“I can’t remember what we were talking about,” Sandra said.
“Three-ways, and whether Bruce and Eva have them,” Rachel said.
“That’s not what we were taking about,” Min said.
“Call me naive,” Rachel said, “but Bruce and Eva having sex with other people—I just can’t see it.”
“I can’t see them having sex with each other,” Sandra said.
“Just because you can’t see a thing doesn’t mean it isn’t true,” Min said.
“OK, then I’ll offer some testimony,” Sandra said. “But only if you promise not to make fun of me.”
“We promise,” Rachel said.
“I don’t promise,” Min said.
“Then I’ll tell you just to prove I’m not as naive as you think I am. Well, it was a few weeks ago, and I’d gone into the city for my meeting with Aaron. As I’m sure I’ve told you, for the time being, the judge has given my apartment to Rico, which in my view is totally unfair—”
“Yes, you’ve told us.”
“And so whenever I go into the city overnight, I have to find a place to sleep, only I don’t want to put too much of a burden on any one of my friends, so I try to—how shall I put it?—spread myself around.”
“I’d say that’s putting it perfectly.”
“Don’t worry, your turn will come, Min. Anyway, on this particular occasion I’d made a plan to stay with my friend Susan, only her son—he’s a sophomore at Vassar—he’s prone to panic attacks, and to make a long story short, he had a doozy of one right in the middle of a biochemistry exam—shortness of breath, the whole nine yards—so he left the exam room, walked straight to the station—he didn’t even stop at his dorm—and caught the first train to New York. He didn’t call Susan. When she got home from work, she found him hyperventilating in his bed, which was where I was supposed to sleep.”
“Oh, dear,” Min said. “Don’t tell me you had to stay in a hotel.”
“No, I called up Eva and asked if I could use her guest room.”
“Hold on a sec. You actually called Eva up? You actually called her up and invited yourself to spend the night?”
“Sure, why not?”
“The third rail,” Rachel said.
“I wonder why she didn’t tell me,” Min said. “Anyway, go on.”
“Well, I called up, and Bruce answered, and when I explained my predicament, he couldn’t have been sweeter. He said that of course I could stay over, I should come by whenever I wanted, come for dinner even, only I couldn’t manage dinner because I’d already made plans to have dinner with my daughter. Now, I don’t know if any of you have seen it, but their quote-unquote guest room is actually the maid’s room. It’s off the kitchen and about the size of a closet, with a teeny tiny bathroom, and so as soon as I got into bed I had this terrible claustrophobia attack. I couldn’t sleep, and I didn’t have any Zolpidem, so I decided to go into the kitchen to do some writing—that afternoon Aaron had lit the flame in me—only I hadn’t brought a pen, and I couldn’t find one in any of the drawers. I checked the living room too, and then that bedroom they use as a study. I went on tiptoe so as not to wake them, and as I was passing their bedroom, I could hear them … not exactly talking. It was more this weird sort of baby talk. I won’t try to imitate it.”
“Oh, go on,” Rachel said.
“Well, I suppose it was like—now, bear in mind, this is just a rough approximation—‘Googly-oogly, who’s a Munchkin?’ And ‘What’s Lord Ralph up to? What’s my little Lady Isabel up to? Lady Isabel is a good girl, isn’t she?’ ”
“Wait a sec. Lady Isabel?”
“That was Bruce. He’s the one who said Lady Isabel.”
“This is TMI,” Rachel said.
“And then the door opened a crack more and one of the dogs came out.”
“Oh, God, don’t tell me—”
“Exactly. They were talking to the dogs. The dogs were in bed with them.”
“Two’s company, three’s a pack,” Min said.
A fit of pot-induced hilarity seized Rachel. She was laughing so hard she was gasping for breath. “Are you OK?” Min said. “Rachel, are you having an asthma attack? Are you dying?”
“It’s just … it all fits so perfectly,” Rachel said. “Sorry.” She stood up straight, trying to will herself into dignity. “Actually, when you think about it, it’s kind of heartbreaking. Those dogs are their children.”
“If you must know, they do,” Min said, extinguishing what remained of the joint.
“Do what?” Sandra said.
“Have sex. Fairly often, in fact, and that’s all I’m going to say on the subject.”
“Then why don’t they have kids?”
“It must be by choice,” Rachel said. “I’ve always assumed so.”
“I didn’t say that,” Min said.
“Infertility then?” Sandra said.
“I didn’t say that either.”
“You did, actually. You said it by saying you didn’t say it was by choice.”
“What? Can you repeat that?”
“I said you didn’t say—OK, let me start again. You said it by saying you didn’t say it was by choice.”
Min was rubbing her arms, as if she had only now realized how cold it was. “All right, I’ll tell you, but only if you promise not to tell anyone else. I mean, this must never get back to Eva. Agreed?
“OK. It’s not that either of them is infertile and it’s not by choice—not exactly. It’s that she has, well, a small vagina—and Bruce has a larger-than-usual penis—and so intercourse doesn’t work for them.”
“Hold on—what do you mean, a small vagina?”
“According to her, starting in the earliest days of their marriage, she’s found intercourse painful. It worried her so much she went to a bunch of doctors—male doctors—and they all told her the problem was psychological, that she just had to learn to quote-unquote relax, but she couldn’t relax, because she was always worried that it would hurt. Naturally, Bruce didn’t push it—”
Rachel burst into giggles.
“Sorry, poor choice of words. Naturally, Bruce didn’t press the issue.”
“That isn’t all he didn’t press.”
“Be quiet. So that was that, until about ten years ago, when I was at Self, we did this piece where I interviewed a gynecologist—a woman—who’d done a study of vagina size, and what she found was that there’s a normal range—we’re talking the size of the labia as well as the width and depth of the vault—”
“Vault?”
“That’s what they call it on SVU,” Sandra said.
“So weird,” Rachel said. “Like a bank vault.”
“Are you done? The point is, there’s a normal range that most women fall into. Not all do, though—some really do have extra-small vaginas, and some have extra-big ones. So of course I told Eva this, and she made an appointment to see this doctor I’d interviewed, who measured her, and the upshot—don’t even think about it, Rachel—was that she’d been right all along. Her vagina was one of the smallest the doctor had seen, and that’s why she finds intercourse painful.”
“But wait, didn’t you just say they have sex?”
“Intercourse isn’t the only way to have sex.”
“What do they do then?”
“Let’s just say that as in all things, in sex Bruce is the perfect gentleman.”
“What, you mean he takes off her coat for her and she comes?” Rachel said. “He pulls out her chair for her and she comes?”
“Use your imagination.”
“As Godfrey held the door open for Lucinda, a ripple of pleasure ran through her loins.”
“And she reciprocates?” Sandra said.
“As Lucinda prepared to light Godfrey’s cigar, a ripple of pleasure ran through his loins.”
“That’s all I’m going to say,” Min said. “From here on my lips are sealed.”
“As, apparently, are hers,” Rachel said. “No, but in a
ll seriousness, why does Bruce put up with it? Does he put up with it? I mean, most men—”
“You shouldn’t generalize.”
“OK, then I’ll stick to what I know. With Aaron, if we couldn’t fuck, it would be a deal-breaker.”
“Even though he loves you?” Sandra said.
“That’s not the point. I mean, it’s a moot point, because it’s never been a problem for us, thank God.”
Suddenly she had tears in her eyes.
“Are you OK?” Min said.
“I don’t know. It’s probably the pot. I wish you hadn’t asked me that question, Sandra.”
“Believe me, I wasn’t thinking of you when I asked it. I was thinking of Rico.”
“Oh, God, but what if I’m wrong? What if, if for some reason I couldn’t—we couldn’t—would he leave me?”
“Of course not. He loves you.”
“But what does that even mean, to say you love someone? Even with people who love each other, things can happen—things that make it impossible for them to stay married.”
“Oh, but Rachel, honey, they won’t happen to you. Really. Just because they happened to me.” Sandra tried to put her arm around Rachel’s shoulder, but Rachel flinched away. “And like you just said, in your case it’s not an issue, so why fret?”
Rachel was weeping loudly now.
“Don’t worry, she always does this when she gets high,” Min said. “She’ll be over it in a second.”
“I shouldn’t have said what I did.”
“Are you sleeping with Aaron?”
“What?”
“Are you sleeping with my husband? That is, when you have your so-called meetings to go over your so-called work?”
“What? No, of course not. Jesus. It never even crossed—I mean, my relationship with Aaron is totally professional. I pay him four hundred dollars an hour, for Christ’s sake.”
“How much?”
“Plus we have our meetings in your apartment. Sometimes your kids are there.”
“But I’m not. I’m slaving away in my fucking office, and he’s at home, and you’re paying him four hundred dollars an hour, which he never told me, and which is a hell of a lot more than I make.”
“I can’t believe he charges you four hundred dollars an hour,” Min said.
“It’s the going rate,” Sandra said.
“Maybe I should get in on this racket.”
“Will you please lay off? It’s not a racket, and I’m not sleeping with him.”
Now it was Min who was laughing.
“Oh, I see, so all this is just another joke?” Sandra said. “Why does everyone tease me? It’s been true my whole life.”
“It’s sort of hard to resist.”
“But isn’t that a reason to resist it? As a measure of respect or affection? Or don’t you like me? Why not? Do I threaten you? Are you afraid I’m going to horn in on your territory, try to take your place with Eva?”
“No one could ever take my place with Eva.”
“Who says? What makes you think you’re so special? You act as if you’re the only one who understands her, the only one she could ever possibly confide in. Yet I notice she never told you she invited me to stay over that time.”
“You said it was Bruce who invited you.”
“Is there a difference? According to you, Bruce never does anything without her permission.”
“Oh, just fuck off, will you?”
“OK, what do you and Aaron do during your quote-unquote meetings?” said Rachel, whose attention had not progressed beyond this point in the conversation.
“Well, each week he gives me a prompt, I write something, then I read it aloud to him. Only if I come to a sentence he doesn’t like, he makes me stop.”
“But that’s not even original,” Min said. “That’s how what’s-his-name taught. You know, Captain Fiction or whatever.”
“Aaron’s a hard sell. It was four weeks before he let me read past the first sentence. I burst into tears, I was so happy.”
“Four meetings a month, at four hundred a pop, that makes sixteen hundred dollars.”
“What was the sentence?” Min asked.
“I’m not ashamed to tell you. I worked so hard on it, I’ve got it memorized.” Sandra cleared her throat. “ ‘For most of her life, she had devoted her life to making sure she would never be left, and then one morning she woke to find she was living a life she could never leave.’ ”
“That’s actually quite good,” Rachel said.
“Thank you,” Sandra said.
“There’s just one thing I don’t get,” Min said. “You did leave Rico.”
“You’re assuming the character’s me. It’s not.”
“Then who is it?”
“Who do you think?”
The women were silent for a moment. Then Min said, “It isn’t Eva, is it?”
“Why should it be?” Rachel said. “She isn’t the only woman in the world, last time I checked.”
“Well, I suppose it’s the idea of devoting your life to making sure you’ll never be left,” Min said. “Only that implies she’s come to feel trapped, which I don’t think she has.”
“So why is she buying an apartment in Venice?”
“Hold on, are you suggesting she’s buying the apartment to get away from Bruce? If so, you’re completely off base. It has nothing to do with Bruce.”
“Are you sure?”
“Of course I’m sure. For God’s sake, we’ve just been talking about it.”
“And yet it’s not as if Bruce can just up and go to Venice whenever he feels like it,” Rachel said. “There’s his job, there are the dogs. No matter which way you frame it, if she buys this apartment she’ll be spending a lot of time away from him.”
“So what? Plenty of couples have long-distance marriages and are perfectly happy.”
“Eva and Bruce? A long-distance marriage? When they’ve spent practically every night together since they met?”
“I’m sorry to interrupt,” Sandra said, “but why are you both so sure the protagonist is Eva?”
“Who else could it be?”
“Well, it could be a man. I could have changed the gender to disguise his identity. It could be Bruce. Of course, I’m the last person to ask. I’m only the author.”
Off in the distance, the dogs were yelping. Min looked at the joint, now only a stub, then passed it to Rachel, who dropped it to the ground. “I can’t see how it could be Bruce,” she said. “I mean, he’s the one who earns the money. Of course, he loves her desperately.”
“Hasn’t it occurred to either of you that she may not be the one who feels trapped? That it might be him?”
“That’s ridiculous,” Min said. “You speak like you know them, yet you hardly know them. I’m the one who knows them.”
“You may know them too well. So well you can’t see them clearly anymore.”
Suddenly Rachel started laughing again. “God, will you just listen to us?” she said. “I mean, we’ve been out here—how long, an hour?—and what are we talking about? Eva. Still. And when you think of all the other things there are to talk about!”
“I’m not the one who keeps bringing her up,” Min said.
“Hold still, there’s something on your face,” Sandra said.
“What? Oh, God …”
“Stay still, I’ll get it,” Sandra said, reaching her fingers toward Min’s cheek and pinching it so hard that Min cried out. “No, it’s OK. It’s just a bit of ash.”
“Are you sure?”
“It probably blew over from Grady’s. His gardener’s always burning leaves.”
“It’s getting colder,” Rachel said. “How long have we been out here? It feels like hours.”
“I think about half an hour,” Min said. “Time always seems to move more slowly when you’re stoned.”
“Or maybe this is the way time really moves,” Sandra said, “and when you’re not stoned, it feels speeded up.”
; “Wait, what are you saying?” Min said. “That time itself changes, or just our perception of time?”
“Is there a difference?”
“Of course there’s a difference. It’s like—you know, when there’s a countdown to something and you’re watching the clock, three minutes is an eternity. But then when you’re not paying attention, three minutes goes by like three seconds. And yet no matter how those three minutes feel, they’re always three minutes.”
“Are they?”
“Of course. Because if they weren’t—if time was always compressing and expanding—the earth’s orbit would always be changing. One day the sun would set at four and the next at ten.”
“Stop it, Sandra.”
“Stop what? I’m just asking questions.”
“No, you’re not. You’re trying to confuse us.”
“Whatever time it is, we probably ought to be getting back inside,” Rachel said.
“You’re right,” Min said. “Otherwise they might think we’ve been eaten by panthers.”
20
“Your mission, should you choose to accept it,” Bruce said.
He and Jake were walking on the fringe of the woods, letting the Bedlingtons lead them.
“I suppose you’re wondering why I called you here today,” Bruce said.
Jake bent down and worked a burr out of Ralph’s paw.
“These dogs are ambulatory Swiffers,” he said.
“You’re not answering my question.”
“How can I when you haven’t asked it?”
“It’s not a question I want to ask. It’s a question I’ve been asked to ask.”
“I think I know what it is. What I don’t get is why she’s so insistent it should be me. If it were my apartment, I’d want an Italian, someone like Roberto Peregalli.”
“You know as well as I do Eva would never have anyone but you. She’s afraid of what she isn’t used to. It’s why she’s gone to such great lengths to circumscribe her life—and mine. Not that she’s entirely to blame for that. It’s served me too.”
Jake picked up a branch and threw it, but the dogs were too captivated by some fugitive smell—the feces of a rodent or a raccoon, he guessed—to pay it any heed.
It was cold, and getting colder. “So am I to gather that we won’t be allowed back in the house until I’ve given you an answer?” he said.
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