How Could She Page 26

  “Ready?” Jesse asked.

  “Yup.” She made the effort to smile. She’d been to more of these fairs than she could count and really didn’t see why she needed to attend one more. Her preview evening tickets had come courtesy of Forma Editions, a Beijing-based art-book company that had paid through the nose for the rights to reprint in a coffee-table book two of her paintings of used-up lipstick. If it were up to Sunny, she’d be home watching murder mysteries on the British streaming service she’d just signed up for. Yet Dominique, her new therapist, argued that it was important that she show face, bound as the fair was to be filled with people from her and Nick’s world. Dominique was a chicly graying Jewish woman who worked out of a building on the Upper West Side that smelled reassuringly like stew. “Your inclination is to retreat. It’s important to keep up long-standing habits. Bring a friend if it makes you feel safer. Just not Jesse.”

  But their session had been on Tuesday afternoon, mere hours before Nick mentioned that he’d been “hanging out” with a mother from Agnes’s school. Sunny didn’t know what hurt her more—that he’d seemed so giddy when he told her or that the mother was a lawyer at Human Rights Watch. Just in case she didn’t understand where she stood in Nick’s estimation. Even the emails that came through the info@sunnymacleod.com account, requests for magazine illustrations and indie-film posters, all pointed in the same direction: The world found her insubstantial, the human equivalent of a vintage rain boot.

  She’d made a portrait of Geraldine and sent it as a housewarming gift. She hadn’t heard back yet, wasn’t sure she ever would. There was no undoing hurt, never any guarantee of forgiveness. For the first time in her life, Sunny was trying to be good—not good at something but good. She’d started reading the newspaper and practicing her own form of walking meditation, circling Gramercy Park slowly and silently as if through water.

  Jesse and Sunny began working their way along the pavilion’s east wing, occasionally stopping to say hello to people Sunny knew. She was careful to keep moving before anybody asked about Jesse. She had no way of explaining him, even to herself. He was her temporary anchor? A thirty-four-year-old who had no health insurance and who regularly Airbnb’d his spare bedroom to Brazilian tourists? They clicked with each other, but he wasn’t the answer. They both knew that. Sunny needed to make up for lost time, not lose more time. There was nothing clearer. Jesse was well behaved, only pressing his nose into the back of her neck once, in a darkened video room.

  “Is that Sunny MacLeod?” came a raspy voice. She swiveled and saw the outlines of two girls peering from behind a temporary wall. She returned to the art she’d been examining, a collection of drawings that reminded her of the pages of her childhood sticker books. A moment later Sunny heard the same voice say, “She’s so overrated.”

  Sunny glanced at Jesse before slipping out of the booth and rushing to the end of the hangar. Jesse caught up with her in the corridor by the bathroom and grabbed her by the shoulders.

  “Sun, they’re jealous.”

  “No, I shouldn’t have come,” she told him. “It’s too much.”

  “Let’s find your booth, and then we can leave and get dinner,” he said.

  Sunny gazed into the main space and went queasy just looking at all the teeth and eyes glinting under the blue lights. The idea of locating her work and playing the part of Sunny was too much. “I’ll email them, say I got sick,” she told him. “I just need to be alone. Okay?”

  He kissed her softly and hugged her tight. Part of her didn’t want to be anywhere but enfolded within him, yet she needed to escape. She shouldn’t have pushed herself to separate from him so quickly, because when she did, she was face-to-face with Nick’s ex-wife. Zoya’s eyes were wide, unable to contain the shock of seeing Sunny making out with a stranger in front of a public restroom. Sunny had no choice but to give a sheepish wave. “Zoya, hi!”

  Zoya’s head remained tilted at a forty-five-degree angle. “I wasn’t sure if that was you.”

  “This is Jes—” Sunny started to say, but Zoya waved her hands in the air. “I didn’t see anything! Just your lipstick pieces,” she added awkwardly, and scurried off.

  Sunny felt weak, tried to remember the last time she’d eaten. “I thought I was doing the right thing leaving Nick,” she said to Jesse as Zoya disappeared from view. “I feel sick with myself. How did I mess my life up so completely?”

  Jesse shook his head reassuringly. “You weren’t happy.”

  “Do I look happy now?” She bit down on the inside of her cheek.

  Jesse reached for her chin, but she wouldn’t let him. “I’m so sorry I dragged you into my mess,” she said. “I’ll call you soon. Promise.”

  Sunny could feel him watching her as she cut through the crowd. Outside, the air was smooth and slightly warm for late November. An attendant at the ferry terminal informed her she’d just missed the 6:40; the next one wasn’t coming for another fifteen minutes. She waited on the edge of the bench and stared at the water, trying to still her horrible thoughts.

  34

  You’re going to love this: Canadian girls are the new French girls.” Geraldine watched Sunny blink behind her new tortoiseshell glasses. “Our web czar, Declan, said that any video with the words ‘Canadian Style’ or ‘Canadian Beauty’ is bound to perform bonkers.”

  “Don’t people have more important things to read about?”

  “Like Russia and sex offenders and deportations?” Geraldine said. “Exactly why everyone wants to numb their brains.”

  The pair were seated at a tiny marble table near the front of the café, and gusts of wind blew in every time the door swung open. Geraldine had kept on her scarf and hat, and Sunny was wearing Levi’s and a black Patagonia parka. Geraldine had never seen her in anything so practical.

  “So you have your own web czar?” Sunny smiled with what looked like bemusement. Geraldine could feel the café’s spindly chair pressing into the backs of her thighs. No wonder she’d been avoiding actually getting together with Sunny ever since Sunny had reached out and asked to see her for a “holiday drink,” as if that were a thing. Geraldine had said yes, then rescheduled it, then asked to change it to a coffee. The place where Geraldine’s assistant, Katie, had suggested they meet up, Elio’s, didn’t even serve coffee, just matcha, a revolting phenomenon that Geraldine had managed to avoid until now.

  Geraldine didn’t show up to brag about having somebody work for her, or being able to surf the Internet acrobatically. She wanted to let Sunny see that she was okay—good, even. And she needed to do it now, while everything was still fresh—not just Thanksgiving but that hideous and eternal chapter of Geraldine’s life when she felt dead if she didn’t have a trip to New York coming up. She could still summon the fluttery feeling of trudging up Rachel’s stairs with her suitcase and waiting to be buzzed in so she could fawn over Rachel’s swelling belly or crying baby, all the while harboring the hope, like some lovesick teenager, that she might get to really be with Sunny before her flight back home.

  “I have something for you,” Sunny said, reaching under the table. Geraldine tensed; she hadn’t brought a Christmas present for Sunny. Was there anything in her bag she could repurpose? She’d just received an essential-oils kit in lovely gold packaging. Had she thrown it into her tote or left it in the office? Her mind went blank when she saw the notebook Sunny had placed on the table. The Book of Indignities.

  “I found it when I was packing up my studio,” Sunny said. “I’m sorry I took so long.”

  Geraldine ran her palms over the marbleized cover. “I thought I’d never see it again.”

  Sunny gave a sideways smile. “What are you going to do with it?”

  “I don’t know . . . have some witchy ceremonial burning?” Geraldine thumbed through the pages, stopping at a spread in the back. Sunny had drawn a picture of herself lying on the grass with headphones on. In the thou
ght bubble above, Geraldine was speaking into a microphone. She glanced up at Sunny. She was embarrassed and saw that Sunny’s cheeks had flushed. “Maybe I’ll keep it,” Geraldine said. “Where are you living?”

  “I’m staying in Murray Hill, but that ends in the New Year, so I’m more or less a nomad.”

  “That sounds glamorous,” Geraldine said, and felt lousy when Sunny didn’t reply. She just sat still, as if she were fighting a tremendous headache. “About Thanksgiving,” Geraldine said abruptly. “I said things I wish I could take back.”

  Sunny pulled at the edge of her sleeve. “I deserve it all. I only wish you’d found out about everything sooner. Before it had a chance to fester.”

  “Wishes for the fishes. My grandfather used to say that.” Geraldine got a smile out of Sunny. “I only have one question. You and Peter, you weren’t in love, were you?”

  Sunny gave a vigorous shake of the head. “God no. It was all so stupid. I realize this is not an excuse, but I didn’t think of the pain I was causing at the time. It seemed separate. I should have told you everything. Things could have been so different. . . .”

  “No, I knew he was a dog. It’s all in there.” Geraldine pointed at the journal. “You’d think I was determined to make myself miserable.”

  Sunny didn’t say anything, but she was listening intently.

  “And I’m a little sorry, too,” Geraldine said.

  “For the layoff? I found my way.”

  “No, for all the pressure I put on you. I lodged myself in your life like some seed that gets stuck in your teeth. You tolerated me, and sometimes you even let me in.”

  Geraldine watched Sunny constrict. She’d seen her do it many times before, at moments of excessive display. Sunny didn’t cross her arms or bend into herself. That would have been too obvious. She brought her nose to her shoulder and looked at Geraldine out of the side of one eye, like a swan.

  “Geraldine, that’s too much. I always valued you as a friend, and I never thought of you like—”

  “There were times when I thought I’d die in your apartment in Toronto, with Barrett finding me rotting in my bed and some movie you’d told me about playing on the iPad. You know I watched every film you ever mentioned?” Geraldine took perverse pleasure in seeing Sunny flinch. “Books, too—I have a Sunny library.”

  Sunny wouldn’t hear it. “You’re the one who got me reading Eve Babitz before anyone else was talking about her,” she reminded Geraldine.

  Geraldine remembered how Sunny had included a vintage paperback of Slow Days, Fast Company in one of her old Cassette columns and how when she’d first glimpsed the psychedelic cover bracketed by a Polo Lounge toothpick and an autographed Peter Falk eight-by-ten, it had felt as though Sunny were winking at her from the magazine page. She could almost laugh at it now. Sunny closed her eyes, and Geraldine watched her carefully. All these years later, she still marveled at how beautiful Sunny was, a composition in cream and inky black. “And what about the rest? I want to know how you’re doing with the separation.”

  “Separation.” Sunny tapped her fingertips on the table. “Such a weird word. Like something that belongs in a cake recipe.”

  “Are you thinking about unseparating?”

  “No.” Sunny smiled. “The last time Nick and I spoke, he was too busy shopping for a lawyer to have time to buy his daughter a Christmas present.”

  Geraldine gazed up at the girl working the cash register. She was cleaning a miniature Christmas tree that had been fashioned out of gummy worms. “Are you making art?” She wasn’t just trying to make Sunny feel better. She would always be jealous of Sunny’s ability to work through her storms.

  “I’m playing with some ideas. They’re different from before.”

  Geraldine stirred her drink and took a sip. It tasted worse than terrible, like boiled pencil shavings.

  “Cheers,” Sunny said, draining her cup. “This is my big indulgence of the day. I’m off everything—coffee, alcohol, men.” Geraldine gave her a dubious look. “Jesse and I aren’t seeing each other anymore.” Sunny fidgeted with the gold cuff around her little wrist. “Well, we’re not touching each other.”

  “Want to hear something?” Geraldine said. “I used to have a massive crush on Jesse. Now that Rachel’s fled town, I wonder if I’ll ever see him again.”

  Sunny started giggling. “Sorry, the idea of Rachel surrounded yet again by Canadians cracks me up.”

  Geraldine nodded in agreement. “It is funny. I hope it works out for her. Rachel’s not a bad person.”

  Just super annoying, Sunny’s expression seemed to say before it changed to something more dignified. “And that guy you said you were seeing?”

  Geraldine felt a pleasurable lift in her stomach and told Sunny it was still on. “He’s been in L.A. for work. I’m planning on going to visit him over the holiday.”

  “I really like it out there—fake tits and all,” Sunny said. “I haven’t been in a little while. I should go, sunbake my woes away.”

  Geraldine could sense that Sunny was descending into her own thoughts. This couldn’t go on much longer. This was all Geraldine was ever going to get from Sunny, who had never offered her heart to her. She had intimated as much, but she’d never done it. Whereas Geraldine had offered Sunny everything she had, every time she saw her. Even when they’d been hundreds of miles apart, Geraldine had placed all of her hopes and heartaches at Sunny’s feet.

  “I’ve been listening to your show,” Sunny said. “It’s really good.”

  “That’s sweet of you.”

  “No, I’m not being sweet. And neither are you. You sure can throw shade. Sometimes it’s a little hard for me to listen. I was surprised to hear the way you talk about your time coming to New York. I had no idea you were so lonely.”

  “In the very beginning,” Geraldine said tentatively.

  “But you had friends here,” Sunny sounded uncertain. “You had me.”

  Geraldine wasn’t sure how to respond. “I had your events to glom on to, but tagging along gets embarrassing.”

  “We saw each other one-on-one. We had teas, remember?”

  Sunny’s obliviousness was starting to wear on Geraldine. “Sunny, we had a tea. And then there was the time I brought a tray of iced teas to your doorstep and we sat on your stoop for half an hour. You didn’t even invite me in.” Geraldine couldn’t believe she’d expressed this, and held the composition book tight against her chest.

  “I wish you had said something—to me. Before taking your indignities public on your show.”

  Geraldine sat up straighter and looked down at her book; she hadn’t thought of the connection before. Was she some masochistic collector of pain? She inhaled hard. “Even if you’re trying to be nice, it can be painful to be around you.” Sunny was looking at her with an expression of violation. “When I come to your events and you barely talk to me, I feel like I’m on some distant, invisible planet.”

  “I never meant to make you feel less than you are.” Sunny closed her eyes. “I miss you, and I miss the time we used to fritter away whole days together.”

  “God, that was so long ago,” Geraldine said.

  “We used to tell each other our secrets. Now I learn about what you’re up to by listening to your podcast. There was something you said on the show that I liked, the way you described your past life—what was it, about a shipwreck?”

  “That I was swimming between sinking islands,” Geraldine said.

  “That’s it. I wouldn’t ever wish that on you, but it’s beautiful. And now you’re on land. Which is also beautiful.”

  “Sometimes I think the world has gone mad.”

  “Or maybe you’ve found your way in it.” Sunny granted her old friend a melancholy smile. “Better you than anybody else.”

  35

  Let me get this straight,” Matt said.
“Your new editor comes to town, asks you out to a fancy lunch, and then at the last minute tells you to come to her hotel room instead.”

  “Hotel lobby, not room, but otherwise, yeah, you got it,” Rachel said, and cocked an eyebrow at him. They were walking down Wellington Street, around the corner from their new, temporary, and kind of wonderful condo in downtown Toronto. There was a gym at least twice the size of the one Rachel belonged to in Brooklyn and a squad of supers ready to come running anytime a lightbulb went out. Matt and Rachel were supposed to find real housing by the spring. The provost had yet to give them a hard date.

  “You’ll be careful with her?” Rachel cupped her hand around the back of their daughter’s head. Matt was walking his bicycle, with Cleo strapped in the plastic baby seat like a tiny princess atop a rickshaw steered by a drunken supplicant. Matt was coming off an all-nighter, and his steps were a little jagged. He and his new research partner, Marcus, needed to submit a research proposal before winter break, which gave them two more days. At least Cleo’s parka was heavily padded, Rachel told herself. She was trying not to freak out. She had to be somewhere else, soon.

  “This hotel thing sounds like a come-on,” Matt said.

  “I don’t have the bandwidth right now for your ribbing.”

  “I thought that’s why you agreed to come up here, to get more bandwidth.”

  Rachel kept moving down Wellington Street. All around her a blur of business attire and briefcases fed into the revolving doors of shiny office buildings. When people said Toronto was so clean, Rachel suspected what they meant was that everything was so spanking new. The city’s grand wonder, the CN Tower, had been constructed in the same decade Rachel was born. But there were Old World charms, too, streets of brick homes and magnificent trees.

  Rachel glanced back and saw that Matt was steadying the bike as the crowd pulsated around him. He was having a harder time navigating the foot traffic than she was. She slowed down.