31 Hours (18 page)

She remembered how vulnerable she’d felt when he’d left, and how that vulnerability had remained with her for months—for years, actually. It had taken her a few months just to recover from the surprise that they actually weren’t going to make it, that she’d chosen someone with whom she couldn’t last, and then she’d lost faith in her own judgment. She’d hidden it, though, because she had Jonas. Without Jonas, she might have fallen apart and climbed into bed for weeks, maybe months. Jonas had saved her from that.

“I feel better, thank you,” she said, and straightened her head.

He dutifully pulled his hands into his lap. “Thank
you
,” he said.

“For what?”

“Letting me stay tonight.”

She sipped her milk, now cool. “It’s nice having you here, Jake. For tonight.”

“You’re magnificent, Carol. You really are.”

She made a scoffing sound. “I was more magnificent at thirty-two,” she said, “when you left me.”

“You know . . .” He hesitated. “You know what that was about, don’t you?”

“Oh, Jake. I shouldn’t have brought it up.”

“Let me say it,” he said. “Let me say it because I want you to hear it. I promise I’ll only say it once, and then I’ll never say it again.”

She rotated her shoulders. “My neck is clenching again,” she said with a short laugh.

“I left because . . .” He took a deep breath. “Because I found out I couldn’t paint. I wasn’t a painter.”

Now she laughed harder. “That feels like a reason that required some hours to invent.”

“We went into adulthood together, you and I,” he said. “And like Jonas, we had our idealism. Our dreams. You realized yours. You became a successful potter, it seemed like in a matter of weeks. You had that show Lily sponsored, and then you were off.”

“I always loved your work,” she said.

He shook his head. “It wasn’t going anywhere. I realized I didn’t have an artistic vision. How could I? I didn’t know where I wanted it to go. I saw I was better at appreciating art than producing it.”

“Jake,” she said, “I really don’t want to spend much time here, but for the sake of honesty—all blame aside, after all it’s been years—what you realized you appreciated was that painter. What was her name?” Only that last line, Carol thought, was dishonest. She
knew
the painter’s name, though she wished she could have forgotten. Sarah Lyster.

“She was a consolation prize, nothing more,” Jake said. “I knew I was going to fail you, and then lose you.”

“You make me sound like a shrew-wife. I never put that kind of pressure on you.”

Jake held his head in both his hands and rubbed his scalp. His blond hair was graying, but he still had a full head of it. And in the moonlight that overflowed through the window, he looked so much like a little boy that, for a second, Carol felt her heart break. She looked down into
the mug of milk, trying to harden herself. He’d always had the ability to affect her this way, to turn her to liquid. The fact was, she’d known all along that she was the best thing he’d ever find. That they fitted together in ways that went beyond logic, beyond words. And still she had to stand aside and watch him screw it up. And then she had to patch herself back together. And she did it. But even though the glue held, the crack remained visible—to her eye, at least.

“We’d created this dream about what we were meant to be together,” he said, “and I could see that, because of me, it wasn’t going to play out as we’d envisioned. I’d have ended up disappointing you.”

She cleared her throat and drained her voice of emotion. “And your having an affair was supposed to be less disappointing than giving up painting and opening an art gallery?”

“Look, I don’t say I handled it well; I don’t say I handled it with complete self-knowledge. But a few years of therapy later, at least I understand
why
I squandered what I had. Why meeting your eyes suddenly became so difficult. And—I’m sorry, Carol.”

This apology was a first, and something Carol hadn’t anticipated. They sat for a few minutes, silent. Carol listened to a siren from below. She heard the elevator pass her floor on the way down. Thinking about the time lost with this big, foolish, brilliant bear of a man beside her, she felt a flood pushing at the back of her eyes. She was glad it was too dark for him to see.

“I don’t think you have anything to be ashamed of in the choices you made,” she said when she could talk normally. Then she clarified: “The
professional
choices, I mean.”

He laughed. “The personal ones are another matter, then?”

She sighed. “If it weren’t that, you know, it might have ended up
being something else that came between us. How many people stay together decade after decade in this country?”

“Mmm.”

“We’re lucky we shared what we did; I still feel that. And we had Jonas.”

“Jonas.” Jake nodded, reaching out to squeeze Carol’s knee.

“And now.” She rose. “I should try to get to sleep. So should you.”

He stood up with her and held out his arms, and she let herself sink into them, and she let him embrace her. She felt how the shape of him had changed since he’d last hugged her like this, how he’d thickened and softened, and she put her head against his chest and felt his breath, and she joined him, one, two, three, four, five breaths. She gave herself that. And then she disengaged herself and touched his cheek and said good-night and went to bed, not to sleep but to lie and think and talk aloud and wait until the morning brought what it would.

NEW YORK: 3:14 A.M.
MECCA: 11:14 A.M.

Sonny tugged down his ski cap until it met his eyebrows and then, trying to steal heat from within his own body, breathed heavily in the direction of the scarf circled twice around his neck. The moist air from his mouth landed mainly on his beard, where it did little more than add to the slender icicles already dangling from his chin-hairs. Thank God, at least, for that last serving of hot stew Ruby had dished out before he’d left, and the knitted scarf she’d handed him on his way out the door. “Blessed scarf,” he’d called it, kissing it and bowing before her, and she’d laughed. Swathed in maroon wool, his neck felt itchy but cozy enough. The rest of him, though, was plenty grateful when he spotted the green symbol of the metro station ahead. Home. Hurrying past white steam rising thickly from the darkness of a manhole, he scrambled down the stairs, a squirrel diving for its burrow.

A cold of a clammier sort circulated underground, but it felt more bearable than above, where the greedy wind tried to strip naked anybody foolish or desperate enough to be out. A cop stood on the other side of the turnstile, holding a nightstick in his right hand and tapping it against his left palm, beating a nameless tune like a musician with a mission. It was O’Neil, a middle-aged sergeant with a worn face plenty firm, but generous, too. Sonny had grown to like O’Neil over the years and thought the feeling was mutual. Dutifully, and a little showy-like,
Sonny pulled a MetroCard out of his back pocket and ran it through the machine, trying to look virtuous. O’Neil shook his head with a slight smile, silently signaling that Sonny wasn’t putting one over on him, that he knew Sonny had used a dime to crease his card and get in for free, just like they all did. No way O’Neil could bust him, though, since there was no proving it.

“Morning, officer,” Sonny said. “Awful cold and early for you to be out.”

“Sonny.” O’Neil nodded a greeting. “Still kicking, I see.”

“Yessiree. Ain’t your usual hours, are they, O’Neil?”

“Ain’t hours I want, either. They’re a bit jumpy at headquarters this week. They got us doing all kinds of crazy things.”

“These times,” Sonny said, shaking his head sympathetically. “How’s the family?”

O’Neil smiled. “Oldest boy got a scholarship to SUNY-Purchase,” he said. “Happy as he can be. Studying philosophy or some damn thing, but the wife is happy, too, because he’s so close.”

“Kids heading out into the world. Means you done well,” Sonny said.

O’Neil shrugged. “Hey, Sonny,” he said, “you hear they’re doling out blankets next Saturday morning at the Church of the Redemption, right above the Atlantic Street station?”

“Can’t say I did.”

“Might get yourself on over there. Farmer’s Almanac says it’s going to be a cold one.”

“Just might do that, thanks.” Sonny nodded and headed downstairs toward the uptown F-train. Another officer stood on the platform. He wasn’t anyone Sonny knew, so he shuffled on by and sat on the bench.

Weekends, the platform would be crowded at this hour, full of clubbers
headed home. Sonny didn’t mind the late-night company, though it did bother him that his visitors, after hours spent yelling over music, were often still speaking in too-loud voices. It was the time and place, after all, to be respectful—if not of other passengers, at least of sleeping children and the dead.

Weeknights were a different, quieter story. Tonight, except for the officer and Sonny, only one other person stood on the platform: a young Hispanic woman wearing fingerless gloves, black pants, and a thick jacket embroidered with the initials TSA. Transport Security Administration. Sonny guessed she was headed home after a shift at one of the airports, checking bags, looking for terrorists. She probably wasn’t much over twenty years old. Pinned to her jacket was an inch-high plastic teddy bear, the kind of trinket you might expect to see worn by a little girl. Her eyes were sleepy slits, and her lips seemed welded together. She’d clogged her ears with tiny headphones, listening to some beat pumped directly into her brain to cut out the rest of the world. Sonny didn’t like those machines. Especially when he was working, because the digital music players made it too easy for people to overlook both his need and the opportunity he offered them.

But his objection to these devices was larger and less self-serving than that. He appreciated that this was a cauldron of a city and that sometimes, especially trapped in the subway—the bowels, some called it—folks were forced to stare straight at something that might be jarring or even alarming, something they thought they should escape from. But in Sonny’s view, it served better to consider the subway as a pot of the most delicious soup imaginable, warming the soul on the cold night and chock-full of ingredients both exotic and common. Some people were the garlic or pepper—unpleasant when eaten by itself. But they were just as necessary to the soup as the chicken and carrots. And having
to eat a spoonful of that soup broadened folks, taught ’em tolerance, gave ’em appreciation for folks living closer to the edge, or higher on the hog, or whatever was the opposite of their understanding of life. To Sonny’s mind, those earphones flat weren’t good for the human race.

Sonny sat on a bench and considered his evening plans. He wasn’t too tired because he’d taken a nap at Ruby’s. Still, given the right spot, it would suit him to catch a couple hours. A place that smelled harmless enough and offered protection from drafts but wasn’t so far out of the way that he might be jumped. Underground held a fair share of good sleeping spots. Tonight he felt in the mood for the 4th Street station. One particular stretch of concrete, in fact, that he knew would give him privacy while supporting his weary body for a bit.

The train pulled in, and Sonny, the police officer, and the TSA employee all got on, each choosing a different car. Sonny’s car held only one other person: a black transvestite with a bouffant wig. As the train began to move, he—looking very much like a she—rose and sauntered past Sonny, hips swaying almost as if he were a model on a catwalk. He wore a long coat, which he kept open in the front to reveal a silky red dress that couldn’t be keeping him warm. He was well padded; his curves looked authentic. He had nice eyes, too, Sonny saw. Only the black high-laced tennis shoes seemed misplaced. He stopped about three feet away from Sonny, took hold of a high handrail, and flexed his shoulders. Two stops later, he turned around and headed Sonny’s way again, studying him carefully. A couple got on and moved to the far end of the car. The transvestite slid into a seat opposite Sonny, staring openly now. Sonny sat easy, a noncommittal expression on his face, knowing it was best to wait it out, let the fellow finish whatever strutting was needed. The transvestite leaned forward and said in the most feminine voice Sonny could imagine, “You de best thing I’ve seen in a while.”

Sonny chuckled. “Then that ain’t no good for you.”

“Name’s Murilee,” the man-woman said. “You looking for some warmth, some help passing this winter night?”

“Don’t be thinking so,” Sonny said.

“Won’t even charge you much for it. Maybe just a cuppa coffee afterward.”

There was a time, Sonny thought. Time he might’a said yes to this self-created, self-named person who inclined hopefully toward him. Might’a said yes even though he knew that once they were alone together, a dingy padded bra would fall off to reveal a concave chest, and the legs, shaven but still a man’s, would take him back some, and as for the equipment itself, it would be a long way from his dreams. He’d’a said yes despite the shortcomings because people had those days when they felt pretty self-sufficient, and then they had those days when they were needy as a babe. Whether they slept on a bed or a bench, didn’t matter. Everybody had days like that. Loneliness pulled at every part of you, and sixty seconds of adoration, even paid for, seemed the only chance you had at keeping the pieces from flying off in all directions.

“Not tonight,” he said to Murilee. “Thank ye, though.”

“Oooh,” Murilee said. “A polite refusal. You’re making my blood run hot.”

Sonny chuckled, and then, seeing the train pull into 4th Street, he rose. “Good-night, now,” he said. “Be safe.”

“Rather be sexy than safe,” Murilee said, and laughed, low and husky, with cracks that allowed the masculine to peek through. That was the last sweet noise Sonny heard as the train doors closed and the subway sped away.

Sonny passed another couple of cops talking together in low voices as he made his way up one set of stairs. Now he was one level beneath
ground instead of two. The cleaners had already come blasting through, pointing their power spray, and the air smelled of trapped disinfectant, which suited Sonny just fine. Fresh as he was now, he sure didn’t want to lie down someplace that had seen toilet-use. He headed for the stretch he wanted, slightly beyond the edge of the platform. It was a slender ledge, narrow as a chastity bed, and in all the times he’d slept there, nobody’d ever tried to run his pockets, so he considered it safe enough.