The Lake Shore Limited (34 page)

Twice he went out with Edmund, but that was it. He turned down the other groups that sometimes formed to have a drink together, including, once, Billy. She made a kind of funny face at him as they were leaving--
Come on
--but he shrugged and lifted his hands:
How can I?

It wasn't that Lauren was awake when he got home. She wasn't. The Round Robin, one of whom came just as he was leaving for the theater or just after he'd left, tucked her in early. When he opened the bedroom door, there was the sound of the humidifier and, under it, her breath, occasionally her light snoring.

So he checked on her, checked on the cat, sometimes he read the paper, sometimes he watched television. Politics, mostly.
'Tis the season
. They talked about it all the time at the theater, too. Almost everyone in the cast and crew was for one of the Democrats, mostly Obama or Clinton. Serena, who was a Republican, liked Giuliani, but no one was willing to discuss this with her.

Rafe had decided he liked Edwards. It had something to do, maybe, with his working-class background, his populism. Or maybe it was just that he had a sick wife. Identity politics at work.

Late in the run, he was offered two plays to read for, so there was that, too, in these solitary evenings--reading these plays, preparing the lines that might be his. It was good news, of course, probably due to the fine reviews the play had gotten. And Rafe's reviews were better than that. There had been mention of an Eliot Norton Award.

Well, Edmund had mentioned the possibility to him a couple of times.

Still, he was restless. He looked forward to Gracie's long holiday visit, coming up right after the show closed. He looked forward to sitting up late with someone else, talking, watching television. Gracie liked to play gin rummy, too, something she'd taught him. He thought with pleasure of their long series of games, the way he got lost in them. He'd bought green visors for both of them for Christmas.

For Lauren, he'd signed up for audiobooks that he could download, and bought her an iPod to listen to them on. Just as he handed over his credit card to pay for it at the checkout counter, he remembered Lauren's speaking of the miracle of her speech-enhanced computer program. "The digital age," she had said, making what passed for a wry face. "What a
fantastic
time to be an invalid."

At the party closing night, held in a windowless, dramatically lighted room at the back of a local restaurant, Rafe stood, drink in hand, and watched the group assemble and move around. The actors were all there, and Edmund, of course. Some of the sound and lighting and set folks had come, and the costume designer, Madoka, wearing something that seemed less like clothing than fabric samples pinned on her randomly. There were some unidentifiable people, husbands or wives or lovers of someone involved with the show and along tonight for the fun of it. Ellie, the stage manager, was talking to one of the backers--maybe the one who was paying for the room and the trays of hors d'oeuvres and wine in elegant glasses being passed around. Edmund had said he wasn't "at liberty" to reveal who had sprung for the party.

Bob, the actor who played Alex, came up to him and they talked for a while about Philip Seymour Hoffman, Bob's god, perhaps partly, Rafe thought, because they were built so much like each other. But Rafe agreed, he loved Hoffman, too.

When he went to get a fresh drink, Serena cornered him. They talked about what came next. He told her about the possible plays. She said she was glad for him. She said, "It's just great to see you come into your own the way you have."

"I'm fucking forty-five," he told her. "I better have come into my own."

She looked flustered. "Well, but you know what I mean."

And because she had meant it kindly, because she'd been good in the show, he said, yes, he did know what she meant. He thanked her.

Someone had brought music, an iPod with tiny speakers. Ellie and Nasim had been dancing for a while. Now Annie was, too, with her husband. When the song ended, Bob called out, "Do your dance for us again, Edmund." A couple of people started clapping, started chanting,
"Edmund! Edmund!"

Rafe saw Billy turn from where she was talking to one of the set guys. She stepped quickly across the room toward Edmund, who was getting ready to launch himself. She said, "Eddie and I will dance together," taking his arm. The song playing was "Such a Night," by Dr. John. Billy turned to Edmund, raising her hands to dance in closed, ballroom position. He stepped forward, towering over her even though he was not especially tall, and they began to do what might have been a fox trot, with an exaggerated stylishness.

This was kind of her, Rafe thought--rescuing Edmund from their laughter. Their loving laughter, to be sure. But what they'd wanted was to see him make a fool of himself again, and she'd shielded him from that. Rafe set his glass down and turned to Faith--Elizabeth--who was standing near him. He asked her to dance. And then a couple of others, Madoka, two of the light guys, also moved onto what constituted the dance floor--a small carpeted area next to the table on which all their bottles and glasses were set.

Later, after a few people had left and the group was smaller--split up into intense or apparently hilarious conversations among two or three people--Billy came over to where he was standing, propped against the wall watching things. He'd stopped drinking by now. He was thinking about getting home.

"You know," she said, "I never got to tell you how fantastic you were."

"Thank you for that."

"That first time." She shook her head. "That especially was the time that just knocked my socks off."

"Wordsmith that you are," he said.

Her face shifted--a kid's pleasure. She laughed her quick, snorty laugh. Then she said, "It did, though. Even though I wasn't even
wearing
socks. And I hear you're moving on. Other stuff is coming at you."

"It may be. I have a couple of things I'm reading for."

"I'm glad. You really ... you really made this one work, for me. You helped me know why I wrote it."

"Well, I'm grateful to you, too. For Gabriel," he said, bowing his head. "I know it's part of why I'm getting these other things now."

"I'd be pleased if that were true," she said, and she did a little curtsy back to him, holding her very straight skirt out as much as she could to each side. He thought of her body, her strong legs, opening them, and he felt a quick pang that made him aware, for a few moments, of his breathing.

"What's coming up for you?" he asked.

"Not much. More of same, more of same, as our friend Gabriel says. Or as our friend Emily
reports
that Gabriel says. I've got a play I'm working on."

"But I thought this one was going out."

"Next year, it's supposed to be. Next fall."

"Ah. So for the moment, a quiet life."

"Tomblike," she said, and she smiled. He had read somewhere once that different kinds of smiles came from different parts of the brain, that a genuine smile, a smile of real pleasure, came from one site, and a polite smile, a smile only
intended
to signal pleasure, came from another. This smile came from there, that other part.

It went away quickly, and she said, "You know, I probably shouldn't bring it up, but I hope everything was okay after our"--she looked quickly around--"tete-a-tete."

"It was. Okay."

"I mean, I was sorry ... I
am
sorry, if it caused any difficulties, at all. It was an easier thing for me, I'm sure. In my uncomplicated solitude." She spoke the last words mockingly.

He was remembering Lauren, sitting on the toilet, lurched slightly to the side, her face wrecked, crying. "There were, just a few difficulties ...," he began.

"Oh! I knew it!" she said. "Ohh." She shook her head. She seemed almost tearful. She might have been a little drunk. "I am sorry."

"Don't be. It's not your fault." Madoka was leaving now, calling good-bye from the door, blowing kisses. Everyone called back. Ellie went over to embrace her. Rafe and Billy waved. Then Rafe said, "You're too quick with that stuff, you know."

"What stuff?"

"That mea culpa stuff. Not every fucking thing is your fault. I mean it. People's lives are"--he lifted his hands, palms up--"what they are. Not your responsibility." She looked so stricken suddenly that he wanted to lighten things up. "Plenty
is
, of course. Your fault. Just not everything."

She dropped her head to the side. "I know." She nodded several times. "I know. It's grandiose, actually. My own secret little psychopathology."

"Not so secret. Not so little, either."

She smiled, quickly.

"But who knows," Rafe said. "Maybe it even helped me--the difficulties. Kind of ... helped me feel my way into the part. So I should probably be grateful for them, too. Even though I'm not."

"You know, I felt something like that, actually." A frown line of concern etched her forehead and disappeared. "That something had happened that let you feel things differently on the stage. Of course, I was just guessing. But that next time was when it was so different, I thought it might have had to do with ... with what happened."

"What happened, yeah. And its aftermath.
And
all the things we had talked about that night, and earlier--what you said about the play, about your life. All of it, all grist for the proverbial mill."

After a moment, she said, "Everything is, isn't it?"

"For me."

"For me, too. But it's a funny way to live, don't you think?"

"Well," he said, "you
use
everything. There's that to be said for it. You use everything up, pretty much."

She looked sad. Then her face did that waking-up thing again, and she said, "The environmentally sound school of human interaction. No waste, no mess."

"I don't know about the mess part."

She laughed.

Suddenly Edmund was upon them, throwing an arm around each of their shoulders, looking from one of them to the other. "A drink, my lovelies?" he said. "We're moving on, per closing time."

Rafe shook his head. "I've got to get going."

Billy said, "I'll have one, Eddie, if you'll promise to carry me home afterward."

"Since you are the exact size you are, Wilhelmina, it's a deal."

Everyone was standing around, pulling on coats, mittens, hats, scarves. There were four or five of them going on. Others were making arrangements for rides with Rafe, with Serena, with Nora Fine, one of the backers--all of whom had cars.

"Oh, I'm just so sad this is over," Annie kept saying, until finally Edmund said, "Life goes on, dear."

"And on, and on," Rafe said.

Outside, they stood around a little longer in the cold night, saying more good-byes, vowing to stay in touch. The usual. Across the vast empty lot where their cars were parked, Rafe could see the traffic moving along briskly on the elevated expressway, looking like so many Matchbox cars and trucks. He went over to Billy, bent down, kissed her cheek. She smelled winey. Just as he started to move away from the group toward his car, Edmund caught him and embraced him. "What pleasure this was," he said, patting Rafe's back.

"Mine," Rafe said. "The pleasure was mine."

Now Rafe is sitting in his car outside the dark triple-decker, the engine off--not ready to go in, not ready for it to be over, though he's also glad it is. He's living it again, the way he felt night after night.

"Beginners!"
This is what Ellie, the stage manager, calls out backstage when it's time for Rafe to take his place on the set--Rafe, the actor who
begins
it all. Waiting for her call in his dressing room, looking in the mirror, he can never decide what he feels about what he's about to do. Is it the most cynical thing possible? Or is it the best use he can make of his life, of Lauren's life, of what's happened to them?

Gabriel
looks back at him from the mirror, the man he's made, and made his own, the man whose grief drinks from his own grief, whose joy eats his joy, but whom he uses, over and over, to escape his grief and joy, to make them commodity, currency. For better or for worse--he doesn't know--to make them art.

FOR A WHILE, THERE WAS SO MUCH TO DO. The end of the semester, with the last student work to go over, then a public staged reading of the student play that had won the Dorland Prize--she had spent the better part of a week in late November reading through the submissions. Then there was an end-of-semester party at the grand Cambridge house of one of her students, a fortyish married woman. After the first few moments, Billy wasn't surprised at its size and splendor, actually. There had been something noticeably moneyed about Angela, about the quality of her chicness, that Billy had picked up on early in the semester, though she had no idea of the source of the dough. She hadn't gotten to know the students as well as usual this year because the play was so time-consuming.

The party was boozy and cheerful--the students were relieved to be finished--and Billy felt some envy of their flirty connections as she stood at the edge of one conversation and then another. She tried to move around, to be sure she talked to everyone a little, though she doubted anyone really cared, but she ended up spending too much time with Patrick, Angela's husband. It turned out that he had made his money developing unhackable security systems for businesses. More and more, Billy felt, people were having lives, making livings, in ways that were incomprehensible to her. This would only get worse, surely, and then she'd have to start setting her plays in the nineties, the eighties, the seventies even, which she remembered very little about. In any case, she stood at the edge of the room for a while with this Patrick, asking her boneheaded questions about his work.