“You’re late, Mack.”
“I know. Sorry.” He tosses his keys on the table just inside the apartment door.
Flicking on the light, he spots Carrie across the room on the couch, her arms wrapped around her knees. She’s wearing a black suit and sheer pantyhose; no shoes. Her long brown hair looks stringy, as though it got soaked in the rain.
It isn’t unusual to find her just sitting there, brooding. She does that a lot; always has.
But tonight, her black leather pumps are lying right here by the door, as though she kicked them off on her way in. Her red trench coat is draped over a chair at the dining table.
The old Carrie would never dream of putting damp fabric on polished wood; before she sat down, she would have hung it up, and placed her shoes neatly on the shelf in her half of the closet. She would have towel-dried her wet hair and brushed it.
“Did you go someplace after work?” asks the new Carrie, with a hint of suspicion.
“I stopped off for a beer with Ben,” Mack lies, and turns on another lamp to dispel the rainy evening gloom. “Why are you sitting here in the dark?”
“It wasn’t dark when I sat down.”
“Well, it is now.”
“Well, I guess I didn’t notice.”
Mack digests that as he sits on a chair to untie his black dress shoes.
“Are you okay?” he asks reluctantly, knowing she wants him to, knowing he has to, knowing the answer.
“Not really. Are you?”
He shrugs and stands up again, shoes in hand. His socks are damp from wading through gutter rivers.
“Maybe it’ll happen next month,” he tells Carrie, starting toward her, thinking that if he can just touch her—hug her—it’ll be better between them.
“That’s so easy for you to say,” she snaps, stopping him in his tracks. “You’re not the one who had to give up coffee and wine and sushi and cigarettes—”
“Yes, I did! I quit smoking with you!”
“But you didn’t have to. You chose to.”
Right. Because they were a team, and he was showing her support, and anyway, it was a nasty habit he never should have started. But back in his advertising agency days, pretty much everyone in the bullpen smoked—at work, and in the bars where they went to decompress after long days and nights on the job.
“You don’t have to give up coffee and wine and sushi forever,” he reminds Carrie, but she talks over him.
“—and you’re not the one who has to shoot yourself full of hormones, or have raging headaches because of them, or go to the doctor’s office once a month to be injected with test tube sperm, or sit around waiting to see if you’ll start bleeding fourteen days later or not.”
“No,” he says quietly. “I’m not the one who has to do any of that.”
He’s just the one who has to supply the test tube sperm at the doctor’s office—an experience he can’t help but find humiliating.
“Can’t I just, uh, do it at home and then bring it into the office?” he asked Dr. Hammond early on.
“Theoretically, Mr. MacKenna, that’s possible,” she told him, “but there’s a very small window of time when the semen is viable. How long does it take you to get here from home?”
“By subway? About an hour, give or take . . . and by car, depending on traffic . . .”
Too long, as it turned out.
When you live in lower Manhattan and the clinic is up in Washington Heights, there’s only one way to produce a semen sample: walk past the knowing medical staff into the little room stocked with outdated dirty magazines and porn videos and—thank God—a sturdy lock on the door.
Medical mission or not, the former Irish Catholic altar boy in him can’t help but feel vaguely guilty and embarrassed.
Yes, Mack knows it pales, in the grand scheme of things, next to everything his wife has endured as a precursor to—God willing—nine months of pregnancy and childbirth. He knows because Carrie minced no words in telling him, the one time he dared to complain to her.
“Are you freaking kidding me? You’re actually complaining to me about jacking off into a cup?”
Clearly, he wasn’t allowed to voice his distaste for the process; his feelings didn’t matter. To Carrie, he was, apparently, an insignificant participant.
“Anyway,” she ranted on, “I know you resent me for the move downtown, but you went along with it, so—”
“I don’t resent you. I wanted to make your commute shorter.”
”You’re thinking that if we had stayed where we were, the clinic would have been right around the corner.”
Maybe he was thinking that. But it was beside the point.
He’d embraced the idea of moving downtown—anything to make Carrie happy—and she was the one who’d done all the legwork, choosing the neighborhood, the old brick building, the apartment itself. She said it really did make her life easier—the convenience factor, anyway.
And what about my life?
By far, the most difficult part of this whole process—from where he sits—is putting up with Carrie’s mercurial moods, one of the many unpleasant side effects the doctor had warned them about. Apparently, the fertility drugs can cause everything from nausea to psychosis—with a whole range of symptoms in between.
“You might find yourself touchier than usual,” Dr. Hammond warned Carrie on that long-ago day in the office.
Touchy? Touchy would be a pleasure. Touchy would be the old Carrie on an ordinary good day.
Lately, it’s hard to remember that he was ever drawn to his wife’s strong-willed assertiveness. Hard to remember, for that matter, that she ever smiled, or laughed, or showed affection, or told him how much she loves and needs him . . .
She used to do those things, though. Not often, by any means—but she did. There was always a vulnerable side to her, carefully shielded from the rest of the world by a steely veneer. She’s been through a lot in her life. She doesn’t choose to let many people in.
Back when he first fell in love with her, Mack was touched—and honored, on some level—that he was the one she chose. The only one who got to know the real Carrie. The old Carrie. As well as anyone would ever know her, anyway.
But lately, she’s gone missing. Lately, Mack finds himself wanting to scream at the fire-breathing creature that shares his apartment, Who are you and what have you done with my wife?
“Look, it’s all temporary,” he reminds her—and himself—now. “It’s all going to be worth it. I promise.”
There was a time when she’d have nodded her agreement, or at least greeted his words with silent acceptance.
Carrie glares at him. “How can you make a promise like that? It’s not working, and you know it.”
“Give it time.”
“How much more time do I have to give?”
“As much as it—”
“I can’t take it,” she cuts in. “I just can’t. I can’t take it.”
Trust me—neither can I.
“Don’t you want to be a mother?”
Mack’s question—the one she once would have answered readily, affirmatively—is greeted with ominous silence.
Don’t you dare change your mind, Carrie.
Don’t you dare forget how badly we want children.
If only she were willing to go a different route—a surrogate, or adoption . . .
But she vetoed both those options months ago. She would prefer to conceive and carry a baby, and the doctor told her it’s physically possible, so she refuses to consider other options. That’s Carrie. Present a challenge, and she’ll see it through to the death.
Meanwhile, all this tension is killing Mack.
Killing them.
There was a time last year, after they’d eloped, when—as much as he wants children—he might have considered himself and Carrie a family of two.
Now she’s been pulling away—and okay, he’ll admit it: so has he, his nerves are dangerously frayed by her moods and the uncertainty of their future. The bond between them seems to be growing more taut with every passing day. Something has to give, or it’s going to snap.
What’s going to snap, Mack? Carrie demanded when he warned her just the other day. The bond? Or you?
He didn’t reply. He didn’t know.
“Carrie,” he says, looking directly at her, “do you want a baby, or not?”
This time, she answers the question. “No,” she says flatly, “I don’t. Not at this price.”
So there it is. That’s it. It’s not going to happen.
Hadn’t he realized, deep down inside, that this was coming? Hadn’t he been preparing for this moment in the back of his mind? Hadn’t he thought of all the things he was going to say to convince her to change her mind?
Maybe. But somehow, now that the moment is here, he knows that nothing he says can make a difference.
He turns abruptly.
“Where are you going?” Carrie calls after him as he strides away.
“To bed.”
“At this hour?”
“I didn’t sleep last night.”
“So what else is new?”
Insomnia—he’s suffered from it, on and off, all his life. Lately, it’s come back with a vengeance.
Mack doesn’t reply, just closes the bedroom door behind him.
Rather, he means to close it.
But frustrated anger gets the best of him; he slams it shut. Then, for good measure, he hurtles his shoes against the wall, one after the other.
“What the hell are you doing?” shouts the stranger in the next room.
I don’t know. I don’t know what the hell I’m doing.
Mack sinks onto the edge of the bed and buries his head in his trembling hands, wondering how it came to this.
“No,” Jerry mutters, pacing down the street, heedless of the people around him. He has another one of his blinding headaches. It hurts so badly . . . he hurts so badly.
“No. No, no, no . . .”
That’s what she said. Kristina. Just like that: No.
She didn’t even consider what he was trying to ask her, or how much courage it took for him to do it. She didn’t even care that his feelings would be hurt.
No.
And then—to add the ultimate insult to injury—she gave him the finger.
How could she?
He’s angry, so angry, and it’s all her fault.
No—all Jamie’s fault.
Jamie is the one who told Jerry that he could have a girlfriend now. Mama always said no to that—no to girlfriends, no to friends, no to everything. But Mama’s not around anymore, and Jamie is, and Jamie says Jerry can have a girlfriend if he wants.
He does want to.
He wants to love a girl and have her love him back—just like in that song he likes so much, the one by Alicia Keys. The one where she sings about how she never loved someone the way that she loves you.
Jerry likes to play that song over and over and over and think about Kristina.
Sometimes Jamie puts up with it; other times, Jerry has to turn off the music because, as Jamie says, it can drive a person crazy, playing over and over and over like that.
The other day, Jamie said, “Enough already! If you’re so in love with this girl, then do something about it.”
“What?”
“Let her know you like her. Maybe . . . send her a gift, to start. Like a secret admirer. That will get her interested. Send her something she likes.”
“Cake?”
“No, not cake.”
“Everyone likes cake.”
“Something more . . . personal. Special. What does she like?”
“Music.” Jerry thought about that. “I like music, too. I like Alicia Keys. But I can’t send her music because she doesn’t have a CD player anymore.”
“Then that’s what you’ll send her. I’ll help you. You’ll get her interested, make her curious, and then you’ll tell her it was from you, and you’ll ask her out.”
“I . . . I don’t know what I’d say.”
“I’ll help you,” Jamie said again.
What would Jerry do without Jamie?
“We’ll practice, okay?”
“Practice?”
“You get one chance, Jerry. You gotta get it right. I’ll tell you what to say.”
Somehow, the words sounded a lot smoother when Jamie said them. Jerry couldn’t manage to make them sound good even to himself, in the mirror, practicing. He heard the quaking in his voice and saw how his hands were twitching, and he knew he wasn’t ready.
Jamie didn’t listen, just said to go for it. Jamie made me do it. I knew I needed another day, maybe two, to get ready for this.
But then, out of nowhere . . .
“There she is!” Jamie whispered, and sure enough, there she was, Kristina, right there on the closed-circuit TV screen.
Not long after she’d carried the CD player into her apartment, Jerry saw her coming back out.
Last week, Mr. Reiss, the building’s owner, had cameras installed in the building’s public areas, hoping to catch a burglar who had broken into a few apartments. He showed Jerry where they are and how they work, and he told him to keep an eye on things.
Jerry did.
He especially kept an eye on Kristina.
“She’s probably coming to thank you for the gift,” Jamie said.
Confused, Jerry protested, “But she doesn’t know it was from me yet.”
“Sure she does. Go!”
So Jerry was waiting there in the hall when she burst through the stairwell door right in front of him, so close that he could smell her, and see down inside her shirt, and . . .
And he got to actually touch her at last, and her skin was so soft and warm, just like he’d always imagined . . .
And he heard Jamie’s voice echoing in his head, and he heard Alicia Keys singing about falling in love, and he heard his own voice, out loud, talking to Kristina, saying her name, asking her to go out with him . . .
No.
That’s what she said, and it was over, just like that.
“Whatever you do, don’t blow it, Jerry,” Jamie had said, at the end of that pep talk about Kristina—and what did Jerry go and do?
He blew it. She said no.
Jerry stops walking and tilts his throbbing head back. His face is wet. Rain. Tears.
He screams into the New York City night, “Noooooooooooo!”
Stepping out of the cab in front of her five-story brick apartment building, Allison wobbles a little on her four-inch heels. The pinot grigio she drank at the Marc Jacobs after-party went straight to her head after a long day and very little food.
Did she even have any food?
She honestly can’t remember. There must have been some at the party, but hardly anyone in the industry ever eats in public. Hell, hardly anyone in the industry ever eats, period.
Sometimes, Allison amuses herself by imagining her glamorous colleagues finding themselves plopped down in the middle of her hometown.
Back in Centerfield, parties—not that Allison was invited to many—were invariably casual, jeans-and-flannel, chow-down affairs, with everyone bringing a dish-to-pass. Hellmann’s-laced appetizers, creamy Campbell’s soup casseroles, Velveeta in any number of forms . . .
If there was food at the Jacobs party, she’s pretty sure none of it contained a single ingredient you’d find in the packaged goods aisle at ShopRite.
She’ll never forget what it felt like to be out there on the riverfront tonight with the world’s most famous, glittering skyline as a backdrop; rubbing shoulders with the beautiful people; making small talk with Sarah Jessica Parker and Hilary Swank in the glow of what seemed like thousands of candles . . .
It was magical, that’s what it was. The kind of night she dreamed about when she was a food stamps kid back in Centerfield.
Still walking, Allison fumbles in the bottom of her purse for her keys, and her heel wedges in a sidewalk crack. She stumbles, staggers, but somehow manages not to fall.
“Nice save!”
Startled by the voice, Allison looks toward it and sees that someone is sitting in the shadows on her building’s concrete steps.
Her first thought is for her safety. It’s late, and the street is deserted, and someone’s been breaking into apartments lately . . .
But a burglar wouldn’t linger.
She steps closer and it takes her a moment to place the man’s familiar face: Mack, who moved in across the hall from her a few months ago after Mrs. Ogden died.
“You okay there?” he asks.
“Oh, I totally planned that. It’s part of my new workout routine.”
He laughs. “Seriously—are you all right?”
“I’m fine, thanks.” Embarrassed, and hoping he doesn’t think she’s drunk—is she drunk?—she tilts her open handbag toward a streetlight’s glow, still fumbling for her keys.
On the steps, Mack flicks a lighter, and she looks over to see him with a cigarette between his lips. It surprises her, for some reason—and so does the fact that he’s wearing a pair of threadbare faded jeans with flip-flops and an ancient-looking Bon Jovi concert T-shirt.
He’s always struck her as a clean-cut, button-down type—the kind of guy who, if he even drinks, prefers Bud to bourbon. And probably in a nice glass mug, too, as opposed to straight from the bottle.
Noticing her taking it all in, he holds up a pack of cigarettes.
Well, well, well—a Marlboro man.
“Want one?” he asks.
Desperately.
But she shakes her head. “I quit a few years ago.”
“Yeah. Me too. Not that long ago, but . . .”
She contemplates that—along with his clothing and the reckless note in his voice. “Um, are you okay?”
He doesn’t answer her at first, just exhales a cloud of smoke. Then he says, “Sure.”
“Really?”
Ignoring that, he says, “Kind of late to be coming from work, don’t you think?”
“I was at a party.”
“Did you have a good time?”
“Definitely.”
“What kind of party was it?”
Surprised that he’d even care, she tells him about it as he sits and smokes and nods, with apparent interest in his green eyes. Too light to be Nebraska-field green, but not money green, either. So different from Bill, the seemingly self-absorbed guy whose cab she shared earlier tonight. His business card is somewhere in the bottom of her purse—hopefully along with her keys.
Too bad Mack is married, she finds herself thinking.
But that doesn’t mean he can’t become a friend. A nice, normal friend, as opposed to the over-the-top, self-absorbed fashionistas she’s met through her job.
That’s what’s missing in her life in New York. Normal friends, the kind of people she can really talk to. Few people here even know about her troubled small-town past—not because she’s unwilling to tell, but because she hasn’t come across many people who’d think to ask. Not even Kristina. She talks a lot, but doesn’t ask questions.
Maybe I don’t ask enough, either, Allison thinks.
Funny how she assumed, until tonight, that she knew everything about this guy, and it turns out she doesn’t know anything at all, really. Not even his first name—assuming Mack is an abbreviation for his last—or where he works.
Now who’s self-absorbed?
To be fair, she’s never had much opportunity to find out, since she’s only ever spoken to him in passing. Same with his wife—although she knows that Carrie is an executive assistant at a global financial firm called Cantor-something. Allison always remembers the first part of the name, because it makes her think about horses and, by association, Nebraska.
“It’s spelled differently,” Carrie said when Allison mentioned the horse connection to her one day not long ago, and Carrie shook her head. “It’s Cantor—with an O. Not canter, with an E.”
“No, I know, but they sound the same.”
“But they’re not,” Carrie snapped.
Wow—someone has major PMS today, Allison remembers thinking.
Carrie always struck her as one of those hyper-efficient women who is perpetually preoccupied and ready to move on to the next thing. Not unfriendly, just . . . busy. Lately, though, she seems to have developed a hint of malcontent.
Maybe that’s why her husband is out here in the middle of the night, alone, smoking.
“Mack, can I ask—what’s your name?” Allison blurts out.
He raises an eyebrow at her. “Uh—it’s Mack. Are you sure you’re okay?”
“No, I mean—that’s short for MacKenna, right?” At his nod, she goes on, “I just wondered what your first name is.”
“James. My father was in the music industry—he worked for a record label—and my mother thought it would be cute to name me Jimmy Mack—you know, after the song. It was really popular the year I was born.”
“Which was . . . ?”
He grins. “I’m not telling. Look it up. Martha and the Vandellas.”
“I will.” She pauses. “So everyone called you Jimmy Mack?”
“No one did, thank God. Not even my mother. My family called me Jimmy until I started school, and then there were four other kids with that name in my kindergarten class.”
“Guess it was popular.”
“Still is. How many Jimmys, Jims, and Jameses do you know?”
She thinks about it. “A bunch.”
“Exactly. That’s why everyone’s called me Mack all these years.” He takes a drag on his cigarette.
After a moment of silence, Allison asks, “So . . . what do you do? For a living, I mean.”
“What is this, an interview?”
She shrugs, not sure what this is, exactly. She just knows that she’s curious about him—and anyway, he doesn’t seem to mind. He’s smiling.
“I told you about my job,” she points out.
“True.” He taps the cigarette with his forefinger, dropping an ash. “I sell advertising for a television network.”
“Really?”
“You sound shocked.”
“Shocked is . . . I mean, that’s a strong word. But I am surprised.”
“Why?”
The wine is making her unusually candid. “I don’t know—that just sounds kind of . . . I don’t know, more laid back than . . . uh . . .”
“Than I am?”
“I didn’t mean—”
“Don’t worry.” He breaks off to yawn deeply, then adds, “Trust me, a lot of people say that. Usually people who haven’t known me for very long.”
“Why? Have you changed?”
“Doesn’t everyone?”
Not me.
Allison always knew what she wanted out of life, and that it would mean putting Centerfield behind her. She prides herself in having set goals and stuck to her plan for achieving them.
“But,” Mack says, “it’s too bad people have to go and change, because if they didn’t, relationships would be a hell of a lot easier, don’t you think?”
“I don’t know about that.” Relationships—is he talking about his wife?
“C’mon—you know it’s true. Think about it . . .”
She doesn’t want to think about it. She’s tired, and she might be drunk, and he might be drunk, too—and this conversation has gone on too long.
Allison pokes around inside her bag, looking for her keys. “Uh-oh.”
“What’s wrong?”
“My keys . . .” Suddenly remembering where she put them, she unzips the lining pocket. “Oh, thank goodness. I thought I lost them.”
“That would not be good.”
“No, but Kristina—do you know Kristina Haines? She lives upstairs?”
“Yeah, I know Kristina.”
The bit of edge in his voice causes something to click in Allison’s brain, and she remembers what Kristina said the other day about married men.
Is it possible that Kristina and Mack . . . ?
“What about her?” Mack is asking.
As Kristina herself said, anything’s possible. Even carrying on a sordid affair right under Allison’s nose—not to mention Carrie’s.
For some reason, she’d really like to believe that Mr. Nice Guy here is happily married. Somebody has to be, right? Somebody other than her brother in Nebraska, anyway.
Brett got married right out of high school. His wife is from Hayes Township and her name is Cynthia Louise. Naturally, everyone calls her Cindy-Lou—except Brett, who calls her Cindy Lou-Who.
And Allison, who insists on calling her just plain Cindy.
Her brother lives with his wife and their kids on Cindy’s parents’ cattle farm—a fate worse than death, Allison thinks, but she’d never say it to Brett.
No, because if she did, she’s pretty sure he’d say the same thing about her living here, and she really doesn’t want to hear it.
“Kristina . . .” Mack prods.
“No, Allison.”
“No—I mean, you were saying something about Kristina?”
“Oh! Right.” Allison clears her throat. “Just—we gave each other spare sets of keys a while back, but I wouldn’t want to wake her up at this hour to get mine. Anyway . . . now that I have them . . .” She jangles the keychain and checks her watch. “Wow—it’s really late. I’d better go in. Big day tomorrow.”
“Yeah? What’s going on?”
She smiles. “You really want to know? This maternity clothes designer, Liz Lange, is doing the first Fashion Week maternity show ever and she’s actually using pregnant models.”
“That’s . . . great.” Mack isn’t smiling, and he suddenly seems very interested in tapping a nonexistent ash from the end of his cigarette.
Did I say something wrong? Allison wonders.
She hesitates for a moment. “Well, good night. I’d better go get some sleep.”
“Wish I could do the same thing.”
“Why can’t you?”
“Insomnia.”
“Oh.” She eyes his drink and cigarette, wondering whether she should inform him that alcohol and nicotine aren’t exactly sleep aids.
Probably not. He probably already knows that, and if he doesn’t, why should she be the bearer of bad news?
“Maybe you should try warm milk or something,” she suggests.
“That would be like trying to put down an elephant with a Tylenol PM.”
“Well then maybe you should try a tranquilizer dart.”
Her quip is rewarded with an actual laugh.
“Believe me, I’ve tried just about everything. I’ve been dealing with this for as long as I can remember.”
“That stinks.”
“Yeah . . . but that’s how I’m wired. I’m used to it. Like Zevon says, I’ll sleep when I’m dead, right?”
“Zevon?”
“Warren. Warren Zevon.”
She shrugs.
“Are you too young to know that song?”
“I’m twenty-four.”
“Yeah . . . too young.” He grins and shakes his head.
“How old are you?”
“I told you—look it up. But here’s a hint: I’m old enough to have listened to Zevon’s first album as a kid. He was a friend of my dad’s. Anyway, it’s a good song. ‘I’ll sleep when I’m dead.’ And that’s my motto.”
She smiles, though for some reason, what he’s saying doesn’t sit well with her.
Ten minutes later, as she crawls into her own bed and closes her eyes, those words are still echoing in her head.
I’ll sleep when I’m dead . . .