On a Night Like This (3 page)

He remembered a rip-roaring fight. Six months ago, the director of
The Geography of Love
had invited Luke to work with him in L.A., on the set—but Luke was already writing a new script and didn’t want to be distracted. Emily begged him to take her to L.A., to let her watch production, go to parties, take lunches. He hated all that and chose to live in San Francisco, away from Hollywood, so that he could do what he did best—write. When he turned the director down, she was furious. She raged, accusing him of being selfish. This was his career, wasn’t it? he countered. She left the house, slept at Dana’s for a night, came back the next morning and they fell wearily into each other’s arms. Her mouth at his ear, she had murmured, “I know you. I won’t ask again.”

So why, in the end, had she left without an argument?
Tell me you’re lonely,
Luke thought.
Tell me what you need. Scream it, cry it, slam doors in my face. But don’t leave me like that.

He sank down on the bed.
I need a slipper to chew on,
he thought. And he rolled over, his head on her pillow. Still, after all these months, he could breathe her in.

An hour later, he awoke, feeling drunk and hungover at the same time. He dragged himself into the shower, found fresh clothes to wear, poured himself another bourbon. He needed food, but he could wait for that.

Sweetpea didn’t want to follow him out of the house—she was home now, dragging the slipper from room to room.

“Stay here, girl,” Luke told her finally. “I’ll be back.” What he wanted was to head to his cabin in the woods and never return. First he’d talk to Dana. Then he’d fetch Sweetpea and flee the city.

He drove across town to Pacific Heights. Dana and her husband lived in a pink Victorian, tucked between a sky blue Victorian and a mauve Victorian. Suddenly San Francisco seemed candy sweet, and Luke wondered how he had ever loved the city. He rang the doorbell and glanced at his watch, 9:45
P.M.
Saturday night. And he knew when the door opened that he’d be falling into a Geller dinner party, the last place on earth he wanted to be.

Brady answered the door, clapped him on the back as if thrilled to see him. The bastard had never liked him. He was a big, once-handsome man, now ruddy from too many martinis and burly from business lunches and three-star dinners. “Just in time for the main course, Luke,” Brady said. “Come join the gang.”

“No,” Luke said, holding ground despite the man’s insistent pressure on his arm. “I just need to talk to Dana. For a minute. I’m not staying.”

“We’re in the middle of dinner. A few other couples here, nothing fancy. You’ll join us, talk to Dana later. It’s been—what?—months. We’re dying to hear what you’ve been up to. My friends would love to meet you.”

Of course,
Luke thought.
Show me off.
For years Brady had shown no interest in him or his writing—until Luke had won an Academy Award. Suddenly he mattered in the world Brady inhabited.

“No, Brady. Just get Dana,” Luke insisted.

“Who’s there, dear?” Dana’s voice called out.

“Luke,” Brady said, and Dana appeared in the hallway. “You were right. He’s back in town. Tell him to join us.”

“No,” Dana said. “He doesn’t have to do that. Go ahead, Brady. Let me talk to him.”

Brady shrugged, clapped Luke’s shoulder, pecked Dana’s cheek, moved on down the hall. Luke could hear uproarious laughter spilling out of the dining room.
We would be there,
he thought.
Emily and I. Would we be enjoying ourselves?
Luke couldn’t remember.

“I can’t help you,” Dana said quietly. “I told you that.”

He looked at her. She was tall and elegant, hair swept up into some sort of chignon, a rope of pearls gracing her long neck. She was a dark version of blond Emily, and the resemblance pulled at Luke’s heart.

“I just want to talk to her,” Luke said.

“She’s gone away. You won’t find her.”

“My God,” Luke said. He saw her hand move down across the swell of her belly. “Look at that.” He reached his hand out—wanting to touch her—and he saw her step away. He dropped his hand.

“She wouldn’t leave you when you’re pregnant,” he said. “She’d stay close.”

Dana shook her head.

“How many months?”

“Four,” she said. “Please go, Luke. I have nothing to offer you.”

“Your husband offered dinner.”

“My husband’s an idiot. You know that.” She finally smiled.

“You look good,” Luke said.

“You look like shit.”

He ran his hand across his beard—it was easy not to shave in the mountains.

“I like it,” he told her. “Makes me look like someone else. I look in the mirror and I’m always surprised. Who the hell is that? And damn if I can’t figure out the answer.”

“Are you going back to your cabin?”

“Not till I find her.”

“Let her go.”

“I tried,” he said. “It didn’t work.”

He turned and headed down the tall steps leading toward the street. He could hear the shrill laugh of someone in the dining room and the echo followed him all the way to the car.

Sweetpea wouldn’t leave the house on Potrero Hill. Luke was too tired to fight with her—“One night, that’s all,” he warned the dog, and then settled in on the big bed.

When he woke once in the middle of the night, he reached out for Emily—something he never did in the single bed at his cabin—and then he pulled himself out of bed, stumbled into the bathroom to find a sleeping pill, or two, and lay awake, for hours, listening to his snoring pup, waiting for unconsciousness.

He thought about falling in love with Emily, an almost effortless, cool slide into life with her. She did the graphics for his film publicity,
Pescadero
—an ice blue sea, a strip of flat white beach, a girl lying alone in the sand, curled on her side. When he met her, he told her the poster was perfect, and when she smiled at him, so obviously pleased and surprised and just a little shy, he asked her to dinner on the spot. Within days they were living together. He would wake up in the middle of the night and watch her sleep, amazed by her beauty and his luck. When he met Dana, she said to him, “So, you’re the guy who treats my sister like a princess.”

“Is that a good thing?” he had asked.

“As long as you know that she’s not,” Dana had said. Sisterly concern or jealousy? He was never sure.

And now, in the middle of the night, with some vague scent of Emily still on her pillow, he conjured up memories of their marriage. An argument about having children—she wasn’t ready, she insisted, year after year. An argument about canceling a vacation in Italy—he wasn’t finished with his script, and no, he couldn’t work while riding a bicycle through vineyards. An argument about his Academy Award speech—why hadn’t he mentioned her?

His legs tangled in the sheets. He was hot, half awake, restless, and he reached for water on his bedside table. To quiet his mind he lay back down and imagined a scene. He had finished work for the night. The writing had gone well. He walked quietly into the bedroom, where Emily was already sleeping. He undressed and slipped in beside her. She turned toward him, smiling. “I’ve missed you,” she whispered.

“God, I miss you,” he told her.

“Shh,” she said. “Don’t wake me. Make love to me. As quietly as you possibly can.”

He stroked her body while she slept. He climbed on top of her and entered her and they moved together as slowly and sweetly as the tug of the ocean.

He woke after noon, though he vaguely remembered letting Sweetpea out into the backyard to pee sometime in the early morning. He was groggy and miserable. He dragged himself into the shower and stood there, hot water beating down on him. In the corner of the stall he saw a razor, Emily’s razor. He picked it up—strawberry blond hairs caught under the blade. He tossed the razor across the bathroom, and it landed squarely in the wastebasket.

He found coffee in the kitchen, found the coffee press stashed away somewhere. It seemed that Emily had left most of the kitchen things. Well, he did most of the cooking. But when he pressed the coffee, he thought of mornings when he prepared breakfast for her and brought it to her in bed, and he cursed her for not having packed up every goddamn thing in the house and taken it with her.

Sweetpea followed Luke around, from room to room, as Luke searched for winter clothes to take back with him to the cabin. Evenings were cold in the Santa Cruz Mountains. The dog was whimpering—she knew they were leaving. “Where the hell did she store the ski clothes?” Luke muttered, throwing open closet doors, pulling down storage boxes.

One large box fell on him, then tumbled to the floor. A carton marked
tahoe.
Taped and retaped. They skied once or twice a winter—she liked it more than he did.

He tore open the box and found what he was looking for: gloves, scarves, down vests, heavy sweaters, long underwear. Emily’s were there, too—she had forgotten to clean out her own stored clothes. He picked up a ski sweater and held it to his face. It smelled only of cardboard—there was none of her sweet smell here.

And then, in a moment, he was throwing things wildly from the box: goggles, which crashed against the wall, hats—ridiculous hats—which made him ache for her face in front of him now. At the bottom of the box was a ski ticket for Squaw Valley. He picked it up, wiping at his eyes. On it was scrawled a phone number, a San Francisco number that he didn’t recognize. In Emily’s handwriting. And under it she had written,
Just tell him: I’ll be home tomorrow.

Luke stood, leaving the mess of the hallway strewn around him, and walked into Emily’s study. She was a graphic designer, had worked from home the last couple of years. Now the study was empty of portfolios and drawings and artist materials, and even her framed work—the posters for his films—was gone from the walls. He sat at her bare desk and picked up the telephone.

A year ago, they had taken their last ski trip. To Squaw. With Dana and Brady. Emily had been miserable, said she had a project and a deadline and too much pressure from the client. They went home a day early.
I’ll be home tomorrow.

He dialed the number. A man answered.

“I’m calling from PacBell,” Luke said. “I’d like to tell you about some new services—”

“It’s Sunday, buddy. Leave us alone.” And the man hung up the phone.

Luke didn’t recognize the voice.

Luke raced from the house and into his truck, tucking the ski lift ticket into the back pocket of his jeans.

“You’re imagining things,” Dana said.

Luke had caught her walking out her door and had followed her into her car and off to the farmers’ market. Now he seemed to be serving as some sort of grocery boy, carrying baskets full of produce that she bought at each stand along the way.

“Just listen to me,” he insisted. “She wrote it down on her lift ticket. Gave it to you. It said: ‘Just tell him:
I’ll be home tomorrow.
’”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Luke raced to keep up with her as she tossed a bag of tangerines in his basket, then moved on to a stand of Asian vegetables.

“You do, Dana. You would know. She told you everything.”

“There wasn’t anything to tell. Who knows what that stupid lift ticket means. It could mean anything.”

“It means she was having an affair.”

Dana stopped and turned toward Luke. They watched each other for a moment. She seemed about to say something—then she shook her head.

“Would it be easier to imagine she left you for another man? That some other man lured her away from you? Is that better than thinking that you lost her all by yourself? Then yes, I called that number. I said, ‘She’ll be home tomorrow.’”

Luke stood, in the middle of the marketplace, not speaking, not moving.

Dana looked around, embarrassed, as if watching for spectators. “My God, you’re a fool.” She turned away from him, grabbing handfuls of purple eggplants and bok choy.

Luke left her baskets on the ground, turned and walked away.

By the time he made it back to his car in Pacific Heights, then across town to Potrero Hill, it was almost six in the evening. Sweetpea needed a walk. Then he needed food. He was about to prepare something to eat from the cans in the pantry when the phone rang. He should remember to disconnect the phone, he thought. He should remember to sell the damn house, he thought.

“Luke?” the voice asked.

“Speaking.”

“Trish Keller. From Reese? The good old days?”

“Trish Keller,” Luke said, climbing onto a bar stool at the kitchen counter. “How the hell are you?”

“I’m OK. Old. Like all of us, I guess.”

“You’re not old, Trish. You’re always seventeen.”

“Yeah, then you better not come to the reunion meeting tonight.”

“What meeting?”

“I heard you were coming.”

“How?”

“Harrison Driver. I got your number from him. I tried the number he gave me at your mountain cabin first. Then I called here.”

“Oh, Christ. Harrison Driver. I forgot about that.”

“You’re not coming.” Her voice lowered with disappointment.

“I don’t know. No. I’m not coming. I don’t even live here anymore. I’m leaving in five minutes.”

“You could just come by and say hello before you head out of town.”

“You live in San Francisco? Last I heard you were in Boston. Married. To a fucking banker or something.”

“No, the banker fucked me,” Trish said, and laughed. “Divorced now. I don’t know where I live. I’m out visiting Ruth Vargas—she convinced me to go to this shindig.”

“If I come, can we ignore everyone else and just talk for an hour or two?”

“Oh, God. You haven’t changed.”

“No, I’m not seducing you. I’m just curious. Twenty-five years is a long time.”

“Then come,” she said, and she sounded shy. Trish was never shy. “I’d love to see you again.”

Luke looked over at Sweetpea, shrugged his shoulders. “Guess I could use real food before I head out. What time? Where?”

“Now,” Trish said, laughing. “Coco’s Café. I’m heading out. Called you ’cause I got scared.”

“You? Scared? Why would you be scared?”