A Working Theory of Love (27 page)

“Someone can always be killed.” He flashes a grin at me. “Was anyone killed?”

“No,” I say.

“I find this potential for danger—this constant potential for danger—to be a red herring.”

“I’m just here to ask if you can keep Rachel away from Trevor.”

“That’s actually asking a lot,” he says. “You have time for a drive?”

Again, no. “Sure.”

Raj’s gentility becomes absurd behind the wheel of the Porsche. He looks like the
villain from a movie for teenagers, rich but with a wooden heart. Raj’s heart isn’t
wooden, though—it’s invisible. I don’t know what’s going on in there. I just know
we’re headed to Bolinas. He pounds the gas, and the Porsche whirrs and whines up the
mountain. We feel close to the engine’s power, as if lashed to a rocket. Raj take
the turns sharp, counting on the car to grip like a tarantula. He laughs at the animal
fun of Gs, laughs too at the fact that I’m plainly scared. The rock walls swipe at
us; then we seem to be flying through the air, nothing under us but a whispery plummet
into the ocean.

“I can never find this place,” I say, shouting over the engine.

“That’s how they like it,” he says.

“Seems futile in the age of Google Maps.”

“True,” he says. “They might have to change tactics. My mother and father actually
lived there in the late sixties. They were members of the Bolinas Border Patrol—that’s
the group that tears down the highway signs so people can’t find the town. They were
trying to protect the little bohemian life that was springing up. Poets and painters,
and a lot less drugs than San Francisco. They met at Esalen. Big hippies. I’ll show
you some pictures sometime.”

My stomach turns over in the next sharp curve. “I bet you wish they bought real estate.”

“That’s what I’m getting to. They wanted to protect Bolinas, but not bad enough. They
weren’t willing to do what was really necessary.”

We reach some peak spot, and then take off down a road that cuts wildly through the
mountains, as if drawn by a surveyor with the shakes. I suddenly feel what Erin must
have felt that time in Spain—that I have no control, that the person behind the wheel,
who I normally trust, is unknown to me, has been possessed by some demon. It’s an
odd opportunity to inhabit her experience, but I take it, keeping quiet, holding myself
through my fear. We bottom out on Highway 1 and zoom up the road, past the little
white wooden elementary school, and into Bolinas proper.

“So we ended up with the worst of all worlds,” Raj shouts over the top of the car,
as we’re getting out. “Marin hypocrites.”

A middle-aged woman holding her sandals in her hand looks at us sharply.

“Bobo zombies,” Raj says, paying no attention to her.

“Are you going to lock the car?” I ask.

“The stealing these people have done”—he points all around us—“was finished long ago.”

We walk, passing the little seaside houses, the pub, the diner, the surf shop, the
art galleries. I can see how his parents’ strategy wouldn’t work. If you build a beautiful,
hip place—an exclusive place—you’re basically an unwitting resort developer. Artists
are always the Johnny Appleseeds of gentrification. But what were his parents supposed
to do differently? Cut down all the trees for an amusement park? Lure in a HoJo’s?

On the beach, a golden retriever launches airborne, snatching a Frisbee from the sky.
Raj claps his hands. “
Hella
good.”

“It’s beautiful here,” I say, but he ignores me, holding his arms out into the Pacific
wind.

“We’re spiritual creatures,” he says. “There’s no denying it. And the vacuum in our
souls—the vacuum that ninety-nine percent of people deny is even there—just sucks
out all the resources for life. Do you think anyone buys material goods out of a sense
of fullness? Do you think that ever happens in someone’s mind? ‘I’m so happy with
my marriage I’m going to buy my wife some jewelry.’ No. They think, ‘We’re in such
a funk—I’m so bored—I’m going to buy my wife some jewelry and hope like hell it wakes
us both up. Maybe if she loves the diamonds some of that love will be misdirected
at me.’”

“That’s not true. You can buy someone a gift out of love or happiness. Generosity.”

“Think about the few times you’ve bought something like that. There wasn’t a hefty
dose of desperation in the act?”

“I did it in my marriage,” I say. “Which was one long dose of desperation.”

“There really aren’t that many
persons
anymore. There are organisms. Persons need fulfillment; organisms need stimulation.
You can’t sell a person anything—you can only sell things to an organism.”

“So we need stimulation—why not let us have stimulation?”

He takes his time answering this question. He shuffles in the sand, looks up at the
sun.

“It’s like Bolinas in the seventies,” he says. “Even if you and I can’t exactly recognize
it, Trevor knows it’s a last stand.”

“A last stand he’s going to lose.”

Raj watches something in the distance. I try to follow his gaze but there’s nothing
in particular to see, just sun on water. “He doesn’t think so. He thinks he has to
do everything in his power to fight back.”

“Everything?”

He looks at me, then looks away, shrugging. “I don’t know if
he
could even answer that question. You tear down a few signs and hope that works. If
it doesn’t you go on to Plan B. If Plan B doesn’t work you go on to Plan C.”

“Then Plan D and Plan E . . .”

“No. That’s the thing. Plan C is where they stop.”

“You’re worrying me.”

“There are always limits,” he says. He turns his handsome, bland face on me. It seems
disjointed by his bright smile. “Though limits are funny. They keep getting kicked
down the road a bit, pushed a little forward, a little forward. It’s a strange phenomenon.
At first you can’t even imagine going further, then you see you have no choice. The
clouds clear and you see your premises require a much more radical conclusion.”

“I just want Rachel out of it.”

“Rachel’s not in anything.”

“You know what I mean.”

“Are you going to be the community in her life? The people she can depend on? Talk
to?”

“No one can be all that for her.”

“That’s the wrong answer.”

Maybe so, but it’s an honest answer. “I’m not a church,” I say. “I’m not a cult. I’m
not an organization.”

“A series of wrong answers.”

I almost say that there’s a limit to what one person can accomplish, but that would
no doubt also be a wrong answer. Raj is still holding his hands out, receiving the
wind like a gift. I look down the beach, to a wall of tall steep rocks. Next to them
people of all ages and all walks of life sit on the sand, enjoying the sun.

“I’ll do whatever it takes,” I say.

“That’s better.” He sighs. “I’ll see what I can do.”

•   •   •

R
ACHEL SLUMPS ON THE
couch, her feet invisible among Forever 21 bags. She’s been shopping with Lexie, who’s
now racing around with David, the wingman. Lexie and the wingman have been texting
for seven months, and he’s flown out to see her twice. I thought he knew something
I didn’t about sexual boldness, but in fact he knows something I don’t about constancy.

Rachel looks miserable and spent, as if she’s coming off a coke binge. She stands
and walks into the bedroom. I can’t see her, but I know she’s casting a critical eye
on her clothes. We’re supposed to go clubbing later.

She comes back into the living room, her shoulders hunched. She’s defeated by the
short skirt, the tight top—the kind of clothes she wore when I first met her. Just
like then, this current transformation was overseen by Lexie, my strange ally against
the shackles of Pure Encounters. Of course my fantasies of Rachel’s liberation involved
her being happy.

“I bet Erin never dressed like this,” she says. “She has too much dignity.”

“You look pretty,” I say.

“Tell me the truth—did Erin ever dress like this?”

I think of my promise to Raj, my promise to be Rachel’s community. Would her community
tell her the truth?

“She’s more conservative than you are.”

“That’s something you should never say to a girl. The opposite of conservative is
slutty.”

“I said you looked great.”

“I look like a prostitute,” she says.

This is more or less true. One wrong move and she’ll reveal her underwear, but at
least she’s wearing underwear.

“A young and hot prostitute,” I say. “A Ukrainian.”

“I feel like I’m back in Jersey,” she says.

I’m not sure why it bothers me when she runs down the Garden State, but I can’t resist
defending her home turf. “I went whale watching off Cape May one time. It was very
beautiful.”

“Cape May,” she says. “That’s totally what I’m talking about.”

“It’s in New Jersey.”

“Did you go with Erin? Was she dressed like this?”

“We were on a boat.”

“How about when you went to clubs?”

“We didn’t go to clubs.”

“That’s what I mean.” She shakes her head.

“We don’t have to meet those guys tonight,” I say. This is actually a desire expressed
as an offer. I hope I’m not becoming a coward.

“After your divorce—you went to clubs then?”

“No,” I say, though that’s not right. I did go to large dark places where you could
dance. But they didn’t play techno drug music; they played songs from the eighties.
Mainstream, alternative, mash-up—but always songs from the eighties. “I didn’t really
think of them as clubs.”

“You meet a lot of girls? You bring a lot of girls back here?”

“I met a lot of girls, yes. I wouldn’t say I brought
a lot
home.”

“What was the trick—getting them to sleep with you?”

“There was no trick,” I say, though of course there was a trick. “You couldn’t want
it too much. When I went out to have sex I ended up dancing. When I went out to dance
I ended up having sex. It was the koan of post-divorce life.”

“How’d you pick out the girl?”

“You never know,” I say. “It helps to lower your sights.”

It’s a joke I’ve told often, but I hear how it must sound.

“Not in your case, naturally,” I say.

“I’m taking this crap off.” She stalks into the bedroom. Funny that she would bring
up Erin. One thing my ex-wife taught me (hopefully) about moments like this is not
to go steaming after her. She’s mad. Give her some space. I listen to Rachel grunting
and tugging at her clothes, furious.

I follow her. She’s put on jeans, and is pulling on a loose sweater. “I didn’t pick
you up in a club,” I say.

“No, you picked me up in a youth hostel, pretending to be a lost stranger.”

“It is a sordid beginning.” I can’t rally myself to think it’s funny today; it just
seems depressing. And I’m not even the most depressing turn in her life. She has the
ex who posted their love life online. “I don’t think it’s totally accurate to say
I
picked
you
up.”

She barely glances at me. Her clubbing makeup looks particularly clownish now. “Who
was it, then?”

“I mean it was a shared effort. You were picking me up, too.”

“That’s an interesting version of the story.”

Outside the window, in the park, a movie is showing on an enormous inflatable screen.
It’s
Pretty in Pink
. It just started; they’re in the record store.

“Are you afraid of commitment?” she asks.

“No,” I say. I’m not. I’ve got no problem with commitment. My problem is getting my
heart off the tarmac. But I also gird myself—our conversation may have just gone from
her being unhappy with her clothes to her being cosmically unhappy.

“You came up to Fairfax,” she says. “I thought you really wanted to take another shot
at this.”

“I do,” I say. “I am.”

“Then why do I feel like you’re making up like eighty percent of my life, and I’m
making up like ten percent of yours?”

“I’m probably just smaller,” I say. “My eighty percent is about the same size as your
ten percent.”

“You’re afraid of clicking.”

“I’m sure you’re right.” I’ve found that when I’m being lectured on my flaws, it’s
best to play along. I might learn something.

“You can do commitment, but you can’t be really present.”

“That sounds pretty accurate.”

“Then why am I here?”

“I don’t know. Where else would you be?”

“I was walking over here today and I saw this couple just staring into each other’s
eyes—like major love. Sitting on the sidewalk Indian-style. I thought, I want love
like that. I want a click like that. And then when I was walking by she yelled. He
wasn’t staring into her eyes. He was plucking her nose hair.” Rachel looks at me,
bereft, as if this is a horrible story.

“They’d have to be good friends to pluck a nose hair,” I say.

Rachel looks out the window at the movie, at the people gathered to watch the movie.
She is unhappy, unreachable (if only temporarily so). I think about something Livorno
said about his career, that he was always bedeviled by plateaus. Now that I’ve “protected”
her, I wonder if I’m peering from the top of my plateau. Some community I am.

drbas: hlivo says we have two weeks until the contest, but no one will answer my question.
i ask jenn1, i ask hlivo, i ask laham, i ask you. no one

frnd1: do you know what obsessed means?

drbas: obsessed = unhealthily fixated on

frnd1: exactly

drbas: how important is hlivo’s contest to him?

frnd1: very important

drbas: is it a life or death issue?

frnd1: almost

drbas: i’d love to help at hlivo’s contest, but i can’t

I take a minute.

frnd1: you already agreed to

drbas: i think i’m too focused on 1976

frnd1: you always said “a man is only as good as his word”

drbas: it’s true. tell hlivo i’m very sorry

I don’t need to. Hlivo is wheezing right over my shoulder.