How Could She Page 27

  “I know I’ve just sat through six straight hours of sexual-harassment training,” he said when he caught up to her, “but doesn’t asking you to meet in her room at eight in the morning strike you as a little—”

  “How many times do I have to tell you? Lobby restaurant. But eight a.m. is rude, I’ll give you that.” Her new editor, Jessica Mayo-Brodsky, was in town to visit the set of The Theory of Danger, a film adaptation of one of the books she’d edited.

  Matt didn’t say anything. Rachel felt a surge of excitement when she thought she recognized a woman rushing past him. For a split second, she thought it was Elsie, the receptionist with the spiky attitude from Province. Rachel had become a ghost hunter, always on the lookout for slivers from her past. She’d had a few legitimate sightings. The other day she’d spotted Peter Ricker standing outside Canadian Tire, passionately arguing on his cell phone with what must’ve been a repairman about botched grouting. “Bone white! Not white—bone white!” Cleo had even pointed and asked her mother what was the matter. “It’s just a grown man throwing a tantrum,” she’d replied, tempted to take a video with her cell phone and send it to Geraldine. But there was no point. Geraldine had walked out of that Thanksgiving dinner and become one with the ghosts. She’d sent Rachel an email saying she needed time and would reach out when she was ready to talk. There was nothing Rachel could do now but wait.

  When they came upon the corner of Simcoe Street, Rachel saw the navy hotel awning and her stomach gave a hungry flip. “Why am I so nervous?”

  “You’ve got nothing to worry about,” Matt said. “Remember, you’re the talent. And you’re incredibly cute.” He rubbed her back and kissed her.

  Rachel sighed a little doubtfully and turned to Cleo, who grabbed a handful of her mother’s furry hat. “I love you, Schmoopie,” Rachel said, planting a kiss on her daughter’s nose. Cleo blinked in what Rachel was certain was total solidarity.

  A Christmas tree stationed near the fireplace filled the lobby of Hotel Simcoe with a sharp aroma of pine. There was no question that the wispy girl waiting on the couch was Jessica, but Rachel pretended to look around, as if she hadn’t Googled her new editor to death and didn’t know she had a mop of strawberry-blond hair and transparent beige glasses that reminded Rachel of the old Italian ladies who had nightly cocktails in deck chairs on the sidewalk when she was growing up. In Jessica’s case they were meant to be ironic, Rachel could only assume.

  “Rachel?” Jessica Mayo-Brodsky stood up. She was wearing a green eyelet skirt and red block-heeled Mary Janes. A vegan-looking bag with a typewriter pattern sat on the couch. “Can I hug you? I feel like I already know you so well from your writing.”

  “It’s so great to meet you!” Rachel murmured into Jessica’s sweater as they embraced.

  “Is it okay if we just sit here?” Jessica asked. “The restaurant is pretty grim.”

  Rachel lowered herself onto the couch while Jessica kept talking.

  “I’m so sorry I had to switch things on you. One of the actresses got mono, and they had to rearrange the entire schedule. I’m not a breakfast person, but I’ll have a coffee. Want anything to eat? There’s a bagel bar by the elevator.”

  “No, no, coffee is perfect.” Rachel didn’t want to waste any of their limited time and prayed her stomach didn’t growl. She’d eat something after.

  “I’ll get the drinks,” Jessica said. “It’s so funny that I have two Canadian authors,” she added, returning with two mugs.

  Rachel nodded smilingly. Now was not the time to explain that she was from Kensington, Brooklyn. Instead they chatted about the logistics of Jessica’s visit. She liked the hotel’s proximity to a pop-up botanical perfume shop.

  “We need to discuss your book,” she said at last, and Rachel felt her breathing slow. “First let me tell you that it is absolutely on fire,” Jessica said. “You write beautifully. But so does my cat.” Rachel tried to keep a flat expression on her face. “What kills me is the honesty of your prose. It gets me right here.” Jessica pretended to stab her heart. “I’m not just blowing smoke,” she said. “I don’t do that—you’ll see. I’ve been editing for a while”—here Rachel bit her cheeks to keep from smiling—“and I’m usually able to keep an emotional distance when I read a manuscript. Yours made me so . . . angry.”

  Rachel was taken aback. “Angry?” she said. “I was going through some stuff when I wrote the book, I guess?”

  “No, it’s there in all your work. The other three books have it, too.”

  “The out-of-print ones?” Rachel spluttered, and immediately regretted it. “They’re angry?”

  “A little.” Jessica shrugged. “And sad. Sangry!” She laughed. “Your writing is so moving. Your previous editor was crazy not to blow you up.”

  “I’m not sure it was her choice.” Rachel brought her hands back to her lap.

  “Oh, she failed, for sure. Your writing reminds me of Mary Gaitskill. She’s this—did you see the movie Secretary?”

  Rachel was speechless. She’d discovered Mary Gaitskill’s stories in ninth grade, when she’d been at her most friendless and hopeless. She would spend her lunch periods curled up in a tattered orange butterfly chair in the school library stealthily reading her short stories. That spring Rachel convinced her father to take her to see Mary Gaitskill read at a bar in the East Village. The author had read a story about a girl whose mother is dying and who seduces her best friend’s uncle. Joe had turned purple in the face when Mary said the word “ass” and looked right at him.

  “I love Mary Gaitskill,” Rachel said slowly. “I own multiple copies of Bad Behavior.”

  “Did you read The Mare?” Jessica asked. “I sobbed and sobbed.”

  “Me, too.” Rachel swallowed hard, dizzy with new understanding. She wasn’t here to win Jessica’s approval. It was the other way around. After all those years of clambering for some sort of recognition, here it was, on a hotel couch on Simcoe Street.

  Jessica started talking about Mary Gaitskill’s forthcoming book, and Rachel half listened. The window was done up in holiday decorations, but she could make out the shapes and colors of movement outside. The scene on the street seemed to sparkle through the tinsel.

  She would never be as slippery and exquisite as Sunny, or as savvy and well connected as Geraldine was destined to be. Rachel was reminded of one of Cleo’s favorite books, Banana House. It was about Muriella, a baby mouse who inexplicably hated cheese but loved bananas. Muriella lived with her family in the walls of a house, and at night she’d scoot through the hole she’d dug and search the kitchen for the fruit bowl. In the morning her siblings would make fun of Muriella because she smelled like bananas. She vowed to stop eating them and switch back to cheddar, and for a few pages she succeeded. And then one night, during a biblical-level thunderstorm, a cat snuck into the house through an open window and Muriella fashioned an escape raft for her whole family out of the peel from a banana she’d stashed in a cupboard. Rachel had read the story to Cleo over two hundred times, but it was only starting to make sense. Everybody needed something to love. Everybody needed something that would save them. Fuck the cheese, Rachel thought. She had her banana.

  36

  You won’t let me in? You’ve got to be kidding me.” Sunny mussed her hair and gave the lounge attendant the shy smile that usually made men trip over themselves. It was two days before Christmas, and she’d endured three-plus hours of airport traffic and check-in and X-ray machines, not once complaining, not even when a woman who’d worn a similar pair nearly made off with Sunny’s Keds at security. Now her flight was delayed, on account of freezing rain at Toronto Pearson International Airport, and she’d never needed the lounge so badly. She’d been thinking about the bacon sandwiches since breakfast.

  “The account is under Chase,” Sunny told the gatekeeper, tightening her fist around the Platinum Rewards card she’d already presented hi
m. “It’s Nick. Or Nicholas?” She forced a gentle expression. “We’ve been members for a decade. If not longer.”

  The attendant consulted his iPad, and Sunny watched his eyebrows raise in a way that indicated good news was coming. “It’s here,” he said at last. “But you’re not listed in the account.”

  “What? He kicked me off?”

  “I’d advise you to call Mr. Chase and ask him to contact the—”

  “It’s fine,” Sunny said. A line was forming behind her. She turned around and pulled her old Rimowa suitcase away from the Admirals Club lounge, overcome with the strange urge to laugh at Nick’s brilliant Christmas present. He’d found a new way to fill her stocking with coal. Nobody could accuse Nick of not being clever.

  Every table in the Sbarro–McDonald’s–Panda Express complex was taken, and there were encampments on the floor. The pubs were filled, too. Sunny finally found a seat at a faux-upscale wine bar near gate 22. She ordered herself a cheese sampler and a glass of sparkling water with lime. “Actually, wait a moment,” she said, scanning the menu on the wall, and put in a request for the most expensive red on the menu, pinot noir. If there were ever a time, Sunny told herself, and opened the Candy Crush app on her phone.

  A glass and a half in, she could feel the bridge of her nose blazing. She was delightfully tipsy. She ate the last of her brie and watched a piece of striped licorice explode on her screen. Sunny’s game was interrupted when her mother texted for her ETA. Dad will pick you up. This warmed Sunny and slightly hurt her pride. Not once since she’d moved to New York had anyone come to the airport for her. Most of the MacLeods were already up at the family cottage. Sunny glanced at the departures monitor.

  Still pending, hopefully not too late, she replied.

  As she typed, a discussion taking place behind her came into focus. The women had southern accents, and one of them was vowing to be more mindful in the New Year. “I’m going to start drinking tea and collecting my thoughts each morning.”

  The other said she was done with “putting the pressure on Jackson.”

  “That’s not a resolution,” Tea informed her.

  Sunny located their reflections in the mirror behind the bar. They both wore red lipstick and were dressed in busily patterned activewear. If Sunny had to guess, she’d say they were around her age. “There’s a sperm bank in California that has a catalog that tells you what movie stars the donors look like,” said the one who was going to take it easier on Jackson. “It’s right there on the Internet.”

  “Now you’re talking,” Tea said. “You’re going to have Brad Pitt’s fucking baby.”

  Sunny gave a dry cough and recovered only to feel herself smiling hard. Too hard—the bartender glanced over at her in a way that embarrassed her. Signaling for the check with one hand, she picked up her phone with the other and pretended to be in the middle of an amusing exchange when in fact she could not think of a single person whose banter could make her feel less lonely. She suspected she would make a lousy mother. She was terrible at dealing with people, with their whims and needs. Why should a baby be any different? What if she simply wasn’t cut out to connect? Sunny could now feel the skin around her mouth start to tremble, like a vole sniffing around for food.

  Several hours later, when the city lights were no longer visible and the man in the next seat was safely absorbed in his action movie, Sunny hooked into the plane’s Wi-Fi. She found the site the women were talking about and scrolled through the donor inventory, a clearinghouse of hair color, eye color, medical history, educational background, special talents, and interests. Potential mothers were asked to submit an essay about themselves and the attributes they were looking for. God, she had no idea.

  Sunny turned over her phone and closed her eyes. Words from her favorite Elizabeth Bishop poem were ticker-taping through her mind. Lose something every day. Accept the fluster / of lost door keys, the hour badly spent. Sunny could feel her eyes watering up. Airplanes always had this effect on her, though not so soon after takeoff.

  She felt a tickle in the back of her throat and raised her palms to cover her cheeks and eyelids. Saving face, literally. Her mouth filled with the taste of salt. Next year was going to be a better one. It had to be.

  From: GDespont@rogers.com

  To: GDespont@rogers.com

  Bcc: ContactList2

  Subject: Change of Scenery

  Happy New Year, folks! As some of you may know, I’ve been in New York for the past little while. My work papers came through, so I’ve officially moved here. I’ll explain, but first pull up your contacts list (don’t you miss Rolodexes?) and write this down:

  Geraldine Despont

  86 Ship Street, Apt. 3

  Brooklyn, NY 11201

  For those of you who are wondering what I’m up to, I’m a bona fide podhead. I’ve been working on a podcast that’s nominally about other podcasts but really about . . . I’m afraid you’ll have to listen to it. I also have a “real job,” working at a media company in strategy, because Lord knows I’m nothing if not a strategic genius. ☺ I wear pumpy shoes and find myself at a lot of meetings in conference rooms named after dead writers, pretending to be assertive and decisive and—how could I forget—cost-effective. I can now say I’ve read a book on motivational management and seen Hello, Dolly! with executives from Snapchat. There are worse ways to keep the lights on. New York is fun as hell.

  There’s not a ton of time for non-work things, but I’m loving what I’m seeing of the city, even in this dark, bloated season. I’ve been meeting a lot of people who seem cool (we’re all so busy it’s hard to actually get to know anybody), and I’ve been seeing somebody, a guy who’s also in podcasts and whose idea of heaven is a matinee at Film Forum.

  Which is not to say I don’t suffer the occasional case of Toronto nostalgia. And by occasional I mean nearly constant. I’m hoping to come up once I figure out how to carve out a week. A long weekend seems like too much of a tease. In the meantime send me a postcard. Text me. Pay me a visit. I miss and think of all of you, more than you know.

  Geraldine xx

  From: GDespont@rogers.com

  To: rachelpapers@gmail.com

  Re: Change of Scenery / Very Important Personal Addendum

  Rachel,

  That pay me a visit thing? I meant it. We’re in it too deep to call it off. The truth is that I’ve loved Harriet the Spy ever since I was a kid. And as the years blur by and I realize what babies you and I were way back in the day, I can say the exact same about you.

  Geraldine

  Acknowledgments

  Boundless gratitude to Ben Schrank, who urged me to pull the pages out of a drawer; to Claudia Ballard for believing in the pages; and to my editor, Allison Lorentzen, who literally hugged the pages at our first meeting and has never let go.

  Norma Barksdale, Lydia Hirt, Sara Leonard, Lindsay Prevette, Andrea Schulz, Kate Stark, Brian Tart, Olivia Taussig, and the rest of the team at Viking are all co-conspirators without rival. Additional thanks to Suzanne Gluck, Jessie Chasan-Taber, Fiona Baird, and Laura Bonner at WME.

  I am extraordinarily lucky to have readers in: Chiara Barzini, Pooja Bhatia, Rodrigo Corral, Sarah Fan, Ben Greenman, Claudia Herr, Thessaly LaForce, Eve MacSweeney, Jessica Matlin, Tim Rostron, and Chloe Schama.

  Thank you to my family: Linda Schrank, Faith Childs, and Harris Schrank. My parents, Curtis and Sharon Mechling, who raised me on a steady diet of love and laughter. My sister, Anna, and my grandmother, Rhea Jack, extraordinary women both. I am grateful to the city of Toronto, and to all the friends I’ve loved and lost.

  And Henry and Louisa, truest people on earth.

  About the Author

  Lauren Mechling has written for The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Slate, The New Yorker online, and Vogue, where she writes a book column. She's worked as a crime reporter and metro columnist for The New Yo
rk Sun, a young adult novelist, and a features editor at The Wall Street Journal. A graduate of Harvard College, she lives in Brooklyn with her husband and two children.

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