by Wan, Helen
I gasped. And I was not alone. There was a collective sucking in of breath from the tables near us.
Murph glanced over, caught my eye, and shot me a look. Holy shit.
I twisted around just in time to see Tyler Robinson walk out of the tent. I pushed back my chair, murmured, “Excuse me,” to no one in particular, and hurried after him.
“Tyler?” I ran out into the deepening dusk, peering across the shadowy, gently sloping lawn. “Tyler?” The evening had turned cool, and I rubbed my bare arms, shivering, not sure which way to go. He was nowhere to be seen.
“Tyler! Where are you?”
“Hey,” he said, much closer than I’d expected.
I whirled around. He was a few yards away from me, leaning against the thick gnarled trunk of an old oak tree.
I walked over to him.
“Hey.” I stood beside him, against the oak, which smelled mossy and damp. We were silent for several long moments.
I slid down along the base of the tree and settled onto one of its ancient, twisted roots, surprised at how solid and steady it felt beneath my weight. I tilted my face up, staring up through the wizened old branches at the stars, which stood out in sharp relief against the clear night sky. You never saw stars like this in the city, and I thought about how incongruous all this beauty was with everything that was going on underneath the tent.
I felt like I should say something to let Tyler know he wasn’t the only one in the world who ever felt like this. As long as I lived, I would not learn to leave a quiet moment alone.
“Tyler, I don’t know what those guys were thinking—” I began.
“Stop.” He held a hand up like a traffic cop. “Don’t. You don’t have to. Let’s not talk about it.”
“Okay,” I practically whispered.
“Damn.” Tyler pounded his fist against the tree. I jumped. “Nothing surprises me around here anymore. You know that?” He broke away and started striding up the hill toward the clubhouse.
I followed him. “Wait, where are you going? The first buses back to the city don’t leave for at least another hour.”
“You stay if you want. I’m calling a fucking cab.”
I sped up after him, struggling to keep up as the heels of my strappy sandals sank into the soft, moist sod. “But Tyler, what if someone asks where you went?”
He stopped. He laughed once and spun around. I realized I’d just asked an incredibly stupid question.
“Ingrid,” he said, and both his hands were clenched in fists, “I’m done. I’ve already spent an entire day faking conversation with people I can’t stand, and I’ll be damned if I let myself just sit here and smile through another second of their fucking dinner entertainment.”
“Listen, Tyler, what if we just—”
“No. I’m not doing this anymore.” He shook his head. “I’ve stayed too long as it is.” And he wasn’t just talking about the outing.
“Tyler, wait.” I reached out and touched his arm.
“No.” He shook me off. Then he looked pointedly at me. “You stay, then.”
His words stung me.
He broke into a fast run, up the hill. In another moment, he rounded the corner of the clubhouse and disappeared entirely.
I felt completely and utterly alone, more alone than I had ever felt in the nearly ten years since I’d been at Parsons Valentine. Because Tyler had just planted a nagging, bitter little seed of doubt. About what we were both still doing here.
I shivered, noticing again the chill in the evening air. I wished I’d brought a wrap. Slowly, carefully, trying not to slip on the grass moist with evening dew, I made my way back across the lawn to the tent and slipped back inside.
As I slid back into my seat, Gavin Dunlop leaned over and whispered, “Everything okay?”
I nodded.
Everything was not okay. I felt sick. Incredibly, the crazy skit was still going on. Onstage, Matt McCallum was still “rapping.” Hunter and Kyle were rhythmically bending their knees and arcing their arms around wildly.
Been spending most our lives, working in a partner’s paradise
We’ll keep spending most our lives, working in a partner’s paradise
I couldn’t stand to look at them. I tried staring down at the table instead, but the streaks of raspberry ganache left on my dessert plate suddenly looked garish and obscene—pornographic, even—and made me feel more nauseous. Everything seemed to be happening in slow motion. Across from me, Harold Rubinstein shifted uneasily in his seat. Just outside the tent, Pamela Karnow and Dave Cavender appeared to be arguing, she gesticulating at the three men on the stage, Dave’s shoulders up in a permanent shrug, as if to say, I know, but what exactly do you want me to do?
The space around me was spinning, and a stifling hush fell over the crowd; I had the weird sensation that we were all underwater. It felt almost like I was drowning. And every other sound underneath that tent was muffled to my ears except for those three clear voices—bright, drunk, gleeful, a little off-key—coming from the stage.
The song went on for another two verses. No one made a move to stop the performance.
When they had finished, and the throbbing bass beat finally faded out, I could still feel a hammering in my throat and in my chest and, seemingly, in the ground beneath our table. An edgy silence fell over the tent, followed by some uneven applause. About half the audience was clapping. How was that even happening? A few partners actually seemed amused by the skit. Most people looked baffled and uncomfortable. Some were absolutely livid and were whispering and gesturing toward the stage.
I looked back around toward Tyler’s empty seat. I don’t blame you, I thought.
“Jesus H. Christ, doesn’t anyone ever vet these things before the outing?” I heard Harold Rubinstein grumble in a low voice, more to Gavin Dunlop than to anyone else at the table. “We’re gonna hear about that again, believe me.”
Gavin shrugged. “Come on, it’s called satire! No harm, no foul. Just a bunch of drunk guys having some fun. Tasteless, maybe, but no one’ll even remember this by Monday.”
Harold gave Gavin a disbelieving look. “I’m not so sure about that, Gavin.”
Gavin ignored this.
“Well,” he said brightly to the rest of us. It seemed like he was looking directly at me. “That was certainly—interesting, huh?”
“Interesting’s not quite the word,” said Murph.
I could not will myself to say anything. I didn’t trust myself to sound as breezy and blasé as I felt I needed to at that moment. I looked away and noticed a uniformed waiter calmly clearing dessert plates from a nearby table. He was the only African American man underneath the whole tent, and, aside from me, the only person of color in sight. He was older than my father.
I picked up my wineglass, which had just been refilled, and downed the whole thing in a couple of swallows.
Murph leaned over and whispered, “Hey, whoa. Take it easy. What’s wrong with you?”
What was wrong with me? My head was swimming, my ears were pounding, and I just wanted the night to be over so I could get away from this crowd, as quickly as possible.
A few tables away, Marty Adler gestured toward Harold Rubinstein. “Excuse me,” Harold said, pushing his chair away from the table. He and Adler walked out of the tent and conferred quietly in the darkness. Rubinstein was nodding his head and rubbing his temples while Adler appeared to be telling him something very serious.
Pam Karnow was back up onstage. She looked flustered and angry, but she grabbed the mike and said, “Okay, folks, we’re gonna keep things rolling here. Next up, we have…”
But the air had been sucked out of the place, the mood had irrevocably changed, and a few more senior partners from the Management Committee were walking over to join the huddle of partners talking quietly just outside the light of the tent.
“I don’t feel so good,” I suddenly leaned over and whispered to Murph. “It feels like the room’s kind of, um, spinning.”
Murph looked at me and quickly handed me his glass. “Here, have some water.” I took great big thirsty gulps. The water felt good and cool going down.
“Jesus, how many margaritas did you have by the pool today?” Murph said, in a low voice only I was close enough to hear.
“I don’t know.” I held up three fingers. “Four? Five? I feel like I’m going to be sick.”
“We need to get you home,” Murph said. He glanced at his watch. “Listen, the first buses back should be boarding pretty soon. I’ll walk you out of here. Do you think you can stand?”
I nodded, but my head felt light.
Murph and I quickly bade good night to the rest of the table. He discreetly kept a firm steadying hand on the small of my back as we made our way back up the terraced path to the clubhouse.
As soon as we got inside the cool, darkened hallway of the old stone building, our footsteps echoing on the polished floors, I started to feel better. It felt so good to be away from the din of the tent and that incredibly stupid song, and Hunter, Kyle, and Matt seemed very far away from here.
Also, it felt good to be alone with Murph.
As we walked down the corridor, Murph glanced out a window toward the long, winding driveway. “See? Looks like two of the coaches are already boarding. Come on, let’s go. You’ll feel better after you’ve gotten some sleep on the ride home.”
But I wasn’t ready to leave the cool stillness of the clubhouse, not yet.
“Can’t we just sit somewhere for a minute?” I said. “Please. Just for a minute.” I reached down and took hold of Murph’s hand.
Murph looked at my hand, then back up at me. “You okay, Yung? Do you still feel sick?”
“I’ll feel better if I just sit here for a minute.” I led him a few tentative steps out of the corridor and into an empty parlor room.
He didn’t argue.
I peered around in the semidarkness, spotted a plush, inviting divan in the corner, and steered us both toward it.
We sat.
Then—because it felt natural, and before I realized I was going to do it—I leaned my head against Murph’s shoulder, nestled myself against him, and closed my eyes. He smelled nice—he had that scrubbed young bachelor smell of shaving cream and deodorant soap and laundry dryer sheets—and I took in a long, deep breath, trying to fill my lungs with it.
The room had stopped spinning, and I felt very close to sleep.
“This is nice,” I heard myself murmur.
Murph said nothing. But I could hear his calm, measured breathing, could feel the reassuring rise and fall of his chest beside me. When I raised my head slightly to look at him, he had tilted his head back along the top of the couch, and his eyes were closed. He had extremely long, sandy eyelashes. I had never noticed that before.
“Murph,” I said sleepily.
Pause.
“Huh.”
“Why were you so nice to that Caleb kid tonight?”
Murph didn’t answer, and for a moment I thought it was because he didn’t know what I was talking about, or maybe he’d fallen asleep. But then he said in a low voice, “Because I would hope that someone would do something like that for me.”
I thought about that for a moment. Then I looked up and said, “I don’t understand. Why would anyone need to do something like that for you?”
His eyes fluttered open. He looked at me. “What are you talking about?”
“It’s just that—well, you’re Murph.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You know. You just fit in so perfectly.”
Murph laughed. “You think you know everything, don’t you?” he said softly. His eyes were closed again.
“No.” I shook my head and sat up. It suddenly seemed extremely important that I set the record straight. “That’s just it, Murph. I don’t think I know everything. When I first got here I didn’t think I knew anything! I just mean that you know how to play the game so well, that’s all. It doesn’t come naturally to me the way it does for you.”
I couldn’t believe I was actually saying all of these things to Murph. I’d never said anything like this to anyone before except Tyler. And I knew Tyler would not approve of my telling all this to someone like Murph. One of them.
“And what makes you think it comes naturally to me?” Murph asked.
“Are you kidding? It’s obvious. It’s all about what you’re used to.”
“What I’m used to?”
“Yeah. I just mean that when you come from a place of privilege, this place is a lot easier to navigate.”
Now he turned his head and looked at me sideways. “A place of privilege?” he asked. I could hear his quotes around the phrase. “And what would I know about coming from a place of privilege?”
Murph was confusing me. I knew that rich white people didn’t like to talk about their money, but as long as I was being this honest with him, I felt he should be so with me. It seemed only fair.
“Huh?” he nudged. His voice was gentle. I could tell he wasn’t mad, just curious.
“Well, your family’s house on the Cape, for one,” I blurted. It was the first thing I could think of.
He laughed again.
“What?” I said.
“You’ve got a vivid imagination, Yung. It’s not my family’s summer house—it’s my college roommate’s. I’ve just been invited up to Chatham every summer since sophomore year. They let me tag along.”
“So that’s when you learned to sail?”
“Well, there wasn’t exactly a sailing club at West Tilden Regional High School,” Murph said.
“You went to a public high school?”
Murph leaned in close, like he was letting me in on something. “I just finished paying off all my student loans last year, Yung. I had tons to pay off, college and law school.”
I felt like an idiot. All these years I had somehow managed to make up a whole life, an elite prepster history for Jeff Murphy that simply didn’t exist. As much as it bothered me when people assumed things about me, well, seems I was just as guilty.
“Wow,” I said finally. “I’m sorry I—”
“Look,” Murph cut in. “We all make assumptions about each other. It’s what people do.”
“I guess.” I still felt sheepish.
Murph leaned his head back and closed his eyes again. “And for the record, I think about that stuff sometimes, too.”
I think I said, “Then you and I have more in common than I thought.” But maybe I just thought this.
* * *
We sat there, peacefully, in the stillness of the darkened clubhouse, with my head resting on Murph’s shoulder, for what seemed like a long time. At some point I dozed off. I don’t know how long we sat there in the darkness—maybe ten minutes, maybe an hour—before a large, clamorous group of summer associates made their way down the corridor toward the buses, talking loudly.
“I couldn’t fucking believe those guys!” shrieked one.
“Yeah, this’ll be up on YouTube in about two seconds,” giggled another.
“Good luck explaining this at on-campus recruiting this fall,” someone else said, laughing.
Murph gently jostled my shoulder. “Okay, Yung, we should go.” He stood up, grabbed both my wrists, and pulled me to my feet. He had to work at this, because I was resisting. I never wanted to leave the comfort and safety of that room, and I wanted Murph to stay there, too.
When we were both on our feet, he gave me a brief, awkward little hug. “Come on, we still need to get our stuff from the locker rooms. The sooner we get back to the city, the sooner we can get you home.”
I dozed nearly the entire bus ride back to Manhattan—my head against the window, Murph feeling solid and warm beside me, eyes closed. Having him there made me feel so protected, so safe. Even more than that, I was beginning to feel understood.
Murph was right. I did feel better by the time we stepped off the bus in front of the Parsons Valentine building,
although I was still a little woozy and the silhouette of midtown looked a hazy blur. I stood obediently on the sidewalk while Murph flagged down a cab to take me the ten blocks uptown to my apartment. He waited until I’d folded myself into the backseat before leaning into the cab and telling the driver, “Make sure you see her get safely into the building, right?” and handing him a twenty.
Get in, I wanted to say to Murph. Don’t leave me yet. It had felt so nice to be so close to him, in the safety of the clubhouse and on the bus, and to be talking, really talking, but now it felt like some precious window was abruptly closing, and I wasn’t going to get a chance to say what I really wanted. Get in, Murph. Come home with me.
“Get in,” I actually mumbled, but if Murph heard this, he chose to ignore it.
He gently shut the door of the cab, leaned his head in the window, and said, “You’ll be all right, Yung. Sleep it off. I’ll see you Monday.”
As my taxi pulled away from the curb, I watched Murph’s figure get smaller and smaller in the rearview mirror.
The driver let me out in the horseshoe drive of my building. True to his promise, he waited until I reached the lobby doors before speeding off. Safely ensconced inside the soothing, tomblike privacy of the elevator, I closed my eyes and slumped against the brass handrail as it hurtled the nineteen floors up.
Once inside my apartment, I kicked off my shoes, tossed my bag toward the couch, and noticed the message light blinking on the phone on my hall table.
“Ingrid-ah,” my mother’s voice came through in Mandarin. “It’s Friday, after ten o’clock, you’re still not home? I heard it’s a little cool in New York today—make sure you bring a sweater when you go out. Daddy and I worry about you, up there all by yourself, always working so hard. Call home when you can. Love, Mom.”
Hearing her voice made me inexplicably sad. I didn’t want my parents to worry about me all the time. Wasn’t I doing just fine as it was? Wasn’t I getting everything they came here for in the first place?
I went into my bedroom and stepped out of my white cocktail dress, leaving it in a little pool on the floor. As I climbed into bed, exhausted, tipsy, a little sad, wrapping myself tightly in my duvet, my final thought before my head hit the pillow was that I should have kissed Jeff Murphy as we sat there alone in the darkness of that clubhouse, and now the moment was irretrievable.