“Oh, yes. He was quite apologetic. Took it personally, he did. Which was a mistake, of course.” He yawned, stretching his arms. “Nothing personal about it. How did you find me? If you'll pardon my asking.”
“You said you were staying here. I listened, that day I helped you make that girl cry. You said you were staying at the Gramercy Park Hotel.”
“Well, paying attention to what I say certainly puts you in a distinct minority. However, I still don't see why—”
“I brought you something.”
None of this was going as planned. Originally, I was going to leave it at the desk, with a note. But when I asked for his room number they sent me right on up. They must have thought I was a member of the crew.
“Ah, yes. I must say, ever since you came in I have been eyeing that package of yours with quite a bit of trepidation.”
“Oh, that's just the bag I used. It's not really from the Berkeley Meat Emporium.”
“Good.”
Even when I had got to the door, I thought I would just knock, be met by someone else, thrust my ridiculous offering into unwilling hands, and scurry off, hoping it would eventually get to him.
“It shouldn't even be folded,” I stalled. “It should be on a hanger. But I didn't have any of that dry-cleaning plastic to put over it and I was afraid of getting splashed. Besides, it's a little embarrassing to go around with a—”
“If you do not remove that cartoon rendering of a soon-to-be-eviscerated cow from my vision, I am going to be sick.”
I took out the dress. It had taken me the rest of the week to finish, after the initial frenzy of realizing what I wanted to do wore off. I had figured out a way of making the material stay together by a series of strips lining the seams on either side, just enough to hold the fabric in place without sacrificing its sheer shimmering quality. But here in the curtained light, the material lost some of its sparkle. He made no move to take it. I laid it carefully on the floor in front of us.
“It's a dress.”
Was it such a bizarre, formless, asymmetrical puddle of material that he couldn't even tell? My worst fears were coming true. Maybe all the magic and specialness it held only existed in my own head.
“I mean, not a dress a real person could wear, of course. It's completely unwearable. But an idea for a dress.”
I waited for him to say something and, when he didn't, stumbled on.
“I thought, maybe you might have an opening for someone who could make costumes. I wanted to show you what I could do. That way, if you ever needed …”
Saying the words out loud, trying to launch my fantasies in the dead air of the hotel room, made it clear just how pathetic and unrealistic they were. I waited for him to tell me that, but he didn't. He stared past everything, down into the colors.
“You are too late.”
“What do you mean?”
“We are almost done here. We have only a few more scenes to shoot. Then we leave.”
“Oh.”
He got up and walked around without touching it, tracing the curve of an invisible circle.
“You made this?”
“Not really. I can't make things. I can only copy.”
“Copying is making. In the act of copying you inevitably add something of your own. You fail to copy exactly, and in that failure are sown the seeds of your originality.”
“I wouldn't know about that.”
He shook his head, annoyed.
“What, precisely, is your problem?”
“Problem? I don't have a problem.”
“That is hardly fair. I just told you my problem. The least you can do is reciprocate.”
“When did you tell me your problem?”
“Just now. When I spoke of the previous evening.”
“Because you couldn't—?”
“I fear I am losing my powers, becoming a shadow of my former self. I fear some lifelong flame, some pilot light inside me, has been snuffed out. That is my problem. And now you, a woman who, for all I know, has been following me for months, if not years, force yourself into my hotel room—”
“They said I should go on up!”
“—at the crack of dawn, flings a disturbing fashion statement on the floor, and claims, by contrast, to be a shining example of mental health. To be in no distress at all. Is that truly the case? I think not. I think there is something on your mind, as well. Otherwise, what are you doing here?”
“I told you, I hoped you might have a job for me.”
He began to turn away, giving up.
“I think”—the words rushed out before I could stop them— “I may have made a mistake.”
“A mistake concerning what?”
“Parenthood, marriage, my whole life.”
I was about to cry. He pretended not to notice. Instead, he reached out and lifted the shoulder of the dress, very carefully, as if it might bite. Watching him comfort the wrong thing, what I'd made, not me, got me even more upset.
“Is there any of that whiskey left?”
“At ten o'clock in the morning?”
“It's either that or I'm going to ask you to hold me.”
“On the windowsill, behind the drapes.”
I went over and looked out. There was just another building and, if you looked higher, a water tower.
“Pardon my asking, but isn't the person to whom you should be subjecting this confession the child's father?”
“It's none of his business.”
“Really!”
“Oh, who's to say men actually have anything to do with making babies?” I snapped. “They certainly don't act like it, after. Is there a glass anywhere?”
“By the sink, I believe.”
“Never mind.” I took a sip from the bottle.
“What do you mean men don't have anything to do with making babies?”
“Well, that whole sperm-egg-pregnancy thing is pretty self-important, don't you think? It could just be another myth designed to inflate their egos, trying to make them seem indispensable when really they're the opposite.”
“I thought it was generally agreed upon that—”
“That's what you've been taught.” Suddenly I was very excited. “And, sure, it makes sense on the surface, but that's because all the evidence is arranged to make it look scientific. If you go back a hundred years, I bet you'll find all kinds of universally accepted ‘facts’ about the world that turn out to be total fairy tales dreamed up by women-hating professors with beards and cigars.”
I drank some more. I forgot how good it was. Why did people always say whiskey tasted bad? And it made me so smart.
“Maybe,” I went on, “it has something to do with when you're around a man but isn't directly connected to him. Have you ever thought of that?”
“So you are saying pregnancy may be an allergic reaction?”
“Yes! A defense mechanism, designed to drive him away. You get fat and cranky and he stops bothering you, ideally.”
“I can see the world of biology lost a great talent when you opted to become a—” He stopped. “What exactly are you?”
“Me? I'm nothing.”
The simple truth of it hit me. I was nothing. All those words, girl, wife, mother, were not real things to be at all. My self-worth was in free fall. The liquor went down without hitting bottom. I was a pipe, a conduit, leading from nowhere to nowhere.
He didn't stop me. That wasn't his style. He was focused back on the dress.
“I like this very much. Why ‘unwearable,’ though?”
“What?”
“You said it was unwearable. Why?”
“Because of the material. It's for decoration. If you tried doing anything, it would tear.” I laughed. “It's so typical. I spent all this time making a thing I couldn't even use.”
“Not you, perhaps, but I can see someone else in it.”
“Who?”
“Jennifer. The young woman you were so accommodating to the other day. Are you willing to sell
it to me?”
“You can have it.” I had gone from hopelessness to euphoria to hopelessness again in about seven seconds. “I should go. I have to pick up my daughter. My husband's coming back from Florida tonight. I'm trying to make pot roast for dinner.”
“Three potentially nauseating prospects,” he agreed. “But don't you hear what I am saying? I can use this dress in my film. It can be what she wears when she finally encounters—”
“Excuse me, but I don't care what happens in your movie.”
He smiled. “Of course you don't. Why should you?”
I immediately got apologetic. “I've been acting like an idiot. I have to go.”
He came over and took the bottle away. Our fingers intertwined. His hand was so small it slipped into mine.
“Not just yet.”
I found I couldn't move. “So you're almost done here? You're leaving?”
“I am afraid so.”
“Where to?”
“Morocco.”
“Morocco!”
“I had to move heaven and earth to justify the expense. As an alternative, my producers kept proposing a sandbox, basically, with a large lightbulb that was supposed to mimic the desert sun. I told them….”
A monk. I wanted to tug at his robe, the big floppy knot that was just made to slide apart. I wanted the sides to fall open and show I had provoked this miracle resurrection. He felt it too, what was going on. I could tell, because for the first time he stumbled in his talk, left a sentence hanging.
We sat a minute, on the bed. I could feel his hard blue gaze. He was interested in what I was making him feel. Intrigued.
“I grew up in a cult, a magical society,” I heard myself say. “And even though I turned my back on it, years ago, it's left me … living in a world of signs. Everything seems like a clue. Or a warning.”
“Which am I?”
“You're someone to follow, someone to give my soul over to and let deal with the pesky question of what comes next.”
“Am I really?”
“But you're the last. I can't really do that anymore. There are other people involved now. Besides, you're going away.”
“Is that what you came for?” He gently disengaged his fingers. “To wish me a pleasant journey?”
I shook my head. “I just came here to give you the dress.”
The phone rang.
“The dress we used to wear.”
While he answered, I looked around. The room seemed smaller and more cluttered.
“That was my assistant,” he announced, hanging up.
“The guy with the clipboard?”
“Jonathon. He is on his way up.”
A chill came over me. “Will he think I spent the night?”
“Would it bother you if he did?”
“Maybe,” I said.
“Why should it, though? What awaits you at home? A squalling child? A clueless husband? The inept preparation of a rustic beef dish?” He let his robe slip to the floor and went off to the bathroom again. The water started, in the sink, this time.
“No, stay here a little longer. I insist. The look on poor Jonathon's face when he opens the door will be worth the price of admission, I assure you.”
I tested my legs. Very carefully, as if they might break, I pushed on the bed until my feet touched the floor.
“I enjoy talking to you. People don't approach me anymore. Certainly not with the degree of naked honesty you've exhibited. That's a large part of my problem, I suppose. The isolation from fellow feeling. From genuine intimacy.”
I eased off the mattress and crossed the room.
“As I finally said to Albert, my young Texan friend from last night, ‘It's lonely on the top.' He, of course, misunderstood. That hair of his, no doubt. All those cascading curls.”
This is where I came in, I realized, turning the doorknob.
“He tried to correct me. ‘You mean lonely at the top,’ he said. I didn't have the heart to explain….”
The hallway was a different world. So quiet and impersonal. I was wet from steam. A bell signaled the elevator door opening. Jonathon, the clipboard guy, stepped out. Before he could see me, I faced away from him and walked quickly in a different direction, down the long corridor. Toward the stairs.
• • •
I wasn't really having a nervous breakdown, I decided. It was just early and I'd drunk that bourbon on an empty stomach. Getting hysterical, flirting with a gay impotent film director in a bathrobe—none of that seemed unusual. And the morning hadn't been a complete waste. I'd invented a new drink: the Good Mother, liquor and anything. No, liquor and nothing. That was the key. Take your life straight.
“And then there's the Supermom.” I tried not to breathe right onto Ann, whom I'd just picked up. “Which is even more liquor and nothing. The more liquor taking the place of the extra nothing. Hey, maybe I should open a bar. What do you think? Huh?”
The phone was ringing. I heard it all the way up the steps. I didn't hurry. Using my newly acquired psychic powers, I could tell it had been ringing for hours. And would go on ringing. It had settled into a nice rhythm.
“Where have you been?” a voice accused.
“Hello?”
“Have you seen them? I hear they're all over.”
“Marjorie?”
“The bastard. Why didn't you call?”
“You mean the flyers? I don't have your number. Anyway, they're mostly gone now. Do you realize you've been away for almost—?”
“He wants joint custody. I am not having my children raised by some perky little Canadian.”
“She's Canadian? I didn't know that. Are you home now? Can I come over?”
“You have to do something for me.”
What about, Hi, how are you? I was silently asking. What about, Tell me your troubles, Eve?
“You have to go to my house. You still have the keys?”
“Of course I have the keys. I've been feeding your cat, remember? There's also one plant I'm worried about. It's got these white spots on the leaves. I can't tell if they're supposed to be there, or if—”
“I need you to get my financials.”
“Your what?”
“There are several files. I'll tell you where to find them. I can't let them fall into the wrong hands.”
“The wrong hands? Marjorie, what are you talking about? Where are you?”
She wasn't at the phone anymore. She was whispering to someone off to the side.
“Marjorie?”
“Listen, Eve.”
“You know, things have been pretty crazy here since you left.” I still had Ann in my arms. I hadn't even taken off my coat. I was plopped down on the futon letting her sandwich me against its lumpy filling. “For one thing, Harvey's mother—”
“Can you do this for me right now?”
“Go to your house, you mean? Couldn't I do it later? I'm going to make brisket, which is really pot roast. Did you know that? The guy at the meat store, the butcher, he told me I had to stop buying filet mignon. He said—”
“I'm coming in on the four-forty-six train at Flatbush Avenue. Are you writing this down?”
“Sure,” I lied.
Writing it down where? What did she think I was, a secretary? I was pinned to the furniture. The nearest pad was in the distant past. And a pencil! I hadn't seen a pencil since—
“I want you to meet me at Flatbush Avenue with the financials. Can you do that?”
“I guess.”
“But you have to make sure you're not followed.”
I burst out laughing.
“It's not funny,” she said. “I'm pretty sure he's hired an investigator. He could easily have people watching the house. I would, if I were him.”
“Where have you been this whole time?”
“I can't tell you.”
“Are you with Ian and Alex?”
“I can't tell you that, either.”
She started describing where the files were. I preten
ded to write things down. I even said, “Uh-huh,” and “Wait a minute,” as if I was trying to keep up with her.
“Now tell me where you're going to be,” she ordered, a boss, having me read back dictation.
“Flatbush Avenue. A train getting in at three-fifty-four.”
“Four-forty-six!”
“Right. That's what I meant. Four-forty-six. But I don't get it. If you're coming home, why can't you get these things yourself?”
“I'm not coming home,” she snorted. “I can't ever go home again. That's the point. I'm coming in to get the papers, and then I'm leaving again. This is just a handoff”
For the first time, it occurred to me that maybe she wasn't kidding. She hadn't made a single joke since I'd picked up the phone. All our conversations in the past had been jokes, basically, from beginning to end. It was our way of dealing with things. So even though she was acting serious this time, I found it hard to change gears.
“I have to go. Now do you know what to do?”
“Sure.” I looked at the imaginary pad, with its already forgotten information fading into invisible pages. “Wait, where exactly do I find the—?”
“See you,” she said.
• • •
The apartment was waiting for me. Plants, made dry by steam heat, gratefully soaked up the water I gave them with a loud quenching sound. The refrigerator sprang to life as I came into the kitchen. I ran my finger along a sill. I should have dusted. With a place like mine, so fundamentally dirty, so deep-down chaotic, it didn't matter if you dusted or not. It only made things worse. One patch of clean showed up the filthiness of the rest. But at Marjorie's, even after two months, the dust had formed evenly, different from what it lay on, waiting to be peeled back. You got the sense you could lift it off in one piece.
“Files,” I reminded myself.
I let Ann crawl. She'd been getting good at it, lately. She discovered whole new areas, a cluttered forest under the table and among the chairs, a secret corridor behind the toilet and before the wall. She introduced me to strange directions, brutal straight lines that ran right through supposedly fixed objects.
The desk was in the bedroom. I took tax forms, bank statements, stock market stuff. It was all perfectly organized and labeled. Marjorie would need the cat, too, if she was leaving for good. I had seen a traveling case, one of those cages with a handle, in the closet. I got it and sat on the bed.
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