Wedding Season (32 page)

“I am a bad person,” I tell Francis, and throw the covers
back. “I give up. Let the invasion of privacy begin.” I pad to the study and collect Gabe’s large appointment book from his desk. The dog follows me, looking suspicious, as I continue on to the kitchen, pour a cup of coffee, and sit down to review the book. I flip back through the weeks to late April and his first known encounter with Ora: a portrait session for the magazine article about hot young writers, the appointment recorded in Gabe’s odd cursive scrawl. I note that he misspelled her name. That doesn’t happen again—not for the follow-up appointment to review those portraits, in which her name is spelled correctly, not for any of the following sessions, where she is identified only by her first name or her initials—a sitting for new author photos, a review to select prints, a shoot for a fashion magazine that she insisted he do, the paperback party. And there’s what must have been the lunch Ora mentioned to Joan, notated by Gabe as an appointment to review the paperback party photos. All of these I knew about. Everything looks above board.

I pour another cup of coffee, return to the study, and commence ransacking Gabe’s filing cabinet. Francis waddles in after me, his tail slung low, and watches as I go through folders of Gabe’s contact sheets and negatives, beset by a hazy fear that naked photos of the nemesis are in my future. I find none—though I do find prints from several of Gabe’s sessions with her, and it takes remarkable will on my part to refrain from reducing them to confetti. Inspired by a faint memory of some old movie, I check his financial files for incriminating evidence on credit card statements and receipts—which turns up only the shocking amount he spent on my engagement ring. There seems to be an invisible force field around the drawer containing his correspondence. Only the pure of heart can enter, apparently, because I can’t bring myself to look through it. I run my fingers along the
tops of the folders, make myself cringe imagining Ora’s prose style applied to the love-letter genre, and close the drawer.

I sit down at Gabe’s desk, slide open the top drawer, and recoil in horror from the precise organization therein. Gabe’s writing implements are ordered by type, size, and color; he has separate containers for three sizes of paper clips; he owns a staple remover
and
a letter opener, for heaven’s sake. I slam the drawer shut.

“Can this marriage be saved?” I ask a photo of Gabe and me, tacked to the bulletin board above his desk. The photo was taken a little more than a year ago at our housewarming party. We’re standing in the door between the kitchen and the living room; I’m laughing at the camera, Gabe is laughing at me. It’s a nice picture. It was a good party, too; we said then that it was the closest we’d ever get to having a wedding reception. I lean closer and scrutinize our faces, trying to remember what I was thinking at the time. Nothing has really changed since then—I mean our daily lives are the same, how we are together is the same—but somehow everything is different. Thinking about it makes me feel like I do in those dreams where I’m running down a hallway, but as I run the hallway grows longer, stretching out forever, and I run faster and faster, getting farther and farther away from wherever it is that I’m trying to go.

I’m flipping idly through papers stacked on the desktop when I notice a scrap of paper with a large heart drawn on it, carefully shaded in, and pluck it from the pile. My own heart attempts to escape my rib cage in several directions at once.

In Gabe’s handwriting are the initials
O.M.
Beside them, slightly smaller, the note reads
P.S.C. 230 PM
; below that are an address and tomorrow’s date. P.S.C? Prehistoric space cadet? Petulant stupid coquette? Please seek counseling? I
have just finished copying the information onto my left palm with a felt-tip marker when I hear the front door open, and Gabe’s voice greeting Francis. I catapult myself from his desk to mine, crash-landing into my chair just as he enters the office.

“Hey.” He waves at me. “You’re still here. You decided to stay home after all?”

“Just, um, doing a little work here before I go in. Editing.” I pick up a random sheaf of papers from my desk and wave it at him. “Hard to, you know, concentrate at the office and, yes. You’re back.” I pull the sleeve of my pajama top down over my left hand.

“I forgot a lens I need for my first shoot.” He goes to the closet and pulls a padded bag off one of the shelves. “I don’t know where my brain is today. I can’t focus on anything.”

“Huh.” I narrow my eyes at him. “Maybe
you
should take a couple of days off. Relax. You’re doing too much. We could both, hey, we could leave tonight—we could spend the rest of the week on Nantucket. Your parents aren’t there now, are they? You want to?”

“Yes,” Gabe says, laughing. “But I have a couple of pretty important appointments. Besides, the engagement party is on Saturday. We can’t miss that.”

“Right. Well, maybe just take tomorrow off. Reschedule stuff?
We
can play hooky together. Have a picnic in Central Park.”

“I’ll take a raincheck on that. Maybe Sunday?” He waves distractedly and walks out. I hear the door close. A moment later Francis snuffles into the study, where I sit trembling in my chair.

When my fight-or-flight shakes have subsided, I call Invisible to let them know I’m on my way, and climb into the shower, vowing that I have learned my lesson. This was an aberration. I will never again stoop as low as I stooped this
morning. And I will certainly not make use of the dubious information inked, blue and blurry, on my palm. Absolutely not. Not under any circumstances.

Just in case, though, I copy the information into my Palm Pilot before scrubbing it away. I swear the dog to secrecy and depart for the office.

W
HEN I ARRIVE
at Invisible, the front room is unnaturally quiet, and the faces of my little scribes are as solemn as gravestones. Pete tiptoes over to me and leans to whisper in my ear.

“Remember how Charles was all excited last night because he was going out to dinner with your brother?”

“Yes.”

“To that fancy sushi place downtown?”

“Yes.”

“And he thought James was going to propose?”

“Pete. The point.” I hear strange noises coming from the back office.

“Well, I, uh. James. Didn’t, you know, propose.” Pete looks at the floor and scuffs the toe of one sneaker with the heel of the other.

“James dumped him?”

“Shhhhhhh!” Myrna and Tulley shush me at once. I consider turning around, going home, and returning to bed. For several weeks.

“I knew this was going to happen,” I say. The Invisibles nod sympathetically and clear their throats.

“Never introduce anybody to anybody,” I tell no one in particular. “Is it bad?”

“It’s bad,” Damon says.

“Really bad,” Pete says.

“No suit,” Tulley stage-whispers. “No tie. He’s wearing jeans. And
sneakers.
And
no hair product.
He’s out on the balcony with Our Lady of the Fishnets.” Tulley nods in that direction.

“Maybe I should just go home for the day,” I suggest to the general assembly. “Seeing me might just upset him more.”

“Coward,” Damon says.

“So? How’d you like to stand proxy for a war criminal?”

“Get in there,” Tulley says. “Remember the Geneva Convention.”

“Oh, fine. Hold my calls. If we’re not back in a couple of hours, send in a hostage negotiation team, okay?” I slink into the back room and out through the window onto our fire escape, where Charles is blowing his nose energetically and Miss Trixie is making sympathetic noises. When Charles sees me, he tries to smile, bursts into tears again, and throws himself into my arms. I let him stay there and pat his back awkwardly until he pulls himself together. He sits up, takes a breath, looks me in the eye. Then his face crumples and he begins sniffling again.

“Charles. I’m sorry. Are you okay?”

“Oh, Joy! How could he? After all that we had together-how could he? After all the time we spent!”

“It was only three months. You should be—hey, I’m sorry. Don’t cry. Hey, come on, it’s okay.”

“Three and a half months,” he sobs. “Four, almost.”

“Four months.”

“Everyone knows the six-week rule,” Charles says, sniffing. “If you don’t break up at six weeks, you stay for twelve weeks—that’s three months. And if you don’t break up at three months, you stay for six months. And so on. So how could he break up with me at
fifteen and a half weeks?”

“It’s statistically impossible, darling.” Trixie offers me a Kleenex. I decline.

“Vern, my brother has always defied the odds.”

“He said he loved me! How could he love me one week and then just walk away the very next week?”

“I’m sure he did love you, precious.” Trixie hands Charles another Kleenex. “How could he
not
love you?”

“Joy.” Charles turns on me with big sad eyes, and I brace myself. “What did he tell you? Did he really love me? Was he lying? What did he say? What did I do? Did I do something wrong? Was I too clingy? Was I too distant?”

“We really never discussed it.” And for precisely this reason, I want to add.

“Never? He never talked about me? He couldn’t have really loved me if he never talked about me with his own sister. I’m such an idiot! How could I have believed him? Never believe anyone when they tell you they love you after six dates.”

“That’s very sound advice, Vern.”

“Oh, my god,” Charles says. “Why are you being so unsupportive? Your brother was horrible to me.”

“Oh, goodness me. Time to run along,” Trixie coos. “Arrivederci, darlings.” She dashes inside, and her French doors snap shut. I had no idea anyone could move that fast in stilettos.

“I’m not being unsupportive.” I turn back to Charles. “I’m sorry it didn’t work out the way you wanted it to, and I’m very sorry you’re hurt. But what else can I say? I can’t condemn my brother to make you feel better. And I certainly can’t explain his behavior—I’ve never understood him myself. I can tell you not to take it personally. He’s never been a long-term kind of guy.”

“And you didn’t tell me this when we started dating because you’re a sadist?” Charles says.

“Okay, stop right there. Halt. Friendship foul. This has
nothing
to do with me. I’m here for you, but I’m not going to take any blame for this.”

“Well, you should. Why didn’t you warn me? Why didn’t you tell him to stay away? How could you have just let me… how could you have let him…?”

“Because you’re adults, and it’s none of my business, and you wouldn’t have listened anyway. You didn’t listen. I didn’t want the two of you to meet, if you’ll recall.”

Charles starts crying again.

“Joy.” Pete leans through the window. “Phone call.”

“I said hold my calls.”

“VIP.” Pete widens his eyes and waggles his eyebrows at me. I glare back, climb through the window, push past Pete, and snatch the phone up.

“Joy Silverman speaking.”

“Baby girl? It’s me. You sound a little tense.”

“Oh, really? I wonder why, James.” I wave Pete out and squint at the fire escape, where Charles is weeping over the railing. “What could possibly be happening here at the office, where I work, every day, side by side, with my
business partner
, to make me tense, do you suppose?”

“Oh, honey, I’m sorry. Is he taking it hard?”

“No comment. What the hell happened? Everything was going really well, wasn’t it?”

“It was, I guess. He’s a sweet guy. It was nice.”

“Sweet? Nice? You took him to family weddings. You were together almost every night. You’ve been inseparable all summer. You let him borrow your shirts. You’ve never let anyone borrow your shirts. That’s not ’nice.’ That’s
serious.”

“I
know. I was. It was. I guess I changed my mind.”

“Do you mind telling me why?”

“I don’t know, baby.” James lets out a dramatic sigh. “Who ever knows why we care, or why we stop caring?”

“Okay, first point, shut up, because you sound ridiculous. And second point, you promised me you wouldn’t do this.”

“I certainly did not. I take a page from your little book of rules and never make any promises having anything to do with love. Love is absurd. It’s totally unpredictable. Anyone who promises anything having anything to do with love is extremely foolish. Weather reports are a great deal more reliable.”

“Thank you, Oscar fucking Wilde. You sound just like Daddy.”

“Hello, Ms. Pot calling Mr. Kettle black.”

“James, you’re acting like a
man.
You’re crazy about Charles, and it terrifies you. Breaking things off with him is an act of sheer cowardice.”

“Again with the stones thrown from the glass house,” James says.

“What are you talking about? I’m engaged, if you recall.”

“Precisely, baby girl. Are you trying to tell me that surprising little ideological shift of yours wasn’t motivated by fear? Does the name Ora Mitelman ring a bell?”

“James, that’s the stupidest—She had nothing to do with—Oh, never mind. I’m hanging up now.”

“See you at the engagement party,” James says, and hangs up first.

“I should have warned Charles,” I tell the dead receiver. “Not that it would have done one damn iota of good, but I probably should have.” I slam the phone down. It rings again. I pick it up. James probably wants another last word.

“What?” I say.

“Hey, sunshine,” Gabe’s voice comes over the line. “Having a good day?”

“Oh, Gabe, I’m sorry. I thought you were my brother.”

“James on your bad side again?”

“James knows no other side of anyone. That’s his inimitable charm. But yeah, he broke up with Charles. Which has caused a little friction here.”

“Sorry to hear it. Listen, I’ve got a bunch of printing to do tonight. I’m going to be at the studio late, so don’t wait up for me, okay? Got to run, Red. Have a good day.”

“Right,” I tell the dead line. “Okay. You, too.”

I
T HAS BEEN A DIFFICULT WEEK
for my staff, what with both of their so-called superiors going haywire, so as a morale booster I order lunch for everyone from our favorite Chinese restaurant—that is, everyone except Charles, who did not return as planned after his morning meeting. We have just finished gorging ourselves on every variety of Asian noodle and deep-fried vegetable known to man, and now lounge around the conference table, poking at the remains of several dozen white paper containers.