Attachment (18 page)

How could she get him out of here? Why did she feel so dazed, inert? She couldn’t look at anything but the screen—she certainly couldn’t look at him, and wished he wouldn’t stand so menacingly close. He leaned against the counter and their arms touched; she leaned forward so they didn’t. The clip finally ended—with much gagging and choking and blurring, moaning becoming a roar as the hand holding the camera jerked and the screen went black.

“But wait. I have something much better for you.” Before she could protest, he clicked onto a different file.

She could hardly breathe, fearing the worst, and then there it was—the prime of Mrs. Jean Hubbard, not photographs this time, but a sepia-tinted film, accompanied by a strange sound track tapping on her headache; she thought she could detect the sound of a dripping faucet, then something like a box of nails being repeatedly scattered over a hard surface… Well, she hadn’t been far wrong: here was goddessy Jean, ethereal and elegant Jean—a gracefully suffering sea nymph in a painful portrait of submission and release.

Of course Dan had to film it: How else would it properly become pornography? How else would it even exist? How would he? Despite her miserably violated feeling, she knew that she could connect again to the person in these images, right here and now, and she absolutely had to get him out of here. She stepped away, and he stepped toward her. Again that chokingly
woody, underground scent, and she gasped for air.
Help
—Jean thought, and she pleaded in a thin whisper, gripping the counter behind her, “Go!” He raised his hands toward her. Louder, in an ugly rasping voice she’d never heard before, her fists by her sides, she said, “Didn’t you hear me? I said GO—get
out
!”

“Not that way,” he said quietly. Unsmiling and jaw clenched (very porno, Jean registered), Dan pulled her close with both hands and she slumped against his chest, freely inhaling. There was no humoring him to wipe those pictures. He was going to make her beg and she was ready to do it. “I came here because I wanted to give something back to you,” he told her solemnly. “Something you own as much as I do, something we
created.
But you shouldn’t have stolen my memory card.”

He grabbed her hand and pressed it against his gut, just above the belt—waiting, she guessed, for her to move her hand voluntarily; he thought she couldn’t resist. She could see all this, so why did she feel herself weakening as if drugged? That’s just it: Dan was a drug—one you snort. Sensation, she told herself, that’s all this was, all they could possibly be feeling—not even pleasure, just
sensation.
And power—his. She closed her eyes, inhaled deeply. Then he squeezed her hand, painful where her ring was, making her open her eyes and pay attention.

“I suppose I should punish you—not, as you think and fear, with the pictures, and not as you want me to do right now.”

As
she
wanted? Jean was infuriated, all the more so because it was true. Something they’d created: she hadn’t thought of it that way—she’d just been going along with anything and everything on this weird weekend of suspended time. She’d thought she’d smooth things over, that they had a deal. And now she was out of her depth. He was pressing in on her and she couldn’t speak.

He kissed her around the ears, forcing her back over the counter, supported by her elbows, her chest pushed up below him, and he whispered, “You’re not going to be drunk this time, or playing a part. And I’m not going to punish you even when you beg me to. I know it makes it easier for you if it hurts, as if it’s not your fault, if you’re overpowered or out of it. You don’t
need
to be punished, Jean. And your conscience is not my problem.” He turned her around so she was bent over the counter, her back to him, and showed her the delete key. “You go ahead,” he breathed into her hair, grappling with her belt buckle, “and don’t mind me.”

Jean erased first the film and then the photographs, clicking through them, one by one. He struggled with her Levi’s as she wiped the images; she knew that she wouldn’t stop him and that she wouldn’t forget any of it. She was sober, soiled, and horrified;
this
was the punishment, no special force needed. Then, for just a moment, she thought of Vic, age about six, peering up against the sun at the big O over the Odeon cinema in Parkway.
What are you doing?
Jean had asked her, wanting to get home;
Wait,
Vic said.
I’m making a memory.
Dan was yanking her jeans down on one side and then the other, his hand reaching inside her underpants. But something—perhaps Victoria’s early clarity and determination—freed her, and she turned and pushed him away.

“
No,
Dan. Not now and not ever. Not again,” she said, putting herself back together. “You need to go.”

He stepped back, defiantly rearranging himself—and for a couple of seconds she was frightened by the stony look on his face: cresting exasperation. “I thought that’s what you wanted. Isn’t that what you asked for, Mrs. H.?”

Jean looked hard at him, her arms crossed tight over her chest. “I didn’t ask you for anything,” she said. “Not a goddamn thing.” Upstairs the front door opened and slammed shut.

“Vic?”

“Hi, Mum! We’re back! Rupert gave me a lift.”

She looked wildly at Dan who raised a hand, patting the air in front of his shoulder, as if everything was under control. Jean smoothed her hair; he shut the laptop, took back his memory card, tucked in his T-shirt.

“Come down!” she shouted. “Dan’s here!”

“Glad I could show you those mock-ups,” he said loudly. “I
like
your idea of a picnic—good food from the same vintage, juicy homemade pies, and rounded, golden loaves of bread, the reddest, ripest berries…” She looked at him sharply, but that didn’t stop him. “What’s a fridge without food? You’re right. They did look very sterile, very showroom. And you know they’ve done the market research, and it’s true, hungry people spend.”

The front door slammed again, and in a minute Vic was lumbering downstairs barefoot.

“Oh,” said Jean, aiming for disappointment, “did Rupert leave?” She leaned forward to kiss Victoria and smelled smoke—which she welcomed if it overlaid any ambient scent of Dan. Or was she the only one who caught that?

“Yeah. He had to get the car back. Hey, Dan.”

“Hello, Victoria.” He gave her a stellar smile and, wattage unreturned, moved in anyway to kiss her cheek. “Good bash?”

“Decent.” She went to get a mug from the cupboard.

“Darling, remember those fridge things I took to the office after dropping you off yesterday?” Jean said, filling them both in. “Well, Dan’s brought them back, to show Mark what he’s done with them. And now he’s leaving. Dad’s stuck in Germany. Fog. Major fog, apparently.”

“Really?” Vic perked up. “When’s he getting back?”

“Well, tomorrow around one, with luck.”

“My phone’s completely dead.” She moved to plug her cell phone into the charger, glanced at the computer, and said, “I’m going to have a bath.”

“All right, darling. Are you hungry?”

“Um, not really. We stopped at a Little Chef. Thoroughly revolting it was too. Anyway, Vikram’s coming round with pizza. See you, Dan.”

“Yeah, cheers. Lovely to see you. I’d better be off myself,” he said as Victoria started back upstairs.

“Okay, well, I’m sure Mark will be in touch. What a pity. Got all your stuff?” she asked as she led him up the stairs, unbelievably even now able to wonder how her blue-jeaned ass looked not only from behind but from
below.
Victoria had barely managed a smile—did she sense something? Maybe she was just very hungover.

How
close
she’d come to succumbing again, and how fine she’d cut it. And how far she’d already fallen, how effortlessly, headlong into her disgrace. Of course Vic was absolutely right about Dan; it must be obvious to anyone. And what would she think if she had any idea who her mother really was?

Victoria’s overnight bag was on the mat blocking the door, and her fleece covered Dan’s leather jacket on the sofa. Jean pulled it out for him, wondering who to call first, Phyllis or Dad.

“Bye, Jean. Take care.”

“Yeah” was all she could say, following him out the door in her bare feet, crossing her arms against the chill and any further bodily contact. Dan planted a kiss on her cheek, mercifully unlingering, and skipped down the two front steps, momentarily unbalanced by the heavy bag. When he recovered, he gave her a terrific smile, intimate, wolfish, but not so much blaze that it would matter if Vic caught it from an upstairs window. He turned toward Parkway, his wide athlete’s stance easily bearing the weight, and he didn’t look back.

A
s soon as she
shut the front door, Jean went to the phone. She tried her father’s apartment on Seventy-second Street, then her sister Marianne in Westport, where he sometimes went on a Sunday. No answer.

Of course, she thought, putting on the kettle. It was July Fourth weekend; they’d all be at Marianne and Doug’s beach house. Looking in her overstuffed red book for the number, she prepared herself for a chat with her sister, always so theatrically burdened. Jean was fond of her brother-in-law, a trial lawyer, but the connection hadn’t eased relations with Marianne, who picked up on the first ring.

“Hel
lo
?” You’d think from her tone she single-handedly ran a handicapped circus, not just three young sons. Nothing wrong with their voices, anyway, Jean thought, holding the receiver and their boy screams away from her ear.

“Hi,” she said, “it’s Jean.”

“
There
you are.”

“Did you call?”

“
Every
body’s been trying to get ahold of you.”

“Funny, I didn’t get any messages from you.”

“Didn’t Mom call you?
And
Dad?”

“How is he?”

“Here, why don’t you ask him. Dad! It’s Jean! John Avery, get down off of there this instant! Dylan! Outside.
Now.
”

So much time passed that Jean wondered if Marianne had just decided to do something else, and she tried to think wholesome, charitable, life-lengthening thoughts. (She knew that her self-disgust deepened her irritation with her sister, a woman about as unlikely as any on earth to fall prey to someone like Dan.) But she lapsed immediately: it wasn’t as if Bill was standing right there; she could’ve filled Jean in, but oh no, too martyred. Finally, she heard the phone change hands and the deep voice she loved. She’d always thought that if Bill Warner was a singer, he’d be Johnny Cash.

“Hello, darling.” He sounded tired, winded.

“
Dad.
How
are
you?”

“I’m fine, dear. Just wanted to let you know that I’m going into the hospital tomorrow—no, wait a minute, Tuesday, after the long weekend, for a little procedure. Entirely elective, nothing serious. Maybe I told you about the aneurysm. Going to get it before it gets me. I’ll be out Friday, latest.”

Not like Dad, that euphemism, to say “procedure” instead of “operation.” He had mentioned it, and so had Phyllis, but it seemed such a long shot, an exploding artery, no more vivid to Jean than cosmic impact.

“That does sound quick. Where’re you doing it?”

“Columbia-Presbyterian. The best. They do these things every day, a dozen a day, thousands of them every year. Practically like going to the dentist.”

“So you decided to do it now.”

“You know your old man—once I’ve got the information, can’t not act. Best to get it out of the way. The little bugger’s bound to blow at some point—could be six months, could be five years. I’ll sleep a whole lot better not thinking about it. And I’ve got the top guy all signed up.”

“Oh Dad, I’d like to come over.”

“Well, Jeannie, you know there’s no face I’d rather see, but to be honest, it’s really not necessary. I’ll be out before you get here. How’s Victoria? Mark there with you, too?”

“Fine, fine. We’re all great.” What would her dear, honorable dad say if he knew how great she really was: Jean the eager adulteress and porno queen. “Dad, I’m halfway to New York. I could hop right over. I
want
to.”

“Darling, I know I can level with you. I’d just as soon get through this, really nothing serious, and have a good visit when I’m not all out of it and buzzing on drugs.”

“Well, then, a little later maybe. I’ll be done with my birds in a week or two.” From her first visit to the center with Phyllis, Jean had been giving Bill progress reports on the Beausoleil project—she’d had an instinct he’d be gripped and he was.

“Oh my. Are they all set to go?”

“Just about—although there’s some doubt about my little Bud, who may have to hold on a bit longer. The runt—remember him?”

“Sure, I do. Well, good. Old Bud and I’ll be kept in for observation. And one fine day, we too shall overcome, and be restored. Into the wild.”

Jean didn’t like the sound of this at all. Into the wild. She saw in her mind’s eye a swirling thin-spun cosmos, sickeningly uninhabitable, through which she was catapulting at inhuman speed. Like her poor brother, swilling around in the cold, dark sea. “I’m counting on you, Dad. Let me know. I’ll just jump on a plane.” I’m counting on you not to die, she meant, and she hoped it didn’t come through in her voice.

“Don’t worry, dear, I’ll be waiting for you. We’ll be in close touch. Bye, darling.”

He always left the phone abruptly and Jean could never get used to it, or the twinge of undispelled loneliness—the job of the drawn-out good-bye. Still, a child of the Depression, Bill couldn’t
not
worry about the phone bill. This time he wandered off without hanging up, and Jean wasn’t sure he knew you had to press the button—bound to be a cordless—or if she was supposed to hang on for Marianne.

She heard footsteps getting louder, as if they were marching down some school corridor straight to the principal’s office, a scolding on the way. Jean tensed—and for the first time she wondered how the little boys felt when Marianne approached. Then Marianne pressed the button, without checking to see if Jean was still there, and the line went dead.

Jean called her mother, keen to make a plan, but when Phyllis said there was “absolutely no need to come over,” she understood it as criticism that she wasn’t there already. “Marianne’s with him now.”

“I know, Mom. I just spoke to him. Dad says this is a straightforward procedure.”

“That’s right, dear. Though I suppose nothing is ever completely straightforward at eighty.”

“Seventy-nine,” Jean corrected. When she hung up, having promised she’d coordinate with her sister, she told herself she was going to have to get much better at all this, and fast. She needed some air. Jean grabbed her bag and went up to the living room. Victoria and Vikram were lounging on the sofa watching TV, guidebooks on the floor, their cardboard pizza boxes open on the sofa arms like laptops.

They were planning a summer trip around Indonesia, with a stopover in St. Jacques. Mark and Jean officially approved. Only nine months after the Bali bombings, they dissimulated their worry about terrorism on political and superstitious grounds (the lightning principle) and instead counted themselves lucky they’d been spared the big gap-year excursion, all aimlessness, danger, and expense. They’d contributed frequent-flier miles,
budgeted for hotels and, she was sure, Mark would top this up with cash: the “planned economy” Vic advocated.

Vic and Vikram were loosely holding hands and transfixed, gazing at the screen. “Animal magnetism” is not a metaphor, Jean thought, pausing to look at them. They didn’t even realize it, but these two had to be touching, making contact at some point, even if it was no more than the tip of a finger on a knee. What were they so solemnly watching? A liposuction operation.

“Back soon,” she said, lingering in the doorway as if debating where to go next—St. Jacques or straight to New York? But she could hear the fat-suctioning machine that so riveted Vikram and Victoria and, unacknowledged, slipped outside.

Her next move would depend on the news from Scully. Walking down Albert Street, she thought she’d managed giving birth alone because, well, she wasn’t alone. Scully had been there. And Victoria had been there. Now here was just Jean, the same dread, the same doctor, the same competition for Mark’s time. Familiar wait, familiar worry. But no baby at the end of it. So
what,
then, at the end of it? She could hardly bear to imagine such an attack on her person, something from Dante’s lower circles, the one packed, if she remembered right, with adulterous women.

And as she turned into Parkway, joining the Sunday stream of families coming from the zoo, she was overcome, coursing with fresh recognition of her folly—one she’d justified by Mark’s own. There was Dad, about to go into the hospital while she’d elected to romp in pornoland with that worthless pleasure addict. Like liposuction, she thought—disgusting, maybe dangerous, self-indulgent, and totally unnecessary. In fact, it was worse than liposuction, which at least wasn’t also disloyal. Jean paused to exchange sorrowful looks with a lone little pug in the pet shop window—or not a pug: a Chinese shar-pei, the sign said. His caramel coat looked about four sizes too big, the fur concertinaed just as if all his puppy fat had been hoovered out. Such worried brown eyes, buried in those folds—imagine a creature particularly valued for its wrinkles, Jean thought. Oh, look, he’s shivering—she didn’t think he could be more than five or six weeks old. Where was his mother? Where were all the other puglets? And then it was so clear. Whatever Scully said, she’d go directly to New York, returning by the most powerful instinct to her original territory. She was homing.