Shadow Traffic (29 page)

It wasn't his imagination; almost everyone in the group (except Aaron, who always wore “avant-garde clothes” that he designed himself) was more dressed up than usual, and even most of the men wearing jeans also wore ties and jackets. The women also wore nicer than usual clothes and a full compliment of make up and jewelry, and all because of their mighty visitor from New York, Howard Pike, who stood in the approximate center of the loft-style apartment, a Cheshire cat smile on his face as he accepted congratulations from one obsequious well-wisher after another.

Summers had already had a few opportunities when he could have made his move and shaken Pike's hand, but despite two vodka punches was still hesitating, and while he stalled he found himself chatting with Emir and his American wife, Hanah.

“Big crowd tonight,” Summers said to Emir, half gesturing with his free hand.

“You noticed,” said Emir, in his dryly sarcastic mode, which Summers usually enjoyed, at least in small doses.

“And so well dressed,” Summers said, feeling self-conscious,
in spite of himself, for wearing his typical group party outfit of a sweater and jeans. Emir was wearing jeans too, but also a cleanly pressed white shirt and a navy blue tie and blazer.

“Of course,” Emir said, “Americans, even American bohemians, like our group, must show the greatest respect to an American prize winner.”

Summers forced a laugh and also forced himself not to remind Emir that he'd lived in the States since he was fourteen and had been an American citizen now for many years.

“In case you're wondering,” Hanah said, “his better half made him wear the sports jacket.”

“I commend you on your courage and good taste,” he said to Hanah.

Hanah forced a smile. She didn't enjoy his or Emir's sarcastic, bantering side and now looked as if she was only a few seconds from crying.

“Well, did you do it yet?” Emir said, pointing his plastic cup, no longer filled with white wine, in Pike's direction.

“Do what?” Summers said.

“Make your pilgrimage to Pike's Peak and pay your proper respects.”

“Alas, not yet.”

“Don't worry, he's still just Howie Pike underneath it all, just a little less self-deprecating now, as one might expect, but not really insufferable about it yet, by any means.”

“Coming from you that's a ringing endorsement.”

Emir shrugged. “Life has finally forced me to be humble.”

“Really?” Summers said, as if playing his part to set up another joke, but the punch line didn't come. Instead, of all things, Emir asked him about his ex-wife.

“Are you still in touch with Judy? Do you hear from her?”

“Sometimes. I talked to her on the phone a couple of weeks ago. Why do you ask?”

“I always liked her, and never understood why you two didn't get back together.”

“Emir, you're embarrassing him,” said Hanah.

“No, I'm not Hanah. Am I?” he said, looking directly into his eyes.

“No, of course not. Emir has put in enough hours listening to me whine about Judy that he can ask me more or less anything he wants to about her.”

“So, what's your answer?” Emir said.

“Answer to what?”

“Are you getting back together? What else would I be asking?”

“Well there's a short answer and a long answer.”

“The short answer is the only answer. Do we even have time now for anything else?”

“No, we're not. I don't think we ever will be either, I'm sorry to say.”

Emir rubbed his eyes for a moment, as if Summers' answer had suddenly made him tired. It was amazing that he still didn't wear glasses.

“That's too bad. She's a lovely person.”

Summers shrugged—a nonchalant response more typical of Emir, he thought, that he immediately regretted. Emir's atypical line of questioning and oddly earnest tone must be disorienting him, he thought.

“So what's the long answer?”

“An explanation of the short one.”

“Which is?”

He caught himself trying to think of a pithy reply, as if his
primary purpose was still to entertain Emir, who, in turn, was continuing to surprise him with his sudden sincerity. Finally he gave up.

“It's nothing you haven't heard before. It just didn't work out with our both being writers, I guess.”

He hoped that Emir wouldn't point out that Judy had achieved considerably more literary success than him and that it was he who couldn't really handle it well. Instead, Emir looked preternaturally sad. It made Summers glance quickly at Hanah, who also looked sad, as if they both were attending his funeral.

“But don't you think that love is more important than writing?” Emir said.

“Whose writing?”

“Our writing, mine, yours, the group's. What writer's work is more important to them than a love they have for another person, for a wife or husband or for a child? Such a person, who lived such a life of illusion and escapism couldn't be a good writer, anyway. Don't you agree, Hanah?”

“I do agree, Emir, but I'm also staying out of this.”

Now in addition to feeling nonplussed and vaguely disoriented, Summers felt wounded and began to look over at Pike, who was finally standing alone.

“Well, I appreciate your concern,” Summers said. “I really do. I appreciate both of you and I will think seriously about everything you said, but now I think I need to pay my respects to the guest of honor. If I wait any longer it will be rude, don't you think?”

Pike didn't look as old as he should have, as if winning the prize somehow drained some of the age from his face. We're almost the
same age, Summers thought as he shook his hand. He shouldn't look younger than me too. Isn't the prize enough?

It was neither a tepid nor a strong handshake but it was a long one, as if Pike wanted to convey enthusiasm without a hug or any quotable words being said on his part.

“Congratulations,” Summers said. “The world has honored you, now let me join it,” he added, realizing that what he said was awkward at best and might well also be confusing. He thought briefly about explaining what he meant to say (i.e., he was already in the world, of course, and not waiting to join it, though it was true he often felt alienated from the world) but, of course, it was too late to explain anything like that.

“How are you, Roger?” Pike said, finally looking at him briefly.

“Pretty well. Can't really complain, though I do,” he said, with a little laugh, and probably to be polite, Pike managed a laugh as well.

“The real question is how are you holding up against the world's onslaught of attention?”

“The world barely knows, much less cares.”

“How can you say that?”

“Come on, Rog, it's a newspaper prize. People don't read newspapers anymore. Half the time I'm there I feel like I'm working in a museum or a crematorium. Hey,” Pike continued, “I didn't see you at the big high school reunion.”

“You went?”

“Absolutely.”

“It never occurred to me that you'd go.”

“The fortieth reunion, how could I resist? You know I always suffered from terminal nostalgia.”

More like terminal narcissism, Summers thought. Of course
Pike would go. How could he resist all the adulation from his fawning classmates, especially since he was such an inconspicuous, sometimes bullied, student back in high school.

“If I'd known you were coming I would have gone,” Summers said, averting his eyes slightly. “So what's it like to see the old group?”

“Surprisingly emotional. I just recovered from the reunion; well, it was five months ago, and now this. I'm very touched really.”

“I'm glad you like it,” Summers muttered. As he feared, Pike then asked him about his writing, but in such a merely-to-be-polite, perfunctory way that it was relatively easy to exaggerate and even to tell a couple of lies. Lying was a standard, even expected, part of conversation by the group that rarely was even pointed out by anyone behind the liar's back. It was paradoxical—“literary lying” was accepted as a normal part of discourse, but so was the chronic kvetching about literary rejection and failure from the same people who'd apparently forgotten their brazen lies and bragging from a half hour before. He himself had been guilty of this (although he did it less often than most members). Come to think of it, only Emir, old world gentleman that he was, never lied, though he was certainly guilty of complaining.

There was little to say after the opening pleasantries. Too much time had passed and, more important, there was too big a gap in success between them. Summers felt like a drowning man vainly reaching for an illusory life preserver as he tried to think of things to talk about—a couple of mutual friends from high school, a former creative writing teacher. Pike answered him politely but with little animation. And then suddenly Summers gave up, shook Pike's hand a final time, congratulated him yet
again, and turned his back, expecting to return to the safety of Emir and his wife. But he didn't see them. He felt an odd bit of panic, then headed for the table to refill his vodka punch cup.

Really, it wasn't so bad with Pike, he told himself as he quickly filled and then drank from his cup.

“Excuse me,” a woman said, who was surprisingly attractive. “Are you Roger Summers?”

“Guilty as charged,” he said, looking at her more closely now. She had surprisingly thick brown hair, but refined, almost elegant features. His memory, no longer as sharp as it once was, came up empty. But why wouldn't he remember a good-looking woman who was so young—no more than thirty-five by his count? And how did she know him?

“I'm Renee,” she said, extending her hand, which he more than gladly shook. Was it possible that she'd read one of his books? Heard him read somewhere in Philadelphia once or was she perhaps one of his former students?

“Have we met?” he finally said.

“Not until now,” she said with a laugh, and he found himself laughing along with her. How charming women in their thirties could be! Especially when they were so enthusiastic.

“May I ask how you know my name?” he said, bracing himself for a tribute of some kind.

“Oh, I asked that man over there,” she said, pointing to Lucas, who was just now giving him a pricelessly jealous dirty look, which helped mitigate his disappointment. So she hadn't read him, but still she wanted to meet him. Was he perhaps more youthful looking tonight than he realized?

“So I'm glad …” Roger said. “How did you happen to come here tonight?”

“I came with the man who told me your name.”

“With Lucas?” he said, incredulously.

“Yes.”

“I see.”

“I saw you talking with Howard Pike, who's one of my idols of music, well of criticism in general, and Luke told me you went to high school with him, with Howard Pike, so I wanted to ask you what it was like talking to him and maybe if you could introduce me. I want to interview him for a magazine but, of course, I have to meet him first.”

“I'm sure Howie will be delighted. He loves any kind of … informed attention,” he said with more sarcasm than he intended. He felt his face might well be red now and looked away from her, at Aaron and his wife holding hands. He should have invited Judy to this, even just as a friend. These parties were now too painful to attend alone. It was yet one more thing that had changed these last few years.

“Come with me,” he said to Renee, “I'll introduce you to him now.”

He came to a kind of rest stop by a window that was open a few inches. For ten or fifteen minutes he'd been walking in a circular pattern around the loft thinking of Pike and his new female admirer, among other thoughts. He looked out the window and felt the cool air. Often in his own apartment when he was pacing late at night he'd look out at the street and watch a man walking quickly (was he anxious about who he might encounter on the streets?) or see a car screeching to a halt, or a hooker smoking a cigarette while she waited for a client, and once a woman chasing a man down the sidewalk yelling at him. Had he stolen something from her or just broken her heart? Tonight he saw nothing
but an occasional car, silently rolling by as if on felt. It occurred to him then that while he felt so interested and even drawn to them, he'd never written about the people he saw on the street at night, or during the day either, for that matter. Would it have made a difference? Was his whole approach to writing, like his whole approach to the rest of life, seriously off course? He'd been such a dutiful postmodernist, Summers suddenly thought, but had he ignored people in the process? He'd certainly drifted from his wife, who was now assiduously pursuing a divorce from him. Was it time to admit he was wrong about some things, certainly about the way he'd treated Judy? Perhaps it was too late to construct a new literary identity at this point, but was it too late to speak to his wife from his heart? Hadn't Emir said love is more important than writing, or at least words to that effect?