Instant Love: Fiction

by Jami Attenberg

  On the outside there was a small, painted wooden sign that said “May Sarton.” Across the hall, on the facing door, there was another sign, which read “Edith Wharton.”

  “This house used to be owned by a couple, two women,” he said. “It was originally supposed to be a bed-and-breakfast for women only, but my understanding is it turned into some sort of feminist-empowerment camp. So each room is named for a different female writer.” He cleared his throat. “I just find it funny, being surrounded by all these women.”

  “I suppose it is a little funny,” said Christina. (She might have laughed. She couldn’t remember a few weeks later when she told the story to Mandy. Mandy had said, appalled, gasping, “Oh, my god! What did you say?” Christina told her she had said nothing, simply raised her eyebrows, and, “You know, gave him a look.”)

  “Anyway, these aren’t the rooms I had in mind for you. Those are my daughters’ rooms. For when they come to visit.” He said this enthusiastically, as if it might actually happen, though Christina knew that that wasn’t likely. Maggie and Holly, the mysterious daughters, hiding out on the East Coast, ignored their father most of the time. Even when he was in New York, they refused to meet him for lunch, or even coffee. He had confided this to her, moaned it into her shoulder late one night after a wine tasting that had gone awry. (He had bought two merlots and a burgundy, and then they had expertly drained them at his house, pulling out one bottle after another, as if their thirst were an illness.)

  “They’re grown now, they have their own lives, I understand. But a coffee? A fucking coffee?” He rarely cursed. It had shocked Christina, and she had pulled his head closer to her, stroked his head and neck with her hands, rubbed him tenderly. It was exciting to her, to see his sadness. She hadn’t known it existed within him.

  “It is my one failure,” he said.

  “Nothing about you is a failure. You’re without reproach.” She believed it, too.

  He walked down the hall, and pointed. “I think you should choose between these two.”

  “Virginia Woolf” and “Louisa May Alcott.”

  “I thought either should inspire you,” he said.

  She opened the door to the “Virginia Woolf” room. Inside, there was a small, sturdy desk, with two small drawers, and a high-backed wooden chair that slid neatly underneath it. The walls were painted a deep red color, and they were blank except for a framed picture of Kong at play, his tongue happily hanging from his mouth, hanging squarely above the desk. There was a sliding screen door that opened out to a small trellis-covered patio, and a set of stairs that led up to a hot tub. Vines hanging from the trellis framed the screen door. A room of one’s own, indeed, she thought.

  “What do you think?” he said.

  “I love it,” she said, and she did. It was quiet, the light was fine, and the hanging vines made her feel like she was still in the middle of nature. It would be great for yoga in the mornings, too. She just needed some sort of reading chair, and a stereo for her relaxation tapes, and it would be perfect.

  “Well, don’t make up your mind before you see your other option.” They walked to the other room, and Bill pushed open the door with a grand sweep. Inside was a sun-filled space, twice the size of the first room, painted a creamy yellow. There were two huge windows on one side, plus another screen door, and the ceiling was encased almost entirely in skylight; the room felt almost entirely transparent. There was a wide, antique desk with a full set of drawers, and a bookshelf next to it, each row full of thick, hardcover books except for an empty one, which was clearly earmarked for Christina’s books. An oversized leather chair—its golden brown leather seemed like a pool of butter in the direct sunlight—sat in the corner next to a small entertainment center, complete with stereo system, television set, and DVD player. A stack of yoga DVDs perched on top of the television set. She picked one up and looked at the cover.

  “I just bought a bunch, I didn’t know what you liked,” offered Bill.

  Christina paused, read for a moment, and then said, “No, these are fine.” She looked up at him, bewildered, and then she burst into a smile. “God, of course. They’re perfect. This is amazing. No one has ever done anything like this for me before.” She hugged him, kissed him so fiercely that their lips emitted a joint smacking sound.

  “And you can see my workspace over there,” he said, pointing through the screen to an alcove jutting out from the house on the property. It ended next to a cherry tree. Kong paced beneath it. “So we can be near each other without, you know, being near each other. But we’ll always know where the other person is. So we don’t get lonely.”

  “Alone but together,” she said.

  “Never far apart,” said Bill.

  “THE TIBETAN MASTIFF is an exceptional breed,” said Bill, his voice lowered even further, into what Christina recognized as the voice he used when giving lectures or readings. They were walking through the woods that filled out his property to the peak of the mountain. “They were bred for centuries as guard dogs, yet are still considered quite primitive because there aren’t that many of them in existence. The female mastiff can breed only once a year, usually in the fall.”

  Christina ducked under a tree branch and felt cobwebs brush onto her forehead. She wiped them off with her hand, then rubbed it on her jeans.

  Bill continued. “They simply haven’t had the chance to evolve in ways that other dogs have, and yet they’re highly intelligent and independent. So yes, they’re difficult to train, but I think Kong is worth it. He makes me feel safe—there are mountain lions in these woods, and they will attack. And I’ve always felt a distinct connection with him. I appreciate the challenge he presents, I suppose. But there can be but one king of the mountain, eh, Kong?”

  “He’s calm out here,” said Christina. “This is the best I’ve seen him behave since I’ve gotten here.”

  “He’s great on the leash,” said Bill. “And I think he likes the idea of protecting us. That’s half the reason I got him, because of the mountain lions.”

  “Could he take a mountain lion?”

  “Absolutely. And they’re all over the place.”

  “Good to know,” said Christina.

  They walked another ten minutes, Bill pointing out madrona and manzanita trees along the way, with their slick skin underneath the peeling skin, and various promontories where Kong insisted on stopping and surveying the woods. In fact he stopped frequently along the way, at a stray crackle of branches or a rustle in nearby bushes. It was a little tiresome, but Christina played along.

  Finally the trees became shorter and sparser, and Bill announced that they were nearing the top. He directed Christina to turn and when she did she saw another mountain range, clear as day, facing them, and another one, hazier, to the south.

  “It’s beautiful,” said Christina, beaming.

  “I wanted to show you something.” He carefully put his arm, slightly damp with sweat, around her and gently guided her north. “Do you see that, there?” He pointed.

  “What?” She squinted.

  “All those solar panels? That’s Robin Williams’s house.”

  “Really? Robin Williams. Huh. I enjoyed him in Awakenings.”

  “So did I,” said Bill. “And the other one, where he dresses up like an old woman.”

  “Mrs. Doubtfire,” said Christina.

  “Yes, that’s it! Fine work in that film.”

  They stared at Robin Williams’s house silently for a minute, then continued up the peak. As they broke through a closed-in patch of bushes, thorny branches scratching against their shoulders and arms, Bill burst through labored breaths, “We made it.”

  Christina had to admit it was spectacular at the top. She turned and viewed mountains at every angle while Bill caught his breath, Kong dropping down next to him. The sky was a pristine blue, no clouds in sight. And the same trees she’d been walking next to for the last forty-five minutes, the ones that had huddled together as a team of branches waiting
to poke her, had turned a rich, roasted color, and suddenly seemed exotic under the direct sun. She breathed in deeply and took in the sun on her face. Wrinkles be damned, she thought. Skin cancer, too. I just climbed to the top of a mountain.

  “It’s glorious, isn’t it?” said Bill. “Come on”—he reached out his hand to hers and she took it—“let me show you around.”

  He showed her the stone circle formations surrounding a stubbly pine tree. “I think the feminists made them. Probably some sort of strange ritual,” he laughed. Then he walked her to the land that bordered his property, separated by a fierce-looking fence. “I wouldn’t touch it,” he said. “It’s probably wired.” He pointed out a ghost vineyard, abandoned twenty years previous by a prominent winemaker. The quality of the grapes had just not been worth his time. He sold the land, and it had since been sold thrice over. The vines were unruly and sagging, and the rich green color, so prominent in Bill’s vineyard, was absent, sapped by the sun and lack of water.

  “And then this, now this is the best part,” said Bill. He led her and Kong back up to the peak and then through some bushes into a grove of manzanitas. The empty space beneath the trees was small—they both had to hunch slightly—but wide, so they could move freely beneath the peeling trees and their outstretched branches. They took a seat at the feet of a huddle of larger trees. Bill hooked Kong’s leash to a branch, then shuffled over closer to Christina. They both leaned back on a trunk, and looked up through the crisscross of branches at the bits of clear blue sky etched between them.

  “It’s amazing,” said Christina. “I’m so glad I came. I knew this was the right decision.”

  “Was there ever any question?” said Bill.

  Christina smiled and looked down at the ground. “A big move is always scary,” she said. “But I’m here now, and I’m not scared at all.” She kissed him, and his lips felt warm and smooth, and then she kissed him again and she felt an urgent burn between her legs. She put one hand around his neck and another on his chest and began to kiss him quickly and furiously. She moved her hand from his chest to his shorts. “Let’s do it right here,” she said.

  “Here?” Bill said, and he laughed nervously. “Probably an unwise idea. There’s poison oak everywhere.”

  “I don’t see any. Come on, Bill.” She undid his fly, reached her hand inside.

  “I can’t right now,” he said. His smiled right through Christina. “I’m tired from the walk.” He pulled her hand gently away from his shorts.

  “Well, then do me,” she said. She stood and, back slightly bent, dropped her shorts. “At least make me feel good.” She flattened herself against the trunk of a tree, then lowered herself to the ground. Nearby Kong lay patiently, keeping a watchful eye for mountain lions.

  ANOTHER SENATOR had an affair, surprise, surprise, thought Christina as she watched Bill pack for his trip. Every time one of these guys got busted—this time a Florida senator with interests in the aviation industry, who had audaciously kept an apartment in D.C. for his mistress, a former waitress in a steak house popular with the Republican crowd—the talk shows trudged out Bill as an expert in masculinity and power. Christina slumped on Bill’s bed, chin resting on chest. His schedule had never bothered her in the past, but that was before this summer, before she had been high up on the mountain, in the woods, alone with him and his dog.

  Ah yes, the dog. She would be taking care of Kong while Bill was gone. At breakfast she had received typewritten instructions, detailing his food and exercise schedule. She reread it now, stopping at the final line: “Kong is at his happiest guarding something, so let him watch over you!”

  Christina read the sentence out loud. “What does that mean exactly?”

  “Just that he’ll stick by your side if you let him. It’s quite sweet actually. You could probably just let him sit outside your office. I shouldn’t think he’ll bother you at all. He just likes to keep an eye on things.”

  “I don’t want him watching me when I do work. Or yoga.” This seemed an obvious point to Christina. The dog was not to go near her unsupervised any more than necessary. Plus, she was in no mood to be watched all day. Wasn’t it enough that Bill, as he had reported to her last week, could see the back of her head as she worked?

  “Aw, just let him, Christina,” said Bill.

  Christina folded the piece of paper in half. “He goes in the vineyard for the day. He’ll have plenty of room to run around, and I’ll get my peace and quiet. He’ll be fine.”

  “If you feel that strongly about it,” said Bill. His voice registered slightly off-key.

  “I do.”

  “Fine then.”

  Bill folded a white undershirt quietly, laid it on top of two pairs of fresh white boxers, and said calmly, “Can you at least take him to the peak tomorrow? So he gets a little attention.”

  Christina cocked her head, squinted at an imaginary point in the ceiling. It is these little moments, these little negotiations, that compose the skeleton of a relationship, she thought. Do I want the spine to be strong or not? She sat up straight.

  “I’ll take him tomorrow afternoon,” she said.

  AFTER BILL LEFT, limousine door slammed tight, a sharp sound that cracked the quiet mountain air like a gunshot, Christina realized it was the first time she’d been alone since she’d arrived. They slept together, ate together, hiked together, drove into town together, down the precarious winding road past hidden homes and wide patches of vineyard, Bill whipping around the curves so quickly it made her carsick. Even when she was working in her studio and Bill was working in his office, they were separated only by windows and screen doors and the ripening cherry tree, tiny stems dangling like Christmas-tree decorations.

  “I can see you so clearly,” he had told her.

  She quietly padded through the front room, passing and then returning to Kong, who rested out near the pool, restrained by the sliding door. She checked the door once more to make sure it was locked. He lifted his head, eyed her, then rested it down again glumly.

  Alone at last, she thought. She flashed on herself as a teenager when her parents left her alone for a weekend. I should throw a party, she thought. And then, just as when she was a teenager, she realized she didn’t have anyone to invite. Except for maybe the mountain lions.

  Maybe I should look through all of his things, see if I can uncover a cache of stocks and bonds for me to pocket and then flee. Maybe there’s a stash of dirty photos or a stack of love letters, some hidden insight into a dark weakness curdling inside of him.

  But she was afraid to touch anything. Everything was so carefully designed and organized in his castle, pristine and tailored, then dusted enthusiastically by the Salvadoran house cleaners he employed weekly to clean his home. Lush suede couches snaked through every room, paired with inviting overstuffed chairs and matching ottomans, the perfect setup for reading and relaxing. The walls were covered sparingly with art, but all of it was original and signed, mostly landscapes, the great outdoors, hills and lakes and ridges, regal sunsets that crowned oceans and mountains.

  More prominent were larger photos on his walls of him and his friends—famous ones, some of them—she recognized a few, while the pictures of his daughters when they were little, and a few of them as teens, and some older people—his parents, she presumed—hovered near bathroom doors and light switches. And then there were his glorious bookshelves, a king’s ransom of literature, all separated by type, novels on one, collections of short stories on another, books he’d contributed to, books he’d edited, the classics, the work of his students, and one small creaky shelf weighed down with his remainders, extras sent by his publisher that he’d taken to readings and had never been sold. He had encouraged her to take whatever she liked and read them, fill herself up with words.

  She didn’t need to uncover any great secrets about him. Whatever he had done before her, it didn’t matter. And she probably knew it anyway. After all, she had read most of his books.

  Chris
tina decided to use the time alone to do her work, consume herself even further with her thesis. Here she was in Alcott’s ideal environment, as she was raised to be by her father and his friends, in the thick of nature. I am here for a reason, thought Christina.

  She entered the long hall that led to her studio, determined to fill the day with Emerson and Thoreau and Alcott, last names that needed no firsts, names that shaped her entire world. She stopped herself in front of the Edith Wharton room, the safe haven reserved for one of Bill’s daughters. I could just take a look, she thought. That wouldn’t disturb a thing.

  Inside, the room was simultaneously spare and glorious: surrounded by calm gray walls, there was a massive bed, intricate swirling flowers carved into its wooden headboard, covered with a rich display of bedding, serene lavender colors, stripes and flowers, a half dozen pillows arranged neatly as icing, a few with sparkling beads as a fringe; and a magnificent oak desk—an antique, Christina imagined—with thick claw legs, and a busty carriage, so long it almost stretched the length of the room. On a gentle brass nightstand sat a framed photograph of a younger Bill, arms wrapped around his two daughters, the one with a sweet and simple freckled face, sleepy eyes, straight pretty hair curved around her delicate chin, was wearing a graduation robe; the other, rounder, with a dark stare and set, determined lips, had her hand in one end of a mass of long dark curls, as if she were about to twist a handful, as if she were holding on to it for dear life. And then, nothing else in the room, just a spray of gorgeous sunlight through the windows, and a heavy, healthy persimmon tree, its rich green fruits clinging upward, lingering outside the window.

  Christina pictured him picking out each piece of furniture, considering the color scheme, how it might match his daughter’s mood or sensibility. He gave her a desk worthy of royalty, thought Christina. It was better than what he had given her, as it should be. She suddenly swelled with a thick feeling in her stomach, a warm and pleasant wave that crashed, then nestled nicely into her.