How Could She Read online

  She texted Peter and told him to meet her in his lobby, which gave her the illusion that she had some control. When she came into the hotel and saw him, Geraldine felt a rush to the head. He was wearing a blue blazer and he’d cut his hair too short, so his ears stuck out. His face was all tragic eagerness.

  “Hi.” Her arm flopped up like one of those waving-cat statues in Chinatown. “What are you doing here?”

  “You mean what meetings do I have or why did I set them up in the first place?” He looked at her impishly.

  “I don’t mean anything,” she said.

  “Right.” Peter nodded, and it was clear he didn’t believe her. “There’s a bar through that corridor. It’s small, but I had them hold a table for us.”

  Geraldine sighed and looked around the lobby, as if somebody might spot her with Peter and tell on her. “I only have half an hour.”

  His gaze softened. “You don’t have to finish your drink.”

  She suggested they take a walk instead. It seemed the right thing to do: keep alcohol out of the equation. When they got outside, purple streaked the sky and the air smelled of spring. Across the street a dog was peeing on a mound of garbage bags.

  “How’s your dog?” Geraldine asked.

  “She didn’t work out,” Peter said, and she sucked in her breath.

  “The dog or her owner?” Geraldine needled him.

  He took a beat. “I’m flying solo.”

  At Canal Street they came upon a throng of tourists loading onto a red double-decker bus. Its LED sign said it was making the Brooklyn Loop.

  “Shall we?” Geraldine said. Minutes later they were seated on the top level and looking down on the electric ant farm of the city. As the bus pulled onto the Manhattan Bridge overpass, Geraldine felt the weight of her body shift against Peter’s. She allowed herself this, inhaling the scent of the fancy dandruff shampoo Geraldine had occasionally used when they’d lived together. When Peter wrapped his arm around the back of her seat, she pretended not to notice.

  “I had no idea how much I loved double-decker buses,” she said.

  “I would have asked you to meet me in London.”

  “We already did that,” Geraldine reminded him. They’d stayed in the West End, seen eight shows in six days. “We took taxis everywhere.”

  “And trains,” Peter reminded her. Geraldine was too spent to reply. Even when she was in a state of repose at Jeremy’s, she could never fully let go and relax. Her job was to fill the place with flowers and snacks, to make herself scarce when Jeremy indicated he wasn’t in the mood for company and be available when he was. Staying busy when you had nothing to do was downright exhausting. Goodness, she was tired.

  A snort shook through Geraldine, and she bolted upright. She’d nearly fallen asleep on Peter’s shoulder. The bus had come off the bridge and was now idling outside Junior’s. “Too bad you hate cheesecake,” Peter said. Geraldine had forgotten what it was like to be known completely and was almost mad at Peter for reminding her of it. He removed his coat and rolled it up on his lap. He lowered Geraldine’s head onto the makeshift pillow and stroked her hair. She granted herself what must have been a full minute of perfect stillness.

  “Hey, can you grab my wallet?” he said. “I just remembered I have something for you.”

  Geraldine tensed and rummaged through his coat pockets, reminding herself that Peter wasn’t the type to pull out an engagement ring. When he’d proposed to her, the execution had been sloppy—no jewelry, just a hypothetical question he’d startled her with in the middle of an argument. She came to realize that Peter had startled himself with the proposal as well, but she’d still held him to it.

  “There’s a new pub on Finch,” he said, pulling a cocktail napkin out of his billfold. “I saved it for you.”

  “‘The Wench and the Weasel,’” Geraldine read, biting back a smile. She’d been collecting keepsakes from the terribly named watering holes of Toronto ever since she was a teenager. “Thank you.” She took a deep breath. “I think I’m going to hop off here.”

  Peter gave an uncertain laugh. “We’re in the middle of nowhere.”

  “Please. It’s just Brooklyn,” she said with surprising force.

  “Let me—” Peter moved to stand up.

  “No,” she said, putting her hand on his shoulder and holding him back. “I’m glad I got to see you, Peter.” She had no idea what she’d meant by that, or if it was even true. Summoning her will, Geraldine rose to her feet. She started toward the steps at the front of the bus, even though the driver had said in at least ten different languages to stay seated while the vehicle was moving.

  14

  The weekend’s marquee event: a Saturday-morning birthday party at Underhill Playground in honor of Cyrus, the baldest and most senior member of Cleo’s Summer Babies playgroup. Born in early May, Cyrus was technically a Spring Baby, but his mother, a plucky public defender named Jean, had abandoned her original Spring Babies support group for the superior one that she met while strolling in Prospect Park at the end of her maternity leave. Rachel’s Summer faction comprised some very cool women, and the group had been Rachel’s lifeline for a while there. The mothers used to assemble every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, like so many patients showing up for psychoanalysis, and the rest of the time they’d email nonstop about naps and nipple butters and admittedly-insane-but-this-is-a-safe-space suspicions that their babies had Zika. Now that everybody was back to work, they liked one another’s pictures on social media and convened for the occasional baby-free Tuesday-night drink.

  Rachel wondered, somewhat nervously, what time Geraldine would show up. After a confounding streak of Geraldine’s brushing off Rachel’s attempts to get together, hardly even acknowledging the HR meeting Rachel had gone to the trouble of setting up for her, Geraldine had written to say she was sorry she’d been “tricky to pin down” and was going to be in Rachel’s neighborhood on Saturday.

  Rachel and Cleo were over by the jungle gym, as was Cyrus’s father, Nate, an engineer who dabbled in triathlons. Across the Tot Lot, Matt was helping Jean secure a piñata—it was either a horse or a pig—to a tree branch.

  While Nate bragged about carb-consumption privileges, Rachel nodded, feeling somewhat jet-lagged, having woken up before dawn to work on her Monsters! novel. She’d written two pages that weren’t awful—as she had the last session, and the one before that.

  “You should join us on a Tuesday morning,” Nate was saying. “We only do one loop around the park.”

  “I’m scared to ask what you do on Thursdays.” Rachel felt something inside her skitter, and it took her a split second to realize why. Straight across the playground stood Geraldine, her strawberry-blond hair glowing in the diffuse May sunlight. Rachel could feel the tendons in her neck tense. She should have just asked Matt to do the party by himself so she and Geraldine could have coffee and a proper catch-up on neutral ground.

  Rachel turned to face Cleo. “Here, honey,” she said, handing down a sippy cup. As she tended to her daughter, Rachel snuck a look at her old friend. Geraldine was dressed chicly, in a color-blocked jacket and extravagantly flared jeans. Rachel recognized neither piece.

  “Heeeeeey you,” Rachel said in a cheerful tone as Geraldine came to a full stop. Both of the dads Rachel was standing with regarded Geraldine with low-level animosity. Geraldine gave an unsure blink as she surveyed the park. Rachel felt protective of her guest and sick with herself. She’d been so selfish to suggest a birthday-party drive-by, not thinking that it might embarrass Geraldine to be the only adult here who wasn’t attached to a baby.

  “Rachel, it’s so nice to see you in your element,” Geraldine said, gesturing at the scene. The party suddenly felt less cute—the children, dressed in haphazard layers, weren’t actually playing together, and the Bloody Mary pitcher on the grown-ups’ table was untouched.

  Ger
aldine’s hair was shot through with waves, and she’d done some complicated flicky thing with brown eyeliner. Rachel felt a burst of self-consciousness. She’d applied her makeup while brushing Cleo’s teeth and had on supposedly stylish “Mom jeans” that, when worn at ten thirty in the morning to the playground, deserved no quotation marks.

  “Thank you for being game and coming to this,” Rachel said after the other parents slid away.

  “Are you kidding?” Geraldine said. “I love kids’ parties. And this is the perfect prelude to the thing I’m going to.”

  Rachel didn’t take the bait. She just nodded pleasantly.

  “Cleo looks so big in her overalls. I brought her something,” Geraldine said, handing over a stuffed purple bunny. The buttons on its face were set in a sad line. “It’s from this store down the block from where I’m staying.”

  “You mean Jeremy’s?” Rachel said.

  Geraldine gave an untroubled nod. “The owner is this incredible Italian woman who makes stuffed animals from recycled clothing.” She pitched her body toward the top of the play structure, her arm outstretched. “Hi, Cleo!”

  “Not now,” Cleo said, and made a stop-sign gesture before shooting down the slide and taking off toward the playground gate.

  “I’m sorry,” Rachel said. “‘Not now’ is her new thing.” She took the bunny from Geraldine and followed after her daughter. “She says it even if you try to give her a cookie.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Geraldine replied. “I know it’s kind of ugly. I guess that’s what I liked about it.”

  “Oh, she’ll be in love with it by nap time. We’ll be back soon!” Rachel called at the assembled people. Cleo zigzagged around the grounds, from tree stump to semiprivate boot-camp session, her unsteady gait a perfect symbol for the conversation her minders were carrying out. Rachel was curious about so many aspects of Geraldine’s reality: What are you doing for money? Are you and Jeremy sleeping together? Why don’t you need me anymore? Instead she tried to be a good listener, something she knew she was lousy at.

  Geraldine’s story was coming together in a piecemeal fashion: She’d unofficially quit but officially changed the terms of her position at Blankenship Media in order to relocate to New York and interview for jobs. “Garth has decided to call it a medical absence, which no doubt is some way to label me crazy, but it saves my position in case this doesn’t work out,” she said.

  “I’m sure it will,” Rachel said, even though she still had no idea what “this” was.

  Geraldine dug her hands into her coat pockets. “So I actually saw Peter,” she said sheepishly, and watched Rachel for a reaction.

  Rachel tried to bring surprise to her face and filled with guilt. She should have tried to see Geraldine in early April, as soon as she’d arrived. She’d let more than a month pass. “You’re in touchy touch?” Rachel’s mouth stretched into a flat smile.

  “We’ve been talking a little, but it’s not like that.” Geraldine smiled. Rachel’s gaze toggled between her friend and Cleo, who was reaching for the Snack Catcher of cheddar bunnies in her mother’s bag. “We’ve just been talking a little bit,” Geraldine said. “His mother died, and he’s going through a crisis.”

  “He’s been going through a crisis as long as we’ve known him.” Rachel rolled her eyes in a way she hoped was gentle. “Have you two been seeing a lot of each other?”

  “No, no. Just once, when he was down here. Don’t look at me like that—we just went on a touristy double-decker bus ride. Nothing stupid.”

  “If you say so.” Rachel wasn’t sure if she fully trusted Geraldine’s report. Peter was going to hound Geraldine until she caved, she was sure of it. “Tell me about your meeting with Elinda!” Rachel said, eager to change the subject. Cleo was watching in apparent fascination as a pigeon rammed its beak into a cheddar bunny on the ground.

  “You know . . . she was very nice. She said she has nothing, though.”

  “I’m sure she doesn’t. And even if she did, I doubt you’d want it. It’s a seriously weird time in magazines,” Rachel said.

  “I’m seriously up for weird.”

  “By weird I mean it’s a shitshow.”

  “I’m sorry you’re caught in the middle of the industry’s nosedive,” Geraldine said, and Rachel recoiled. She hadn’t been trying to elicit pity. “You’re going to come out of whatever is going on,” Geraldine went on. “Maybe you’re just meant to be writing books.”

  “Thanks, G.” What else could she say? “And what, may I ask, are you meant to be doing?”

  “Do you remember the children’s book What Do People Do All Day?” Geraldine watched Rachel shake her head no. “Maybe it’s a Canadian thing. My reality has become a lot like that, meeting with anybody who’ll talk to me about their path. I’m learning a lot.”

  “Sounds deep.” Rachel couldn’t tell if her words came out sounding barbed. A flock of pigeons were hobnobbing perilously near Cleo.

  “I guess it is, sometimes,” Geraldine said. “I shadowed Art Gumbel the other day.” She watched Rachel for a reaction. “You know, the podcaster?”

  Rachel shook her head. “I bet Matt does. He’s suddenly become obsessed with podcasts.”

  “Art is pretty big. He’s going to start letting me sit in on his sessions. I think I might want to get into podcasting. At least explore it.” Geraldine gave a shrug and looked at the ground. “So yeah, that’s my business plan. If you can call it that.”

  “I’m sure it will work out,” Rachel said. “You’re not going to be living off your savings indefinitely.”

  “Oh, I have some work.” Geraldine laughed. “I’m writing a style piece for New York.” Rachel almost asked her to repeat the name of the publication. She’d tried to contribute to New York not long ago and had gotten them to accept a pitch on the slew of models who’d become birth doulas. Her editor had sent her article back with the directive “Think on the page,” and though she tried and tried, the story never saw its way to any page. “It’s for online,” Geraldine added. “We’ll see how it goes.”

  “What’s it about?”

  Geraldine bit her lip. “Can I tell you when it comes out?”

  “Sure . . . I wasn’t going to steal your idea.”

  “That’s not— Okay, don’t laugh. It’s about vulva tattoos.” Rachel’s expression must have betrayed what she was imagining. “No, not tattoos on their vaginas! Just drawings of vulvas girls are getting on their bodies. It’s a thing.”

  “Good to know.”

  Geraldine watched Rachel. “You okay?”

  “Yeah, sorry.” Rachel looked up at the sky. It was blank, just a couple of cotton-ball clouds in the distance. She’d promised herself she’d keep things light, but the words were already there, at the tip of her tongue. “I just— Why didn’t you tell me what you were up to? I mean, to move here and . . . not hang out with me? You didn’t even tell me you were staying at Jeremy’s.”

  Geraldine bent her head forward. “I know, I’m sorry. I just wanted this time to be different. I always come and follow you around, and then I have to go back home before I have a chance to try anything on my own. You know what I mean?”

  “Sure,” Rachel said, feeling sore.

  “And you don’t tell me everything either.” Geraldine raised her eyebrows. “I heard that you and Sunny are BFFs.”

  Rachel should have been prepared for this. “Who told you that? Jeremy? It’s not true. We’ve just been thrown closer together at work. There have been all these meetings, and I had to edit her last column.”

  “It’s not an accusation. I’ve always hoped you two would get to know each other. We should all get together.”

  “Right. That’s always been a recipe for fun,” Rachel said, and the two smiled awkwardly.

  “Maybe things can be different,” Geraldine said. “Jeremy and I are talking a
bout having cocktails on his roof. You’re both invited.”

  Before Rachel could respond, she heard somebody warble her name. A jogger appeared, running in place and panting. The woman was tall and wearing a bright green Adidas tracksuit and a Mets hat. It took Rachel a second to make out the face in the brim’s shadow. “Marina?” she said. “No way!”

  Marina Goksenin was a college classmate of Rachel’s who had always been miserably brilliant and was now officially recognized as such: She was a staff writer at the New Yorker and wrote about women and ISIS. Rachel had always liked Marina, who was so authentic. In college, when everyone else was listening to Modest Mouse and Cat Power, Marina had a radio show where she played Gregorian chants. “I thought you were doing a fellowship in Austin?” Rachel said.

  “So much has changed,” Marina said in her manic way. “I’m in love! With a woman!”

  “No way . . . congratulations.” Rachel introduced her friends and watched Geraldine’s face fill with recognition when she heard Marina’s full name. She and Rachel listened raptly to Marina’s saga of late-blooming lesbianism. “It’s the wildest thing. I feel weaker than ever, in a happy way. I’m not officially telling anyone yet, but I never see you, so it’s fine. We just bought a strap-on. It’s bright purple.”

  Blushing, Rachel glanced down at Cleo. What was it, National Genitalia Day?

  “My lesbian friends in Toronto all say nobody buys realistic ones,” Geraldine offered.

  Marina grinned. “Phallorealism is dead.”

  Rachel picked up her daughter and hugged her close, like a human Stuffy. “This is my daughter, Cleo,” she told Marina, feeling banal but also proud.

  “I like your shoes,” Marina said, reaching out to squeeze Cleo’s tiny moccasins. They had ants printed over a gingham background.