Waking early while it is still dark. Showering, selecting clothes, underwear. Riding the subway to work. Alone in her thoughts, in her bed. Spending the day on the computer, attending meetings, making phone calls, lunching at her desk or maybe with a colleague, writing e-mails and articles. At night there are yoga classes or dinners with friends. She is popular, as she would be. Pretty girls and ironic young men in narrow suits. Restaurants in Tribeca, Williamsburg. Parties and openings.
The days pass waiting for Harry to call and tell her about their next adventure. She keeps a bag packed by the door. She is content, wrapping herself in a secret, her unguessed-at other life. Hoping for something none of them really wants. Terrified of the consequences but doing nothing to forestall them.
To everyone else she is a single woman. At a dinner party one night, she is seated next to an architect. The hostess, an old friend of hers from college now married, had told her about him. He is about her age, handsome. White teeth. He has sensitive fingers and an easy laugh. He has just come back from Shanghai. It is his third trip there. The city is growing like an anthill, he says. His firm is very busy. The incredible wealth, the drive to create a new future. He is studying Mandarin. Halfway through dinner, it is understood that he will take her home. On the stoop he kisses her. There is a light rain. Can I come up? he asks. She bites her lip, avoiding his eyes. Her hand rests warmly on his chest.
“I’d like to but I can’t,” she says.
“Is there someone else?”
She nods her head. “I’m sorry.”
“I understand,” he says. “I had fun anyway.”
She watches him walk off into the night, turning around and waving at her from the corner. In the taxi, she had decided she would sleep with him but had then changed her mind. For a moment, she almost calls after him.
Why doesn’t she? Why shouldn’t she take her pleasure where she finds it? Why does she deny herself? Does she think that being loyal will swing the balance in her favor or even exonerate her? A sacrifice to appease the gods? That somehow, miraculously, a small act on her part, like pulling petals off a daisy or avoiding cracks on the sidewalk, will make things turn out all right? No, she knows by now that it cannot. It is too late. Whatever happens will be terrible for at least one of them, maybe for everyone. Like a sailor in a storm, she prays for dry land.
She is at work when his e-mail comes. The subject line reads Maddy knows. A momentary horror grips her. Her hand cups her mouth as she screams silently. She stares dumbly at the screen. Disbelieving the words, reading them several times. She opens the e-mail, fearful of what she will see, but there is nothing more. The lack of information makes it even worse.
What does Maddy “know”? How much does she know? She e-mails him back. Are you sure? What happened? Where are you? Her words disappearing into the void, uncertain of a response. There is none. She waits. Five minutes. Ten. It is torture. She sends another e-mail with simply the subject line Hello? but, like pulling up a lifeline that has been severed, there is nothing at the other end.
She cannot stay at her desk. She needs to get outside, walk, escape. “I have to go,” she tells her editor. “I’ll be back later.” On her way out, she stops in the ladies’ room and throws up.
It is late when she returns home. She stares at her reflection in the mirror. Her eyes look haunted. Her face pale. She has been checking her phone all afternoon, waiting for the familiar beep of an incoming message. The fear she felt earlier has now been replaced by anger. She feels cut off, adrift, abandoned. Why won’t he write or call? It would be so easy. Just a word or two to offer comfort, information, guidance, absolution. The screen looks back blankly at her. The usual e-mails come in from colleagues, friends, but she ignores them. They are unimportant, a dinner reservation during an earthquake. Pouring a glass of wine, she puts on music and sits on the couch. She stares at the photograph of them taken on Montmartre. There is nothing else to do.
When the call comes, it is after nine, past three in the morning in Rome.
“It’s me,” he says.
“Why haven’t you called? I’ve been going out of my mind.”
“Me too.”
“Where are you? What happened?”
“I’m in Rome.” His voice is thick. She can tell he has been drinking. “Maddy’s gone,” he says. “She took Johnny.”
“Oh my god.”
He tells her about coming home. About finding his desk overturned, and Angela yelling at him, abusing him in a language he does not speak. She had been waiting to tell him what she thought of him. It wasn’t hard for him to understand the gist of what she was saying. “Sono partiti stronzo stupido. Non si poteva tenere il cazzo nei pantaloni.” They are gone, you stupid asshole. You couldn’t keep your prick in your pants. She spat on the floor and slammed the door on her way out.
He called Maddy’s cell, but she did not answer. He had no idea what had happened. He looked around the apartment for clues. Open drawers, empty hangers. He righted his desk and had started collecting the papers when he noticed the crumpled-up credit card bill. He closed his eyes, the enormity of his stupidity piercing him.
“I’ve been calling hotels, friends,” he tells her. “I can’t find them.”
“Did you try Walter?”
“Not yet. He’s my last resort.”
“Could they have left Rome? Would they come back to New York?”
“I don’t know. It’s too late to fly to New York. They’d have to wait until morning.”
“What will you say when you find them? What will you tell Maddy?”
“I don’t know.”
“Does she know about me?”
“I honestly don’t know what she knows.”
She does not respond, and for a moment there is silence on the line. “What about us?” she asks finally. It is the only question she cares about.
He sighs. “I don’t know. I need to talk to Maddy first.”
“Of course. I understand,” she responds. A light scrim has fallen between them. It was not the answer she had hoped to hear.
“I’m sorry,” he says. “This is a big mess. I need to sort it out. It’s very late here. Right now, I’m tired, anxious, scared, and a little drunk. I’ll call or e-mail you when I know more, okay?”
She puts down the phone. “Fuck you, Harry,” she says and starts to cry.
4
I could barely sleep the night Maddy told me she was coming. Partly I was excited about her staying with me. I even took the rest of the day off and rushed home shortly after her final e-mail and began tidying up, making beds, going to the market, looking for food that a nine-year-old boy might like. I bought cookies, cereal, fruit juice, popcorn. What else? We could always order in pizza if he wanted, but he’d just been living in Rome so he might not find Italian food as appealing as he otherwise might.
But I was also worried. In my e-mail in-box the next morning there were several frantic messages from Harry sent very late. Had I heard from Maddy? Did I know where she was? Where Johnny was? I stared at the screen, my insides hollow. Clearly something terrible had happened. But I didn’t know what. I wavered, wondering whether to answer or not, worrying if by doing so I was somehow betraying Maddy. Finally I wrote: Maddy and Johnny are flying to New York. She e-mailed me last night. What the hell is going on?
There was no response though. At least nothing immediate. I could only imagine the worst.
Needless to say, I ignored Maddy’s request and hired a limousine to take me to the airport so I could meet her there. I was early, of course, not wanting to risk missing them. I saw them before they saw me. Maddy looked drawn, but still beautiful, her mane of strawberry blond hair haloing her face. Johnny straggling after her like a nine-year-old refugee.
“You’re too much,” she says, hugging me. “I thought I told you not to bother.”
“I know you did. Since when have I ever listened to you?” Then to Johnny, “Hey, tiger, how you doing?”
“I’m o
kay, Uncle Walt. Have you talked to Daddy?”
Maddy shoots me a look. “Why, no,” I answer. I ruffle his hair and say, “Great to see you, pal. I bet you must be tired.”
He nods his head and says nothing.
“You must both be tired. Let me help you with that,” I say, taking the bags. Maddy is too drained to argue, which she normally would. “I have a car waiting just outside.”
“Cool,” says Johnny when he sees the limo. I hired a stretch. I normally find them vulgar but had hoped it would elicit that kind of response. Johnny clambers in, sits on the seat that runs along the side of the car, and begins fiddling with the glasses and decanters and different knobs and switches.
“Have you ever been in one of these before?” I ask.
“No,” he says.
“God, after Europe I forgot that there even were cars this size,” Maddy says with a laugh. “It’s so big.”
“I know. Completely ridiculous, isn’t it?”
“I feel like a rock star or a prom queen,” she says. Serious, she turns to me. “Thank you, Walter.” She puts her hand on my knee.
“Cone of silence?” I ask.
She nods. “For now, if that’s okay. Let’s talk about other things. How are you? Any news?”
Taking the cue, I fill her in on the little gossip of the town, studiously avoiding any allusion to marital strife. Who’s broke, who’s drunk, who’s come out of the closet, whose children got into Yale, whose didn’t. I conducted alumni interviews with several of them. I don’t know what surprised me more, how young they seemed or how hard they all worked. And not just schoolwork but community service, drama, violin lessons, summer jobs, sports. I know I never had that intensity or diligence at their age.
One of the boys I met with didn’t get in, I tell Maddy. He had gone to a good school, had good grades, and seemed a personable youth. I had given him a positive review, but for some reason the powers that be in the admissions office found a reason to reject him. I tell Maddy about the angry phone call I received from the boy’s father, a classmate of ours, demanding to know what happened and what was I going to do about it. I opine to Maddy that the admissions office would have probably been happy to take the boy if the father hadn’t been part of the package.
“He always was a pompous ass,” she says and laughs, shaking her head. I am glad to make her smile. She had looked so sepulchral getting off the plane.
We arrive at my building. I am just off Park in the 70s, not far from my parents’ vast old apartment. I still get my hair cut at the same barbershop I went to as a boy. Attend the same church in which I was baptized and confirmed, patronize the same restaurants. My life is defined by the geography of my childhood. On the streets are boys from my old school wearing neckties and blazers looking eerily like me and my friends several decades earlier. Is it any wonder that I don’t feel that I have really grown up yet?
One of the doormen helps us with our bags. I introduce Maddy and Johnny to him, saying, “Hector, this is Mrs. Winslow and her son. They will be staying with me for a few days.” He welcomes them and tells me he will put them in the book. He cannot do enough for me. It pays to tip well at Christmas.
We go upstairs. I help carry Maddy and Johnny’s luggage to their room, which is actually where I read or watch television most nights. The couch unfolds to make a double bed. It is also my library. I love this room. Books, mostly histories and biographies, line the Chinese red walls. Military prints. On the shelves are miniature painted model soldiers. Mamelukes, hussars. One of my hobbies. I am especially fond of Napoleon’s Grande Armée. A sword that had reputedly belonged to Murat, and for which I happily paid a small fortune, hangs over the mantel. There’s a small bathroom and a closet where I store odds and ends, ancient skis, winter coats, suitcases. I had cleared out a lot of my old junk to make room for Maddy’s things.
“I hope you’ll be all right in here,” I say.
“It’s perfect, Walter. Thank you.”
“I’ll leave you to unpack. There are fresh towels in the bath. Let me know if you need anything else.”
That night we order in. “I’d kill for a hamburger,” Maddy confesses. After dinner, she puts Johnny to bed and joins me in the living room, where I have made a small fire and opened a bottle of good claret.
I know better than to launch questions at her. She will tell me. Or not.
“You know, actually I wasn’t entirely truthful at the airport,” I confess, handing her a glass. “I have heard from Harry. He sent me several e-mails asking if I knew where you were. I wasn’t sure what to do. So I wrote him that, yes, I had heard from you and that you and Johnny would be staying with me. But that I didn’t know what was going on. I hope that was all right.”
She nods her head. “Yes, I suppose that was the best thing. I did leave in a hurry.”
“That was the impression I had. Sort of a spur-of-the-moment decision on your part, was it?”
“You might say that.”
“Care to elaborate?”
“I knew I couldn’t stay.”
“You weren’t in physical danger? Or Johnny?”
“No. Nothing like that.”
“Then what happened?”
She put her glass on the table. “He’s cheating on me, Walter. I had some suspicions about a month ago, and I asked him point-blank about it. He swore he wasn’t. Then I found out yesterday that he was. That it’s been going on for months. You know, it’s not even that I really care that he was having an affair. What I can’t forgive is the lying. I just had to go. I don’t know what I would have done if I hadn’t.”
We sit there in silence, staring at the fire. I am letting all of this sink in. It is obviously still a shock to her too. I am amazed by her once again. If I had discovered my spouse of twenty years cheating on me, I’d probably collapse in a self-pitying pile on the floor.
“Do you know who he is having the affair with?”
“No. He’s been traveling a lot, though. Mostly Paris, but also London. Barcelona. He told me it was for business. Meeting publishers, giving readings, interviews. Then a few weeks ago this woman I knew from New York e-mailed me that she had seen him in a restaurant in Paris with a young woman with dark hair. When I asked him about it, he said it was someone from his French publisher. I didn’t doubt him. We’ve never lied to each other. At least, I didn’t think we did.”
“Then how do you know he was having an affair? Do you have any proof?”
She tells me about the credit card bills, where he had been, what he had bought. The banality of the discovery, the carelessness. Her eyes are rimmed with tears. “I couldn’t believe it, but I just know it. I know it in my heart.”
“I’m sorry. But, I mean, it’s Harry we’re talking about. Your Harry. Our Harry, for Christ’s sake. It just doesn’t seem possible. I would never have imagined such a thing in a million years.”
“That’s what I thought too. Shows how wrong we both can be.”
“Do you want to find out who it is? I mean, who the woman is?”
“Actually, I couldn’t care less. It’s all beside the point. Maybe I will in a week or so. I’m not jealous. I’m angry, hurt, disappointed, shocked, and, frankly, very tired.”
“So what are you going to do?”
She sighs. “I don’t know. Right now, I’m just going to take it one day at a time. Get Johnny settled. Move back into the apartment. Baby steps. Is it all right if we stay here until then? It’s just to the end of the month.”
“Of course. You don’t have to ask, you know that.”
“I know. But you’re such an old bachelor. You aren’t used to having people underfoot. Especially nine-year-old boys and mopey middle-aged women.”
I smile. “Not at all. In fact, I’ll rather enjoy it. It’ll be nice to have the company. But then what? What about Harry?”
“I don’t know yet. That’s still a big question mark.”
“Are you going to talk to him?”
“I honestl
y don’t know what there is to say.”
She is not the sort of person to do things by half measures. “Are you thinking of divorce?”
Stiffening, she says, “Don’t push me. I really haven’t thought that far ahead. All I know right now is that I don’t want to think about it or him.”
“Sure. You’ll let me know, okay? In case you need a good lawyer.”
She rolls her eyes. “Knock it off, Walter.”
“I’m serious. If it comes to that and you need someone, I hope you’ll let me help—or at least find you someone good.”
“Okay. I promise.”
5
I more or less take the next few days off. I head into the office late in the morning and then come straight home around one so I can spend the time with Maddy and Johnny. We go for walks in Central Park, where there are still patches of snow and most of the grass has been fenced off. The winding lanes. The bare trees. The ground underfoot is beginning to thaw. Johnny climbs on the rocks. We eat hot dogs and ride on the carousel. The same deranged-looking bas-relief clowns that used to terrify me when I was a child still line the walls. One night we go to a Broadway show. Something puerile and entertaining. Johnny loves it. I must admit I sort of do too. Another night we have a mini-feast in Chinatown. Maddy tells me the Chinese food is terrible in Rome.
We are on holiday. The real world is waiting for us to rejoin it. I am in my office when my secretary informs me that Harry is on the line. It is not the first time he has called, she reminds me. I can’t put him off forever.
“Walt, thank God.”
I am not sure how to proceed, my emotions conflicted. We have not communicated since Maddy arrived. I am angry with him, angry for Maddy and angry for our friendship. He has let us all down. I am not especially happy to hear from him, and I let my tone show it.
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