Modern Lovers (5 page)

H
arry's room was painted dark purple, and it was a little bit like sleeping inside a gigantic eggplant. He could have asked his parents to paint it another color, but it didn't really matter, seeing as the purple only peeked out here and there between the edges of the posters and other things he'd taped to the walls. He was going for one complete layer, like the people who got tattooed over their entire bodies, even their eyelids. Harry didn't care about everything he'd put on the walls, but at some point he'd cared enough to put it all up there, and he respected his own process. It was okay to grow out of things and keep them around. He liked being reminded that he'd been obsessed with Rugrats and Bart Simpson and, for a few inexplicable months around his thirteenth birthday, Kobe Bryant. He didn't even like basketball. Mostly the walls were covered with pages ripped from magazines and things he'd printed out, pages from books that he'd copied at school. It was like Tumblr, only 3-D, with no scrolling. The narrow strip of wall next to his closet was completely covered by pictures of sandwiches. Teenage girls got all the credit for being angsty and weird, and it wasn't fair. Even at Whitman, which was supposed to be progressive and artsy, the boys bragged about the time they went to a shooting range with their grandfathers in Connecticut or Virginia. They wanted to learn how to drive and listened to hip-hop.
Harry wasn't interested in any of it. Luckily, his father wasn't the kind of guy who insisted on things—everything Harry had ever done was because he wanted to, like the child sultan of a palace with only two servants.

Going to one school from age five to age eighteen was like being buried in amber. It wasn't even like his walls, which were covered with layers of things—you had to be the same person from start to finish, with no big cognitive jumps. Harry was quiet and sweet and did his homework. He had three close friends, two boys and one girl, and he wasn't particularly fond of any of them. He didn't vape or drink malt liquor, because there were other kids who did that and he wasn't one of them. He had smoked weed a few times, but he knew that his parents did, too, so it didn't seem that bad. Harry lived in a monastery built of his childhood likes and dislikes. His parents loved it, and he never got into trouble, and it made him want to scream.

His phone vibrated in his pocket:
COME OUTSIDE
. It was from a number he didn't have in his phone. Harry walked over to the window and pulled the curtain to one side. Ruby was leaning against a parked car, holding her phone over her face, with her giant dog leaning against her legs. Harry's parents were in bed, or working—their bedroom was upstairs, and his mother often worked late at the small desk in their room.
BE RIGHT THERE
, he texted back. Harry changed his T-shirt twice and then tiptoed down the hall. The route to the front door was creaky but clear.

“What's up?” Harry said once he was a few feet from Ruby. She hadn't moved. Her hair was spread out over the passenger-side window like big purple jellyfish. Bingo sniffed genially in Harry's direction.

“Walk with me, my moms are being total dicks.” Ruby pushed herself back to standing and pulled Bingo's leash in the direction of the park. Harry put his hands in his pockets and followed. She pulled
a pack of cigarettes out of her pocket and stuck one in her mouth. “Want one?” she said through her teeth.

Harry shook his head and watched Ruby cup one hand around the end of her cigarette and flick a lighter with the other. He was amazed at how brazen she was—smoking on their very own block, where they knew the people inside every house, all of whom could have picked up the phone and called her mothers. Very few kids at Whitman smoked. It wasn't like when their parents were young, when everyone had packs of ciggies in their back pockets instead of cell phones. Now everyone understood about lungs and cancer and how the tobacco companies were trying to appeal to youth. It seemed borderline pathetic to give in, not that Harry could have thought that anything Ruby did was pathetic. It looked bad on other people, was all. The small contingent of smokers at school went around the corner to do it, or crossed the street and sat on benches in the park. Harry had never smoked a single cigarette—he'd actually never been offered one before. That was how small Whitman was. It wasn't even a question. Harry Marx didn't smoke. It was a fact.

They walked three blocks straight up Argyle, until they hit the soccer fields and the back of the tennis center. It was dark, and the park was closed, but there were still a few people kicking around a ball. “Rebels,” Harry said, and Ruby laughed. They crossed Caton Avenue and walked into Prospect Park proper. Harry didn't like going into the park at night, even though there were always people running or biking around the main loop. It just seemed like one of those things that people did right before something bad happened to them, like running upstairs instead of out the front door in a horror movie. At least they had the dog with them, even if Bingo was geriatric and had permanent tearstains under his sad eyes. Ruby nudged Harry toward the bridle path, a soft dirt road that went a little bit farther into the park than Harry would have liked, but she moved with such confidence
that he didn't want to be lame. Bingo seemed to know where they were going. Finally, after a few minutes, Ruby plopped down on a bench. They were completely alone, staring out at the lake.

“People fish here, have you seen that?” Ruby asked. She lit another cigarette, and this time didn't bother to ask Harry if he wanted one. “You couldn't pay me a million dollars to eat a fish that was born in Brooklyn.”

“I'm pretty sure no one is paying anyone a million dollars to eat anything that was born in Brooklyn,” Harry said. He watched the red end of Ruby's cigarette move up and down to her mouth. It got brighter when she inhaled, and for a second Harry imagined that he was the cigarette, his entire body, and when she drew the smoke into her lungs, he felt himself slip inside her throat and slide down into her body. He felt the softness of her lips and the thick velvet of her tongue. “So that SAT lady is pretty bad, huh.”

“Um, yes,” Ruby said. She gripped the cigarette in her teeth and pulled her hair to one side and wove it into a thick braid. “She's a fucking psycho.” Bingo opened his mouth in a wide, stinky yawn.

“Speaking of psychos, has Dust called you? Do I need to hire a bodyguard?” Harry tried to make his voice sound as light as possible, but he had been worried. Dust seemed like the kind of guy who had a lot of scary-looking friends who knew how to do things like get into fights, which Harry definitely, definitely did not.

“Oh, he's totally harmless,” Ruby said. “I'm pretty sure.”

“What about your moms?” Harry said. There were ducks in the lake, swimming from one side to the other, and Harry wondered when ducks slept, and how long they lived with their parents. Then he wondered if kids who grew up in Manhattan thought ducks were mythological creatures, like cows, things that existed only in picture books and in cheese commercials. Or maybe they had ducks there, too, in the park. There were some kids at Whitman who took the train from the city every day, which seemed beyond stupid, like
walking up the stairs to the top of the Empire State Building. There were easier ways to accomplish the same thing.

“They're probably getting divorced. I don't officially know that yet, but I know your mom does, so maybe you do, too.” He didn't. Ruby shrugged. “It sucks.”

Harry had heard his mother tell his father about Ruby's mothers, but he hadn't been told directly, and so it was easy enough to pretend. “I didn't know,” he said. “I'm sorry.”

“It's their marriage, not mine,” Ruby said. “I'm a modern girl. I know it's not my fault.”

“Still,” Harry said.

“Still,” Ruby allowed. She took another drag.

“Can I have some?” Harry asked.

Ruby cackled. “Oh, shit,” she said. “I thought you didn't smoke.” She held it out to him, upright, like a candle.

“I don't,” Harry said. He plucked the cigarette from between her fingers and put it up to his lips. The filter felt rough against his tongue. Was he supposed to lick it? Probably not. Harry inhaled—he had smoked weed before, after all, he wasn't a total noob. The smoke flooded his lungs, sharp and harsh. He coughed once and tried to swallow a few more, which just made him cough harder. Ruby hit him on the back. The dog offered a sympathetic snurfle.

“Ride that pony!” she said, laughing. “Ride it!” Harry thrust the cigarette back at her, but she waved him off. “No way,” she said. “Not until you tame that beast.”

Harry waited for his breathing to return to normal and for his eyes to stop swimming, and then he tried again.

I
n the age of the Internet, when his son couldn't walk three steps without checking his phone, Andrew appreciated a Xeroxed advertisement stapled to a telephone pole. Usually it was just ads for the nerdy guy who taught guitar lessons or for lost dogs or cats, but Andrew always looked. He was between jobs. Between careers, if you wanted to be specific. There was enough family money that he didn't have to worry too much, plus the royalties, plus Elizabeth's income, and so Andrew had spent his adulthood to date following his inspirations. A decade ago, he'd taken a cinematography course at the New School and had worked on some short films, including one about an abandoned mental hospital in the Palisades. Before that, he'd taught English as a Second Language at a high school in the Bronx, but that had only lasted a year. More recently, he'd been working on a lifestyle magazine for Brooklyn fathers, doing some editing and soliciting but mostly acting as a consultant. It was good to be around younger people—kept the blood flowing. Next, Andrew thought he'd do an apprenticeship at a butcher shop or with a woodworker. Something with his hands.

His usual routine was to get up with Harry and Elizabeth, send them off to school and work, and walk down to Cortelyou to get some coffee. Now that Harry was out for the summer, Andrew felt like it
was even more important to keep busy. He ordered a small coffee and walked back out onto the street.

Ditmas Park was great in the summertime. The sycamores and oaks were full and wide, leaving big pools of shade along the sidewalks. Families were on their porches. Kids were throwing balls around and learning how to ride their bikes. Neighbors waved. Andrew ambled to the corner and waited for the light to change, feeling happily aimless. Harry would stay in his room for much of the day, taking SAT practice exams or playing video games or reading books, bless him. Even though that was the point of parenthood—to raise smart, happy, self-sufficient people, Andrew mourned the loss of the days when Harry cried out “Daddy!” every time he walked in the door, even if he'd only been gone for ten minutes. Andrew was staring into space, thinking about Harry's two-year-old body, the hugs he would give at night before bed, when a flyer stapled to the pole next to the crosswalk caught his attention.

It was a drawing of a lotus flower, like the logo of a yoga studio, with hand-drawn petals. Underneath the flower, large block letters spelled out “WE ARE HERE. ARE YOU?” Below that there was just an address on Stratford Road, three blocks from where Andrew was standing. No hours, no phone number, no website.

“Huh,” Andrew said. He thought about ripping it down so that he could hold on to it, but that would look bad. He didn't want any of his neighbors to see—they'd think he was either for or against it, when he didn't even know what it was. Instead, Andrew typed the address into his phone and crossed the street.

It was definitely going to be woodworking. The more he thought about it, the more sense it made. Butchering would mean vats of blood, saws, bones. Andrew wasn't squeamish, and he loved the idea of knowing more about where his food came from, but a rooftop vegetable farm was probably more his speed. That didn't appeal, though. Vegetables took too long. Andrew had always liked a simpler
equation; he wanted to see the payoff before an entire season had passed. When he and Elizabeth met, he'd worked in the school's bike co-op, fixing old beaters that careless students had left locked outside over the summer, and he'd loved his dirty, greasy hands at the end of the day. The spinning wheels. Woodworking—carpentry—would be like that. He would have calluses and maybe burns. He would whack a fingernail by accident, and it would turn black. That was just what he was looking for. He'd build a desk for Harry, a new pair of end tables for their bedroom. Maybe they could do it together.

Elizabeth's professional problem was the opposite—instead of Andrew's searching, she had the answer but chose to ignore it. It was a lost cause at this point, though he did coax her to start playing again by saying that he wanted to do it. She would do it for him, he knew, but not for herself. His wife was a true talent—unusual, smart, gifted—all the words that places like Whitman loved to throw around to describe perfectly ordinary students. But Elizabeth wasn't ordinary. She was incredible, and she had stopped playing for such practical reasons, as if practicality had anything to do with it.

Instead of turning right and walking back home, Andrew turned left and walked to Stratford. He never walked in that direction—it was toward the gas stations and the one bar that had recently opened that he hadn't been to yet. Come to think of it, the bar wasn't that new anymore, it was probably a year old, but he still hadn't been. Andrew turned right on Stratford and walked another block—he was now parallel with his own house, only two blocks east.

The house had once been white but was now the color of dirty city snow. The windows were old; Andrew could tell just by looking at the outside. He'd learned a lot about houses from Elizabeth, what to look for. Together, they'd been inside most of the houses in the neighborhood. The steps were sinking in the middle, and the floorboards of the porch were cracked. It wasn't a hard fix, but it would be expensive, especially if they got soft enough that the mailman fell through
and decided to sue. Andrew hovered for a minute on the sidewalk, not sure what he was going to do. He should go home and start his day. Zoe knew a guy who built things, some kid from Maine who lived in the neighborhood and built dining-room tables for people in Cobble Hill and Brooklyn Heights. Andrew was going to give him a call. The door to the house was open, and Andrew could see another flyer taped above the doorbell. He took one step toward the house, and then stopped. He could see a man inside. The guy had a beard, not quite ZZ Top but heading that way. It was impossible to tell how old he was. The man turned toward the door, saw Andrew, and waved as if he'd been expecting him. Andrew waved back, then climbed the stairs to introduce himself.

“Welcome,” the man said. From close up, he looked younger than Andrew had thought, maybe not even forty. His beard was speckled with red and gray hairs, like a duck egg that was so beautiful and complicated that you couldn't believe it just happened that way, with no intervention from a design team.

“I saw your poster,” Andrew said. Inside, the house itself was nothing special—sort of falling down, really, but the floors were clean and painted white, as were all the walls. The thin curtains were pulled to the side, and light came pouring in. Andrew immediately felt at home.

“This is EVOLVEment,” the man said. “I'm Dave. Come on in.” He spoke softly, the way that people did when they knew others were going to listen. There was no reason to speak loudly, not in this house. Andrew got it right away. This was calm. This was a sanctuary. He thought about the monks he'd seen in Tibet, and upstate, when he'd gone for silent retreats. This was one of those special places, or it was going to be, and right here, in his own neighborhood.

“What can I do?” Andrew asked. His hands were empty. He wanted to help.