The Private Lives of Pippa Lee (6 page)

‘I got them at the farm stand,' Pippa said, looking at him and thinking how he had changed over the years. The skin on his long neck had loosened and trembled now like a turkey's wattle. The point of his hawk's nose had been dulled, rounded somehow, as if worn away by the grindstone he'd kept it to for the past thirty years, writing twelve hours a day almost without fail, hounded by the stories in his head like Orestes by the Furies. His eyes, once liquid black like molten tar, now looked dead as coals. It
was as though, by writing all his life, he had consumed himself, chunk by chunk, and now he was a host, a husk. Time and again, Sam took his life and the people in it, boiled it all down – skin, bones, all of it – till it was a paste the color, Pippa imagined, of whale blubber. Then he built up an image with this paste, a kind of complex frieze, a story made of human beings, human feelings, human memory.

The main problem Pippa had with Sam (much as she loved him as a friend) was that she suspected he needed his relationships to fail so he could use them later. He would be a monster, she thought, if he wasn't more merciless with himself than with anyone else. But it was he who jumped into the caldron first, every time. To be cooked down and rise again; that was Sam's endless, exhausting destiny. A writer, and no more. The hopefulness had gone out of him, she thought sadly. But that was the deal he had made: in exchange for a real life, he had been given nine novels, two of them classics, the rest excellent, his immortality almost assured. Still, she pitied her old friend. And she felt sorry for Moira for having fallen in love with him; he would never give her what she wanted. She was too needy. The trick with Sam, Pippa knew, would be to make his life so appealing, such a pleasure, that he could not but turn toward it, and away from himself – at least a little bit. But then, she thought, Moira is a writer, too. So maybe they understand each other. She sighed and noticed Chris Nadeau's yellow truck parked across the way. She wondered what was going on inside the Nadeau house at that moment.

‘How's the novel coming?' asked Herb.

‘I'm only a hundred pages in,' said Sam. ‘I don't even know if it'll work yet.'

‘Excuse me for a minute,' Pippa said. She went to the bathroom, locked herself in, opened the window, and took the cigarettes out from behind Herb's blood pressure medication. She blew the smoke through the screen, watched it expand and disappear into the dark air. Then she brushed her teeth.

She came back to the patio with a slab of pistachio halvah, feeling toxic from the cigarette and berating herself for smoking. Moira sighed deeply and craned her neck to see the sky, drawing her knees up to her heavy bust and clutching them to her, her large, black, kohl-rimmed eyes glazing over with wonder. All of Moira's gestures and reactions had an element of self-consciousness. At twenty-four, she had won the coveted Yale Younger Poets prize. From there she'd gone on to publish a few volumes of surprisingly vitriolic poetry, her private life a brushfire of failed romances. In her middle thirties now, she clung to the demeanor of near-constant astonishment that had clashed so beautifully with her intellect in her early years. Not that Moira was old. No, she was a good deal younger than Pippa. Among the aging literary set she circulated in, she was a bombshell. Pippa found her endearing – and occasionally pitiful. She was irresponsible and neurotic, a grown woman without children, without health insurance even, still searching for love with the reckless hopefulness of a twenty-year-old. Yet occasionally, Pippa found herself envying Moira's chaotic, self-centered life.

‘Is that a bat?' Moira asked, squinting.

‘Yes,' said Herb.

‘“Like a glove, a black glove thrown up at the light,”' said Moira. ‘Who said that? What's his name.'

‘The sex fiend,' said Sam. ‘Mr Lawrence.'

‘You should talk,' said Herb.

‘And he got it wrong, too. Look at that. Does that look like a black glove to you?' asked Sam. They all looked up. ‘It's a fucking
bat
.'

‘Ben used to subscribe to a magazine about bats, remember?' Pippa said to Herb.

‘Oh, yeah,' he said, squinting in recollection.

‘Look how frenetic the fluttering wings are; that's how you can tell it's not a bird,' said Moira.

‘No,' said Sam. ‘It's the way it changes direction so fast – like a stunt kite.'

‘That's good.' Herb chuckled. ‘A stunt kite.' Sam tucked his chin into his neck, content; Herb never said anything was good unless he meant it.

‘Do they really get in your hair?' asked Moira.

Sam tossed his head. ‘Could you maybe just once come up with an idea that isn't a cliché?' Moira looked at him, an incredu lous expression on her face. ‘Just kidding,' he said. ‘You're an original, baby, and don't you forget it.'

‘Fuck you, too,' said Moira.

Pippa stood up. ‘Decaf, anyone?' she asked in mock-stewardess style.

Moira stood up as well, and followed Pippa into the kitchen. By the time they got to the stove, she was sobbing. ‘Every time I open my mouth, he puts me down. I can't take it any more. He's such a
prick
.'

Pippa sighed. Sam was cruel to his women. Everyone knew that. She'd seen him gnaw through a handful of them over the years.

‘That's just the way he is sometimes. He has a mean streak. Maybe if you just laughed along?'

‘I've been laughing for four years. Now I'm crying.'

‘Are you talking about breaking up?'

‘We're not talking about anything. Sam is so involved with his novel, he barely looks up. I'm having all of our discussions with myself.'

‘Have you found … someone else?' Pippa knew Moira well enough to guess she wouldn't think of leaving a man as powerful and desirable as Sam Shapiro unless she had a replacement in the wings. Gifted as she was, this poet needed big men.

Moira looked down at her hands. ‘No … I mean –' Then, pressing her palms against her eyes, ‘Oh, Pippa, I'm so confused!'

That night in bed, as Herb tried to read and Pippa rubbed cream between the backs of her hands, she mused, ‘I bet you Moira's having an affair.'

‘What makes you say that?' Herb asked.

‘She's talking about leaving Sam, but she's terrified of being on her own. It just adds up.'

‘Maybe she wants you to think she's having an affair so you'll tell me, and I'll tell Sam, and he'll pay more attention to her.'

‘Do you really think Moira is that conniving?'

‘That's what women are like.'

‘Devious?'

‘It's instinct. Survival of the fittest. Of all people, you should know.'

‘Never mind.'

‘Does that mean I get to go to sleep now?' Herb said, yawning and putting his reading glasses in their case. ‘Since reading is clearly out.'

‘I still think she's having an affair,' said Pippa, turning out her light.

The office of Maxwell, Lee and Brewer Publishing was in New York, five surprisingly shabby, glassed-in rooms choked with books. In Herb's absence, the company was being run by Marianne Stapleton, a muscular, somewhat manic person with excellent taste and a penchant for self-doubt. She called Herb at least five times a day with questions.

‘If I have an office,' Herb told Pippa, ‘I give that maniac three hours a day when she can call me. The rest of the time, I'm retired.'

Though Marigold Village was a retirement community, there was office space available. Mostly rented out to businesses that catered to the residents, the smaller units were modestly priced. Pippa found Herb a room with an adjoining toilet that looked out onto the mini-mall. She got him a sofa, a desk, a chair, a coffeemaker, and a small fridge. Though Herb kept justifying the office, telling her why it would allow them more quality time together, Pippa was actually relieved to have him out of the house a bit. She wasn't used to their new constant proximity, and she felt the need to be by herself these days. Since she'd discovered the cigarettes on the car floor, flashes of apprehension would surge through her body out of the blue, like electric current. She was having alarming dreams. In one, a body was carried out of her neighbor's house on a stretcher. Someone unzipped the body bag, and it was Pippa, her face gray. In the dream, she wasn't actually dead, but she wasn't able to open her eyes or speak. As they carried her away, she realized with horror that she'd be buried alive. She didn't mention the dream to Herb. She didn't tell him she had been smoking, either. Every time she was about to mention it, as a sort of joke, she felt ashamed.

*

Pippa was just coming out of Why Not Furnishings in the mini-mall, carrying an almond-colored throw for Herb's new couch in an oversize shopping bag, when she heard a squeal of brakes, the heartrending scream of an animal, and the sickening crash of a car. She stood on her toes, craning her neck to see the road, then walked toward it uneasily. When she arrived, she saw that a tan Toyota had smacked into a lamppost. Its front end was crumpled. The driver, a man in his seventies, unhurt but dazed, was opening his door. A few old people were already clustered on the sidewalk outside the convenience store. Pippa walked toward them, made her way to the front of the crowd. There was Chris Nadeau, kneeling on the sidewalk, cradling a big white dog. The animal had a glistening, six-inch gash along its side. It was yelping. Chris was stroking its long white fur. When he saw Pippa, he looked up at her with such naked, beseeching sadness that she dropped to her knees beside him, then instantly regretted it. It was too intimate a thing to do. And now she was stuck there, crouched beside Dot's half-baked son, a dying dog in his lap.

‘Is he yours?' she asked. He shook his head, looking down at the dying creature. ‘I saw it happen through the window,' he said softly. She looked at the dog. It was whimpering and shaking. She found it unbearable to watch. She turned to Chris. He kept his eyes on the dog's face. The man who had hit the dog kept insisting, ‘He jumped right out at me.' The dog started panting, its clear, light eyes fixed, white froth like whipped-up egg whites foaming at the corners of its mouth. Chris bent over and murmured something into its ear. Pippa couldn't see the dog, just the back of Chris's head. When he sat up, the dog was still, its eyes clouded over. Chris still didn't move. Neither did Pippa. They sat there, heads bowed, as though it was their pet that had died.

A van arrived with ‘ASPCA' written on the side. Two men got out. Chris let them lift the body off him, then, without glancing at Pippa, he stood up and walked back into the convenience store.
One of the men from the ASPCA asked her if it was her dog. Pippa shook her head, brushed off her knees, picked up her shopping bag, and walked unsteadily to her car. She felt shaken and strangely moved.

*

Moira was late. Pippa leaned back in the aqua leatherette banquette and scrutinized the small oil paintings which were hung at regular intervals on the walls of the restaurant. They were all dutifully painted, humorless landscapes. She thought about her old friend Jim, how he would have looked up at them, his head slightly bowed. He would have nodded slowly. ‘Ah, yes,' he would have said, smiling grimly. She wondered if Jim was still alive.

Moira appeared, out of breath, kissed Pippa, strands of black hair escaping from her ponytail. She smelled pleasantly of milk.

‘I am so sorry I'm late, I was writing and I looked at the clock and –'

‘Don't worry,' said Pippa, ‘I was just relaxing, enjoying the art. That's a great buckle,' she said, fingering a silver sheriff star below Moira's belly button.

‘Thanks,' said Moira, covering it with her hand and sliding into the opposite bench, her large suede handbag clutched to her side. An effeminate waiter appeared. ‘Oh! Hi! Can I please have, um, an iced tea? The one with, um, melon in it?' Moira said to him with involuntary flirtatiousness. Then she looked back at Pippa, tucked a strand of hair behind her ear girlishly, and smiled, a dimple indenting her left cheek. No wonder she had been her father's favorite of seven kids, Pippa thought. She must have been a magical child, with that heart-shaped face, those enormous, Indian orphan eyes – and that imagination. In her messy, breathless, self-obsessed way, Moira was adorable. There was no getting around it. You could think her sincerity was ridiculous, you could lampoon her overblown sexuality, her exaggerated appreciation
of life, but finally, you just had to throw up your hands and love the absolute purity of her confusion. Disarming. That was the word for Moira.

‘You look
so
beautiful
,' Moira said, scrutinizing Pippa's face. ‘What are you doing different?'

‘It's the indolence,' said Pippa.

‘I wish I could be so peaceful and good like you.'

‘
Good
?
'

‘You seem so … beatific.'

Pippa laughed. ‘If only you knew.'

‘Knew what?'

‘Oh, a variety of things. I'm like one of those shiny used cars that have been in a terrible accident. They look perfectly fine on the outside, but the axle is bent.'

Moira smiled, puzzled. ‘You're so mysterious about the past.'

‘You think?'

‘You never say anything about your life before.'

‘There are things that happened that I don't dwell on.'

‘What, like what happened to Herb's first wife?'

‘Second.'

‘Second. He said she was already crazy.'

‘Not that crazy.'

Moira sighed, put her head in her hands, and sniffed.

‘What?' Pippa put her palm on Moira's shoulder.

‘I'm just a rotten apple,' said Moira, wiping the tears off her cheeks. ‘I'll never have a normal life.'

Pippa was used to her friend's sudden episodes of self-flagellation. She always used humor to bring her out of her maudlin spirals.

‘Oh, come on,' said Pippa. ‘What's normal? You mean marriage?'

Moira nodded, blowing her nose. ‘It's over between Sam and me. Oh, Pippa, it's all so completely fucked up. I – I've gotten myself into – I'm going to be forty with no man, fifty, not that it matters but it
does
. I – I just wish I knew how to recognize the right man.'

‘Oh, pish tush,' said Pippa. ‘You can be married to anybody, if that's what you're worried about.'

‘What do you mean?'

‘Pick any man in this room, in the right age range, I could be married to him.'

Cheered up by the game, Moira surveyed the room, then pointed to a thin man wearing glasses, looking at the menu with distaste.

‘He just needs his routines, that's all,' Pippa said. ‘I bet you if you anticipate his needs before he knows he has them, he'll be docile as a lamb.'

‘What about that one?'

‘As long as you stick your finger up his ass when he's coming, he won't give you any trouble at all.'

‘Pippa!'

‘Sorry, it just slipped out.'

‘You make it seem like … so unromantic.'

‘Courtship is romantic. Marriage … is an act of will,' said Pippa, taking a sip of water. ‘I mean, I adore Herb. But the marriage functions because we will it to. If you leave love to hold everything together, you can forget it. Love comes and goes with the breeze, minute by minute.'

Moira shook her head, smiling, baffled. ‘I can't get my head around that one,' she said.

‘You'll see,' said Pippa, amazed at this act of complacent cynicism she was playing. When in God's name had she started saying ‘pish tush'? When had she even heard it? Did she really believe what she was saying, about marriage being an act of will? Yes, she realized sadly, she did. After all she and Herb had been through together, after what they had lost to be with each other – their very souls, perhaps – being married ended up being
an act of will
. It made her want to tear through the dull present, claw the vivid past back into herself, devour it like a bear busting into a camper's stores. She wanted to run out of the restaurant, to find Herb and
kiss him violently on the mouth (she could imagine his surprised, bemused expression as she crushed herself on him), to burst into tears, scream even – lose control at last. Instead she waited, smiling, for her lobster sandwich, and wondered if she might be on the brink of a very quiet nervous breakdown.