The Real Liddy James (17 page)

Rose looked at Liddy. Liddy looked at the title.

It was
Lean In.

“You've got to be kidding me,” said Liddy, and her smile disappeared.

Back at the apartment, Liddy put Cal straight to bed and then forced Matty to take the puppy down to the sidewalk in front of the building. She leaned out of a window and watched as they walked up and down between two lampposts, but although she had set the alarm on his phone for twenty minutes, the moment the dog pooped, Matty made a great grimacing show of cleaning it up for his audience of one in the balcony and raced back inside.

She filled the kettle with water, selected a suitably soothing blend of herbal tea, and reached for a mug. This made her wince. She had asked the new housekeeper not to rearrange the mugs on the mug tree, which she had alphabetized according to logo,
KEEP CALM AND CALL YOUR ATTORNEY
going above
THIS MIGHT BE TEQUILA
and so on, but had been ignored. This caused Liddy considerable distress, even though she knew part of it was displacement. It had taken her hours to master most of the kitchen appliances, and she had given up on how to work the toaster oven. It was not just Cal who cried about the absence of Lucia.

The elevator door hissed open and Matty emerged talking, although not to himself, as was usual.

“She's here,” he was saying and called out,
“Mom?”
and Liddy
knew he had company, as he had not grunted at her or hissed unintelligible mutterings behind her back.

“Matty, you should buzz before you—”

“It's my fault. I invited myself in.”

She turned and there was Lloyd Fosco, in his signature black boots, leather pants, and scoop T-shirt revealing a little too much matted chest hair, against which hung a large silver pendant. He was carrying the dog in his arms, a purposeful look on his face that contrasted with his usual languid demeanor.

“Lloyd knows The Rock,” said Matty.

“Interesting,” said Liddy. Then she looked over at Lloyd.

“Are you here to talk about the roof repair?” she said, indicating with a nod of her head that this was by way of explanation to Matty.

“I am,” said Lloyd convincingly. “I also wanted to see your apartment.”

He walked into the center of the living room and spun around slowly.

“
Fantastic!
I like what you've done with the space. Great sight lines.”

Liddy thought resentfully of the many hours of her life she had spent with the architect, measuring the exact heights of door frames and drape poles. She looked around, her gaze alighting on the silver-streaked Italian marble worktop she didn't particularly like. “Fantastic” wasn't worth it.

“Well, my iPad's not gonna watch itself,” said Matty, knowing that Liddy would not say no in front of this hairy actor, and
before she could answer, he dived into his room, slamming the door and then burping loudly behind it.

She turned to Lloyd, mock sighing. “
Kids!
Do you want a drink?”

“No,” he said. And then he tenderly placed the dog on an armchair, walked toward Liddy, and took her into his arms. “I want you.”

Liddy's mouth opened in surprise, but Lloyd took it as a cue and thrust his lips against hers. After a couple of awkward seconds, where teeth hit teeth, Liddy responded enthusiastically, although she would have preferred him not to lick upward onto her palate. Eventually, he lifted his head to draw breath, pulling her tighter toward him. He was a tall, well-built man, and this meant her nose nestled against his chest like a little thrush in a brown nest.

“We had an amazing night together. Why won't you return my calls? I think you've been using the service elevator to avoid me!”

He kissed her neck, laughing at the absurdity of this. He smelled tired, and this made Liddy like him more, which was a relief. What had ensued after Cal's birthday party had certainly taken her mind off the day's events, albeit till the next morning, but she had been unsure if she had the stamina to repeat it.

“I like your pendant,” she said quickly, running her hand across his chest.

“It's kinetic. Look.” He stepped back and pulled the chain up and down. The pendant moved between the masks of comedy and tragedy.

“Wow. I've never seen anything like that before,” said Liddy, which was true.

“I designed it myself,” he said proudly. “Do you see the words?”

“
All the world's a stage
,” read Liddy.

“Yeah,” he said enigmatically. So Liddy said the first thing that came into her head, which was, “It is indeed,” and then, “Have a drink.”

She went over and pulled open the fridge door and filled two glasses with ice.

“Thanks. Juice, please. I've got an early call tomorrow.”

Liddy looked longingly at the bottle of lemon-flavored vodka in the freezer as she poured them two orange juices, but she admired Lloyd's self-discipline and work ethic, meticulous and monastic like hers. He settled down, leather pants on leather armchair, and cradled the dog, who licked his hands in gratitude for the attention.

“So. How've you been?” he said.

“Busy,” she said. “I'm always busy.”

“That's why we should date each other,” he said. “We live in the same building. It's so convenient,” and then he held the dog up to his face and nuzzled its wet nose. “What's her name?” he said, and Liddy replied Coco. The dog panted excitedly and Lloyd exclaimed, “
Coco! Who's a pretty girl,”
over and over again. On another evening, Liddy would have found the juxtaposition of his cynicism and sentimentality incredibly annoying, but tonight it had a completely different effect.

She walked over and sat on his lap and petted the dog too.

“Do you have any kids?” she asked.

“No. Not yet. But I have a dog. You ever seen my dog? I got joint custody of her last year, but then my ex moved to LA and dognapped it.” He paused meaningfully.
“Bitch.”

Liddy guessed that Lloyd was not referring to the well-groomed pug in black booties she had once seen trotting behind him. She wanted to laugh but was glad she didn't.

“She was my emotional-support dog. I haven't been able to fly transatlantic since then. My manager wants to get me another one, but I'm not ready.”

“You should have hired me. I'd have got you full custody.”

She leaned over and kissed him, and they put their hands all over each other, until they fell off the sofa with a crash and woke Cal, who cried out. Liddy extracted herself and hurried into the bedroom, where she lay down beside her son for a couple of minutes until he fell asleep again. She looked up to see Lloyd in the doorway, watching. He smiled as she walked toward him.

“You can't stay,” she said.

“I know,” he said, “that's okay.”

Lloyd put his arm around her shoulders, and they went over to the window. Through the triple glazing the city was silent, the skyline black against the dark blue sky, the buildings patterned with golden squares of light, windows that looked like cutouts.

“Your view is better than mine,” he said, congratulatory.

Liddy gazed into the distance.

Then she moved closer to him.

“Just so you know. I couldn't fully commit to someone who already had children,” he said.

“I'm not looking for full commitment,” said Liddy. “I told you. I'm always busy.”

He grinned. From another woman, this statement could have been game playing, defensiveness, or a straightforward lie, but from Liddy it had the ring of absolute truth. He felt disorientated. It made him like her more.

“Good. I'm always busy too. Is that water damage from the leak?”

Liddy nodded. One wooden window frame was cracking, the paint blistering and the surrounding wall stained with damp.

“It's a mess. The sooner we get that fixed the better.”

“I know,” said Liddy. “I just can't face the bill at the moment.”

He stroked her hair. “And your roots need doing. My friend Pedro's opened a new salon on Beach Street. I'll hook you up. You should think about a lighter shade. Less aging.”

Her right foot started tapping insistently on the floor. She pressed her thigh against his to stop it.

Peter went night walking for two hours in an attempt to work off his confusion. When he finally returned, Rose was still huddled on the couch feeling sorry for everything (and for herself). It had been one thing to shout her paranoid orders into the mirror in the bathroom, but quite another to let it rip at Liddy in front of Peter and the two boys. Worst of all, Liddy had reacted with such exemplary consideration and calm that Rose found herself in the
difficult position of having to explain her behavior, without telling Peter the real reasons for it.

“I don't know what happened to me,” she said, holding out her arms toward him. “I'm embarrassed for myself. Poor Liddy.”

“Oh, believe me, there've been several times I could have murdered her. What happened? What did she do?”

Rose looked away. She wanted to talk about the “Couple Cohabitation Agreement” and giving up work, but Liddy had been right, she was nervous. She feared she would seem distrustful and feeble, and thus unworthy of Peter, whose moral certitude she venerated. So she told Peter of being awoken every morning by terror, and described more palatable fears: of giving birth, of parenting, of menopause with a toddler. Liddy had said the wrong thing at the wrong time, Rose said, and the Liddy-ishness had driven her crazy.

Peter understood. He chuckled. He sat on the couch beside her and held her hand.

“Yes,” he said, “that really is the only word to describe her. She has always seemed to me to be utterly sui generis, unique in her own characteristics.”

Rose relaxed. They appeared to have moved remarkably quickly from the subject of her bad behavior to Liddy's.

“And Liddy does appear to live in her own self-created reality. We all do it, of course, we all justify our particular
choices
to a greater or lesser extent; it's just for her it seems to be a matter of survival. That's why it was shocking when Cal asked her who his father was. It was a moment of pure truth. She will have to deal
with the consequences of her actions, and she may not like the outcome.”

“Why is she like this?” said Rose, anxious to continue the conversation, as she had never heard Peter be so loquacious on the subject before.

He paused for a moment to analyze the question further. When he finally spoke, his reply was considered, but unexpected, and exactly how he would speak in a student seminar.

“We were in Paris once, years ago, before we had Matty. Liddy studied Impressionist art as an undergraduate, so we wrote out a list of pictures that we wanted to see and we went around to galleries, day and night. On about the third evening, we went to the Musée d'Orsay to look at the Monets—in particular his portrait of his young wife, Camille, on her deathbed. It's an incredible image. Do you know it? She's lying there imprisoned in brushstrokes that look like a cave of ice.”

Rose shook her head. Peter continued.

“I remember saying to Liddy, how could Monet do that? How could he paint the death of his wife, the mother of his two young sons, whom he loved? Liddy didn't seem to understand what I meant, she just looked at me and said, ‘Because he's an artist, that's what he does.' Back at the hotel, I read the catalog and there was a quote from Monet about why he had made this picture, something about his reflexes compelling him to do it in spite of himself. That's why Liddy understood him, because
that's what she does
. When she's decided on a course of action, her reflexes compel her in spite of herself.”

Rose looked at him. “I'm sorry I ruined the evening, my love.”

“Hush. I quite enjoyed seeing a new side of you—it's cute.”

“Cute? I'd have thought more fiery, Latin,
sexy
?”

She ran her fingers up his thigh. He rolled his eyes.