By the Book

by Julia Sonneborn

  The cell phone video pulled back slightly, revealing the fuzzy outline of Jack’s dinner date, his back to the camera. Jack leaned over and gave the man a kiss. The man moved slightly into the light, and it became clear that he was balding.

  “We were just as surprised as you are,” Mario said, “when we discovered Jack’s lover was follicularly challenged. Who would have thought that Mr. Movie Star would fall for someone—ahem!—lacking in the hair department?”

  I turned to Larry. He was holding his head in his hands and rocking back and forth.

  “Larry,” I gasped. “Is that . . . is that you?”

  Larry was quiet for a second. Then he raised his head up and howled, “That little shit. Calling me ‘follicularly challenged’? How’d you like it if I called you a circus midget, Mr. Saved by the Bell?”

  “Have you been seeing Jack this whole time? And you didn’t tell me?”

  “I knew you wouldn’t understand, Anne. We just couldn’t stay away from each other.”

  “Oh my God. You met up with him in Paris, didn’t you?”

  Larry nodded.

  “I’m such an idiot,” I groaned. “I actually bought your BS about finding a crazy last-minute deal on Groupon.”

  “Well, I did find a crazy amazing fare, but no, the trip was planned. It was divine. We stayed on Île Saint-Louis, at this adorable little pied-à-terre. You should stay there sometime—we found it on Airbnb!” Larry sighed happily at the memory.

  “Are you crazy? You’re gonna ruin Jack’s marriage! And what about his career? What about your career?”

  “Eeesh, Anne. See, this is why I didn’t want to tell you! You’re being so Judgy McJudgerson!”

  “What do you want to happen?” I asked. “Do you want him to run off with you? Do you really think that’s going to happen?”

  “Why not?” Larry asked pitifully. “It’s better than sneaking around like this. I still don’t know how they got that video of us at that restaurant. We were being so careful.”

  “Apparently not careful enough.”

  “Someone must have tipped them off. There was no one else in there!”

  “I can’t believe this is happening,” I said, shaking my head. “I can’t believe you’re not freaking out more. Let’s hope people don’t put two and two together and figure out you’re the guy in that video.”

  “Maybe it’s for the best,” Larry said stubbornly. “Jack needs to stop living a lie. He needs to step up and declare the truth—declare the love that dare not speak its name!”

  Larry was getting worked up, beating his chest with his fist.

  “I am not ashamed!” he roared. “I might be a hairless nobody, but I’ve got nothing to hide! I’ve got nothing to lose! I publicly declare my love for Jack Lindsey!”

  I sat back and gave Larry a polite golf clap. “Nice speech,” I said as he graciously accepted my applause. “Now please promise me there isn’t a sex tape. Please.”

  “Ewwww!” Larry yelled, pelting me with popcorn. “Anne! Who do you think I am? Sex tapes are so 2007.”

  *

  OVER THE NEXT FEW days, the tabloids were flooded with pictures of Jack and Bex having a romantic dinner at Katsuya, Jack and Bex taking their daughter out for ice cream, Jack and Bex bringing their daughter to Disneyland. In all the pictures, the two of them were wearing their wedding rings and acting lovey-dovey for the cameras. “Jack Lindsey calls his wife his soul mate,” read one headline. “ ‘Our marriage is stronger than ever,’ ” read another. “Lovebirds,” read a third.

  A PR rep for Jack and Bex issued a statement to People magazine, claiming that the cell phone video was “obviously doctored” and that the man in the video was not Jack. “Jack Lindsey is a devoted husband and father,” the statement read, “and it is shameful that unscrupulous sources would try to defame his character and attack his family. This report is utter garbage and riddled with lies. We are in the process of investigating legal options against Extra.”

  “Lies!” Larry told me that night. “It’s all lies! Jack told me they’re doing a family media blitz until all of this dies down. I can’t believe people are actually buying it!”

  “Did you know he’s a Virgo?” I asked, flipping through the pages of a magazine.

  “Where are you reading this?”

  “Us Weekly. They’re doing a feature called ‘Twenty Things You Didn’t Know About Jack Lindsey.’ ”

  “Gimme that!” Larry yelled, snatching the magazine from my hand. He read through the article and then tossed it aside. “He didn’t answer these questions,” Larry said dismissively. “Someone else did.”

  “Wait, what do you mean?” I asked. “Jack doesn’t answer his own questions now?”

  “The studio hired a crisis management firm,” Larry told me. “He’s got a PR minder who vets all media inquiries. He’s also got a bodyguard shadowing him 24/7.”

  “Why?” I asked. “To protect him from the paparazzi?”

  “No—to protect him from himself. They don’t want him going rogue again.” Larry sighed. “I.e., no more secret rendezvous with moi.”

  “Is he still calling you?” I asked, grabbing the magazine back.

  “He’s been texting. He’s got back-to-back events this week, visiting sick kids at a hospital, running a 10K for charity, MC-ing an auction. They’re trying to keep him busy. He’s worried they’re going to confiscate his phone next.”

  “Do you really think they’d do that?”

  “I don’t know,” Larry said, looking worried. “I’d die if that happened.” He looked at me plaintively. “Anne, I know you think I’m pathetic, but I can’t help it. I really miss him. Tell me things are going to work out. Please?”

  “Things are going to work out,” I said, trying to sound more convincing than I felt.

  *

  IN THE WEEKS LEADING up to my book deadline, I’d skipped a few of my regular visits with my father, begging off via phone call or e-mail. Now that he’d settled into the home comfortably, I often felt like an unwanted chaperone when I did come to visit, interrupting his lunch date with Helene or his daily poker game. When I asked how he was doing, he’d roll his eyes like a teenager and then ask for more Q-tips or batteries or undershirts before shooing me away. I figured my absence would hardly be noticed.

  Still, as penance, I brought my father a jumbo jar of mixed nuts and a new digital clock for his bedroom at my next visit. I found him sitting alone in an alcove that the staff had decorated to look like a 1940s drawing room, with an old-fashioned radio playing big band music, some ladies’ hats displayed on shelves, and some war memorabilia. Usually the oldest residents of the home clustered here, napping or listening to music, but it was now deserted. Sitting on a couch beside my father, I felt like I’d accidentally wandered onto a stage set.

  “Where’ve you been?” my dad asked querulously, inspecting the new clock.

  “I’m sorry—I had a deadline,” I said. “It was rough toward the end—I was pulling a bunch of all-nighters.”

  “Are these spicy?” my dad asked, opening the jar of nuts and sniffing. “I can’t do spicy. It bothers my prostate.”

  “I got the unsalted kind,” I said.

  My father carefully tried one of the cashews. “I’m almost out of Q-tips again,” he added, chewing. “I really think someone’s stealing them. There’s no possible way I’m going through them so fast.”

  “Uh-huh,” I said, trying not to sound impatient. “I’ll bring some more next time.”

  “Not the cheap ones, OK? The brand-name ones. I can tell the difference.”

  I sighed. “I promise I’ll bring you the right ones,” I said. I looked around the alcove. “So where is everyone?”

  “Getting their hair done,” my dad said. “Hairdresser’s here today.”

  “Are you having lunch with Helene later?”

  “She’s mad at me,” my dad grumbled. “I forgot her birthday last week, and she’s giving me the silent treatment.”


  “What about Georgia?”

  “Who?”

  “Georgia—silver hair? I met her at the Christmas party?”

  “Oh, her? She moved to a different facility. I haven’t seen her in a while.”

  I glanced at the TV mounted to one of the walls, the one anachronistic touch in the room. There was a Law & Order rerun on, and I saw that Jack Lindsey was guest-starring as a congressman accused of having an affair with an intern and then murdering her. I started watching in spite of myself.

  “I knew him in college,” I said to my dad, pointing to Jack appearing on the witness stand. “His name is Jack Lindsey. We were in the same English class.”

  My dad squinted at the screen. “What is he now, a lawyer?” he asked.

  “No, he’s an actor.”

  “Never heard of him.”

  “He’s friends with Lauren,” I said. “Or actually, it’s more like his wife is.”

  “Where’s Lauren anyway? I haven’t seen her in months.” He reached over and began scratching his leg through his trousers.

  “She’s in the Bahamas for her wedding anniversary.” Lauren and Brett were spending a week at the same resort where they’d been married.

  “She never told me that.”

  “Yes, she did—she sent you an e-mail.”

  “I never got it,” my dad said. “What’s her husband’s name again?”

  “Dad—she’s married to Brett! You remember Brett!”

  “Sure,” my dad said vaguely. He hitched his trouser leg up. “My damn leg feels funny,” he complained, scratching his bare skin.

  “Dad—stop,” I said, cringing at his skinny, blotchy leg. “Did you fall again?” Since his last accident, he’d been given a walking cane, a gray piece of metal with a four-fingered claw at the bottom. Seeing him so bent and frail scared me. He was still his usual irascible self, but his body no longer reflected the fierceness of his personality.

  “No. It just feels weak.”

  “Then use your cane,” I said, trying to keep the worry out of my voice. “That’s what it’s there for.”

  “The cane’s no good. It just gets in the way.”

  “If you fall again, you might break your hip and then you’ll be in a wheelchair. Do you want that?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Then use your cane,” I said, throwing up my hands in exasperation. I glanced at my phone and got up from the couch. “Hey, Dad—I gotta run to a department meeting. I’ll call you later.”

  “I got my poker game at three. Don’t call me then. And don’t forget the Q-tips next time, OK? I only have a handful left. I think someone’s been stealing them from me.”

  I nodded, hugged him briefly, then dashed out. On the way to the meeting, I tried calling Larry. He didn’t answer, so I tried a second time and then a third. As I was just about to hang up, Larry finally answered. He sounded hoarse, as if he was coming down with a cold.

  “Hey!” I said. “Where are you? Are you coming to the department meeting?”

  Larry sniffled.

  “What’s the matter?” I asked. “Are you sick?”

  “It’s over,” Larry said.

  “What’s over? Are you talking about Jack?”

  “They took away his phone. I’m sure of it. He hasn’t texted me in thirty-six hours.”

  “Maybe he’s out of the country?”

  “No, he warned me this was coming. His last message to me was ‘im sorry, please wait for me.’ ”

  “Did you write back?”

  “Of course I did! I wrote, ‘i’m here for you, my lovely boy,’ and then there was that little text bubble where you know the other person is typing something . . . and then poof! It disappeared. I’ve never been so distraught over an ellipsis! To be continued . . . NEVER!”

  “Maybe he got interrupted in the middle of his text?”

  “Yeah right. Dot dot dot . . . I’ll be waiting forever.”

  “You’re overanalyzing a text. Or a nontext, in this case.”

  “Dot dot dot . . . our love is dead.”

  “What? OK, stop being melodramatic.”

  “Dot dot dot . . . the end.”

  “Larry—our department meeting is in fifteen minutes. Come on. Rally!”

  “Tell Steve I’m indisposed. You can be elliptical.”

  “Larry! This isn’t funny. You can’t wallow!”

  “I’m hanging up on you now, dot dot dot . . .”

  “Don’t you dare!”

  “. . .”

  I stared at my phone. Larry had hung up on me.

  “Where’s Larry?” Rick asked, waving me over when I arrived at the meeting. Steve was at the front of the room, passing out copies of the agenda with Pam.

  “He’s having another case of the vapors,” I grumbled, sliding into the seat beside him. I switched my phone to silent and shoved it into my bag. “This thing with Jack is really messing him up.”

  “He still has a crush on that movie star guy?”

  “It’s more than a crush—they had a real relationship.”

  Rick raised an eyebrow. “Well, this might be a sign he needs to move on,” he said.

  “It’s not that easy,” I said. “He’s pretty devastated.”

  “It was never going to work out, anyway,” Rick said, reaching his arm around my shoulder and resting it on the back of my chair. “Better he figure that out now rather than later.”

  Steve cleared his throat and began going through general housekeeping while I quickly scanned the agenda:

  ENGLISH DEPARTMENT MEETING AGENDA

  February 11

  1. CHAIR’S REMARKS – STEVE

  2. APPROVAL OF MINUTES FOR JANUARY 14 DEPARTMENT MEETING – PAM

  3. COMMITTEE REPORTS – COMMITTEE CHAIRS

  4. UNDERGRADUATE CURRICULUM REVIEW – STEVE

  5. HIRING INITIATIVES – PRESIDENT MARTINEZ

  6. ANNOUNCEMENTS

  I pointed to item no. 5. “What’s this?” I whispered to Rick.

  Rick shrugged. “No clue,” he said, looking mystified.

  I doodled on my agenda as Steve meandered through his opening remarks (a textbook rep was giving a presentation Tuesday, campus recycling week was coming up, volunteers were needed to grade comp exams) and Pam went over last month’s minutes. I was the chair and sole member of the tech committee, so I stood up to give my report: the department Facebook page had 314 members and the department Twitter account had 163 followers, a student volunteer was helping me revamp the official department home page, and next month the department was hosting its second annual “Middlemarch Madness” challenge, so everyone was encouraged to fill out their brackets online. Last year, The Sound and the Fury had upset The Portrait of a Lady, much to Larry’s chagrin.

  Adam turned up just as Steve was beginning his long-winded overview of our curriculum overhaul. Seeing Adam from the corner of his eye, Steve mercifully cut his presentation short and handed over the floor. I continued to doodle on my agenda, drawing curlicues around the edges of the paper as Adam stepped up to the front of the room.

  “Before I begin,” Adam said, “I wanted to congratulate one of the members of your department on a truly remarkable set of accomplishments. Some of you might already know that Dr. Anne Corey has a book forthcoming with a major press”—here Adam paused to acknowledge a smattering of applause as I looked up in surprise—“but I’m also delighted to announce that we have renewed her contract and she has agreed to stay with us here at Fairfax!”

  Adam began clapping loudly and gesturing to me to stand up. I was startled and instinctively hung back, but Rick hoisted me up and began cheering loudly beside me. “Stop!” I hissed at Rick, embarrassed but also touched by his enthusiasm. After a few seconds, I sat down again, feeling flushed and warm from the unexpected attention.

  “This is a great way to transition into my topic for today,” Adam was now saying. “Namely the launch of a new college-wide hiring initiative to hire and retain exceptional
faculty members. In the past, this was done on an ad hoc basis, but we’ve come to recognize the need for a more transparent and systematic way of supporting faculty retention.”

  Rick and I exchanged glances.

  “I’m putting together a work group to hash out the details, and I’m soliciting suggestions from individual departments on hiring priorities and wish lists. So far, the response has been very positive, and I’ve already begun collecting nominations of current exceptional members of our contingent faculty who wish to stay on permanently. I’m here to enlist all of your help in identifying and recruiting promising candidates.”

  “!!!!!” I wrote on my agenda, nudging the paper toward Rick.

  “First I’ve heard of this,” Rick whispered.

  “But it sounds promising!”

  “He could be talking about someone else—”

  “Who? It’s got to be you! There’s no one else!”

  “What should I do?”

  “You need to talk to him. ASAP!”

  Steve was glaring at us, so I quickly shut up and hunched over my agenda, pretending to take notes as my colleagues raised their hands to ask questions, offer suggestions, or volunteer to serve on the working group. The discussion spilled over the allotted time, and Steve suspended the discussion, moving that we continue to talk through the issues at our meeting the following month. The department voted “Aye,” Pam recorded the passing of the motion, and everyone immediately scrambled for the doors. As Adam got up to leave, I rushed over to catch him before he slipped out.

  “This hiring initiative sounds amazing!” I blurted out. “I’m so glad Fairfax is doing this.”

  “Yes—it’s a great idea,” Rick added, appearing at my side and reaching out to shake Adam’s hand. “I’m glad you’ve thrown your support behind this.”

  “Everyone’s been very enthusiastic,” Adam said, shaking Rick’s hand firmly. “We’re trying very hard to get it off the ground this year since we don’t want to lose talented faculty to other institutions. In fact, I’m scheduled to meet with some donors later today to figure out immediate funding issues. I’ll hopefully have more to report sometime next week.”

  “Let me know what I can do to help,” Rick said. “As you can probably tell, I’m quite eager to stay at Fairfax. It’s my top choice—for many reasons.” He touched my back lightly, and I smiled.