by Alon Preiss
Now, Alice thought, she could put it in a box, hop into bed, go to sleep.
First, though, she left the apartment and stopped in that bar on 8th Avenue, had a few drinks in the dark to help her sleep. Went back home, and she was still wide awake, so she tried to relax, sitting on her terrace in her sunglasses, reading the Times. She clicked on the portable CD player, and to her shock, Schubert blared from the speakers. Ideas swept through her head, and she soon bounded back up to her study.
She pounded through some gratuitously violent scenes in her novel, tossed in an involved scenario in which Jake chased Andrea through a forest at night, running over stones and roots and dirt and broken glass in her bare feet, Jake calling after her, shouting angry threats interspersed with perversely nostalgic sentiments also screamed at the top of his lungs. Alice nodded off for a second, then jerked herself awake, went back to the kitchen and poured herself another cup of coffee. She padded downstairs to the living room, turned on the giant TV that filled up one wall, jumped on the treadmill and ran through twenty minutes. Sweating, she hopped off the machine, stretched on the floor, hopped into the shower, drinking another cup of coffee as the water pounded down on her.
At midnight, her e-mail blinked. It was from Mark.
Sylvia wants to get married — I am considering it. I am having thoughts about you. I thought that we should talk before I make any plans with Sylvia. Can we talk? I’m confused, and I don’t understand why I’m having these thoughts. Can we talk?
Alice was surprised, and she was annoyed. This was too much. A terrible time for her to get this e-mail. She typed back: “No,” and sent the message on its way. She realized that she would never hear from Mark again. This made her a little sad, as a matter of fact, when she thought about it.
By 1 a.m., she’d written more scenes of ridiculously overwrought melodrama, printed out the whole book on her laser printer, stared at assorted paragraphs, smiling and nodding. She wrapped the book in brown paper, scribbled “Mr. Toby Duggins” on the front, tossed it into her backpack, went downstairs and strode downtown to her agent’s office building, left the package with the night watchman, who was fat and drunk and old, and, even though he laughed very hard and often, very very sad.
“You have no shoes on,” he said, and she realized that he was right.
“I forgot my shoes,” she said, as though that explained everything, and the night watchman laughed and laughed, and Alice laughed with him, and laughing with him made her feel worse.
Standing barefoot in the middle of Ninth Avenue, cars streaming by her like a river, Alice was suddenly afraid. She thought she wished that Blake were here to tie her down during the night, like Lon Chaney (or Lon Chaney Jr., or somebody like that) as the Wolfman, or Nastassja Kinski in Cat People. She was afraid to go home, afraid to stand on the sidewalk. She was so deadly tired and so deadly awake, and nothing looked real; the colors of the world were washed out, like one of those movies from the 1970s that hasn’t been kept up, or a repeat of the Mary Tyler Moore Show that one might see in the middle of the night in which everything’s turned a dull blue. Alice just stood there in the middle of the night, in the middle of the sidewalk, in the middle of her life, people and cars and headlights and radios and barking dogs all mixing around in front of her like buckets of paint raining down on a dirty canvas. She saw Carrie coming towards her on the sidewalk. She held up a hand and waved. But when she blinked, her sister vanished in the crowd.
Alice thought of Maurow, and for a moment she missed him terribly; but then he just faded out of her mind.
A few minutes earlier, or an hour, Eden’s telephone had begun ringing. Eden ignored it, and she let the machine pick up, drifted back to sleep. Then the phone rang again. Eden tried to disconnect the cord, but she wound up ripping the telephone right out of the wall. That was that, until the doorbell began ringing. Eden pulled the covers over her head. Then someone was banging on the door. And Eden was wide awake.
She tossed aside the covers and pulled a robe around her, padded across the narrow apartment and banged back on the door to silence her noisy visitor. She peered through the wide-angle peephole, and she saw Alice in the hallway, hair slightly wet from the misty night, standing in her bare feet in a green raincoat. A gold chain encircled one white ankle; the jewelry glittered in the hallway light. Eden clicked the lock and opened the door, which crashed against the security chain.
“Is it tomorrow already?” she asked, the door open just an inch.
“Eden,” Alice said, through the narrow crack. “I’m so sorry I sent you away like that in the night. After you’d helped me so much.”
“It’s all right,” Eden said steadily. “I just acted on an impulse. A sudden impulse from out of nowhere.” She felt herself flushing, probably a deep crimson.
“No, don’t....” In a whisper, Alice added, “Eden, I love you so much. In so many ways.” Her whispered words were too loud, and they echoed in the hallway. Alice grimaced, hearing her voice bounce off the walls. Eden smiled, both embarrassed and amused.
Inside the apartment, Eden’s chairs were folded up, leaning against the wall on the other side of the convertible bed, which, when spread out, filled nearly the entire apartment. Coming out of the tiny kitchen, Eden brought Alice some hot, freshly microwaved tea, and they sat together on the floor in front of the apartment door. Alice took slow careful sips of the tea, which was one of those decaffeinated, spicy zinging baby-boomer teas.
“I should be angry,” Eden said. Then she added softly, “But I’m not angry. I’m happy.”
Alice nodded, taking another sip of tea. “I’m embarrassed,” she said, and she tried to break up her frown with a laugh.
“Don’t be. Just say whatever you want. And then, after you say it, if you want me to forget it, I’ll forget it. You can just say: Okay, Eden. Now forget what I said. And I’ll say: Alice, forget what I did. It will be like Orwell. Just erased from history. We’ll go running in the park tomorrow. Train for that 10K we’re going to win. Stare at all the boys in their shorts.”
Alice shrugged, and she tried to look away, but Eden moved forward and put her hand on Alice’s cheek.
“What are you thinking?” Eden asked.
Alice scrunched up her face, shut her eyes, and her skin burned red. “I’m thinking I want to hug you and kiss you and take off your clothes,” Alice said, speaking quickly, the words spilling over one onto another. Silence followed, and Alice opened her eyes.
Eden said nothing — no surprise, no shock, joy, anger. Her face didn’t move. But her mind was racing; Alice could see it. Eden was picturing what might happen ten minutes from now, and her mind was racing.
“I’m tired,” Alice said, “and I’m blabbering, but I’m saying what I’m thinking. I’m sorry — throw me out if you want.”
“Oh, cut it out,” Eden said gently.
“All alone in that big apartment,” Alice said. “I wanted someone else there. I was all alone, and scared, and getting all teary. Standing on a street corner, I tried to miss Blake, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t keep him in my mind — I couldn’t picture his face floating in front of me in the dark and look at him with love and affection and all those wifely things. I didn’t know what was wrong. So lonely. For that daughter of mine, who should be asleep right now down the hallway from my bedroom.”
Eden nodded.
“And I needed comforting, but there was no one there to comfort me. I thought that I wished that Blake would get back from his business trip right then, and come into the bedroom and run his fingers through my hair. I even pretended I missed Mark, that if he were here I would be fine. That didn’t last long. I knew that what I really wanted was to feel your fingers running through my hair. I’m glad Blake is away. I missed you terribly. It was wrong of me to send you away like that, not to chase after you that night, but....” Tears streamed down Alice’s face, but her voice didn’t tremble, and no sobs escaped her lips. She spoke at once sadly and hopefully. “But that’
s what you’re supposed to do when something like this happens, right? You explain that there’s been some misunderstanding. You cease all communication. You cut your friend loose.”
Eden was shaking her head. No. That’s not what you’re supposed to do.
Alice continued. “Except that you didn’t misunderstand what I said. I was the one who misunderstood what I was saying. I rewrote it all in my head.” She broke free from Eden’s gaze, looking down at her bare knees. “And lying in bed tonight, so scared in the dark, all I wanted was your arms around me, your fingers running through my hair.”
She listened to her words fill the muffled silence of the very tiny apartment, and she blushed and laughed. The words sounded stupid. A moment before, sitting in her head, those same words had been so beautiful.
“Stop laughing, Alice. Don’t be so embarrassed.”
“Dramatic, right? See, I’m so frazzled, I’m talking like a romance novel or something.”
“Romance is okay, in its place.” Eden moved next to Alice, put an arm over her shoulder, pulled her closer, and moved her fingers slowly through her damp hair, stroking, gently massaging her. Her face very close to Alice’s. “Is this what you want?” Eden whispered. “Like this?”
Alice nodded.
She reached up and placed one hand over Eden’s.
“Exactly like that,” she said.
Alice leaned her head on Eden’s shoulder, and they sat that way for an inestimable time that could have lasted five minutes, or forty-five, just like that, Alice rocking in Eden’s arms, her cheek against Eden’s shoulder, her warm breath tickling Eden’s neck. Alice’s eyes were shut, and she just felt Eden rocking her. Eden was so warm and soft, so comfortable; and when Eden whispered “there, there,” in her comically soothing English voice, Alice thought of her mother, her faraway, long-ago mother from the land of castles and dragons and Pooh Bear. She made a great effort not to think of her mother, to force her mother out of her head. She felt better, forgetting about her mother.
After a while, Eden said, “Now what?” and Alice smiled and said, very softly, “You could try to kiss me again, if you want.”
Her voice faded off.
Not moving, Eden whispered, “And then what?” and after a nervous moment Alice replied, “I don’t want to leave for a while.”
Eden said: “What about Blake?” and Alice said: “He’s not invited,” but it wasn’t funny because the question was serious, and when Eden didn’t laugh, Alice added, “Forget about Blake for one night and I’ll forget about Blake for one night.”
Someplace in the back of her head, a little instinct told Alice that all this was terrible. Making out with another girl was not terrible, specifically, but spending time, spending days and days thinking it over, wanting it so badly, demanding it, and then making out with another girl. Had she not rebuffed Eden on the terrace, she could have later told herself she had just been swept up in the moment. How would she comfort herself later, when she’d gotten a little sleep, when the sticky warmth of the morning might make the desperation of the night seem both distasteful and disastrous? Whom would she be after tonight?
They sat on the edge of the bed. Eden put her hand on Alice’s face, and kissed her softly. Alice felt Eden’s hand trembling, and to Eden, Alice’s lips felt cold, and her teeth were quietly clicking.
“Are you sick?” Eden asked.
Alice said she wasn’t sick; just nervous.
She wondered aloud whether she and Eden would stay friends even after this.
“We’ll still be friends,” Eden said. “That’s the way it works.”
She reached under the bed, pulled out a near-empty bottle of red wine, flipped the top and heard air rush in. She pulled out the stopper, took a drink, and offered the wine to Alice, who put the bottle to her lips and tipped it back, gulping and letting the wine warm her, until it was all gone. Eden stood, turned out the lights, struck a match and lit two candles set on wall sconces on the window side of the room.
“In the end,” Alice said, putting the bottle down on the floor, “we may just share a really big secret.”
Eden returned to the bed and sat back down, the room cast in yellow-orange flickering light.
“Shhh,” she said, putting a finger to her lips. “Who knows, right? Stop thinking.”
She began to unbutton Alice’s shirt.
“Are you ready?” she asked Alice, reaching the last button. “Am I taking advantage of you, or am I comforting you?”
“Don’t worry,” Alice said.
“You’re shaking,” Eden said. “Have you slept? I don’t want to be like a man alone with a drunken girl.”
“I am in my right mind,” Alice insisted, and she managed to feign a convincing certainty. She kissed Eden, reached down to undo the tie on Eden’s robe. “Just don’t stop touching me.”
She pushed off Eden’s robe, and Eden unbuttoned Alice’s last button; Alice let the raincoat fall to the floor behind her. Eden put her arms around the back of Alice’s neck and pulled her in closer, until their ears were touching, bodies pressed tightly together.
They rolled onto the bed, and Alice flipped on top. She kissed Eden’s lips, and she tasted, again, her friend’s red wine, and kissed her again, now only a little bit afraid, lost in Eden’s softness. Her lips touched the side of Eden’s neck, then the front crest of her neck, just above her chest. Alice let her tongue glide over Eden’s left breast, then her right. Crawling backward, she placed both hands on Eden’s slim hips and kissed her navel, then moved down further. Eden tugged on Alice’s hair, stopping her descent.
Eden sat up, and she leaned back on her elbows, smiling. “If we rush around like men, what’s the point?” She curled her pointer finger. “Come back up here.”
A motorcycle zoomed by, too noisily, on the street below. A few seconds later it was gone, and the night was quiet again. Alice’s kisses on Eden’s body glowed in the candle-light, then evaporated into the air.
Many, many hours later, the sun rose and bathed the room in the glow of red reflected off the buildings across the street. Alice lying on her back, her legs bent, her hands running through Eden’s long black hair. She opened her eyes, and she saw the photograph of Eden sitting on the edge of a cliff in Utah, or someplace like that, Eden sitting with her back to the camera, staring out at a cloudless blue sky. Her eyes scanned the signature on the photograph, and the number: 1/1000.
Then she shut her eyes, and a shudder passed through her body. Eden looked up, and she returned a sentiment.
“I love you too, Alice,” she said.
Alice mused that these three words, if uttered by Blake, or Mark, would have been completely clear (if not necessarily true); but this morning, uttered by Eden in this specific context, the same sentiment was completely ambiguous, impossibly difficult to fathom. Alice didn’t try to understand what Eden meant, didn’t want to understand. She put an arm around Eden and drew her closer.
On Alice’s advice — “Andrea would not speak to Sergio again under any circumstances!” — Carly did not answer Sergio’s letter asking her to return to him. He had not apologized, just simply stated that he wanted her back. He was a man with a sense of pride that dwarfed every other emotion, and Carly was certain that Andrea would calculate that just ignoring his letter would be such a smack in the face that he would never contact her again.
So Carly was visibly surprised to see Sergio standing at the corner of the set, smiling the smile he used to smile back when they first met and he was trying to win her heart. She was filming a scene in Tiffany’s bedroom, sharing a cynically revealing moment with her best friend, the new girl in school, who did not yet know about Tiffany’s inner demons but was soon to learn. Carly tried to ignore Sergio, but she could not. Not even looking in his direction, painting on Tiffany’s devilishly sweet facade, she felt him looking at her. When the director shouted “Cut!” she would turn, and that smile would make her shiver. It seemed so real, so full of affection. And today, watc
hing her work, Sergio seemed to admire her so much. That could not all be made up and phony, could it? Was he that good an actor? She didn’t think so. Between takes, a glance back over her shoulder, and there he was, like some old dream come to life.
During a break, she asked the director to have Sergio taken away. She couldn’t utter a sentence without her voice quavering. He would have to go. Five minutes later, leaving her dressing room, she saw him trying to reason with a burly security agent. Sergio was turning on the charm, smiling, trying to talk to him, but the guy kept putting his hand on Sergio’s arm to lead him away. Sergio kept pulling his arm away, and whenever he tried to speak, the guy held up his hand to silence him. Sergio’s face darkened. The security agent radioed for assistance. Sergio shouted loudly, “That won’t be needed!” and looked up, shooting anguish over at Carly. Carly turned away. She went back into her dressing room and shut the door. She heard a minor scuffle developing out there. Sergio shouted, “I’m leaving my own self, I don’t have to be led like a dog, my good gentleman!” Or maybe he said, “my good gentlemen!” Maybe a whole contingent of security agents was dragging him away. Then she heard nothing but distant echoes.
He wouldn’t let up. He called her that night and left a message. Perhaps she had been surprised to see him there on the set, he remarked. Perhaps that explained her behavior. Therefore, he concluded, he would not hold a grudge against her for having him dispatched so ruthlessly. He understood that, perhaps, she had simply been surprised to see him there, and she could not think on the spur of the moment of a better way of handling her conflicting emotions. He could understand why she might make a mistake during the angst of the moment. He was a fair man. He would not hold a grudge. He would not stay angry. So would she please call?