A Common Loss

by Kirsten Tranter

  ‘You were expecting a call from him?’

  ‘We’re going to the show later but we hadn’t made plans for tonight, exactly. I thought he might call to make some. Not that, you know, I expect him to make them or anything, we just hadn’t worked it out.’

  ‘No, no, I get it,’ I said, seeing her embarrassment.

  One of the fountain jets started up, over in a far corner of the array. It stopped after a few seconds, leaving perfect widening circles around it.

  A guy all in white, sneakers, shorts, T-shirt, came up to us, his hands full of little cards. He shoved a few of them at us wordlessly and moved on, doing the same to a group of people farther down the path. The same thing had been happening to us all day; usually I was quicker to hold up my hand and refuse, but Cynthia always accepted them, interested. These were the same as others we’d been offered only an hour earlier: one showing a topless blonde smiling coyly with a finger to her lips and a phone number in pink letters along the bottom; one showing an Asian woman in the same pose; the other showing two women, same phone number as the blonde.

  I threw mine onto the path, and felt an instinctive stab of guilt for littering, thought about picking them up, didn’t.

  Cynthia studied hers. ‘I thought prostitution was illegal in Nevada,’ she said.

  At that moment, a billboard came down the Strip in front of us, pulled along behind a black van, showing an enlarged version of the blonde on our cards with the addition of GIRLS!!! in massive block letters, and the same phone number.

  ‘Technically, I suppose,’ I said.

  I arrived at the Flamingo half an hour late, after endless rounds of getting dressed and realizing that each item — shirt, trousers, another shirt, another — had some mysterious stain on it, including one that looked a lot like a smudge of either my chocolate eclair or Cynthia’s chocolate crepe, but it wasn’t the shirt I’d been wearing earlier. I sat on the bed trying to figure out how the stain had migrated, gave up, undressed, found myself about to get in the shower before remembering that I’d just had one, and chose the pair of trousers with a coffee stain (I guessed) on the pocket rather than the jeans with what looked like axle-grease marks near the knees. There was something unsettling about all these marks whose origins were unclear to me, indications of gaps in my memory like small, enigmatic black holes.

  The digital clock glared steadily, telling me that it was five o’clock. I forgot that it was wrong and felt momentarily confused, checked my watch, tried again to reset it with no success. When the door clicked shut behind me I knew there was something vital I’d forgotten and I checked my pockets in a routine sort of way. I had everything I needed but the feeling persisted.

  The Flamingo was busy, and I looked around the bar for a while before finding Tallis and Cameron perched on stools at a small, high table, each staring into his drink. Tallis blinked unsteadily at me when I greeted them.

  ‘You must be really jet-lagged,’ I said to him, seeing his shadowed, bloodshot eyes.

  ‘No, no,’ he said, smiling and frowning at the same time. ‘It’s all the sun. Poolside. Bloody exhausting.’

  Cameron made a noise of agreement.

  Tallis’s face had turned faintly pink around the nose and cheeks, and there was a line of violent red across his collarbones just visible through the opening in his shirt where he must have missed with the sunscreen. He drained his glass. ‘Get me another vodka,’ he said, and for a second I thought he was going to hand me his empty glass as though I were a waiter. He set the glass down on the table and my resentment wavered, looking for somewhere else to land, and then softened. We could have waited for the waitress to come around but I wanted an excuse to leave them. Already, I thought, and it had only been a matter of seconds.

  ‘I’ll come,’ Cameron said, and slipped off his stool before I could protest.

  He rested his hand stiffly on the bar while we waited for our drinks.

  ‘You seemed surprised earlier,’ I said. ‘In the car. Like you thought there was going to be something else in my envelope.’

  He shrugged. ‘No. I don’t know.’ He met my eyes for a second, and looked away. ‘Yes. All right. I thought there might be something else, something to do with Dylan. I’m sorry.’

  ‘Like what? What else would it be?’

  He looked at me as though he hated having to state something so obvious. ‘I thought — maybe — that you were involved with Dylan,’ he said in a low voice.

  ‘Involved?’ I asked, incredulous. ‘Do you mean, an affair?’ He shrugged. ‘Why would you think that? Wait, were you involved with him?’

  ‘No. No. There was one time … he wasn’t interested. That’s what he said. And then … look, he never said anything specific. I don’t know why, I started being suspicious.’

  ‘When was this?’ I asked.

  ‘In college,’ he said quickly. ‘Not recently. No. I was jealous, I guess. Back then. I asked him about it, about you. A couple of times. He’d never admit it, but the way he talked — I never believed him.’

  ‘He let you think something happened with me?’

  I thought back, trying to piece this idea together with my memories of times I’d spent with Cameron. It made so little sense. I’d always chalked Cameron’s irritability, his occasional distance from me, up to some other cause. I remembered how quiet he’d been in the car that day he’d helped me return the stacks of Tennyson books to the library; I’d been so preoccupied that I hadn’t thought much of it.

  He sighed and put his hand to his collar, as though loosening a tie, although he wasn’t wearing one; it was a gesture that went with a suit worn every day. ‘I don’t even know if I’d put it that strongly. It was in my head. I haven’t thought about it for so long; this business with the envelopes brought it up again. You know what it’s been like.’

  ‘I’m not sure I do.’

  But I did, in a way, remembering how the past had come alive again over the last twenty-four hours. He seemed to be still waiting for me to respond.

  ‘What, are you asking me to reassure you now? OK. I was never involved with Dylan. There was nothing like that.’

  ‘All right, Elliot. I believe you. It doesn’t matter, anyway. But, you know. You really worshiped him.’

  ‘Now you’re exaggerating.’

  ‘Am I?’

  I’d pitied Cameron for a moment, with his little tale of jealousy. But an obscure resentment started to take hold of me. Part of me had expected Cameron’s story to take a different direction, I realized, thinking that maybe his mistaken impression had been formed because of how close I was to Dylan. Had I been waiting for him to say, ‘Dylan loved you; we all knew it.’?

  Our drinks arrived and Cameron paid, waving away my attempts to contribute. He stared at the three glasses lined up, martinis with olives perfectly aligned at matching angles.

  ‘I used to be angry with him about it,’ he said. ‘Even when I thought — you know, that there was something between you — the way he was so careful to just show that side to you, only the nice guy. It was as if, as long as you were around, he could think to himself that he was just that person.’

  ‘He was that person to me.’

  ‘To you, yeah. He liked it that way.’

  ‘You make it sound as though it was all some kind of game to him.’

  ‘It was, kind of. I thought you’d seen that by now.’

  ‘It wasn’t all a game. Not all of it.’ Some of it was real, I told myself, and I knew it was true.

  ‘No, not all of it. Not everything.’ He sighed. ‘It was hard to stay mad at him.’

  I smiled. ‘It was impossible.’

  He smiled back, and I had the feeling that while I’d convinced him that Dylan and I had never been lovers, he believed as much as ever that I’d been in love with him.

  Back at the table I handed Tallis his glass and he lifted it as if toasting us. The glass was overfull and some of the liquid spilled over the side. He swore softly, steadied his elb
ow on the table and brought his mouth to the edge of the glass, slurped it. I did the same.

  ‘Where’s Brian?’ I asked.

  The two of them exchanged glances. ‘He was spending some time with Cynthia,’ Cameron explained, his voice dry and neutral. ‘He’ll be here.’

  I nodded. ‘How’s he doing?’

  ‘I’d say OK, considering,’ Tallis said.

  I wondered whether they knew about my afternoon with Cynthia, and decided they probably didn’t.

  ‘Why did he have to bring her?’ Tallis said.

  ‘He didn’t know,’ I began, ready to defend Brian without thinking about it, as usual.

  ‘It doesn’t matter what he knew or didn’t know. It was a stupid idea,’ Tallis retorted, seeming glad of an opportunity to argue. I didn’t feel like rising to it.

  ‘He’s going to meet us later,’ Cameron told me.

  ‘So tell me what you guys talked about,’ I said. ‘Tell me what grand plans you came up with in my absence.’

  Cameron bristled. ‘Don’t complain now that we left you out. That was your decision.’

  ‘It’s OK, I know, I know,’ I said, thinking about how I hadn’t decided to leave myself out of the conversation the previous night, and how I hadn’t minded anyway, and didn’t really care now. ‘I didn’t want to talk about it, you’re right. I want to talk about it now. So tell me.’

  Brian was worried, Cameron told me; it seemed to him as though he was the one with the most at stake personally. They had talked over various options, started to go over the cost of what they thought Colin was asking for.

  ‘You’re not serious,’ I said. ‘There’s no way I could afford anything like what he wants. And there’s no way I could pull the kinds of strings he thinks I can pull.’

  ‘I know,’ Cameron said. ‘Look, for a start, we’re in this together. Some of us — all of us three, actually — are in a better position than you are to contribute financially, if that’s what it takes, but we’re OK with that, we’re OK with putting in more money than you, especially if it turns out to be the case that you can contribute … well, like you said, if you can pull the necessary strings. That would be your contribution, if you like. We think that this whole college idea is important to Colin. But, again, we’re thinking through possible scenarios here. We’re not necessarily planning to accede to all of his demands. It’s hypothetical.’

  ‘His demands still seem fairly unclear,’ I said. ‘And fairly deluded. I can’t get him into the place I teach at, or fucking Bennington, if that’s what he wants.’

  ‘Perhaps he’d be satisfied if he felt as though you’d just done your best to help him achieve that,’ Tallis said. ‘Even if it doesn’t work out in the end.’

  ‘How could I write a recommendation for him? Or make a round of calls or whatever it is he thinks I can do?’

  ‘We didn’t say it would be a small thing for you,’ Cameron said. ‘That’s why we’d be willing to recognize it as a substantial contribution. If it came down to that. Which it may not.’

  The future took on a new kind of bleakness. Doing anything for Colin, entering into any kind of relationship with him, entailed possibly endless rounds of continuing favors and obligations. And whatever Cameron said about recognizing my potential contribution, if the other three ended up putting actual money into a scheme that benefited all of us, I would remain indebted to them in ways I could likely never repay. If they were talking about paying Colin’s tuition and living expenses at a decent college, that was in the realm of hundreds of thousands of dollars. I realized that part of what repelled me most about what Cameron described was the prospect not only of being tied to Colin for life, but of being tied to all of them, in ways I couldn’t freely choose.

  Only a few days earlier I’d imagined that we’d always be friends, however unenthusiastic I felt about the idea, although I also expected that we would drift apart, as other people seemed to do. This had for a long time seemed like a more or less welcome prospect, and one I had felt guilty about wanting at all. But now I understood that whatever desire I’d had to finally outgrow these seemingly exhausted friendships had always been ambivalent, that it had sat side by side with a longing and a deep belief that was much harder to admit: that as time went on we would keep knowing one another and still perform the same boring but also comforting rituals of belonging.

  I recognized that feeling now because I felt its passing, as surely as if I’d watched a familiar person leave the room. I could imagine a future where we stayed connected — it seemed impossible now to think that we could avoid it — but only by this thread, this web of knowledge and deceit, and I felt mainly aversion at the thought of it. The physical distances between our lives in different cities, states, countries felt more than ever like welcome, cushioning barriers.

  ‘Isn’t there any way we can get out of this?’ I asked. ‘Isn’t there any pressure we can bring to bear on Colin? Isn’t it illegal, what he’s doing?’

  ‘Of course it’s illegal,’ Cameron said patiently. ‘In a strict sense. But I don’t know. I haven’t thought of a way yet of …’ He sighed, annoyed, not used to being stuck for words, for ideas. ‘A way of dissuading him. I’m working on it.’ He was bewildered by the surreality of it, just like the rest of us. ‘Elliot, we are all obviously worried about the information Colin has. However, we can’t be sure that he would resort to extreme extortion. I think not. We talked it over. If he can be placated with, let’s say, some help with his college admissions and his college fees, and an introduction to some producers or something like that, that might be the easiest way forward. He seems to want our friendship. As we said.’

  I shook my head.

  ‘Perhaps the best-case scenario is that we offer him some help,’ Cameron said, ‘a real gesture — and in exchange he gives us the information he has.’

  ‘But he could keep copies of everything,’ I said.

  Tallis nodded exaggeratedly, as if to say that he’d already raised this objection.

  ‘Yes,’ Cameron responded. ‘But these things he wants — college, Hollywood, respect, whatever — they mean a lot to him. He’s not going to want to run the risk of losing those things either. Once we help him, this whole thing becomes somehow …’

  ‘Mutual.’ Tallis finished the sentence for him, uttering the word like a curse. I could see the unpleasant logic of the idea. Tallis tilted his head back, scrutinizing us both. ‘Why don’t you tell him Brian’s idea?’

  Cameron’s face remained impassive. ‘You know he wasn’t serious.’

  Tallis turned his bloodshot gaze to me. ‘Take Colin out to the Grand Canyon. He might slip on a loose rock or something.’

  ‘Like you’d go to the Grand Canyon,’ Cameron muttered.

  ‘No, all right then, not the Grand Canyon. Anywhere he could become, let’s say, accident-prone.’

  ‘Push him, you mean?’ I said. ‘Over the side of the Grand Canyon?’

  ‘Brian is in what you might call a murderous rage,’ Tallis said, and I could see that he wasn’t drunk at all, however much he might have been drinking. I wondered whether he’d been doing cocaine. I thought of Cynthia, and wished for some myself, for the clear, high, empty focus that would dissolve all this confusion.

  ‘He wasn’t serious,’ Cameron repeated.

  ‘I know,’ Tallis said. ‘He just wants the whole thing to go away.’

  ‘It wouldn’t simplify anything,’ Cameron said, and I was shocked by how much it sounded as though they were rehearsing a conversation that had already taken place, a familiar argument of some kind.

  ‘That is not the problem with that idea,’ I said. ‘Its lack of simplifying potential is not the problem.’

  ‘It’s true,’ Tallis mused, as though I hadn’t spoken at all. ‘It wouldn’t necessarily solve anything. It could complicate things.’

  ‘Look,’ I said, and tried to meet their eyes. ‘Stop talking about pushing Colin into the Grand Canyon. It’s ridiculous to even think a
bout that, it’s just Brian being histrionic. Look,’ I repeated. ‘Why can’t we just say no? Could we — you know — weather it? Call his bluff or whatever?’

  Even as I articulated the thought I wasn’t sure my heart was in it. It wasn’t the tenure meeting I thought about, or the disappointment and anger of the department chair when he opened the manila envelope; it wasn’t that specific. What I imagined was the passageway in the building leading to my office, and what it felt like to walk down it and open my door and feel as though I belonged there. I didn’t want to lose that, or have it be so compromised. But that feeling fought for dominance with another sentiment: of not wanting to feel myself tied to Colin, to all of them, into the future.

  They both held my gaze, and I could see Tallis trying hard to school his expression; it was in the way his face fell just slightly, in the way he pulled it back together. He felt betrayed, and it couldn’t have been something he’d expected from me. He had been the one, yesterday, when Brian had first received his envelope, who had pushed for all of us to deal with it together. I saw now that he was afraid of having to deal with Colin on his own, afraid of the rest of us leaving him the only one willing to buy Colin off.

  ‘You expect us all to go along with you,’ I said to him, talking over Cameron, who had just begun to speak. ‘You expect a lot.’

  ‘It’s not asking that much, is it?’ Tallis replied, and I felt with a rush of something — power, relief, anger — that it was the first time during the whole trip that he’d spoken to me with any real sense of taking me seriously, or with any idea that he couldn’t take my support for granted. The wounded feeling in his voice took me by surprise. The familiar rationalization started up — he relies on me, I thought with satisfaction, as a friend. But it quickly soured. He couldn’t believe I would really argue with him; couldn’t bear that I would maintain a point of difference from him about anything that really mattered to him.

  ‘That’s not the point,’ I said. ‘We’ll talk about that in a minute. But who’s to say Colin would go through with it, whatever it is he has planned? What if we made it really clear to him: we’re willing to offer him some assistance, normal friendship kind of assistance, but no money. As soon as money comes into it, it looks as though we’re scared.’