As soon as I see them inside the restaurant I avert my eyes and pretend to be staring at the menu posted by the entrance. If they see me, they’ll think I’ve just breezed in and out after hastily scanning the day’s offerings. To avoid being caught fleeing, I stay put a fraction of a second longer, performing a seeming double take at the menu. I put on my glasses, bring my face close to the daily specials in typical French script on the tiny elementary-school slate board by the door, and seem to be totally engrossed, realizing all along that nothing, not one word I’m reading, is registering. Finally, with an imperceptible shake of the head, which she’ll recognize as my usual nah, I remove my glasses, put them back in my breast pocket, pivot, and walk out, determined to disappear as fast as I can from the block, from the avenue, from the city itself. My little performance must have taken no more than five seconds.
It is only as I am rushing up Madison Avenue and putting as much distance between Renzo & Lucia’s and me that I notice I’m trembling. From shock, I think. No, from jealousy. Or anger. Then I correct myself: From fear. Actually, from shame.
I, the wronged party, am ashamed of being caught by them, while they, the guilty, couldn’t care less: no rush of adrenaline, no rattled frown on her face. From where she was seated in the middle of the restaurant, she would have stared me down, meaning, So now you know.
I could let myself think that I immediately slipped out of the restaurant to spare her the stress and agitation of being caught. But my heart is racing too fast for me to think I’ve done it just for her. I hate not only my sheepish, hangdog, tail-between-my-legs getaway; I hate being so visibly shaken. If I run into people I know, they’ll take a quick look at me and ask, What’s the matter? You look terrible. Do I look terrible? As terrible as the day I got a phone call telling me my father had fallen while crossing the street and was lying unconscious in the emergency room and I raced to the hospital forgetting keys, wallet, and the photo ID identifying me as someone bearing his last name? I don’t care if I look terrible.
But I do care.
Yet before walking out of the restaurant, I stayed long enough to prevent them from thinking that I’d skipped away immediately after seeing them. Smart thinking, that.
The thought makes me feel good about myself, and feeling good gives my gait a lively sprint. Maud would think I was in a terrific mood and taking the afternoon off and was most likely headed to the very tennis courts where she and I had met less than a year ago.
I seldom play tennis after 8:00 a.m., but taking time off to play on such a glorious Friday early afternoon feels like a wonderful idea, particularly on this faux-spring day that really happens to be in late winter. I call Harlan, my morning partner. He’s a schoolteacher and usually heads back to the courts after school. As always, his voice mail picks up. I leave him a message. Meanwhile, I see a crosstown bus on 67th and Madison and decide to head west just as its doors are about to close. It’s the long way to the courts, but I like walking up Central Park West early in the afternoon. I can call her on her cell from the West Side in twenty minutes to see how she’ll respond. Then, for future reference, I’ll register the chill blitheness of her Busy, busy, busy, call you later.
On the bus, I try to list a few things. The sound of Maud’s voice when she’s happy to hear my voice even if she’s at a business lunch and can’t really talk right now. Her distracted vioce when she’s surrounded by noise in a crowded restaurant. And yet the way she looked at him while he was speaking to her—listening so keenly, so engrossed, poring over every inflection in his broad, dimpled smile, her head tilted toward his, his almost touching hers, both heads almost resting against the large mirror right behind them, in what every art student would call a definite Canova moment. Of course she won’t pick up the phone when I call. Lucky the man whose companion listens to him, hangs on his every word, asks him to tell her more, and please don’t stop talking, she says, I love when you talk to me, her left arm reclining on the back of the banquette, touching his neck, rubbing the curls above his neck—she is staring, gazing, worshiping. I’ll do everything, her eyes say.
Her right hand rests on the table, fondling the salt shaker, doing nothing, waiting. I know that gesture. She wants him to hold her hand.
They’re talking, but they’re staring. They’re making love, for Christ’s sake.
A woman who lets her hand rub the back of a man’s neck that way is obviously not having a platonic thing. A woman who hasn’t been naked with you doesn’t look so confiding, so eager to touch. She can’t have enough of him. They’re past holding back, past awkward admissions, past the restless unease of people who are irresistibly drawn to each other but haven’t made love yet. These are people who’ve just started sleeping together and can’t hold off touching, everything is about touching. They’re playing at residual flirtation long after courtship has served its purpose. And yet that hand resting so doleful and guileless on the table, still fondling the salt shaker—can’t he tell she’s waiting, waiting for him to put his hand on hers?
When had they started sleeping together? Just recently? Last week? Last month? Will it last? Who is he? How does she know him? Were there others? Was there a clear and tangible moment when she decided to cross the bridge and go over to the other side? Or, as the saying goes, did it all just happen? You head out to a business lunch one day, he stares at you, you let your gaze linger on his, and suddenly, after just a half glass of wine, you catch your breath and the words slip out of your mouth, and you can’t believe what you’ve said, and the strange thing is he’s no less rapt than you are, until one of you breaks down and finally asks, Is this really happening? and the other replies, I think it is. I can just hear them: What happens at Renzo & Lucia’s stays at Renzo & Lucia’s.
I envy them. They’re sleeping together. And yet I am not jealous. Because I fear jealousy more than the loss of love.
Why wasn’t I aware that something like this was going on in her life? In most cases you’re not even aware that you’ve been suspecting, which is why you never bothered culling the scraps of evidence that kept falling your way every day, every hour, and that you now regret failing to intercept, to examine, to log away in the ledger of heartbreak, resentment, and guile. The eternal yoga classes on weekday evenings; the phone she almost never picks up at the office when she knows I’m the one calling; the drinks after work that always get shuffled around so you can’t quite tell when they’ve morphed into an impromptu dinner; the reading group that never gathers in the same place twice; the meetings at work that happen at the last minute; the laptop she shuts a bit too hastily the moment you walk into the room; and always those cryptic yes-no conversations she says are with her boss calling late from Westchester.
In the evening, she smokes a cigarette and stares into space, listens to music and stares into space, stares into space to be with him, not me. She reminds me of infatuated women in 1940s movies who travel by ship and lounge alone on deck and cannot read and all they want is to stroll about at night until the man they love shows up again and offers to light their cigarette.
Was she thinking of him when we sat and watched TV together, or when I massaged her toes because she said her feet hurt, or when we rubbed against each other in the kitchen and I held her from behind and wanted to make love to her? New doubts flit through my mind, but before I can seize them, they fizzle away. Better this way. There are things I may not want to know or think about. Do my friends know? Have they tried to tell me but backed off when they saw I wasn’t picking up the hint?
In the elevator to his place, she fixes his tie, as she did once with my lapel seconds before we rang someone’s bell, knowing already that, as soon as they shut the door behind them, she’ll tear off his tie, unbutton his shirt, undo his belt, yank him out of his clothes. I like the thought that she’ll volunteer to help him with his cuff links, because she assumes all men need help putting them on and taking them off. I want him to fear she’s thinking of the men she’s known when she removes his cuff links with an expert hand.
* * *
I AM ON Central Park West and the sun is beaming on this spectacular clear day. With any luck, Harlan and I will be playing tennis as soon as his school lets out. I’ll sweat it out and put all this behind me. Harlan likes to hit, backhand and forehand, and we’ll play like savages, as he likes to say, because we are taking it out on those poor yellow balls. Backhand and forehand, crosscourt against crosscourt, and, when one of us least expects it, we’ll hit one of those down-the-line beauties to jostle every last pout out of our system.
On this budding, premature summer day it will be heaven. I could take a cab to 93rd. But I want to walk in the sun. At the entrance to the park on 67th Street, I spot a hot dog stand. This is exactly what I’ve been aching for: a frankfurter. I ask for sauerkraut, lots of it, and onion sauce too. You’ve suffered a great shock and need to be good to yourself, says an inside voice. This is the new normal. I need to learn to live with it. Millions have been hurt before, millions more will continue to be. I should find someone to speak to, but—and the thought jolts me because I wasn’t careful to nip it—the only one who’d understand is the very one I wish to lash out against. I’m like those seeking comfort or, better yet, advice, from the very person who abuses them.
The hot dog vendor looks at me, meaning Did I want something to drink?
Yes, a Diet Coke as well. With a straw, please. The man looks up at the sky and comments on the weather. “Beach weather,” he says, “beach weather, like in my country.” He obviously wants me to ask which country that is, but from how he pronounces his consonants, I’ve already guessed. How did I know? he asks. From the accent, I said. How did I know the accent, then? An ex-girlfriend was Greek. From where she was? From 181st Street. And before that? Chios, I say. Have I been to Chios? No, never, has he? Never, nor would he, he snickers, hoping I’d ask why—which I decide not to. By the time we’ve exchanged bits of nothings, I’ve finished my hot dog without actually tasting it, much less savoring it. So I order another. Same like before? Same as before. This, my last year here, he says as he adds mustard to the already-bulging bun. I don’t want to hear why he’s leaving. But seeing him standing silent and still before me as he is handing me my hot dog, I can’t help but ask him why. Because his wife is not well. What’s wrong with her? I ask, figuring homesickness, depression, maybe menopause. Cancer, he replies. “She don’t want to go back. But I cannot stay in America if she is not here no more.” I reach out and touch his shoulder. “Difficult,” I say, imitating my version of Mediterranean compassion in pidgin English. “And how.” Two ruddy-cheeked adolescents who look as though they’ve just tussled in gym class and then slipped on their school uniforms approach the vendor, and after greeting him in Greek, they ask for hot dogs. He’s probably seen them grow up and taught them the small Greek they know. A third joins them; all three, I notice, are wearing loosened neckties and smoking unfiltered cigarettes. This is my moment to slink away. I bid the man goodbye. He nods back with a sullen, crestfallen look meaning, They’re too young to know about wives, cancer, and homeland. I don’t know why, but as I struggle with my hot dog, briefcase, and Diet Coke, I wish I had stopped, sat on a bench, and told the Greek that I too was losing someone. He would have understood.
But as I keep walking toward the courts, I realize that I don’t share his despair. The thought of Maud and her beau zipping their way up to the nth floor in his Midtown high-rise co-op doesn’t disturb me. I can see the two of them walking down a long corridor until they finally reach his apartment door, a bit awkward and hesitant, yet grateful that their steps are muffled by the thick carpeting. The cuff links, the necktie, the image of her legs wrapped around his bare waist, don’t disturb me either. I’ll play tennis, they’ll play at lovemaking. Who’s the happier of us? Who knows?
At the 72nd Street entrance to the park, a group of bicyclists have assembled and are waiting for some sort of signal to enter the park. A whole lot of people are sitting on the benches at the entrance, some have been skating and are removing their Rollerblades, others putting them on. The usual skateboards. Most of those lounging on the benches don’t look like tourists, and they aren’t students either. Does anyone work? None except for the Greek.
I think of the poor man selling hot dogs all day, already planning what he’ll need to pack up, what to give away, what to remember, what to let go of, things, places, people, a lifetime. Perhaps I too should think of sorting out my things. None of it seems to faze me. I was more disturbed by the possibility of being caught watching the lovebirds than by the fear that Maud had found happiness with another man. She looked so expansive, so ebullient and rapt. I haven’t seen her like this in so long. Part of me was even happy to watch her beam, one elbow resting ever so nonchalantly on the thin ledge that was supporting the large mirror behind them as she touched his hair, looking like a model for Mauboussin’s bracelets. She is beautiful. So why am I not jealous?
Is it because it’s still too soon—this is not the shock, not even the beginning of the shock? Or is it because none of this should disturb the universe if you don’t let it, if you don’t push, if you don’t discuss it, not even with yourself? Can one really not think of this? Maud is cheating on me, my Maud in bed with another man, doing things she doesn’t, can’t, won’t, do with me because he knows how to lead her there, Maud astride me as I look up at her when she shuts her eyes and I’m all the way inside her, except that it’s not me, it’s someone else.
Soon, I know, I’ll be rifling through the drawer where she keeps some of her things in my bedroom. I’ve done it with others, will do it again, though I already know that it’ll be out of principle, not because I need to know, or even care. I may end up being jealous because I have to be.
* * *
THE GREEK WAS right. This is beach season already, and the weather is clearly working its way into the midseventies. Soon we’ll be planning weekends away. The thought buoys my spirits, and stirred by this presage of summer, I remove my jacket and loosen my necktie. It reminds me of school days when they’d relax the dress code as soon as they caught a hint of spring weather in the air, when afternoons felt long and my mind invariably drifted to the beaches of San Giustiniano. Except I still remember how the lure of sea weather always coincided with approaching finals and my dreaded report card. I want to call her and tell her that I can’t believe how beautiful the day is. I also want to tell her that I’ve had a good meeting and am now headed to the tennis courts. But I catch myself. Things have changed, might change the moment she hears my voice and is reminded of the humdrum rhythm of our days and nights. I must learn to keep my mouth shut. No hints, no cunning winky-wink prods as in, Oh, was that you I saw at lunch today? Just try to keep your mouth shut. And don’t call.
Suddenly, I feel a growing access of tenderness for her. Is this love, or just compassion for someone who is chasing after romance, the way I and everyone else craves the luster of romance in our lives?
The worst is going to be watching her lie to me and, knowing she’s lying, helping her sidestep the small traps I might unintentionally lay down, and by steering her away from them credit myself both for being so magnanimous and so very clever. I must never let on that I know.
Nothing would hurt me more than watching her flinch each time she hears the word “lunch.” Must never mention Renzo & Lucia’s and stay clear of anything remotely bearing on midday, Madison Avenue, or high-rise residential buildings, or cruise ships from Hollywood B movies from the early forties where new lovers stray from first-class dance floors to meet by starlight on the bridge and watch the moon shimmer on the placid ocean. I am thinking of Paul Henreid bringing two cigarettes to his lips and lighting both at the same time, one for him and one for Bette Davis.
The beauty of romance.
Could I live with her after this?
The real question is: Could she?
The truth is: I could.
I can envision her coming by my place tonight after yoga class, dropping her bag in the kitchen, trying to change and get ready for our dinner with the Plums in Brooklyn. She looks at my face and says, You’re a bit sunburned today, aren’t you?
Whenever she asks about my day, there’s always a playful allegation that I might have spent it with one of my young interns. Usually I play along. Not today. I just hit a few balls with Harlan this afternoon.
She steps out of the kitchen, stops on her way to the bedroom, and then turns and faces me.
I may have some bad news.
I look at her with a glance that wishes to seem at once earnest and not entirely surprised.
About us, you mean. Us, I figure, is safer than him.
I think so.
I’m not going to say a word about lunch, but I won’t play dumb either.
I know.
Oh?
I take a moment to gauge whether I’m not on the wrong track.
Is it serious? I ask.
She looks at me and purses her lips as if she’s never thought about it in exactly these terms.
I don’t know. It could be. Or may not. Too soon to tell. I just thought you should know. She is about to turn on the light in the corridor, but she is still not moving. This is difficult.
What I’ve always admired about her is that in our eight months together difficult admissions have always been civil.
I know, I say. It’s not easy for me either. Do you still feel like going to dinner tonight?
She nods. But just before she goes to change, she turns around, looks at me, takes a deep breath: Thanks.
Welcome.
They say the signs are always there, right before you, but like the stars at night, they are impossible to count, much less read. Besides, signs are no better than oracles. They speak the truth provided they’re not heeded. While we were sleeping a week or so ago, our feet had touched, then our legs, then our thighs, and before we were even fully awake, we had started making love, way too soon and too fast, which is when she did something unusual and dug her fingers into my hair and kept rubbing my scalp with such fiendish abandon as we kissed that without holding back or giving it any thought, we both came at the same time. I had no idea how long we’d been making love or how we got started, or whether we’d even said a word before or during. There’d been no foreplay, no afterglow, no trace, no stain, just a vacuum. We didn’t even open our eyes. Two alley cats scuffling in the darkest dead of night slinking away no sooner done. I fell back asleep in a stupor and so did she, her back to me, while I, as always, put one leg over hers. She liked it that way, she said, and moaned herself to sleep. Both of us were late for work that morning. The strange thing is that the next day neither of us uttered the most passing remark about our lovemaking. I could have made the whole thing up.
Something, however, did surprise me in the stubborn ferocity with which we ground into each other’s bodies. She kept playing with my hair as if she meant to pull it out. I had attributed all this to midsleep, unbridled, savage sex. Then while shaving, it hit me. She was making love to someone else’s body, to someone else’s rhythm, not to mine.
Or there was this: her very recent love affair with a kind of salad dressing that consisted of a few drops of regular vinegar, not balsamic, and lots of lemon, with just a tablespoon of oil. Except that the lemons had to be grown in the groves of Sicily, and you had to use salt from the salt pans of Trapani in western Sicily. It never occurred to me to ask where had she learned so much about Sicilian products, or who had taught her to mix cavolo nero with anchovies and Parmesan and, of course, lemon juice. You didn’t learn this in books or at Renzo & Lucia’s. You learned it in a high-rise bachelor pad over lunch or dinner. He can’t be married.
Then there’s the trip to Sicily we’ve been talking about, because she wants to visit the whole island, not just the supercrowded beaches and islands everyone travels to. She wants to visit Erice and Agrigento and Ragusa, Noto, and Syracuse, and then the hill town of Enna, where Emperor Frederick II of Hohenstaufen built his pleasure palace. I have no idea how she came to know so much about the puppet theater in Syracuse, or about tiny Ortigia, which she tells me comes from the Greek word for quail, owing to a semigoddess who hurled herself into the water and became a quail, which became an island, which became … I never bothered to ask why this sudden yen for Sicily. I would have been perfectly happy spending a few weeks on the islands off the mainland.
All I know is that Maud, who is so tame sometimes, wants excitement in her life. The woman with the slender arm and the beautifully chiseled elbow resting with such grace and whimsy on the ledge of the huge mirror behind her wants fun, wants romance, wants a fresh, new gust in her life. I am sure she resisted at first, and I can just see him trying and trying again before she finally relented.
Look around you, he says in the restaurant.
Yes, and?
Did you look around?
Yes.
Who is the most beautiful, smartest, most intimidating woman in this restaurant right now? What am I saying? Most forbidding.
Maybe that one over there, she says as she points to a woman who’s had work done and is wearing lots of jewelry.
Not her.
Then who? she asks. Maud must love this.
It’s the woman sitting by the large mirror who knows that the man sitting next to her is struggling to keep his hands on the table.
The things you say.
I just want to hold you.
Had I ever spoken to her this way? With her there were no balconies to scale, no struggle to win her over, no dashing histrionics, no rivals, no door to ram down or to bolt shut Fragonard-style once I’d stepped into her bedroom that first time after we’d played tennis. The door was always open, and everything had come so naturally, so easily, just as it had in midsleep the other night. We crossed the bridge and didn’t even see the water underneath.
* * *
I LIKE WHAT I am feeling this Friday afternoon. Come to think of it, what I’ve seen isn’t so terrible, isn’t so bad, isn’t even interesting. Am I going to be jealous—seriously? Sneak into her e-mail, pick up her cell phone while she’s in the shower, try to find out what they text about, or sift through a morass of factoids to determine how they meet, when, where? How cliché!
I roll up my sleeves, remove my tie, and enter the park, heading through the bridle path toward the tennis house. With any luck I’ll find a partner if Harlan is not there. It will be good to see who’s playing, chat with the regulars whom I haven’t seen since Thanksgiving weekend, buy a soft drink, hit for an hour or two, and then lie on the grass till it’s time to get back home, shower, and go to dinner.
Keep things in perspective. Think how far, far worse off is the Greek hot dog vendor. This is not the end of the world.
As chance would have it, when I arrive, Harlan has already booked a court and is waiting for me in the tennis house. “Go change,” he says. I like the brash tone. It reminds me there are other, speedier things to attend to right now besides Maud. I don’t want to think of her. As I take off my watch, I think: For now we’re okay, we’re not hurt, not damaged, just a wee bit bruised, but not flailing. The self’s a touch scuffed, of course, but not the heart. The thought comes to me as I’m wrapping tape around the handle of my racket the way one might swaddle an Ace bandage around one’s calf, one’s wrist, one’s ego. We’re good.
One last thought before I head to the courts: Must not utter a word to her about what I’d seen at lunch, not the most elusive hint, nothing. I’ll do exactly what the Brits did when they broke the Germans’ Enigma code during the war. They knew where and when the Germans were planning bombing raids. But they refrained from stepping up defenses for fear of giving away that they had decrypted the enemy’s code. A misplaced word, a doubting glance, a hint of irony, and she’ll know.
While I’m finishing wrapping tape around my racket, I call her to say I’m going to play tennis. “I figured, when you didn’t pick up at the office. I’m so jealous,” she says. So she had called me. Why? “To say hi.” When? “Less than an hour ago, just after lunch.” How was lunch? I ask.
Haven’t I just promised not to bring up lunch? She takes the question in stride and doesn’t seem to mind it at all. The usual fare at Renzo’s. Actually, not very good this time. Oh, another journalist.
Is this because she spotted me at the restaurant and knows I saw her?
Maud says she has a meeting this afternoon and is heading directly to the Plums’ from her office. Does she want to meet me before going to the Plums’? I ask. “No, we’ll meet there. Just don’t be late? I hate when the two of them gang up on me and go on about their dreaded Ned.” I laugh. I’ve taught her to hate their son, now she dislikes him more than I do. “I’ll bring something,” she says. I say, “Bring nothing. They plan their dinners from beginning to end. We’ll send flowers tomorrow.” We say goodbye. She loves me. I love her too.
By then, I’ve completely forgotten about lunch. If she meant to placate me, she succeeded. Which is probably why I called her. Just telling me that the food was not good lifted a huge load and for some inexplicable reason frees my mind of all worries and doubts. Suddenly tennis seems a godsend. I take out a can of balls, open it, and we descend the stairs to court 14, the one totally in the sun. We are going to sweat, we are going to run, play hard, and think of nothing but tennis. All I want is to be one with tennis. As long as we can be one with something, anything, we’re okay. As I walk down the stairs and step on the courts, a rush of pleasure courses through my body, I am tingling with a sense of total well-being. I could do this for the rest of my life and not care a whit, about her, about work, about summer, travel, about anything. I am happy.
We had met here on a Friday last summer. She was looking for a partner. I offered. She wasn’t a great player, she said. It didn’t matter, I said. We played for four hours that day. It was July Fourth weekend and we had both left work early. Neither had plans for the weekend. That evening, we had dinner at a pub and ate at the bar, which both of us said we loved doing. It was like being alone together, one of us said. Early the next morning, without having arranged it, the two of us showed up to book courts. We played for more than five hours. The courts were scorching that day and many stayed empty. We had to change clothes, biked home, came back, and played till sundown. Shower. Drinks. A late movie. Dinner at the bar? Loved dinner at the bar, she said. The air was balmy, my hands, her shoulders, our faces were moist and clammy. Three Dominicans, one with his guitar, were singing on a bench on an island in the middle of Broadway. We sat on the same bench and listened. I kissed her. We made love all night, playing a Brazilian CD again and again, until, in the days to come, it was impossible to make love without the music. We ended up in Italy later that summer, with the music.
I unzip my other racket cover and remove the racket she bought me as a Christmas present.
Manfred, an ace player in his late twenties, comes over to me and asks if he can join us. We find a fourth player for doubles, an elderly gentleman who is a fixture at the tennis courts. He wanted to play on my side, but Manfred had asked first, and Harlan didn’t mind having the old man as his partner. I’ve never played with or against Manfred before, but after almost two years now I’ve gotten used to seeing him early every weekday morning. I admire his game, his grace, his build. Occasionally, when our eyes meet, we exchange a few words by the soda machine or in the locker area, but I would never have dared ask him to play with me and have always felt he kept his distance for fear I might ask someday. I imagine there’s been a cautious chill between us. Yet watching him grow nervous and almost lose his footing asking to join us this afternoon is like seeing a high school champion look gawky when turning to the class nerd for homework help. His voice was shaky; he must have noticed and tried to dissemble by affecting an awkward laugh. It made me feel strong, proud.
When we were done playing, I could almost feel the old chill rise between us. It would estrange us and we’d be back to perfunctory nods. So before things cool down, I ask if he wants a beer and suggest we play again soon. “Tomorrow morning if you want.” “Tomorrow it is,” I say, perhaps too fast, fearing he might change his mind. Since I had a reservation with Harlan on Saturday, I say I’ll give mine up to someone else. “Do that,” he says. I feel elated. We leave the park and head to a café for a quick beer. I’m sure he knows I’ve got a crush on him.
* * *
WHEN I STEP into the Plums’ home this evening, I am confronted by a replay of today’s lunch. Maud is seated in the middle of the large horseshoe sofa on their terrace next to him, their legs crossed, with their knees facing each other, creating an intimate, locked space between them. And as at Renzo & Lucia’s, her arm is nonchalantly extended on the back of the sofa with her hand almost grazing his hair again, that languid, whimsical Mauboussin smile fluttering on her lips, the same elbow, the same sleeveless arm, the same bracelet. Around them are four large floor candles, casting a shimmering glow over her skin. It’s a good thing I’d had only a beer with Manfred and decided not to drink anything else. I need to be in complete control of my tongue, seeing as I nearly risked ruffling things when calling from the tennis house. With another drink I might end up sending the two of them a glowering frown that barely disguises my displeasure.
She is about to introduce him to me but he interrupts, seemingly very eager to meet me. “I am Gabi,” he says, setting down his drink to stand up to shake my hand. He looks me square in the face, beaming enthusiasm, a frank, spry, almost feral gaze that won’t look away. He is trim, handsome, with a touch of a blush on both cheeks that shouts athletic vigor and good cheer. I am intimidated but not at a loss for words.
Tonight there are the Plums, plus another couple, then Mark, who is probably there for Nadja’s benefit, and then Claire, serene, even-tempered Claire who never laughs at anything I say and who must think I’m a total fop. Coming out of the kitchen, Pamela tells Duncan, her husband, that Nadja isn’t quite ready for someone like Mark, “She’s still on the rebound.” “Our born-again spinster should be over it by now, because, let’s face it, Sleeping Beauty she isn’t,” he says. “Shush!” says Pamela. “Just help me finish building this pyramid with these clementines here,” she tells Claire and me. Claire sets to work right away, as if she’d been building pyramids with fruits and vegetables all her life, while I laugh, having no idea how to build such a pyramid. I know what she’s thinking: He is so hopeless. Meanwhile, Pamela has hung up the phone and comes out onto the balcony to tell the guests that Diego and Tamar will be late as usual because of problems with their babysitter. “Besides,” she adds, biting her lips as she observes our progress with the pyramid, “I think they’re going through a rough patch.” “They’re always going through a rough patch,” interjects her husband.
Duncan and Pamela are an older couple and love hosting younger guests. Meanwhile, I am terrified that their son Ned might be asked to join us for dinner. He always monopolizes the conversation, going on about some obscure artist he’s discovered and wishes to promote. But he is there only for cocktails I am told—needs to meet a very important client for an appraisal. “Our rising star at Sotheby’s,” says Pamela. I look at Maud. She has intercepted my sneering glance and is reciprocating it with a tacit, clandestine smirk of her own. In this we’re a team, and the silent back-and-forth between us confirms our solidarity. She’s my best friend. We read each other. “So, how was tennis?” Gabi asks. “Yes, pray tell us about your tennis,” Maud adds with her usual allegation that tennis is just a nickname for my latest fling with another college intern.
I am once again tempted to send a stony glare her way. She senses I’m in no mood for jokes and she backpedals. “But he had a very good meeting this morning, and this means a lot.”
“What kind of meeting?” asks Gabi.
“We’re merging with a smaller house that’s been failing for years.” I say this hastily to avoid engaging in a conversation with him.
“So why did you merge if it was failing?” asks Gabi a bit too abruptly. Despite his obvious charm, he must be a hard-bitten man who doesn’t mince words.
I must have frowned at his question. “I am an Israeli who’s lived in Italy, not all of me is smooth velour yet,” he explains.
“Where in Italy?” I ask, forgetting I should avoid asking questions, especially when I’m not eager to engage. But now that I’ve asked, I dread the answer.
“Turin.”
“Primo Levi’s town,” I add, relieved it isn’t Sicily.
“Yes, Primo Levi and Carlo Levi and Natalia Levi and all the Levites of the world, down to the city’s most visible tower—more Jewish than Tel Aviv, which is where I’m from. Not surprisingly, my grandmother was from Turin and her last name was, take a guess, Levi too.”
We laugh.
“Gabi is a foreign correspondent.”
Gabi has clearly been a soldier as well. He’s got it all, I think.
“For which newspapers?”
He rattles off a few names, then says, “Italy, France, Germany, Israel, the States—”
“You name it,” I interrupt, to make light of his impressive catalog.
“Gabi’s syn-di-cated,” says Maud, with the faintest touch of humor, both to compliment him for his successful career as a journalist and as a way of defusing the implied sarcasm in my comment by alleging we’re ever jovial by nature.
She’s still on my team, but she’s got his back as well.
This can go on for hours. We’re volleying sprightly crosscourt shots, but she’s the one putting a spin on the ball.
“So explain to me why the smaller outfit is merging with yours?”
“Is this the Israeli or the Italian asking?” I ask, irony still inflecting my voice.
“It’s the Israeli wearing mercerized Gallo socks under roughshod army boots.”
“Tactful answer,” says Maud.
“Tactful or not, I know he’ll want to tell me everything about the merger before the evening is out. Can’t you see he’s already dying to tell me.”
We burst out laughing.
“They’re merging with us because they have a very solid backlist, which we want and which they’ll lose if they fold before the year ends.”
“And by ‘us’ you mean you.”
“And others.”
“How many?”
“We are legion,” I joke.
“You must be very good at what you do.”
I decide not to answer. But I don’t mind the flattery. I know what he’s up to. We’ve been exchanging mock potshots. He is targeting, I am deflecting. But this is not hostile at all. This is almost like flirting.
Ned, the genius son, slaps down his glass on the meticulously set dining table and says he needs to leave. He’s stained the tablecloth.
We look up from our little coterie of three. “And go in peace,” I mutter to Maud. Maud forwards my comment to Gabi, who doesn’t react and may not share our aversion to Ned. We may be bandying jokes between us, but in case I forgot, he and I are not on the same team.
But then he says something I cannot hear. She tells him he’s totally wrong. “Won’t be the first time,” he replies, and the two start laughing. Either it’s about Ned or about one of my assistants. Or about me.
At some point, perhaps to say something, I ask a question that comes naturally and that’s been hanging in the air: What brings him to the States?
“I’m writing a piece on biotech companies specializing in gene splitting and cancer research.” There is a pause after this mouthful. “This is how I know Maud.”
If his remark is meant to soothe me, it works. Now I know the official reason behind their lunch.
I also know why she never thought of bringing up the lunch. It was routine PR stuff.
But I’m not so easily conned.
Dinner is announced. Everyone is so comfortably ensconced on the large sofa overlooking the city that no one stands up. Pamela announces that we are all far too friendly for formal seating at the table, we can sit wherever we please. But still no one moves. So she comes over to me and, extending both arms, pulls me out of my seat and says that to punish me for resisting, she’ll sit me at the head of the table. As usual, their large table is meticulously set for a feast, with its thickly starched linen napkins sticking out jauntily from wineglasses like overgrown blooms on steroids. Pamela notices the reddish stain Ned’s glass has left on the neatly pressed tablecloth. She examines it and hands the glass to the waiter, and all she mutters is, “One of these days, one of these days, kiddo…” On the way to the dinner table, Maud says she’d have strangled him. I take her aside, kiss her, and simply apologize for being late. I ask her when she got here. She was the first guest tonight and came up the elevator with dreaded Ned. “Full of himself, you’ve no idea. I’ll tell you later, but he is more repellent than ever.”
She’s trying to shake me off by going on about Ned. I know the trick.
When did Gabi get here?
“Oh, much later.” So they didn’t come together.
Of course, they could easily have planned it this way: You go first. No, you go first.
The guests improvise a seating arrangement while Pamela decides to sit at my right. To my left is Nadja, who usually won’t speak unless spoken to, then next to her there’s Mark, who’ll speak to anyone provided it’s about himself. The two are meant to get to know each other, otherwise it’s going to be polite nonstarter talk all evening between Nadja and me. I am relieved that Gabi sits next to Mark. But before I have a moment to relish the arrangement, I notice that Maud has taken the seat between Gabi and Duncan, who sits at the other head of the table. I don’t like this at all. Next to Pamela sits Claire, while the seats for the couple in the rough patch are still empty.
No sooner do Maud and Gabi sit than they pick up where they left off. They are engrossed in something. As with lunch, I see but cannot hear.
When everyone is seated, Pamela waits a few moments, then taps her wineglass with a spoon and we all grow quiet. I hate the faux formality of speeches before dinner with people who are, as she just said, far too friendly. She, I have always suspected, may be the polished version of the rough draft her son still is. I begin to dread this dinner. Paula starts by welcoming us. Pardon the terrible mess in the hallway, she says, but we are all regulars here, and for some, this is our second home, but this is Gabi’s first time here, and so this dinner is to welcome him to what we hope will be his new home away from home, especially now that he is immersed in such important work.
After toasting with Chassagne-Montrachet, everyone starts eating Pamela’s raw scallops, while silence hovers over the table.
“What’s his work about?” asks Nadja, breaking the silence. Mark, whom I’ve known since college and who was always good at class participation, wants to show that he has been listening attentively and dutifully relates what Gabi’s work entails. “Most of us know nothing about cancer research, much less about gene splitting, so it’s always good when someone brings us up to date,” he says. He hasn’t changed since his student days—the first to raise his hand, the first to walk up to a teacher after class, the first to hand in his blue book. We talk about the very little we know about cancer research, but Gabi isn’t listening. Mark, I can tell, is trying to draw Maud’s attention, but she can’t hear him. All I can make out, despite Mark’s lengthy explanations about some latest developments in gene therapy, is that they’re talking about a small town called Enna.
“Where is Enna?” Nadja asks, clearly less interested in Mark than in Gabi.
“Enna sits on top of a hill in the middle of nowhere in Sicily. Like Masada,” Gabi adds. “There too a huge massacre took place, but this one was committed by the Romans who had decided to clean out the town of its inhabitants. Masada was more tragic.”
“Why?” asked Nadja, who is no longer listening to Mark.
“Oh, because in Masada the victims committed mass suicide to avoid falling into the hands of the Romans, who would have tortured them, killed them, or sold them as slaves. Enna, by the way, knew its heyday under Frederick. He founded the first university in the world, in Italy, and created a culture that housed Normans, Greeks, Arabs, Jews, French. Italian poetry, by the way, was not born in Florence as so many think, but in Sicily. The town of Enna was finally given back its original name by none other than Mussolini.”
“What did it used to be called?” asks Nadja.
“The Romans called it Castrum Hennae, meaning Castle Enna, but the name was further corrupted by the Byzantines into Castro Yannis, John’s Castle, which the Saracens, once they occupied Sicily, renamed Qas’r Ianni, which in Arabic means Yannas’s Castle. In Italian it was known as Castrogiovanni until Mussolini, who loved the grandeur of antiquity, finally dusted off its millennial tiers and allowed it to take back its true name.”
Then, seeing that more of us are listening to him than he thought, he smiles, interrupts his description, and adds, “We’re all a bit like that, aren’t we? Like Sicily, I mean.”
“How so?” asks Claire, who is probably speaking to him for the first time tonight. Claire would never have asked me to explain anything.
“We lead many lives, nurse more identities than we care to admit, are given all manner of names, when in fact one, and one only, is good enough.”
“And which identity is that?” asks Mark, clearly trying to score a point.
“Might take too long to explain, my friend,” replies Gabi, “and, besides, we don’t know each other well enough yet.”
But the mention of Sicily bothers me. As Gabi continues talking about Frederick II, I can’t help but look at Maud. I try to catch her eyes. But she knows why I’m looking at her, which is why she is staring away from the table and then looks down at her plate. She knows I’ve guessed the cause of her craze for Sicily and that it all has to do with him, doesn’t it? Never have clues been so transparent or fallen so effortlessly in my hands. One has to wait weeks, months sometimes, to link the pieces. Here, even thickheaded Ned would have put together the puzzle.
Couldn’t they have rehearsed this any better? He was a soldier in the most sophisticated army in the world, and she, despite her quiet, subdued manner, has brains to outfox the emperor of tricksters. Didn’t they even have a plan?
Maud asks him to tell her more about Enna, and Gabi right away launches into a long tirade about the life of Frederick II, about Enzo, his son who spent the last twenty-three years of his life in prison in Bologna, and of another son, Manfredi, who died in the battle of Benevento, and as Dante reminds us, biondo era e bello e di gentile aspetto. Maud is holding her chin in another rapt Mauboussin pose that I find spellbinding. She is beautiful, she hangs on every word he speaks, she’s so in love, and the irony is that she may not even know how hopelessly smitten she is, while the other irony is that I’m not upset, though I should be and could easily see how another man would yell or slam his palm on the dining table in front of all the guests and, later that night, run his fist through the bedroom door when she locks him out because he’s become impossible to live with. And perhaps I am hurt but don’t know it either and don’t want to know it, because on hearing the name Manfredi, which I thought entirely mine to own in this room tonight, my mind drifts to the thrill awaiting me tomorrow morning at seven on the tennis courts. I’ll be playing with a champion. I want to tell everyone about my Manfred and how absolutely handsome he is when he takes everything off before showering and the marble of his hairless chest is so taut that one must struggle not to touch to feel whether marble is indeed like flesh. Today was the first time we’d exchanged more than banal locker room banter; usually I say a few words and he answers in fragments, almost as an afterthought, so that neither of us can say we actually talk. But today, something was different. I must have looked absent, fragile, angry; I had no one in my life. Is this why he finally sensed it was easy to speak to me? Because I looked scuttled and undone, human? Or was it the inflection of success on my face following this morning’s meeting that made me desirable? I wish I could recall his faint, tremulous German accent when he asked to play doubles. Would someone help me remember his voice and tell me more about him if I too uttered the name Manfred at the dinner table tonight?
I am looking at her as she stares at Gabi, who is going on about the Holy Roman emperor who wrote a book on falconry while sitting in the navel of Sicily, and all I’m doing is thinking of her in her favorite position. With her eyes closed, she loves placing her knees on my shoulders, which are his shoulders now, one knee first, then the other knee, her vagina pleading for him, which is where I know his left hand is right now, getting her all worked up as she struggles to keep her composure without altering that dreamy model’s look that says I am all jewels, I am all ears, I am all yours, all the way.
How am I going to sleep with her tonight? Or touch her after this? And what if she attacks me in the middle of the night as she did the other night? Will it be with blighted love that I’ll respond, or will I go at her with venom and rage in my groin, knowing that even if she’s making love, it’s not with me. I’ll just be picking up where he’s let off—man-to-man business, with woman as the middleman.
I’m looking at her. She is like someone new. I love her long, slender arms, and the shoulder that’s been completely exposed since this morning, and that necklace giving her a beguiling quality that I haven’t seen in a long time.
The doorbell rings and we can already hear Diego’s and Tamar’s voices. “I know, I know, terribly sorry, but we so wanted to be here,” shouts Tamar from the hallway as she approaches the dining room. “But we haven’t even started dinner,” reassures Pamela as she welcomes the two, and we all hear Tamar’s rapid-fire series of shrill, hysterical giggles meant to absolve her for being late. Tamar swings her clunky square Goyard handbag as she walks around the table toward her seat and clicks open and shut her bag each time she forgets whether her cell phone is turned on or off. Diego, tall, with a full, blondish mane and a colorful pocket square in his dark jacket, sheepishly follows his wife and ends up sitting right next to Claire. He isn’t happy, his fashionable five o’clock shadow makes him look like a hired thug who’s just been scolded by his wife and told to wear a dinner jacket. The couple in the rough patch. Then, thinking of us, I realize we’re in a rough patch as well, except no one here even suspects it.
By now I am in total agony. Maud and Gabi are clearly touching, cannot but touch. The Mediterranean macho has gone one further, and after moving his seat closer to Maud’s, he lets his left arm rest on the carved crest rail of her chair. Right away she brings her hand to the table, to telegraph there’s nothing going on here. But then, as if there’s been a change of mind, it goes back into hiding behind the skirt of the tablecloth.
Oh, vile, deceitful woman. I am reminded of Pagliacci, which we’ve seen together this winter. He’s the lover, she’s the harlot, and I, in case there was a doubt, the clown.
A strange thought crosses my mind. What if I dropped my napkin and, bending down to reach for it, took a peek at what’s going on under their end of the table. What would I find? Her white hand gently, awkwardly stroking his totally exposed, swarthy Sabra cock, which curves upward to give more pleasure.
Question is: What will they do with the mess?
The answer couldn’t be simpler. She’ll use her starched linen napkin with the giant P for Plum embroidered in golden filigree, which each one of us plucked from our wineglass as soon as we sat down.
They’re laughing again.
Or pretending to laugh.
I bet she’s rubbing him even harder as they’re laughing.
Which is why they’re laughing.
And again I think of young Manfredi of Sicily and of my Manfred who comes out gleaming from the shower room every morning and who knows I’m looking because he is so hung.
Meanwhile, I can’t find a thing to say to Nadja on my left. I’d much rather talk to Claire, diagonally across from me. She is always so quiet at these dinners, so cautiously unreachable, radiating a sort of unsullied, Pre-Raphaelite vagueness that I find both chilling and chaste. And as I’m looking at her, I am, as on previous such evenings, trying to imagine what kind of a person a passionate kiss might bring out in her. Would she remain tame, irresolute, or turn savage? I want to unleash the beast in her. I can almost imagine how we’d kiss if I stopped her past the empty corridor, put one palm upon her cheek, and brought my mouth to hers. She is trying not to lift her eyes. But I know she knows I’m looking, knows what I’m thinking. She never looks at me.
At some point, Diego complains of a recent Italian film everyone has been talking about. Not only was the acting terrible but the main plot line couldn’t have been more unintelligible. His wife liked the film and thought the acting amazing. So did everyone else in Hollywood, hence the Oscar. “But I wasn’t convinced,” he says. “You’re never convinced,” she rebuts. Duncan intervenes. “Why aren’t you convinced?” “Why am I not convinced?” asks Diego rhetorically. “Because what a man wants in a woman when he and she are in love is passion, trust, mischief, sorrow, and a shadow of anticipated regret.” “What hogwash! Sois belle! Et sois triste! Be beautiful and be sad,” she replies, quoting Baudelaire. What you men really want from women is surrender.” Diego shakes his head with a resigned, philosophical smile. “What we want … what we want from a woman is a sandwich and some indecency.” “What!?” she snaps back. “Nothing,” he replies. “Well, you’ll get neither from me.” Diego smiles one last time and rolls his eyes. “Big surprise!”
Duncan attempts to change the subject and takes it back to another film. But when the subject of films peters out again, it becomes obvious that however we try, the dinner talk is destined to remain rudderless, without fun, spunk, or spontaneity. Even Nadja tries with me. Then she tries with the Israeli, then with Pamela, then with the Israeli again, but the sparks never catch until it’s clear to everyone that dinner talk has turned into long-winded drudgery.
Except for the two lovebirds twittering away on their little perch.
There was a moment when I caught Claire’s gaze. Then she looked away, or I did. It didn’t happen again.
All I can think of meanwhile is the lovebirds, their touching, their incessant giggles at the far end of the dining table, behaving like a pair of naughty teenagers skinny-dipping on a secluded Mediterranean beach in the very early morning while the rest of us continue lumbering through a gray, silent, sunless no-man’s-land filled with desiccated driftwood and broken shells. After this, I’ll never trust her. Even if I were totally and entirely mistaken, how could I trust her after what I’ve belched out in my sick head today? Their coaxing, their merry taunts, the penis holding, the cum surreptitiously wiped off her hand, which she’ll forget to wash away when she comes to bed tonight—don’t they look flushed, the two of them? They’re a couple. We’re not. And here I am, trying to find something to say to Nadja while nursing the perpetual nattering in my head.
After dinner we are invited for coffee, desserts, and cordials on the sofa lining the balcony. Duncan is still trying to save the evening and points out to the skyline. “Can you believe this spring weather at this time of the year?” he exclaims. “Springtime,” says Diego, about to break into song. “This is New York,” snaps Tamar; “could turn into winter any moment now.” “I just love the view,” says Duncan, still trying to defuse the tension. “I’m so glad we made the move here five years ago. I hated the Lower East Side. Just look at this.” He points to the bridge.
Everyone’s busy taking in the stunning nightfall view while a waning, livid glow hovers against the buildings of Manhattan. “This view always reminds me of Saint Petersburg,” says Duncan. “In Saint Petersburg, they don’t sleep in June. The city is up all night, because it’s still daylight.” “Wish we were in Saint Petersburg tonight,” Nadja says. “I heard they open the bridge on the Neva and people throng the riverbanks.” “What’s the Neva?” asks Diego. “A river, for Christ’s sake,” says his wife. Pamela throws me a complicit glance, meaning, The rough patch is very rough tonight. “Look it up!” she snaps. “Strange things happen on such nights,” I say. “Strange things happen to other people, not me,” replies Nadja. “Me either,” Tamar says. A quick look from Claire tells me she’s picked up on the me either too. It’s the only time she and I exchange a message meant to stay between us. I want to come up to her and say something funny, stirring, and clever, but I can’t think of what to say. The two of us are now leaning on the parapet facing the city, her hand next to mine, touching. I do not move my hand away, figuring she’ll shift hers first. But she doesn’t. I’m sure she isn’t even aware we’re touching. “Surely there’s a life out there better than this,” I want to say. She’d look at me and think I’m a lunatic. So I keep quiet.
Duncan stares out at the skyline, then looking up he points to the water tank standing at the very top of his terrace.
“I hope none of you minds the water tank,” he says. “They’ve been working on it for weeks now with no end in sight.”
I look up and down on the floor of the balcony and spot a litter of tools and toolboxes stashed away in a corner not too far from the sofa. “They’re rebuilding the water tank. It’s very old!”
“People tell us that Hopper painted this very water tank from his own home across the river,” adds Pamela.
Maud tries to say something about Hopper but changes her mind, especially since Mark steps in.
“Did Hopper live across the river?” he asks, seemingly incredulous.
“Ned is convinced he did. In fact, he showed us pictures.”
“I wasn’t so convinced,” says Duncan.
“I was,” says Pamela, “but I’m Ned’s mother.”
“Well, it’s a very good story,” says Mark, turning to Maud, as though apologizing for cutting her off.
“To think that we’re sitting on a balcony that was painted by Hopper himself,” muses Gabi. “What an amazing privilege.”
Duncan doesn’t care for Hopper. “Tired of the same old houses in Truro, tired of the same water tanks, tired of all those dejected, vacuous people staring out of unwashed windows.” He leans over the parapet and stares out into the floodlit city. “So, which is better,” he turns around and finally asks those of us seated on the sofa, “to be here in Brooklyn staring over at Manhattan’s skyscrapers or to be in Manhattan looking at Brooklyn’s water tanks?”
It was the sort of statement made half in jest and half to accentuate the spell of lights shimmering on the East River, offering a sight nowhere else seen in the city except from his terrace.
“Oh, you sound like that tiresome author who’s always writing about being in one place and wishing to be in another,” cracks Claire. “Besides, hadn’t we settled the matter last year when you asked the same exact question?” She’s right. We’d had this conversation exactly a year ago, and, as we watched the sky turn dark purple, the issue about where one was and where one longed to be seemed dead on arrival. We never resolved it. But I liked the spunky comment. So unusual for Claire to be outspoken. “I wish I could find a place where it’s always daylight,” says Tamar, referring to Saint Petersburg. “I love life too much.”
“With your attitude?” mutters Diego almost to himself.
“Yes, with my attitude,” she rebuts. He is silenced.
“Saint Petersburg is just an idea,” says Gabi, probably seeking to stem their sparring. “It’s built on slush. To most of us, it’s like a city that doesn’t quite exist, a city made for books. We don’t really believe it exists even when we’re there. A city where you can’t sort out twilight from dawn and where at any moment you could run into Gogol or Stravinsky or Eisenstein, to say nothing of Raskolnikov or Prince Myshkin or Anna herself. A city of elusive, untold wants.” And so saying, Gabi stands up facing Manhattan and, holding his wineglass next his mouth to mimic a microphone, begins singing the opening lines of a song about Nevsky Prospekt when the Red Guards light up fires in the cold to drive away wolves and how it’s still possible to spot Nijinsky, whom Diaghilev of the Ballets Russes fell hopelessly in love with, hopelessly in love, hopelessly in love.
I would never have been able to put his spontaneous singing voice with the man who’d been talking to Maud at the dinner table. Here another person had sprung forth, with a much younger voice, and a far younger, soulful self. No wonder she likes him. I like him. Even Diego likes him. The two begin chatting in Italian. I catch myself wishing to join in.
Left alone as I lean forward with both arms on the parapet, I am thinking of Manfred with me now—he and I, our elbows touching just moments before he shifts and puts an arm around my shoulder. Oh, Manfred.
* * *
“YOU DIDN’T EAT anything,” Maud tells me as she approaches and sits next to me on the sofa holding a cup of coffee.
“No. I played with the food, moved it around the plate a bit so it wouldn’t look too obvious. I wasn’t hungry.”
“Why?” she asks.
“Not in the best of moods, I guess.” I can tell I’m almost on the point of blurting out what has been upsetting me since lunchtime.
Did I want coffee? A cookie? Half a cookie, maybe?
By now she knows I’m upset, hence the attempted mollycoddling.
Gabi walks over to us with his cell phone in his hand, having read a text. He is about to light a cigarette.
“Oh, I’d love one too,” says Maud.
He takes out another cigarette from his slim alligator case and places both cigarettes between his lips. He lights them, then hands her one. “I’ve seen it done in a movie, and I’ve always wanted to do it,” he says. Never have I been given such ocular proof that they belong together. He offers me a cigarette as well, but I tell him I’ve quit. “One couldn’t hurt,” he bandies back, playful as ever. “Yes, it will,” Maud jumps in, rushing to my rescue. We’re back to being a team. The three of us are sitting next to each other on the horseshoe sofa overlooking the river, Maud between us, with the other guests sitting on either side of us. We’re enjoying the fresh evening breeze from the ocean. I’ve always loved the way Maud raises her head, lifts her chin, and blows away the first puff of smoke. Everything feels cozy and snug here. Gabi cracks a joke about the couple with babysitter issues: the husband docile yet fuming with pussywhipped rage, the wife who claims to love life so much. “The mother of all humbug,” says Maud. “He is no more docile than she loves life.” “We call them the rough patch,” I say. “And what do you make of her bag?” she asks. “It’s a suitcase for train compartments.” Gabi giggles loudly. Maud hushes him, but it’s clear she is enjoying the rakish dig at the handbag and at the woman who owns it. “She probably carries wipes, bibs, and pacifiers in case her babysitter calls.” “Or a rolling pin to hit Daddy with each time he opens his mouth to ask for a sandwich!” We laugh, and laugh again. “How long do you give them?” asks Gabi, seemingly cutting to the chase. “A few months,” I say. “Maybe, but he loves her,” says Maud, coming to the husband’s defense.
“Maybe he loves her, but she clearly doesn’t love him,” I respond. A moment of silence.
“Actually, I think it’s the other way around,” says Gabi. “She is angry he doesn’t love her, because she still loves him but is disappointed with his listless caresses and that sprig of tenderness.”
“How do you know?” Maud asks.
“I know.”
He muses, says nothing, takes another puff.
“How do you two know each other?” Gabi asks.
“We met on the tennis courts. It was all quite sudden,” I say.
“So you two love each other,” Gabi says, turning to me and then Maud. It’s not really a question, but it sounds like one.
“Why do you ask?” Maud asks.
He shrugs his shoulders. “No reason.”
Gabi must have had more to drink than I thought. But I’m growing to like his prickly wit, his jabs, his impish humor. I am revisited by memories of dorm parties, three of us slouching on a sunken old sofa in a frat house watching everyone else come and go, poking fun at each one, most likely because all three of us are nervous and drunk.
But then a thought stuns me. If a frat party, then we’re all just good friends: she is not my girlfriend yet, she is his girlfriend, I’m the one just tagging along because I want everyone and everything he loves. They’re the couple. We’re not.
Another thought scares me even more: At what point tonight does one of us discreetly disappear? How on God’s planet does this evening end?
I nurse a vision of the two of us in the cab home, both of us uneasy, tired, listless, and quiet.
Want to talk about it?
She looks at me with her all-knowing gaze that says, No, not really.
Why not?
There’s nothing to talk about.
I look away, nod, and say nothing.
But she reaches and holds my hand.
Hey—
Yes?
Thanks.
I wait a few seconds.
Welcome.
But I don’t feel so kind. I’m angry. And I no longer know why. Part of me feels this whole fever could wash away the moment I spot one tiny, reassuring sign from her, but I also know that once incubated, anger won’t go away unless it erupts. I don’t dislike this sudden urge to be cruel to her; I don’t even want it to slacken, because it gives me strength and clarity, the way anger, rage, spite, and bile make Homer’s soldiers bolder and meaner. I like this surge, as if a part of me already wishes to run my fist through a door to prove to her how it feels, because anger fills my lungs and makes me want to puff out my chest and be a man, the way I was a man when I finally told Manfred to move out of the way because I wanted to be the one to put away Harlan’s strategic lob with a perfectly aimed overhead slam, which in fact was my proudest moment this afternoon, this day, this month, this year, especially after Manfred put both hands on his hips and, nodding approbation, said, “Wow!” That admiring and spontaneous Wow, uttered ever so gallantly in his soft, mellifluous German voice, filled me with such bliss that moments after hearing it I said, “Buy you a beer.”
I’ve gotten to like Gabi, and I want him to like me too. If he’s putting his arm around the back of her seat, I don’t mind if it reaches me too. And as if he’s heard me think this, or maybe because I might have moved closer to him without even knowing it, his arm drops on my shoulder, and his hand is now rubbing my neck with tenuous, absentminded motions that could easily have mistaken me at first for the leather edge of the sofa. It’s as though he wishes to assuage all my worries about Maud and at the same time stir something else in me, and I can’t tell which it is, and I like not knowing, and I don’t want him to stop, and I lean my head forward to let him rub my neck more deeply and let his hand linger there as long it pleases and undo all those knots, while I shut my eyes to relish the soothing massage, which I know he knows may not just be a massage, though maybe that’s all it is, a massage. Without looking, I know she’s guessed.
After coffee there are schnapps from various countries served in tiny grappa glasses, which the Plums bought last summer in Castellina. “We had them ship twenty-four of them, don’t know what we were thinking,” Pamela explains. Without meaning to, all three of us keep trying one liqueur after the other. Gabi, I should have known, is a connoisseur and keeps examining the labels on the bottles for the eau-de-vie he likes best but can’t find it. “Either way, I’ll pay for this tomorrow,” says Maud. “So will I,” says Gabi. “All of us will,” I add. A smile from Maud almost says Parrot! Nadja, who moves a chair next to Gabi, asks if she could try some of his, since there are at least four tiny vials spread before him on the tea table. She’s never had schnapps, she says, what is it? He explains, she listens, then plies him with more questions, until he grabs a tiny glass containing Pear Williams and suggests she try that. She holds his glass with tentative fingers and takes one distrusting sip. “Not bad, right?” he asks as though speaking to a child. “Actually, quite good. May I finish it?” “Be my guest.” Then, standing up, he leans over to me and Maud and says, “We need to split.” She’s been trying to make conversation with him all evening and is obviously going in for the kill. He snickers, and so does Maud. “If she only knew,” he whispers. Maud laughs. I can tell Nadja noticed, though she is eager to join in the laughter. I ask if she’d like to try my grappa. She gently pushes the drink away, saying she doesn’t want to pay for it tomorrow either, and laughs, possibly thinking that tomorrow’s hangover was the reason why Gabi and Maud had laughed. “We really should be leaving,” Maud says, as though apologizing. She casts one languorous farewell gaze to the view from the terrace, as does Gabi, as do I as well. “The view,” we repeat in the elevator, “the view.”
Outside the Plums’ building, the air is still humid and I find myself already missing the terrace with its incipient chill draft and expansive view. Part of me wishes we hadn’t left so soon. I enjoyed the sofa, the candlelit balcony, the many drinks, and the company, even the dying conversation at the dinner table where all you needed to do if things stalled was to look out to the skyline and enjoy Pamela’s occasional comment or watch the couple in the rough patch spar over this or that. Even Nadja’s last-ditch effort to open up to Gabi wasn’t so bad either. Perhaps we shouldn’t have left. Only then does it hit me that I didn’t say goodbye to Claire. There was a moment when, on leaving the table, we ended up standing close to each other observing the skyline. Both of us meant to say something but neither could find the words, so we said nothing, Claire and I. This could have been our moment. All she said after a while was “I think Maud’s calling you.”
It has started to drizzle. My first thought is that I might have to call Manfred and cancel tennis. But then, if he’s like me, he’ll show up all the same and we’ll have coffee and something to eat under the canopy of the tennis house. I love the vision of breakfast while it rains in the park with the few regulars happy to hang together.
If he’s like me, he’ll know I’ll show up even in the rain. But this is good rain. It comes down not in torrents or in sheets that pour down so powerfully that they’ll lash about the avenues like sails flailing in stormy weather. Tonight the rain feels so meek and muted that brushing it away with a hand might make it stop. It lacks conviction, has lost its vigor. Don’t bother with umbrellas, it seems to say. I’m about to stop anyway, my heart’s not in it tonight.
We were going to say goodbye on the street corner, but Gabi walks us to an intersection where we’re more likely to find a cab He’s headed to his hotel in the Financial District, we’re headed uptown. The usual squabble about who gets to take the first cab. We insist: “Two against one, Gabi,” Maud says. So he cowers, and as he opens the door, he kisses Maud on both cheeks, embraces me Italian style, and extends a phone gesture to signify either a warning that we should not forget to call him or a promise that he’d be calling soon. “As usual, had too much to drink,” he says, almost apologetically. Minutes later, another cab screeches to a halt. We hop inside and head uptown. Because of the long cab ride, we decide to put our seat belts on, which puts us almost two feet apart. I’m looking forward to the Brooklyn Bridge, especially in the rain. But the bridge also stirs an uneasy feeling, because it has always scared me and I don’t like crossing it on foot. Something is eating me but I still can’t grapple with it. I am thinking of the old Greek vendor, of cancer, of Gabi, of Renzo & Lucia’s, and of Manfred and the Central Park tennis house when it rains on Saturday mornings and the world feels snug and happy, but it all comes in one breath, and is stirred by too much alcohol. I’m watching the rain spill ever so lightly on the empty street, and I still don’t know what’s troubling me. Thinking of Gabi’s allusion to many lives and identities, I feel I’m just another Sicily—confused and lonely.
My heart’s not in it tonight, Maud. My heart’s just not in it.
Neither of us says anything.
She touches the sleeve of my shirt. “I like the cuff links,” she says. “I’m so glad I got them.”
“I like them too.”
“I was getting tired of the gold ones you wear.”
“I was too. So, what did you think of him?”
We both know who him is.
“I don’t know. Lovely fellow. He is clever and very charming, but I don’t think we’ll be able to give him what he wants. Certainly not this year.”
“How long have you known him?”
“Two weeks. He’s writing a complicated piece, but so much of what he’s after is confidential that I know he won’t be happy with the very little we can disclose before testing and FDA approval.”
“And?”
“I’m more interested in what he has to say about Sicily than I am about what he wants to know about cancer research.”
“Are you seeing him again?”
“I don’t think so. I spent three hours with him earlier today. Enough. Pamela asked me to meet him, and I did.”
Maud wants to write him off. Because she fears him. And she fears him because she’s attracted. Classic syndrome.
“Still, you two were having a good time tonight.”
“Oh, he is totally adorable. But he drinks—you should have seen him at lunch.” I did see him at lunch!
Maud sounds too listless and vague, and she’s assumed that mildly fatigued air, which is how she deflects subjects she doesn’t want to discuss. Fatigue is always such a good cover for her, the way hysterics are for Tamar. She’s ducking, because she knows I’m prodding.
But slumped in her seat, Maud does look tired. The darting, dangerous look that comes when she wears dark lipstick has faded from her face.
“Lovely cuff links, though,” she says as she reaches over and holds my hand.
“I wore them all day.”
“I’m happy you like them. Wasn’t at all sure you’d like them, bought them on a whim,” she adds.
And suddenly it occurs to me that if ever there’s a good moment, perhaps this is it. We could even gloss over it, but I’ve been good all this time and now I have to raise the subject, even if it tears open the floodgates. Otherwise, I won’t sleep tonight. I am still looking at her, and she looks so unlike the woman I saw at the restaurant this afternoon. Is this the person I bring out when she’s alone with me, listless and fatigued? Am I even good for her? Am I enough?
“Do you like him, though?”
“I like him fine.”
I take this in, mull it over, say nothing at first.
“For a moment I thought there was something.”
“You mean between us?”
“Oh, I don’t know, maybe.”
“That would be too funny. Never even crossed my mind, and I can assure you it hasn’t crossed his either.”
“Why would it be too funny?”
“Why? I could think of a hundred reasons.”
“Name one.”
“You mean you couldn’t tell?”
I look at her. And she looks at me. I am feeling totally stumped, but finally I see what I was just starting to guess, or had already guessed except that I am still reluctant to let on that I have. Perhaps there’s a side of me that doesn’t want all my doubts about the two of them so hastily dispelled, though there’s yet another part that doesn’t want her to see I’ve immediately intuited what she’s barely had time to imply.
“Oh, that,” I say, downplaying her disclosure by feigning indifferent surprise.
“Oh, that!” she almost mimics. “Seriously?”
A moment of silence.
“For a while I thought you two had something going on.”
“Puh-lease! So this is why you were Mister Grumpy all evening?”
“Was I Mister Grumpy?”
“Big-time.”
She imitates my face when I’m pouting. We both laugh.
“Why do you think he asked if we were in love?” Maud asks.
“Why? Because he had too much to drink? Because he had designs on you?”
“No, dear. On you.”
I try to look baffled. But I know she can tell.
“So what else is new?” I ask.
“Nothing, I suppose.”
And suddenly I know I am saying something, not just about Gabi, or about men, but about me. But I say this looking out the window at the rain that falls ever so meek and docile over the road that leads to the ramp that leads to the bridge that leads to God knows where I’m going with this, though going with it I am. And there’s the bridge at last, vaulting the harbor under the shadow by the piers, the good, staunch, loyal bridge that understands and forgives and has always known, as I have always known, that what I really long for this evening is neither to be on this side of the river nor on the other bank but on the space and transit in between, the way after speaking of Russia’s White Nights it wasn’t of nightfall or daybreak that Gabi had sung but of that fleeting hour between dusk and daylight which we all longed for on our balcony on this undecided evening that wasn’t winter or summer or even just spring.
Soon we’ll be riding up the FDR. We’ll cross over at 59th Street and then up Central Park West, and eventually pass the spot where the Greek vendor parks his hot dog cart each day, and then the Langham, the Kenilworth, the Beresford, the Bolivar, and farther up the St. Urban and Eldorado and then the entrance to the Bridle Path and to the tennis courts where Manfred stood gaping next to me this afternoon when I fired my cannonball shot and all I could think of at the time was I want to travel away with you to the island where the lemon grows and squeeze the rind of its fruit on you till I’ll smell it on your breath, on your body, under your skin.
“Were you smitten?” she asks.
I don’t want to lie. “For a moment.”
“For a moment,” she repeats, gentle irony lilting in her voice, as though realizing that, despite my tone, what I’ve just said was not spoken in passing.
Again I look outside the car.
“How long has it been?”
I am thinking of Manfred now, not of Gabi, but it doesn’t matter.
“A while,” I answer. “How long have you known?” I ask.
“A while.”
I can hear it in her voice that she’s smiling. I don’t ask her how, or when, or why in all these months we’ve never spoken about this. But I feel as though it is she who stepped into the restaurant today and witnessed for the first time what she’s probably always known but, like the Brits during the war, knew better than to say anything about.
“And all this time I thought it was Claire,” she says.
I shake my head to mean she couldn’t be more off the mark.
Silence sits between us. We seem to understand why. Finally, I utter a pallid yet grateful “Thanks.”
When I turn to look at her, all she says is “Welcome.”
We hardly need to say another word, but I know that right now, in the cab, of the two of us, it is I, not she, who’s crossed and gone over to the other side.
“Am I going to lose you?” she asks, and then pauses, as if wondering whether I’m no longer paying attention. “Because I don’t want to lose you.”
I say nothing. But I don’t know if what I’m about to say is the truth.