The Arrangement

by Sarah Dunn

  Cassie came back from the restroom and slid into her chair. “I thought about it, and my answer is no.”

  “Fair enough,” said Owen. He took a big sip of his bourbon. “Can I ask why?”

  “No good can come of it,” said Cassie. “And the bad parts won’t be that interesting.”

  “Well, I have to disagree with you on that,” Owen said. He felt ridiculous the moment the words were out of his mouth. He used to be smoother than this.

  “Besides,” Cassie said, “I’ve got a boyfriend.”

  “You do?” Owen said. He was surprised. Cassie Lambert was famous for never, ever having a boyfriend. This state of affairs had persisted for so long that Owen, like every other person in Cassie’s life, figured something pretty major was wrong with her, something was broken deep, deep down inside, in a secret place unreachable by traditional psychotherapy.

  “I do,” Cassie said. She took a smug sip of her wine. “His name is Philip, and he’s perfect.”

  Owen was not what you would consider a goal-oriented person, but he did have one overarching aim in life. He did not want to be like his father.

  Owen’s father was a real bastard, that was the truth, a drunk and a gambler and most likely a cheater, although Owen never knew that for a fact.

  “He goes to Vegas, without his wife, for five days every month,” Lucy would point out. Owen’s stock response—“He likes to gamble”—sounded more and more lame each time he said it.

  Healy McIntire owned a small manufacturing company, Healy’s Safes, which had been started by Owen’s grandfather. Healy sat in a small, windowless office with fake wood paneling behind a metal desk with a fifth of rye and a pistol in a drawer, across from a tattered green velour couch “for my VIP clients.” They made safes—home safes, gun safes, and jewelry safes. (“So your wife won’t lose sleep and you won’t lose your shirt!”) It was a job a drunk could do.

  In the mid-1980s they made the leap into home vaults (though never bomb shelters, which Owen and his two brothers regretted). It turned out that the same people willing to pay upwards of five thousand dollars for a safe also wanted to buy American, which minimized competition from cheap foreign knockoffs. The company was steadily profitable, but when Healy announced his retirement—the cake at his party was in the shape of a safe—Owen was secretly thrilled that his brothers stepped in to run the business. He could continue nurturing his big-city dreams. He wasn’t like his father. Or his mother, for that matter.

  Back when Owen was in high school he fell in love with Valium. One day after track practice he went home to find the house unoccupied. He nonchalantly climbed the stairs, swung open the medicine cabinet in his parents’ bathroom—noting, for the first time, the strangeness of the two sinks, side by side, as if his miserable parents would enjoy brushing their teeth together—and opened the bottle of Valium as gingerly as if he’d been defusing a bomb. The pill was blue. He popped it onto his tongue, cupped his hands under the icy water, and within minutes—safely in his room, on his bed—he was under the spell of a floaty bliss that spiraled into a nap that pulled him down with soft hands; it was like the entire universe was giving him a hug.

  He managed to steal about twelve more before the bottle of pills disappeared from the medicine cabinet. He searched for it too. But the theft of the blue pills, and then the vanishing of the blue-pill bottle, was never discussed. Over the years, whenever he came home to visit, Owen would check the medicine cabinet. There were always pills—blood pressure pills, unused antibiotics, blood thinners, the growing cache of small orange pill bottles that are part of the aging American’s arsenal—but never again anything like Valium. Had she stopped taking them? Or was it possible his mother was hiding her downers from her youngest son twenty-five years after he’d stolen his last little blue pill?

  It’s possible the pills explained everything. The fuzzy, there-but-not-there feeling Owen associated with his mother. His midnight thoughts of Why does she put up with him? and Why doesn’t this all come crashing down? His dad, drunk, selling safes. His mother perpetually tranquilized. His father was a problem, for sure, but his mother never even knew who Owen was.

  That was one of the things he loved about Lucy from the beginning. She saw him. She wanted to know every part of him. She was naturally curious and loved to talk and she asked him question after question. They’d been seeing each other for just two weeks when they spent their first weekend in bed, talking and watching old movies and having sex again and again and again. They were near the end of North by Northwest when it hit them: If we don’t see Mount Rushmore now, when will we ever see it? Not until we’re seventy!

  They rented a car the following Friday and headed west, laughing and talking the entire way. They pitched a tent in hidden spots to save money on hotels and were woken up, twice, by nice farmers offering them breakfast and warm showers.

  “I was a little worried it would be disappointing,” Lucy had said when they were finally staring up at the looming stone faces.

  “Me too.”

  “But,” she’d said, turning to him and smiling a big smile, “it’s so much fucking cooler than I ever expected.”

  When Owen found himself thinking about the early days with Lucy, the early years with Lucy, one thing stood out above all others: They had been really in love.

  * * *

  “I love your bathtub,” said Lucy. “New York City apartments never have tubs two people can fit in.”

  Lucy and Ben were in his bathtub together. The faucet jutted out from the side of the tub, so both of them were able to lean back and stretch out their legs. Lucy’s feet were on Ben’s chest, and he was casually sucking her little toe.

  “This is on the list of things that stop but that shouldn’t stop when you’ve been with a person for a long time,” said Lucy. “Taking long bubble baths together and toe-sucking.”

  “I sucked my wife’s toes until the bitter end.”

  “You lie.”

  Ben popped Lucy’s toe out of his mouth and said, “You’re right. The toe-sucking stopped. To be fair to me, though, she went through a long clogs-without-socks phase.”

  “It’s weird,” said Lucy. “You go through your life, and you think it’s going to be this one thing, that everything is all figured out. I’m surprising myself, I guess.”

  “What do you mean?” said Ben. “With this?”

  “Yes. Look at me. I’m taking a bath with a man I barely know. And the woman whose toes you used to suck? I don’t even know her name.”

  “Her name is—”

  “No!” Lucy cut him off. “I don’t want to know it.”

  “Fair enough.”

  “The weirdest part is that when I go home, nothing has changed. Owen is there, Wyatt is there, and there’s lots of talk about the Titanic sinking. Or poisonous snakes. Or how to escape from quicksand. And the only thing that’s different is, I feel a little happier. A little lighter inside. A little like I have a secret, but that it’s okay to have this secret. I really can’t describe it.”

  “So what about when it’s over,” said Ben. “When the six months end.”

  “But, see, that’s the genius of all of this. It is going to end. And I’m pretty sure I’m going to be fine.”

  Ben kissed the sole of her foot. “What if I’m not fine?”

  “Are you being serious?”

  “I’m not not being serious.”

  Lucy laughed at that. “How many women are you going out with between now and when I show up next Thursday?”

  “Three,” said Ben.

  “Three?” This seemed, to Lucy, a little excessive.

  “But two are Tinder Trash, and one is a blind date arranged by my former sister-in-law, I’m pretty sure as a way to punish me.”

  “How long have you been divorced?” asked Lucy.

  “Just over two years.”

  “And you’ve got three dates lined up this week? Forgive me,” said Lucy, “if I don’t worry about you just yet.”
>
  * * *

  Gordon was strolling on his treadmill at a speed of 3.2 miles per hour, gazing out at the Hudson River, counting bald eagles. He’d been walking for just under fifteen minutes and already the count stood at three.

  Gordon had named his estate the Eagle’s Perch. He’d designed it himself. Lots of wealthy people claim they designed their own houses, but Gordon drew his on actual paper. He drew it and then paid a firm to “translate the renderings into ‘architectural-speak,’” as they said. Meaning put in the outlets and measure the doors, stuff like that. But the house was his baby, it was his creation, and he loved it.

  The day he’d closed on the land, he’d driven out from the city and stood on the edge of the cliff where he’d eventually build the house. It was February, and the Hudson was frozen over. Massive sheets of ice had shifted around like tectonic plates, crashing into one another, pushing one another straight out of the water, looking like a classroom model of how the Rocky Mountains had been formed. A bald eagle soared over Gordon’s head, blessing him, Gordon believed, and then landed on the tallest crest of ice and stayed there, motionless, until Gordon finally got too cold and went back to his car.

  Gordon’s cell phone rang. He slowed the treadmill down to 2.6 and picked it up.

  “Anything?” Hugh asked, without preliminaries.

  “No,” said Gordon. “I told you, they’re not here. But I’m not sure why it’s such a big problem.”

  “Well, the only real danger, I’d say, is that if lawyers examine those documents they’ll know what you want. We’d have given them our playbook, so to speak.”

  “Are you fucking the fuck serious right now?”

  “I’m not telling you anything you don’t know, Gordon.”

  “What I want to know is why I’m in this situation. I want to know why my attorney let this happen to me.”

  “Because I didn’t think you would give the papers to her. I didn’t think you would leave them alone in her possession. Honestly, Gordon, the thought didn’t cross my mind.”

  “Well, you’re my attorney. I pay for thoughts to cross your mind.”

  “You’re right. I should have made myself clearer.”

  “What do we do now?”

  “Now? We sit tight.”

  * * *

  Owen and Izzy were upstairs at her house when they heard heavy footsteps down below.

  “What is that?” Owen asked.

  “Shush,” Izzy said. “Someone’s down there. A burglar.”

  “It’s three o’clock in the afternoon,” said Owen.

  “It’s those druggie kids,” Izzy whispered. “Those high-schoolers who keep breaking into houses during the day and stealing drugs from people’s medicine cabinets.”

  Well, they’ve come to the right place, Owen thought. Izzy’s medicine cabinet was a sight to behold. He’d opened it one afternoon looking for some Advil for his back and saw nothing but orange pharmaceutical bottles with red and yellow warning stickers all over them.

  Owen looked around Izzy’s bedroom for some sort of weapon. A baseball bat? Isn’t that what he was supposed to carry in this situation? But he couldn’t find anything, not even a tennis racket or a golf club. He finally picked up a spindly, straight-back chair with a woven cane seat. He held it up to his chest, legs pointed forward. It was half weapon, half shield.

  “Be careful,” said Izzy.

  “Stay there,” he said. “I’ll be right back.”

  Owen was slowly tiptoeing down the stairs, chair braced in front of his torso, trying to avoid the steps he knew were squeaky, when he heard Izzy’s voice booming out from behind him: “What the fuck?”

  A guy Owen had never seen before was standing in the middle of Izzy’s living room trying to make off with the antique writing desk that usually sat between Izzy’s two front windows.

  “You can’t just walk into my house and steal things, Christopher,” she said.

  “I’m not stealing anything,” said Christopher. “This is my great-grandfather’s desk.”

  “You asshole. I can’t believe you broke into my house. That’s it, I’m calling the police.”

  “Who are you?” Christopher asked.

  “This is a guy I’m fucking,” Izzy said. “His name is Owen. He’s one of the many, many men who’s been fucking your ex-wife.”

  Owen just stood at the bottom of the staircase. He finally thought to put down the chair/weapon.

  “Please, Izzy. It’s my great-grandfather’s desk. I want to give it to Jason’s son. I want to keep it in the family.”

  “Sorry, my friend, you lost it in the settlement.”

  “I didn’t lose it, I just didn’t want to fight over it, because you were in such a state I knew it would cost us another twenty thousand dollars in legal bills. My lawyer advised me to wait until you calmed down and then to ask you for it, since it’s a family heirloom.”

  “Well, your lawyer screwed you,” said Izzy. “Because you’re not taking that desk.”

  “Izzy.”

  “Besides, why did you break in here? If you were going to ask me for it nicely.”

  “Because I didn’t think you’d be reasonable. I’m sorry, I made a bad call. I’m willing to pay you for it, Izzy. It’s important to me.”

  “You’ll give me actual money for it?”

  “I will,” said Christopher. “Name a reasonable price.”

  “A gazillion dollars? How does that sound?”

  “Jesus, Izzy—”

  Izzy picked up the phone and dialed and then said, “Hello, yes, my name is Izzy Radford and I have an intruder in my home.”

  “Hang up the phone, Izzy,” Christopher said.

  “Fifty-five Riverview Lane,” Izzy said.

  “Hang up the phone, I’m leaving—”

  “Describe him?” Izzy said. “He’s five foot eight, he’s wearing a green windbreaker, and he has a potbelly. Oh, and he’s about to start losing his hair.”

  “He’s leaving,” said Owen. “Hang up the phone, Izzy. I’m escorting him out.”

  Owen opened up the front door and followed Christopher onto the porch. Christopher took two steps down to the sidewalk and then turned around and looked up at Owen.

  “I don’t know you, dude. And believe me, I don’t care what’s going on with you and Izzy. But here’s a friendly heads-up. She’s five kinds of crazy.”

  * * *

  Lucy was naked and lying in Ben’s bed, gazing out the window at the top of a chestnut tree. It was simple, now, getting to Ben’s every Thursday, claiming French lessons, and Lucy found herself looking forward to Thursdays the way you’d look forward to a day at the spa. Or maybe a little more. Maybe just a little bit more.

  Ben was running his fingers from her neck to her waist to her hip in a deliciously slow, postcoital figure eight.

  “Sometimes I think, This could really be something,” said Ben.

  Lucy’s heart rose and sank at the same time.

  “I know what you mean,” she finally said.

  “Do you?” said Ben. “I guess I’m asking, is it just me?”

  “It’s not just you,” Lucy said.

  Even saying that was farther than Lucy wanted to allow herself to go. Already, this conversation was bigger than any infidelity. No falling in love.

  This is not love, Lucy said to herself. I’m in love with my husband. I’m temporarily infatuated with Ben.

  “I think about you when you’re not here,” he said. “Like, the other night, I was making dinner and I wanted to tell you something. I don’t even remember what I wanted to tell you, but I had to fight the urge to pick up the phone.”

  “You could have texted me.”

  “I guess I don’t know the rules,” said Ben.

  “The rules are, you can text me,” said Lucy.

  “Okay.”

  Ben was quiet for a moment, and then he rolled over on his back and looked up at the ceiling.

  “Can I text you constantly?”

&n
bsp; Lucy stayed at Ben’s apartment fifteen minutes later than usual that night, and by the time she made it to Grand Central, she’d missed the ten o’clock train. She wandered around inside the station aimlessly, wishing she were still in bed with Ben, wishing she had timed things better so she didn’t have to waste an entire hour in the city and not be touching and talking to Ben.

  She got on the next train early, took a seat by the window, and stared out at the rusty brown wall.

  I’ve finally got juicy, she thought. That’s what this is. It’s just perfectly, unbelievably, stupendously juicy.

  “Look at you. You are smiling out the window at nothing, like a woman in love.”

  Lucy looked up and saw Andrew Callahan standing in the aisle, suit rumpled from a long day at work, tie rakishly askew.

  “Hi, Andrew.”

  “Lucy,” he said. “What are you so goddamn happy about?”

  “I just had a good day, that’s all,” said Lucy.

  “Mind if I sit?”

  Please no.

  “Of course not,” said Lucy. “I’d like it.”

  Andrew had a bottle of good red wine he’d picked up in Grand Central, and he even had two small stemless wineglasses in his briefcase. He was gallant, Andrew Callahan was, and a happy, carefree, almost gleeful drinker, and he always made a point of having enough booze to share.

  “Cheers,” he said after he’d uncorked the wine and poured.

  “Cheers,” said Lucy.

  “I wish my wife smiled like you when she was heading home to me,” said Andrew. “I wish she had that look on her face.”