How Could She Page 25
Sunny felt an ache in her chest. “You’re misreading this,” she said. “You’re wonderful—strong and smart. There’s so much about you I admire.”
“Admire.” Geraldine gave Sunny a shaming look. “Is there anyone you actually feel anything for? Besides Jesse—or are you over him already, too?”
Again Sunny’s heart quickened, and she checked through the garden window. Nick and Jeremy appeared to be busy smoking a joint. She turned back to see Rachel watching her intently, her eyes growing even heavier. Now Sunny felt the fool. The garden erupted into thunderous laughter, and the empty branches looked as if they were scratching the night air. “The Jesse thing is not something I planned on.”
“Just like you didn’t plan on sleeping with Peter.” Geraldine clapped her hands. “I absolutely love how effortless you are about everything. It doesn’t matter—why try when it all still works out for you?”
Sunny tasted a bitterness in the back of her throat. She was going to be forty in just over two years. She was supposed to be building her life, not setting it on fire. “Why would I have planned any of this?” she muttered. Geraldine and Rachel just stood there, still and cruel. “What is wrong with us?” Sunny cried into her palms. “Are we ever going to get to a point where we can just be? Where we’re not a group of women bearing grudges and sizing ourselves up against one another?”
“It’s a women thing?” Geraldine said. “That’s what you’ve got? This is all the patriarchy’s fault?” She rolled her eyes. “I sincerely hope this evening provided you both with the empowerment you were looking for.”
“I should go,” Rachel said.
“Same.” Geraldine pursed her lips.
Sunny wanted out, too. On top of everything, Nick was still on the premises, so she had another fight ahead of her. Her shoulders curled as she shimmied into her navy quilted coat and grabbed the spare leash from the hook in the hallway. “Stanley needs a walk,” she said, her voice a quiet panic.
31
Geraldine moved into the top floor of a narrow brick house in Vinegar Hill, two and a half blocks from the Brooklyn Navy Yard. The building was painted a slate blue, and it was covered in vines that clung to it like moss. She lived above her landlords, a pair of elderly sisters who appeared to barely tolerate each other and who ordered nearly all their meals from Seamless. Tiny and noisy as her new apartment was, it was hers alone, and she loved it with a frightening intensity.
On Geraldine’s second Friday as a Brooklyn resident, she and Art were seated on her new couch, one of the few pieces of furniture in her new apartment that had required no assembly. Art’s stated purpose that chilly November afternoon had been to help her settle in. They’d gone to a garden shop on Atlantic Avenue, where they’d purchased a pair of potted fig trees. They’d packed them into the back of a cab and lugged them up the stoop and two flights of stairs. The trees now bookended the rear window and were surrounded by boxes of IKEA furniture. Art and Geraldine completed two out of seven items and decided that building the rest was a task better suited for Sylvie and Marina, who actually enjoyed handiwork.
While Geraldine zoomed around the Internet in preparation for the meeting she had to go to later that night, Art studied the bundle of old Province issues that Barrett had mailed down to her. “‘So now with the basic facts out of the way, we can all agree that swingers’ clubs exist,’” Art recited from an old Rachel Ziff column. “‘But how does one go about scoring an invitation?’”
“Please, enough,” Geraldine said. She didn’t want Rachel’s spirit haunting her apartment.
Art ignored her and went on, “‘The first person I think to ask is Laetitia, a College Street bartender who has that sex-goddess je ne sais quoi.’”
“Okay, stop.” Geraldine moved to snatch the magazine out of his grasp. “I’m not in the mood for Rachel.”
Art made a puppy-dog face. “Sorry.” He knew all about the Canadian Thanksgiving fiasco. “I will say another twenty-five-year-old’s prose caught my eye. The mini review of Kill Bill is fantastic. Excellent nostril description.”
“Thanks.” Geraldine could feel her cheeks warming. All she could remember from that movie was Uma’s yellow jumpsuit.
Art got up and went into the kitchen. Geraldine could hear the refrigerator door open, then a hiss as a bottle cap came loose. “Want one?” he called out.
“No, I’m meeting Elinda soon,” she reminded him, cocking her head back and anticipating the evening. They were having dinner with a pair of virtual-reality kingpins. A growing part of her job was accompanying her boss on outings with potential partners. Elinda usually asked Geraldine to meet her at the bar of whatever overpriced establishment they were patronizing half an hour before the official start time, and Geraldine would munch on nuts and listen to Elinda’s train of thought. Mostly personnel problems, a bit on her husband. He’d gotten into vaping. “Art?” Geraldine called into the kitchen. “Maybe I’ll have one.”
Art was smiling when he came back into view, a beer in each hand. “Kill Bill is very timely.”
“Who now?” Geraldine took the bottle and waited for another name to add to the list of disgraced men. They were dropping like litter, a new one every day. She was enjoying it quite a bit.
“No, nothing like that. I just rewatched it.”
“Refresh my memory?”
“Uma plays a former assassin who wakes up from a coma and discovers she’s lost her unborn child and fiancé. She vows to kill everybody who contributed to the undoing of her life.”
Geraldine lifted her chin. “So you’re saying I’ve come undone?”
“I’m saying you’re killing it.”
As Art resumed his spot on the couch, he lifted Geraldine’s feet and placed them on top of his lap, pressing the heels of his hands into her arches. Her head filled with confusion, and she felt the rest of her body relax. Art had been back from Los Angeles for a little over a week, and things between them had settled into a pleasantly platonic rhythm. Art had mentioned on a recent episode of his show that he was seeing somebody, and he and Geraldine now interacted like exes who were still incredibly close friends.
Art was telling her about a chance encounter with one of Uma Thurman’s brothers, and Geraldine studied his face as he talked. He was one of the few men on earth who was more handsome than he knew. Even she hadn’t realized it at first. It was a good thing they weren’t involved, Geraldine reminded herself. She was in no shape for that sort of thing. A month had passed since that car crash of a night at Sunny’s. She’d exhausted replaying the conversation in her head and had moved on to deeper reaches of her memory vault, vivid visions from years and years ago that made her ache with embarrassment. It wasn’t Peter she was upset with. She’d sent him an apology for ghosting after his party.
Sunny and Rachel were the ones who’d hurt her the most. She’d tried to work some of this out at her and Sylvie’s last recorded interview, with Stephen Bledersoe, a UPenn professor who had a hit behavioral science podcast. His current obsession was future happiness and how humans were likely to incorrectly predict how good their choices would ultimately make them feel. “I love this idea,” she’d said. “It brings me great comfort to hear that we’re all wired to make decisions we’ll regret.” She proceeded to give Stephen a revised account of the fiasco. “One of my best friends betrayed me with my boyfriend, and the other watched the whole thing go down without saying anything.”
“Not that I’m trained to say this, but the guy sounds like a bit of a sociopath,” Stephen said. “People with personality disorders are too tricky to neatly fit into future-happiness theories.”
“He’s not the issue,” Geraldine said.
“Dude, it’s the women that did a number on her,” Sylvie clarified. “They’re supes toxic. Time to move on, Gerry.”
Geraldine gave a wistful shake of the head. Sylvie didn’t understand. It would be anot
her ten years at least until Sylvie realized that the mediocre, imperfect people she’d happened to align herself with would end up being more significant to her than she could possibly fathom. Who knew, maybe Geraldine would be that person for Sylvie. “They thought they were doing the right thing by rustling up the past,” Geraldine said wistfully. “I know they were trying to keep me from falling down.”
“Into the hole they dug!” Sylvie cried.
Geraldine sighed now and looked up at Art. He was tapping his fingers on her calves and appeared to be sinking into thought. “Can I ask you something?” she said. “Who’s the lucky lady?” Geraldine had hoped it would come out sounding funny. But Art just stared at her, looking startled. “You said you’re seeing someone. In your interview with the Fitzpatrick brothers.”
“I said I was sort of seeing someone.” Art’s cheeks reddened. “I’m not sure what she’d call it.”
He stopped working on her feet, and the atmosphere changed. Geraldine held her bottle tighter, as if she could make the eels stop swimming around her fingertips.
“Have you asked her what she’d call it?” she said.
Art looked up at the ceiling. “She’s been going through some personal issues.”
“All the more reason to be there for her.” Geraldine inched close enough to hold Art’s hand.
Art watched their fingers intertwine, then leaned down to kiss her. He smelled like cloves, and his lips were soft. He reared back before she was ready to stop.
“Was that okay?” His eyes were pools of hope. Geraldine couldn’t remember the last time anybody had looked at her that way. She moved in for another kiss.
Her mind went empty with pleasure, and then the worries came marching in, like little ants. Though she didn’t know for certain, Geraldine was fairly sure the women Art had dated before were in their twenties. It was possible he’d never touched somebody who wore cotton briefs and didn’t shave all her pubic hair. She shimmied onto her knees and pulled her dress over her head. Better to get it over with, she figured. Art looked terrified, then fumbled with his shirt buttons. His skin wasn’t nearly as pale as she’d feared. Placing her palms on his chest, Geraldine could feel the heat rising from him. She kissed his shoulders. “I like your skin,” she told him.
Art gulped. “I like your . . .” Art squeezed his eyes tight. “I just like you. A lot.”
Geraldine was smiling so hard she could feel the tension in her temples. She’d forgotten that it could be like this, forgotten how happiness could hit you like a truck. She buried her face in the crook of his neck and reached down to unfasten his belt.
“Should we turn off the lights?” she whispered. Art appeared to be massively overwhelmed, his body rigid as a matchstick.
“God no,” Art said, and came back to life.
32
Rachel saw Sunny first. She was exiting the elevator, her bright eyes casting about the gallery. Rachel felt something catch in her throat and cocked her head, pantomiming serious consideration of the installation in front of her, a lifelike woman sitting on a bench, her opaque pantyhose bunching around her ankles. The sculpture was made of wax and appeared to be perspiring under the hot gallery lights.
Sunny was dressed in dark gray overalls, and her hair was pulled up in a not-quite ponytail, revealing her pointy ears. She reminded Rachel of a baby bat. Rachel realized her hands were shaking, and she had to remind herself that Sunny didn’t have the right to be mad at her. Sunny had sounded surprisingly tender when she’d reached out. She’d heard the news and needed to see Rachel before she left town. For once Rachel was the one who could hardly find a time that would work, what with all the cardboard boxes to be scavenged and final play dates to be arranged and accounts to be canceled. She had a doctor’s appointment on the Upper East Side, so Sunny suggested the Met Breuer.
“Hi, you,” Sunny said, and Rachel felt her heart hitch. Sunny’s voice was a running brook, her every utterance a benediction. “So great, isn’t it?” Sunny gestured at the sculpture. Rachel stared and came up with a Muppety noise. Looking at art with other people made her nervous. She never knew what to think, what to say. She followed Sunny around a corner. The wintry light filtering in from behind a window shade amplified the museum’s cold atmosphere.
Rachel had only the dimmest memory of coming here with her parents when it was still the Whitney. This was her first visit since the big conversion a few years ago, and it felt exactly the same to her, quiet and tomblike. She swelled with premature nostalgia for the city she’d allowed to be wasted on her.
Sunny and Rachel moved around the museum, darting among the slab-walled galleries as if they’d really come to see art and not each other. Sunny gravitated toward pieces seemingly at random and stared at them, moving her head this way and that. Rachel tried her best not to get swept up in reading the wall placards, a habit she hadn’t been able to break since middle school, and was not disappointed when they came into a minuscule room on the ground floor and Sunny sighed and clapped her hands, signaling the conclusion of their gallery crawl.
“Want to go outside?” Sunny asked. “For a walk?”
“Sure,” Rachel said. “We can look for a post office, if that’s okay? I have to pick up some forms.”
It was uncomfortably cold out, and the only people on the street were women pushing strollers and shop workers smoking cigarettes. They walked north on Madison Avenue and chatted about the trauma of moving. “I made the mistake of trying to do a little bit every day, which has just expanded into a packing session that’s taken nearly a month,” Rachel said.
“You don’t need much stuff,” Sunny told her. “I learn that again every time I move.”
“But I like stuff.” Rachel gave a shrug. This was getting strange, not talking about Sunny’s Thanksgiving dinner. “Have you . . . heard from her?”
“Geraldine?” Sunny gave a slight smile and looked away. “I don’t even know what I’d want to say to her. I’m still processing. It was a terrible night.”
“Don’t say I never have brilliant ideas,” Rachel said. “I’m sure you guys will sort it out. She loves you.”
“And what about you and me?” Sunny asked, and Rachel suddenly felt warm. “Are you as mad at me as I suspect?”
“About Jesse?” Rachel asked. “I’m getting used to it.”
“There’s nothing for you to get used to. He and I talked, and—”
“I don’t need to hear the details,” Rachel said. Truth was, Jesse had already come over to eat tacos and debrief his sister on his romantic travails. She wasn’t surprised. The long haul didn’t make sense for either of them. “Jesse’s not what I’m mad about,” she said. “You think I’m some meddling dork. That’s why you were never nice to me.”
“That’s not true,” Sunny said. “You always scared me. You’re so judgmental. And you’ve always been especially brutal with me.”
“Maybe you’re not used to people being tough on you,” Rachel replied.
“You’ve made your point. I know what you think of me.”
“No. I find you fascinating,” Rachel said after a moment.
“That’s not what you’d say about somebody you like.” Sunny gazed up at the sky, composing her thoughts. “Do you even wonder about me? Does it occur to you how sad I am most of the time?”
The fragility on Sunny’s face was almost too much to bear. “About what?” Rachel said softly.
“It’s not important.” Sunny shook her head, and Rachel didn’t press it. She didn’t trust herself to locate the empathy Sunny needed.
Rachel filled with wistfulness for the person she used to be, before worrying about being irrevocably left behind had become a full-time occupation. What were her pluck and curiosity worth if she was always keeping score? “We should have left each other alone,” Rachel said. “There’s probably a reason we’ve always stayed apart from each other.”
Sunny nodded with understanding.
“Sunny?” Rachel went quiet. “I’m sorry for whatever you’re going through.”
They were at a street corner, and the light had turned green so they could cross. Rachel reached for her arm, but Sunny had become limp and was turning away, sinking into herself.
33
Of the fifty or so passengers riding the ferry to Governors Island, only two dared speak above a whisper. There was a man talking nonstop in German on his phone, his guttural stream breaking every so often for a recognizable phrase such as “star power” or “VIP boat.” A woman closer to Sunny was regaling her seatmate with the intricacies of the New York City public-high-school application process. “It’s Stuy or die,” she said in a manic tone.
Fog clung to the windows, intensifying Sunny’s sense of entrapment. Why did so many art fairs have to take place on islands? She stared down at her hands. She still hadn’t taken off her ring. She and Nick were going to see a lawyer for the first time the following week. He was going to slaughter her. He owed her nothing. Her parents would try to help, but she wasn’t going to let them. She would need health insurance, so that meant an office job, her first since her early days in New York. Anxiety colonized her mind, and she’d had to stop using organic deodorant. She looked up at Jesse, who stealthily rubbed his thumb against her knee. She was grateful to have him in the seat next to her, his body like a protective boulder.
The ferry finally pulled into port, and Sunny rushed off, pretending not to hear when a woman said that she liked her boots. Sunny had dressed monastically, in a shapeless navy dress, and thrown on a pair of vintage duck boots at the last minute. A fleet of festival assistants stood in a line, offering branded tote bags and signature cocktails that were a medicinal pink. They contained what looked like poisonous berries. Sunny located the single tray of sparkling waters.