Loonglow (25 page)

She moved around the room, cleaning up without looking at him. Clay felt as if he'd jarred the serenity of their life together, broaching some scandal that pitted them against each other, rendered them strangers. He gathered some of his things, looking around the apartment with a sense that something unfathomable was happening. Slipping away: the phrase echoed in his head. He didn't know what it could be, but he was losing something irretrievable. Giving her a kiss, he left, closing the door behind him. The soft click echoed in his ears as if it were the discharge of a pistol.

Louey awoke to a discovery: she loved him. Could that be possible? She lay in bed, studying the ceiling as the words reverberated through her head. It was true; she loved him. It astonished her. Who would have thought her simple pleasure in his company could unexpectedly turn into something deeper? A feeling of calm seeped through her. How had something like this happened without her even noticing? Typical, she thought, when life outside convention gave her such delight, her sly emotions tricked her into this collaboration.

She picked up the phone, hanging up before she'd made the connection. What would she have said: I love you, isn't that a riot? He would hardly have been amused. She shook herself, sighing, and got up to go to work.

In the middle of the afternoon the thought came into her head: never to make love with a woman again. She stared at lines of text in front of her, unable to focus. How could she bear it? Never to kiss a woman. How could she give that up forever? You're the one who feels sorry for anyone who isn't gay, she told herself, remember? She hadn't realized what she would be giving up if she stayed with Clay. If she told him about sleeping with the woman back home, he would probably leave her. How
could
she love him?

But she did love him. It was ridiculous, but she did. Jesus: was she actually contemplating moving in with a man? It was too alien a notion to consider seriously. What was it she had with him; could it be anything like what she'd had with Mia? She didn't
want
anything like that with a man. Her own mother, with all her wishes for an easy life, would not expect that of her. But Clay wasn't “a man”: he was just Clay. What was so terrible about loving him?

To keep his mind off the future, Clay dredged up his old manuscript. It was both better than he'd remembered and more fundamentally flawed than he'd expected. How on earth could he write a book if he couldn't even think of how to end it? What was love, anyway? What made him feel so lost thinking about it? He was just unaccustomed to being alone, he told himself; Louey was such a basic component of his life he couldn't function properly without her.

The faceless uncertainty continued to gnaw at him. What could he be so worried about? She would either say yes or no, and if no, that didn't mean she was going to walk out of his life forever. And if she said yes? Wasn't that what he'd dreamt of—proof she loved him so much she was willing to do something absolutely out of character?

He didn't want her to be out of character, that was the problem. As he thought of her compromising, he envisioned Louey changing, trapped, like so many people dimmed by the details of ordinary life. Would she become less and less the woman he loved, the more she changed for him? How fair was it to ask her?

He wanted to live with her, couldn't imagine not being with her. Yet what if years went by and one day she awoke and realized she'd betrayed all she was, all she cared about? Would she blame him, then, for what he'd done to her? Would she grow to despise herself—and him?

It made no sense, thought Louey. If she refused to love someone simply because he was a man, how was that any different from the world denying her the right to love a woman? What was the big deal, living with him, anyway? She wouldn't lose her life; it wouldn't change what she felt about anything. Being with one person always meant giving up what you might have with anyone else. Everyone in relationships made the same concession. And if she found that she couldn't be happy with him—because he wasn't a woman, for whatever reason—she'd stop seeing him. No relationship was guaranteed to be permanent; she'd known few that were. What she had with Clay was bound to change eventually. She was gay, for Christ's sake. Then why live with him? she wondered.

On the other hand, since she loved him, why not?

By the end of the week Clay had hardly slept a night, stalking the city for hours like a homeless man. One night, when he lay down, something in him gave. Never again could he let anything, any one person, put him in this state. Life could never rise and fall on circumstances he could not control; that way lay madness.

The night before he was to meet Louey, he came home to find a message from her on his machine: she would meet him at a certain restaurant at eight (she would be the one with teeth). He turned the machine off, running a hand through his hair. Instinctively he moved to fix himself a drink. She sounded cheerful, which meant the news was good, or so he had to hope. Catching sight of his face in the hall mirror on the way to depositing his jacket, he lifted his glass in a toast.

“Here's to your future, baby,” he said. Soon enough he'd hear the verdict, good or bad. It shouldn't really matter what it was.

Why was it he felt like crying?

After thirty-five minutes, the maître d' came over to Clay to say Miss Mercer had called to tell him she was going to be late. He had been surprised at the butterflies that overtook him as he sat waiting; why he should be so anxious he couldn't imagine. Reason told him that she was late due to something minor, yet he couldn't help feeling a purely irrational sense of foreboding. What if she didn't come at all? What if she had realized she was making the biggest mistake of her life? Why hadn't he been satisfied to leave things as they were—marriage, for God's sake, where had that idea come from? It was all this misery that had overtaken her recently; it had made him want to pledge himself to her, to glue her to him.

This was craziness. She would be here. He was insane to worry—he wouldn't ruin her just by living with her, she was sleeping with him as it was, for Christ's sake, and she hadn't been contaminated with normality, had she?

The waiters and other customers looked at him with alternating pity and curiosity, as if he were dolled up for a blind date who was obviously jilting him. After an hour, the gnawing in his stomach got the better of him and he called her apartment. The phone rang and rang. He called his machine to see if she'd left him a message, but there was no word. He went back to his table, determined to renew his vigil, but his trip to the phone had somehow killed his desire to stay, and he paid the check, leaving a message with the waiter in case Louey came after he'd gone. The last thing he was going to do was sit and wait as if eagerly anticipating bad news.

He had to do something. She'd been murdered on the street, on the subway; she'd been kidnapped, pushed under a train. He would never forgive himself if something had happened to her. With a growing sense of dread, Clay made his way to her apartment.

Louey had been zipping up her dress when a knock came on her door. Silly boy, she thought, opening it with a flourish.

“May I come in?”

Louey took a step back. Mia stood in her doorway, her hair in disarray around her face.

“I know I should have called,” Mia was saying. Louey moved back and they were both inside before she knew how it had happened. The room seemed tiny, cramped. “You probably would have hung up on me.”

“I can't talk to you,” Louey blurted.

Mia stared. Louey felt the outline of her body wavering, as if she were dissolving into tiny particles. How could Mia be here? Mia said something about the party (Party? Louey thought), then on the street, why wouldn't Louey talk to her? There seemed to be an echo. “… do I have to do?” said Mia, do? voice faltering, just tell me what I have to do.

Louey groped for a nearby chair, sinking into it. “You stopped,” she stuttered. “Everything just stopped.”

“You know I never stopped loving you.” Had Mia really said that? It seemed cruelly surreal. “Does this mean all a person has to do is make one mistake … someone you love …” (Louey's head was throbbing) “… another chance?” Louey covered her face.

“Are you all right?” Mia knelt, a hand on Louey's knee, the other reaching to her cheek. Louey wrenched herself away, head spinning, bolted to the bathroom, splashing water on her face, the small room closing in on her, face in the mirror wild-eyed, unfamiliar. How could Mia be here, now?

The sight that greeted Louey on returning to the living room nearly made her stagger, reaching for the wall. Mia was crumpled on the floor, collapsed, face in her hands: Mia was crying. Never had she seen Mia like this, defeated; it was wrenching. Louey stumbled for the phone, leaving a message, her eyes frozen on the sight of Mia: Mia helpless and distraught was the only possibility she'd never considered, the only problem she was powerless to solve. Kneeling, she put her arms on Mia's shoulders. “Don't.
Please
, Mia.”

“I waited,” Mia said, “until I had the nerve.” Her voice pierced right through Louey. “Till I was sure he was gone.”

“He?”

“Yes”—suddenly defiant—“I saw you with him, but then for a while he didn't come, so then I …” Waited to make sure, Mia was saying; some strange roaring built in Louey's ears. “… courage to face you.” Mia, building courage?

“So does this mean once someone hurts you,” Mia said again, “they never get another chance?” Her voice seemed far away; surely it was someone other than Mia who'd been watching her apartment until Clay was really gone? “… what it took to force myself to knock.” Louey swallowed: forced herself? “I never knew what I was doing,” Mia cried out. “Don't you realize that? You always thought I had all the answers—Christ, I didn't have a clue. What the fuck has someone like
me
got to offer?”

“Timeless beauty?” Louey tried to tease her.

“What good is that if you don't want me?” Mia flung herself against Louey, muffled: “I know I was a bitch”—eyes glistening—“bitch goddess.”

Louey closed her eyes. This was a mirage, she knew. It would disappear, her life would go on as planned—but how? She had no life. Was what Mia had asked her true: was she incapable of forgiving someone she had loved? Mia's hands clutched at her shoulders, waist, tears streaming from her eyes, excruciating. “Mia—” She twisted her head away. “I don't know what to tell you—” Mia pressed her mouth to Louey's; Louey tasted tears. “I don't—”

“It's no good without you.”

“Mia …” Mia's head against her shoulder felt like anguish piercing through her. “You have to make it be good,” she murmured, stroking Mia's hair. Fine advice, she thought, coming from her. How could she have convinced herself she could make any life-and-death decision? “Make it be good yourself.” How could she tell Mia to let go when she could barely get herself to do so? “That shouldn't be too hard for a bitch goddess like you.”

Mia tried to smile. Amazing: who would have believed Mia could look like that?

What was she supposed to do?

By the time Clay reached Louey's apartment, it beckoned like an old friend. You are ludicrously overdressed, he thought; he never should have started this whole business. Maybe she was late because she'd cooked up some surprise for him which taxed her organizational skills more than she'd expected. He wouldn't even be upset, as long as she was fine—alive. Climbing her stairs, he couldn't help but feel his usual anticipation at the thought of seeing her. “Take off those clothes,” she'd say; what good were clothes for what was truly meaningful in life?

“Louey?” he called, knocking on the door. Silence. He tried the knob; to his considerable unease, it turned in his hand. He went inside.

The first sight that greeted him was the dress he'd bought, draped over a chair. He called Louey's name again, the hair on the back of his neck prickling at the prospect of a prolonged evening of mystery. Surely if anything serious had really happened to her, she wouldn't have called the restaurant? He dialed the number, then hung up, his stomach sinking when the maître d' told him she had never shown up or called again. And you were worried about scarring her psyche, he thought; she would love the irony in that.

When he discovered what was waiting in the bedroom, however, he lost all desire to see the irony in anything.

The bed was stripped; the dresser and the closet both were open, scavenged as completely as if someone had ransacked them and then fled. Numbly Clay thought of the dress still waiting in the other room: a thief would not have taken jeans and underwear and left a high-priced evening gown. He almost wished it was a thief who'd done this.

Mocked by the empty hangers, he closed the closet gently, slid the dresser drawers back so that the piece looked seemly once again. He lost heart looking at the bed and sank onto it, wondering what possible use for bedclothes even a desperately deranged Louey could have.

Staring at his bewildered reflection in the mirror, he caught sight of a piece of paper beside him on the pillow. He turned, his heart thudding. Ransom note? he thought, though it was not the worst possibility that occurred to him. Then, after reading what it said, he lay back on the bare mattress and covered his face with shaking hands.

“Wine?”

Clay shook his head, thanking the young woman hovering before him. He couldn't believe this was happening: all around him were copies of his book, people he'd never met were clapping him on the back. Young women in black bow ties offered him drinks, hors d'oeuvres and knowing smiles, as if he were truly important and not (he imagined her wry voice) merely pretty.

Well, he'd finished it. He'd found himself a publisher, a nice young editor as honest as he was hardworking—no mean feat, as Clay had learned from Louey. It wasn't this poor young man's fault he was no Louey, Clay thought. (“Thank God for small favors,” he imagined her telling him.) He felt a twinge of sadness that she wasn't here for this, she who had been so much a part of it.