An early summer burst onto New York City like a wave, the skies so clear they shone with a kind of reckless abandon, the city framed golden and blue.
After seeing you at Grand Central and finding your byline in the newspaper, I waited a week before trying to contact you, not wanting to seem like some kind of stalker, even though I’d quickly worked out how easy it would be to get in touch, what with every one of the email addresses at your workplace being of the same format—firstinitial.surname@newyorkmail.com.
I don’t even remember what I wrote to you that first time. Something bland.
… so good to run into you … and then my family whisked me off to Maine and we never got to talk … would really like to sit down and catch up … coffee, perhaps?
I didn’t think there was a chance in hell you’d get back to me. Why would you speak to someone who stood there and watched while his best friend shot out your eye? And yet, two days later, you replied.
… sorry for my reaction in Grand Central, Patrick, when I realized who you were … a lot of baggage … I did always wonder what happened to you after your family moved away … the other day I saw your father interviewed on the television about gun control … please understand that I don’t like to talk about that day, I just DON’T talk about that day … but if you would like to meet up …
I tried to calculate the precise amount of time I should wait before I sent a reply, one of life’s great imponderables. Three hours and I couldn’t wait any longer. I hammered out a long message about life in Maine, how I came to New York to major in economics at Columbia and never left, that I worked an incredibly boring job in the Data Acquisition department at Idos Investments, that I had a tiny apartment on St. Mark’s Place, in which I liked to home-cure my own bacon and smoke it on the roof, that I owned a blowtorch for completely nonmasculine reasons and was thinking of starting a food blog.
You replied that East Village fume-smoked bacon sounded delicious, that you were a crime reporter for the New York Mail and lived on bodega bagels and stale coffee, had an apartment in Chelsea and that your idea of a culinary treat was to buy the slightly more expensive tub of hummus. Your office was a place called The Shack (I had to look it up) and you said you’d love to grab a cup of stale coffee sometime.
I’d seen you for no more than a minute, we’d exchanged only two messages and yet somehow I already knew you would change my life, Hannah. Somehow I knew that with you beside me I would become a better version of myself and that therefore I would do anything to be with you.
It was all true. How did I know?
I suggested lunch at The Odeon, quietly proud of myself for thinking of it. Firstly, it was close to your workplace and, secondly, what with you being employed as a wordsmith, I thought I might impress you by mentioning the restaurant’s appearance in Bright Lights, Big City. Furthermore, I would bowl you over with my ability to correctly pronounce Jay McInerney’s name. No sir, I wasn’t any old run-of-the-mill Data Acquisition employee. I cooked, I read books, I could pronounce the names of famous people after having looked up how to pronounce their names on the internet.
I waited for you outside One Police Plaza, where I thought we’d arranged to meet, but when you came out, you were speaking on your cell phone. I stepped toward you, vaguely waving my hand, but you didn’t see me.
Sorry, Jen, I’m in a hurry, running late … No, not as usual—as sometimes, Jen, as occasionally …
And now it felt awkward to interrupt, which means that I wouldn’t describe what happened next as following, as me tailing you. I walked in the same direction, that’s all.
OK, OK, but listen, guess who I’m meeting for lunch … No … No … How about I just tell you, Jen?… Patrick McConnell … He sent me a sweet message, suggested coffee, but instead we’re meeting at The Odeon, I’m on my way now … Come on, Jen, it’s not like he actually did anything wrong … OK, so he was sort of there. But look, Jen, you know I’m not really going to talk about this, however the point is he wasn’t actually THERE there when Matthew was …
What? My whole body lurched, the city seeming almost to swing halfway around me. I couldn’t believe this. Could I possibly have heard you correctly?
Right, but how could he do anything to stop it? Matthew sent him away, clearly Patrick didn’t know anything … I’m sure he would’ve done if he’d been right there when it happened … I know, Jen, but being friends in seventh grade isn’t exactly the crime of the century … Come on, if it wasn’t for Patrick I might still be tied to that tree. He actually saved me, if you think about it … Of course I’ll be careful … It’s a lunch, that’s all … No, it’s very sweet that you’re worried about me … I promise, Jen, the second I leave …
That’s when I stopped moving in the same direction as you, ran off to the street, hailed a cab and sped away to the restaurant, thinking about what I’d just heard, picturing it all over again, August 1982, me looking on like a spectator at courtside, the way Matthew had tied one of the ropes around your neck, your head pointlessly twisting after Matthew’s final shot.
Of course you hadn’t seen me there.
He actually saved me.
That changes everything, I thought.
And obviously I feel terrible to have kept this a secret from you, Hannah. But how could I ever, since that moment outside One Police Plaza, have told you that I witnessed what happened to you and did nothing? What would have been the appropriate moment? Over dinner? After the theater? In postcoital whispers?
We never spoke about that day. Never, not once. Because, Hannah, quite understandably, you never wanted to. And does this mean that in some way I deceived you, that I lied to you?
Wait, if I’d never even overheard your conversation with Jen, it’s perfectly possible that everything between us would have gone exactly the same way that it actually did. So does that really mean that our love is based on a lie?
I hope you don’t really believe that, Hannah, because I certainly don’t.
Anyway, you know what? It doesn’t matter, I don’t care. And if I am a liar, so be it, because I would happily lie all over again. I would lie twice as hard and a thousand times more just to be with you, Hannah. To have spent part of my life, any part of my life, with you, my beautiful wife, I would have done anything.
An absence of action? A small act of silence? These are as nothing compared to all the things I would have done for you, Hannah, you who have been the one happiness in my life. You must know that I would do anything for you, anything. Lie, steal, cheat, kill …
The cab dropped me off and I rushed into The Odeon, getting to work on my innocent face while I waited. When you stepped into the restaurant, I stood up. I was in a blue suit, you in a blue dress, everything about you a hundred times brighter than anything else in the room. You offered me your hand to shake and we sat down, me noticing right away that I’d forgotten the wild blue of your eyes—forgotten not only from childhood but even from a few weeks earlier. And did I notice at the time how one of those eyes roved less than the other? I suppose if I did then that’s not my main recollection of our first lunchtime meeting. I also don’t remember what we ate, what we drank, anything about the waitstaff or anyone sitting around us. I remember you, only you, Hannah.
We didn’t talk about your eye that first time. We didn’t talk about Roseborn or school or anything else to do with your childhood. You asked a lot of questions, that’s mostly what I remember, and I also recall trying to keep my answers short because I didn’t want to talk about me, I wanted only to hear about you.
I managed to turn the conversation to books, asking you what you liked to read, you surprising me by saying that you liked novels full of blood, the gorier the better, you told me, which meant that you ended up reading a lot of crime fiction, you said. I asked if that was also because of your job and your reply has always puzzled me. Maybe it’s that, you said with a hint of doubt in your voice. And then you told me that right now you were reading something by an English writer whose name I forget. Literary gore, you called it, the plot centering on the dismemberment of a body.
Sounds like fun, I said.
How about you? you asked me.
I just finished a book by Jay McInerney, I said, pronouncing the name with perfect aplomb and pulling Bright Lights, Big City from my briefcase. Actually, this is what made me think of this place, I said, pointing to the book jacket, a picture of the restaurant in which we were sitting on the cover, ODEON spelled out in red neon.
Oh, look at that.
Please, why don’t you borrow it, Hannah.
Is there any blood? you said.
Not really. But there’s cocaine, I said. I mean, there’s a ton of cocaine.
That’ll have to do then, you said, thanking me and dropping the book in your purse.
Next I asked about your work—your work, which has always been as fascinating as mine has been dull (although you forced me to talk about it, even managing to appear interested). And before I knew it, coffee arrived. Not stale enough, you joked.
I could have spent the whole afternoon talking to you. But then your cell phone made a sound. Oh shoot, you said, looking at it, I really have to go, it’s something urgent.
Damn, I was really enjoying this, I said. And please, Hannah, let me get the check, lunch here was my idea. Any chance you might want to meet up again sometime?
Well, I have to return your book, you said. And then after a meaningful pause, you added, Isn’t that why you wanted me to borrow it?
Guilty as charged, I replied, blushing. I hope you’re a fast reader, Hannah, I said.
I remember your smile and the gleam of your eyes as you kissed one of my flushed cheeks. I was already in love with you. And then you turned and headed out of the restaurant, out into the wide blue of the city.
* * *
THE SECOND TIME WE MET, at a restaurant called Blue Water Grill, was the first time I saw you wearing an eyepatch. We agreed to hook up for dinner and again I arrived first, standing to greet you, noticing how you seemed strangely timid as the waiter showed you to the table. This time we didn’t shake hands but kissed each other’s cheeks.
After a little small talk, I asked you if something was wrong. You indicated the eyepatch. You don’t have to pretend you didn’t notice, you said.
Of course I noticed, I replied. It looks great on you, Hannah, I said.
So stupid, you said.
Stupid? What do you mean?
OK, you said, so here’s the thing about prosthetics. You’re supposed to get a new one every five or ten years. However, I left mine for eleven. Just like everyone else in this town—work work work!
A prosthetic? I said. Is that the same thing as a glass eye?
Yes, you said, although they’re mostly not glass. They used to be—but unfortunately the Germans had all the best glass. So during World War Two, they had to come up with something else. And then the U.S. Army Dental Corps worked out how to make prosthetic eyes from dental acrylic. False teeth, false eyes, same thing. I hope you’re finding this conversation thoroughly appetizing.
It’s fascinating, Hannah, I want to know everything. Anyway, nothing in the world can put me off food.
Careful, or I’ll take you up on that challenge, you said, gently prying your patch from your face. So anyway, you continued, silly me had been wearing the same prosthesis for eleven years, which is way too long. And as a result, last week I developed conjunctivitis. Mmm, isn’t this the tastiest start to a meal you’ve ever enjoyed? Con-junc-ti-vi-tis!
I’m ravenous, Hannah.
Right, that’s sweet of you. Anyway, the punch line is that I’m having another prosthetic eye made. But until it’s ready, unless I want to scare small children, I have to wear this monstrosity, you said, lightly snapping your eyepatch elastic.
Wait, I said, if you don’t have your acrylic eye, then what’s under the patch?
Aha, you said, now we come to it. So you’re probably one of those people who think there’s something like a cave back here when I take out the prosthetic.
I hadn’t thought it through. But maybe I would have thought something like that.
And you also probably imagine that an artificial eye looks like a little Ping-Pong ball, right?
Prob-ab-ly. Although I’m beginning to suspect that maybe it doesn’t.
Correct, it’s more like a seashell.
Seashell? Seashell sounds good.
Precisely. So this is how it works. After an enucleation, which is the technical term for the surgical removal of an eye, most people, me included, receive an ocular implant, which actually is like a little ball. The implant helps the empty eye socket keep its shape. Also, they attach the ocular implant to four muscles behind the socket to provide movement so that the artificial eye, which sits on the little ball like a seashell-shaped contact lens, looks real. However, that’s where I got unlucky. The muscles behind my eye socket were so badly damaged that I have hardly any movement. All of which adds up to the fact that I have a kind of dead fish stare on one side, which I can assure you I feel very self-conscious about. And if you dare tell me you didn’t notice it when we met, I’m walking straight out of this restaurant.
In which case, I’m saying nothing at all.
Look, there are some people who wear prosthetics and you might go your entire life without ever noticing that one of their eyes isn’t real. The acrylic eyes they make these days are works of art—and if they move like a real eye, they can be really hard to spot. But that’s the problem, my prosthetic doesn’t move like a real eye. Which means that it freaks some people out.
No, come on.
Absolutely. Have you heard of the uncanny valley?
Is it somewhere near San Francisco?
Ha, nice try! But no, the uncanny valley refers to the dip on a graph charting a person’s feelings of comfort when faced with various likenesses of human beings. So let’s say that at one end of the graph you have metal robots—C-3PO from Star Wars, for example. And that’s not too bad because he looks sort of like a human but clearly he’s not a human. Meanwhile, at the other end of the chart you have a real, actual human, which doesn’t freak anyone out, unless it’s Michael Jackson, perhaps. Following me?
Don’t forget, I’m in Data Acquisition, Hannah. Charts are kind of my thing.
Good. So anyway, there’s a point on the graph, somewhere in the middle, where the line dives down before rising again, which indicates the cases in which people are freaked the hell out. The uncanny valley. It’s what happens in the case of an android, say, that looks almost like a real person—skin, eyes, features—and yet there’s something wrong with this android, it’s very humanlike and yet perceptibly not human. And that’s exactly what makes people feel uneasy. The same thing happens with almost-realistic humans in computer games, ventriloquists’ dummies and puppets. Oh, and clowns, clowns do it for me.
Clowns are freaky as hell.
Exactly, right? So that’s the very same problem that some people have with my prosthetic eye and its lack of movement. It looks real but there’s something a little bit wrong, just a tiny bit off. Which means that for some people there’s something troubling about me, even if those people can’t put their finger on it. I’m just a tiny bit off.
So wear the patch, I said. It looks great on you, Hannah.
Right! And get called pirate hundreds of times every week—which is mostly little kids, admittedly, but not exclusively. You’d be surprised.
What’s wrong with being a pirate?
OK, that’s a fair question. And the answer is, it reminds me of being thirteen years old again. You’d left for Maine by this point, Patrick, but at school, waiting for everything to heal and then for my first eye to be made, I had to wear an eyepatch for months. Do you remember Christie Laing?
Unfortunately, yes.
Let’s just say that my injury was a gift to Christie. And she didn’t waste a single ounce.
At this point the waiter, who had been hovering for a while, apologized for interrupting and asked us if we were ready to order. We dutifully opened our menus and quickly found something, anything. Again, I don’t remember what we ate or drank, I just remember that I’d never met anyone so easy to talk to, that our conversation carried on without a second’s pause for the entire duration of the meal. But when I try to remember the rest of the evening, my memory starts to get hazy. Or not hazy perhaps. Was there something strange about that night? Am I imagining it or did this really happen, Hannah?
Everything began to turn blue at the edges.
Maybe it was a trick of the light in the restaurant … But wait, was it really the Blue Water Grill in which we met or have I only imagined our second date there? Because now when I see it again everything looks to be filling up with a pale film of water. And as night fell outside, the walls in the room began shifting to a darker shade, almost as if they were turning from bright lake to deep ocean.
I remember how your dress matched your eye and we were both wearing blue.
Really? Could that possibly be true?
Or perhaps this is just how it works, how the mind holds on to the memory of falling in love—a feeling of passing deeper and deeper into the brightest waters you’ve ever seen.
One thing I know for certain, I was falling more and more in love with you, Hannah, that night and every night ever since. And then it would take less than a summer to fall so far in love with you that the rest of the world trailed away. Soon there would be you, only you. I remember that summer as luminous. I remember a season of infinite blue.