Modern Lovers (10 page)

E
lizabeth was in the mood for chicken. It was also the only thing they had in the fridge, so it was what they were having for dinner. She'd often thought that being as close as they were to Jane and Zoe should yield some high-level kitchen skills, but so far, it hadn't. Elizabeth could appreciate good food—she'd been to most of the city's best restaurants with her in-laws, Andrew always pulling at his shirt collar like an awkward bar-mitzvah boy—but she could never figure out how to replicate those beautiful meals using her own two hands. There were only so many ways to cook things—boiling water, pans, oven—and yet other people seemed to do it so naturally. Whenever she dropped by Zoe's house for lunch, one of the three of them would be eating some bowlful of brown rice and hard-boiled egg and sautéed kale, with an avocado-miso dressing that they'd just whipped up. Leftovers, they'd say, sheepish, as if it weren't something that could easily be on the menu at Hyacinth. When Elizabeth felt sheepish about her food, it was because she was an adult with a teenage son and she still counted frozen pizzas among her chief food groups.

It wasn't easy to have a best friend who seemed so much better at so many of life's important skills. Maybe it was that she and Andrew had been together so long, or gotten together when they were still so young, or that they'd started out as friends, but Elizabeth couldn't
remember ever experiencing the all-consuming, life-eating early love that Zoe had found with Jane. They'd disappear into Zoe's bedroom for days, they'd play cutesy and irritating games of footsie at restaurants, they'd go away for long weekends without a moment's notice. Not to mention the kissing. Elizabeth had never seen so much kissing. In taxicabs, in their kitchen, on the sofa—never mind if there were other people present. Next to their romance, Elizabeth felt like she and Andrew were an incestuous brother and sister, or maybe close first cousins. They had always enjoyed sex, but even Andrew had never seemed to
need
her body the way that Jane
needed
Zoe and vice versa. On the one hand, it had made the slide into long-term marriage easier, because they were already comfortable with a lower level of intensity, but Elizabeth had sometimes wondered what it was like to feel that kind of desire and to send it back, gulping, even if it meant for a sharp letdown in the years to follow. Because no one could keep that up, not even Zoe.

•   •   •

H
arry zipped through the kitchen, head down, hurrying toward his backpack, which was in its usual slump by the coatrack.

“Hey,” Elizabeth said. “Where are you going? Hungry?”

“Not right now,” Harry said. He grabbed his bag and ran back up the stairs.

Elizabeth rinsed off the chicken breasts in the sink and put them on a plate. Even before she'd married Jane, Zoe had been good in the kitchen. When they'd lived together at Oberlin, Elizabeth had once washed Zoe's cast-iron pan with a sinkful of dishes, scrubbed it for hours with a soapy sponge, and when she realized what Elizabeth was doing, Zoe had given her a look like she'd just shaved off her eyebrows while she was sleeping. The Bennetts were California gourmets, all farm-raised and organic before it was cool. Elizabeth thought about her childhood diet of Oreo cookies and jars of Skippy peanut butter
and felt embarrassed all over again. Her parents were fine—they were good enough people and she loved them, but her mother had always liked gin more than vegetables. Her father cooked a bloody steak on the grill every Sunday, and that was it. He took pills to make the bad cholesterol go down and the good cholesterol go up, and he had never told her that he loved her, not directly. They never listened to music. Her mother read novels, but only love stories starring beautiful blind girls or war widows. There was so much that Elizabeth had had to figure out on her own.

Andrew came quietly down the stairs and hugged her from behind.

“Hi,” he said, and laid his head against her shoulder.

“Hi,” she said. “Are you okay? I feel like you've been MIA.”

“I actually feel great,” Andrew said. He slid one hand into Elizabeth's waistband, and she wriggled away.

“I have raw chicken hands,” she said.

“I'll take a little salmonella.” He kissed her neck.

“Oh, stop it,” Elizabeth said, elbowing him gently but happy for his nuzzling affection. “Where have you been?”

Andrew paused. “There's this new place, over on Stratford. A yoga studio, sort of. I went to a class today.”

“Oh, yeah? That's good, we need a new one.” Elizabeth was always looking for new businesses to add to her roster. There was nothing that young home buyers wanted more than yoga studios and restaurants, as if they'd be young forever and looking for ways to fill their days. “Hey, so, have you thought about it at all? About the Lydia thing?” She turned toward her husband. He'd always been weird about Lydia—they were buddies, but as soon as she left school, Andrew never mentioned her again. It was as if she'd died, and then when she did die, he'd bristle at the sound of her name. Lydia's death had made Elizabeth feel softer toward her, weirdly—as if there were nothing she could have done, as if it weren't just that Lydia had never liked her, it was that she had much bigger problems. It wasn't exactly
nice, but it was comforting. Maybe if he saw the movie, he'd understand—he'd see how young they all were, how beautiful and ridiculous.

Andrew leaned against the stove. She watched his face cloud over, as quickly as a thunderstorm in July. “I really don't want to do it,” he said, finally. “I really don't. I know you think it's stupid, but it means something to me.”

“But I wrote the song.” Elizabeth was usually careful not to phrase things this way: bands were about equality, marriages too. It rarely did any good to claim complete ownership. Feelings were hurt and resentment so easily built. In this case the division of labor was clear:
Elizabeth Johnson, lyrics; Andrew Marx, Lydia Greenbaum, Zoe Bennett, and Elizabeth Johnson, music.
She owned more of the song than anyone else did.

“You wrote the words, yes.” Andrew shook his head. “But you don't get to decide for the rest of us.”

“They have Lydia's permission—her mother said yes. They have Zoe. And they have me. I think it'll be exciting. And weird, yes, probably really weird. But I think we should do it. I want to do it.”

“Why? So you can watch some skinny teenage movie star scream ‘Mistress of Myself' a hundred times? Are you that much of a narcissist?” Andrew's cheeks were starting to flush.

“A
narcissist
? Because I don't want to stand in the way of someone making a movie about someone else? What are you talking about?”

Andrew pursed his lips and closed his eyes. “You're really not thinking about the big picture, Lizzy.”

“I'm pretty sure I am, actually,” Elizabeth said. She turned back around to her chicken. The idea was to rub it with garlic and ginger and to stir-fry it, or something. She'd lost her train of thought. Elizabeth heard the front door shut and realized that Andrew had walked out.

There were two choices: make dinner or not. Who knew what
Harry would eat if she didn't cook? And so Elizabeth kept cooking, her blood pressure making her a little fast and loose with the spices. Dried parsley? Why not. Black pepper? Sure. The chicken breasts looked like little Jackson Pollocks as she slid them into the hot pan. She watched the chicken turn from pink to opaque, checking the door every so often to see if Andrew was going to walk back in. She stepped out onto the porch, in case he might just be sitting on the front steps, but he wasn't. Debbie from across the street waved, and Elizabeth waved back. Being the neighborhood real-estate agent meant never being in a bad mood, never arguing in public. It was like being a very low-level celebrity, where you knew your actions would have repercussions, that people would be watching. Elizabeth retreated back into the house and shut the door.

Half an hour later, dinner was done and Andrew still wasn't home.

“Harry! Dinner!” Elizabeth called. She set the table for three, as usual, even though she seemed to be the only one eating. She wasn't even hungry.

After a few minutes, Harry clomped down the stairs, his eyes wide. “Whoa,” he said, looking at his dinner plate. He slid into his chair, and Elizabeth into hers, across from him. There were the expressive chicken breasts, plus a shredded-carrot and couscous salad. “This looks weird, Mom.”

“Eat it, Harry,” Elizabeth said. She picked up her fork and knife and started shoveling food into her mouth. As she chewed, she felt hungrier and hungrier, as if each bite emptied out her stomach. Harry watched, and eventually followed suit.

“It's good,” he said. “Where's Dad?”

Elizabeth spoke with her mouth full. “Yoga class.”

“Oh,” Harry said, satisfied.

They ate the rest of their meal in silence, both deeply engrossed by their own thoughts. Harry carried his plate over to the garbage and scraped it clean. He put the plate in the sink and ran back upstairs.

“I have to pick something up at the grocery store, sweetie,” Elizabeth said, before he'd completely disappeared. “I'll be back in ten minutes, okay?” She put her plate on top of Harry's in the sink and slipped her feet into her flip-flops. Andrew had said Stratford Road.

It was a perfect night—the end of June, when even Brooklyn had to admit that nothing was the matter. It was past seven and still not yet quite dark. Elizabeth was wearing a T-shirt and the stretchy yoga pants that she wore to bed. She tucked her hair behind her ears as she walked. She hated fighting with her husband. Even now, after so many years together, she sometimes had the thought—abrupt and sharp, like a bolt of lightning—that she'd made the wrong decision, all those years ago, and ruined her entire life. Andrew was smart and serious and handsome. His family money drove him crazy, but it also meant that they never really had to worry, especially about Harry. The Marx money was stretched under Harry's crib like a fireman's net, ready to catch him if necessary. All their friends, if asked, would say that Elizabeth and Andrew were a great couple. They were seamless; they were united. They alley-ooped each other's punch lines at dinner parties. But sometimes, she wondered. Probably everyone did. Probably that was marriage. But on the nights when they fought and he walked out the door, which had happened maybe four times in their entire relationship, including college, when walking out the door was a much easier feat and wouldn't have required an attorney, Elizabeth was sure that it was over, and that no matter how much she loved her husband, he was lost to her forever.

The house on Stratford was easy enough to find—she'd guessed which one it was. Corcoran had sold it, it hadn't been her listing, but she'd been inside it before. Elizabeth rounded the corner from Beverly and walked south. It had been called a “fixer-upper,” politely. In the office, Deirdre had referred to it as a “crack house.” It hadn't really been a crack house, at least not officially, but there were boarders and
renters and strange locks on all their bedroom doors, with stained carpets. Those were easy fixes, but not everyone could see past them.

Elizabeth put her hands on her hips and stopped walking. She was two houses away. It was on the left, toward Cortelyou, with a nice wide porch that the owners would have to sink about twenty grand into, if they wanted to do it right. What was she going to do, walk in? What if he wasn't there? What if he was sitting at the bar at Hyacinth, talking to Jane? What if he'd apologized for overreacting and they were clinking small tumblers full of top-shelf whiskey, complaining about their wives? She was just taking a walk, that was all. Elizabeth tucked her hair behind her ears again and walked the rest of the way to the house.

She heard it before she saw anything—loud music, the kind of music that played in the background of dream sequences in bad television shows, with layers of sitar over something more contemporary. It was dance music, what they used to call techno, electronic and repetitive. It was loud enough that she could hear it from the porch. Surely the neighbors were going to complain, once it got late. Ditmas Park was nothing if not swift with a noise complaint.

People were dancing. They all looked like sweaty versions of Ruby, twirling themselves around with their eyes closed. Elizabeth nudged herself closer to one of the large windows. There were shades down, but the shades were gauze and it was lighter inside than out—she could make out everything. The main room was crowded with bodies, all of them smiling and jumping. She saw hands on asses, hands on faces, lips on lips. “My God,” she said, out loud. “It's a fucking rave.” Elizabeth was just about to turn away and walk toward Hyacinth, so sure now that she would find her husband there, tucking into some beautifully prepared dish, and then she saw him.

Andrew was drenched in sweat. His T-shirt clung to his thin chest. His head was thrown back, lolling a little bit from side to side. He
hadn't danced that way in years. She felt like her very own Ghost of Husbands Past, like she was watching herself and Andrew when they were nineteen and on Ecstasy and licking each other's faces all night long just because their tongues felt so funny. Only Elizabeth wasn't in the room, she was standing outside it, and she wasn't licking her husband's face. To his credit, no one else was either, but Andrew looked as if any number of the young men and women pressing past him and against him could easily have slipped their little bodies into his mouth and he wouldn't have objected. This was not the face of propriety. This was not the face of marriage. This was one man, midlife, losing his shit.

R
uby couldn't believe it—the SAT class was ten minutes under way, and she was sitting in the back row alone. Harry had ditched the class, and she hadn't, and faking another stomach flu would have made the Queen Dork call her mothers for sure. She sat with her bag on the seat to her left and her jean jacket on the seat to her right, just in case anyone got any ideas about sitting too close. Rebecca smiled and waved, and Eliza and Thayer made a couple of stinkfaces her direction, and Ruby ignored them all. She flipped over the first handout—“Turn Similes into Smiles!”—and started drawing Bingo with a superhero cape and a cigarette.

The class was interminable. Three hours of practice tests and tricks for how to answer multiple-choice questions when you didn't know the answer. Ruby had bombed the SAT so efficiently the first time that she thought she could teach the class better than Rebecca, a simple Do the Opposite of Whatever I Say methodology, where you got extra points just for not skipping every third question. Tomorrow it would be July, and the class would be half over. She tried to think of it as meditation. Her body had to be in this room, but her mind did not. She tried astral projecting but found Thayer's gum chewing too distracting. Ruby filled in bubbles in the shapes of fish eating smaller fish.

It wasn't that she was
against
college, per se. Ruby just felt that the world held too many unique experiences for her to be pinned down to doing one thing for so many years, especially when she'd spent her entire life up until this point doing that exact thing. When was her boxcar-jumping period? Her life as a carny? Reality TV and PETA newsletters had spoiled many things, but they couldn't kill her dreams about being a loose woman in the United States of America. What if she wanted to work as a stripper someday? She didn't, but what if? What if she wanted to get ill-conceived tattoos with brand-new friends? Ruby had two tattoos already. Her mothers knew and didn't even pretend to care. One was a small star in the space between her right armpit and her boob, and the other was a
B
for Bingo on her left big toe. Her mum was so jealous of the
B
that she got one, too, but only because Ruby made her promise that they would never bare their toes at the same time in front of anyone Ruby knew.

The kids in the row ahead of her stood up, shoving handouts into their bags. “Fabulous,” Ruby said, at full volume, and followed suit. She waved to Rebecca, gave the finger to Eliza and Thayer, and was the first person out the door.

Harry was standing outside, wearing sunglasses. He had a very full tote bag slung on his left shoulder and a beach umbrella leaning against his right. “Ready, mademoiselle?” he said. “Dirty hipster beach in the Rockaways. I found it on the Internet. Taxi's waiting. And by taxi, I mean the subway. It's going to take us a hundred years to get there, but I swear to God, it'll be worth it.”

“For fuck's sake, yes,” Ruby said. She raised her arms in victory.