I'm So Happy for You (15 page)

Daphne,

I’m in shock! A whole brownstone. Wow. Congratulations. Not sure Cobble Hill qualifies as neighboring, but it’s a hell of
a lot closer than Murray Hill. That said, looks like Adam and I are going to be moving—not sure where to yet. We just got
an eviction notice, if you can believe it. The place is a shit-hole, anyway, but it’s still a huge pain in the ass having
to look for a new apartment, especially with the holidays coming up. Anyway, that’s great news for you guys. Please send some
real estate luck this way (i.e., to your future homeless friends).

XW

p.s. I want to hear all about your “meet the parents” moment when you get back. Speaking of in-laws, yes, we’re heading up
to Newton, per usual.…

Normally, Wendy would have followed her email to Daphne with emails to all of their mutual friends, relaying this latest news
flash from Daphne-ville (snide commentary included). In that moment, however, Wendy found herself wishing only to hide from
the world. It seemed to Wendy that when she and Adam hadn’t been looking—had been busy watching
Twilight Zone
reruns and checking their email and doing whatever else they did with their time—the rest of the educated population had
been busy preparing for the future: taking out thirty-year mortgages and transferring savings into Roth IRAs. She imagined
an exemplary couple peering out their sparkling clean double-sided Marvin window glass, heads shaking with pity and scorn,
as she and Adam lugged a urine-stained mattress down the street in search of a bus shelter in which to spend the night.

Wendy arrived home from work to find Adam watching the
Lehrer NewsHour
on PBS. The death toll was rising in Iraq, and two talking heads were debating the merits of withdrawal. Wendy thought that
despite Saddam Hussein’s being a bad guy, invading Iraq had been a terrible idea that would cause a needless amount of suffering
and set a harmful precedent in the world. Just prior to the invasion, she and her colleagues from
Barricade
had participated in a large antiwar demonstration on the East Side avenues of Manhattan. Wendy had carried a placard that
read, “Just Say No to U.S. Imperialism.” (Unsure where to buy really big cardboard, she’d asked a coworker to make her sign;
otherwise, she might have opted for a slightly more subtle slogan.) Wendy had found the rally exhilarating, until the efforts
of a certain horsebacked New York City police officer to contain the mob left her severely claustrophobic and doubtful that
she had a future as a political activist.

Or was that just an excuse? Maybe it was impossible to process the fact of mass deaths, the three thousandth suicide bombing,
the four thousandth improvised explosive device. Maybe she’d grown disillusioned after Bush was reelected. Maybe Iraq’s descent
into chaos seemed so preordained that she found it hard to continue to register shock and outrage. Whatever the case, Wendy’s
interest in the war had waned, while her personal concerns had risen to the forefront of her mind—even as she was aware that
compared to the daily threat of being blown to smithereens, those concerns were hopelessly banal. So she’d stopped trying
to justify them. Which in turn had given her permission to be bitter. “I suppose you already heard that Daphne and Jonathan
bought a brownstone,” she said, hanging up her coat.

“Nice for them,” said Adam without looking up. It wasn’t clear from his answer if he’d already heard or not—only that he was
in a bad mood, too. Which, to Wendy, didn’t seem entirely fair.

“Speaking of real estate,” Wendy continued, “I went through all the listings, and there’s nothing in our price range—not for
a two-bedroom. At least not in the South Slope.”

Adam didn’t answer.

“So maybe it’s time we talked about you going back to work.” For the second time in one day, Wendy had shocked herself with
her gall. Although the very words had been in her head all afternoon, she hadn’t planned on uttering them out loud—hadn’t
felt it was her right, had feared they’d lead to a big argument or worse. (Every time she and Adam fought, Wendy worried they’d
get divorced.) Her heart was now galloping at such an accelerated pace that it seemed possible it might come catapulting through
her shirt.

Adam’s eyes were still affixed to the screen. “I thought you agreed to support us for twelve months,” he said.

Wendy sat down in a chair across from him, partially blocking the TV. “I did agree to support you,” she said in as calm a
voice as she could register. “But I didn’t know we were going to get evicted. Also, would you mind turning off the TV for
a second, since this is important?”

Adam eyed her coldly as he lifted the remote control off the coffee table and hit the power button. The talking heads stopped
talking. Then he said, “My screenplay is important to me.”

“What screenplay?” she wanted to cry out. But how could she do so without admitting that she’d spied on his computer? Besides,
there was always the possibility that she’d looked at the wrong file, that just today he’d been busy writing the denouement.
Though what dramatic event that would entail, she couldn’t say. (The discovery of an untapped well of functional sperm on
a distant planet?) So she said, “I don’t see why you can’t work on it at night, or in the mornings, or on the weekends.”

Adam let out a long sigh. Then he said, “Wendy, don’t you see what you’re doing here? You’re envious of Daphne’s town house,
so you’re taking it out on me. Don’t you realize that money isn’t what make couples happy? Let’s say I went to work at Goldman
Sachs tomorrow, and we moved into some mansion in Brooklyn Heights with fireplaces and wainscoting. Do you really think you’d
be happy? Don’t you see you’d just be on to the next thing—upset because you didn’t have a baby yet, or a fancy car, or whatever?
You’re never satisfied. That’s just who you are. You felt deprived as a child, and there’s nothing anyone can do to make it
up to you. You could marry Bill Gates and still think you were getting fucked over.”

Blood rushed to Wendy’s face, and she gripped the side of her chair. Adam had touched on the truth, but—to her mind—distorted
it beyond recognition. Which only made his accusations that much more maddening to her. “That is so fucking unfair,” she shouted.
“It’s just a bullshit excuse for you not to have to do anything with your life! FUCK YOU.” With that, Wendy got up and walked
out of the room. She and Adam hadn’t had that bad a fight in years. It was terrifying. It was a tiny bit exciting, too, if
only because feeling estranged from your husband created tension that, after enough years together, wasn’t always apparent.

It was also like walking around with an icicle attached to your back.

Wendy and Adam were still talking only intermittently when, three days later, they left for Thanksgiving. “We need to stop
for gas,” he’d say. “What time does your mother expect us?” she’d ask. “One or two,” he’d answer. They passed the hours listening
to National Public Radio. But Wendy found the patient, soft-spoken voices of the program hosts to be immensely grating. Between
bathroom, snack, and gas stops; Polly’s hourly need to relieve herself; and the near-standstill traffic on I-95 between the
Bronx and New Haven, the trip seemed to go on forever. Secretly, Wendy felt bad she’d never learned to drive and therefore
couldn’t relieve Adam of some of the burden of getting them there. But she was still too mad at him to admit as much. Finally,
at quarter to four, they pulled into the Schwartzes’ circular driveway.

There was no sign of Ron, but Adam’s older brother, Bill, was there with his wife, Susan, and their two charmless pigtailed
daughters, Rachel, five, and Briana, seven. Wendy had never known what to make of her brother- and sister-in-law. Bill, who
was a tax lawyer like his father, had gone to Tufts for college and Fordham for law school. But his demeanor and dress suggested
a man who’d had no previous contact with urbanity. He arrived for dinner wearing belted jeans and white sneakers the size
of small yachts. Susan, meanwhile, wore a permanent expression of exasperation on her thin lips. Before becoming a stay-at-home
mom, she’d worked for the Massachusetts Office of Travel and Tourism. (It was hard to imagine her talking anyone into visiting
the state.) She addressed both children by their first and middle names. “Briana Rose,” she’d say, “will you please remove
your elbows from the table?”

Phyllis must have sensed that something was wrong between Adam and Wendy. She spent the entire meal talking even faster and
more relentlessly about nothing in particular than she normally did. “I couldn’t remember what time I put the turkey in. Isn’t
that crazy? I don’t know where my head is these days! Wendy, can I offer you more sweet potatoes? What a cute top you’re wearing.
Just the other day, I was thinking about that time you and Adam drove that U-Haul across country. I can still see you pulling
into the driveway looking like you hadn’t showered in a week! I have to admit, I never thought you’d make it. I was sure we’d
be getting a call from Logan Airport. I remember telling Ron…” She chattered on and on.

After the meal, the entire family climbed into Bill’s boat-sized Dodge Caravan and drove to Mass General, bearing flowers
and fruit pie. Adam’s father was now speaking several words at a time. Which was several more words than Wendy spoke to her
husband the entire night.

Adam accompanied Wendy back down to the city that Saturday, ostensibly to help look for a new apartment. But on Sunday, when
all the open houses were held, he claimed not to feel well and went back to sleep. So Wendy, trying not to feel any more exasperated
than she already felt, set out alone in search of new digs.

The first place she saw had a bathtub in the kitchen; the second had been advertised as occupying the “garden floor” of a
brownstone, but only the upper half of the apartment’s two windows were aboveground.

At first glance, the third place Wendy visited—the top floor of an aluminum-sided frame house, five streets away from their
current address—was scarcely an improvement over the first two. Proximity aside, it might as well have been located on a different
planet. At one end of the block was a car wash, at the other a store that sold nothing but fire extinguishers. The concrete
expanse of the Prospect Expressway was directly across the street; catty-corner to that was an entrance to the Brooklyn-Queens
Expressway. Wendy had to assume that the sound of traffic filled the living room at all hours of the day and night. The stairwell
smelled like kitty litter. And the brokers were charging a fee of 12 percent of the annual rent for the privilege—or was it
punishment?—of living there.

But on second glance, the place was clean and spacious enough. It had a small alcove off the bedroom that, in a crunch, could
be used as a nursery. The R station was right across the street, on Fourth Avenue. Most important, the rent was comparable
to their current one. Figuring they were unlikely to do better, and concerned that some other desperate couple might come
to the same dreary conclusion, Wendy called Adam.

He sounded as if he’d just woken up. Or maybe he was still asleep. But after listening to a brief description, he muttered,
“It sounds fine—let’s take it.”

“Don’t you want to come see it first?” asked Wendy.

“I trust you,” said Adam.

“The bedroom is in back, but it might be loud, especially at night,” said Wendy, wary of being held accountable if and when
they couldn’t sleep.

“We’ll get used to it.”

“And you realize it
directly
faces the expressway? I mean, you can practically see into the cars.”

“Whatever. It’s not about the view out the window.”

“Then what’s it about?”

Adam paused before proclaiming, “It’s about being with the people who care for you. Unfortunately, certain people don’t always
realize that.”

“Point taken,” said Wendy.

But as she wrote a check for several thousand dollars and handed it to the broker, she wondered if she even agreed with the
point that her husband had made.

(L
ATE
J
ANUARY
)

W
ENDY WAS ON
her computer at the office, perusing red carpet photos from the Golden Globe Awards, when Lincoln’s face appeared over the
burlap wall of her cubicle. This time, there was no escaping his pockmarks. “Can I see you in my office?” he said.

Wendy’s heart shrank to the size of a pea.
I’m getting fired,
she thought with alarm—if not as much of it as she might have imagined she’d feel—as she rose from her chair and followed
him down the hall.

Lincoln’s office was neat to the point of obsessive. The few stacks of papers that lay on his desktop were lined up at perfect
right angles. The only decoration was a framed 1981 campaign poster from the Parti Socialiste Français, featuring a youthful-looking
François Mitterand. “I don’t know if you’ve heard,” he began, “but Shirley resigned last night. Or rather, walked out.”

“Really?” said Wendy, who had not heard.

Lincoln grimaced. “She was unhappy with what she perceived to be our lack of coverage of Hurricane Katrina. Apparently, we
only ran twenty-seven articles on New Orleans last year versus a hundred and six on the war in Iraq. She saw it as evidence
of a racial bias on the part of the magazine.”

“Huh.” Wendy nodded. What any of it had to do with her was still unclear. She and Shirley Mansard, who was the only African
American on staff, as well as the only other female editor at a senior level, were cordial without being close. Which is to
say that the mere sight of Shirley, her bearing regal to the point of despotic, struck fear in Wendy’s heart and made her
want to apologize for being white every time they ran into each other at the water cooler.

“We would have liked to bring in someone from outside,” Lincoln went on. “But we don’t have the money. So we’re offering you
the job of managing editor.”

Wendy couldn’t believe what she was hearing. She knew she ought to be insulted, but she wasn’t. “Really?!” she squealed with
all the excitement of a schoolgirl upon learning that she’s won two free tickets to the Ice Capades at Madison Square Garden
in a coloring contest. (In fact, precisely this thrilling thing had happened to Wendy when she was eight.) “Wow. That’s great.
I mean, not about Shirley leaving, but about the job. Really, I’m honored.”