You Lost Me There Read online

  The same reply I’d send the next nine Fridays in a row.

  Try again. Write this.

  I stared out through my windshield at a low band of trees. A plane was just landing in the mist, bouncing down the wet black strip.

  Russell and I got back to the house around ten. The answering machine in the kitchen said I had a new message. I pressed the wrong button and a voice shouted, You have selected Daylight Saving Time.

  Betsy wanted to know how I’d forgotten about our dinner date. At least, why didn’t I call? “Never call me again, Victor,” she said. There was a long pause. “Good night.” Another pause. “This was Betsy.”

  One of my regular Friday dates I hadn’t been invited to, the other one I’d failed to please.

  “Was that the aunt?” Russell asked. He had big arms but small hands, the frame of a lineman squeezed into a gymnast. He looked like he might tumble off the counter stool. “Wait,” he added, “I remember. The nut-job.”

  “Be nice,” I said. “She’s eccentric.”

  “Eccentric, right.” He got his thumb under the peel of a tangerine. “Like putting a beanie on a serial killer. I mean, when it’s my time, call me crazy, please. People respect crazy.”

  Russell bounced off the stool and took his suitcase upstairs to the guest bedroom. I put a Post-it note on the refrigerator reminding myself to call Betsy in the morning. I heard the shower running and then a squeaky tenor, out of tune, screeching through “Satisfaction.” I went outside and collected kindling.

  Russell had begged for a fire. One of Sara’s best ideas when designing the house had been to install an outdoor fireplace, this pit contraption from a gardening catalog that stood next to the deck. Now that the rain had blown away, the night was cloudless. I was shuffling out to the log pile when Russell called from his window, “Check that shit out!”

  Stars covered the black distance: Ursa Major, Virgo, Hercules, the names came swiftly back to me. I’d been bonkers for my telescope when I was ten. I loved knowing where to draw the edges and shapes. In school that year we’d been forced to memorize the state capitals, and I’d approached the task by reassigning them as dots in the sky, simply more stars I should remember. Lessons I learned on my own about differentiation, about the comparative scale of my desires. The idea being that if I was so extremely small, then I could do almost anything, because what impact would I have, really? What damage could be done, being so puny in the big scheme?

  Yet the dinner Sara mentioned in her cards, I couldn’t retrieve. It wouldn’t light up. As though as soon as the three of us crossed Third Avenue at a walk signal, it disappeared and no outline was left behind. A fragment of experience my brain found no reason to bind to any others.

  “Seriously, is it always like this at night?” Russell yelled, and then ducked back inside.

  He appeared downstairs ten minutes later, his sleeves scrunched up, carrying a bottle of wine. Russell’s great-grandfather came from Naples, his grandfather from Uniondale. They were Italians on the lean side, slimmed by the depression and emigration, but Russell had been their pride’s rebirth, built like a hog. One of the high school toughs, he’d also been my best friend and my protector in those years, a fellow outcast before he filled out, and then simply an A student who happened to wrestle. Now in his fifties, he had a lined face, permanent stubble, soft lips, and close-cropped gray hair. A jolly miniature giant devoted to triathlons, he cycled miles around Central Park in the mornings, a rhino on a tricycle. His gut was his only handicap: it was shaped like a cube, as if he’d swallowed a small moving box.

  He waved the wine bottle at me. “Let’s get to it already.”

  “What are we drinking?” I said, banking the fire.

  “Cherry pie. A rare California Cab. Trust me, it’s a lot better than you deserve.”

  “Thank you.”

  “I’m serious, you won’t appreciate it,” Russell said. “Your tongue is tone deaf. You’ll get strawberry jam if you’re lucky.” He’d swapped his blazer for a thick black turtleneck sweater, his distressed designer blue jeans for a pair of Levi’s. I put on Brad Mehldau, something pleasant.

  Russell stuck his nose deep in the glass after pouring. “A friend of mine in Sonoma makes this in his garage. Huge in the game. Look for tobacco notes. What do you think?”

  “Cherry pie,” I said, swallowing, and sat down. Wine was Russell’s music, not mine.

  “Here, let’s toast,” he said, thrusting his glass at me. After a pause, he dropped his head two inches: “To Maine skies.”

  “To Maine.”

  “So, okay, give me something.”

  “What?”

  “I’m up here from New York. I’ve earned it.”

  He squinched his eyes.

  “Get out of here,” I said.

  Russell took my hand. “Vic, I want to know how you are. How you’re doing. Who you’re sleeping with.”

  I laughed. “I’ve got nothing. Work is about it.”

  “The monk. Well, you look awful.” He spread his hands over his knees. His fingers were baby pink and stubby. “Honestly, you’ve got bags under your eyes. Don’t forget, I’ve nursed you, I’ve seen you at your worst. You’re worse now, swear to God.”

  Part of this was true. After Sara’s accident, Russell moved in for a month, despite my refusal to have him: he did the cooking, cleaning, making arrangements I couldn’t possibly. Calling me every morning for a month afterward to check in. Calling me each year on the anniversary.

  It came blurting out: “Well, I’ve been seeing someone.”

  Jesus Christ.

  “Bullshit.”

  “She’s younger.”

  “What’s young?”

  “Twenty-five.”

  Russell cracked his knuckles.

  “What?”

  “Go on.”

  “She works at Soborg. I’m crazy. It’s crazy.”

  “What’s the sex like?” Russell asked.

  “No, it’s more than sex.”

  “So describe the sex.”

  “It’s not about sex. She dances.”

  “All right, you’re a magician. She dances?”

  The words just came out: “Burlesque. You know, those old stripteases. It’s cool now.”

  “Cool now.”

  “Honestly, we don’t even have sex anymore.”

  After a moment he leaned over to whisper, “Because you can’t get it up.”

  “I’m crazy about her,” I said.

  “Yeah, of course.” He refilled our glasses. “Of course you are. ‘Crazy’ is the billion-dollar word up here.”

  Russell kicked a log back into the fire.

  “So what are your erections like? I’m being serious. Medium-soft? Full-bodied when you’re by yourself?”

  “Fuck you.”

  “Are you on the pill?”

  “Viagra? No.”

  He sat there, staring off.

  “Has she taken you shopping yet?”

  “I don’t get it.”

  “Hey, neither do I. Though where a girl goes shopping around here, who knows. I’ll take that as a no.”

  “No.”

  “This has been going on how long?”

  “Beginning of April.”

  “These days that’s a decade. How often do you take her out?”

  “We don’t,” I said, “it’s just Fridays,” and already I was regretting every word, confessing to the man who once compared my wife to real estate, assuming Sara had it right.

  “It’s just Fridays. You sound like one of those in-flight magazines.” Russell rolled his shoulders. “You don’t see it, do you? You are just about toast. I give it three weeks.”

  “I think she’s seeing someone else.”

  “Oh, do you? Of all the out-of-touch scientists in the world.” He clawed for my arm and I let myself be pulled down. “Listen to me. What juju have you got? What is your pull, exactly?”

  We were inches from each other. I went back to my chair.r />
  “You’re not bankrolling her, you’re not dating, you’re not fucking her.”

  “You don’t get it.”

  “I don’t get it? Victor, you haven’t dated since Haight-Ashbury. These are women of the next century. Two months ago, I live and breathe, listen to me, I had a twenty-six-year-old, I thought I was going to marry this one. Me. Let’s imagine here that I’m not kidding, imagine me seriously considering being married again. Now picture the girl it would take: beautiful, intelligent, vivacious. Already at her age she’s running her own PR company. Beautiful clothes, jewelry, I mean, great taste, she didn’t need shit from me, and not for love or money would I let her go. We met at a charity auction, and three weeks later I’m on the Tiffany’s website. Fuck it, listen, I was serious, then this past week she informs me we’re through. Monday morning. That’s it, up and done. And never mind that she’s dumping me, it’s the rationale that gives us clarity, because she used me. She drained me dry and was ready to move on. That’s how they operate now, Victor, I’m telling you, vampirically. You are to be tried and returned, like she bought you off the Internet. Because I’m too old to marry, is her excuse, I’m a charity event. I’m not the type she would marry anyway, she says, for clauses A through K, plus she has her own money, her career, plenty of other men she can call for sex, and the sex was losing steam, she points out, fine, but listen, this was over e-mail. With bullet points. How the fuck do you format bullet points? Buddy, her generation had e-mail in elementary school. Monday morning, seven a.m., I’m standing in line at Starbucks reading my BlackBerry, I haven’t even gotten my fucking coffee yet.” He paused. “You think I’m up here to see you? Shit, I had to escape. Manhattan’s for the Amazons now.”

  He said, “You know what a BlackBerry is, right?”

  The fire would need more fuel to keep going. We finished our wine. Russell shivered and rolled down his sleeves, staring out into the forest. “See, I worry about you. These are not your woods. Hell, I’m surprised your jackets don’t turn camo.”

  “So you’re saying what?” I jammed my hands in my pockets. I was up, pacing again, kicking the logs around the firebox. “Because I could stand here for some clarity.”

  “What are you, freaking out?”

  “You’re the ladies’ man, you’re the goddamn expert.”

  Russell watched me with his fingers laced behind his head. “Brother, this is your rebound play. Find a nice innkeeper. Find some fifty-year-old divorcee who will listen. You’re out of your league with Gypsy Rose, you’re fucking it up. Just act your age. Be steadfast for once.

  “Shit, your dick must be killing you,” he added, “all blue-balled up.”

  There wasn’t anything to do but finish the wine. Russell laughed quietly and lit a cigar. Afterward, he went inside to make coffee, real coffee, assuming I’d join him, and I said sure, but I didn’t want any.

  Two in the morning, I was tired of staring at the ceiling. I padded over to my office and booted up the computer and sat down heavily in the chair. One e-mail I read twice: Sorry, schedule fuckup. You can come over if you want. Reply to this first tho.

  I typed: Too late?

  Five minutes later: Not too late, no.

  Russell’s snoring was loud enough that I could hear it in the driveway. I quietly rolled down the gravel, past my neighbors, then on Route 3 I floored it, hitting five thousand RPMs in third gear. With most houses set back from the road, the route to Regina’s was a canyon ride, a night race through the desert. For the last mile, I turned off the lights and drove by the moon.

  Then, just before Regina’s cottage, deep in the woods, a car came flying at me, its lights out like mine. Time seemed to slow. I threw my headlights on and swerved out of the way, barely avoiding an accident, and a Ford Taurus sedan glided by in black and green streaks, as though in a dream. Maybe it was a dream. In the headlights’ punch I saw Regina’s roommate, Lindsay, glaring back at me.

  I’d seen her only once before, over Regina’s shoulder, a tall girl with dyed green hair, back in May. Regina had been standing in the door explaining how Lindsay had come home from work with a stomach virus. “Didn’t you look at the porch light?” Regina hissed through her teeth, her facial muscles draining her cheeks to purse her lips, and I remembered how, on our first afternoon, Regina had decided that this would be our secret sign: porch light on, sailors’ delight, but porch light off, and sailors tack back to Somesville.

  Tonight the light was on. Regina was waiting in a chair with a magazine, wearing a kimono. She greeted me with a yawn, her breath vinegary from liquor. I sat on the bed and removed my shoes. I didn’t know what to say. It seemed impossible to say anything without meaning too much.

  A shawl had been tossed over her desk lamp. She put a record on the portable turntable I’d bought her, and a piano led off “A Pretty Girl Is Like a Melody.” Regina held her robe closed and started twirling figure eights, her show of feints and teases. I told myself to relax. A minute later, the record stopped. Regina jolted awake, the robe’s hem still swinging above her knees when she froze.

  “Aren’t you going to fix it?”

  I jumped up, but I couldn’t get the arm to work again. Regina kicked off her heels and walked out, a little wobbly, her flat feet slapping on the floor.

  “Someone is getting laid when I come back,” she said from the hall. “Let that be known.”

  Regina returned and pushed me backward, intently focused on one thing. As for me, I was thinking of Russell laughing by the fire. I fumbled with her bra. I kissed her nipples but I couldn’t remember if she liked that. When she said in my ear, “Let’s do it doggie-style,” I froze. I swung Regina around and threw her down, playacting the aggressor, seeing the will working through her face as she struggled to believe that here was Victor, confident, manhandling, while a voice in my head repeated the words softly, doggie-style, remembering how Sara had always hated that phrase. What would Sara have done with “wife beater”? Like a bus of kids driving back and forth between my ears, overjoyed with new slang: dogs fucking doggie-style.

  A few moments of mutual, unsuccessful coaxing before Regina, unable to hide the disappointment any longer, rolled away and made herself come. Two minutes. Three minutes. Rap music exploded through the woods, a dog started barking. Regina returned with one hand on the mattress, propping herself up, one hand on my chest.

  “Chéri, what’s going on?”

  “I’d rather not.”

  “Now don’t be bothered.”

  “Regina, please?”

  A minute later, rather testy: “Well, I’d like to be here for you, you know. But first you need to let me be here at all.”

  “Can we just not talk?”

  “Sure. Great.” She pulled down the scarf and covered her face. My mind drove through a whiteout. A minute later: “You’re like miles away anyway.”

  “Look, I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I have two grants on the wire.”

  “Well, don’t feel the need to apologize.” She sat up. “You don’t need my forgiveness.”

  I didn’t know if I was being accused or encouraged.

  “I said I’m sorry.”

  Regina fell back on the pillows. When I leaned over, her lips drew down. “I don’t want any favors,” she said.

  She rolled away.

  “I don’t know what to say.”

  “Whatever, you were horny, I was horny,” she said a moment later. “Fantastic.”

  I broke the world record for fastest-dressed. I closed the front door and marched out, snapping branches underfoot, kicking up gravel. Regina’s room glowed with her lamp in the window. Then Otter Creek disappeared. Seal Harbor disappeared. I let the Audi coast home in neutral down the hills.

  On the phone one midnight, the evening after our third encounter:

  “I got a letter from my brother today.”

  “I didn’t know you had a brother.”

  “You never asked. He has problems. I don’t really talk about him.”

>   “So people still write letters?”

  “I get one every week. I mean, he doesn’t have anyone else to talk to, I don’t think. He doesn’t communicate with my parents. They have to ask through me how he’s doing.”

  “What’s he say?”

  “Oh, you know, the average digressions of someone who’s been abandoned by their family, trying to make it as Detroit’s next White Stripe.” Regina laughed and didn’t say anything for a moment. “Okay, he’s clinically depressed, though not that my parents ever knew. They saw a happy kid who just started disappearing. The soccer star who quit all activities and listened to Norwegian death metal. Running away. Around fifteen, he installed this big deadbolt on his bedroom door and wouldn’t come out. I had to bring him meals on a tray. I mean, I was reading Wuthering Heights, it was a bit too parallel. But my parents were like, so this is how their generation rebels against the man, so whatever. They wouldn’t really listen to him. They thought they lacked the vocabulary, or he did. They wouldn’t even listen to me if I tried explaining what I thought was wrong with Eric, my brother’s name is Eric, since it wasn’t him informing them. Indirectly they understood Eric needed help, but they required a direct plea.”

  “They wanted to participate.”

  “My parents don’t so much communicate as signal their thoughts. Like Eric telling me he’s splitting apart inside, no small comment, but my father rolled his eyes when I told him, and slammed a door. You have to understand, my parents used to be hard-core. Part of the movement, and depression was something conformists suffered, the malaise of the bourgeoisie, et cetera. But to Eric, you know, he actually was splitting apart. As far as he knew, there was all of us in the real world, me, my parents, the animals, the neighbors, the kids in school, the people on TV, and then there was him, alone inside his head. I mean, he trusted me, I was the conduit. But then he found out what I’d told our father. I mean, I had to, he was sick, he had this need. But my dad got angry about it, he’d banged on the door until the deadbolt slid and confronted Eric. See, he thought by repeating to Eric this confidence he’d buy his own access, then Eric could cut the quote-unquote bullshit that way, the stuff he was feeding me, and they’d just talk straight, man to man. And of course that shut Eric up. Shut me out, too. I mean, eventually Eric understood why I’d told them, he came around two weeks later, to the idea it was me saying, ‘I’m worried about you, I want to help you.’ But part of him still blamed me when my parents weren’t able to fix anything. So he’s seventeen, I’m fourteen, he goes to school and actually does okay, otherwise he’s in his room with his headphones on, no hair, he’s a skinhead by that point—”