The Widow's Guide to Sex and Dating (25 page)

Jack Huxley called the next day. “I need to see you,” he said. “I’m in Toronto but want to see you when I’m back.”

Claire’s heart skipped. She wished it didn’t. “That sounds great,” she said.

Miss me.
She had a note from him leaned up against a stack of books on her desk:
Widows in Contemporary Time
;
The Widow Wears Black: How to Bury the Past
;
Widows and Sexuality
.

Two words:
Miss me
. A directive. Simple. Neat. No promises, no plans.

“I feel like a cat,” Claire had said the night before she left Charleston.

“On a hot tin roof,” said Jack.

“Should I jump?” she asked, and then hoped he hadn’t heard.

“Not yet.”

She couldn’t stop talking about him. “We read
Death in the Afternoon
in a big bubbly tub.”

She was walking with Ethan through the park. He wanted a hot dog. He had a favorite vendor near Strawberry Fields, and the late February day was sunny and unseasonably warm.

“What?”

“We took turns. He read a chapter, I read a chapter. We had a bottle of wine.”

“Who is that, Thomas Mann?”

“Hemingway.”

“Oh, Hemingway. That’s original.”

“Don’t be patronizing.”

“Sweetie, you screwed him in the bathtub. You need to start calling this thing what it is.”

“God, you are so unoriginal. We read to each other, in the bathtub.”

“Fascinating.” Ethan squeezed mustard onto his hot dog.

“For two hours, maybe three, I think.”

“Doesn’t the water get cold? And is that even sanitary?”

“Are you jealous or just being mean?”

“I don’t know what I’m supposed to say,” he said. Ethan missed Charlie; these conversations were difficult for him on many levels. “It’s great. You’re moving on. It really is.”

“I’m having fun. Who cares?”

“I care, honey. I’m just having trouble with the visual. And I really don’t know if I like him, to be honest with you. I liked him months ago when I thought he was a onetime thing. Where is he right now?”

“I don’t know. His schedule is not like yours or mine.”

“You’ve become one of those girls, you know.”

“What does that mean?” Claire stopped short and grabbed his arm.

“One of those girls who turn a few dates into a meaningful relationship as if he
may be the one.
We hate those girls.”

“That’s not fair, Ethan. I only have you to talk to. Sasha feigns disinterest. She can’t bear that I live out some fantasy she still clings to. She mentioned our thwarted Paris plans the other day.”

“Clarissa.”

“What?” Claire felt like she was going to cry.

“Let me take you to dinner and remind you how remarkable you are.”

“No.”

“Then let’s go to the zoo.”

The Central Park Zoo was only a few hundred feet away.

“Okay.”

“And you can tell me how remarkable I am.”

Claire laughed.

“You haven’t been around much lately. Can I guess it’s because your airline steward is reading you Hemingway in the bath?”

Ethan smiled. He looped his arm into Claire’s and they walked while he ate a second hot dog.

“My period is a week late,” she said.

Without skipping a beat, he said, “You’ll have the most famous kid in the world.”

39

He called after Toronto, and Claire went to L.A. The flight was delayed and she arrived late so they slept in, and then he brought a tray with fruits and sparkling wine and said, “I hate it when people say this to me, sweetheart. But I want you to meet someone.” He laughed at the cliché. “I’ve been promising lunch to her for months. I really want you to meet her.”

They dressed and he drove them to Ann Holloway’s house.

Ann Holloway had a notorious home in the Hills because she was a notorious woman. She was a Hollywood legend, tucked back into jacaranda trees and rosebushes. Although she’d long ago retired, lines still formed at her door. Her name was still passed around town in hushed tones.

Her home gave off an eerie sense of remoteness. Jack’s small, dark sports car hummed up the hill, hugging the windy driveway, and neither of them spoke. He looked happy, relaxed. Claire was half giddy, half anxious, at this unexpected adventure with him.

*   *   *

A
NN
H
OLLOWAY’S NAME
, in certain circles, could open and shut more doors than any of the past four presidents. She was retired, yes, technically. She rarely if ever left her house, but from up here, in her dark rooms, in her hilltop house with its quiet servants attending to all her unspoken needs, she could still topple careers on a whim. She was Zeus, Apollo, Athena all rolled up into one feisty Jewish ball.

Her home was the sort of out-of-reach and altered universe where someone like Jack Huxley could while away an afternoon unnoticed. The first step through Ann Holloway’s front door exposed the trappings of a recluse—ornate columns, shag carpets, deep-red upholstery. There were windows, but it looked as though they hadn’t worked in years. The decor’s primary function, it seemed, was to soak up the light.

The man who let them into the house was dressed in black tie. Jack shook his hand and clapped another hand on his back.

“Alfred, how’ve you been?”

Alfred? Could that be his real name? He took their coats and Jack peeked out of the foyer, dutifully standing put. Claire glanced down a long unlit hallway, a series of doors. She was waiting for Rubirosa to step from one, a disheveled Monroe from another.

Nothing in the house projected warmth, yet Ann Holloway herself, sitting solid and square amid a swirling cloud of smoke like a sorceress or genie in a floor-length caftan, her cigarette waving around in the air, was oddly—despite the reputation and barking voice—inviting. In her prime, she’d been routinely referred to as “the cunt”—so much that it seemed an endearment.

“Hurry up, get in here, dear. For God’s sake, what are you doing?” A voice, gravelly with carcinogens, scratched out the order.

Jack had brought a box of French macaroons, her favorite. She took two out and gave the rest of the box to Alfred. She turned her cheek for Jack to kiss but didn’t stand. Her eyes were on Claire.

“I like her already.”

Ann Holloway smiled slow and wide, like a wolf.

“Make us a drink.”

Jack looked at Claire.

“Okay, but be nice, Annie.” Jack bent down to kiss Claire and whispered, “You’re going to love her,” then left the room.

“So, let’s not be coy. I already know all about you.”

She did? Claire’s stomach took a giddy little hop.

“He tells me you’re a writer. What do you write?”

This meeting had been discussed, at least a little bit. Claire had been talked about. It caught her off guard.

“Oh, I don’t know.” She stumbled a little. “I’m working on a book now. I sometimes write articles for magazines.”

“I knew your husband.” Ann Holloway took a drag on her cigarette.

“My late husband.” Claire said.

“Dead or not, I knew him. I knew him when he was still earnest. Once he got some fame, the academics mocked him, but I always liked his work.”

Claire, without warning, blushed, a small, unexpected pride. “Well. That’s very nice. Thank you for saying it.”

“You should write about
me
sometime. You’d make a fortune. They’ve have been trying to get my memoirs for years.”

A woman brought in a tray with two martinis. It was eleven forty-five in the morning.

“I-I’m sorry,” Claire stammered. The martini glass turned her stomach. “Would you mind, could I just have iced tea?”

Ann Holloway looked amused.

“I would imagine Jack’s on his way with one.” She knew everything. “You know, Claire, there’s a story—it’s a famous one in Hollywood—that I once fucked a producer to get a client. Because the client, it’s said, wouldn’t sign with me unless I guaranteed him a certain part.” Ann laughed and took another long drag of her cigarette.

“A little twist to the casting couch fable. It’s been going around for years, and like most good stories, it isn’t true. But you could write it. It’s the truth, about me. Had I ever been presented with that option?” She took another long drag and exhaled slowly, in four large rings. “It’s exactly what I would do.”

Claire took a sip of the martini and coughed.

Jack Huxley reentered, on cue, with iced tea. “I’ve got to make a call but I’ll be quick. I’ll be right back.” He laughed. “Promise.”

“We’re just getting to you, dear. Take your time.” She turned to Claire and leaned forward holding a slim cigarette. “Would you like one?”

“Oh no, I’m trying to quit.” Claire had no idea why she said this except that she had wanted to impress this woman.

“Me, too, for the past twenty years.” Then Ann Holloway’s face turned serious. “That man is just about the worst thing you can do with your life. You know this, don’t you?” Before Claire could answer, Ann went on, her face soft, her eyes on the ceiling, “Oh my, and at the same time, he’s the very best, you know that, too, of course. It’s why you’re here. But the worst of him will kill you before you get the best.”

Ann Holloway put her cigarette out and pressed a button, and the woman who’d delivered the martinis came in again with an ornate box on a small silver tray. Ann opened the box and took out a slim and perfectly rolled joint. She lit it with a large glass lighter and took a long drag. The sweet lazy smell made its way slowly to Claire and she took a deep breath, and Ann passed her the lit piece. “Here, then. In lieu of vodka.” They took deep drags, passing the thing back and forth. The little hand on the big clock on the wall had moved two places. When had that happened? Where was Jack?

“Why does the worst have to come first?” Claire asked.

“It’s survival, Claire. It’s nothing more. People are very simple, it turns out, for all the nonstop analysis. You can uncover every mystery of human beings, everything you need to know, by watching rats.”

Claire’s eyes were closed, her head fell back. She was sleepy in the big velvet chair.

“We’re like lab rats in a maze,” Ann said. “If you move the cheese, we run different routes to find it. If you introduce a pleasure sensation when we take a certain route to the cheese, we’ll remember and run that same route again. If you introduce pain when we take a certain path, the next time we’ll avoid it. But here’s what is fascinating.” Ann Holloway leaned in. “What is fascinating to me is when the pleasure sensation is induced repeatedly, in disproportion to the pain. Do you understand what I mean?”

The pot had made Claire dramatic; her eyes got big and round.

“No, I don’t think I do. What happens?” Claire asked.

“The rat,” Ann said, “loses perspective. An overload of pleasure mitigates the need for food. The pleasure satisfies the rat’s hunger. If you keep stimulating the rats with a pleasure sensation on a certain route,”—it was clear that Ann enjoyed this—“then move the cheese so that they have to take a path
around
the cheese to get to the pleasure. Do you know what happens then?”

“No,” Claire said, her eyes still big. “I don’t.”

Ann sat back in her chair. “The food is right there, they know where to find it, but they run right past it. They starve to death, for the pleasure.”

“Of course, people aren’t rats.” Claire laughed nervously.

“Don’t kid yourself, honey.” Ann took a long drag of the joint and held it in, quietly let it out. Claire was picking at her shirtsleeve, pulling it down past her sweater.

“I like you. And I’d like it if you would come back to lunch with me sometime. I’d enjoy it very much. All of that is why I’m going to tell you, Claire: he’s ruined for women.”

Claire didn’t look up, and Ann went on.

“He’s fucking two other girls right now, for instance, just this week.”

Claire shifted uncomfortably in her seat. The warm pot feeling was starting to ebb.

“It doesn’t matter, Claire, it’s only sex after all, and he’s careful. He won’t put anyone at risk. It’s not that, it’s that he gives a little piece of himself away to each of you every time. He doesn’t know how not to. He can’t just fuck, he has to give something. He doesn’t protect himself, in that way. He does like you. He holds you in high esteem. But protect yourself.”

She picked up her drink and tinkled the ice cubes around—Claire hadn’t noticed that the martinis had been cleared and replaced by something else. Ann Holloway started to laugh. “If you can accept that we’re all rats, Claire, then you might have a little fun.”

Claire thought she might burst into tears. Suddenly there was Jack.

“Claire, Ann has this back room I want you to see.”

Claire gasped at his voice, right behind her, his head lowered to her level on the chair. How long had he been here? At some point music had been turned on; they were listening to Sarah Vaughan. Ann Holloway’s words pounded in her head like the background to some sick Hollywood thriller sound track. Jack Huxley’s character would lead her to another room now, lay her down on a cold marble table, and the two of them would drink her blood.

“I don’t think so,” Claire said.

Jack’s head jerked back just slightly. “All right.” He stood up.

She tried a smile, but Claire Byrne was no actress.

“Is anything wrong?” he asked.

“No, nothing. It’s fine. I just have a headache. The martini.” They both looked at her barely touched drink. “Maybe I could just go—”

“Go?”

“Maybe we could just go back to the house, if that’s all right. I get headaches. Sometimes. I just need to lie down.”

They were in the car ten minutes before either one of them spoke.

“Listen. Claire, I’m sorry. For whatever she said in there. She’s a bit unfiltered.”

“No, she’s not. She’s just honest.”

Jack pulled over and stopped the car. He took a deep breath.

“There was another girl, Claire. I’m sure you already know that. There are papers, television shows, magazines, I don’t kid myself, I know. I’m sure you’ve seen it.”

Claire’s heart pounded. She wanted him to stop talking and she didn’t know how to ask him to without sounding pathetic.