What a vile, stupid, shitty day.
The sun was out. The rain was over. There was no hope now that Caleb could cancel his party.
The buzzer buzzed shortly after ten. Elena, his housecleaner, usually came on Mondays, but Caleb had asked her to come today to help set up for the party.
“Good morning, Cow-lib. We get ready now your shindig?”
Elena was Romanian, a fiftyish schoolteacher from Bucharest, part of the Eastern Europe emigration that had filled New York since the fall of communism. Caleb had looked forward to discussions of poetry and politics with her, but Elena was finished with “that stuff” and only wanted to talk about American television.
“Go outside, Cow-lib, out of my way,” she ordered.
He obeyed. He hated this party more than ever. He was surrendering his home, his privacy, his peace, and for what? So a pack of fair-weather friends could eat his food and drink his wine and say, “Poor, poor Caleb.”
He heard the buzzer buzz again inside. Elena answered. A few minutes later a stocky, middle-aged man came out on the patio. “Jack Arcalli,” he said. “The caterer? I spoke to your agent, Irene Jacobs?” A very gruff, bass-voiced fellow with short gray hair, a chin beard, and a single hoop earring, he looked like an older, sadder Don Giovanni. He shook Caleb’s hand. “May I tell you just how much I admire your work?” he said in grumbly, mournful tones.
“Uh, thanks,” said Caleb, surprised and confused. After all, this was the caterer who’d wanted full payment up front.
Another man, skinny and younger with black curly hair, stood in the French door.
“My partner, Michael,” said Arcalli. Caleb couldn’t tell if he meant business partner or boyfriend or both. The two men seemed so serious, so caring, they were more like undertakers than caterers.
“If you will show us your layout,” said Arcalli, “we can start.”
Caleb took them through the rooms while Arcalli looked for the best spots to set up a table for food and another for the bar. There would be no waiters circulating with trays. People could serve themselves, which was not only cheaper but the apartment wasn’t big enough for extra waiter bodies. Arcalli decided he would do the food outside—“I think the rain is over, don’t you?”—and set up the drinks table indoors in front of the television.
Banished now from his patio, Caleb withdrew to his office. He sat at his desk, but not for long. His office would be open during the party, and he should make sure nothing revealing was left out. He inspected his shelves. He cleared his desk. He pulled open drawers. In the top right drawer was a badly printed booklet from the 1940s: a Kewpie-doll lady in garter belt and stockings ties up another Kewpie-doll lady with clothesline and spanks her. Claire Wade, his star, had given it to him on the opening night of Venus in Furs. Would Claire come tonight? Or would she abandon him too?
Only the bottom drawer had a lock, but Caleb had lost the key. He opened it and saw his spiral notebook on top. He took it out and flipped through it: his experiment, his exercise, his mental health doodle. Thirteen pages of pencil scrawl. Auden said that a man loves the sight of his handwriting as he loves the smell of his own farts, but Caleb hated those too. The pages looked like a play, but weren’t. “Conversations with a Dead Boyfriend.” That’d sure pack them in.
Caleb considered ripping the pages out, but couldn’t. Not yet. Should he bring them to Dr. Chin? Or tell her about them? He tucked the notebook back in the drawer, set the spanking booklet on top, and covered it all with Webster’s Dictionary. The sight of a dictionary would cause most people to close the drawer with a yawn.
The phone rang. Caleb answered.
It was Irene. “Good morning, doll. Just checking in. Jack there yet? Isn’t he a trip? He used to be a journalist, then an actor, and is now a cook. Jack-of-all-trades, I call him. But he’s good, believe me. I’m just calling to make sure you didn’t cancel and send him home.”
“Don’t think I haven’t thought about it.”
“I know you have. But you should relax, dear. This is your birthday party. You’ll have a good time.”
“It’s my party and I’ll cry if I want to.”
“There you go. Keep your sense of humor.”
“You don’t want to come over? I’m feeling a bit fragile right now. A little wired. It’s like stage fright.”
“What are you afraid of? It’s a party. These are your friends.”
“I don’t know what I’m afraid of. It’s just—I haven’t seen anyone in days, you know.”
“Then go take a walk. Have lunch with some friends. Or your sister. Or someone. Just to take the edge off.”
“Are you free for lunch?”
“No. Sorry. But I’ll be there this afternoon. Threeish. Can you hold out until then?”
“Sure.” He took a deep breath. “You know, I didn’t know how nutty I was feeling until we started talking.”
“So don’t talk about it. See you later. Bye.”
Caleb hung up and sat there, taking deeper breaths, fighting his sudden surge of anxiety, wondering what was the matter. This really was like stage fright, wasn’t it?
Out in the living room the TV came on. Elena often turned on the television for company while she worked. Caleb heard the others stop moving, as if all were pausing to watch.