After You (9 page)

16

P
hillip’s secretary patches me through to his office. Even though it is eight o’clock Boston time, they are both still there, perched at the top of the Prudential Center, amid marble and glass and sitting on ergonomically designed chairs, immune to the glorious view of Boston Harbor. I bet Phillip is finalizing a pitch, surrounded by a harem of young analysts eager to stay up all night at his whim and “run the numbers.” Before, when we were deciding whether to get pregnant, we ran the numbers for that, too, and Phillip created a multicolored, expense pie chart that took residence under a magnet on our refrigerator; it lasted for far longer than Oliver’s sonogram.

“Ellie,” he says, a sarcastic edge to his voice, all the more cutting because he’s calm. “How nice of you to call.”

“You hung up on me.”

“Three. Days. Ago.”

“I was waiting to cool down.”

“Bullshit. It took you three days to call back. Over seventy-two hours. Did you just forget to call? I bet you forgot. Too busy with your new life?”

“You told me to go fuck myself, Phillip. That’s not something I’d forget.” Our conversation is like a flat tennis rally, purposeful restrained hitting before the game.

“No, since you like to be the semantics police, allow me to correct you. I said, ‘Fuck you.’ There’s a difference.”

“Phillip, please.”

“Why do you keep saying that? Please. Please what?”

“Please stop.”

“Stop what? I’m not supposed to be angry? You go to London, and all of a sudden I get a call that says you’re not coming home. Ever.”

“It wasn’t all of a sudden,” I say.

“This is a marriage, Ellie. That should mean something.”

“It does mean something.”

“Then you can’t just do this. Who does something like this? It makes no sense.”

“Lucy died, Phillip. She died! And they need me here. You don’t need me the way they do.”

My voice cracks, and I hate myself for it. I want to stay calm like Phillip, I want that piercing anger and targeted rage.

“So, we’re getting a divorce because your best friend died.”

“Who said anything about a divorce?”

“Are you kidding me? Are we just playing games here? Is that what’s going on?”

“I’m not playing games.” My chest—no, my heart, my literal heart—clenches. We have never before said the word
divorce
out loud to each other. We have said
separate
. And I hate to admit it, but
fuck you
or variations thereof have been in the arsenal long before this week. But never
divorce
. I understand I am on my way, that I have started the long walk to D-land, but using the word now seems premature all of a sudden. “I just … Phillip. I’m not talking about divorce. I’m talking about a separation, or maybe not even that. I’m not sure what I’m talking about. I just know I need to be here right now.”

“Well, why don’t you think about what it is
you
want and get back to me? What, in say, I dunno, three fucking days?”

“Phillip, stop being so angry.”

“Yeah, right.”

“I broke my arm, by the way. It hurts a lot. That’s what I called to tell you.”

“You broke my heart. I have a feeling that this hurts a hell of a lot more.”

The following evening, after we have tucked Sophie in and Greg and I are settling into the final empty space at the end of the day, we watch
Big Brother UK
on television, both of us fascinated by its soapy appeal. Today there is a burgeoning couple and another splitting, and it looks like they may switch partners, though I hope not. I don’t care that their wrong decisions will make for better television; they seem like real people, with real loves, and to screw them up for the sake of plot will be sacrificing too much.

“So there’s an English tradition that when you break a bone, you have to go out and get pissed,” Greg says, clicking his finger against his drink. “And we have approximately four hours before the pub closes and, what do you think, at least six before Sophie wakes up?”

“We can’t leave Soph alone.”

“I’ll call the girl next door to babysit. She’s always up for making some extra pounds.”

“I’m pretty sure I’m not supposed to drink with my pain medication.”

“Ah, but, see, there’s another English tradition you’re forgetting about. When one’s friend suddenly becomes a widower, and before the age of forty, you’re required to pass along any and all narcotics prescribed by one’s physician. In fact, I believe it’s a law.”

“Really.”

“Okay, not really. But, come on, I fancy getting pissed. That’s what we English do when we are upset. Everyone knows that. That was definitely made law during the Thatcher years.”

Two hours later we are in the King’s Head pub, and I am watching Greg drink his eighth pint. One after the other, without pause. As soon as Greg’s drink reaches the quarter-empty mark, a fresh pint appears, just in time for him to gulp down the rest of the last one. I don’t try to keep up, not that I could even if I wanted to. Instead, I’ve been sipping the same glass of warm water; I need to stay sober. I am the one on call for Sophie duty tonight.

The pub has wooden chairs with green seats and a hideous Persian carpet, which stinks of beer and maybe urine, a unique combination I haven’t had the pleasure of smelling since my last frat party, the week before I graduated from college. The place is surprisingly full for a Thursday night, mostly middle-aged men drinking frothy pints, and the atmosphere is not dark and charming, the way it is in some pubs. The posters on the wall announce that the place serves a Sunday afternoon roast, with a picture of a slab of beef to prove it. I can’t think of a less appealing place to eat a meal. This pub is for one thing and one thing only: drinking.

“Another, mate,” a sweaty, snaggle-toothed slab of a man tells the bartender, as he sways on his stool; “Me, too, keep ’em coming,” says his equally unsteady twin or cousin or drinking buddy. And that’s how it goes, on and on,
another, me, too, keep ’em coming
, a never-ending cycle of wrist to mouth, including the occasional trip outside for a “fag.” I don’t know why Greg chose this place, which seems a little rough around the edges for him, and not the cleaner, cuter one down the street, with the Old English sign and the dry heat of a fireplace.

With each progressive pint, Greg’s demeanor changes. He starts as faux-cheerful—we are just a couple of friends having a drink, after all. We are playing the game that we have mastered over the last few weeks, a pleasant game that allows us to forget how weird our circumstances are.

As the night has worn on, he has become borderline hostile. The alcohol is unleashing his anger, loosening his tongue. But he doesn’t sound angry with me. He’s angry with Lucy. I guess we both are for her making us take part in this charade.

“Know what pisses me off the most?” he asks me now, his finger pointed in the air and then forgotten. “You know what drives me crazy? That I couldn’t talk her out of it.”

“What are you talking about? You can’t talk a person out of death. This wasn’t her choice.” Maybe mortality is something that we can wrap our minds around only when we are sober. Because even then, even when we have access to the cruel sharpness of intellect, the whole life-death divide still seems insurmountable. There are degrees of absence. I realize that now. Lucy’s takes us to one end of the spectrum, to the realm of absolute.

“I felt like if she only listened to me—”

“Greg, you’re being ridiculous. You can’t even talk God out of death. Believe me, I’ve tried. Many times. And I’m not even sure I believe in God.”

“I just thought, you know, it would all blow over. But it didn’t. It got worse and worse. And, bam, now it’s done. Just like that. I wasn’t even given a shot. And Sophie—”

“Yeah.” I have no idea what he is talking about. I’m humoring my drunk friend.

“I want to kill the guy. I would have no problem cutting his heart out. I fantasize about it. You don’t destroy a family like that.”

“We all want to kill him. But please let’s not talk about—” I see his face again, the man who has done this, and for a moment I worry that he is sitting in this pub, too, or is in wait outside, like he is less a person, more a deadly gas, somehow infused in the British mist, slowly poisoning all of us. He penetrates my consciousness, and sometimes, when he pops up in my thoughts, unwelcome, I turn around just to make sure he is not behind me.

I wish I could believe he is mere boogeyman, an apparition, Sophie’s nightmare sparring partner, not someone who exists in my world. People like that shouldn’t exist in my world.

“You’ll stay with Sophie, right, when I go to Paris and strangle the living daylights out of the fucking … fucking … fucker?”

“Paris? What does Paris have to do with anything?”

“Everything. The city of love. Screw love. What does he look like, Ellie? Is he better-looking than me?”

“Who? Greg, I think it’s time to go home.”

“Please tell me. Is he better-looking?” Greg looks like he is about to cry. His hair is mussed again, and he’s spilled some beer onto his polo sweater. He’s messy, but I guess I would be, too, if I had drunk even half of what he has consumed tonight.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. Come on, let’s go.” I start to usher him out of the pub into the chill night air. “I promise, things will look better in the morning.”

Greg weaves as he makes his way out the door, but no one takes notice of us; he looks just like every other guy here who’s had one too many. Once we are back on the street, he stops me with his arm, turns in my direction. For the moment, his eyes are clear and he seems sober.

“No, Ellie. That’s where you are wrong. Tomorrow I’ll still be alive. And Lucy? Lucy will still be dead. No, things will
not
look better in the morning.”

What can I say to this, other than,
You are absolutely right?
I link arms with him, my right through his left, and attempt to keep him from falling down. My skin is itchy under my cast, and I feel a shooting pain straight to my fingertips, right from the center of the break point.

We pass a few of Notting Hill’s private gardens, hulking and off-limits and silent, fairy lit on their borders with old-fashioned lamps. Neither of us says another word until we are finally outside the Stafford front door, the walk home somehow much longer than the walk to the pub. I crave the refuge of my bed.

“Ellie, how did you let her do it?” Greg asks, peering down at me from the top step. Since he has made no effort to find his keys, I search through my purse for the spare set with my one good arm.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“She must have talked to you. You could have talked some sense into her.”

“Greg. This isn’t funny. Let’s just get inside, and you can pass out. You’ve had too much to drink.”

But Greg doesn’t want to go inside, and he grabs the house keys out of my hand.

“She didn’t tell you, did she?”

“What?”

“She didn’t tell you. Not even you. Wow.”

“Tell me what?”

“Nothing. Sorry, I know … I know I’m talking nonsense. Come on, let’s get inside. I’m shattered.” He easily opens the door, another flash of sobriety that is more alarming than his drunkenness.

In the hallway, just before we part to go into our separate bedrooms, just down the hall from each other, Greg looks at me with clear eyes once more.

“Good night, Ellie. And thanks. You actually made me feel a hell of a lot better.”

17

M
y new pay-as-you-go cell phone wakes me up at six a.m. with its shrill cry.

“What? Hello?”

“Eleanor, it’s Jane.” My mother is the only person in the world who calls me Eleanor.

“What the hell? It’s, like, the crack of dawn.”

“Don’t say ‘like.’ You’re thirty-five, not thirteen.”

“What do you want? What time is it there?”

“One in the morning. Anyhow, listen, darling, your father and I are coming for a visit.”

“What? You and Dad? Together?”

“Come on, Eleanor. Don’t pretend with me. I know your brother already told you about us.”

“I was hoping it was a joke.” I picture my mother calling from her tiny apartment in the West Village, with its walls covered with woven tapestries and framed posters of modern art. No doubt she is wearing a silk kimono and smoking a clove cigarette. It’s a weeknight, so I assume my father is still in his old house in Cambridge, reading a paperback on his cracked leather recliner and wondering how to hold on to my mother this time.

“We’re landing at five o’clock next Friday. And we’ll see you and Michael for dinner. Your father has already taken care of the reservations. He’s recently become something of a foodie.”

“Mikey has a date on Friday night.”

“Really? With a man or a woman?”

“Mom.”

“What? Just asking. I can’t remember the last time he brought someone home.”

“November 2004. Remember? You told him you thought she was so boring that you’d rather spend the afternoon memorizing pi than talk to her?”

“Oh, right. Homely girl. Good teeth. Childbearing hips. So he’ll meet us for drinks after his date.”

“This is very last-minute.”

“What can I say? Your father and I live on the edge.”

“He certainly does.” My mother ignores me, per usual. She sounds happy, though. I’ll give her that. Maybe there’s a chance that this time my parents will stick.

“Whatever. You’re available, right? What could you possibly have to do?”

“Thanks a lot. Yeah, I’m available. I’ll make sure Greg can be here. Or I guess I could find a sitter.”

“Wow, we’ve slipped into this new mommy role rather quickly, haven’t we?”

“I hate when you resort to the first person plural. It’s rude. Is that how you talk to your patients?”

“Most of them aren’t as difficult as you.”

“How long are you staying?”

“We’ll be there for only about a day, and then we’re off to Paris.” She says it the French way:
Par-E
. “We haven’t been since we backpacked through Europe when you were a baby. We’re hoping to make love under the Eiffel Tower again.”

“Please. Stop.”

“Oh, Eleanor. Prudish as always. So, how are things going over there? Phillip tells me you’re not coming home.”

“He told you that?”

“The better question is why haven’t you told me?”

“Since when do you talk to Phillip?”

“What are you talking about, sweetheart? Phillip and I talk all the time.”

“Yup, I heard,” Mikey says by way of answering the phone when I call him a couple of hours later. “Both of them. In London. Together.”

“Yeah. Did she tell you about their plans for the Eiffel Tower?”

“Are you trying to kill me? Of course she did. She always does.”

“Maybe that’s why we never get to have sex. Our parents are getting it on enough for the both of us.”

“Ellie, stop. I’m still feeling sick.”

“And we do nothing, right? About Mom and Dad? We just trust that she won’t destroy Dad? Again?”

“We do nothing. Ellie?”

“Yeah.”

“Can you do me a favor?”

“Anything.”

“Please call your husband.”

* * *

So I call my husband, and he screens my call. Fair enough, I think. I would be angry, too, if he left me behind. But whatever he says, I’ll still need to be here. Whatever he says, I’m not going home. Whatever he says, I don’t want to hurt him—either of us—more.

To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Subject: Arms race
Are you okay over there?

To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Subject: Re: Arms race
Did you really break your arm?

To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Subject: Re: Arms race
Yes. Did I really break your heart?

To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Subject: Re: Arms race
I don’t know, but let’s finally be honest. It ain’t looking good, kid.