The proposition: that I quit dog walking and become their personal assistant. They’d had one before, Philip told me, thought they didn’t need one again.
“We were wrong,” Nicola added.
The three of us sat in their dining room. Nicola, just back from the gym, drank a smoothie. Sweat darkened his hair. Philip, stoic and straight shouldered, asked what I made walking dogs, offered me ten dollars more an hour, and put out a hand. Usually, I loved that feeling, the breathless excitement from just catching a train, but now I didn’t trust it. I wanted to tell them that I hadn’t even been qualified to walk dogs, that my last job in Minneapolis had been as a host at a mall restaurant with giant menus and a sad, bounteous salad bar and customers who tried to use expired coupons. But the money was good, and dogs had become tedious. I accepted Philip’s hand. He beamed, telling me they were having a party that weekend at their upstate place and were hoping I could help out.
“For his birthday,” Nicola interrupted. “A big one.”
“Happy birthday,” I said.
Nicola asked if I was curious about Philip’s impending new age.
“Not really,” I said.
“But this weekend,” Philip asked. “You’re free?”
“I can make myself free,” I said, though there was a party for Meredith’s birthday, and missing it would surely rekindle Janice’s sharp-edged annoyance.
“A costume party,” Nicola said. “Something you might not have expected. Dressing up is one of Philip’s favorite things.”
“So it’s upstate,” Philip repeated. “Did I mention that already?”
“His memory’s beginning to go,” Nicola said, and pointed to the blender he’d just used. “Your first task.”
“Gordon’s not our housekeeper,” Philip insisted.
“I don’t mind,” I said.
Nicola went upstairs. I cleaned the blender, put away the fruit and powder he’d used.
“That’s not the job,” Philip said. I told him I knew, but that part of the job was being flexible. Philip answered that he was late for a meeting.
“Nicola’s late, too?” I asked.
“Nicola is late as a general rule. Thinks it shows insouciance.”
In the time I’d known them, they’d shown each other no outward affection. Part of that made sense to me (I found out the next day that Philip’s upcoming birthday was his seventieth). But there must have been something in Philip’s deep voice and wry smile that captured Nicola still, the man he’d fallen for fifteen years before just under the surface, a palimpsest. I cleaned a pair of coffee mugs. Philip’s embarrassed expression stayed.
“Someday I’ll tell you about the terrible jobs I’ve had,” I said. “And you’ll understand that a few dishes is nothing.”
After Philip left, I used their phone to give notice at the dog-walking service.
“But this job,” my supervisor said. Her name was Deb. “It was a favor to Meredith.”
“I thought you were desperate for someone,” I answered, adding that I could continue for the next two weeks.
“No need,” Deb said, and told me she’d shadow me the next day, which she did silently, except for when the TV actress’s saluki wouldn’t move until I picked it up and carried it outside.
“I hope you didn’t do that every day,” Deb said.
“Of course not,” I lied, though when I’d decided to start carrying the dog rather than drag it through the door I’d seen it as a feat of problem solving.
I got to their house after my last dog-walking day with flowers Nicola had ordered. Philip and Pavel the painter were there.
“Flowers for you,” I said to Pavel. He looked confused.
“He’s joking,” Philip said. “But he’s such a dear to get us these.”
“You’re a florist?” Pavel asked.
“Jack of all trades,” Philip answered. “Come, Gordon. Look at the painting Pavel’s brought over.”
On the dining room wall hung a small portrait, the head and shoulders of a young man painted in assertive colors, in crude strokes I assumed were intentional.
“We’re debating whether or not to frame it,” Philip said. “I think it’s perfect as is.”
“A frame marks where the painting begins and ends,” Pavel answered. The accent I’d detected at dinner resurfaced.
“But the painting does that,” Philip said.
“It’s up to you, of course,” Pavel replied, in a dismissive tone I hadn’t heard anyone use with Philip before.
“What do you think, Gordon?” Philip asked.
They stared at me. Philip’s clean, soft face, Pavel’s taut and angled. His nose was large, his mouth small, a mismatched strangeness that worked in unlikely harmony.
“A frame could be nice,” I said.
“Gordon, ever the middle child,” Philip said. “You are a middle child, aren’t you?”
“Only,” I told him.
“Me too,” Pavel said.
“Well,” Philip said. “Gordon’s a genius at many things, but even he’ll tell you he isn’t an artist.”
“It’s true,” I answered. “The frame was just a vague opinion.”
“The best kind,” Philip said, just as Pavel added, “I’m not sure what that means.”
Philip invited us for coffee. One sip in, a phone call came in that he needed to take.
“I like it,” I said. “The painting. It’s striking.”
Nothing on Pavel’s face registered my compliment.
“You grew up on a farm?” he asked.
“Minnesota,” I said.
“A thousand islands there.”
“Lakes.”
“Geography was never my forte,” Pavel said.
“Forte sounds like a word you’d use.”
The stillness of Pavel’s face was that of a sleeping person, but his eyes were laser focused, as if examining the smallest unmoving thing.
“A useful word,” he said finally.
He walked to the windows. I followed. Pavel was a few inches taller than me, pale, blue veins mapping his jaw. He was thin, apart from his arms, which were stacked with muscle and made me wonder if he did something for work that involved heavy lifting. His astringent smell filled the space between us.
“Do you have a job?” I asked. “Besides painting, I mean.”
A blip of a smile before his blankness returned.
“I just paint,” Pavel said.
Outside, a squirrel scurried back and forth.
“Prague,” he said. I tried to figure out what I’d just missed. “When you asked where I was from at dinner. I’ve been in the States since I was twelve, but once a foreigner, I suppose.”
“I didn’t mean to be rude,” I said.
“I know,” Pavel answered.
I was washing our coffee cups when Philip returned.
“Pavel,” he said. “Let’s keep talking, to frame or not to frame. Gordon, could I trouble you for one minute?”
Pavel left. I’d hoped to walk out with him. His strange, cricket-like demeanor left me nervous, hopeful, and I wondered if sleeping with him would be a demerit in Philip’s eyes. Philip asked me to pick up pastries in the morning, also that, once I delivered them, I stay to cut up fruit.
“A major client,” he said. “I could take her to Bouley or Wallsé. Still, she wants to be invited to my home and eat eggs I’ve scrambled for her.”
Unsure if he wanted commiseration or a compliment, I said, “You’re a great cook.”
“Adequate.”
I agreed to be there by nine.
Outside, I was thrilled to find Pavel waiting. I lit a cigarette. He asked for one. His cheekbones sharpened as he inhaled. He thanked me for the cigarette, kissed my cheek, and left. Watching his shoulders recede in a steady float, I knew Pavel would soon grow into a considerable distraction.
At the bar that night, I told Meredith and Janice about the new job, the party my bosses needed my help with that weekend.
“Helping how?” Meredith asked.
“This and that,” I said.
“Very specific.”
Janice, eyes on the drink she was making, asked, “Did you just quit the job Meredith got for you?”
“I offered to stay on until she found someone else.”
“Noble of you,” Janice said.
“Come now,” Meredith intervened. “They’re paying him more.”
“But you already had plans this weekend,” Janice said.
The toughness I’d marveled at in her when she dealt with difficult customers and catcalling men grew thornier when pointed in my direction.
“It’s a lot more money,” I said.
I reached for her hand, but she stacked glasses and poured beers, lingering at the bar’s far end. When she came back her face had softened, and I saw an opening.
“When they asked me to work this weekend, after what they agreed to pay me,” I said, “I didn’t know how to say no.”
“You need to work on that,” Janice answered.
Under the bar’s colored lights, she looked almost like Pavel’s painting.
“I do,” I said. “I need to work on that,” those words a cleansing, though I also remembered the times my father told my mother he could change, how she believed him, then regretted her wasted optimism.
“Honey,” Janice said. “Just don’t become one of them.”
“One of what?” I asked.
Her look told me to stop pretending not to know things about country houses and matching dogs and last-minute European trips. How easily Philip and Nicola’s life could move from mockery to aspirational.
“I wouldn’t,” I said, knowing, too, that wanting often beat out promises.
“What are you two talking about?” Meredith asked, when she returned from the bathroom.
“Dogs,” I said.
“Rich queens,” Janice added.
Meredith took a cigarette from my pack, waved it in the air, like a baton. “Same difference,” she said, then told us she was hungry. I went across the street, got a pizza for the three of us to share. I hadn’t eaten all day, and as I picked up another slice with the last still in my mouth, Meredith said, “Look at him.”
“Yes,” I answered. “Look at me. Look at me, look at me,” and Meredith laughed until her eyes watered, though when I asked her later what had made it so funny, she didn’t explain.