In Some Other World, Maybe: A Novel (15 page)

“I think it’s your responsibility to repair this.” Rodney offered a sad look as they walked back to the hallway. “I can check if the building insurance will cover it.”

Sharon was assuring Rodney she would get the new chair when the elevator dinged and Chase stepped out, already looking confused.

“Was that one of the pots Gen sent us downstairs?” he asked.

Perhaps sensing an impending lovers’ quarrel, Rodney quickly ducked into the open elevator car.

“I dropped it,” Sharon said, without further detail.

Shaking his head, Chase walked into their acrid-smelling apartment and examined the soggy burned manuscript.

“What is with you lately?” he asked.

The rational part of her realized she owed him an apology. An unfamiliar spiteful and malicious side (maybe the part that wanted to jump) suddenly found it exasperatingly unfair that Chase was kicking ass at his new gig as a portfolio manager, while she was still an editorial assistant at
Living
who’d been rejected by all the major (and several of the minor) literary agencies in Manhattan.

“I know it’s impossible for you to understand, but not all of us have the perfect life,” she’d said and stormed out.

He didn’t follow. With no destination in mind, she went to Dewey’s on Fifth and ordered one of their beers on tap, even though she rarely drank, and never beer. When she got back, Chase was already in bed so he could get up and go running at six (it had been a long, long time since she’d gone with him). There was a Post-it note on the closed bedroom door saying he’d paid for the neighbor’s chair. Sharon crumpled it up and walked out to the terrace, dropped it over the side. For a while she leaned over the edge, not searching for the Chrysler Building at all.

*   *   *

Even fuzzy from the alcohol and the no-longer-hot bathwater, Sharon can see the time glowing in the window of her cell phone: 11:00
P.M.

Only ten in Chicago!

But no, it’s becoming clearer and clearer that Chase
isn’t
going to call.

In fact, when she’s being completely honest with herself, Sharon has actually called his cell phone … not obsessively, but once right before getting the truck and again when Kristen was in the bathroom. It had gone straight to voice mail both times.

Maybe he forgot to turn his phone on after his flight? She’s done that. When she and Chase had visited his mom in Hong Kong last year, Sharon had been so taken with the escalators and buildings growing from trees, she’d forgotten to switch it on for two days.

Even so, he’s not thinking about you. Not making you a priority.

Picks up the knife. Pushes up the blade.

Arbus.

Diane Arbus—that’s the creepy photographer who slit her wrists. Nicole Kidman is supposed to play her in a movie.

Taps the tip of her index finger to the sharp point. Presses until she hears the faintest pop of flesh (maybe it’s actually soundless, but she thinks there’s a pop).

Chubby dot of blood.

Sucking it off, she remembers standing on the railing.

Runs the blade across her left wrist. Not even enough pressure for a scratch.

Maybe she simply hadn’t hit rock bottom four months ago.

*   *   *

The start of the end began five days ago at the
Living
all-staff meeting when the executive editor announced that Julie—the other editorial assistant, who was four years younger than Sharon and had been at the magazine half as long—was being promoted to assistant editor.

Sharon had swallowed over a squawk.

With its focus on celebrities and their shoes,
Living
was far from her dream gig, but Sharon had thought she’d been doing a decent job of ordering lunches for the editors and writing the dry front-of-the-book captions (even if she did work on her too-depressing novel during the downtime). Julie, on the other hand, seemed to spend huge amounts of her day badgering editors for longer pieces to write and volunteering to cover events if the reporters were too busy—apparently that wasn’t annoying, that was ambition.

It was Sharon’s first acute and painful realization of the day: She was twenty-six, still in an entry-level position, and all she had to show for it was a stack of rejection letters from the finer and less fine literary agencies in New York.

The second acute and painful realization came exactly two seconds later, when the editor noted Julie had two reasons to celebrate since she had gotten engaged over the weekend.

Blushing, Julie joked, “Well, Daniel and I
were
coming up on the two-year mark.” On her finger was a round diamond-and-platinum ring that looked exactly like all the rings young women in the office were constantly coming in with after holiday breaks.

A taut spring of anger and anxiety, Sharon spent the next few hours hiding in the ladies’ room. That no one noticed she was gone probably spoke volumes about why she’d been passed over for a promotion. At exactly six she put on her coat and, without any memory, took the subway the three stops to the Madison Plaza.

She didn’t turn on the television or her computer. Didn’t pick up a book or skim Chase’s
Wall Street Journal.
Just sat on the couch and waited for him to come home. He must have been out with some of the sell-side guys, because by the time he opened the heavy front door it was after nine, and he smelled of beer and money.

“Hey.” Chase nodded in her general direction and set down his messenger bag. “Did you eat?” Without waiting for a response, he opened the refrigerator.

“Why aren’t we married?” Sharon demanded.

“What?”

“It’s been years. Are we ever getting married?”

Shutting the crisper, he’d rubbed his eyebrows, as if he were getting another migraine. “Do you even want that?”

“You know I do,” she said, though she wasn’t entirely sure her behavior over the past few months had made that evident.

For a long time, he didn’t say anything but studied the grain in the granite counter. Finally, he looked up with the same tortured expression he had when discussing his sister’s lack of direction and poor choice in men.

“I’m sorry, Sharon.” He said it gently, which made everything more real and a thousand times worse. “I don’t want to marry you.”

“But we live together, and we used to talk about that stuff all the time.…”

“I know.” He massaged his forehead. “I wouldn’t have asked you to move in if I hadn’t thought we were going in that direction. But we’ve been unhappy for a while now—a ring won’t fix that.”

She asked how he could say that, but she knew exactly how. It was all those nights they didn’t go to bed together, when she stayed up tweaking her novel or pouting over a rejection letter. The weekends where she’d wave away his questions about how things were going on her rewrites or her agent search and turn back to her laptop. The evening just a few weeks ago, when he’d come home with a whisper of the old excitement in his eyes and told her he’d read that the QT Network was working on an
E&E
origins show, and she hadn’t bothered to look up from her computer, just snorted a “so.”

“I feel like I don’t really even know you anymore.” He shook his head, as if it might improve the situation. “I’m sorry.”

Maybe if she had cried or apologized or said she wanted to work on things, it might have been different. Maybe if she kissed him or swore she was still the person he had fallen in love with. Maybe if she had simply said nothing.

But he was one more person, in a seemingly endless line of people, telling her that she wasn’t good enough. Her writing wasn’t good enough to represent, her performance at work wasn’t good enough for a promotion. Now she wasn’t good enough to marry.

“If you feel that way, if I’m so horrible, why haven’t you broken up with me already?”

“I don’t know. I kept hoping things would get better once you got past this book thing.” He said it honestly, but she’d laughed, cruel as she could muster, wanting to transfer her hurt and failure.

“You know you’re a fucking coward,” she said.

“Stop.”

“Seriously, if you’re too much of a pussy to dump me, I’ll do it for you.”

“Shar—”

“Poof, we’re over. You’re free. Go run back to your fancy friends, and I’ll get back to really writing.”

That night Chase had slept in his office. Sharon called in sick to work for the next few days and asked Kristen if she could stay with her for a while. When she e-mailed her plans to Chase, he’d told her he’d go to Chicago so he wouldn’t be in the way when she moved.

It made Sharon think of that first Thanksgiving she’d gone home with him, when he’d been thrilled to show her off to his family, about how she’d been so nervous she couldn’t stop talking about the election. She thought about the way she and Chase used to send each other myriad daily e-mails about genuinely mundane things—“Tried some gummy vitamins at work, yummy!”; “Got the worst paper cut, will definitely need kisses”; “If you could only have egg rolls or pizza for the rest of your life, which would you choose?”—about how they used to speak in a hybrid of baby talk and shared references that would have caused his finance friends to explode into hysterics. How excited he’d been to find her waiting for him in Central Park at the end of the New York City Marathon, and how after business trips to LA he’d rest his head against her shoulder and lament his deteriorating relationship with his sister.

Stuff like literary rejection and sucking at work didn’t seem so all-consumingly important then.

And she desperately wanted a Neutrocon so she could hop one universe over and redo their conversation.

*   *   *

Things are very underwater in her head.

Her head, too, must have been underwater at some point, her face and hair wet.

Bath is cooler now.

Chase isn’t going to call.

Even if he thought she was moving out tomorrow. Even if he forgot to turn his phone on.

She won’t get her chance to say she’s sorry and she loves him.

Picking up the Post-it, she reads his year-old message again.

Had to go to work, Shar, but I love you very much.—C

Ink swelling and blurring from her wet hands.

With the Sharpie, she writes her own line underneath his words.

I love you, too. I’m sorry.

Maybe he’ll see it when he returns Sunday night.

Maybe he’ll call then.

Setting down the note, she picks up the knife.

Was what she wrote more than a simple apology?

No, you don’t have the guts, just like on the balcony.

Presses the blade deeper into her left wrist this time.

Red unfolds like a ribbon.

Not painless.

Stings like a motherfucker.

Looks like a lot of blood, but with all the bathwater, hard to tell how much of it has been diluted. Hard to tell if she’s serious. If she means it.

Presses harder.

A ring.

The sound she’s been waiting for for nearly thirty hours.

So surprising, it takes her a moment to recognize that’s what it is: the rarely used landline.

Caller ID shows “Blocked”—the Fishers’ unlisted number.

Everything slick with blood and water, she drops the phone twice.

“Chase, I’m sorry, I love you,” she says, depressing the talk button, trying to sound stable, sober, and sane.

“Sharon, it’s Phoebe Fisher.” The voice on the other end doesn’t sound stable or sober or sane. “My brother is … on the plane … aneurysm … he’s de…”

“Thank you,” Sharon says.

Get out of this car.

A clatter, and Sharon realizes she’s thrown the phone across the bathroom and it’s in pieces on the floor.

Get out of this car.

Props herself out of the tub and reaches for a towel. She throws open the cabinet under the sink, yanks out the first-aid kit. Breaking the seal on the bottle of Ipecac, she swallows it in one gulp. Within minutes she’s puking up vodka and vodka and maybe everything she’s ever eaten. Shivering and sweating. Blood from her arm mixes with the bathwater and splashes on the already damp floor. Shaking, she wraps her left wrist tight in gauze, binds that with surgical tape.

In the bedroom, the phone that she didn’t hurl at the wall is ringing. The machine picks up and Chase’s voice announces that they can’t come to the phone right now. Then his model sister is leaving a message that Sharon doesn’t hear.

Get out of this car!

Still soggy and bleeding, Sharon pulls on her clothes in the reverse order she took them off—silky bra and panties, jeans, T-shirt, blue sweater, socks, and snow boots—everything instantly damp.

Phone ringing again.

Grabs her purse from the living room floor. No checking around, no taking any last-minute things she forgot to pack from this life. Before Phoebe Fisher can leave another message, Sharon is gone, the heavy metal door shutting behind her.

She needs to get away from this apartment, from this floor, as soon as possible. No time to wait for the elevator. Sharon pulls open the door to the stairs and hurries down thirty-five flights. Lurching out the side entrance onto Twenty-eighth Street, she’s swallowed into the cold, cold city that’s too lit up to ever truly be dark.

6   i’ve never been, but i hear it’s righteous

“I’ll shave my balls if they want.”

That’s what Adam told his agent when the producers of a basic cable
Eons & Empires
origins show offered him the role of a young Captain Rowen on the condition he shave his head—no bald caps. It had been nearly four years since the
Goners
pilot didn’t go. Years of voice-over work and five-line spots on bad sitcoms. Years of sheepishly asking Phoebe for the odd bartending shift when things got
really
dry. He would have shaved his balls and dipped them in alcohol, repeatedly, had it been a contractual sticking point.

But it’s the fourth day of shooting outdoors in Vancouver, and without hair, Adam is fucking freezing.

Seventeen hours earlier the makeup artist had straight-razored off last night’s growth of sandy stubble (again) and spent no less than two hours applying elaborate airbrush foundation and details—including Rowen’s famous crescent moon birthmark at the base of his skull. While he can
carefully
be helped into a thick overcoat by a PA between takes, the makeup is too delicate for him to wear a hat, and it’s really,
really
cold.