Animal Husbandry (26 page)

I, Dr. Marie Goodall, was a Nobel-Prize-worthy genius. Maybe Larry King would agree to interview me in disguise. Or, better yet, Barbara Walters
.

That’s when I saw the shirt.

I will never forget standing there in the hall watching Evelyn walk toward me in that shirt, and how I nodded good morning to her as if nothing were wrong, and how I made myself start walking again before she noticed that my insides were caving in. Whatever progress I had made drained out of me suddenly and completely.

She was wearing his shirt.

I couldn’t think about the rest of it yet.

I sat down at my desk.

My hands were shaking.

Adrenaline was coursing through my body at lightning speed, and I was afraid I might faint or that my heart would explode. I stood up and shut my door, and then I sat back down at my desk and stared at the phone.

An hour later I picked up the receiver.

And dialed Ray’s extension.

We made small talk for a minute or two, and then somehow I think I finally said,
Evelyn is wearing your shirt. The shirt I gave you
, and he said,
I know
, and then I said,
Are you two seeing each other?
and he said,
Yes, I guess we are
.

We were silent.
How long have you known?
he said, and then, to save face, even though by that point I didn’t have much of it left to save, I said,
For a while I guess, but I was never really sure
.

So, do you hate me?
he asked, and I said,
I don’t know, I don’t think so
, and then he said,
I’m glad. I would hate it if you hated me
.

He made a joke then, or maybe I made one, I’m not sure which now, and sometime after that we hung up. I remember staring at the phone and watching it ring a little while later though I couldn’t hear it, and that Carla came to my door and told me Joan was holding.

I watched my hand pick up the receiver, and then I felt my lips moving as I told Joan what had happened.

“Jesus,” she said.

“I feel like I’m going to throw up. Like I’m … Like everything is …” I had no idea how to finish the sentence, so I didn’t.

“Jesus,” Joan said again. “What are you going to do?”

The nausea passed, but a deep, crushing feeling that I was rapidly losing ground—that I was regressing and that a major setback was imminent—replaced it. “I don’t know,” I said. “I can’t talk right now.”

“Listen to me. Don’t do anything stupid, okay?”

I was silent.

“Jane? I’ll call you later at home. Okay?”

“Okay,” I said finally, and hung up.

Then I closed my door and proceeded to smoke myself through the next six hours.

At the end of the day, after everyone had cleared out for their summer beach weekends, Eddie stuck his head in my doorway.

“Are you ready to leave?”

I looked up at him. “Leave?” I thought for a second or two. “No, actually. I have a few things to finish up. I’ll see you at home later.”

“I probably won’t be there.”

I said nothing.

“Are you okay?” Eddie asked.

“Yes, I’m fine.”

“You look …”

“I’m just tired,” I said. “Long day. Long week.” I lit a cigarette
and started shuffling papers around on my desk. “I’ll see you later.”

After an hour I went into Ray’s office and ransacked his desk, went through his drawers, through all his papers, and when I found no traces of Evelyn, I ransacked Evelyn’s desk.

Did I say
setback?
This was more like a psychotic break.

And there, in the back of her top drawer, where she kept pencils and pens and loose change, I found her date book from the past year. I took the date book back to my office and shut the door, and then I sat down and flipped through the pages, back to the fall before the January that Ray and I had met:

September.

October.

November.

Haircut
.

Gym
.

Parents in town
.

December.

January.

February.

Dentist
.

Chiropractor
.

Ballet
.

March.

April.

May.

Dinner with R
.

Bike ride with R
.

Movie with R
.

June.

Dinner with R
.

Central Park with R
.

Mercer St
.

I felt my mouth drop open. They
had
been seeing each other before us—
right
before us, I realized.
Right up until the night before the hair imitation
.

I continued flipping the pages:

July through October (while Ray and I were seeing each other and right after we stopped).

Nothing
.

November.

December.

Nothing
.

January.

Weekend at R’s parents
.

February.

March.

April.

Picnic
.

Yale w/R for reunion
.

Weekend in Montauk
.

They had been seeing each other all year—
all year, those motherfuckers!
—going to movies and reunions and fucking
Montauk
while I had been moping around Eddie’s apartment, with my different kinds of sadness, reading all those fucking books on monkeys!

But it didn’t make sense.

Evelyn wasn’t a
New
Cow: She was technically an
Old
Cow.

Like Mia.

Like me.

Only he had stayed with Mia and gone back to Evelyn.

Un
like me.

I couldn’t think about that now—the idea that the New-Cow theory was
invalid
—so I xeroxed the relevant pages of Evelyn’s date book, returned the date book to her desk, grabbed a few accordion files from the supply cabinet on my way out, and went home, still boiling.

I emerged from the subway downtown and stopped at a liquor store around the corner from the apartment to pick up a pint of Jack Daniel’s. I opened the bottle and took several gulps from it before I’d even gotten home, and then, once inside, I continued to swig from it as I paced from the living room through the hole in my wall and back out again, trying to figure out what to do next.

I got my notebook.

MOTHERFUCKER
!
I wrote in big block permanent-black demented letters, like that inscription to Eddie in the commitmentphobia book, and recounted the day’s events in increasingly illegible handwriting. Joan called several times while I was writing, leaving frantic messages on the machine wanting to know how I was and where I was, but I didn’t pick up the phone. I couldn’t talk yet. All I could do was drink and pace and write, trying to fit the smooth little pieces of the scenario back together: whether Ray had left me for Evelyn or had just started seeing her afterward because he was lonely; whether they’d been seeing each other for a while or it had started recently—and what the deal was with Mia. Whatever the correct scenario was, I couldn’t get over the fact that not only were they sleeping together but I, Dr. Marie Goodall, had not known.

But the most devastating part of it was that my research had
obscured the biggest truth of all: that Ray had moved on—to someone else—and I had not.

I went into my room and picked up the manila envelope off the floor and dumped its contents onto the bed. Papers, photographs, poems, stupid little seaside souvenirs Ray had given me fell onto the blanket. For a minute I was tempted to throw it all out the window into the alley.

But I didn’t.

I wouldn’t.

It was evidence: evidence that our relationship had existed; evidence that I hadn’t been crazy—at least not then.

I opened one accordion file and put all the papers and photographs neatly into it and marked the front “EVIDENCE” in big black letters. Then I went to my desk and took all my notes—all my scraps of paper, all the xeroxed pages from books, all the newspaper and magazines articles, the list of Eddie’s girlfriends, all my notebooks and case files, and the pages I’d copied from Evelyn’s date book, and put them into two other accordion files marked “PROOF.”

I stared at the accordion folders.

Then I grabbed a yellow legal pad from my desk.

Like a drunk, determined “F. U.” Bailey, I addressed myself to the task of assessing damages with surprising clearheadedness, given my elevated blood alcohol level. And then I passed out.

Compensatory Damages:

To compensate for expenses incurred as a direct result of emotional and psychic injury:

Punitive Damages:

To punish defendant for inflicting excessive and undue emotional damage on plaintiff and to deter defendant from repeating injurious behavior:

$1,225,500.00

Hedonic Damages:

Compensation for loss of quality of life and self-esteem, hopeful outlook on future, personal happiness, and missed social-interaction opportunities:

Two blurred figures—a man and a woman—cross a charming room: cozy, warm, with red-velvet walls and a fire burning in the fireplace. Voices are heard, as is a persistent heartbeat: Flub-dub. Flub-dub. Flub-dub
.

“
God. This apartment is great! It’s huge!” the man says
.

“
I know,” says the woman. “How did you hear about it?
”

The man scratches his head. “I don’t know really. I’ve never been on this street, let alone seen this building, but it’s as if somehow I sensed it was here
.”

They proceed through the vast, fabulous apartment, discussing furnishings and how they will decorate it. They kiss, hold hands, and move into the bedroom
.

Flub-dub. Flub-dub. Flub-dub
.

“
Now that we actually have a bedroom, I think we should buy a bed
,”
the man says
. “
A real one, with a headboard and a footboard. One that’s not directly on the floor
.”

The woman sighs, obviously moved with emotion
. “
A bed of our own. That we’ve slept in only with each other. God. I can’t believe this is happening
.”

The man sighs, obviously moved too
. “
Me either. I’ve never felt this way about anyone before. It’s as if some kind of destiny has brought us together, and brought us here. I love you, Evelyn
.”

“
I love you too, Ray
.”

Flub-dub
.

[
POST-NIGHTMARE SCREAM DELETED
.]

I woke up late the next morning, my head aching from a hangover, my heart pounding from the dream. I felt numb with sadness and misery and crankiness.

After I showered and made coffee, I went into the living room with my cup and sat down at the table to smoke and think. I desperately needed to figure out what to do with my anger so I wouldn’t kill anyone.

Old Cows who discover New Cows are fit to be tied
.

I was on my second cup of coffee and my third cigarette when Eddie got up and came out of his bedroom. He’d been out very late the night before with friends from out of town. I wasn’t looking forward to telling him about my mind-altering discovery. The humiliation and the embarrassment would be too much; I didn’t think I could take any more of either.

He tied the belt of his robe and smiled at me, still warm and fuzzy from sleep.

I shifted my gaze out the window. He walked over to the table, took a sip from my coffee cup, pulled a cigarette out of the pack and lit it.