This Is Where We Live

by Janelle Brown

  “God, not in ages.” Cristina’s voice approached and then descended, hovering above Claudia’s bent back. “After she won the Venice Biennale two years ago, her prices really skyrocketed. And you know how the art market exploded.”

  She won the Venice Biennale? Claudia digested this fact unhappily. What else didn’t she know? But it was her own fault. She’d prided herself on the fact that she hadn’t Googled Aoki since her engagement, but what once felt like princely self-control now looked like willful blindness. Somehow, Aoki had become downright famous while Claudia wasn’t paying attention. Does Jeremy know all this? she wondered. Does he know how much the painting is worth? She suspected that the answer was yes. If that was the case, why had he been hiding this truth from her?

  Suddenly, she wasn’t jealous anymore. She was, simply, furious.

  “European collectors love her,” Cristina continued, unaware of Claudia’s silent meltdown. “Are you going to her opening at the end of the month?”

  “The opening.” Claudia grasped at this, finally connecting back to the present that she knew. She sat upright, feeling slightly more grounded. “I think we’re going. Yes.”

  “I’m jealous. Our head curator’s invited, and I’m begging her to take me as her plus one.”

  “Who wants a mojito?” Jeremy called. The two women turned as Daniel and Jeremy crashed into the living room from the kitchen, cocktails splashing across their wrists. Jeremy smiled at Claudia, more animated than she’d seen him in days, as she took the sweating cocktail from his hands.

  “So—I had no idea you were Aoki’s Jeremy!” Cristina lurched toward Jeremy, as if about to flop down at his feet. “Tell me all about her!”

  Jeremy flinched. “I’m not exactly Aoki’s,” he said quickly, and then cast his eyes toward Claudia with silent apology, his loose grin clearly intended as some kind of peace offering: Really, it’s no big deal, honey! Don’t pay attention to her! But the damage was done. Claudia smiled tightly as she stared down at her drink, examining the pulped mint, the bubbles clinging desperately to melting ice cubes, as if these—rather than the painting or her notorious, duplicitous husband—were the most interesting things in the room.

  She waited. Waited until the pizza squares were gone, and Daniel and Cristina had finally climbed into Daniel’s old Saab to drive cautiously back down the rutted hill; waited until the quiet house was a drained fishbowl, emptied of life; waited until they were mutely shuttling emptied glasses and smeary plates to the kitchen sink, to be washed in the morning. It was then that Claudia finally turned to Jeremy and revealed the inferno of emotion she had been stoking all night.

  “Did you know?” she stuttered at her surprised husband, who stood at the stove munching on an abandoned pizza crust. “Did you know that Aoki’s painting is worth over half a million dollars?”

  Jeremy stopped chewing. Crumbs clung to his half-open lips. “Did Cristina tell you that?”

  “Is it true?”

  Jeremy shook his head. “Jesus. I mean, I knew it was probably worth a lot, but that’s a lot more than I imagined.”

  “What did you imagine?”

  He ducked his chin, spotting a tomato sauce splotch on the front of his button-down shirt. He swiped at it uselessly, avoiding her glare. “I dunno, maybe high five or low six figures,” he said quickly.

  “And you didn’t tell me? You didn’t think it was worth mentioning to your wife that we were in possession of something that could alleviate our financial troubles? When we were at the bank, and I brought it up—and you didn’t say a word ….” She dropped the plates in the sink, where they landed with an ominous crack. “We are this close to losing our goddamn home! I had to get a teaching job, Jeremy. We took in a roommate! And all this time we had the money just hanging there on the wall?”

  “I guess I didn’t think about it like that.” His voice was low.

  “Well, think about this: If we sold that painting we’d be able to pay off almost our entire mortgage. We could own the house free and clear. Or even if we just pay off half the house—think of everything we could use the rest of the money for. It could let me try my hand at film again, or finance your next album—or, if we wanted to be responsible, we could invest some of it, use it for retirement savings, or—I don’t know—put it away for college for our kids. We could set ourselves up for the rest of our lives!”

  Jeremy looked like a cornered animal. “Maybe I don’t want to sell it.”

  “You don’t want to sell it?” She repeated his sentence slowly.

  “Not really, no.” He leaned up against the hulking antique stove and fiddled with the cuff of his sleeve.

  “It’s just a painting, Jeremy. How could a painting possibly be more important than—oh, say, our future?”

  Jeremy shook his head at the linoleum floor. Before she could stop herself, Claudia finally blurted out the fear that had been haunting her for longer than she cared to admit. “Is it that you’re still in love with Aoki?”

  “That’s not it.” A strangled sound came out of Jeremy’s throat.

  “Then what is it?”

  “I don’t think you’d understand,” he said. His words were slurred from the mojitos he’d drunk. “You’re so pragmatic these days.”

  She leaned back against the sink, wounded by his distaste. “Try me,” she said.

  “First of all, I don’t really think of that painting in terms of what it’s worth,” he began, slowly. “Its value to me is more abstract than that. I figure, it’s a piece of my past, something special—a famous painting, of me—that I could never own again. And that makes it kind of—priceless, I guess.”

  “It’s not priceless,” Claudia said, unable to bite her tongue. “It’s worth more than half a million dollars.”

  Jeremy gave her a baleful look. “Why do you always have to be so literal? Don’t you understand that I’m talking about things that are intangible?”

  She hated the picture he was painting of her—a ruthlessly efficient harpy, joyless and practical to a fault. She wasn’t that person, was she? “Of course I understand,” she said. “I’m sorry. Go on.”

  Jeremy looked away from her, as if he were staring at something fascinating just outside the kitchen window, but the only image visible in the glass was their own reflection: two blurred bodies, standing at right angles to each other. “Listen, Claude. I can’t sell the painting right now. I just feel kind of, I don’t know—confused. And that painting’s the only center I have. It’s … who I’m supposed to be. It would be like selling a piece of myself.”

  “But it’s just a picture. It isn’t you. You’re all caught up in some romantic fantasy of a life that doesn’t exist anymore, that maybe even never existed. It has nothing to do with the reality we live in.”

  Jeremy turned and stared at her. His eyes were cool and measured. “Frankly, I think your reality is pretty fucking boring these days,” he said.

  Claudia snatched up a highball glass from the counter. Before her brain could register what her hand had in the works, she had flung the glass to the floor, a point just a few inches west of Jeremy’s foot. The glass shattered into a hundred tiny slivers, dangerous shards skittering across the linoleum in every direction and lodging themselves invisibly underneath cabinets and appliances. Jeremy jumped back, staring at her with the wounded expression of a child who can’t understand what he’s done to deserve a spanking.

  “Well, how about this reality, then,” she barked. “If you don’t want to sell that painting, you need to find yourself a new career. No more making your band the center of your life anymore, no more messing around in a pointless day job with crappy pay, because times have changed and that’s a luxury we can no longer afford. We’ve been traveling blindly down this road for years and we’ve finally hit a dead end and that’s reality, as much as you may hate it.” The words fell fast and furious from her mouth. “Give it up, Jeremy. You’re not a rock star. Not now.”

  Jeremy nudged a curve of glass with
his toe, and then pressed his sneaker down on it. She heard it snap under his foot and flinched. “You haven’t given up,” he said, petulant. “You’re still trying to get a movie made, even if it’s in a half-assed kind of way.”

  She bristled. “What do you mean, half-assed?”

  “Honestly? I think you’re just using everything that’s happened lately as an excuse to quit trying to make real movies because you’re scared,” he said accusingly. “You’re scared of failing again.”

  His words pierced her, an arrow with deadly accurate aim, and she twisted away instinctively. It wasn’t fair: of course she was trying! Just think of Penelope and that penciled A, of everything she was putting on the line to get a film made. “That’s not the point,” she said. “This isn’t about me, it’s about you. It’s about the fact that it’s time for you to grow up and rethink your priorities. You’re almost thirty-five, and you’ve got a house and a family—and someday soon, we’re going to have kids. And yes, I know you wanted the band to work out, so did I, and it really really stinks that it didn’t, but Jeremy, it’s not the only thing for you.”

  Jeremy was finally looking straight at her. “So you think I should just give up playing music?”

  She was being unfair, too extreme, and she knew it; but she couldn’t stop herself. The months of frustration poured out of her, a violent torrent directed straight at her husband. “You’re the one who doesn’t want to sell the painting. Apparently you think there are other, more important, intangible things than actually, you know, having money in our pockets. Well, you can’t have it all, Jeremy. So you better choose.”

  Jeremy’s face distorted with ghoulish hate. He shook his head. “Who are you?”

  “Who am I? Who are you? Why don’t we discuss the fact your picture is hanging in the MoMA and you didn’t even bother to tell me!”

  “I didn’t want you to be jealous,” Jeremy muttered darkly.

  “Should I be jealous?”

  The front door slammed shut right then, and Claudia and Jeremy looked at each other in wounded silence as footsteps approached, two sets. With depressing inevitability, Lucy appeared in the doorway, her married paramour in tow. She barreled toward the refrigerator in a tight pink cocktail dress, oblivious of the fog of tension that hung in the air.

  “Hi, guys! You remember Pete?” Lucy flapped a hand at the doctor, hanging back in the doorway. Pete nodded at Claudia and glanced at his watch. Jeremy resumed staring at the floor.

  “Can you believe it’s ten-thirty and still eighty degrees out?” Lucy spoke into the depths of the refrigerator, her rump hanging in midair, a ripe plum ready to be picked. She withdrew a bottle of chardonnay and turned to smile at them. “I know it’s kind of late, but are you two interested in joining us for a glass of white wine? Oh—is that broken glass on the floor?”

  Neither Jeremy or Claudia answered. From the doorway Pete coughed twice, a soft cry of distress.

  Lucy hesitated. “Oh, no, did I interrupt something?”

  “I was just getting lectured by Claudia here about my inadequacy as a human being.” Jeremy’s voice was black.

  Claudia’s fists curled into tight coils of fury. “Can it, Jeremy.”

  “What?” He offered a faux-innocent grin. “I’m sure our roommate would love to hear what you have to say on the subject.”

  Lucy sagged, the wine bottle drooping in her grip. “Maybe Pete and I should get out of your hair—”

  “Oh, no! Don’t! We love the company.” Jeremy smiled darkly. “We could build a campfire and make s’mores with some of your coconut marshmallows.”

  Claudia didn’t recognize this man, this one who suddenly sounded more like the bullies of her youth than the genial boy she’d married. “Stop it, stop it now,” she hissed. “It’s not Lucy’s fault that we needed to find a roommate. Besides, this is what you want, isn’t it? You’d rather live like this”—she nodded her head at Lucy—“than sell your precious painting, isn’t that what you decided?”

  “I didn’t choose this in the first place, remember? All this was your idea. You seemed to believe that buying a house would affirm the fact that you were—I don’t know, all growed up or something—as if home ownership were just something we were required to do at a certain point in our lives, God knows why, and I just went along with it, even though it was insanely expensive. I should have known better. And now I’m supposed to give up everything else that’s important or interesting in order to keep it?”

  Claudia stared at him, willfully blocking out the awkward presence of the other two people in the room. “It’s better than avoiding responsibility, which is what you seem to spend your life doing.”

  Pete cleared his throat. “Lucy, I’m going to head home. Maybe I’ll see you at the hospital sometime.”

  “Don’t!” Lucy lurched toward him, her heels crunching in the glass. “We can just go to my room—”

  “Oh, let him go.” Jeremy stood in Lucy’s path, blocking her way. “You’re better off without him. He’s only using you for sex anyway. He’s married.”

  “I don’t think that’s any of your business,” Lucy said softly. She gazed bleakly over Jeremy’s shoulder toward the empty space in the doorway where Pete had just stood. From the front of the house came the click of the entry door closing.

  “I don’t know why you think you can’t do better,” Jeremy said, more gently. He smashed another piece of glass underneath the heel of his tennis shoe and ground it into dust.

  Claudia was baffled at the strange, antagonistic intimacy that seemed to be playing out between Jeremy and Lucy. When had this relationship formed? She was completely lost, a stranger in her own home, a home that had been taken over by this secretive passive-aggressive Peter Pan who called himself her husband and some pathetic, needy girl who was sleeping in Claudia’s own bedroom. Suddenly, she couldn’t take it anymore.

  “Should I be jealous?” She found herself blurting out the question Jeremy hadn’t answered yet.

  Jeremy turned to stare at her, confused. “Of Lucy?”

  Claudia angrily pushed the wooden kitchen table, sending it thumping across the linoleum toward Jeremy. “I don’t know what the hell is going on here, but I can’t deal anymore. I’m done,” she said. “I’m sorry, Lucy.”

  She walked unsteadily out of the room as Lucy began to weep—a frightening, keening sound—and reeled through the living room in the general direction of the front door. She fished her keys out of a silver ornamental bowl that her parents had given them for an anniversary present, intended as a dining room centerpiece but since relegated to holding paper clips and hair elastics and spare keys. Jeremy followed close behind her, suddenly pliant. He watched her as she wrestled with the front door, which had never opened quite right since the day of the earthquake. “Don’t leave,” he said. His voice grew more desperate. “Where are you going?”

  Outside, the night was unrelentingly warm, the muggy air offering no relief at all. She stepped through the door and let it fall shut. The last thing she saw through the illuminated crack was Jeremy’s face, his eyes wide and wounded. “Nowhere that you can come,” she said, to the closed door.

  Claudia’s didn’t really want to be alone. Alone in the car, as it jittered along toward the bottom of the hill, her day kept racing through her head like a bad movie stuck in a perpetual loop: Penelope, blocking her in the closet; the penciled A in her grade book; the guilty expression on her husband’s face when Cristina called him Aoki’s Jeremy, and his distaste as he accused her of being pretty fucking boring. Their first real, huge, disastrous fight. She closed her eyes to make it all go away and then opened them again when the car brushed against a hedge. The car made a hideous scraping sound, accusing her of negligent misdirection.

  There was nowhere to go. She wished she had a friend in Mount Washington, a safe house where she could go to sleep off the night, but the only people she knew up here were social acquaintances. RC lived across town, in Beachwood Canyon; and she’d be a
sleep by now, anyway. She could drop in on Esme, who had recently moved into a condo downtown, but she was in New York, doing marketing promotions for an upcoming film about parakeets with superpowers. For the first time, Claudia regretted having chosen to live on a hill, so remote from the rest of the city.

  Her shaking hands were making it difficult to drive, so she pulled over to the side of the road, next to a scraggly little public park that had been wedged in the base of a ravine. One lonely streetlight cast a sulfurous glow across a square of cracked concrete. The swing set wobbled back and forth as if occupied by a forlorn ghost child. In the shadows, just beyond the light, lay an abandoned basketball, half deflated. Claudia pulled her cell phone from her pocket and impulsively dialed her mother’s phone number.

  The phone rang four times. Claudia was about to hang up, having thought better of it, when Ruth picked up the other line.

  “Hi, Mom.”

  “Claudia? Are you OK?” Ruth’s voice was phlegmy and sandpapered. She sounded much older than Claudia wanted her to be.

  “I’m fine. Did I wake you up?”

  “No, I was watching Conan. But honey, why are you calling so late?”

  “I just wanted to say hi.” She looked out at the barren playground, where the bushes were rattling in a soft wind—the Santa Ana was picking up—and regretted calling. Her mother hadn’t been her confidante in years, not since Claudia left Mantanka. It was inevitable. Ruth’s world wasn’t much greater than the stuffy confines of her own house—where Claudia’s semiretired father Barry spent most of his days in a recliner watching the History Channel—and her local Methodist church, where she served as a deacon and all-around do-gooder and, occasionally, the next town over, where she went to deliver noisy plastic toys to her grandchildren. Claudia’s parents’ home was frozen in time, as if a clock had stopped on some day in the past—roughly June 1986, judging by the fading teal-and-coral color scheme and white wicker furniture—when they had decided youth was officially over and there was no further reason to keep up with changing times. Claudia wasn’t sure whether she loved her parents’ reliable consistency or feared the terrifying tang of senior stagnation.