Emily and Einstein

by Linda Francis Lee

  “Damn it!” I barked on the way over the side, praying I didn’t have the ability or strength to swim, at least for very long.

  The bite of cold took my breath away. Surprise made me gasp, my mouth opening on a gush of water. The sting of algae burned my lungs as I choked. The instinct rose to fight, but I clamped it down and let my body sink. I sighed in relief that soon it would be over.

  It didn’t take long before I hit the bottom. The water was cloudy, making it hard to see more than eerie outlines of whatever lay below. My paws hit things on the bottom. Discarded rope or tree branches, I couldn’t tell, though I hardly cared as my legs settled into the debris.

  I heard the shouting above, muffled even to my ears, distant. Jordan angry. Emily trying not to panic. They were fighting. Always fighting. Wasn’t life too short to fight? I had made mistakes in my life as Sandy, but I had never wasted time fighting with people. If I was unhappy, I didn’t go to the place of anger and frustration. I walked away. When someone phoned to apologize, I didn’t take their call.

  That was something else I had done wrong.

  The thought came out of nowhere, crystal clear, impossible to ignore.

  It was too late to think about that or anything else as the soft dimness of water and a resolve to die surrounded me. But then my body twitched, something in me trying to push up from the bottom.

  Don’t do it, I willed myself. This was my chance.

  But my body fought with my mind. Did I really want to end what was left of my life, end it in a Central Park lake steps from the home I loved?

  Yes, I told myself.

  But the primal part of me took over. I let out a scream, my legs and paws completely tangled. I thrashed and kicked, squirmed violently, just as I had done with the cereal box on my head. But I couldn’t get free of whatever held me.

  The water was even colder at the bottom, sapping whatever strength my thrashing hadn’t already used up. As quickly as it started, I couldn’t do it anymore. I knew I needed to keep trying, but I couldn’t. My mind grew foggy, thoughts becoming disjointed. I felt more than comprehended the thrashing of someone else next to me, the screaming underwater, the struggle to pull me up. I sensed more than saw that it was Emily, fighting against the debris with everything she was worth.

  When we finally broke the surface, she gasped and sobbed as other boats rowed toward us, helping us out of the water. Jordan hung over the side, grabbing onto Emily. I was upset and ashamed, and miserable over my realization.

  I didn’t want to die. Not as Sandy. Not even as Einstein. Though where, I wondered, did that leave me?

  chapter twenty-three

  The kitchen was dark, the only light streaming in from the windows overlooking the inner courtyard. I hardly remembered getting home, Emily cleaning me up, holding me tight, her face tucked into my neck as if my brush with death had broken the last of her strength.

  The apartment was quiet, and after I sniffed, I knew Emily and Jordan were home and asleep. I curled back into the towels, but I yelped when that strange electricity I had come to recognize shot through me.

  “It’s about time you noticed I was here,” the old man said, coming out of the pantry with a plate of cookies. “You sleep like the dead.”

  “Perhaps because I am dead.”

  “Sarcasm is unbecoming.”

  “So you keep saying.”

  “True. And truer still is the fact that you’re a real pain in the backside, let me tell you.”

  He wore a wide-brimmed straw hat, a white suit, and carried a cane. “I’ve got another case going. A Southerner,” he explained. “In Kentucky.”

  “You look like Mark Twain. Or that fried-chicken guy.”

  He smiled, taking a double chocolate chocolate-chip cookie and popping it in his mouth. “You’ve got to love such simple pleasures. Do you have any milk?”

  He didn’t wait for me to answer. He walked over to the refrigerator, pulled out a carton of one-percent, and found a glass in the cabinet.

  I laid there for a while longer. When I couldn’t stand it anymore, I said out loud what I had finally come to understand.

  “It’s over for me, isn’t it?”

  The old man glanced across the room mid-chew. “What do you mean?”

  “I’m not getting my body back.”

  He shrugged. “Probably not.”

  My head swam. It didn’t matter that at some level I had suspected the truth; hearing the words spoken out loud felt like a kick in the teeth. “Why didn’t you tell me before?”

  “You’re a smart guy, Alexander, and we both know you had already figured it out. That’s always the way with people—truth staring them in the face but unwilling to accept it.” He ate another cookie quietly. “But,” he added, “even if I had spelled it out you wouldn’t have believed me. You weren’t ready or willing to accept it yet. You’d just have gotten all worked up.”

  “Worked up!” I barked. “Of course, I’d get worked up. And since you seem to know every thought I have in this blasted head, you knew what I was thinking. You let me go on believing it was possible anyway.”

  He shrugged again. “Alexander, anything is possible. Miracles happen all the time. Who am I to say that you can’t make it happen? Truth is, it still could happen. But could and likely are two very different kettles of fish, especially when you’ve proved again and again that you’re as pigheaded as you are hardheaded.” He snorted. “That tree incident had to hurt.”

  Of course he knew about that.

  “Yep,” he confirmed, “the bus, the tree, the pills. The boat. Though rest assured, you just might have finished the job in the lake had Emily not saved you—again, I might add—when you’re the one who is supposed to be saving her.” He shook his head. “Emily doesn’t know how to swim. Pure adrenaline got her down there. Which was a good darned thing since neither one of us needs you killing poor old Einstein on top of everything else. Being a murderer is far worse than having mindless, and let me say, stupid, affairs.”

  The affairs.

  I had never intended to stray. For those first two years I ignored my mother’s constant case against my wife and remained charmed by Emily and everything she did. When my wife wasn’t working on some publishing project that she was excited about, she worked with great care on the apartment. The place was always in some state of renovation with sawdust on the floors, paint and tile samples covering her kitchen desk.

  At first I had loved that she was making us a home. But then something happened, a shift, cracks I thought I had covered over with cement opening back up.

  When the first hints of my dissatisfaction surfaced, I remember walking through the front door one evening to the smell of paint, the sound of outdated ’70s and ’80s music, and my wife singing off-key, unworried who might hear. I realized the combination that had enchanted me before had begun to wear.

  The minute she heard me, she dropped whatever she was doing and raced through the apartment, pulling off her paint smock and tossing it aside as she threw her arms around my waist, burrowing her face into my chest.

  “What happened to ‘Honey, I’m home’?” She laughed, tipping her head back to look at me.

  I breathed a sigh of relief when her unwavering love took the edge off my dissatisfaction.

  “Bad day for cogs in the wheel?” she teased, not letting go.

  “Yes,” I sighed, putting my arms around her, “the cogs are on the verge of revolt. I would walk out but I have no other skills. I only seem to be good at making money.” That should have been a good thing, at least for my father, but I hadn’t been good at finding companies to grow and make bigger, then eventually sell to even larger companies at a handsome profit. No, I was only good at searching out the entities that were failing, businesses that were susceptible to takeover, then tearing them apart and parceling them off like car parts sold out of a chop shop in a seedy section of Staten Island.

  “What do you mean, Mr. Portman?” She pulled back and gave me a scho
olteacher’s stern look. “You’re good at loving me.”

  Loving her. I had never been able to say the words, admit the kind of weakness that would make me vulnerable. Instead, I found myself pulling her close and kissing her with what I can only call a desperate passion, desperate to erase the niggling feeling that even Emily wasn’t enough to make me whole.

  It was during our third year of marriage, by then my discontent a constant and uncomfortable companion, when my father barged into my office, berating me over yet another deal that he felt was beneath the firm. Something inside me snapped. I let my father finish, then forced myself to remain calm, practically counting each step I took in order to keep my mind from circling out of control as I left the office. I had the driver take me to the garage where I kept my own car. After slamming into the BMW, I careened out to the Hamptons, that place that had always soothed me. But hunger and anger pushed me on until I nearly killed myself and a family of six I almost ran off the road.

  I hadn’t snapped because I desperately wanted my father’s approval. I snapped because seeing my father standing in my office, having the same argument we’d had so many times before, only proved that I worked for my father in the same building he had worked in for the better part of his life, a building that his mother’s father had worked in for the better part of his life, and his father before that. I felt trapped in a predetermined life, my future seen as clearly as if a gypsy had forced me to look inside a crystal ball.

  I came home to Emily cooking and dancing, and I realized she was content, happy, and it had nothing to do with money or family connections. She was successful and highly thought of at work, and she had achieved it on her own. I should have been proud. Instead I felt angry. She was successful in a way I wasn’t, at ease in the world in a way that I couldn’t manage.

  The first affair was born of a sheer unadulterated need to get away from doubt and frustration. The woman was young, pretty, with a body that begged to be touched. I didn’t even know her name.

  Later at a firm party, a colleague slapped me on the back. “I hear you were out with that new young thing from your firm.”

  It took me a second to recall who he was talking about.

  “Don’t play naïve with me,” he added with a chuckle. “No one could believe you stayed faithful as long as you did. We had bets going. Though not a single one of us thought you’d last over two years. I guess we all go soft eventually.” The man glanced at my stomach, which was no longer flat and toned.

  My anger flared into fire. I was angry at Emily for tempting me with things like lasagna, angry at the home she had built for us, a place that made me want to watch DVDs and drink wine and talk late into the night instead of staying strong and lean.

  When I ran into the young woman again, we ended up in a hotel room. We had hot, rough sex that numbed my mind. Afterward she wanted to curl close, go again. All I wanted was for her to be gone. The anger had shifted to the same hunger I had felt before I met Emily, now combined with a cold numbness. I felt like I was dying.

  I started working out at the gym to get back in shape. Surely that would ease the hunger. But a week later I slept with another woman. Then another. Frantically, I went through women like a drunk throwing back shots. The buzz was elusive, and all I knew was that I wanted out of my life. On that snowy February day that everything went awry, my mother had called to express her disdain about something else my wife had done. After we fought I had dialed Emily, asking her to dinner so I could tell her I was divorcing her. One way or another, I was determined to put an end to the deadness.

  Now here I was, really dead, living in some capacity as a dog. The irony was that I had gotten exactly what I wanted. Out of my old life.

  A shiver ran down my spine.

  The old man gave a firm nod, made the cookies disappear, then brushed crumbs from his hands.

  “Okay,” he said. “Let’s look at the bright side. You’ve made progress.”

  “Wanting to put an end to this farce is progress?”

  “Yes. It means you’ve finally accepted that more than likely your days as Sandy Portman are over.”

  Renewed misery hit me, and I wished I had finished things off in the lake regardless of where that would have sent me. Heaven, hell, purgatory. Because, really, what was there if I didn’t get my body back?

  “Alexander, stop feeling sorry for yourself. As we’ve established, you’ve made progress. Now go back to the original question: Do you want to fade away to nothing or are you finally going to help Emily? And I’m not talking about getting her dressed and back to work or throwing money at the problem. I’m talking about really helping her.”

  “And if I do?” I might have sounded petulant. “What do I get?”

  The old man heaved a heavy sigh. “I’m not supposed to tell you any of this, but I don’t see that I have a choice. If I get questioned, I’ll point out what a stubborn case you are.”

  “Call me what you will, but deflecting blame hardly seems like perfect behavior for a triage specialist.”

  “Well, there is that.” He shrugged, then smiled. “All I can do is my best.”

  “You read that in a book.”

  A flush slid through his cheeks. “Again, not the point. Look, this is the deal. If you don’t want to fade away to nothing you’ve got to become greater than a mere mortal ruled by mortal desires.”

  I was rather fond of my mortal desires. And I had to say, the old man wasn’t so far beyond them either. I wasn’t the one eating cookies.

  He grumbled. “We all slip up now and again.” He inhaled deeply, his eyes closing as if reestablishing his strength. “I can do this. I am doing this. I simply have to have a positive attitude. Believing. Having faith.”

  “More words of wisdom from that book of yours?”

  The old man muttered something. “I’ve got to go,” he said. “But get it right this time, Alexander. Help Emily regain her footing. Help her move on. Help her find her way back to herself. Then, I promise, great things will happen for you.”

  He disappeared. As in, one minute he was there, the next he was gone. Like magic. And I must say, a sizzle of surprising excitement raced through my little body along with my mind. The old man had said I could be great. Really great. As in a magical kind of great. All I had to do was help Emily. Really help her this time.

  If I played my cards right, I could still achieve my dream of greatness.

  emily

  My mother was known for her belief that “being careful” was for weak women whose need for white picket fences trumped the desire for the kind of life that was worth living. As I got older and saw how she had changed her own life after I was born, her belief struck me as odd. But the one time I asked her why she gave up her life as a crusader for women’s rights, she only looked at me with a strange, yearning expression, then turned away.

  —EXCERPT FROM My Mother’s Daughter

  chapter twenty-four

  When I got home from work Einstein wasn’t waiting for me in the gallery.

  “Einstein?”

  The apartment was silent.

  “Jordan?”

  Nothing.

  “Where is everyone?”

  There was a note on the gallery credenza from Jordan.

  Emily, I’m meeting friends. Don’t worry about me for dinner. I took E out at noon. Jordan

  But still no evidence of Einstein.

  I found him in the kitchen, walking back and forth in front of the center island. Had he not been a dog, I would have sworn he was pacing while trying to figure something out.

  “Come on, E, let’s go so you can take care of business.”

  When he continued to pace, I went to the pantry and pulled out his favorite treat. Generally just the sound of the snacks rattling against the box sent Einstein into a frenzy of excitement, his body quivering, his mouth salivating. This time Einstein barely afforded me a glance.

  I shook the box then retrieved one of the tiny fake steaks. “Don’t y
ou want a yummy Steakin’?”

  His nose twitched. Encouraged, I waved it close to his nose. Almost despite himself, he stopped and gave a halfhearted snap at the treat.

  “No way. You have to go out if you want it.”

  I’m pretty sure if he had been able to speak he would have peppered me with some pretty colorful language.

  I tugged Einstein out the door and down the elevator. After he peed at the curb, I gave him the treat. Thinking he’d want to go straight back inside, I headed to the gate. But Einstein wouldn’t budge. I glanced down, saw that he stood transfixed by a small group of runners heading into Central Park.

  For half a second he whined, as if wishing he were running with them. Then his spine stiffened as if something had occurred to him. With what I can only call an excited bark, he spit out the Steakin’ and started scrambling down the street in the opposite direction from the park.

  “What is it?”

  He tugged me toward Columbus Avenue. I couldn’t have been more surprised when he stopped at the closet-sized newspaper and magazine store toward the end of the block, then pulled me inside.

  “What do you want, E?”

  The man behind the counter looked at me oddly. Dogs might be welcome in many New York City stores, but a crazy owner who acted as if the animal was in charge of the purchases … well, not so much.

  Einstein nosed through the magazines on the low shelves, his eyes squinting, his head cocking this way then that, before he craned his neck to look at the magazines lining the wall. His head went row by row, up and down, until he stopped and barked. His body quivered with excitement.

  “What is it, E?”

  He barked again, jumping slightly toward the magazines. Without thinking, I started pointing at them one by one.

  “This?”

  Growl.

  “That?”

  More growling.

  I went row by row until I came to the magazine that made my dog weep with delight.