Animal Husbandry (28 page)
Authors: Laura Zigman
“And someday you’ll feel that way about someone else.”
I shook my head and bit my lip harder, but the tears escaped out of the corners of my eyes and down my cheeks. “No. I won’t.”
“Yes. You will.”
“No. I won’t.”
“Jane. He’s not the last man you’re ever going to love.”
I stared at him, and he stared back. Then he sat down next to me on the couch.
“He’s not the last man who will ever love
you
.”
I squeezed my eyes shut and covered them with my hand. The tears were unstoppable now.
“Yes, he is,” I whispered.
“No, he’s not.”
I sobbed into my hands and felt like I would never be able to stop.
“No, he’s not,” Eddie said again. Then he put his arms around me. “I swear, he’s not.”
Husband
n
1: a married man, esp. when considered in relation to his wife 2:
Brit:
a manager 3:
archaic:
a prudent or frugal manager—
vt
1: to manage, esp. with prudent economy 2: to use frugally; to conserve: to husband one’s resources 3:
archaic
a: to be or become a husband to; to marry b: to find a husband for c: to till; cultivate [bef. 1000; ME
husband(e)
, OE
husbonda
master of the house]
husbandry
n
1: the cultivation and production of edible crops or of animals for food; agriculture; farming 2: the science of raising crops or food animals 3: careful or thrifty management; frugality, thrift, or conservation 4: the management of domestic affairs or of resources generally [1250–1300; ME
housebondrie
]
Well, I’m sorry to say that there’s no big surprise ending here.
No fabulous nite of luv with Eddie.
No running off to Tanzania to join up with the real Jane Goodall to analyze primate fecal trails for the rest of my life.
No, the only surprise was that after all was said and done, after all my theories and conclusions about men in general and men in particular had been formulated, it was Eddie—Eddie the womanizer, Eddie the heartbreaker, Eddie the
animal
who refused to give up on the idea that his perfect mate was out there somewhere—who brought me to an understanding that flew in the face of everything I wanted to believe was true. And it was Eddie who led me through the tunnel of sadness and pointed out the pin dot of light a few hundred thousand yards away.
I still believe in things like allelomimetic behavior and gynogenetic reproduction and semiannual monogamy, but if I believe in these things, I have to believe in permanent monogamy too, right?
Sometimes a monkey is just a monkey.
And sometimes a guy is just being a guy.
But other times, well, let’s just say, even monkeys hold a few surprises in store for the watchful monkey scientist.
Okay. Let’s get back to the couch when the dam broke, when the misery and rage and dementia and scientific obsession fell away, and all that was left was what I’d used every ounce of will trying to avoid in the first place:
Grief.
Loss.
And sadness.
And when the sobs reduced themselves to hiccups, Eddie gave me a drink, poured himself one, and tried to get me to laugh by telling me an all-new new-wife story. Then he turned on the TV, and I fell asleep beside him as he watched the last third of
Rooster Cogburn and the Lady
(any John Wayne movie was better than no John Wayne movie at all). And when I woke up the next morning, Eddie was still there. Fully clothed. Mouth slightly open. Snoring lightly.
I rubbed my stiff neck and went to the kitchen to put on a pot of coffee. Then I called Joan and told her that Dr. Marie Goodall had died peacefully in her sleep.
It was time to get on with my life.
So where’s everybody now?
David fell in love with a jet-setting photographer on the West Coast who regularly transfers frequent flier miles into his account.
Joan got a great offer for a job at
Newsweek
—science editor if you can believe it. When she told Ben and he didn’t make a counteroffer, she took it as a sign—a big neon sign—to move on too.
Ray was hired to executive-produce a fledgling network news magazine show. Evelyn stayed behind to torture me.
But I got Ray’s job.
And Eddie works for me now. He has yet to track down Kevin Costner, but he’s perpetually hot on the trail of a new wife.
Instead of destroying the case files, I buried them in a moldy storage bin in the basement of my new prewar doorman apartment building on the Upper East Side.
I’m still a sucker for New World monkeys, the
New York Times
’ science section, and an Old Cow’s Old-Cow story.
I still read Ray’s horoscope when I read my own.
And every once in a while I still dream about him. But the dream is different now, and I am different in it.
In the dream I see him in a place that seems familiar but isn’t: on a beach we never went to; across a crowded room of strangers; in a field as barren and devoid of features as a moonscape.
Our eyes lock.
And there, in the soundless, gravityless atmosphere of that place, the place where memory and experience and love and grief meet to form acceptance—the place where Old Cows and New Cows don’t exist—I turn away and whisper words I thought would never come:
Moo who?
For my parents,
Bernie and Bernice
For my late grandmother,
Ruth Black
For Linda,
the best sister ever
,
and for Wendy,
who made me finish
.
I am grateful beyond expression to the following people for years of extraordinary friendship: Marian Brown, Julie Grau, Ivan Held, Wendy Law-Yone, Jennifer Loviglio, Tom Perry, and Daren Salter. Nowhere in the world are there wiser, funnier, or more generous friends than these.
Or these: Paul Bogaards, Ruth Fecych, Kate Fitzgerald, Dalma Heyn, Martha Johnson, Julie Just, Nina King, Linda Lehrer, David Leibowitz, Julia Matheson, Francie Norris, Chuck O’Connor, Nancy Pearlstein, John Scardino, Peter J. Smith, Carl Wagner, Nicky Weinstock, and Sonnie Willson.
Special thanks to: Marty Arnold, Steven Barclay, Damon Boone, George and Laurie Bower, Stephanie Bower, Anna Caraveli, Elizabeth Chandler, Charles Goff, Lynn Goldberg, Paul Hallam, John Harris, Paul Hartman, Howard and Stella Heffron, Barbara Jackson, Debbie Kautzman, the staff at the Kennedy-Warren, Richard Kosoff, Nicole Kosoff, Bob Lemstrom-Sheedy, Binney Levine, Lorraine and Michael Loviglio, Margaret Maupin, Anton Mueller, Lynda Obst, Relish, Greg Riley, Billy Shore, and Tom Spanbauer. I am very grateful to Bret Easton Ellis for reading an early draft and helping to redirect me, and to Edmund White for reading, too, and for his encouragement when I most needed it. I also wish to thank my rotating team of physicians for their various expertises: Dr. Richard Firshein, Dr. Robert Heffron, Dr. Howard Hoffman, and especially Denise Zalman, C.S.W.
For expert representation, endless hilarity, and unflagging loyalty in matters both professional and personal, I wish to thank
Bill Clegg. I also wish to thank Kathy Robbins for her sage advice and the rest of the fabulous staff at The Robbins Office: Kate Alvarez, Eric Chinski, Judith Greenberg, David Halpern, Kevin Lang, Elizabeth Oldroyd, Tifany Richards, Robert Simpson, and Cory Wickwire. In addition, the brilliant minds of Rick Pappas and CAA’s Robert Bookman deserve special mention.
For her herculean editing efforts, undivided attention, and friendship, I am grateful to my editor, Susan Kamil. Every author should be so lucky. Carla Riccio’s editorial suggestions were equally invaluable, as were those of Julie Grau. I am also indebted to many others at The Dial Press and BDD, including: Stuart Applebaum, Carole Baron, Leslie Hermsdorf, Libby Jordan, Gretchen Koss, Laura Rossi, Cary Ryan, Leslie Schnur, Linda Steinman, and publicity oxen Carisa Hays and Tracy Locke. Not to mention Michael Ian Kaye, Barbara DeWilde, and Francesca Belanger for their artistic talents.
Lastly, I wish to thank my friend Charmaine Re, who discovered the Old-Cow–New-Cow theory. Without it, clearly, this book could never have been written.