Modern Lovers (27 page)

H
aving sex again was better than going to Barneys and trying on expensive dresses. It was better than getting a facial by her favorite Eastern European sadist. It was better than fresh ricotta on toast. Zoe felt like she was twenty-five. Maybe thirty-five. Either way, she felt young and flushed with blood. Sweaty Brooklyn August didn't bother her the way it usually did, but on a whim, she booked two nights at an Airbnb in Montauk. She left forty bucks on the kitchen counter for Ruby to order dinner. It was a Wednesday. The restaurant had weeks more work, at least, and she and Jane had been there every day, supervising. A little break sounded good. Zoe tucked a few vibrators in the bottom of her bag, and then they were driving down the LIE, holding hands.

The rental was a shacky little house just off Ditch Plains, where the cute surfers and their admirers hung out. All the kids had bare feet and sandy blond highlights in their hair, and Zoe wanted to swallow them whole. She'd loved growing up near the beach, and always felt sad that even though New York was on the coast, it just wasn't the same. Ruby and her friends never cut school to go surfing or have bonfires on the sand. Zoe held Jane's hand, and they walked up and down the beach, stooping over to pick up pretty little shells, tossing them back into the ocean when they were cracked.

“How's your homework going?” Zoe asked. She hadn't been keeping the diary for Dr. Amelia, not on paper. It seemed antithetical to their kind of marriage, which had always been about passion and taste. Zoe had never liked busywork, and that's what this felt like—in reality, all she and Jane had to do was resolve their shit. Yes or no! In or out! How on earth was a shopping list of their problems supposed to help answer that question?

“I kind of like it,” Jane said. Sweet Jane. Before Zoe knew for sure that she was a lesbian, when she was still just a kid fumbling around with other kids' bodies in their teenage bedrooms, several of the boys she'd romanced had looked more or less like Jane—tall, with fair hair and skin tan from the sunshine. Indoors, at night, their sweet little fish bellies would bump together in the dark. It had been such a relief when she slept with her first girl and suddenly all those little bumps were moving in the right direction. It wasn't that way for everyone, of course—Zoe knew lots of women who were truly bi, but she just wasn't. She loved bodies, and beauty, but just because she thought Brad Pitt had a lovely face, that didn't mean she wanted to sit on it.

Zoe's phone began to trill. “Hang on,” she said, and pulled it out of her pocket. Elizabeth. She pushed
IGNORE
and put it back in her pocket, but the phone began to ring again immediately. “She probably hit it again by mistake,” Zoe said, but the phone rang again, and Jane shrugged, so Zoe answered. “What's up?” she said, plugging her finger in her other ear to block out the sound of the waves. “Whoa, whoa, whoa, what's going on? Are you okay? Slow down, I can barely hear you.” Jane waved her up the beach, where she could hear better, and then turned and walked down to the edge of the water. She slipped off her shoes and let the tiny waves slosh over her feet.

“Start again, I can hear better,” Zoe said.

On the other end, Elizabeth took a big gulp of air and then launched into Darcey and Naomi and Lydia and Andrew and fake Lydia peeking through the window at her while she yelled at her
husband. Elizabeth sobbed through it, taking little breaks to blow her nose. Zoe wanted to say,
I KNEW IT.
Just in general, as a rule, she had known that something was happening between Andrew and Lydia and also that Andrew was kind of an asshole, but that wouldn't have helped. “Oh, honey,” she said instead. It had been a long time since Elizabeth had called her like this, in a panic that had nothing to do with a weird rash on Harry's butt or how to register for summer camp. Then again, it had been a long time since anything had seemed so urgent at all. Urgency was for younger people, for teenagers and dramatic twenty-somethings, for young hypochondriac parents. When you got older, urgency was for hearing that your parents had fallen ill, and you needed to book a flight as quickly as possible without maxing out your credit card. In between, things were sort of calm, running on autopilot. The kids were in school. The marriage was what it was. Everything was more or less fine.

Jane was facing the water. Her body bowed out slightly over the tops of her pants, as if in a sigh. Exercise was not something Jane had ever been interested in—no running, no team sports, no yoga. It all bored her. She'd probably have a heart attack when she was sixty, but Zoe could imagine even that as something of a joke, the two of them in a hospital room, and Jane telling Zoe all about which nurses were in love with her. They'd hold hands under the starched sheets and the paper gowns and look out the window at the city.

Elizabeth was still talking. Her voice was herky-jerky, and it sounded like she was banging around in her kitchen—there was the noise of doors opening and closing. At one point Zoe heard the toilet flush.

“Are you okay? Where is Andrew now?” Zoe waved to Jane, snapping her fingers to try to get her attention. The wind carried the tiny sound away.

It wasn't clear if Elizabeth was slurring her words, or if it was just all the snot.

“Are you drinking?” It was just past noon. The sobs turned into whimpers, which Zoe took as a yes. It was like trying to have a telephone conversation with a Chihuahua. “Listen,” she said, “Jane is probably going to kill me for saying this, but why don't you come out here? Just get on the train, we'll pick you up at the station. You'll be here by dinner. We'll eat mussels and talk about what the fuck we're going to do to your husband, okay? Come out. I'll text you the info, okay? Okay?” Elizabeth agreed quietly, and after she hung up the phone, Zoe looked up to see that Jane had walked several yards farther down the beach. She didn't have her shoes, or a wallet, or keys—everything was in Zoe's purse. Marriage was about trust, and kindness. She and Jane were in a funny spot, or maybe they were just coming out of one, and wounds were still tender, but Elizabeth's voice had made clear that things were worse next door. People didn't take turns having difficult moments; they came all together, like rainstorms and puddles. Zoe could invite Elizabeth—could explain this all to Jane—because she knew that the sky over their heads was clearing up, and the clouds were still heavy and dark over her friend.

A
ndrew didn't like being told what to do, but he knew enough to get out of Elizabeth's way when she was breathing fire. In their entire marriage, it had happened only a handful of times: when her younger brother had crashed his car into a tree, stone drunk, and walked away with a scratch; when Andrew had accidentally bought lobster rolls for a friend of Harry's who was allergic to seafood. (The boy was fine. Covered in welts, but fine.) He walked over to EVOLVEment with his shoulders slumped forward, willing everyone in the neighborhood to leave him alone, and they did—the wrinkled old ladies sitting in front of the library, the people walking their dogs—everyone Andrew normally would have greeted with a wave and a smile, they all got nothing.

There was a yoga class in session when he walked into EVOLVEment, and so he entered the house as quietly as possible, slipping his shoes off just inside the front door. Salome winked at him from her spot by the altar and then pointed upstairs. Andrew climbed over people's backs—there were new people all the time, the classes were full—and tiptoed up the stairs.

Dave usually used the bedroom at the far end of the second floor, an almost empty room with a few cinder-block shelves holding up his
sacred texts—the Bhagavad Gita, some Pema Chödrön, some Sharon Salzberg,
The Artist's Way
, several books about medicinal plants, plus
Meditation for Dummies
, which Andrew thought showed that Dave had a sense of humor, probably rare in a guru. Humble, even. Being in the house made him begin to calm down a little bit, and he thought about how he would describe his fight with Elizabeth to Dave.
You know,
he'd say,
it's kind of a funny story.
And he'd tell him about Lydia and about being young, and Dave would nod along, maybe stroke his beard, understanding everything perfectly. Andrew started to laugh to himself, just thinking about it. It wasn't that big of a deal, what had happened with him and Lydia. The ice block of the secret had already started to melt. Elizabeth would probably get over it soon—it was ancient news that had no bearing on their future. Andrew rolled his shoulders around as he walked down the hall. He cleared his throat and knocked on Dave's bedroom door.

“Just a minute,” Dave said. Andrew drummed his thumbs together. The door opened, and two young women came out, their otherwise naked bodies wrapped in sheets. Through the doorway, Andrew could see Dave's bare butt. He was standing up, facing the window. It overlooked the back of the house, which meant that no one walking by would be able to see him, but there were no curtains, and this was still Brooklyn, so the odds of someone in a neighboring house seeing his junk were extremely high. When Dave turned around to face Andrew, he was still erect, and his penis swung toward Andrew as if it, too, were saying hello.

“Oh, sorry, man,” Andrew said, closing his eyes before turning away. “I can come back.” Then he felt like he was being too prudish, and swiveled his body back toward Dave.

Dave put his hands on his hips and looked down at himself lovingly. “No reason to cover up. It's pretty as a picture!” He laughed and bent over to scoop up a pair of shorts off the floor.

Andrew was about to open his mouth and begin his rehearsed tale of marital woe, but Dave started talking before he could get out the first word.

“Listen, man, I'm glad you're here. Got some news this morning. From the city. It's a no go.” Dave stretched his arms overhead and leaned to his left, his thick body a taut rubber band.

“What's a no go?” Andrew crossed his arms.

“The city denied the rezoning. No hotel, at least not there. It's cool—I was starting to get some pretty dark vibes from the neighbors, so I think somebody probably ratted on us, you know? People can be so negative.” Dave stretched the other way.

“Okay, well, that sucks.” Andrew heard his stomach churn and bubble. He put a hand flat against his belly. “What happens now?”

“We look for a new location. The plans will roll over—we'll have to get new drawings, of course, but the vision remains the same. We just need to find a new slice of property. These things happen.” Dave straightened up and clapped Andrew on the biceps. “It's all a part of the process. Worst-case scenario, we have to raise a little more money, maybe start looking more on Long Island or up in the Hudson Valley. There's a lot of land out there, you know? Just waiting.”

“But wasn't part of the idea to revitalize the Rockaways? To bring in business? I have the papers from my lawyers, too,” Andrew said, and then he suddenly felt a jab in his lower intestine. “I'll be right back.” He walked quickly to the bathroom in the hall, where there were two young women dawdling outside, not the ones wrapped in sheets—there was an endless supply of twenty-three-year-olds at EVOLVEment, and the fact of their youth shoved Andrew in the gut even harder. “Excuse me,” he said, and locked the door behind himself, just barely making it to the toilet before his insides commenced their immediate evacuation. He heard the women outside giggle and hurry away, and he let his head fall into his hands.

Andrew's phone buzzed, and he dug it out of his pocket, baggy by his thighs. A text from Elizabeth:
GOING TO STAY WITH ZOE AND JANE IN MONTAUK FOR THE NIGHT. YOU MAY GO HOME IF YOU LIKE. FEED HARRY.
A bubble appeared with three dots—she was typing more—but then disappeared. He gave it a few more minutes, but clearly she was done. It wasn't like Elizabeth to drop out like that—that had always been his final move, the melodramatic walkout. Andrew flushed twice and washed his hands. He wanted to deserve his wife. He wanted to deserve his beautiful boy. He wanted to trust that their marriage was strong enough to vanquish old dragons. Didn't everyone secretly think that, that their tiny rowboat was somehow sturdy enough to sail the entire ocean?

When he opened the door to the bathroom, one of the sheeted young women who had ducked out of Dave's bed was standing across the hallway, leaning against the wall. She had gotten dressed, barely, and Andrew felt like a lech for even noticing.

“I'm Lena. You're Andrew?” She stuck out her hand, and Andrew offered an awkward fist bump in return.

“My hands are wet,” he said.

“It's okay,” Lena said. She had curly hair and a mole on her cheek. “You know Ruby, right?”

“Ruby Kahn-Bennett?” Andrew had a brief panic that this Lena girl went to Whitman with Harry.

“I thought so. She's been here some, and she was asking some questions. I think she's worried about you.”

“Worried about me? Ruby?” Andrew ran his hands through his hair. “That doesn't make any sense.”

Dave appeared in the doorway, still half naked. “You two met! I love it. Andrew, Lena does the best reiki in the house. You should try her—magic hands, seriously. You want to head downstairs and grab a kombucha and we'll talk?”

Lena looked at Andrew with tight eyes, and he thought he saw her shake her head, just the tiniest fraction of a movement, before turning toward Dave and smiling with all her teeth.

“You know, I was just stopping by to say hi,” Andrew said. “I'll come back later, cool?”

“Cool, cool,” Dave said. He flashed a peace sign. “Lena, can you come work on my neck?” He winked at Andrew and went back into his room. Lena followed quickly without another word.

H
arry liked the idea of a grand gesture. It had worked so far. Since the fire, he and Ruby had been together almost every night. All four of their parents were on Mars. Zoe and Jane were locked in their room, or cuddled up on the couch, or laughing in the kitchen, and they didn't seem to notice or mind that Harry darted up the stairs every night. His dad was acting the same way he'd acted the summer that Harry was nine, when he'd gone upstate to “wander around in the woods,” as his mother put it. He'd come home with a shaved head and a tan and a small tattoo on his calf of the number 8, which he said was for infinity and also because Harry's birthday was on the eighth of October. Elizabeth was the worst of all—it seemed like she'd mostly stopped going to work and also washing her hair. When Harry tried to talk to her about it, she got this look on her face like she was trying to look cheerful when really she just looked like an ax murderer. Harry wanted to help, but he also just wanted to spend as much time as possible with Ruby, Ruby, Ruby.

She was the one who'd mentioned a ring. It wasn't exactly in context—they were watching
The Bachelor
, and the bachelor in question was picking out rings for his two potential brides, a dental hygienist named Kimberly and a medical assistant named Kenderly, and all the rings on display were so gigantic they could be seen from space.
They didn't look like diamonds, they looked like small drinking glasses turned upside down. Ruby had stuck out her tongue and blown a raspberry. “Barf,” she'd said. “I want the opposite of that. A black diamond. A tiny black diamond. Like a poppy seed. Something that no one else could see unless I stuck it right in their eyeball. Who is that even for? How do you live your life with something like that on your finger? Do they wash dishes? Do they wake up with weird scratch marks all over their body? It just seems
dangerous
, you know? Not to mention a giant waste of money that young couples have been tricked into spending by the patriarchy of advertising.”

So Harry was looking for a poppy seed. There was one sort of crafty place in Park Slope that sold jewelry. His mother had dragged him there a few times after school, when she needed to buy a present for someone, and that was the only place Harry could think of. It didn't seem exactly like Ruby's taste, but he'd spent a few hours scrolling through rings on Etsy, and that seemed even worse. How could he describe how big he thought her fingers were? He couldn't. So he took the train to the Slope and walked down Fifth Avenue until he found the place. Something buzzed when he walked in the door, which made him immediately start to turn around, but the young woman behind the counter was already smiling and waving, and so he was stuck.

“Can I help you find anything?” The woman had dark hair and heavy bangs and an extra-large stud in her nose.

“I'm looking for a ring. For my friend. She wants something little and black. Do you have anything like that? Her finger is sort of medium-sized, I think. Kind of long and bigger than mine by a little.” He held up his hand. “But I don't know which finger I'm supposed to be talking about, really, so I guess it depends.”

The woman sucked in her lips and nodded. “I think I have a few things that you might like. What's your price range?”

Harry hadn't thought about the money. He had his parents' credit card, which is what he planned to use. It wasn't exactly kosher, but
both his mother and father had forgotten all about him all summer long, and so he didn't think they'd notice one small charge on their card, especially since it was a place he knew his mother liked. He wasn't at Tiffany's. He wasn't in the city, somewhere fancy. “A hundred?” Harry said. “I'm not really sure.”

The woman reached down and slid open a case. She plucked out a few rings and set them on a square velvet pillow on the counter. One had a little green stone, one had a pink stone, and one was dark red, like a tiny drop of blood.

“You don't have anything black?”

“We have one,” the woman said, “but I think it might be on the expensive side.” She cocked her head to one side and gave him a look. “Is this for your girlfriend?”

Harry coughed into his hand, trying to hide his proud blush. “Yeah.”

She held up a finger and walked over to another counter. She came back with the ring slung loosely around her pinkie and held it up in front of Harry's face before she let it slide onto the pillow.

The ring was perfect—a thin gold band that looked like a woodpecker had hammered it, with a million little holes and notches, and a small black pebble on top. It was bigger than a poppy seed but smaller than a watermelon seed, and perfectly flat. “It's two hundred ninety-five dollars,” the woman said. “I guess it depends how serious you are.”

Harry picked up the ring and put it on his middle finger. It slid down to the knuckle. If that was a challenge, she didn't know who she was messing with.

“I'll take it,” he said, and slapped his mother's credit card on the counter.