Elise chews gently on her thumbnail, hunched over the menu, self-protecting as she does in a new place. Then she stares glumly out the window while peripherally gathering information on her surroundings—methodical while seeming indifferent. She looks at the Bakelite skyline on the wall.
Satisfied, she sits up and smiles at Jamey.
“What are you getting?” she asks.
“Steak tartare,” he answers happily.
“What’s that?”
“Raw meat.”
Elise gets a New York strip. Jamey orders his own steak tartare and one to go for Buck. Gets a martini and doesn’t drink more than a few sips. Takes a cheeseburger to the homeless guy on the corner.
“Um. What’s going on here, Jamey?” Elise asks as they climb the stairs in their building.
“Just feel like spending money,” he says with mordant delight.
He’s looking like the gothic version of a preppy boy, blood smeared on his Izod persona, his smile wrongly polite. This perversity is what makes Elise kiss him as he unlocks the door, and they close the door and lock it behind them.
They become regulars at Fanelli’s, Odeon, Chanterelle. Jamey buys everyone sitting at the bar a round. He and Elise eat prime rib, lobster, salmon, truffle fries, crème brûlée. They always get the prize on the menu, the show-off item dangled in front of the rising Hollywood child star, the Russian mobster, the insider trader; they order caviar from Finland, the Lafite, the 24-karat gold-leaf chocolate dessert—Bring it on! We’re hungry for treasure.
Jamey doesn’t even consider finding a new apartment. Elise notices he’s just less respectful of the loft. He leaves dishes in the sink, towels on the floor. Sprays Martine’s perfume in the air for fun. Opens bottles of wine from her rack, pours Elise a glass.
“What if she comes again?” she asks one day, watching fruit flies vibrate over the peaches on the counter.
“I hope she does,” he says, sitting at the table like a king in his boxers and nothing else.
The truth is also that he doesn’t know how to rent an apartment. He’s always been given places to live, and Elise would laugh at the limit of his life skills. So—tra-la-la, everything is fine!
One night, they fight outside Indochine after he buys drinks for a couple sullen models, teenagers wearing lime-green Lycra dresses and cherry-red pumps.
“Why do you feel the need to fucking treat everybody in a place?” she asks, ashing on the dusk-silver sidewalk.
“It’s not about them,” he says.
“What’s it fucking about then, Jamey?”
“I don’t know!”
“You don’t? Me neither.”
They glare at each other. Then they start laughing.
“You’re a piece of work,” she tells him.
They’re standing next to a Volvo, and they realize there’s an androgynous toddler in the backseat, in a diaper. The kid looks out the window with shy blue eyes.
“Hey, baby,” Elise says, clicking her long nails on the glass.
The child stares at her.
“Let’s get some ice cream,” Jamey says.
They buy a Popsicle on the corner and pass it through a cracked window to the hand. When the parents return, this stained wooden stick and gooey smile will be a whodunit—What self-important Good Samaritan fed our child? There’s pleasure in changing a static environment, but Jamey doesn’t know if it’s a decent and moral pleasure, and he doesn’t care if it’s not. Elise realizes he just wants to give things away, to a sixteen-year-old from Slovenia wearing Gaultier and high on heroin, or to a nameless baby. She tries to be okay with it, she really tries.
Jamey hands the bouncer three crisp hundred-dollar bills to slip into the Ninth Avenue club. He and Elise hold hands when they enter the stenciled door like kids about to jump in a pool.
Inside, the bass churns the crowd, rumbling through bodies. It almost seems that a stage disintegrated and the performers fell into the crowd. A woman in white slacks with duct-taped nipples smokes a Cuban cigar. A banker wears a Savile Row suit, his tiara tilted, his eyes ruined. A fuchsia crocodile hangs on the wall, life-sized and dead, descending to eat everyone. The girl in the dime-store satin dress scrounged train fare from Massapequa to get here tonight. Anyone can tell by looking that she bought a one-way ticket, and this is the underpinning of her glamour.
They go from club to club. Egos crow like roosters, all these inner childs coked to the gills, and the coat-room boy and society man fall in love for one hour. The ladies in diamonds won’t come out of the stall, having too much fun, watery liquor spills from plastic glasses, a gown is violently slit to the thigh, computerized music pings and twangs. What time is it? A blond girl checks—Where? she asks, because each of the eight transparent watches on her arm represents a zone.
Jamey gets home after a meaningless day at Sotheby’s, inventorying porcelain Bavarian plates. The evening sky is dry with hot clouds. Jamey is supposed to meet Alex at Harry’s for another “talk,” but he suggests to Elise they go dancing instead, and glibly leaves a message with Alex’s secretary.
“Won’t your dad be mad?” Elise asks.
“Very,” Jamey says.
Jamey suggests starting the night with oysters at the Plaza. Their taxi driver is an old man, with white sideburns under a fedora, who speeds up at red lights.
They meet a couple as they finish their second dozen at the bar.
“I’m Tom, this is my wife, Sheryl. Mind if we take a seat?” the man asks, pointing to the wooden stools.
“Go ahead,” says Jamey.
“Oddly enough, we’ve been here before but never on a Wednesday,” Tom says, surveying the place.
Later he says, “My wife and I, weirdly enough, were born on the same day, just two years apart.”
“Isn’t that bananas?” Sheryl asks, touching a cocktail stirrer to her bottom lip.
Tom buys the next round. Jamey reaches for his wallet, and Sheryl puts her hand on his arm; her burgundy nails flex. “Oh, let him. He’s had a good month. He gets sort of spendy, and I don’t see why not.”
The four of them are giddy, Elise and Jamey not sure why, until eventually they realize, and then realize they’ve known all along.
Sheryl is telling the couple they should join her and Tom on a cruise in December.
Jamey and Elise look at each other, and almost lose it. Elise cuts eye contact with Jamey in a desperate attempt not to laugh. “Where to?”
“Meh-hee-co,” Tom says.
“God, I wish I could get off work long enough. Sounds fun!” Jamey says.
“Next time,” Sheryl says.
The bar’s closing. Tom invites them up for a nightcap, one last drink before they go home. “Our room’s got a stupendous view. Why not. No reason why not.”
Elise and Jamey grin hesitantly at each other. Try to read each other’s face.
“Why not is right,” Elise says, making the decision, and looking at Jamey as she says this.
As they all walk the opulent carpet on the tenth floor of the hotel, Jamey takes her hand, and voltage jumps from his body to hers.
Jamey hangs the Do Not Disturb sign on the door.
It’s strange and beautiful for Elise to taste Sheryl’s perfumed lipstick; it’s like hearing her own voice on the radio or something.
Jamey and Elise sit on either side of Sheryl. They all have their thighs squeezed shut, like nervous and polite schoolkids on a bus seat, and Jamey and Elise each have a hand inside Sheryl’s unbuttoned shirt.
Jamey ends up on a king-sized bed, positioned between four legs. Elise is lying on top of Sheryl; he moves from Elise, to Sheryl, back to Elise. It shouldn’t be that different, but one has nothing to do with the other.
This can’t be happening. It’s like finding out that the Easter Bunny or the Tooth Fairy, after years of nonexistence, are alive and well. It takes effort.
Tom is doing something in the peach jacquard chair, and encouraging them all sincerely, in a low voice.
Jamey is starting to operate in a trance, biting his lip. He’s a mystical version of an orangutan in a nature show. He actually has the thought: I’m a monkey, and that’s okay. He’s got a dumb look on his face and that’s okay. For a minute, an hour later, right before he comes again, with two tongues licking him like kittens, he understands everything.
At daybreak, Tom is knotting his tie when he thinks of something.
“You two want our tickets for tonight? We got third row for Chorus Line. Can’t use them. You’d be doing us a favor because otherwise the tickets will go to waste.”
“Why aren’t you going?” asks Elise, lacing her high-tops, braids hanging to the floor.
Sheryl’s brother just got engaged and they’re flying down for the party.
“Overnight Bobby decided,” Sheryl says. “That’s how he does things.”
“Yeah, so, he got in a boat accident a couple months ago. Two catamarans, actually—in Florida. And he fell in love with a girl on the other boat.”
“Nice girl,” Sheryl adds, clipping her earring on. “I think. We haven’t met her.”
Sheryl moves to the window, one hand in her Gloria Vanderbilt jeans pocket, the other holding a croissant smeared with apricot jam. She starts tearing up.
“What’s wrong?” asks Jamey when he notices.
“It’s okay,” Tom assures him.
“What happened?” Elise asks.
“It’s so beautiful,” Sheryl finally murmurs, looking at the pale-blue buildings, the massive world they can’t hear through the glass.
“She loves the cityscape in the morning,” Tom says, almost proudly.
They’re tired when they get home from the Broadway show. Fucked out, eyelids full of spotlights, starry-brained. They fall asleep holding hands.
The phone rings at dawn. Elise picks up.
“Who’s this?” Alex asks roughly.
“Who’s this?” she says.
“Give me my son.”
“He’s sleeping,” she says crisply, and hangs up with finality.
Jamey groans, but doesn’t wake, while Elise listens to her heart pound.
Something in that man’s voice sounded like doom, and she decides right in this moment not to tell Jamey the truth about their future. Not now. She’ll carry it alone, as long as she can. She kneels in the sheets, still and silent in this game of hide-and-seek, feeling invisible just because she closes her own eyes.
Walking to work the next morning, Jamey’s gait has an extra beat.
He thinks of himself as a telephone that was off the hook till now.
Any couple in any oyster bar could have been Tom and Sheryl, but Jamey never listened to their catamaran stories, never said yes to nightcaps from strangers. The world looks so different today; he catches the eyes of other pedestrians, shopkeepers smoking on the sidewalk, riders of a bus stopped at the light. He sees every window in every building as exceptional, a possibility. He thinks of the way Tom held Sheryl’s limp, manicured, gold-braceleted hand as she stepped into her heels before leaving, and she said Thank you, darling, and Jamey was just bowled over by their bourgeois manners and futuristic ethics. He stops and buys a Twix at a newsstand. Candy for breakfast, and why the hell not.
Jamey and Clark are having petite tender roasts with béarnaise for lunch, the steakhouse lively and loud.
“Clark,” Jamey says. “Don’t you think Edna could use a break? She’s been getting the short straw all summer.”
Clark squints. Jamey’s acting suspiciously earnest.
Then Clark laughs, merry-eyed.
“I’m serious,” Jamey says, freeing the bee in his bonnet.
Taken aback, Clark turns tomato-red. “Oh, you’re…being genuine. Of course. Poor Edna. I’m not sure I know what you mean, but we can always be a little sweeter, I suppose.”
“Fantastic!” Jamey says, which is something Clark always says, and Jamey doesn’t ask permission but orders a second martini for himself with a Hollywood smile.
Cross-legged on the magenta couch, Elise sweats in the afternoon heat. Buck is waiting for drips from Elise’s Klondike Bar, at a polite distance but attentive, when the phone rings.
“Hello?” she says, licking her finger.
“Hope you’re sitting down!”
She cocks her head. “Who’s this?”
“Trent Black from Venture Prizes, and today, miss, is your lucky day.”
Elise puts her ice cream in the sink.
“Is this, let’s see here, Elise?”
Elise furrows her brow. “Yes.”
“And you’re staying with Mr. Jamey Hyde, correct?”
“I never heard of Venture Prizes.”
“We’re a subsidiary of American Express. Surely you’ve heard of American Express.”
“Yeah, of course.”
“Well, you and Mr. Hyde have cause to celebrate, because you have won a trip to the Bahamas, and that’s not all!”
“How did we win?”
“Mr. Hyde’s a loyal Amex customer, and his name was in the sweepstakes pool. Truly exciting, don’t you think? We sure think so!”
“What else did we win?” she asks, getting a thrill.
“Two tennis racquets, and, wait, there’s more.”
“What?”
“A magnum of Moët Champagne!”
“What’s a magnum?”
“A very large bottle. All I need now is your social security number.”
“Why do you need mine?”
“If you have Mr. Hyde’s handy, that’ll work.”
“I don’t.”
“Why don’t you give me yours, I’ll put these prizes in your name, and you can celebrate the good news this evening, how’s that?”
Elise looks at Buck, who looks at her.
“Okay.” She smiles nervously.
When Jamey gets home, Elise is grinning, arms crossed.
“Guess what,” she says.
“What?” he asks, pulling his necktie loose.
As she gushes out the news, he looks mildly confused but happy.
“Bahamas?” he asks, eating Brie and Ritz crackers standing at the counter.
“Yeah.”
“Nice work,” he tells her.
Alex calls him the very next day. “I’ve got something for you.”
They meet at a Murray Hill bistro where Alex rarely goes, a place with greasy menus and red candles. Alex hands his son stapled pages with Elise’s name and social security number at the top, and his face is self-righteous but also apologetic.
“You’re doing this out of guilt,” Alex suggests as Jamey reads.
“I’m not doing anything out of guilt.”
“The way you immediately deny it—speaks volumes! Look. You’ve always been a sensitive kid.”
Jamey stares at him in his pink Brooks Brothers shirt—his father’s eyes are kinder and softer and sadder than usual. This “problem” has brought Alex closer to his son than anything yet.
“I’m not a kid.”
Alex sighs. “What I’m saying is—no one would hold it against you, what you’ve done so far. But you’re getting damn near making a mistake.”
“What mistake?”
“Just get her out of that apartment.”
Jamey won’t answer, looks away.
Alex pats his mouth with his napkin. “You belong to this family. This family loves you. Why would you create problems?”
On the curb, father and son awkwardly scan for cabs, the night fragrant with the incense of New York—taxi fumes, perfume, cinders, bread baking somewhere.
“There’s nothing wrong with this relationship,” Jamey tries one more time.
Alex rocks heel to toe, hands in slacks, looking at the avenue. “Then why do you keep her hidden away like you’re ashamed?”
Jamey walks the long way home, broad shoulders squared and hands in pockets. People, streetlights, headlights, they blur, foggy and dreamlike. One stranger’s eyes trail a milky brightness as he passes
Jamey. A dog pisses black onto the stone building, its hind leg raised in a terrible way. Nothing is right. Jamey looks down on his own body from the night sky, and sees a lost boy.
When he opens the door finally, Elise is sitting at the window in her basketball shorts and a bra. She’s eating Lucky Charms from the box, handling a palm full of cereal the way a bored man jingles coins.
“Yo,” she says.
Jamey sits heavily on a couch, his big thighs spread. Stares at her.
Elise widens her eyes. “What?”
“I can’t believe you’ve been arrested and never told me.”
“Arrested for what?”
“Shoplifting, public intoxication, assault.”
She eats the last Lucky Charm, and smirks. “Jamey. Nobody who grew up where I grew up doesn’t have a record. Mine is short.”
“But—assault?”
“I probably pushed some girl at the bus stop.”
“That’s not what it sounded like.”
“Cops have a quota, they hand out tickets for nothing, haul you in if you give them trouble. Of course I’m gonna talk back if I feel like it.” Now she’s mad—her skin almost tinged with green.
Jamey sighs.
She smacks the back of one hand into her palm: “I’ve seen your friends from Yale, high and drunk as shit, falling in the streets, driving into brick walls like retards. No one is ever gonna cuff them.”
“I don’t need a lecture.”
“Who told you anyhow?” Elise asks.
“My dad.”
“How should he know?”
“He had your info printed out. For your whole family, actually. Your mom’s record is like three pages.”
“I don’t understand.”
Jamey sighs. “There is no Venture Prizes.”
They don’t have sex that night.
At one point, he kisses her forehead in the dark bed. “What else don’t I know?” he asks quietly.
She turns on the light, furious.
“Fucking plenty! You don’t know shit!”
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