May 26, 2007;
1:55 A.M.
I sit down on the corner of Dumbarton and Wisconsin and light a cigarette that I’ve bummed from some barely conscious guy who was speaking—mumbling—on a cell phone outside the bar. It takes me four matches to light the damned thing, and with each strike comes another ill-conceived solution to the calamitous mess to which I’ve just borne witness. Once the embers on the end of the rolling paper are lit, though, I stumble across the conclusion that gin, tequila, and tobacco do not a solution make, and I just let the smoke waft up and hover above my head.
The bar’s door opens periodically like a gaping mouth, spilling its contents—drunk and rich and happy—out onto O Street. I watch the horde amass and gather and decide what to do next. In one of the groups I see Hal’s cousin—the seventeen-year-old—being propped up by a man a few years older than I. She sways and swoons and he whispers into her ear and kisses her neck and she gives him this silly look and nods.
A clump of ash falls off the cigarette and wafts into the gutter. The crowd’s doing the waltz, see, and I’m tripping through a tango.
Moments later, the door opens again and Caitlin struts out onto the street with a confidence that seems unfitting—tasteless—for this hour of night. Behind her, Chase is typing on his BlackBerry with one hand and holding Annalee in the other. She kisses his cheek and I take the final drag of my cigarette and he puts the phone away and Caitlin gives someone a digital camera to take a picture of the three of them. Once the flash has fleetingly lit up their faces, Hal Hastings saddles up to Caitlin’s side and she allows him to until she realizes that people are watching. He laughs when she shoves him away, and then he says something to Chase, who relays the message to Annalee and Caitlin, who look at each other, nod, and then follow Hal down O Street toward Thirtieth, away from Wisconsin.
But before he turns his back, before he walks away, Chase squints as if he recognizes someone sitting on the corner of Dumbarton Street, smoking a cigarette. And he lets the rest of the group, the rest of his pride, move a few steps ahead of him before he nods and smiles, and then spins to join them.
The first drop of rain has already fallen by the time I get up from the curb. But the sky hasn’t opened up yet—there’s just a light mist that I frequently forget is there—so I decide to keep walking, stopping at CVS to buy a pack of cigarettes, and then heading up Wisconsin and turning onto P Street, which, with its tree-lined sidewalks and proper homes in ancient brick, seems worlds away from the clamor and circus of Wisconsin and M Street. It’s empty, P Street, and for the first time this evening I can hear each of my steps as my feet hit the aging sidewalk.
I suppose I could tell myself that it was aimless intoxicated wandering that took me on this current trajectory; that after what I witnessed at Smith Point, I need some air, some peace, and that my desperate search simply happened to lead me to this particular street where I dropped a particular livre de poche at the feet of a particular married woman.
But from what I can tell, this city’s got enough deceit.
It’s the way we work: upon seeing another man’s transgression, the ostensible part of our psyche condemns and berates and tsk-tsks his sins. But that other part, that other voice—the one that gets louder with gin—enrages us with taunts that he’s having something we’ll never have the courage to touch. And so: P Street, with the full knowledge of Congressman Grayson’s absence, and with even greater awareness of his wife’s presence.
At the corner of Thirty-first, I stop under a giant oak and light another cigarette, this time with only three matches. High above me, drops of rain tap lightly on the tree’s leaves. I inhale hard on the orange filter and try to suffocate Jack’s comment: I had always known. I had thought at the time that the declaration was directed at me, at my own denial. But now under this monstrous oak, as I recall the look in his—in Jack’s—eyes, this blend of lust and hunger and jealousy and desperation that terrified me with both its foreignness and its familiarity, I’m starting to think otherwise.
But still. I had always known.
“No, champ, no.” Chase looks at what I’m wearing—a white shirt, freshly starched, open collar, no tie, jeans, black blazer, and Converse sneakers—and shakes his head. “You’ve got to change.”
“What are you talking about?” I move to the mirror on the other side of our dorm room. “I wore this outfit to the Homecoming dance during my senior year.” Chase laughs.
“Exactly. And therein lies our problem.” He reaches into his closet and pulls out a Thomas Pink tie. Thomas Pink. What the hell kind of name is that? Without doubt, he had his head flushed in a toilet more than one time as a child. “And kick off those shoes.” I look down at my pair of black All Stars, a pair that I’ve worked to break in to that perfect convergence of comfort and personality.
“Dude, what’s wrong with my shoes?”
“‘Dude.’” Chase throws his head back and howls. “Do me a favor, champ: try to keep the ‘dude’ bombs to a minimum tonight. My pops knows my roommate is from Laguna Beach, but I don’t want him to think I’m living with someone from that goddamn MTV show or something.” I sit down on the edge of my bed and remove each of the shoes and ask him if he’s got any better suggestions. He turns back to his closet.
“Of course I do, Taylor. I’ve got every suggestion in the book.” He shows me two pairs of shoes—both black loafers with metals clasps across them. “You want Ferragamo or Magli?” I shrug and tell him I couldn’t tell the difference if he paid me and he tells me to go with the Ferragamo. “I’ll probably wear the Maglis,” he says.
I slip one of the leather shoes onto my right foot. The shoe is still and unsupportive and feels foreign. Chase throws me the tie. “Throw that on,” he instructs. “You’re not in L.A. anymore, champ. We’re going to Striped Bass. Not In ’n’ Out Burger.” I look into the mirror and button my shirt’s top button, and then wrap the silk around my neck and tie it in a half Windsor, the only knot that Frank, my father, had ever taught me. Chase sighs when he sees the tie job, but checks his watch and says we’re already late and that really we don’t have time for a proper tie-tying seminar at the moment, but that at some point (“and at some point soon, champ”) I really need to learn these things—especially how to tie a bow tie. It’s a dying art. He grabs my shoulders and spins me to face a mirror.
“So? What do you think? Much better, eh?”
I see my Converse sitting limp and dejected littering the floor next to my bed. “Yeah. Much better.”
The cigarette doesn’t last as long as I expect and the rain’s starting to come down harder against the protective leaves of that giant oak. I walk out from under the massive shield and the water starts dampening my hair and running down my face. I stop there, between Thirtieth and Thirty-first, and I stare across the street at the bright yellow door as the drops polka-dot my shirt and cool my face against the hot May night and I’m alone on this dark, quiet street.
And I’m ready to leave, I’m ready to admit that I’ll never have the courage to do what Jack and I have always known Chase takes as second nature, when I see the lighter flicker and I hear:
“Taylor?” The voice, melodic and sad, with traces of smoke and booze. I look harder across the street, though I already know who it is, and I squint through the rain, which is slowing to a drizzle.
“Mrs. Grayson?” I hear the wood and the chains of an old porch swing creak as she rises and crosses to the railing at the edge of the porch.
“Yes, it’s Juliana.” She leans her bare, tan arms against the wet railing and smiles. Her dark hair, which looks like it was once pulled back into a tight knot off her face, has loosened, a few of its shadowy strands framing her brown eyes. She’s dressed simply: white tank top, jeans, no shoes. I take a step from the sidewalk and onto the street. “You look like you’re getting soaked, Taylor.”
I shade my eyes and look up into the sky. “Yes, but it looks like it’s letting up. I’m apparently not the best judge of Washington weather.”
She laughs. “But who is?” A pause and then, “Why don’t you come and dry off on the porch until it stops?” I run a hand through my wet hair and rain runs off in every which way and I think about that bow tie, crumpled and soiled and yellowed, sitting on the nightstand next to my bed.
“I’m not sure if that’s the best idea. I should probably just head home. I really am very tired, and”—the rain stops falling against my shoulders—“and I’m not in the best state.”
“Taylor”—she stops laughing—“don’t be ridiculous. At least come up here and dry off and let’s call you a cab.”
I hesitate for a moment—a courtesy, if anything—and then I cross the street.
“Just do me a favor tonight, okay?” Chase tells the cabbie to take us to the Striped Bass, and to step on it, because we’re already late.
“Sure,” I say, pulling at the tie, which has started cutting off circulation to my neck. “What’s up?”
“Just don’t bring up the lacrosse thing.” Chase examines his reflection in the driver’s rearview mirror. “I haven’t had the chance to tell my dad about it yet, and I’m not sure how he’ll react.”
Chase had quit the team weeks before. He had been anticipated as one of the team’s most talented recruits. But it had gotten in the way, Chase said, had gotten in the way of girls and parties and booze and drugs and, like, college, you know?
“Yeah,” I say. “Sure, of course.”
Chase squeezes my shoulder but keeps looking at his own reflection. “Good, champ. Good.”
Juliana hands me a towel for my hair and tells me to please take a seat on the swing.
“Can I get you something to drink?”
“No thanks. I’ve had a bit to drink tonight already.”
She unpins the bun sitting on the back of her head, and midnight waves collapse onto her shoulders. “Don’t be ridiculous. What do you prefer? Scotch? Vodka?” She pauses. “Gin. You drink gin.”
“Mrs. Grayson, honestly—”
“Not another word, Taylor. It’d be rude of me not to ask, and ruder of you not to accept. Sit here for a moment, I’ll be back with your drink and a phone number for a cab company.”
I tell her thank you as she opens the big yellow door and disappears behind it. It really is coming down harder now, the rain, turning the asphalt of P Street into some silver river, its puddles reflecting the garish glares of streetlights. The swing creaks and moans as I shift my weight. Next to me there’s a small side table containing a pack of Dunhill cigarettes, a silver lighter, and a copy of Mémoires d’un jeune homme dérangé, the pages of which are beginning to curl and bend and yellow.
The yellow door swings open again and Juliana hands me a tall tumbler with gin, tonic, and a slice of lime. She sits next to me on the swing, which creaks under the additional weight. She reaches for the Dunhills and the lighter.
“So where have you been this evening? Out and about?”
The Zippo flicks and flashes and throws orange light on her face.
“Yeah.” I drink the gin and tonic and she crosses her legs. “Out and about. Were you able to find the number of a cab company?”
She exhales long streams of smoke. “No, Taylor; to be honest, I forgot. I’ll have to remember when I go back inside to refill your drink.”
“Thanks. That’d be a huge help.”
The taxi pulls up to the corner of Fifteenth and Walnut and Chase pays the fare. I object momentarily, but he waves away the five-dollar bill I offer him. We walk through the restaurant’s monstrous double doors and are greeted by the maître d’, who calls Chase “Mr. Latham” and tells him that it’s so nice to see him again, and that his father and mother are waiting for us at the bar.
We move past the entrance and aside to the bar, where Kip, with a smile like I’ve never seen before, greets us, and Patricia, obedient and silent and quietly matronly, smiles and kisses her son on the cheek.
“Taylor!” Kip grabs my hand and shakes it enthusiastically. “We’ve heard so much about you.”
Patricia nods and smiles.
“It’s so great to finally meet you,” he says. “I took the liberty of ordering you a Bombay and tonic.” He hands me a sweating glass. “You do like gin, I hope.”
I tell him thank you and that, of course, I like gin, though really I haven’t drunk it all that much before, that usually, in Orange County, I’ve stuck to beer and vodka. “By the way. Love your tie.”
“Really. It’s gorgeous,” Patricia agrees with her husband.
Chase nudges me in the side.
“Thanks,” I say. “It’s one of my favorites.”
“So”—Juliana takes a deep drag off the Dunhill and lets the contents fill her lungs, which makes her voice that much smokier—“where did you have ‘a bit to drink’ tonight?” She reclines on the swing and it sways backward.
“This party. At Smith Point.” I clutch my drink with both hands and look down.
“Smith Point? That’s the bar off of O Street, with the list, right?”
I tell her that yes, that’s correct, the one with the list.
She smiles and lets smoke drift from the corners of her mouth. “I’ve never been there.”
I tell her that doesn’t surprise me and she gives me a look and asks me what’s that supposed to mean.
“Oh, nothing,” I say. “Or, nothing derogatory. I just can’t imagine, you know, the wife of a congressman stepping into a dive bar like Smith Point.”
She rolls her eyes and stubs out the Dunhill. “Right. ‘The wife of a congressman.’ Such fabulous parties and wonderful social events afforded by that position.” She reaches for my drink. “I’m assuming you don’t mind if I have a taste? I’m not sure how much gin I put in.” She brings the glass to her lips. “Enough. I put in enough.”
She sets the drink down, on top of the copy of Mémoires d’un jeune homme dérangé.
We sit in silence as the rain starts to drum again on the leaves of the giant oaks. It’s coming down harder now, sweeping across the street in violent sheets. A cab pulls slowly by the house and I tell Juliana that I should probably hail it, but she tells me to stay on the swing, that she can call one in a few minutes. The car stops briefly at the corner and then continues on its way, leaving small waves in its wake.
“Did you have a nice evening, Mrs. Grayson?”
She laughs and reaches for the Dunhill. “Define ‘nice’ for me, Mr. Mark. I had dinner with Mrs. Scripps and Mrs. Howard. At Galileo. You met them at the Gold Cup, I believe. They went to an event at the British embassy.”
“Why didn’t you go with them?”
“Because, strangely, my invitation must have been lost in the mail.”
“Does that happen often?”
“Quite.”
I think back to Bunny Howard’s melodic voice. That’s his wife.
“I did meet Mrs. Howard and Mrs. Scripps. They seem like nice ladies.”
“You should ask their husbands.” She ashes the cigarette onto the porch. “From the sounds of it, they know more about each other’s spouses than they do about each other.”
“Pardon?”
“They’re atrocious.”
“I’m not sure I’m following.”
“More gin?”
“I think I’ve hit my limit.”
“And I think you need more gin.” She stands up and walks behind the swing, and then right across the porch, back to the big yellow door, and I’m not sure if it’s the alcohol coupled with my preposterous imagination, or if it’s reality, but I think she brushes a hand across my shoulders as she passes behind.
I’ve lit a cigarette and am staring at the rain, which is pouring down as hard as ever, when she returns with a drink that’s stronger than the last.
“So tell me about your night at Smith Point.” She slips another Dunhill between her lips. “Was it all you hoped for and more?”
I laugh and look into my drink. “To be honest with you, I’ve had better evenings, I think. Much better, as it turns out.”
“Oh?”
“Yes.”
I lean back against the swing and stare at the ice—fractured and irregular—slowly melting inside the glass.
She runs a hand through her hair and throws her cigarette into the flooded sidewalk. “So what exactly occurred at Smith Point that’s inspired this existential crisis of yours?”
“I never said I was going through an existential crisis, Jul—Mrs. Grayson.”
“A person doesn’t drink Bombay and tonics and smoke Camel Lights with their boss’s wife at two forty-five A.M. unless he’s experiencing some sort of existential crisis.” I sigh and slump deeper on the bench.
“Chase—do you know Chase?”
She nods and says “Who doesn’t?” and I continue, “Anyway, Chase is dating my cousin, or has been dating my cousin. For the past two years.”
“And?”
“And tonight I think I saw something that wasn’t meant for my eyes.” She nods.
I tell her about Caitlin and Vanessa, and how I hadn’t known that Annalee still did cocaine, though I’m trying to convince myself that this was a rare relapse, a moral blip on my cousin’s radar. And I tell her how my shoes—these goddamn loafers that Chase told me to buy for $425.00—kept sticking to the bar’s floor. I tell her about the seventeen-year-old, and how I saw her leave with a man who was at the very least a decade older than she and at the very best had horrible intentions. And then last I tell her about Chase, about how I had met him at his apartment but how I hadn’t seen him the entire night, not until the end, not until the door to the broom closet swung open to reveal him with some girl’s mouth shoved between his khaki-clad thighs while his head was thrown back in this Ron Jeremy–type way that even I found to be embarrassing—for him, for everyone—and how that girl wasn’t Annalee, and then I tell her about that look in Jack’s eyes, that look he didn’t want me to see, so dejected and damned.
Juliana arches her back and rolls her neck. Rainwater is starting to run down her arms. “Was she pretty?” she asks once she’s stopped stretching.
“I don’t think that’s really the point.”
“Who knows if it is or not, but just grant me this favor and answer the question. Was she pretty?” I think back to the girl’s blond hair and lithe, tan shoulders.
“Yes, I guess. Yes, she was pretty.” Juliana smiles.
“Of course she was.” The sky opens up farther and a couple, huddled under a coat, run past the house. I look down at my loafers.
“There was this night in L.A.,” she begins, “when I was sixteen years old. My parents had been invited to a dinner party at the home of this famous banker whose name I can’t remember for the life of me, and I’m sure you wouldn’t know it even if I did. Normally, my brother—he was older than I, by two years, but we were close. Very close. Anyway, normally my brother and I weren’t invited to join my parents. They didn’t want us to be exposed to—God, to anything really. My father hates Los Angeles. He says it destroys people’s souls. He’s a bit dramatic, I tell him. Which, of course, is never anything a father wants to hear.”
I laugh, but she doesn’t notice and she just continues speaking, still staring at nothing in particular.
“But my father liked this banker. He was a family man himself, so he allowed my brother and me to join them. God, that house was gorgeous,” she says, looking up and smiling. “One of those ultramodern places in the Hollywood hills. It had a man-made stream running through the damned thing, Taylor. With koi. My brother thought it was ostentatious, which, of course, it was. He was always saying things like that—calling things ostentatious, saying my clothes cost too much. He wanted to be a documentary filmmaker. But I don’t know, I liked it all. I liked the glamour of it.
“I don’t remember what was served for dinner, I just remember my father telling my brother and me over and over and over again that we weren’t to have any champagne. I suppose when you think about it, it’s really no wonder he sent me away…” She trails off here and realizes that she may have hit upon a topic she’s not fully prepared to discuss. And so, “Anyway, we didn’t have any champagne. For a while, Jackson and I were both surprisingly well-behaved kids, which”—and she laughs here—“was a hard thing to be during the eighties in Los Angeles.
“We left the dinner party in two separate cars. I was riding with my parents, and Jackson had driven himself.” Juliana stops and watches the smoke rise from her cigarette, and I wonder how I’ve ended up here. “I saw the accident coming from a mile away, literally.” She chuckles and this makes me sad. “We were out of the hills and were driving along Santa Monica Boulevard. Jackson had a green light to cross Wilshire, but this guy—they say he was drunk, but who knows? I’m not sure that matters, anyway—this guy in a pickup went sailing through the intersection. And I just remember it being the strangest feeling, watching this pickup truck fly down Wilshire, knowing that he was going to hit my brother and kill him. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
I tell her yes, but only sort of yes.
“I don’t know,” she finally says with a sigh. “I suppose it’s just a matter of not being able to prevent these tragedies, even after you’ve seen them coming from miles away.”
“I shouldn’t have brought this up,” I eventually say to her once she’s finished and enough silence has passed between us to be considered appropriate. “Did you manage to find that phone number for the cab company?”
“No, Taylor, I’m sorry. I must’ve forgotten again,” she says.
I start to get up from the swing. “I can find one. Is the phone book in the kitchen?”
“I told you I’d get it. I’ll get it.”
The water’s starting to creep across Juliana’s shirt, creating translucent, flesh-colored streaks.
“So what happened next?”
“After Jackson died?”
“Yes.”
She rolls her eyes and gives a dismissive wave of a hand. “I’m sure you’ve heard most of it. It seems to be the topic of conversation in Georgetown whenever a bored housewife has allotted for too much time between hair and nail appointments.”
I tell her that I had heard things—just whisperings, really, but nothing specific.
“Well,” she says, her voice getting edgier, tainted with more gravel, “for starters, my good behavior went to shit, which caused my father to put me on a shorter leash, which caused me to act out more, which—” and she stops herself. “Jesus, Taylor, you know this story by now. I won’t bore you with clichés. When all was said and done, I calmed down for an instant—a horrible decision that I’m thinking was influenced by sobriety—but it was just long enough for me to be convinced to accept a proposal I had been preparing for three years to reject, and I ended up here”—she points to the house—“with him.” She points to the Capitol.
“Are they true?”
“Pardon?”
“The things they say about you. Are they true?”
“No.” She stops. “Yes. Probably. I don’t know. By this point I’ve lost track of what they’ve said.”
I tell her that I’m sure there are worse sentences than being married to a congressman with famous hair, and she says that yes, yes, I’m right, there are, and they often involve having to endure meals with women named things like Bunny and Kitty. And then speaking of bearing witness to the unfolding of clichéd catastrophes, what—she begs my pardon—do I plan on doing about this current situation? I tell her that I’m not sure, but rather how I felt as I watched Chase cheat on Annalee, how I felt as though someone were pummeling my stomach, how I felt as though he were cheating on me.
“That’s touching, Taylor.” Juliana lights another cigarette. “Really, really touching.”
“I should go.” I stand up.
“So what are you going to do?”
“I’m going to walk down to M Street and find a cab on my own.”
She laughs. “That’s not what I’m talking about.”
I sigh and run a hand through my hair. “I’m not sure,” I tell her. “I haven’t thought that far ahead.”
Juliana’s blocking the staircase leading down from the porch.
I stop before I reach her and ask her if she enjoys being the wife of a public official.
“Do I enjoy being married to a public official? Or do I enjoy being married?”
I tell her to choose to answer whichever question she prefers.
“Either one is quite audacious, particularly considering it’s coming from an office assistant, wouldn’t you say?” She brushes her hair behind and takes a step toward me.
I look down. “I’m sorry, Juliana. It must be the gin.”
“I suppose at the end of the day you’ve got to come at the subject from a cost-benefit perspective.”
“Pardon?”
“Marriage. You asked me if I enjoyed being married to John. And I’m telling you that it has its costs and its benefits.”
“I got a C in econ.”
“I’m sure you understand what I’m saying, though, right?”
“Yes, I think I do.” Then, “So what are they? What are the costs?”
“Ask me that at the end of the summer.”
“What are the benefits?”
She doesn’t answer but rather just smokes and runs her hand through her dark hair and stares off at nothing in particular.
And then—and I suppose you could blame this on personal velocity, or on fate, or on gin, on Chase, or on my own misguided indiscretions—but then, as the rain falls like silver ribbons from those thunderous clouds and the street is asleep and silent, I reach my hand behind Juliana’s wet neck and kiss her long and hard and deep.