by Peter Gadol
I ended up out at the beach. From the bluff, I watched a photographer shoot a woman in a white dress, her dress and the filter an assistant held like the twin sails of a masted boat, full and bright. I could see the many silver rings on the photographer’s fingers as he twisted the lens back and forth. I could see the model’s eyes (or at least I convinced myself I could), bluer than the darkening ocean. I knew what the photographer was thinking: Almost, almost—this way, keep going, almost. I knew what the model was thinking: I can give him a little more, I can seduce him, I can see through him, I have him now.
One day I broke the second rule. I was on my way to work. A tall kid, college aged, was walking along a busy road. He was wearing a full backpack, and he had a milky cat (on a leash) perched atop his shoulders and the pack. The kid hopped across one side of the road to the center island where people often asked for money, which was what he began doing. He looked so tired to me when I drove past without stopping (I had cars behind me and the light had changed), but not without hope. With my rearview mirror, I watched him reach over his shoulder to pet the cat. I wanted to know how he’d ended up here. He was estranged from his family. He’d lost his job. He’d been kicked out of a shelter because they wouldn’t let him keep the cat. He was mentally unstable. He’d simply had some bad luck. But I didn’t want to fall back on the same old, same old speculation to make up my own story about him, not this kid. I wanted to know who he really was.
I circled back around to make another pass, except this time I pulled to the side of the road, waited out the traffic, and jogged across to the island.
“Hi,” I said.
He seemed surprised someone would join him. Was I going to encroach his turf? Would I ask for money, too?
I held out a twenty-dollar bill and said, “For you.”
He took the money with little eye contact and said, “Thank you so much. Thank you, god bless.”
I stood there, stupid with too many thoughts. Do you have a place to go tonight? It will be cold. Can you use that money to get something to eat? Do you need me to care for your cat for you while you find work? Useless sentiments probably.
“Would you like to pet her?” the kid asked.
He stooped a bit so I could reach the perfectly balanced cat.
“Her name is Beautiful,” he said.
“She is,” I said and stroked her head and back. So soft.
“Don’t cry,” he said.
Was I crying?
“Watch yourself crossing that traffic,” he said when I turned away.
“I will,” I said. “You watch yourself, too.”
“Beautiful will take care of me,” he said.
I broke the third rule and drove back to the same spot the next day but didn’t see the tall kid and his cat. No luck the day after that. I never saw him again—I suppose he was following the rules on my behalf. Maybe this wasn’t a game I should play at all; I didn’t have the temperament. One was supposed to connect but not get involved. But why not get involved? If the link to a stranger was entirely internal, only one-way, how could it be meaningful? Was it really any connection at all?
THE NEXT DAY WHEN I WENT TO THE MUSEUM AGAIN ON MY lunch break, I resisted tailing two patrons wearing identical sweaters into the sculpture garden. In the grocery store later, I thought about following a teenager who appeared to be filling her cart with an inordinate quantity of ramen and rice cakes, but I didn’t. I didn’t want to play this game anymore. No good would come of it.
One cloudy Thursday afternoon I drove up the coast for a meeting I wasn’t at all enthusiastic about: a potential client wanted to renovate the back of a beach house to expand the kitchen, family room, and deck. An unsteady economy had forced our firm to take on domestic projects and rely less on municipal competitions, and on top of this, I hadn’t been productive at all since Ezra left. My partners knew what was going on, they were kind (and even suggested I take a leave), but I didn’t want to disappoint them. So I followed up on a referral and did my best to secure the job. When I left the meeting and drove back out onto the coast road, I should have headed left toward the city proper and my studio, but a quartet of motorcycles tore past, and I turned right, northward after them.
There was something mesmerizing about the way the bikers answered the arc of the shoreline, dipping in sync when the road banked right or left. I could see one beard tucked into a helmet chin strap, and some long tresses emerging like streamers from the back of another helmet, but I couldn’t really get out in front of them to guess anything about them. That was fine. I was happy enough to find out where they were going, which five miles later turned out to be a fish-and-chips stand surrounded by a parking lot full of other motorcycles and vans and recreational vehicles.
I had done a good job of following the bikers this far but lost them when I tried to find parking. Instead I watched two men get into a black sports car, and for a moment I thought it might be the same couple I’d watched at the museum. There was a glint of sunlight off the older man’s steel glasses, a rip of laughter from the younger man—was it them? If so, why were they at this greasy fish-and-chips joint, and why when they exited the parking lot did they head north?
The road took a sharp turn around some rocks, and I lost them briefly. Then we were on a straightaway, and I let another car slip between us to give me a screen. It occurred to me that finally I was more or less following strangers the way Craig ultimately had, which was to say I’d originally been after the four bikers but switched subjects—a carom follow. We drove ten miles before hitting a stretch of car dealerships and outlet stores. Maybe another five miles after that through the flat back streets of a port city. I lost the sports car, but then I caught it again where the port city ended and the highway opened up once more. The car was a polished scarab scurrying away from me, but I wasn’t going to let it get away.
It began misting. I knew that pretty soon we’d reach another coastal city, a college town, but first there was a series of roads that spun off into inland valleys, and the sports car tore down one of them. The rain dissipated, but this road descended into a bowl of fog. I caught the car swinging off onto another road—by now they surely must have noticed me following them. I stayed with them.
Was Ezra even playing the stranger game? I’d made a leap. It seemed like something that would capture his imagination, and he’d have heard about the fad at the bookstore; he’d have needed to go back to the original article, but it was possible also something terrible had happened. Detective Martinez had checked the morgues and found nothing. She’d scoured the databases, nothing, no unidentified white males matching his description. I was too much the optimist to believe he was injured or worse. If I couldn’t picture him harmed, then he couldn’t be harmed.
Night had fallen, and we’d driven far from the coastal highway, with no houses around. It was raining now—and I lost the sports car, although it had to be out there. I reached a turnoff, a narrower gravel road. They must have taken it. The road tapered even more and curved around. I came to an abrupt stop. I was all alone out here.
With some difficulty, I managed to turn around, but when I made it back to the valley road, I wasn’t clear which way to go because all of the switchbacks had left me disoriented. I didn’t want to guess, I only wanted to go home, and I pulled over to find my phone, technology my only guide now (sorry, A. Craig). The rain drummed against my windshield. My phone wasn’t in my bag, nor was it in a cup holder or in the glove compartment. I groped around under the seat. It wasn’t anywhere to be found—oh, no. I remembered taking it out during my meeting to retrieve some contact information, and I’d left it on the table. I could picture it sitting next to the drawings I’d unfurled during my presentation.
I was furious at myself. I leaned on the horn. I needed to find the coast road. The downpour made the road slick. Oh, Ezra. I pounded the steering wheel twice with both fists, two syllables, Ezra
. The last time I’d seen him, he’d made me his mushroom risotto, we drank a bottle of wine, we looked at his new monograph, the pencil and pigment prints. And that was that, Detective Martinez said. Nothing else happened? She knew I wasn’t giving her the complete story.
Ezra closed the art book and set it on the end table next to the couch, and when he turned back toward me, I kissed him. He squinted at me, not so much confused, but trying to read me. I shook my head and laughed. He laughed, too. What were we doing? He parted my hair with his fingers. He leaned in, hesitated. His breath against my neck. He pulled me around, up, over him so I was straddling him. His hands slid up my sweater. I tugged his shirt up and over his head. The warmth of his chest against mine brought such relief. I was unbuttoning his trousers. Relief, rescue. I stood up, I was naked; he stood up, he was naked. He sat back on the couch; I went back to where I’d been. I would like to say what followed was hurried, an accident, entirely about needs fulfillment and nothing more, but that wasn’t the case. We were slow about it, without any awkwardness, without utterance, deliberate, tender. We were smiling. I remember thinking he’d been with other people, but he and I hadn’t used condoms since we were young, so we didn’t now. We shifted, we were prone, he was inside me. For the longest moment, he didn’t move, I didn’t move. In that stillness we were as close as two people can be. But it couldn’t last: soon there was motion again, breathing, noise, and we were flying apart, very far apart. As I got dressed, I filled the space with chatter about my week ahead, oh, my busy life. Ezra was quiet, politely solicitous. Then I left. And that, Detective, was that.
This had all happened once or twice before, early on after we’d split up, but not in a long while. The next day we didn’t talk about what happened, then more days passed. I should have called him, but then again he could have called me. Then the weeks went by without contact, and he disappeared.
But how could he do that, simply vanish? How could he do that to me?
I turned onto the coast road without realizing it at first. I was burning up, for the first time in three months allowing myself to be angry: Ezra had left me one more time. I was done with this stranger game, and I was done with him. He’d moved on, and as the detective had prompted me, it was time at last I did, too.
On the long drive home I thought about how I would make it through the holiday season by accepting every invitation that came my way. In the winter I might start studying a new language and travel to the country where it was spoken. I might come home with a new cuisine. How about a new boyfriend? There was so much I’d held myself back from, but no longer, and imagine if I’d only kept this promise to myself to go abroad, imagine if I had left town. Then I myself would not have had to disappear.
2
GRAY SKIES EVERY MORNING THAT DECEMBER MADE IT DIFFICULT for me to get out of bed, but I pushed myself to go to yoga class before heading to my studio, where I was the last to leave at night. I diligently put together plans for the beach house renovation (existing ersatz colonial in front, serviceable glass-and-steel modern facing the ocean), and the partner with whom I worked most closely—this was Rick, the one with whom I’d carried on the flirtation years before—was vocally grateful about my doing my part to bring in revenue, and he also noted that we’d see other referrals now for similar work, good for the coffers, bad for the spirit, but so be it. Evenings and weekends I made soup and stews while listening to opera or jazz and tried not to drink too much wine. I reread classics in bed and usually fell asleep with the lamp on. I decided to repaint my house and purchased sample colors in small quantities, limiting myself to a soothing range from sage to mocha. I also took some clippers to the back slope and hacked at the overgrown brush, only a start but already bright floral sprays were emerging from the thicket. I told myself I could do this; I could furnish my life so that I might once again be comfortable in it. Yet nights remained difficult. At night my being split into two selves, my new industrious self and my old weary self who knew better, the latter regarding the former with skepticism: How long will you be able to keep up this routine? When I felt this old self was starting to get snide and judgmental about the new self, I went out to dinner. I was still alone, except with people around me.
This was how the first Friday of the New Year I ended up sitting at the bar at a neighborhood bistro, working my way through a plate of pasta à la norma and a glass of Chianti, chatting up the bartender about nothing in particular. Even though I was staring right at the mirror behind the bar and could see the waiters in long aprons sweeping about the candlelit room, I didn’t notice a man take the open stool next to me, not until the bartender asked him what he wanted. Unlike me, the man was tall enough to sit on the stool with his shoes on the floor. A dense cosmos of freckles covered his arms, revealed by rolled-back sleeves. When he smiled hello, I noted the way his hair was impeccably parted, like a straight, flat road cut through a field of wheat.
“You play tennis,” he said. Before I could say yes, but not recently or well, he added, “I mean professionally.”
“Oh, heavens no,” I said.
“I thought—”
“I wonder who you have me confused with. And aren’t most pros tall?”
“Not always. You look familiar to me. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry, I’m flattered. A professional tennis player? That’s a first.”
He looked familiar to me, too, but I couldn’t place him. He was balancing his jacket over his knee. I offered to hang it up on the hook next to me under the bar.
“But you, you must play tennis,” I said. “You’re tall.”
“I do, but I can’t serve to save my life. Or your life. No one’s life will ever be saved by my serving.”
I had no reason to like him right away, but I did. The bartender uncorked a bottle of the same Chianti I was drinking, and the man, who introduced himself as Carey, tasted and approved it.
“You’re going to drink that whole bottle?” I asked.
“I certainly hope not,” Carey said. “I drove. You’ll help, right?”
“Smooth move,” I said.
“So smooth. I’ve got all the smooth moves.”
Of course I needed to be wary of handsome men buying me drinks, but when was the last time that happened?
“I should say I suspected you weren’t a pro,” he said, “but I was having dinner over in the corner with my friend—Oh, she’s gone, she left.”
“Wait, you were on a date?” I asked. I hadn’t noticed him when I’d come in.
“No, no. She’s just a friend. Wow, that would be icky. I get rid of one date and then come over here to flirt with you—”
“Ah,” I said. “You showed your hand.”
He scrunched up his face: caught.
“You were about to withdraw the compliment that I looked like an athlete,” I said.
“This isn’t going well,” Carey said.
“I’m flattered you came over to flirt with me, and I wouldn’t mind another glass of wine, thank you.”
“What I was going to say was that it was my friend who was wondering about you, and she said you looked like a professional tennis player.”
So they were watching me, coming up with a story about me, which was what anyone would do when observing a woman dining alone; or were they playing the stranger game? Well, no, because if they were, he wouldn’t be telling me about it.
“And what did you say to that?” I asked.
“I said...” He paused.
“Make it good.”
“Artist,” he said. “More specifically, a painter. Are you a painter?”
I had been sitting on the bar stool with my best posture, but I slumped briefly.
“Not for a long time,” I said.
I wasn’t in the mood to be coy or make him guess, so I told him about my work. He turned out to be a developer. The corporation he worked for
had made its name replacing citrus groves with gated communities. What I called a house, he referred to as inventory. In a way, his whole career was pitched the opposite from mine. His chief ambition, he revealed, was to make enough money to buy a lake house somewhere remote and permanently decamp there with a lover.
I said, “I hate to disappoint you, but I’m a city person through and through.”
“You’ll come around,” he said.
“Oh, you think?”
“Give me time,” he said.
“Like how much time?”
Carey shrugged. “A half hour?”
I should have stopped drinking, but I kept going because drinking at the bar seemed to be the premise by which I could keep talking to him. The conversation wound back to my projects, about which he asked good questions and showed interest, which made it difficult for me to write him off as a political troglodyte. He did proceed to tell me about everything that was wrong with our city, and therefore why he wanted to abandon it, and I did want to say bye, nice knowing you. Although after a half hour of wine (no, more like an hour), the lake house scheme was beginning to appeal to me.
Every now and then the bartender asked me, “Still doing okay?”
I wondered what we looked like that brought out the chaperone in him. I glanced outside and noticed that it had started to rain finally. It was coming down hard.
“We need that,” I said.
“We do,” Carey said. “But too much all at once can be bad, too.”
“Oh, dear,” I said. “We’re talking about the weather. It’s come to that.”
I noticed that he had a need to align the objects in front of him: the dessert card parallel with the edge of the bar; the dessert forks the bartender laid out so we could share a slice of chocolate cake parallel with each other; the empty wine bottle in longitude with his empty glass. He might be controlling, intense; his charm made me suspicious. But I was smitten. Also drunk. I almost reached over to his arm to play connect-the-dots with his freckles.