That was the first time with Vic. He caressed my hair. My earlobe, which thereafter felt whorish and diseased.
Anyway, that’s what Vic’s wife—Mary—that’s what she asked me.
—How did it start? she said.
I told her to hold the line. That it might be a while.
I walked out of Lanvin in the heels I was wearing. It’s easiest to steal when you don’t know you’re stealing. The heavily made-up blonde had been watching me the whole time but she was violently texting when I walked out. They were display shoes, so they didn’t make a peep when they walked me out of there.
Suddenly I was in the sunshine in these bright, beautiful Lanvin sling-backs. Their strings were like thin snakes around my ankles. Tourists were ordering cupcakes from a cupcake ATM. They were Italian and laughing. The shoes took me to Spago. I was seated in the courtyard. It was windless out there, I was early for lunch, and everybody seemed to enjoy my presence, the busboys especially. I ordered the Maine lobster salad and a glass of Dr. Loosen. I unmuted the phone.
—I’m sorry, I said. Can you repeat the question?
—I want to know how it started.
I didn’t say anything for a long time and held the phone to my ear and my hand to the mouthpiece as the waiter poured me a glass. He smiled at me conspiratorially, like here we were being bacchanalian and the person on the other end of that line was probably folding laundry.
—Do you understand the question?
—Yes, perfectly, I said. I think it’s what I’d want to know, too. It started on his lap.
She made a noise of disgust that doubled as reproach. Like I was stupid to lay my head on a married man’s lap.
—You know my husband is dead, of course. But do you know my young son got into an accident a month ago, and he’s dead now, too? You didn’t know that, did you? You cunt.
I had, up until now, taken many measures not to think of the children.
Because it was a cold dish that only needed assembling and because I was the first customer of the afternoon, my lobster salad was delivered quickly. Bright wedges of avocado. The haricots verts were glossy and dark, the bacon was crisp and auburn, and the lobster was so fresh it looked raw.
—I didn’t. How—?
—He drowned.
Now Mary began to make these little noises on the other end, like a guinea pig. Vic had met her in high school. He told me he’d never cheated on his wife with anyone other than me. It might have been a lie but I didn’t think so. He’d probably slept with five or six women before her; high school girls in the sixties, I pictured no condoms and the girls just going home and angling a faucet to exhume it out of them. Maybe there was an abortion or two. I bet I was the first woman he did not come inside, and anything new, for a man, can be an erotic discovery.
I started crying. I knew something of the world in which Mary was now living. The heart pills he’d no longer need. Things in the refrigerator are the worst because you cannot save them indefinitely. What if the dead person comes back and wants his coffee yogurt.
But the child. I couldn’t imagine. Or I could imagine. Before I even found you, I imagined losing you. It felt like someone was serving my heart to me on a plate and forcing me to carve out pulsing segments and eat them without condiments.
—Why are you crying?
—I’m sorry, I said. I shouldn’t be crying. I didn’t ask for him that way. I’m so sorry about your boy.
—You’re a lying cunt!
She would never understand. If I’d said, Go home to your wife, you pig, he would have wanted me even more and her even less. You can’t say these things to any woman, let alone a grieving one.
—I’m sorry, I said more quietly.
—I’m calling, she said, for another thing. My daughter, Eleanor—in case he never told you their names—I don’t know where she is. She hates you. She said she wants to kill you. And I’m thinking. If she’s coming for you. If she comes for you, will you give me the dignity of telling me?
I nodded into the phone.
—Do you hear me, you cunt!
—Yes, I said. I thought of the word dignity and wanted to kill myself.
7
ON THE WAY HOME I took two milligrams of Klonopin. It worked enough for me to forget a little about the child. But it would come back in terrible notions—anime eyes blinking inside of a child-size coffin.
When I walked into my place, I found my landlord sitting on my couch. I had no one to turn to, aghast.
—Darling! he said, standing. I’m so sorry, I feel so awful. I’ve been here, pacing, wanting to off myself.
—Leonard?
—Yes, my darling. Is it over? Did you do it?
—Do what?
—You didn’t do it and that’s all right. That’s fine, darling. We will get through. We will manage. Come, sit by me, my life. Let’s eat a nice dinner and see a funny movie.
He had a drink in one hand and a book in the other. William Carlos Williams, Spring and All. His hair was rumpled. There were green stains on his collared white shirt.
—Lenny, I think you’re confused.
—Yes, and I’ve confused you. I’m a terrible man, Lenore, and I don’t deserve our life. Come close to me, my body. My woman in blue.
I worked for a few months at a supermarket in Utah, sealing chicken breasts in plastic. My boss was a man in a cowboy hat and a bolo tie. He always had his hands in his pockets. He went crazy one day and shot his wife in the neck. Of course, these things don’t happen one day. It was likely brewing for months, but how could I have noticed, sealing chickens and not looking at the clock for chunks of time so that I might be pleasantly surprised at how much of it had passed. But when the police came and they started asking questions, I recalled how my boss had several times called me Shelley: Shelley, we need more breasts on the cooler, and transfer yesterday’s into the discount section. I never corrected him. I hadn’t seen the point at the time.
—Lenny.
—Love?
—Leonard, I said. I’m not Lenore. I think you’re having an episode.
I said this calmly. I watched his mind return to his body. As reality crept in, his color faded. His face drooped and he appeared a decade older.
He looked around the room, realizing it was his old house and that he didn’t live there anymore.
—Oh God.
—It’s all right. Why don’t you sit back down, I’ll get you a glass of water.
—Jesus. I’m embarrassed. I’m so embarrassed.
—Don’t be.
—Grief does strange things to you.
—I can only imagine.
—It’s awful. One day someone is screaming at you for how you’re driving. The next day you’re free.
I brought him warm tap water in a dusty glass.
—On top of the grief, he said, there are also the drugs I did in my youth.
—What sorts?
—LSD. Mescaline. Peyote. And on. They make me lose my mind for a stretch. Here and there.
I thought of the groceries I’d bought on the way home, the milk warming out there in the heat. This second child’s death had twisted my intestines. Going to grocery stores was one of the best ways I knew to calm myself. The clean, cool aisles. Everything was brightly lit at any time of day.