"Oh, the airport. That's different." She giggled. "What time?"
"Five-fifty." "Uh-oh. You're in trouble, Rude. It's six o'clock." I pressed my hands to my eyes, making everything black. Emma's laughter was catching, but mine sounded hysterical.
"What airline?" she asked.
"Delta." "Okay, sit tight, I'll call National and leave a message. They'll page him-he'll like that. 'Mr. Curtis Lloyd, Mr. Curtis Lloyd, please come to the white courtesy phone." "What will you say?" "That you're sloshed and can't drive, what else?" I must have looked terrified, because she squeezed my wrist. "Kidding. What do you want me to say?" "Say I'm with Isabel." "That's good. It's no big deal, he can take the subway to Eastern Market and walk home, can't he?" "No, he'll take a cab." "Of course he will," she said in her bland, ironic, Curtis voice. "Don't worry, Rudy, I'll fix it." But when she came back, she looked worried and amused and sheepish. "You're screwed." "Why?" She sat down on my side again. "I had to leave a message." "So?" "They've got a new deal, voice mail. So he'll know it was mewho called. I mean, he's going to hear me, not some page lady, with a message from you. He'll know I called and not you. I should've hung up." "What did you say?" "I said we were all here at Sergei's, comforting Isabel. You wanted to go pick him up, but she was in a bad way and we wouldn't let you leave." "Oh, Em." One lie was bad enough, but that was about three.
"I know, but I got into it and couldn't stop." I laughed shakily. I knew I was in trouble, though, even if Curtis believed Emma's lie.
The waitress came over and asked if we wanted another round. We looked at each other. All of a sudden I felt wonderful. "What the hell?" we said together. It really was like old times, when we first moved to D.C., and we'd hang out in bars or restaurants and talk for hours, six hours, eight, start at lunch and talk right through dinner. Before I got married.
"Hey, Rude. You're not really afraid of him, are you?" She must've been drunk. She would never have asked me that question sober.
I must've been drunk, too-I didn't mind it. I didn't lie, either. "Sometimes I am, but it's not his fault." "Why isn't it?" "Because I'm afraid of everything." "How come?" I shrugged.
She said, "Has he ever hit you?" "No. Jesus, Emma!" "Okay, I just wondered. I'm sorry. No offense." "Well, now you know." "Okay." "Okay." He had, though, once. Just one time, and it was so long ago, I never thought of it anymore.
"So what are you afraid of?" Emma asked me again.
"Everything." "What? Gimme a list." "Let's see. That he'll stop loving me. That we'll never have a child. That if we do have a child I'll ruin its life." I held my face in my hands and stared into my drink. "That one of these days I'll go crazy, kill myself or something. That Isabel will die. That I'll never make anything of my life. That I'll end up like my mother. That my brother's going to kill himself with drugs." "Shit, Rudy." Emma put her arm around me. "That's enough for now." I stopped trying to think of things I was afraid of. "Those are just off the top of my head," I said, and we started laughing. I laughed until my drink tasted salty from the tears trickling down my face; "People are watching us," 1 noticed, blowing my nose on a napkin.
"Now they really think we're lesbians." We lounged in our booth, smiling around vacantly. We stared at people. We ate some of the free hors d'oeuvres.
"We should go, probably," Emma said.
"Yeah. Don't forget, you've got a date." "I did forget. Shit. I'd better call and tell him the deal's off." She got up, only a little wobbly.
"You're canceling?" "God, yes. Shape I'm in, I'd either start a fight or propose to him. And either way, I'd jump him first." She went off to the telephone.
I waited, not thinking of anything much. Feeling pretty good. One of the lawyers came back.
"Hey, did your friend run off and leave you?" "No," I said, "she had to make a phone call." "Oh, yeah? What's your name?" "Rudy." "Hi, Rudy. I'm Simon." Simon had a sweet smile and a five o'clock shadow. A yellow tie. Definitely a lawyer.
"You're not really gay, are you?" He looked friendly, and he didn't sound coy or hostile. So I said, "No, we're not. I'm married, though." "Ah. What a shame." He sat down on Emma's side and folded his hands in his lap. I liked his unaggressive body language. But then he looked away and nodded, lifting his eyebrows. A signal. His friend got up from the bar, scooping up drinks and cigarettes and change, and started to come over. Emma's going to kill me, I thought while Simon said, "So, do you two work around here?" Three things happened at once. Simon's friend sat down next to me, Emma came- back, holding two new drinks and frowning, and I saw Curtis at the same time he saw me.
He must've come straight from the airport-he had his Hartman carry-on over his shoulder. He moved toward me slowly, his eyes huge and dark, gleaming with hurt and calculation. I tried to stand up, but the man, Simon's friend, was big and heavy and he didn't know what was going on, he wouldn't move.
"Curtis," Emma said jovially, putting the drinks down, facing him. Making a shield between him and me. "What a nice surprise! So you got my message, great, great. Have a seat? Too bad you missed Isabel, just missed her. These guys . . ." She bit her lips. Her voice dropped to normal; she quit trying. "Who the hell are you guys?" "Curtis, please don't-" What? His tight, violent smile was paralyzing me.
"Ready to go home?" Polite. Reasonable. Behind the pain in his face, some kind of resigned excitement showed. i've got you now, he was thinking. - Simon's friend finally slid out. I got to my feet in slow motion, fumbling for coat, gloves, purse.
"Don't let her drive," Emma warned.
Curtis whirled around. "Don't tell me what to do with my wife." The naked hate between them shocked but didn't surprise me. Do you really believe Curtis likes Emma? Eric asked me that once.
Emma reached past Curtis and touched me. "Are you okay?" "Yes, sure." I tried to laugh, tried to lessen the awfulness. She looked wound up but indecisive. Sparks were all but shooting off her.
"Hey, why don't we all sit down and cool off," she said unexpectedly, and I realized she was afraid-for me. Curtis stood unmoving, silent. I wanted to tell Emma there was nothing to fear from him, I only feared for him.
"We're going. 'Bye." I hugged her. "Call me. Don't you drive, hear?" She nodded. Curtis didn't even look at her when he turned me, just a light hand on my back, and made me walk out ahead of him. - Out on the street, I froze for a minute, my mind a blank. I couldn't remember where I'd parked the car. I started toward Wisconsin, then remembered-the lot on K Street. "Oh, no, this way," I said casually, and Curtis turned around with -me without a word. But he knew. I was loaded, and he knew it.
He drove. - "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry about the airport," I told him, huddling on the cold car seat, shivering because the Jeep's heater hadn't kicked in yet.
Instead of answering, he turned on the radio.
His handsome face looked sharp and clean against the lights flashing past his window. He'll never look old. He'll die with that boyish mouth, that child's hairline. I tried not loving him-just for a second; an experiment. To my horror, it worked. I jerked my head away and stared past the streetlamps at the icy, empty Mall. The heat came on. Even though I turned the fan up high, I never stopped shivering.
At home, I sat on the bed and watched him unpack.
Socks and shorts in the hamper, shirts in the pile to the cleaners, shoes on wooden trees, suit on a padded hanger. He has an electric tie rack. I bought it for him for a joke, but he loves it.
I tried again.
"Listen, I'm sorry. Those men in the bar-you know that was nothing." No answer.
"And I was with Isabel before, but she left. Before you came." Four hours before. I caught sight of myself in the mirror over the bureau. Red-rimmed eyes, mascara in blotches like paw prints. A mess. I looked drunk, which I was. The hangover was just starting.
"How did it go in Atlanta?" I asked.
"Badly." He turned away and went into the bathroom. He didn't close the door.
"Oh, no!" I called. "What happened?" "I was going to tell you about it tonight. I thought we'd go out and talk." Guilt feels like being smothered under a pile of rocks and mortar and pieces of glass. Buried alive. "We can still go. I'll get dressed, it's only eight o'clock." "I couldn't eat now." He came out of the bathroom in his pajamas and bathrobe-navy blue with white piping and bright tartan plaid. He looked like a Brooks Brothers model, blond and ruddy-cheeked, healthy and urbane. I was surprised and grateful when he sat beside me on the bed.
"I'm sorry." Sometimes if I say it often enough, he relents. "It was my fault. I had too much to drink and forgot the time. Emma just made that up, that we were still with Isabel. She left much earlier. Oh, Curtis-poor Isabel, it was horrible in the doctor's office, sitting there and listening to him-" "So Emma lied," he interrupted.
"What? Oh, but that wasn't-she didn't-" "Rudy. I know how much you like her, but I don't think Emma's the good friend you think she is." "Oh, no-" "Listen," he said gently. He touched me, and I leaned into him, limp with relief. He forgave me. The world had stopped when he came into Sergei's and saw me, and now it was starting again.
I turned my head to kiss his clean-smelling neck, sliding my arms around his waist, but he held himself stiffly. I drew back.
"1 don't want you to see quite so much of her." I stared stupidly. "You mean Emma?" "Look what it's doing to you." He touched my smudged cheek with distaste. Even I could smell the cigarette smoke in my hair, my clothes. "I know you've known her for a long time. I don't expect you to drop her." "Drop her?" "But I think it would be better if you didn't see her outside the group." He looked into my eyes, cupping my face in his palms. "For your own good, Rudy. In a way, I'm surprised Greenburg hasn't suggested it already." My mind was spinning. I took hold of his hands. "Eric likes Emma, he'd never tell me that." He sighed and pulled away.
I tried to keep his hands. "Don't be angry. Don't-" He got up and went to the door. Turned. "So you won't do what I'm asking. For your sake." "Stop seeing Emma? She's my best friend!" "So you won't?" "Curtis, don't do this. Please don't." I could feel the door shutting, me freezing. He would go away, take his love, take everything. "Plase," I begged. "Curtis, please." "Yes or no." For my sake, he said, but it was cruel. "No, I can't. I'm sorry, please-Emma is my closest friend. Curtis!" He'd turned and gone out.
I heard his leather slippers on the stairs. He would go down to the kitchen and make a toasted cheese sandwich in the broiler, with low-fat margarine on one side and nothing on the other. He'd eat it at the -kitchen table with a glass of 2 percent milk while he skimmed the latest Time, U.S. News, and Money.
I went in the bathroom and took three sleeping pills. I was afraid to take more after the scotch. Three should do it, though. In bed, I pulled the covers over my head. Blackness, please. I needed a meditation to keep everything out, and I chose, It's starting. A time of penitence was coming, and only Curtis could say how long it would last. He held the key.
I slipped into a dream about God. He was sitting in a gilded chair, surrounded by vague-faced, worshipful angels. He looked at his watch, a Rolex like Curtis's.
"She's late," he said with terrible sadness. "I'm very sorry, but she's late." He wept just, righteous tears. He reached up over his head and pulled the chain to a big Tiffany lamp, and the world went black.
Emma.
In March 1 crossed three onerous tasks off my master To Do list. In increasing order of difficulty, I: broke up with Brad once and for all, drove down to Virginia to see my mother, and turned in my resignation at the paper. Actually the last two tied for degree of difficulty.
Just kidding. My mother's not so bad. After she stopped carping about what an idiot I was to quit my job, she was almost nice to me. I think I've figured out the secret to civility between us: only see each other twice a year. - The scariest part of the visit was realizing how much I'm starting to look like her. Or she's starting to look like me-there's a thought. My mother-Kathleen-looks like me if I stayed up for a week, drinking, smoking, shooting smack, and whoring. And worrying. That's what being sixty-five does to you, I guess, because the only pastime on this list my mother actually indulges in (as far as I know) is the last, But at that, she is truly world-class.
Oh, I'm too hard on her, I know. Force of habit. But I'm getting too old to react to her clumsy manipulations and machinations like the sulky, insufferable teenager 1 used to be. Anyway, I've won. I won a long time ago. I got out of Danville, Virginia; I didn't get married; I didn't go to state college and become a teacher "for something to fall back on," i.e., in case, like hers, my husband left me. Oh, and I developed this charming wiseass persona on purpose to annoy her.
Quitting my job turned out to be harder than I thought it would be. Because of the money. I'd gotten used to having some. I had started to buy things I saw in shop windows-walk by, stop, look, go in, and buy. "I'll have that." "I'll take it." This is what it means to be a grown-up, I'd think, flashing my gold Visa, my platinum MasterCard. I sent my mother a VCR for Christmas. I was planning for a new car in the spring, something sporty, maybe a Miata. The tips I left waitresses had gotten positively philanthropical.
But there was one thing I was even sicker of than poverty, and that was my excuse for not writing a novel, my so-called heart's desire: "I don't have time." Never mind that it was true; working for the paper, freelancing on the side, and writing short stories nobody bought had left me pretty much written out by the end of the day. Something had to go. So I've dumped the nine-to-five, kept the freelancing to pay the mortgage, and hung up the short stories. Now we'll see what I'm made of.
I say that with such gusto, such verve. As if I haven't been procrastinating since birth to avoid this very thing. Could it be? Could I be growing up?
No. Unfortunately. The reason is more craven and doesn't do me nearly as much credit. It's Isabel. Over the years she's taught me many lessons, but this is one I -really didn't want to learn, not from her, not like this. It's the one about how short life is, and how foolish we would be to waste it. - - I try to understand why this happened to her, why not to Rudy or Lee, or me. Why Isabel? She's the best of us. She has the biggest heart. She believes in everything-I don't believe in anything. It's chance that this happened to her, isn't it? She says no, there's no such thing as chance, it happened for a reason-. What reason? "Maybe I can stand it and you can't," she said to me. But that's nonsense, isn't it?
She ditched that jerk Glass and got a new oncologist. Searle, this one's name is; he started her on anti-estrogen therapy, some drug called Megace that made her gain weight and have hot flashes, but otherwise didn't do anything. Now she's trying two new drugs, Arim- -idex and something else, I can't remember the name, and we've all got our fingers crossed. Get this: at first Isabel wanted to skip the whole medical model and go for self-healing. Self-healing. That's your wheatgrass and coffee enemas, Indian sweat tents and acupuncture and hypnosis. Guided imagery. Bio-fucking-feedback.
But I didn't open my mouth. - I bit my tongue and did not say one word. Rudy and Lee finally talked her out of it, and apparently Kirby-gay-guy-turned-hetero-heartthrob-did, too. (I'm sorry; that's snide. I apologize, Kirby. Whom I still haven't met. Isabel says there's nothing between them now except friendship. Maybe, but for some reason I don't like him. So what if the reason is jealousy and possessiveness?) I can't stand it that this is happening to her. When I call, I never know the right thing to say. I feel awkward and stupid, because this thing between us that neither one of us really wants to talk about anyway has gotten so huge, we can't see around it. So I put off calling her, and then whole days go by when I don't even think about her. That's the worst: that I could forget all about my kindest, truest friend, whose life has turned into an absolute nightmare.
No, that's wrong. My life would be a nightmare if I were in Isabel's shoes. Who really knows, but it seems as if she's getting through it with the same grace that's seen her through the other rotten deals life's handed her. And speaking of Gary-he hasn't called her, hasn't so much as sent a get-well card. Terry wanted to come, fly down from Montreal for a long weekend, but she told him not to. What a nice kid. I've always liked him. Always wished he were about fifteen years older.
Oh, me, me, me. Nothing like a loved one's crisis to really bring home your own self-absorption. Isabel's illness is all relative: relative to me. How will my life change if she gets worse instead of better? How will I live without her if she dies? Oh, guilt, guilt, guilt. I thought Jews were the ones plagued for life with guilt, not us ex-Catholic agnostics. Lee's Jewish, and she's the most guilt-free, nonneurotic woman I've ever met. Irritating, but non-neurotic. Isabel's situation is just making Lee more efficient and organized. Bossier.
She's not pregnant yet, by the way, but her spirits are good. Lately, instead of calling, she's been sending me E-mails. I guess it's more efficient.