The Ramblers (14 page)

“Exactly,” Laura says. “Thank you for being
human
. How are you feeling right now?”

Smith takes a breath and thinks about this. She's been jittery all day, nauseated, on the brink of tears. Flitting between exhaustion and confusion and disappointment. But she feels a bit different now.

“I feel vulnerable,” Smith says, well aware that she's using a word Laura loves. “I asked Tate to Sally's wedding and he said he'd come, but I haven't heard from him today and I'm feeling foolish and I don't know what's happening. I hate this. I'm just feeling stuck, Laura. He made some crack last night about me still being on the golden leash or something and I know he was joking around, but it didn't feel funny. I mean, let's be real: I'm living in the building where I spent my childhood; I've literally gone nowhere and suddenly, it seems the universe is intent on shoving my inertia in my face. I met with a client today and she was the most lovely woman who just lost her husband and she has three boys and we sat there going through her things and pictures and she's had this whole
life,
Laura, and it's obviously devastating that she's lost the
love of her life, but I found myself oddly envying her because of all the things she's had. And then, lo and behold, I run into an old classmate from high school and she's pregnant and pushing a stroller and I felt it again . . . envious, like everyone is moving forward but me.”

“I want you to know that I'm hearing you and I can sense how stuck you feel, but I feel it's my job to remind you how far you have come. Think back, Smith. Remember how hard it was for you to get out of bed when we first started talking? Remember how poorly you were treating your mind and body? Remember all the goals you set and how many you have met? You are absolutely moving forward, Smith, but it's work. It's not meant to feel simple. I'm proud of you. What I want you to tell me is what you want
right now
. Do you want this man to come with you to the wedding? Do you want to explore this person more, this
you
more?”

“I do,” Smith says with a certainty that startles her. “But I'm not sure if it matters what I want.”

“It absolutely does,” Laura says. “Tell me. The wedding is this week, and how are you feeling about it, Smith? What are you most worried about?”

“My speech,” Smith says quickly. “I want to say the right thing and be sentimental and funny and share the perfect anecdotes and I want my parents' friends to think I'm smart too, that just because I'm not the doctor it doesn't mean I'm stupid.”

“Consider something,” Laura says. “What if there is no right thing to say? What if the best thing you can do is get up there and be yourself and say something true?”

Smith thinks about this. What if it's this simple? “I guess I'm also worried that people will see me as the older spinster sister and that they will somehow notice just how much I'm struggling.”

“And why would it be so bad for people to see that things aren't perfect in your life? What do you think would happen?”

What would happen? Smith can't answer this. “I don't know,” she says.

“I don't know your parents. I've never met them and I don't need to. But I do know you pretty well at this point and I have tremendous confidence that you will stand up and tell the truth.
Your truth.
That's all you need to do.”

“I just want him to come. I know it sounds so cheesy, but when I was with him last night, I was able to
let go
in a way I haven't in a really long time.”

“That's not cheesy, Smith. That's wonderful. Now, I'm going to make a
request
for you to take really good care of yourself in the week ahead and I want to come to some agreements about what you need to give yourself permission for around the wedding weekend, okay?”

“Okay.”

“First, if you are at the wedding and things get too hard, I want you to allow yourself to step away. It doesn't matter that you are the maid of honor. You are a person and you have needs and you must give yourself space if that feels right. And another thing: I'm going to ask you to try to limit your use of social media this week. You and I have discussed that there are certain times when it's not healthy for you and it makes you feel things you do not need to feel. This week is about
you
and not about all those people in your feeds. And with respect to Tate, would you perhaps give yourself permission to reach out to him after a certain time if you haven't heard from him? Just so you
know
what to expect this weekend, whether you will be there on your own or with a date?”

“I've never done that. I've always waited for the guy to call.”

“How would calling him make you feel?”

Smith feels a slight smile coming on. “Vulnerable.” That word again.

“Yup. I've said it before, but vulnerability is the true cornerstone to connection, Smith. We can't reach other people and be reached if we have our walls up all the time.”

Smith clutches the phone and nods. “Intellectually, I know you're right, but walls sometimes feel easier.”

“I know they do, and we've talked about how you were raised in a world of walls. Many of us were.”

“Okay, I'll do it. I'll get in touch with him tomorrow morning if I haven't heard from him, just to find out about the wedding.”

“That sounds like a solid plan to me,” Laura says. “And listen, if you need to chat before our next session, please call me. Smith, I'm
here
.”

“Thank you, Laura,” Smith says, “but, one more thing.”

“Yes?”

“I hurled a glass pitcher against a wall this morning. I've never done anything like that in my life. It kind of scared me.”

A brief stretch of silence gives way to Laura's laughter. “Progress, I tell you,” she says.

When they hang up, Smith feels a surge of motivation and positivity. She stretches her arms overhead and stands and lights a pine-scented candle on the coffee table in the living room. She turns on some holiday music, which, yes, she listens to year-round. Bach's Christmas Oratorio. The music fills the room, its dulcet tones stirring in her a deep nostalgia. For what? The halcyon hues of childhood? For those bright college days? She once listened to this CD in the library at Davenport College as she studied for finals.

In the kitchen, spotless once more, she brews some mint tea. Hydration is key, she remembers, and pours herself a tall glass of sparkling water too, and slices a small wedge of fresh organic lime on her monogrammed cutting board. Smith squeezes the lime and then drops it in, watches it sink to the bottom. She drinks the water fast, the bubbles burning her throat, and then pours another glass. She can do this.

She runs a bath. Laura is right; she must take good care of herself this week. She must avoid people and things that drain her and drag her down. As she waits for the tub to fill, she opens the cabinet and scans her aromatherapy collection, all those pristine bottles lined up. She chooses one, lavender, and squeezes a few drops into the water. She breathes deeply as the scent fills the room. She steps out of her clothes,
folds them neatly and places them on the window seat, removes her underwear and bra, folds them too.

The bath does what it always does: it calms her. She towels off and lotions her body, pulls a comb through her hair. She wraps up in her robe and finds her Moleskine notebook. She will jot some notes for her speech.

Her phone buzzes. A text appears on her screen.

It's him.

Tate: You around?

A smile spreads across her face and her hands begin to tremble. She reads the two words again and again.

She can't bring herself to respond but sits there frozen.

Now she hears the lobby phone crooning in the distance, in the front of the apartment. She stands and runs to it. Picks up. It's Edwin the doorman.

“Ms. Anderson, I have a gentleman named Tate here to see you.”

Panic fills her, but also something else. Joy. Relief. She looks down at herself, her bare body cloaked loosely in a robe. She runs her hands through her wet hair.

“Edwin, can you stall him for five minutes and then send him up?”

“Of course, Ms. Anderson.”

Tuesday, November 26, 2013

All photographs are self-portraits.

—Minor White (1908–1976)

SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2012

where they are now

PhotoPoetry for five million users—and counting

T
ate Pennington '01 (economics) has, along with classmate Arun Vihal '01 (engineering), developed a digital application (“app”) that marries Pennington's childhood passions of photography and poetry and Vihal's engineering skills. The passion project, PhotoPoet, was never meant to be more than that. Conceived by the classmates on a weekend surfing trip to Malibu, the product was built and rolled out to users by Pennington and Vihal in a swift six months. The application permits users to combine their own photography with classic and current poetry, poetry that is in the public domain and poetry that has been submitted by writers and curated by Pennington himself. The company, which boasts a social good component (for every hundred shares, $1 goes to PEN American Center and $1 goes to literacy programs in Vihal's home country of India), was recently purchased by Twitter for $40 million.

Yale:
Why photography and poetry?

Pennington:
When I was small, my parents gave me a Polaroid. I would take pictures of everything, including my family's feet under the dinner table. My father wanted me to be a baseball player, but I preferred staying inside and reading William Carlos Williams and Walt Whitman. No real training!

Y:
Did you consider a photography or English major while studying at Yale?

P:
I didn't really. I would have loved to major in these subjects, but I knew I needed to earn a paycheck. I went the more practical route of economics and thankfully I found my way back here.

Y:
Why is PhotoPoet not just another app?

P:
Well, I'm biased, but I don't think enough people have poetry in their lives. We live in a self-improvement and happiness culture full of fixes, but it's astonishing what a handful of meaningful words can do, particularly when combined with a telling image. I also think people have the desire to
create
things and this app allows that. There's also good quality control; you can't just post
any
words.

Y:
Why the philanthropic component of the business?

P:
Arun and I felt strongly about this. He and I have been privileged with a fine education and opportunities and share in a moral compulsion to help people who do not have the freedom we do to express ourselves, or the means to learn the way we've been able to.

Leon Truitt '81—This interview has been condensed and edited.

“A bucket of booze & some pussy.”

A bucket of booze & some pussy will do you a world of good.

S
o went Jeff's opening line in the e-mail arranging tonight's guys' night.

They've been down here at the White Horse Tavern for hours now. Six of them, married and decidedly unmarried, scattered around the crowded bar, which is made from a single, seamless slab of mahogany.

There are white horses everywhere. Perching atop chandeliers, cantering along darkened ledges and shelves. The most prominent white horse stares down at them from the wall behind
the mirrored bar. Tate looks up at it, this familiar creature, and drinks White Horse Whisky in the form of pity shots, one after the other, in an as-ever-futile effort to numb the hard shit. After five shots, he puts up his hand in protest, reminds the guys that his favorite poet, Dylan Thomas,
died
after downing a record shitload of whiskey shots—eighteen or something—at this very bar, but more shots arrive. He does them. Who is he to turn them down?

The guys take turns visiting the neon jukebox nestled next to the grandfather clock in the corner, to queue up songs old and new. Pharrell and Morrissey, Radiohead and Counting Crows.

Jeff, a friend from high school in St. Louis, always a stand-up guy, organized tonight, corralling a solid crew of his buddies for an evening of anesthetic carousing. Tate feels a vague gratitude for the gesture, but mostly he finds himself judging his company. His first instinct is that they are moneymaking dicks blitzed with beer and high on Investopedia lingo. It's all market-turmoil this and standard-deviation that, abandon rates and face values, and Tate feels a blaze of relief that he escaped this shit before it was too late. This could've been him. This
would've
been him. He's no better than these dudes.

Tate looks around, and though his mind is getting foggy, he fills with a mixture of awe and nostalgia. This place is a historic landmark for the alcoholic artist; it's been the cradle and grave of a slew of famous patrons he admires—Anaïs Nin, Jack Kerouac, Norman Mailer and Andy Warhol and Frank McCourt. Rumor has it that the night Belushi died in 1982, Dan Aykroyd arrived at closing time to shut the doors and buy the entire bar a round of drinks. That Thomas slipped into a coma and died days after his epic whiskey record is certainly a cautionary tale of sorts: Do not romanticize the boozing/creative life. It's just fantasy.

But now, for Tate, this fantasy feels oddly real. He can afford to fuck around and take pictures, live here in this swanky section of the city (his apartment, a newly renovated floor-through two bed, two bath, is, conveniently, around the corner) and still have plenty of dough left
over to drink, and drink a lot. His mother is worried. She isn't even here to witness his aggressive unraveling, but maybe she can just hear in his voice how badly he's flailing. And she has every reason to be concerned, because he's always been the good boy, her good little Tater-Tot, straight-arrow sonny-son.

He didn't even drink much in college. Everyone around him seemed to be hammered at all hours, fumbling around with nascent freedom and acting like total delinquents, prideful about stupid shit and blank heads, but he derived a curious pride from being the clearheaded one, the one with no real interest in altering his mind. He dabbled, got drunk a couple of times, but was never sold. I mean, shit, it was
Yale
and he was supposed to piss it away? No thank you.

Now look at him: making up for lost time.

“Three o'clock,” Jeff says now, gesturing to their right.

Tate looks. She is tall, thin, tan, blond and bland like the Barbie dolls his sister, Emily, used to decapitate when they were kids. The girl is with a flock of friends. They wear black, drink white wine, hypnotize themselves with glowing phones, tapping, scrolling, swiping, pouting their lips to snap pictures of themselves.

“Dude, they are
young,
” Tate says. In their early twenties, maybe? Probably NYU girls. It's hard to remember being that young.

Jeff shrugs. “Just what you need. You're all up in your head about this Olivia shit and it's up to me as your friend to yank you down and shake you up and remind you that there are other snatches in the sea. It's my job, man. And you should appreciate that I'm working hard.”

“I do appreciate it,” Tate says, lifting his glass to clink Jeff's. “You want to know something crazy? I almost brought someone tonight. A girl.”

Jeff rolls his eyes. “You almost brought a girl?”

“Yeah,” Tate says. “Did my best but this chick's all class and I don't blame her because look at me, I'm a derelict at the moment. And look at this scene, man. She doesn't belong in a hole like this.”

“Who the hell is she? There's not supposed to be a girl, Pennington.
It's supposed to be plural.
Girls,
okay? The last thing you need is another Olivia right now.”

Tate considers this. Through this entire mess, Jeff has been the voice of reason, and maybe he's right. Maybe Tate's reaching for another girl because this is all that he knows. He was with Olivia since he was
twenty-one,
probably the age of those girls over there, and he doesn't even know how to be on his own. Maybe he needs to find out.

“Smith's the anti-Olivia, man. Cool as shit.”

“Smith?” Jeff says, laughing. “Isn't that a dude's name? You swinging the other way now? This is all getting interesting. I always did wonder about the fitted jeans and the passion for frilly poetry. It's coming together now.”

“It's her mother's maiden name, dipshit. I went to Yale with her but wrote her off as this blue-blood princess, but either I had it all wrong or she's changed. It doesn't matter, but she's pretty cool, man. And the things is, Jeff, I can't figure her out. We got sauced last night and went on this epic bender and ended up back at her place. This fancy pad in the San Remo, you know it? Gorgeous, two-towered prewar on the Upper West? She tried on a gown and showed me her drawer of sex toys but wouldn't kiss me.”

“Fucking
tease,
” Jeff says. “And the last thing you need is another one of those after Olivia. I hope I don't have to remind you of all the times you called me frustrated that she was shutting you down and making you feel like a perv. You're a man. You need sex. Eye on the prize over there, okay?”

The sex thing with Olivia was tough. It certainly wasn't their biggest issue—the shock-and-awe infidelity takes the cake—but it was a problem. He wanted sex, sex of the frequent and adventurous variety, and she wanted almost no sex, sex of the boring, let's-check-this-off-the-list-and-keep-the-lights-off variety. He chalked it up to being married.
Maybe this is what happens when you're with someone for a while,
he decided, but his needs were his needs and he resorted to extra time
in the shower and a smattering of surreptitious porn. None of it was good.

“Come to think of it,” Tate says, gesturing toward the blonde at the bar, “she's not half-bad.”

The words fall from him, but his mind is on Smith, who is leagues more beautiful than the girl. Smith was named by
The
Rumpus,
the campus tabloid, as one of Yale's fifty most beautiful people, a detail they joked about Saturday at the tailgate.

It was just a few hours ago that he rang her doorbell and she stood there, hair wet and combed, face makeup-free, in nothing but a thin white bathrobe. Fucking sexy as shit, but he didn't say this. He played it cool even though it took every ounce of restraint. She flashed a coy smile and invited him in and they sat in her living room, the kind of living room old and important people have, and she kept apologizing for last night.

That wasn't me,
she said again and again, and he wanted her to stop saying this. Finally, he cut her off.

Whoever that was, I liked her.

She said nothing at all about the wedding, so he brought it up, asked if he was still invited, and she nodded. He confessed that he had nothing to wear but his ill-fated wedding tux, which he kept as some masochistic memento, that he would shop for something new, and did she want to come? Again, she nodded. Then he asked her to get dressed and come downtown with him and he could see it in her eyes that she was considering it, that part of her wanted to go, but she said no, that she needed to work some more on her wedding toast and get some sleep. And then, like that, his buddy the doorman was hailing him a taxi.

“Look, Pennington, it's clear that I'm no expert on this, but methinks you need to take a breather from relationship garbage. You need to have fun. You need to shellac yourself in alcohol and bring hot girls home to that rad pad of yours. That Olivia screwed you up good and I get that it blows, but, dude, it's high time to move on. You need
to kill that beer while I get you another and then you need to pick your pretty-boy head up and look around this joint and decide who it's going to be. Because I'm not letting you go home alone.”

Tate laughs and obediently drinks up. His head is light, his body near numb. Maybe Jeff's right. Maybe he's fucking right. What he needs is a good mindless fuck. A release. To steer clear of melodrama and keep things simple, in and out, black and white. He takes the final sip and pushes the glass from him. It topples over. The sight of the glass rolling down the bar strangely delights him.

“Easy, tiger,” Jeff says, sliding a fresh Guinness in front of him. “So, how's the new pad working out anyway? That place is ridiculous. Please tell me that you know that. I'm working my ass off and my place is nothing like yours. Not that I'm bitter.”

“Good, man. Good. The place is good. Needs a little attention, but it's good.”

Tate bought his new apartment sight unseen. There were pictures online and it looked fine. All he cared about was that there was an extra bathroom he could convert to a proper darkroom. He sent Jeff to take a look for him and the report was a solid thumbs-up, so he made an all-cash offer over the telephone. Initially, he'd planned to come and crash on Jeff's couch for a while, but then he worried he'd run back to her. Buying was a better anchor.

He looks over again at the cookie-cutter blonde and knocks back his beer. He knows better. He knows he's just short of blotto, that it's time to kill his tab and go. His mind is soft, scrambled. He needs sleep. But no. He will at the very least talk to her, prove some hazy, fucked-up point. He will extract her from her babbling minions. Butter her up with the dregs of his own Midwestern charm, which Olivia all but extricated. It will be good for him to do this, to man up, to follow through.

Go get 'em
,
Pennington,
one of the asshole guys says as he stumbles over.

He's hovering now. It's almost too easy. Their bodies are already touching.

She's equally gone; her eyes are pickled and vacant. A ballerina, he hypothesizes. Maybe a model. Those legs. Twisting around and around.

Like magic, the other girls scatter. Tate and the nameless babe stand at the bar, leaning over its top.

Time blurs by. He switches back to whiskey.

“Dylan Thomas had eighteen whiskies here once. The record.”

“Dylan Thomas?” she says.

“
Though lovers be lost love shall not
? The guy in the big black and white photo hanging in the other room?”

Nothing. Zip. Her face is blank and he finds himself thankful for her ignorance. What a fucking joke. They drink and drink, melt into each other.

“Let's get the hell out of here,” he hears himself say.

She smiles yes, slides her hand into the back pocket of his jeans. He feels himself stiffening, adjusts his pants.

They waltz home, holding hands. The air is thick and it's fucking cold. He could use some California weather right about now. Her fingers are small, skinny things, noodle-like and limp. He yanks her along the charming, moonlit sidewalk he photographs by day, winds them around the corner through clusters of people pondering their next move. He leads her up his stoop, and once inside, he sees a package addressed to him. He grabs it, tucks it under his arm, and they seem to float up one flight. He trails her, his hand on her perfect ass. It takes a year to unlock the door.

“Beer?” he offers. The nameless girl accepts. He wonders if she has any idea that he has no clue what her name is, whether she'd care. In the kitchen, he pulls two bottles from the otherwise empty fridge, pops them open with his teeth. She's still in the other room, looking at his photographs, which lie around the room, some framed, some just prints on the floor.

“Did you take all of these?” she asks.

“Yes.”

“They're beautiful.”

That word. That fucking word.

“Who's that?” she says, pointing at the photo he shouldn't even have.

He hesitates. Keeps it simple. “A bride.”

“She's beautiful.”

The word again. Tate walks to the picture, studies it, studies her. Her dark tumble of hair and dark eyes. Abruptly, he flips the frame around to face the wall. He doesn't need her staring at him anymore. Yes, he's to blame for this pathetic flagellation. He slipped this in his suitcase on that last day in their apartment before he left for New York because it was one of his favorite portraits, told himself it was about art and not about denial. Even then, he knew this was total bullshit. When he finally unpacked days later, he saw it and cried like a baby and contemplated hurling it across the room, but instead propped it against a bare wall.

And now he's kissing the nameless girl. Her lips are minty. He takes her hand, leads her to the bedroom. They fall together onto his unmade bed. Disembodied, cartoonish laughter rises up from them like smoke. Hers, high-pitched and trilling. His, deep, forced, anger laced. She takes off her own clothes, sits cross-legged in the center of the bed, eyes glowing in the dark, waiting.