Modern Lovers (18 page)

H
arry had been looking forward to the SAT class all week. His mother had been taking his phone whenever he was home, which was like living in pioneer days, but only during mealtimes and when he was playing video games on the Roku in the living room. Elizabeth didn't quite seem to understand that his computer did everything his phone did except make phone calls, and who wanted to talk on the phone anyway? He'd been playing by their rules, though, and hadn't been in touch with Ruby since leaving the police station. It all felt very Romeo and Juliet, minus the suicide. Still, he understood. If they'd gotten caught having sex in his bedroom, it would have been one thing, but in public, the police station—that was worth some punishment. His parents had never been strict or unreasonable—his father in particular had always been willing to sit down and have lengthy conversations about why Harry had to wait until Hanukkah for a new Thomas the Tank Engine train or whatever. This seemed fair.

Iggy Pop had been gone a week. They'd put posters up all over the neighborhood, at bus stops and on telephone polls, plus on corkboards at the three different coffee shops on Cortelyou. Iggy had never been gone longer than a day before, and Harry was starting to imagine the more bleak possibilities. He'd told his friend Arpad about both the cat and having sex with Ruby in one phone call, and Arpad had only
asked about the cat, assuming the latter was a joke. Harry wasn't sure what the bigger joke was—that he'd gotten to lose his virginity to the girl of his dreams, or that he was never, ever going to have sex ever again, at least not with Ruby. There were no other prospects. There had been other girls at Whitman whom Harry had stared at across the library, but now that he'd touched Ruby's body, now that he knew what was possible in the universe, he wasn't going to settle for just anybody.

His parents had been clear: he was in trouble for the first time in his entire life, and his punishment was not being allowed to sit next to Ruby, or to speak to her unless absolutely necessary. But they also weren't going to be there. Harry was jittery on the walk to the karate studio. He was running through all the different ways he could say hello—he could saunter in and pretend not to notice her, but sit right next to her as usual and then pass a note. He could kiss her right on the mouth in front of the Queen Dork and Eliza and Thayer and everybody. He could wait to see if she said anything to him first. Maybe she was secretly glad to be rid of him—after all, nobody wanted to have to teach her boyfriend how to have sex. Not that he was her boyfriend. Was he her boyfriend? Or rather, had he been? Harry wanted a neon sign in the sky, anything that would tell him what to do.

Ruby wasn't there yet—of course not. That was good—that meant that where she sat was up to her. Harry took his regular seat in the last row and pulled his notebook out of his backpack. In a funny way, having Ruby in the class had made him significantly less stressed out about taking the SATs. He did take notes, at least as often as he and Ruby passed notes back and forth, and he did feel like he had learned a few things. College was the light at the end of the tunnel, and Harry wanted that light so badly. He thought he probably wanted to go somewhere small but not small—Amherst, maybe, or Wesleyan. But fuck! Maybe he wanted to go to Deep Springs or whatever it was
called and learn how to be a farmer and a gentleman poet. He swiveled around in his chair every time he heard the door open. Everyone else seemed to have made friends with one another—Harry hadn't noticed. The rest of the class could have been taught in Chinese and he wouldn't have noticed.

Rebecca opened her computer and projected an image of a geometry problem. An isosceles triangle, the easy kind. Harry tuned out as she started to talk. He knew enough to get by. Class had started, Ruby was late.

He smelled her shampoo before he saw her. Rebecca turned the lights off to make the screen easier to see, and then Ruby slipped into the chair next to him, giving him the quickest, blink-and-you-missed-it kiss on the cheek. Harry turned toward her, smiling with all his teeth. Ruby reached over and into his mouth and gave his tongue a soft pinch. She loudly let her bag drop and rifled though it, like a dog digging for a bone.

“Is your bag just full of random loose-leaf paper?” Harry asked.

“Shh,” Ruby said. “Yes.” She found what she was looking for and slapped it on Harry's desk. It was her mothers' schedules for the next two weeks, printed off their joint calendar. “Dr. Amelia,” she said. “That's their sex doctor. And now she's our sex doctor, too, if you know what I'm saying. Her office is in Park Slope, which means we have at least two hours from the minute they walk out the door. And that's a meeting with their purveyor in Jersey, which means they'll be gone for like five hours, sniffing tomato plants or whatever.” She pointed at the name. It was still six days away, but there it was. Their next date. Harry felt his whole body relax. Maybe he'd just go to Brooklyn College. How could he leave? He could rent an apartment, and Ruby could live with him and just hide in the closet when his parents came over. He'd say that he had some other girlfriend, someone who traveled a lot, a Rhodes scholar! He was dating a Rhodes scholar who was in Barcelona for the year, and so he was holding on
to her stuff, which was why there were two toothbrushes in the bathroom and purses hanging off the doorknobs. Maybe they would be over it by then and understand that Ruby wasn't some bad girl in the first place, but the best girl—the only girl. It was all going to be fine. It was all going to be perfect.

“I love you,” Harry said, louder than he meant to. A kid with a stupid haircut in the row in front of them snickered, and Harry kicked the back of his chair. “I mean it, Ruby, I love you.”

“I know you do,” Ruby said. She reached over and pinched him on the arm, and that was enough for now.

E
lizabeth was genuinely worried that Iggy Pop was dead. Either dead or adopted by some stupid kid in the neighborhood who couldn't read and/or look at signs on telephone poles. It happened a lot—someone puts out a bowl of cream and a cat thinks it's discovered a higher plane of existence. At least a few times a day, Elizabeth would see something out of the corner of her eye and she would think,
Oh, thank God, Iggy's right there
, but then it was always a dust ball or a wadded-up T-shirt. When she walked to and from the office and to her listings in the neighborhood, she kept peering down driveways and onto front porches, even more than she usually did. Deirdre thought cats were disgusting pets and had very little sympathy.

“They're
wild
,” she said in between forkfuls of salad at their desk. “Cats were never meant to live with humans. I've heard about people who were killed—
murdered—
by their cats. That's why we only have fish.” Deirdre plucked a walnut out of the salad with her fingers. “This place is so stingy. There are four walnuts in this entire salad.”

“Iggy Pop isn't going to murder me,” Elizabeth said. “The worst he does is when he walks across your face in the middle of the night. But I'm usually awake anyway.”

“See, if I had a cat and it walked across my face in the middle of the night, I would take that as a warning sign. I think your cat isn't
missing—he's out there gathering enough sticks and bones to build an army, I'm telling you.”

“I appreciate your concern.” Elizabeth leaned back in her chair. There was a lot to be done—she had to draw up contract information for the house on East Nineteenth, and for an apartment on Newkirk. She had to get another big house on Ditmas Avenue ready for its first open house, and the dining room still looked like an episode of
Hoarders: Beanie Baby Special Edition
. “I think right now I'd welcome his tiny army, though. I just want him to come back.”

Deirdre reached over and gave Elizabeth's knee a quick pat. “I know, sweetheart. We'll find that mangy little killer.”

The office phone rang, and Deirdre spun around to answer it. Elizabeth rubbed her temples with her fingers.

“It's for you, I think,” Deirdre said. She had a funny look on her face, which meant only one thing.

Elizabeth picked up her extension. “Hello?” she said.

“Still holding for Naomi Vandenhoovel,” someone said.

“Right,” said Elizabeth.

What the hell?
Deirdre mouthed.

“Trust me, I barely understand it myself,” Elizabeth said.

“Helloooooo from Ohio!” rang out Naomi's voice.

“Are you actually filming at Oberlin?” Elizabeth couldn't picture Naomi in Ohio. Not even Cleveland. Not even the Ritz-Carlton, Cleveland, where Andrew's parents had stayed for graduation, despite the fact that it was a solid hour's drive from school. She hadn't realized that things were going to happen so fast—she'd sort of forgotten about it, on purpose, since signing their names, assuming that it would be ages before she'd have to tell Andrew. Maybe by then he'd have come around? It wasn't a great plan, but it was all she had.

Naomi laughed. “No, no, of course not. We're in Pasadena. But you should see it! We're shooting so muddy. It's very 1990.”

“That's great,” Elizabeth said, though she was feeling flustered. She was still in the office, after all, and couldn't suddenly have a freak-out with Deirdre and the rest of the O'Connells bearing witness. “What can I do for you?”

“All business! I like it! Hang on,” she said, and then Elizabeth listened while Naomi ordered a coffee with almond milk and three extra shots of espresso. “I was watching you and Lydia write this song, and so I wanted to call you! You look great! Very skinny, really great hair. Kind of a big mouth. Not like Steven Tyler big, but maybe Liv Tyler big. Actually, you know, you look a lot like a blond Liv Tyler. Young you, I mean.”

Elizabeth quickly moved her free hand to her head. “Oh, God,” she said.

“Don't even worry about it! You look amazing! Just wanted to give you an update! The girls are so cute together. They're, like, all over each other's Instagrams already. You should check it out.”

“I will,” Elizabeth said. She thought for a moment, about herself and Lydia. Lydia, who had never liked her. It wasn't like with Zoe, who was clearly in a class above in terms of sophistication but somehow found Elizabeth amusing anyway. Lydia had practically turned her back when Elizabeth entered a room, like a haughty cat or a sullen teenager. Which she had been, of course. “Wait, Naomi?” Her stomach sank.

“Mm-hmm?”

“It's so funny that I haven't thought to ask this before—what's the time frame of the movie? I assumed it was mostly Lydia at the peak or . . . you know, up until the end. There isn't a
lot
of college stuff in there, is there?” In her mind, her part of the story was a sliver at the beginning, before Lydia became LYDIA, and the movie really began. She'd wanted to see them all larger than life, which is how everything felt right at that moment anyway, but Elizabeth had assumed that the
movie would have briskly moved on to the more glamorous stuff. But now she was faced with the sudden, terrifying thought that she had no input whatsoever about how their shared youth was going to be portrayed, and that Andrew was not going to be happy, not one bit, no matter how she tried to spin her misguided hope. She had wanted it for him as much as for herself—Elizabeth knew how much Andrew had loved the band, and Lydia, and her. Yes, that was part of it, too—Elizabeth wanted Andrew to see the movie and to remember how much he had loved her, once upon a time, when they were still kids and life was an endless, open ocean, stretching out at once in all directions.

“You know, I can't really talk right now,” Naomi said. “But do you want to see the script? I'll have my assistant send it over. Okay?”

“So is that a yes or a no?”

“Yes, totally.”

“Yes there isn't a lot of college stuff, or yes there is? And you know that Lydia did not write the song, like, at all, right?” Elizabeth's neck polka-dotted with big red blotches. “Hello?” But Naomi had hung up. Elizabeth removed the finger from her ear and handed the phone back to Deirdre to hang up. Deirdre was staring at her, her eyebrows so high they looked like part of her hairline.

“I'm ready when you are,” Deirdre said. She crossed her arms expectantly.

•   •   •

E
lizabeth had meant to tell Andrew about the movie, about signing his name. She'd thought about calling Zoe, to practice on her, but she was too ashamed of herself. Elizabeth was always waiting for something, and then, after Harry got in trouble with Ruby, it just felt as if things were too tight, too stressed. Andrew wasn't good at managing balls in the air unless they were all made of helium. Good news
could pile on all day, but if the news was bad, it was best to measure it out slowly, like antibiotics.

“It's a very long story,” Elizabeth said, “but this is good—I'll use you as practice.”

Deirdre unwrapped a stick of gum, as excited as if Elizabeth had just agreed to do a striptease.

A
ndrew was sitting on the porch when Elizabeth got home. It was hot outside, inching toward the part of the summer when Brooklyn was thick and airless. They had air conditioners in the bedrooms and one in the dining room, but they didn't do much, especially on the first floor, where the rooms were large and open. The dark stone porch was often the coolest place in the house.

“I took the fans out of the basement,” Andrew said. “I put one in the living room and two upstairs.”

“Thanks,” Elizabeth said. “Can I talk to you about something?” She wasn't good at this part, even after so many years of marriage. It was her parents' fault, of course. She had never once seen them have an argument—it just wasn't in their nature. And so Elizabeth had spent her entire life avoiding unpleasant situations as much as humanly possible. It meant a lot of swallowing and smiling and apologizing for things she wasn't truly sorry for, and it meant never, ever starting conversations she didn't want to have. But if she didn't tell Andrew, the movie would come out, and there would be fake Lydia's face everywhere, and he would see it. She briefly considered suggesting that they go to Italy or somewhere for a year, just because, but things were probably too universal now anyway—his e-mail in-box would light up like the Fourth of July no matter where they were.

“Sure,” Andrew said. He patted the cushion next to him. He was wearing an old T-shirt that had little scalloped holes around the neckline, one that he'd had almost as long as he'd had her. Instead of sitting beside him, Elizabeth leaned against the porch banister.

“You know that movie about Lydia?”

“Yeah,” Andrew said, already wary.

“They're doing it. I said yes.” Elizabeth watched Andrew's jaw clench.

“But I never said yes,” he said. His eyes narrowed. Sometimes Andrew reminded Elizabeth of a cat, the way cats' other secret eyelid closed when they were asleep. With Andrew the secret eyelid closed when he was angry. “They wanted me to sign the form, and I never did.”

“I know that,” Elizabeth said. It was semantics, she knew, but it was all she had. A technicality. “But the lyrics are mine, and I let them have it. I was the manager. I agreed on your behalf.”

“What exactly does that mean, you agreed on my behalf?”

“It means . . .” Elizabeth paused, considering how best to get the words out of her mouth. “It means that I signed your form. I signed your name.”

Andrew shook his head. “Meaning that you forged my signature? Are you fucking kidding?” He stood up and dusted off his jeans. “This isn't a credit-card receipt at a restaurant, Lizzy! This is actually serious! I can't believe you did that. It's going to be total garbage, you know that? Garbage that doesn't even tell the whole story.”

“You're worried about
Lydia
?” Elizabeth waved to a neighbor across the street, offering a tight smile.

“I'm worried about you, Lizzy, not Lydia. At least Lydia was always up-front about what she wanted. She might have been kind of an asshole, but at least she didn't pretend to be something else. Everyone else thinks you're so sweet, so nice.” Andrew rolled his eyes, and pulled his phone out of his pocket. “I have to go.”

“Time for another yoga class?” Elizabeth rolled her eyes back at him—it was involuntary, a contest to see who could devolve the fastest.

“You have never understood me,” Andrew said. “And obviously, if this is something that you are capable of, I have never understood you.”

Elizabeth crossed her arms and cocked her head to the side. “That is a crazy thing to say.”

“Crazier than saying yes to something like that without talking to me?” She hated it that he made sense. “Harry's going to see that movie, and he's going to think he understands us better, you know? And what is he going to understand? He's going to think that the version of Lydia on the screen is what she was really like. And what are the odds of that happening? It's going to be about Lydia the martyr, which is the most bullshit thing ever. Do you remember the last time we saw her?” Andrew turned around so that they were both facing the house, with their backs to the street. Elizabeth remembered.

•   •   •

T
hey were at Veselka, in the East Village, having an early dinner of pierogies and applesauce. Harry was six months old, asleep in the car seat, which sat on the floor between them. He loved ambient noise—people talking, forks clinking—and so they brought him everywhere.

The rules about celebrities were clear: you were not supposed to notice, and if you did, you were honor-bound to ignore whoever it was. There was a ripple in the room, a game of telephone. Whispers bounced off the walls and the ceiling. Elizabeth, sleep-starved and leaking milk, scooted as far to the right as she could and looked toward the front of the restaurant.

The crowd parted like the Red Sea, into two distinct human walls three feet apart—the only people who didn't care about Lydia were the Polish waitresses. Everyone else stood still, eyes wide. Elizabeth
waved, but Lydia didn't see her, so focused on making her way across the room. “What's going on?” Andrew said, swiveling around in his chair. “Oh.”

She was nearly abreast of their table. The room had quieted to a hush. Andrew cleared his throat, which he always did when he was nervous. Why was he nervous? She was their friend, she had been their friend.

“Lydia!” Elizabeth said. She pushed her chair back and stood up. All around them, diners in pseudo-punk garb looked on, appalled at the breach of conduct. They'd already horrified everyone by bringing the baby, but this was a whole new level of misbehavior.

Lydia's eyes were swimming, murky and red. She turned slowly toward the sound of her own name, clearly half meaning to ignore it the way she probably did most of the time. Her eyes finally settled on Elizabeth, standing, and on Andrew, still sitting across the table, his fork in hand with a pierogi speared on top. Lydia smiled and spread her arms open wide, bypassing Elizabeth and going straight for Andrew, who hugged her awkwardly with his fork still in hand. The punky kids at the table next door were trying not to turn into girls at a Beatles concert—and doing a terrible job. Lydia either didn't notice them or managed to ignore them entirely without seeming rude. There was a force field of fame around her, thick as Pyrex. She stroked Andrew's face with her thumb.

“How are you?” Lydia cooed. She turned her gaze toward Elizabeth. “Your cheeks look different.”

“I just had a baby,” Elizabeth said. “We just had a baby.”

“Breeders!” Lydia said, and laughed. Her entourage laughed, too. She patted Andrew on the chest. “Look at you, Daddy.”

“Congratulations on the warehouse movie,” Andrew said. “Or is it about a factory? We haven't seen it yet, but I hear it's great.”

Lydia shrugged. “They tell me its good,” she said. “But they tell me everything's good, so . . .”

Under the table, Harry began to cry, little hiccupping bursts of sound. Elizabeth bent down to pick him up and quickly jostled him sideways until he latched onto her breast. She was still standing in the middle of the restaurant, and everyone was looking at her. At Lydia and now at the pink cushion of her nipple, which slipped in and out of Harry's mouth as he fussed.

“God, he's like a cannibal,” Lydia said, and pretended to gnaw on her own hand. “That is so scary.” She kissed the air. “Good to see you,” she said, looking at Andrew. She made a loud munching noise at Elizabeth and turned away. A waiter pointed her and her friends to a table in the far back corner, and once she was sitting, the noise in the restaurant rose up and swallowed them. Elizabeth sat down again and found herself blinking back tears.

“What's the matter?” Andrew said.

“Nothing,” Elizabeth said. “Let's just go. When he's done, let's just go.” She looked down at Harry's sweet face, sucking away. A year and a half later, Lydia was dead.

•   •   •

I
'm sorry,” Elizabeth said. It had all been a mistake. She couldn't even blame Naomi for talking her into it—Elizabeth could see herself nodding along at the idea, so eager to sign on the dotted line. It was like an O. Henry story, only she'd sabotaged herself. She had been her own sacrifice. “It was for you,” she said, knowing that he wouldn't see it that way. “I did it for you.”

“Did you?” Andrew said. “The door is unlocked. I'll be back later. And just so you know, what I'm doing over there isn't just yoga. It's self-care. I'm not pretending that it's a present for you. You should try it sometime.” He slipped his feet into his sandals and flopped down the stairs and onto the sidewalk.