I'm So Happy for You (8 page)

“Wendy is an editor at
Barricade
magazine,” Daphne said to Jonathan.

“Not that old commie rag,” Jonathan said, chuckling.

Again, Wendy felt fire in her chest. But Daphne’s brow was now so deeply knit that a cleft had formed between her eyes. Wendy
took a deep breath and said, “So, are you guys already planning for the holidays?”

“Well, Jonathan’s family has a house up near Stratton,” Daphne said quietly. “And I think we’re going to go up there and do
a little skiing. Or”—she laughed quickly—“in my case, sitting around the fire drinking hot chocolate and reading
Shopaholic
novels. Anyway, I think we’re going to be there the whole time.”

“Fun!” said Wendy as enthusiastically as she could manage. “And your family doesn’t mind you missing Christmas?” As far as
Wendy could remember, the Uberoff family Christmas, which took place in Daphne’s hometown of Ann Arbor, Michigan, was a fairly
big deal. Never mind the fact that Daphne’s mother, Claire, was in a wheelchair with late-stage multiple sclerosis.

“Well, we’re going to do Hanukkah this year instead,” Daphne said, turning to Jonathan with a demure smile, which he reciprocated
with a proprietary arm around her squirrelly back.

A surge of rage toward Jonathan Sonnenberg pulsed through Wendy. Politics was one thing. Religion was another. Surely, Daphne
wasn’t going to give up her heritage for a man she’d met less than two weeks before. (While there was reason to believe that
her maternal grandmother had been part Jewish, Daphne was essentially Presbyterian.) Or was it none of Wendy’s damn business
what religion Daphne did or didn’t practice? And why did Wendy even care? Wasn’t the important part that Jonathan seemed to
make Daphne happy?

Bangs reappeared with their drinks, including a Sam Adams for Jonathan, which she plunked down before him, spilling some in
the process. He didn’t say thank you, and she didn’t say sorry. She flipped opened her notepad and said, “To eat?”

Adam ordered the hamburger, Jonathan the steak frites, Wendy the coq au vin, and Daphne, as she always did, two appetizers.
(Daphne always claimed to have had a “huge snack” just before she left the house.)

While they waited for their meals to arrive, Wendy struggled to keep the conversation going. Politics and religion were now
off-limits. Jonathan didn’t know any of the same people that Daphne and Wendy did. Wendy had already asked him about his job.
And he seemed utterly disinterested in finding out anything more about Wendy or Adam than he already knew.

“So, have you guys been watching
Iron Chef
?” asked Wendy during one uncomfortable lull.

“What channel is that on again?” asked Daphne.

“The Food Channel,” said Wendy.

“Oh. I’m not sure if I get that.” She turned to Jonathan. “Do I get the Food Channel?”

“Beats me.” He shrugged. It was his last contribution to the general conversation. He spent the rest of the evening nuzzling
Daphne’s neck, whispering in her ear, and, after their dinners finally arrived, nearly an hour later, eating off her plate.

Halfway through the meal, Adam turned to Jonathan and said, “Enjoying your French-I-mean-Freedom fries?”

“Is someone talking to me?” Jonathan asked. He turned around in his seat as if the voice had come from a neighboring table.
Finding no one there, he went back to his dinner. To Wendy’s relief, Adam left it at that.

Finally, dinner was over. The four of them passed through the velvet curtain and onto the sidewalk. A taxi pulled up as if
on cue. “Good night, Brooklyn,” Jonathan announced without eye contact, before he disappeared into the backseat.

Daphne lingered on the sidewalk. “Well, it was so great to see you guys. Adam,” she said, throwing her arms around him, “I
swear I haven’t seen you in, like, a year!”

“That’s not true,” said Adam. “I see you every time you come out to the Slope, which happens—wait—have you ever been to our
apartment? We’ve only lived there for four years.”

“Shuuut uuuup—of course I’ve been there!” Daphne said with a broad grin.

“Suuuuure.”

“You’re so mean to me.”

“It’s only ’cause I love you.”

“Yeah, sure—”

“I do.”

“Prove it.”

Wendy smiled. She’d always found it gratifying to see other women flirting with her husband: it made him seem worthy of flirting
with and was therefore a compliment to her. She also suspected that Adam enjoyed the attention more than he let on, especially
when it came from Daphne. It was she who had introduced Wendy to Adam. The three of them had been at a party in the East Village
thrown by an aspiring singer-song-writer-womanizer named Donal Wendy-Couldn’t-Remember-His-Last-Name, who wore women’s headbands
in his lanky brown-blond hair. He and Adam had gone to college together. Daphne had slept with Donal once, or maybe it was
twice. (It was unlikely she remembered his last name, either.) That was Wendy and Donal’s only connection. But the few times
a year they’d see each other, he’d hug and kiss her hello as if they were old and close friends. (For a while, for Wendy,
the city was filled with people like that—people who squeezed her tight, and said, “Yo—Wen!—Where you been?—Baby—I’ve missed
you!” as if they’d actually thought about her once since they’d last met. And then, one day, it was no longer like that. One
day, those same people started walking right by her like the virtual strangers they actually were. And it was jarring but
it was also kind of a relief.)

Neither Adam nor Daphne had ever satisfyingly described their meeting for Wendy. As she understood it, Daphne had plucked
Adam off the sofa in Donal’s living room with little more than, “Will you come meet my friends?” Then she’d dragged him through
the crowd to Donal’s bedroom, where Wendy stood talking to another now-lost acquaintance. “Wen—you have to meet my new best
friend, Adam!” Daphne had said, her hand in his. “Isn’t he adorable?” She’d laid her head on Adam’s shoulder.

Always obliging, Wendy had said, “Hey.”

“How are you?” he’d answered.

“Fine, except I can’t breathe,” she’d told him. It was one of those apartment parties that was so crowded you literally had
to shove people out of the way—that or climb over furniture—to get to the other side of the room. (Somehow, only Daphne had
managed to move freely.)

“I have clove cigarettes if you want one,” Adam had offered. “They always drive away a few assholes.”

Wendy had smiled, amused, and said, “I’m okay, but thanks.” From the beginning, there had been an immediate connection between
her and Adam—a shared misanthropy laced with humor and longing. Was that it? In any case, Daphne had done Wendy the biggest
favor that a friend could do; hadn’t she? And yet, over the years, Wendy had come to resent the fact that Daphne had found
her a husband. It gave her too much power; it made Wendy feel indebted.…

“Daphne Uberoff.” It was Jonathan, calling from the back of the cab.

“Well, I better run.” Daphne threw her arms around Wendy. “Thank you so much for organizing this. It was
beyond
great to see you guys.”

“It
was
great,” said Wendy.

“I’ll call you tomorrow. Mwuh.” Daphne blew a kiss in Wendy and Adam’s general direction. Then she, too, disappeared into
the cab.

As Daphne and Jonathan’s taxi sped off, Adam turned to Wendy, and said, “It’s official. He’s the worst person on earth.”

“What about that serial killer guy, Jeffrey Dahmer?” Wendy said, laughing, as they crossed Lafayette.

“He’s dead,” said Adam.

“He is?” said Wendy.

“He got bludgeoned in the men’s room, like, his first day in jail.”

“Bummer…”

They decided to walk home. Or, really, Wendy made the decision for them. The dinner had cost more than she’d anticipated,
and a car service home was likely to add another ten or fifteen bucks to the evening’s bill. Plus, it was a beautiful, crisp
autumn night, the kind of night that, as a child, Wendy had associated with the knowledge that the holidays were all fast
approaching, each—in theory, at least—with its own storehouse of treats. (In practice, holidays at Wendy’s mother’s apartment
on the Upper West Side had mostly been dreary potluck affairs populated by a random assortment of neighbors, cat-sitters,
and visiting professors at Lehman College in the Bronx, where Judy Murman taught in the women’s studies program.)

“Anyway, serial killers don’t count,” Adam went on.

“Bin Laden?” suggested Wendy.

“I guess you have to give Sonnenberg credit for not incinerating thousands of innocent people in an office tower. Still, could
you believe that line about the Palestinians? What an A-hole.”

“At least he’s not married, like Mitchell.”

“He will be soon.”

Wendy gasped. “Oh, god, you don’t think—”

“I think indeed,” said Adam as they headed east on South Portland. “The guy isn’t exactly a bohemian type. And he’s probably
getting close to forty.”

“I think he’s thirty-seven.”

“Well, then, he’s probably anxious to populate his own land—you know, raise some nice Zionist children to populate Israel
before those nomadic Arabs multiply the place into extinction.”

“Stop, you’re hurting me!” Wendy covered her ears. But her discomfort had found a new source: Adam himself. She couldn’t help
but wonder why her husband, essentially the same age as Jonathan, wasn’t more anxious about repopulating his own land. At
the beginning of the year, he’d finally agreed to go along with her plan to get pregnant—as far as Wendy could tell, only
because she’d drilled into him the idea that time was running out. (Maybe it already had.)

Wendy spent the rest of the walk home pretending not to be upset. “What do you mean?” she’d say when Adam asked her why she’d
fallen silent.

Forty minutes later, they turned onto Thirteenth Street in Park Slope. Exhausted, Wendy broke her rule about makeup removal
and collapsed into bed. Shortly afterward, Adam joined her under the covers. She was just drifting off to sleep at twelve
twenty, when the phone rang.

Her first thought was Mitchell Kroker. He still wasn’t committing. He was never going to commit. Was Daphne ever going to
move on? Returning to full consciousness, Wendy recalled that Mitch was now history and that Daphne was happily paired with
Jonathan. So why was she calling so late? Had they already broken up? It seemed unlikely. Just an hour or two earlier, they’d
been eating off each other’s forks.

This time, the ringing seemed to be coming from Adam’s dresser. Wendy stumbled out of bed and thrust her hand in the direction
of the receiver. Adam was snoring lightly. He could sleep through anything.…

It was Adam’s mother, Phyllis.

“Phyllis, hi,” said Wendy. “Is everything okay?”

You weren’t supposed to like your mother-in-law, but Wendy actually got along better with hers than she did with her own mother.
This was maybe because talking to Judy Murman frequently made Wendy feel as if she were standing trial, whereas she felt loved
and accepted by Phyllis no matter what she said. Though, admittedly, there were limits to what the two discussed—typically,
deeply trivial yet somehow comforting subjects having to do with shopping and cleaning. (Adam’s employment situation, for
instance, went unmentioned.) “Ron’s been in a terrible car accident,” Phyllis announced, her voice breaking halfway through
the sentence.

Wendy felt as if her head had detached from her body. Terrible car accidents were supposed to happen to other people, people
on the eleven o’clock news. (And Phyllis was supposed to be calling about white sales at Bloomie’s and how to wash cashmere
in the washing machine—i.e., gentle cycle, cold wash, encased in a mesh bag.) “Oh, god! Phyllis. I’m so sorry,” Wendy managed.
“Let me get Adam.” Her heart was beating so hard that it hurt her chest. “It’s your mother,” she kept saying to Adam. “Wake
up.”

Just as he kept muttering, “Sleeping,” into his pillow.

“Adam. Please! There’s been an accident!”

The next thing Wendy knew, Adam was standing in the window of their bedroom, facing out, one hand gripping his forehead, the
other gripping the receiver. His hair was standing up. His boxers were down around his hips. His legs were splayed and squared
like those of the high school wrestler he’d once been. “I don’t understand,” Wendy heard him say into the phone, his voice
high and thin. And “What do you mean?” And “Where is he?” And “What are the doctors saying?”

Finally, he hung up. Saying nothing, he strode into the living room, threw himself on the sofa, and covered his eyes with
his fists. “Dad was in a car accident on the Mass Turnpike,” he began. “An SUV sideswiped him and he rolled over the divide.
He was on his way back from a client dinner in Hartford. He’s in intensive care, in a coma. They don’t know if he’s going
to wake up.” He let out a sob as he delivered the uncertain verdict.

“I’m so sorry,” Wendy whispered into the darkness, her completely bald father-in-law’s favorite joke rushing back to her:
A colleague of mine asked me if I was going to start wearing a rug. And I told him, “What’s the point? Hair today, gone tomorrow.”
Once, that punch line had made her recoil in horror; now it seemed eerily prescient. She felt terrified for Ron, terrified
for Phyllis, terrified for Adam, terrified for herself, too. She wasn’t ready for the older generation to die —or for that
buffer layer between herself and Death to be removed. She wasn’t ready to concede that she was “all grown up.” Because if
she was, why did she still so often feel like a little kid playing house?

I
F
W
ENDY AND
Adam slept at all that night, it was only for a few hours. The next morning, Adam left on a train for Newton, Massachusetts,
where his parents lived, and Wendy got ready for work. She’d volunteered to skip out and accompany him, but he’d declined
her offer, promising to send for her only if his dad’s condition changed. Secretly, she’d been relieved. She was bleary-eyed
from lack of sleep. She didn’t know what she could do up there, anyway. Some childish part of her couldn’t deal with bad news,
wanted to hide from it and pretend it had never happened. It was also rare that she had the apartment to herself. Plus, Adam
had left his computer out, and she was dying to sneak a look at the “Screenplay” document on his desktop.