Animal Husbandry (20 page)

“Well,” Joan said finally. “It certainly would explain Jason.”

“And Ray,” I said.

We looked at each other, then said the same thing:

“And Eddie.”

The weekend after I discovered the Coolidge Effect, I was voracious for information.

Indiscriminate.

Wacko
.

I spent the better part of Saturday morning at the Chelsea Barnes & Noble superstore with a store map, winding my way from section to section—Natural History to Psychology to Sociology
to Anthropology—picking up books and checking their tables of contents. When something seemed interesting, I took out a special little notebook I’d picked up at Duane Reade on my way to the bookstore—a portable secret spy notebook—and wrote it down:

Careening around the corner from Aviation, I ran straight into David.

“Hey,” he said. “What are you doing here?”

I smiled nervously. “What are
you
doing here?”

“Cruising.” He rolled his eyes at the lack of cruise material. “Actually I’m looking for a book on fashion in the forties. Research for an upcoming shoe shoot.”

I tightened my grip on my mini-notebook and then put both hands behind my back, as if I were stretching. David stared at me.

“What? You look like you’ve been caught in the act.” He
looked me up and down, then opened my coat by the lapels. “Jane? Have you been shoplifting again?”

I laughed as David’s hand made its way down my back to where my hands were. I felt him stop at the notebook. He pulled the hand holding it forward. “A
ha
,” he said. “What’s this?”

I flipped my hair from one side to the other and played with my earring. “Nothing.”

“It’s not nothing. It’s a notebook.”

I tried to pull it toward me, but David had a firm grip. I was getting nervous. “Give it,” I said.

He stared at me. “
Give
it?” he mimicked. “How old are you?”

I giggled but pulled hard again on the notebook. “Come on,” I repeated. “
Give
it.”

He pulled the notebook out of my hand in one clean tug and held it over my head where I couldn’t reach it. Then he grinned as he lowered it slowly and opened to the first page.

“What is this?”

I shrugged as if I’d just behaved like a twelve-year-old for no reason. “They’re just notes.”

“I can see that,” David said. He flipped the page.

He closed the notebook. “Notes for what?”

I rifled through my bag, pretending to look for something. “For a show. For a guest for a show.”

“Bullshit,” he said. “Notes for what?”

I bit my thumbnail. “You wouldn’t understand.”

“Why wouldn’t I understand?” David said. “I understand everything.”

I looked at his face and nodded. “Yes. You do.” Then I took him by the arm and led him toward the café. “Let’s get some coffee.”

“I think it’s great,” David said after I’d told him about the notebooks.

And the clippings.

And the budding case files.

And Eddie and Evelyn the cat and the Coolidge Effect.

“Really?”

“Really.” He stirred his coffee. “Let me know what you find out. I could certainly use the information.”

“You could?”

“Sure. I mean, it’s worse with gay men because you have both of them acting out. At least in straight relationships there’s only one man and a woman to diffuse him. I think the
reason why so many gay relationships don’t work is because there’s no woman there to absorb and dilute male narcissism.”

“So you don’t think I’m insane?”

“I didn’t say that. I just think it’s interesting. And I also think that whatever helps you get over Ray—whatever makes you feel better—you should do.”

Newly anointed monkey scientist not deemed insane. Encouraged by colleague to proceed with research
.

“So this science stuff is helping?”

I considered the question. “I guess so. It makes me feel like there are answers, reasons, a bigger picture. When Ray dumped me, all I wanted to know was why. Why, why, why. And he never answered me. He never told me why he did what he did. And I almost think that’s worse than the act itself—the not knowing. It’s like random violence: All you want to know is what the victim did to bring on the attack so you can prevent it the next time. Was the person in a shitty neighborhood alone late at night? Was the person wearing a big diamond necklace in a shitty neighborhood alone late at night?”

David nodded. “I know what you mean,” he said. “But you have to be careful not to replace one obsession with another. Sometimes there aren’t answers. Sometimes things just happen. They just
are
.”

“Maybe. But I feel like I’m on to something. Like there’s something out there that explains it. If I can just find it, if I can just figure it out, I’ll be able to get past this. I’ll be able to heal straight.”

“Well, that’s good, then.”

We were quiet for a few minutes before I took out my little notebook and leaned across the table like I had a big secret to tell him.

“Did you know that the greater dwarf lemur leaves fecal
scent marks that are sixteen inches long?” I stared at him with my eyes open wide. “Like a big squeeze of
toothpaste
!”

David looked down at his scone and pushed it away. “Extra whitening or tartar control?”

Joan called the next day, on Sunday, to see if I was free in the afternoon to get together. Ben had been out of town all weekend, she said, and she was feeling restless. But after a few more minutes on the phone it sounded like there was more to it than that.

“I’ve been thinking about our conversation the other day. Your New-Cow theory,” she said when I pressed her. “And let’s just say I’m ready to consider it now.”

I asked her why she had changed her mind, but she wouldn’t answer. “I don’t want to talk about it over the phone. But if you come over, I’ll make pancakes.”

Oh-oh.

She always made us pancakes when she was depressed.

I told her I’d be there in half an hour.

“Bring some maple syrup,” she said before we hung up. “And bring your file.”

Joan was still in her pajamas when I came to her door. Her big white terry cloth hotel robe with the royal-blue Ritz-Carlton insignia (a “souvenir” from an annoyingly long business trip, she’d once confessed) was open, and the belt dragged along the floor. We sat down on the couch and both lit cigarettes before she started to talk.

“Ben’s cheating on me.” She took a long drag off her cigarette, touched her tongue to her top teeth, then pursed her lips and blew. “He’s been away since Wednesday. Said he had to go to London to try to steal an editor away from British
Vogue
.”

I stared at her. “So?”

“So. I went in to the office yesterday to catch up on some work. And while I was there, I went into his office to leave him a memo about a few story ideas we had discussed before his trip. And there, on his desk, was this.” She held out a small leather-bound booklet. “Can’t go to London without your passport.”

“No, I guess you couldn’t. Are you okay?” I didn’t know what else to say.

She shrugged. “No.”

“Maybe you’re wrong. Maybe it was an old passport?”

“No. I checked.” She shook her head. “This isn’t the first time,” she said softly. “There have been others. This is just the first time his lie has been so
transcontinental
.”

“Others?” The only other one Joan had told me about was some freelance writer around a year and a half ago, but none since. And she wasn’t even certain she was right. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

She sighed and pulled her legs up under her on the couch. “It’s completely humiliating, his philandering. I’m sure everyone at the office knows about our relationship, even though we’ve never ‘outed’ ourselves and it’s supposed to be a secret. And I’m sure everyone knows about him and these other women. I mean, you’re supposed to leave someone when they do shit like this, right?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know. Not necessarily.”

“It’s just hard.” She reached into her robe pocket for a Kleenex, and I watched as her eyes filled up with tears. “I love him.” She blew her nose. “How do you explain that without feeling totally pathetic?”

“I can understand that,” I said. And I did. It was the same reason why no matter how much I hated Ray, I still loved him.

“You can? Because I’m not so sure I do.” She ran her hands
through her hair, thinking. “It’s what I said the other day. We’re not animals. We’re supposed to have control over our instincts, not act on them just because we feel them. I mean, I’m just as bad. Cheating on him with Jason.”

I went into the kitchen to get a bottle of water and came back with it and two glasses. “Do you know who it is?”

“This one? I don’t know. Kind of. Who cares? Some new assistant in advertising. It doesn’t matter since they’re all the same. They’re all new. And they’re all not me.”

I didn’t know what to tell Joan to make her feel better. Somehow all the white lies and explanations best friends tell best friends at moments like that seemed hackneyed, useless, false. I felt suddenly like there needed to be another language for comfort:

Science.

Reason.

Logic.

Facts.

I put my cigarette out and reached for the file. “Well, if it makes you feel any better, only three percent of all mammals pair-bond,” I said. “Which means that ninety-seven percent of them are—”

“Either fucking New-Cow assistants or the subjects of their magazine profiles?”

I looked up from my file. “That too,” I said. “But the word I was looking for was
polygamous
.”

Joan leaned toward me on the couch and tried to read from my file upside down. “But have you found anything more about
why
they’re that way?
Why
they say they’re in love with us if they’re just going to cheat on us?”

I recognized Joan’s Old-Cow rage and wished there was something I could say that would alleviate it. But judging from
personal experience, nothing short of death of the beloved Bull could do that. I made a sympathetic face and nodded for a few seconds, then turned back to the file with clinical deliberation.

“It has something to do with reproductive opportunities. You know, the more the male mates, the more offspring it can produce. By definition male fitness is the ability to maximize mating frequency.”

“Maximize mating frequency,” Joan repeated. “But with
different
mates.”

“Correct.”

I flipped through my articles and the yellow legal pad where I’d scribbled down long paragraphs of notes, then through my secret spy pad from the day before, and found something I was looking for. “Okay, here.” I started to read the notes I’d taken from
Sex, Evolution, and Behavior
(Daly and Wilson):