The Love of My (Other) Life (13 page)

The phone rang. Brian jumped and hurried to their closet-sized kitchen to answer it. A brisk professional voice asked for Tessa. He felt the call was important, so he crossed over to her with phone in hand.

“Tessa, sorry to interrupt when you have the synagogue tomorrow night.”

Her face lit up with the sparkle he loved. “Yes, a paying gig,” she said.

“The synagogue is lucky to get you. It’s the doctor’s office. You need to take this. Sounds serious.”

Tessa carefully settled her cello and bow. She caught sight of his face and giggled. “You worry too much, silly professor. I have some pesky virus, that’s all.”

She kissed Brian, a casual and affectionate kiss that bespoke both their years together and the endless years ahead. She took the phone from him with a smile.

The bow of her cello flew off the chair of its own accord, a dark wing clinging to the air before clattering in slow motion to the floor.

Brian had a sudden, heartrending intuition.

Brian settled Tessa on Ofee’s futon. She wore a clean T-shirt, and he wiped her face with a towel and stroked her hair away from her cheeks.

How could she look so much like his wife, but be so different? She was so messy and all over the place. His Tessa was more composed.

At least it was still Tessa.

Brian’s clothes were sodden with vomit. He shucked them off and slid in next to her. He wrapped his arms around her still form, unable to resist squeezing her. She groaned.

“Please don’t throw up on me,” Brian murmured.

“I just want to hold you like I used to.”

Tessa snored in response.

Brian remembered the many times he’d curled up around his wife, feeling her sweet, solid form against him, making everything right, proving that the universe was as fundamentally good as he thought it was.

Would he ever feel that way again?

Brian was achy and wakeful as he held Tessa. If only he could hold his Tessa one more time. Things would be so much better. He might even be okay.

Her cell phone rang. Brian groaned but swung himself out of bed and grabbed it off the nightstand.

“Hello?”

“Is this Brian? Where’s Tessa?” demanded Frances Gates.

“Frances, how’s it going?” Brian said. “I’m still thinking about that great suit. It’s ridonculously awesome.”

“Thank you, Brian, you’re a doll. But let me speak to that woman who stole my Cliff Bucknell skull.

You promised I’d have it by now. I want my piece.”

“Listen, about that, there’s something you should know.”

“There’s nothing for me to know, Brian. I want the piece by noon tomorrow, or else I’m calling the police. This is a business matter!” Frances hung up.

Brian stared hard at Tessa in bed. Frances wouldn’t be denied; neither would Guy. He yawned and stretched, walked over to the kitchen area, and rifled through Ofee’s drawers and cupboards.

At least the room wasn’t still spinning. The futon condescended to hold still, too. I pulled myself up to a seated position and cradled my head in my arms. A few moments of moaning pitifully, and I was ready to stand. Almost.

Brian sat hunched over at Ofee’s table. He was working on something and wearing a too-small T-shirt. He smelled acrid with undertones of vetiver and vomit, or was that just the soggy pile of clothes by the bed?

“There’s nothing here with caffeine,” I remembered.

“Yeah, I looked. Is Ofee allergic?” Brian asked.

“Philosophically opposed. Oh, I think I’m going to die.”

“Not funny,” Brian muttered.

I giggled, though it was painful. “Oops.” I sat down opposite Brian and saw what he was working on: two lumpy papier maché objects. After some focusing, my gritty, burning eyes recognized them as skulls. A bowl of water and a book from which strips had been torn sat on the table at Brian’s elbow.

“My mother said there was no right way or wrong way to do this, but I’m beginning to wonder.”

“Skulls?” I asked.

“Guy showed up last night after you passed out.

His knife looks sharp. And Frances called. He’s a little mad that he hasn’t got his skull back. Actually, he’s a lot mad. I want him to cool down. Guy, too. I want you to be safe.” Brian made a concerned face at me. His eyes were circled with black rings and sunk deep in his head and his hair was even more bedraggled than ever. He hadn’t slept much, though I vaguely remembered him being in bed with me.

It hurt my fuzzy brain to think. “How’d Frances get my number?”

“I told him,” Brian said, with a ‘duh’ grin. “It never occurred to me that you wouldn’t give his art back.”

Oh. I scowled and tried to focus. Were my eyes crossing or just watering? “These won’t fool Guy or Frances.”

“They’re not supposed to,” Brian said. “We’ll pass them off as other, new Cliff Bucknells.”

“I thought you were against forgery.”

“I am. But I’m also for my wife. I don’t agree with what you did, but if you’re in a jam, I have to help you out. Think these are worth a million dollars?”

“No,” I shook my head. I felt my eyes water for real, and tears leaked down my face. “Yes! This is the sweetest thing anyone’s ever done for me!” I jumped up and hugged him. Naturally, he groped my ass. I didn’t mind. “I don’t even mind that you’re a crazy stalker who has an identical twin brother and who’s planning to murder me and drop my severed body parts into the Hudson River.”

Brian sighed. He wriggled out of my grasp and perused me. “Tessa, we have to talk about your fantasy life. It’s going down some negative paths.

Don’t model your universe that way. Choice plays an important role in macroscopic decoherence.”

I kissed the top of his scruffy head. “You’re crazy but wonderful. Here, if you don’t mind, let me fix these. My hands are itching to take over.”

By midday, I knew I still had it: my old skill as a mimic of other people’s bad art. I had never wanted such a talent and didn’t prize it, but it remained with me, like a cold sore on my upper lip or a terrible perm in my hair.

The two skulls now looked like real modern objets d’art. They were covered in glitter, with gaping eyes made of cat’s-eye marbles. We’d found glitter, marbles, and other artsy odds and ends at Ofee’s.

Brian gawked, amazed. “You’re going to be just fine—you’re talented. These look like the real thing.

I couldn’t make anything this good. Not in any universe.”

“You can’t sing or do magic either.” I smiled as I continued to refine the skulls. My fingers moved expertly over the faces.

Brian pretended to pout. “Meanie.”

“Sap.”

“Sadist.”

“Martyr.”

“Martyr?” He looked wounded.

“What’s the word for reveling in your own pain and suffering?” I couldn’t attend to our banter when I was making a masterpiece. Two of them.

“Masochist, and I’m not one of those!”

“Please.” I snorted. “You’re in love with your wife’s deadness. The dead wife you invented in an imaginary world, maybe because your identical twin brother is a superstar and you needed to feel important.”

“There’s nothing imaginary about my feelings.

It hurts to lose someone you love,” Brian said with heat. “It hurts so bad you can’t imagine. Sometimes I can’t breathe. The days without you stretch out like an unending wasteland, gray and empty forever. All our plans and dreams for our life died with you. I only ever wanted to be with you from the moment I met you. If you loved David here the way I love you there, you’d understand.”

I surveyed the two skulls. Behold: they are good.

Maybe, just possibly, they might buy me, if not redemption, then some time to figure things out.

I glanced up at Brian and saw that my T-shirt matched his, except that it fit me better. I poked him in the chest. “You couldn’t find something else for me to wear?” I teased. “We have to be yoga twins?”

“I packed a negligee for you, but it didn’t seem appropriate last night.” His voice was still raw and his gaze was averted.

“I have a negligee?”

“Back of the pajama drawer.”

“I loved David,” I said, and the old pang of loss and regret reverberated in my chest like a gong. I placed the two skulls on a window shelf under a hanging crystal pendant to dry. “I built my world around him. But even before he left, our marriage was limping along. I couldn’t figure out how to fix it.

I used to dream that I needed David desperately, but I couldn’t get my phone to work to call him. I’d wake up in a panic, crying. When he left, I had to face it.

That everything between us had long ago come to an ignominious stop. That was a kind of death—the death of my dreams and illusions, anyway.” I ran my fingers over one of the skulls, patting down the silver glitter where it had clumped. “Two skulls, one for Frances, one for Guy. Smart. You’re really smart, Brian.”

Brian came up behind me and hugged me, but loosely. “One of your drawings shows two people walking away from each other, going to a party or a wake, it could be either, there’s a sense of possibilities.”

“They’re not going to a party. Oh, forget it!” I turned around to look into his eyes. It was a dislocated moment of déjà vu because of having shared so much in such a short time. And underlying everything was that odd sense of familiarity, but did we really know each other? I suppose we were still feeling each other out.

“Want to model the negligee?” Brian asked in a thick voice, trying to be playful.

“I would.” I felt a pang of disappointment, and I kissed the tip of his nose lightly. “But I have to go to work. There’s a ton of stuff to do for the dance tonight.”

“Some thanks I get for saving your ass,” he muttered, stepping back.

“I heard that. Speaking of bare asses, don’t think I couldn’t feel you in bed last night.”

“You barfed on my clothes.” Brian gave me a wry look.

“Not on your underwear.”

“I was kamikaze when I went through the decohering device.”

“Kamikaze?”

“No undies,” he explained.

I laughed. In that moment, I also believed. I don’t know why that moment broke open the locked gate of my inner impasse and ushered me into a magical world of faith. So maybe there was no identical twin brother. Maybe it was exactly as Brian said: he had come from a parallel world to find me. Occam’s razor, right? The simplest explanation. The explanation that gave a new luster to everything, especially my heart. “You went through a radical physics invention not wearing underwear?” Only Brian.

“Underwear was optional; the math wasn’t. I have to take a nap, but I’ll bring the skulls to you when they dry.”

“They’re not bad,” I told him. “They just might do the trick.”

The afternoon was a blur of activity at the Collegiate Church. I helped volunteers hang crepe-paper streamers and set up tables with baked goods.

I climbed a ladder and strung up a million-faceted silver disco ball. We swept and polished and sent emails reminding folks to come.

Brian arrived with a box around dinner time. We placed the box in my office and then helped ourselves to Pellegrino water, cupcakes, and zucchini bread.

After snacking and fussing some more, I went into a bathroom to change. I came out wearing a strappy black silk camisole and fluttery silk skirt. I’d forgotten I owned such a girly flirtatious outfit; Brian had packed it for me in the suitcase, and I’d stuck it in my messenger bag to bring to the dance.

Chad and Jordan trooped in with a group of Apple store workers. I was overcome with embarrassment but squared my shoulders and raised my chin defiantly. I refused to let myself succumb to the old, familiar bad feelings. At some point, I had to cut them loose. It seemed easier to do so with Brian staring at me open-mouthed.

“Dr. Tennyson,” Jordan called.

But Brian was mesmerized by me. “Wow, Tessa, you look beautiful! I hate seeing you in those shapeless work clothes. You look like a banker, not like you.”

Reverend Pincek joined us. “You do look lovely tonight, Tessa.” He beamed and then went off to greet guests, who were streaming in after paying admission to Joan and other volunteers at the door.

The Apple store geniuses swarmed around us, though all Brian and I could see were each other.

“Hi, Dr. T, Tessa. No flying shoes tonight, hey?

Maybe another video, haha? That first one’s had over two million hits on YouTube.”

“I dropped by the store this afternoon and invited them,” Brian said to me as if they weren’t present. “I figured your church needed the money.”

“We brought copies of your book to sign, Dr. T,” Chad said.

That roused Brian from his reverie of me. “Sure.

I’ll sign breasts, too, especially perky ones.”

The geniuses laughed and clustered eagerly around Brian, who joked and bantered and signed their books.

Big band music burst out over the loudspeakers.

People of all ages filled the floor: little kids jamming with awkward childish grace, teens, adults, even Mr. James shuffling on his walker and bopping his head.

More people lined up outside the doors, waiting to pay and enter.

The evening was a success, no question. It felt like my first victory in a long, bleak while, and I relished it. I breathed it all in: the social hall with people milling and dancing, the colored streamers, the flashing lights of the disco ball … FLASH: a painting. A room with a faceted glowing orb at the center, strewn light, and dancing figures. Two walls opened onto a magical mountainscape, and a man and a woman twirled off together on a beautiful, high crest. He looked like Brian, and the whole wondrous image was reminiscent of Chagall.

Chagall?

“Hey, Dreamy, how about this dance?” It was Brian, and I hadn’t even noticed him approaching.

He gathered me into his arms.

“You won’t take no for an answer.” I snuggled closer in to him.

“Never do, when it comes to you.” Gracefully, he swayed with me in a neat box step.

“I don’t know how to dance this way.”

“Let me lead. For once,” he answered dryly.