by Jen Sacks
Grace
It couldn't have been the food. It was top-line stuff, fancy, French. Although if the man across the table from me ate this way a lot, it would explain his slight tubbiness. He was interesting; I think what he had was charisma. Not a lot, just enough. And that's a funny thing, because he was not, by any stretch of the imagination, handsome. He had a round face and was seriously balding. His fingers were a little stubby. But his eyes were very alive, very powerful. I think that happens when you make a ton of money. It gives you something you wouldn't otherwise have. The man worked with an investment bank. There had been some talk of constructing a series of newsletters on emerging markets investing. We'd provide the journalists, and the bank would contribute the funding. I had been dispatched to begin talks over the direction such a newsletter would take.
He was one of those successful rich people who had an unrestrained curiosity about everything and everybody. That was their bread and butter. Or their baguette and garlic butter, as it happened to be that night. He quizzed me on my background in the business, where I'd gone to school, who my parents were, what they did, what articles I had written, where I had been in the world. Straightforwardly and concisely, he told me his own story. He was a self-made man, and, at forty-eight, still unmarried. He looked older than his age. We discussed the situations in Africa, Eastern Europe, and Latin America. I found that, when pressed, I couldn't help myself from describing my background, answering his questions. Maybe it was his eyes.
We were at this midtown restaurant for three and a half hours. I found myself growing strangely weaker over the course of it. At the beginning, I was parrying his impertinent inquiries fairly well. At some point, I did answer them. By the end, I was just listening to him hold forth, which he did in a firm, self-confident voice.
I was beginning to feel slightly nauseated, but I didn't know why. He kept trying to catch my eye, and I kept avoiding his glance. I really hadn't had that much wine, although he had insisted we try at least three different kinds to match different portions of the meal. He had begun to tell me about myself, but he had me all wrong. He thought I was holding myself back from life's great experiences. I should travel more, sample more places, more people. Not stay in a little cubicle in my circumscribed portion of the city.
It was the undercurrent. I avoided identifying it for as long as I could, but as we finally rose to leave, he took my elbow to steer me to the coat check, and I didn't know how to remove myself from his touch. I felt so strange! He insisted on helping me with my coat, and he kept a hand on my arm as we exited the room. The air hit us as we walked out, and I shivered for a moment. He put a hand on each of my shoulders from behind for just a few seconds, to warm me, I guess. Then we started walking a bit down Fifty-second Street. "You must come to my hotel for a minute; I'll show you what I mean," he said. "I brought back some amazing artifacts from Uganda that will make you understand what you are missing." He lived in the Hamptons, he explained, but had not yet had a chance to stop there after his most recent trip, and tomorrow he was headed to Washington. It was the oddest thing. I felt mindless. Overwhelmed somehow. On some level, I had known from shortly after this business dinner had begun that he had decided to sleep with me.
For some reason, I felt powerless. We were going to his hotel. I had, somehow, no say in the decision. Or I couldn't say no. My stomach was churning. He kept a hand on my arm, being gentlemanly, of course. I felt caught up in something, something old, unbeatable. Then we were crossing the street toward his hotel. A wave of something came over me, and I had to stop in front of a car parked on the street. The light was against us anyway. I put my hand to my stomach and started to say I wasn't feeling well. His face was a blur to me. He was leaning over me, trying to look into my eyes. A large truck was speeding down the road toward us. It was a very big truck. It was going to try to beat the light. I had only one chance. Bending toward me, he was not solidly planted on the concrete. I grabbed his upper arms; he looked at me, not displeased. The truck was bearing down on us. On him, if I just gave him that shove.
"No!" I said. I let go of his arms. I motioned him away. "I don't feel well," I said desperately. His face started to shift from disappointed to concerned. And he stepped back to give me some space.
Into the street. And the truck crushed this millionaire to death instantly. I turned away, screaming, and collapsed against the hood of the parked car.
There were people, lots of people, suddenly, where there had seemed to be no one before. Two women set me down carefully on the curb and patted me gently on the back. An ambulance and a police car arrived very quickly, it seemed. I was sobbing as a policeman tried to talk to me. Everyone assumed immediately it was an accident. I saw the truck driver talking, confusedly, to one of the cops. His eyes were as wide and uncomprehending as my own. It had occurred too fast for either of us to understand. He would never know what had happened. And at that moment, I wasn't too sure myself.
The policeman was able to get my name and phone number from me, but that was a major accomplishment, as I could barely speak. I just nodded as he speculated on the hideous event. It seemed forever until the body was scraped up off the street by the emergency medical people. By then, I was crying so uncontrollably that even the policeman was patting my arm, trying to console me. He asked me if I wanted to be taken to the hospital, but I shook my head no. I just wanted to go home, I said. And they were so nice that two of them drove me there as soon as they were able to leave the scene. I quieted down a bit in the cruiser as we drove. As we pulled up to my building, the men said that they had my number and name but that hopefully they wouldn't have to bother me. Everybody had seen what had happened. How could I explain what I had done? Or hadn't quite done? One of them gave me a card with a therapist's name on it for dealing with my trauma, if I needed it. The other one said I should have a good stiff drink when I got in.
When I closed the door to my apartment behind me, I just leaned against it for a few moments before taking the wiser officer's advice. Fifteen minutes after I got home, the phone started ringing. I knew who it was. I didn't answer. And I turned off my answering machine. After a few minutes, it rang again. I just let it. I didn't want to talk to him. Did he know? It would not have surprised me somehow. Finally, the ringing stopped. All I wanted to do was sleep. I curled up under the covers, still in my clothes, and checked out for a while.
36
Sam
What in the hell had happened? Something was very wrong. She was out of control. Did I push her to this? Was I involving her in something too serious too quickly? Was it something about the man? I had thought she was moving beyond this.
I sat in my car across the street from her apartment, the cell phone useless in my hand. I did not really know what had happened between them. I had watched her enter the restaurant early in the evening. I knew it was a business dinner. I could not help myself—I was simply curious. I assumed they would be done in an hour or so. Over three hours later, they had still not come out, and I found myself wondering at her ability to talk politics apparently endlessly. I would have left, but by this point I had been there for such a length of time that I thought I might as well see the evening through. She did look a little somnambulistic as she walked down the street with him. I was too far behind them to see what then occurred, but I did not need to.
Why such backsliding? He could hardly have been any sort of threat. And he had certainly not looked irresistible. I sat for hours in the car that night. I was used to that. The light remained on through her window, but there was no sign of movement. I moved the car farther away from her door before dawn. Late in the morning, she left her building, looking wan and sad. She took a cab to her office. She stayed in at work all day, then went straight home.
She did not answer her phone for all of that week, at least not when I called. I only tried once a day. She left her answering machine on. Finally, on Friday, she picked up when I rang. She agreed to see me the next evening.
My state of suspe
nded animation would be alleviated then, I hoped.
I missed her.
37
Grace
I couldn't avoid Sam forever. That is, maybe I could, but I didn't know if I wanted to permanently. But I was feeling a little delicate, to say the least. I kept seeing that man just before he stepped away. Stepped away because I asked him to. What a farce. What a tragic farce. I didn't kill him, but I might as well have.
Well, I don't see why I have to explain anything to Sam at all, I thought. He doesn't even have to know. Of course, he might wonder what had been going on with me during the week, but then, they say it's good to keep a little mystery in a relationship.
We had a salad at a restaurant near the Lincoln Plaza Cinemas and caught a Bosnian film. You can't say that every night. I said I was tired, I'd been very tired all week, and that I wasn't up for anything more. He tut-tutted a bit, sympathetically, and obligingly drove to my home.
"It has been rather a wearying week for me, as well," he said as we pulled up.
"Places to go, people to kill." The words were out before I thought.
He moved his jaw around for a minute. "Hmm, was that my week or yours?" he asked tightly.
I jumped out of the car before he had a chance to come around to my side. But he got out anyway and followed me in.
"I said I was tired," I noted as he closed the door behind him.
"I know. It must be something going around."
What do other couples fight over? Money? Wait a minute—couples?
"I would like to sleep here tonight," he added.
"What if I don't want you to?"
"Say it."
But I wanted him there with me. "I'm just not up for a lot of conversation," I said instead, with my brow furrowed, beginning to pout.
He reached out and moved my lips into a smile, a striking gesture, coming from him.
Then he pulled me into his arms, against his chest, and just held me there for a minute. I didn't argue. He let me go and I started my nightly ablutions. When I came out of my tiny bathroom, he was lying on his back under the covers of my bed, his hands under his head. I turned off the overhead lights and sat on the edge in my oversized T-shirt.
"I have a confession to make," he said.
"Oh, Jesus. Should I turn on CNN? Is the President dead?"
"I think you will find it a bit more upsetting than that."
"Oh."
"I have been watching you."
"What do you mean?"
"When you have been unaware of it," he elaborated.
"Like a detective?" I asked.
He laughed a little to himself. "Like an assassin."
"For how long?" I wanted to know.
"Off and on, since you met that boy in the bar."
"What?" I'm sorry, but I couldn't believe my ears, hackneyed as that thought was. "Why?"
"That night? For no particular reason. You struck me as the most interesting woman in the place. I was testing out some eavesdropping equipment."
"Gee, I guess I'm lucky it wasn't a new weapon."
"I was attracted to you."
"Jesus."
He said nothing. "Ever since then," I said.
"Off and on, yes. As time went by, more on than off."
"Until this moment," I began, mimicking the guy in the Army-McCarthy hearings, "I had no idea how low—"
"This bothers you. I murder people for a living. You kill them in your spare time, but this is over the line."
"It's really sick," I said. "I mean, God. Did you use your listening devices on me?"
"Only until I knew you."
" 'Cause after that it would be rude."
"Yes. As a matter of fact. By my lights."
I had turned toward him on the bed. "I really don't know what to say. Should I be flattered or weirded out?"
"I think you are the perfect woman for me," he said quite seriously.
"Are you mad?" I half-shrieked. "You know what I've done. Everything, apparently. What happens if you keep leaving the toilet seat up?"
"I was not aware that I had," he muttered thoughtfully.
"Do you think you deserve to die for it? I mean I don't know what will make me do it next. You're obviously as disturbed as I am, but are you really willing to take that risk?"
He pulled me down to him on the bed and arranged me, spoonlike, in the crook of his body.
"I refuse to worry. All I know is that it is impossible to imagine ever getting tired of you."
"Well, that may be a commentary on the limitations of your imagination," I snapped back from within his embrace.
"You have a talent for self-deprecation."
"I thought I was getting us both there."
He was silent for a few moments. But I wasn't through.
"You know, I don't know. What kind of people are we? This could be a recipe for disaster."
"It might be if you have already fallen into cliché."
"Don't fucking joke." I pushed him away. "I know what you're capable of. And I have no idea what I'm capable of. We're monsters."
"Birds of a feather." He reached for me again, and I pushed him away again, harder. His head hit the bookshelf next to the bed, and he came toward me again—to do what, I didn't know. I stuck my forearm, elbow forward threateningly, right in front of his Adam's apple at the same time he wrapped his right hand around half my neck. His thumb was almost pressing on my windpipe.
"See? See?" I said breathlessly.
With his thumb, he started to caress my throat. His body untensed, and he gently moved the arm I was threatening him with up over my head. He lay his own, facedown, against my breast, which at that moment, I have to say, could only be described as heaving.
"I was not going to hurt you. I would never hurt you," he murmured into my chest.
Yeah, right, there was a second there, though…
"Get out. Now." I said firmly.
Astonishingly, he unwrapped himself from me and, untangling himself from the covers, started to climb over me and out of bed. I bit my lip. "Are you going?" I asked, stupefied.
"I believe so. That is what you want," he replied with no emotion.
"Really?" I asked.
He looked a little exasperated. Finally, I thought. "Just tell me what you want," he demanded quietly.
I looked at him. It wasn't a trick. He had picked up his pants. "Would you come back another time, ever, if I asked you to?"
He looked abashed and smiled mirthlessly, "Yes, I probably would."
"Then don't go," I said. "Please."
He raised his hands in the air, palms up, questioning.
"Stay."
He put his pants back down on the chair where they'd been. He stayed.
38
Sam
She was in my arms again, a position to which I would have liked to have become accustomed. Although it was terribly difficult to keep her there sometimes.
After much back-and-forth discussion, which, at certain moments, made me nervous about our long-term prospects, she was settled in bed with me. I found myself unusually pensive as we lay together.
I could not stop myself from observing, "I have never been as angry as you."
"I'm not angry," she said, surprised.
"You are a very angry little person."
"I am not an angry person. And I am not little. I'm medium."
"Hello!"
"Stop that. That sounds ridiculous from a middle-aged Russian."
"Completely off the subject, my dear," I noted. She gave what she herself had previously called a small "ritz-and-fritzing" noise of irritation. "What then do you consider the motivation for your actions?"
"I can't bear to hurt anyone's feelings."
"You have no difficulty hurting my feelings," I pointed out.
"I guess your life's not in danger, then," she said.
"Oh, I guarantee it. But that is not the reason why."
"You think you know everything, don't you?" she said after a f
ew seconds.
"No. I am asking you."
"Well, do you have to know everything tonight?"
"Not at all. There is plenty of time for that," I said.
She turned her head around toward where I was, behind her.
"That's about the most aphrodisiacal turn of phrase I've ever heard."
"Is that a word?"
She continued, ignoring my interruption. "It's the most flattering thing anyone has ever said to me." A pause. "The most exciting." A longer pause. "And the scariest."
She turned back to her pillow. I just held her close. I had not even thought about what I was saying as I spoke. But as the old song has it, I seconded that emotion.
39
Grace
This is scary. I think he loves me. Or thinks he does. How can he? How can I? But I really like myself when I'm with him. Because he does, maybe. With every nasty thing I say. God, it's such a relief.
Except with my closest female friends, I'm so not that with anyone else. All my life, for varying reasons, I've tended to take the high road. To make people like me. To make them not hate me. I choke back my worst impulses. Well, actually, I don't even think them until too late. Everybody else has always been better at being mean than I am. At keeping me looking for their approval. I just didn't want to lose them. Since I was very little, being extra, extra considerate was the best way. Their feelings counted more. You stop even asking why. Okay, maybe I wasn't just afraid of hurting their feelings, those guys. Maybe, ultimately, I was afraid of their hurting mine. Or their feelings were mine. God, I don't know. Geez, it's bad enough to do the things I've done without trying to figure out why. Something. Something stopped me from simply saying what I felt. However I might have hurt them, they could always hurt me more.
But I've just stopped caring. Well, I hope I have. As long as I can avoid caring, people have a better chance of continuing to breathe around me. If they're not unlucky, too, like that millionaire guy. If only I had spoken sooner.