hitting Earth’s atmosphere, Evie’s light is hard to see these days. Where exactly is Evie Emerling now?

  Is she, as some have suggested, a modern-day Greta Garbo, the reclusive starlet from the 1920s–’30s who once famously quipped, “I want to be let alone”? Or was Evie’s retreat forced upon her—either by a youth-obsessed Hollywood, or by some sort of breakdown?

  Ethan scrolls through more search returns. Most of the stories he rejects based on the headline alone.

  Evie Emerling Canoodles with Mystery Man in Anguilla. Pass.

  Evie Emerling Denies Plastic Surgery Rumors. Pass.

  Evie Emerling Trolled by Anti-Semites. Definite pass.

  Evie Emerling: Just Another Hollywood Hypocrite Driving a Hybrid. Pass.

  All Evie Emerling’s Roles Ranked from Worst to Best.

  Ethan clicks on this one, moving through a series of movie posters for films he never saw. Each image offers someone else’s vision of Evie Emerling—Evie as a sorority girl, flapper, disgraced ballerina, tarted-up mistress of an infamous white-collar criminal. But it’s the poster for a 2008 film, Phenomenology, that makes him stop and stare. Beneath the poster is a brief description: “a brilliant mind-fuck about a universe-tripping cosmologist who may or may not be real. The Matrix meets Girl, Interrupted.”

  Ethan doesn’t care about the plot, though. It’s her expression in this poster. Something about this particular smile.

  It all comes flooding back: the night he spent, long ago, in the company of someone who was not Zo.

  After Bränd’s three Leaps of Faith pay off—in the form of eager calls from big-name brands, in their own swelling balance sheets, in a future that seems to expand ever-outward with new possibility—Randy throws a bash. It’s time the world celebrated this daring new firm, Bränd, these Gen-X boy-genius newcomers.

  The party, thanks to Randy’s networking wizardry, is filled with A-listers: corporate suits with executive suites. Rising dot-com entrepreneurs. Street artists in conspicuous paint splatters. Art dealers eager to meet those street artists. A couple of Hollywood types. Nearly all of these individuals are men; for the most part, the women at the party are their dates, or aspiring actresses and models.

  Evie Emerling’s in the crowd, dressed in the classic black of Audrey Hepburn. Randy stays by her side for much of the evening, steering her from one circle of men to the next. “This one’s beautiful and smart,” Randy tells his guests. He holds up his glass again and again for a toast. “And thanks to Bränd, she just signed with an agent. A big one. Remember who discovered her, friends. Never forget that Bränd saw her first!”

  The glasses clink, and Evie laughs. She seems to be having a terrific time. But when Ethan runs into her near the bathrooms, she’s wearing a different mask altogether. Her skin is pale. Her eyes look tired and frankly a little sad.

  He asks if she’s okay, and she says only, “I’m ready to go home.”

  “Home?” But it’s still early. And this is Evie’s party, too, in a way. Everybody loves her, it’s clear. “You sure? Okay, why don’t I let Randy know—”

  “No, Ethan.” She stops him. “I was hoping to slip away quietly. Listen, would you mind seeing me into a cab?”

  Ethan glances back at the party; Randy’s at the center of a scrum of suits. All eyes are on him as he tells some sort of story. He gesticulates, and the huddle breaks into laughter. Randy takes a sip from his tumbler glass, pleased with himself.

  Ethan turns back to Evie. “Okay, yeah,” he says. “Let’s grab you a cab.”

  It’s June. Warm and wet. The city streets are slick and glossy, more mist in the air than actual raindrops. Nonetheless, every passing cab is occupied, light off.

  Ethan holds his arm up in a futile attempt to defy the inalterable laws of New York City taxi supply and demand. After a few long minutes, he turns around. “Where exactly are you headed?” Ethan asks.

  “A hundred thirty-first and Amsterdam.” West side, up near Columbia.

  He thinks about this. “We might have better luck over at Columbus Circle.”

  They head west. Ethan walks on the outer side of the pavement, closer to the street, just as his mother once taught him. Wet tires whish past, creating low sprays. On the far side of Fifty-ninth Street, Central Park lies shadowy and mute, two and a half straight miles of leafy wild, right here in the middle of concrete and glass.

  Ethan tries to make conversation. “So I hear you’re moving west,” he says. “To L.A.”

  Evie smiles. “I am, yeah. Signed my agency contract last week.” She crosses her fingers, holds them up as she walks. “Hope springs eternal, I guess.”

  “You’ll do great, Evie.” He means it too.

  “And you?” Evie ask
s. “You’re also moving to L.A., I hear?”

  “Well,” Ethan says, “Bränd is, anyway. Eventually.” Randy has his sights set on Hollywood, on putting his guerrilla marketing savvy to use on behalf of major studios. Randy’s prognostication from senior year—that the firm might land million-dollar accounts within three years—is looking conservative.

  Evie’s surprised. “You’re not going with?”

  No. He almost certainly isn’t. By now, he and Zo are pretty serious, and Zo’s made it clear: she’s determined to stay put. The documentary scene is better in New York, she’s explained—edgier, with more opportunity for a fledgling filmmaker. In New York, Zo can show rough cuts at DocuClub, pitch films at the IFP. In L.A., she insists, she’d be adrift.

  So Randy’s offered to buy out Ethan’s Bränd shares, for what seems to Ethan like a staggering amount of money, low-mid six-figures, enough to live on for several years. Ethan will close out the smaller, non-Hollywood accounts here in New York. He’ll also keep a small stake in the company—a still-unhatched nest egg that, if things continue to go well, will pay regular dividends for the foreseeable future. And who knows: maybe someday, if the company ever sells to one of the big firms, Ethan and Zo will have access to a larger lump-sum payout. Maybe even the kind that will set them up for life.

  It all strikes Ethan as massive stroke of luck. By his mid-twenties, he’ll have more in his bank account than his parents were worth at the end of their lives.

  Ethan doesn’t want to say any of this to Evie, though. He knows better than to talk about money, and he definitely doesn’t want to talk about Zo. It’s something about the feel of this moment, this sweet, unexpected pleasure of slipping out of a party with Evie. The way late-night Manhattan feels right now: the air gauzy and wet, the slick streets shimmering with the reflections of Manhattan’s lights, like brushstrokes on a still-fresh canvas.

  It’s some sort of enchantment, this. He knows better than to break the spell.

  They walk together in silence. When they reach Columbus Circle, Evie lifts her eyes. “And there she is.”

  Yes, there she is: Audrey Munson, subject of the Heaven Is a Gal Named Audrey campaign, more than forty feet high. Ethan gazes up at the USS Maine monument, marking the entrance to Central Park. Here, Audrey takes the form of Columbia Triumphant, winged victory, riding proudly in her seashell chariot.

  “She’s still around, you know,” Evie says. “Audrey Munson. I looked her up. She’s alive, if not exactly well.”

  Ethan looks at Evie, stunned. “Wait. For real?” Bränd had out-Baudrillarded Baudrillard. Is it possible they’d out-Munsoned Munson too?

  “For real. But it’s a pretty sad story. She’s been in a psychiatric institution in upstate New York since the 1930s.”

  “How old is she now?”

  “More than a hundred. And get this: she didn’t have a single visitor for five whole decades. Not one. I tried to go see her. I just wanted to meet her, that’s all, but at the last minute, a nurse called me and said it was best if I didn’t come. She’s really not doing so great these days.”

  Ethan looks again at the figure above him, fulsome and powerful, her olive branch raised toward the heavens. It seems impossible that this gilded form, eternal and strong, could have anything to do with a century-old woman who’s spent most of her life within the confines of a psychiatric hospital.

  Evie turns to Ethan. “I don’t want to keep you, Ethan. I mean, if you want to get back to the party….” She hesitates, then adds, “But if you’re up for it, I wouldn’t mind sitting for a bit.”

  Ethan thinks about the Bränd party—that crowd, all those back claps, the murmur of small talk punctuated by bursts of laughter, the promise of campaigns he won’t work on.

  No, that’s not for him.

  “Yeah, let’s sit,” he says. “We’ll keep Audrey company. Seems like the least we can do.”

  They lower themselves onto the monument’s stone steps. Evie says she’s all talked out, so Ethan does most of the talking. He tells her about his family—about losing both parents to cancer within eight months of each other, just last year. About what it’s like to return to his hometown these days, how grim and surreal it all feels now that the factories have gone—and with them, so much of what made the town feel like a community. About his college experiences with Randy, what a heady escape those days had been. He tells her about books he’s read, how he hopes to write his own book someday, to write something, anyway. As he talks, cars snake around them, red taillights blinking on and off like Christmas bulbs.

  Minutes pass, then an hour, then more. People come and go—they emerge from bars and office buildings, galas and concerts. They’re wearing suits and jeans and heels and fur. They talk, or they kiss, or they scurry off to the subway. Occasionally, a small group stumbles, singing, into Central Park. But what they don’t do—what not one of these New Yorkers does—is bother to look up, to take in the magnificent, near mythological figure cast from the guns of a doomed naval ship, that’s looming overhead.

  Traffic dwindles. The sky clears. Subway rumbles shake the ground, then quiet. The silences between Evie and Ethan grow longer and more frequent.

  After a particularly lengthy pause, Ethan rubs his thighs.

  “Well,” Ethan says. Zo, he knows, is in Brooklyn, waiting for him. She hadn’t wanted to come tonight, didn’t want to be a part of what she’s taken to calling the Randy Show. He’d told her he’d come to her apartment when the party ended. Which it must have, a while ago. “I guess we should probably get you that cab.”

  When Evie doesn’t protest, he stands. He walks to the curb, lifts his arm, half hoping it will be like before: that no cab will come, that he’ll have no choice but to linger, the universe having decided his fate.

  In an instant—too fast—an empty taxi swerves to the curb.

  He opens the door for Evie. She pauses before getting in. “I really wish you’d move to L.A., Ethan. I don’t know anyone out there, and I could really use a friend.”

  Ethan looks at his feet. “Yeah, well. Hollywood is probably more Randy’s vibe than mine. He’s got that whole Leading Man thing going. Me, I’m more of a back-room guy.”

  “I dunno, Ethan.” Evie bites her lip. “You might have more Leading Man than you know.”

  Ethan looks at her, the strangest sensation flooding him. He could kiss her. He’s almost certain of this. If he were to lean forward, move toward this bewilderingly beautiful woman, this actress who’d made half of Manhattan gape with little more than a flickering smile, she would respond in kind.

  He can picture it, almost, as if it’s something that’s already happened: their lips pressed together. Tentatively at first, then more urgently. He sees the way she’d place her hand on his arm, the way he’d reach up to touch the space between her shoulder blades. They’d kiss and kiss, stopping to laugh only when the cab driver eventually shouts, impatient, from the front seat, “Hey, lady, you getting in or not?”

  Ethan is this close to blowing up his whole life.

  The moment is there, and then it passes, and then Evie slips into the cab. She squeezes his hand before closing the door. “Stay in touch, okay, Ethan?”

  Ethan watches as the taxi rolls uptown, blending into a stream of other vehicles, then disappears.

  The next time Ethan sees Evie Emerling, it is on a movie screen.

  It takes three trips from the car to get all the boxes inside the UPS Store. All these packages, all these new items that Zo ordered, that they don’t need and can’t afford. Ethan piles the boxes on the counter as Jarrett K shakes his head.

  “My friend,” Jarrett says. “Your situation is worse than I thought.”

  “You have no idea,” Ethan says.

  Jarrett peers into one of the boxes. “So…wrong color again?”

  “Nope. I just don’t want any of t
his crap.”

  “Aha. And how exactly did that go over with the wife?”

  “Wasn’t exactly a joint decision.”

  “Taking control, man. Respect.” Jarrett offers Ethan a fist-bump. As their knuckles touch, Jarrett brightens. “Red pill!”

  Ethan’s momentarily confused, until Jarrett points to Ethan’s arm: the reminder, in marker, that he needs to pick up Alex’s Adderall prescription. Which he hasn’t done. And now it’s too late: Zo’s gone, off to Boston with Alex, without the medicine they’ll need in the morning.

  He needs to call Zo. Tell her to turn around.

  Across the counter, Jarrett grins at him. “There is no spoon.” It takes a moment for Ethan to understand: this is a line from the film The Matrix. So that’s why Jarrett was excited to see the words “red pill” on Ethan’s arm. Early on in the film, the hero, Neo, is offered a choice between two pills, red or blue. Only the red pill lifts the shield of illusion, allows Neo to see reality as it truly is, which is to say a dystopian nightmare.

  Sounds about right, actually.

  “Great film,” Jarrett says. He scans a return label. “One of the best.” Then his eye catches something outside the store window. “Oh, jeez, here comes this one.”