How Could She Read online

  He nodded, seemed relieved. “Good luck tomorrow,” he said. “Maybe next time you’re in town, we can have lunch.”

  “For sure,” Geraldine said, and concentrated on holding her poise as Gus kissed her lightly on the cheek and walked away. She was humiliated, but also slightly relieved that he was leaving so she wouldn’t have to spend the drinks portion of the evening being rejected.

  Sunny’s contingent moved on to a loud restaurant on Franklin Avenue, where Geraldine chatted with a circle of cool, mostly single women, including a sloe-eyed handbag designer who had just spent her fiftieth birthday surfing in Uruguay. At one point Sunny appeared and leaned her head on Geraldine’s shoulder, a gesture that filled Geraldine with a sweet contentment that lingered long after Sunny sailed off to conspire in a corner with Servane.

  Geraldine must have gone twenty minutes without thinking about Gus, and when she did, she relegated the memory to the back of her mind, then scanned her surroundings and gave a little swoon. There wasn’t a dull person in sight. She didn’t need Gus. New York was where she was meant to be, to the degree where she sometimes felt that she was already there, leading a parallel life in some alternate dimension, waiting for the Geraldine who was stuck in Toronto to figure out how to latch on to her fate. She was happy here, and only here. This understanding bloomed within her each time she visited New York, especially when she was basking in the margins of Sunny’s life. Even if it was impossible to get close to Sunny, she still possessed a magical ability to make others feel like a slightly more satisfying version of themselves, or electrically close to it. The feeling that Geraldine began to experience at Sunny’s afterparty took root overnight. It only began to dissipate the following afternoon, when Tom Newlin made it clear that he had no intention of hiring her.

  Most of her twenty-five-minute meeting with Tom was given over to Canadian media gossip—he dropped that he knew a lot of the old Province crew. Geraldine changed the subject to Sunny’s latest accomplishments before he could bring up Peter’s name. Sometimes she could remain level when she heard people talk about Peter. Other times it sent her right back, to the hurt of being told by the man she loved with a blinding fierceness that she was, essentially, too decent to love. “I don’t trust myself to do right by somebody as pure and good as you,” he’d said. “Maybe it would be different if you were damaged, too, but you’re ridiculously perfect, from every angle.” The hardest part of hearing this was that she considered Peter to be the perfect one, perfectly flawed. She knew that she would never find somebody equal to him.

  Tom was considerably younger than Geraldine, who suspected he’d cultivated his thick belly and Brillo-pad beard as strategic distractions from his lack of experience. “Barb speaks the world of you,” Tom said when he finally picked Geraldine’s résumé off his lap and moved it to a pile on his desk. “Too bad our business is on its last legs.”

  “Don’t say that,” Geraldine countered gamely. “People are still hungry for news. The models are just transitioning.”

  “Maybe.” Tom pursed his lips and made a tiny sucking sound. “Web is more disappointing than you’d think. I mean, unless you crack Facebook, but otherwise you’re looking at a whole lot of content with not a lot of page views. Video is working, but clearly that’s not your thing.”

  Geraldine opened her mouth, but Tom kept talking. “The only area where I can possibly imagine somebody with your background entering the picture is podcasts. They’re cheap to make, and you wouldn’t believe how people eat them up. Last year we saw double-digit growth. This year will be even higher.”

  “I listen to podcasts all the time.”

  “When?” He sounded skeptical.

  “When I’m grocery shopping. Or cooking.” She knew better than to mention that she often continued listening through dinner.

  “Which ones?”

  “Mostly news,” Geraldine lied. “And there’s one I just got hooked on, Great White Gay, where the host brings in a Broadway star and they unpack a famous show tune. It’s really smart. I would love to produce one—or some . . .” Her voice trailed off.

  Tom cracked his knuckles and tossed a longing glance at his computer screen. “We’re not very deep in the podcast world, but we are certainly talking about expanding. So I’ll keep your interest in mind, and maybe we’ll talk again.”

  “Definitely, I’ll send you some ideas.” As Geraldine rose to her feet, she felt a pleasant sensation born less of standing up too quickly than of true excitement. The world had said no to her countless times. She’d heard the word so often that it had almost no impact at all. What mattered was that Tom had led her to an idea. Pointed her in the right direction at least. Not that he deserved much credit. She was the one who’d fought her way to him.

  Geraldine beelined it for the subway station. She couldn’t wait to get back to Rachel’s and tell her about the meeting. She was going to move into podcasts. Not that podcasts themselves were necessarily so thrilling, but she was going to use them to pave the path to the life she deserved. It would be like Sunny’s life, but without a skulking husband and multiple addresses. Which was fine. Money didn’t excite Geraldine. She imagined her future self, waking up in a clean studio apartment and walking to the bodega, spending her days listening to interesting conversations. She was ready to stop thinking about running into Peter and worrying about Sunny’s discarded Toronto apartment—which lonely soul she was going to share it with next and whether she was going to die in it too young or too old. Sunny was good at choosing interesting spaces, though, and maybe Geraldine should convince her to vet her new apartment when she moved to New York.

  When Geraldine got off the subway, she headed down Greene Avenue to Sancerrely Yours. She was going to buy something special for Rachel and Matt, a wine that was better than the usual offering grabbed off the twelve-dollar-and-under table. She couldn’t wait to see Rachel’s face when she Googled the vintage, as Geraldine knew her friend would, and discovered it was a twenty-six-dollar bottle!

  5

  I got you.” Rachel took Geraldine’s elbow and helped her long-leg it over a treacherous puddle. The rain was shooting down in streaks, and Rachel was glad she’d changed out of the silk dress she’d been wearing and into the pleated canvas skirt she’d scored at the clothing swap earlier in the day. Geraldine had found it for her, balled up at the bottom of the pile. “It’s perfectly Rachel,” she’d said, a nicer way of saying it was Rachel’s slightly larger size.

  It was Saturday evening, and the three of them—Matt up ahead, sans umbrella—were heading west on Canal Street, to a dinner party at Jeremy’s place. Geraldine had made the appropriate noises about not wanting to be a third wheel, and Rachel had done her duty and told Geraldine that Jeremy was borderline obsessed with her pretty friend from Canada. Even though Geraldine was not remotely interested in Jeremy, she could stand to soak up some male attention. Rachel did not mention that Jeremy had met somebody and was using the word “girlfriend” for the first time since Rachel had known him.

  Geraldine kept up beside Rachel, her steps light and jaunty. Geraldine’s emotional rainbow contained more hues than possibly any of the other people in Rachel’s life, and she was in a particularly upbeat mood. She had been bound up in optimism since her total non-event and yet also sort of transcendent CBC interview three days ago. This gave Rachel some apprehension, but maybe things would work out, if not with the CBC then with something else, and it filled her with joy to glimpse the Geraldine who’d been her de facto life partner back when Rachel’s romantic relationships lasted on average three weeks. There was light in Geraldine yet.

  It was also in Rachel’s interest to have a close friend on hand. Jeremy’s get-togethers could be hard to live through. He was more of a collector of people than a friend to them. The one exception was Matt. They’d known each other since kindergarten in Great Neck, Long Island, when Jeremy had spent most of high school getting stoned
and doing PhD-level math in Matt’s basement.

  Jeremy had met Geraldine at a picnic for Cleo’s debut in Fort Greene Park. Even though he’d come on too strong, telling her she looked like an actress in an old Michael Caine movie he’d just seen at Metrograph and inviting her to go on a ride in the country the following day, he’d gotten something arguably better out of the connection: Somehow he’d talked her into introducing him to Sunny and Nick. Jeremy and Nick had clicked, and now Jeremy was often seen at their parties. Geraldine had confirmed that he’d been at Sunny’s gathering the other night. Rachel’s lungs went heavy as it occurred to her that Manhattan’s golden couple might be at tonight’s dinner. If they were, she might plead a migraine and relieve her brother of his babysitting duties.

  She had no tolerance for Sunny. When Rachel had returned to Brooklyn after her stint at Province, she had been slightly surprised that Sunny never reached out, if not to welcome her home then to milk her for native tips. Rachel had finally moved out of her parents’ house and into a three-bedroom in Windsor Terrace when she finally ran into Sunny. It was at a party for Re-Vision, a literary magazine whose tiny subscription base was offset by its renowned reputation. Sunny stood by a white brick wall, her arms draped by her sides, looking like a tulip. Buzzed on two and a half Coronas and a flickering sense of self-respect, Rachel went over to say hello. Sunny was friendly, but in a brazenly insincere way. “I’m on the magazine’s advisory board,” Sunny said. “You should really think about contributing an essay.” Rachel chuckled nervously and said she’d love to make it work, but there was never a follow-up solicitation, and Rachel couldn’t stand the idea of emailing an essay and saying that she was doing so at Sunny’s suggestion, never to hear back from anyone on the matter.

  The city glimmered in the drizzle. “Did Jeremy say who else is going to be there?” Rachel called out to her husband.

  “Sorry, we didn’t go over the seating plans.” Matt stopped and dutifully waited for Rachel and Geraldine to catch up.

  “Men don’t tell each other anything,” Rachel muttered to Geraldine.

  “Maybe we have other things going on,” Matt shot back. “Jeremy’s busy taking meetings at Google.”

  Rachel laughed. “He’s not Steve Jobs.”

  “He’s always been nice to you,” Matt said.

  “Did Sunny mention if she’s coming?” Rachel asked Geraldine in the lightest tone she could manage.

  “I don’t think so,” Geraldine said.

  They came upon the building, an aggressively sleek development on the westernmost stretch of Canal Street, and Rachel brushed her hand against Matt’s as they rode the elevator up to Jeremy’s. She kept her eyes trained on Geraldine as they entered the loft. Peter’s place in Toronto had been nice, Rachel remembered, but Jeremy’s was on another level. The ceilings were high enough to accommodate three other apartments, and Peter’s view of the CN Tower had nothing on the sweep of the Hudson River beyond Jeremy’s window.

  “Where is everybody?” Rachel asked, looking around. There were no people, just a two-sided dish of olives and pits on the counter.

  “More important, where are those cheese sticks he put out last time?” said Matt. “I’m starving.”

  Rachel noted that the table had been set for seven, a riotous floral arrangement at the center. It all seemed a bit girlie against Jeremy’s masculine design scheme—he favored leather ottomans and art that spread its legs across entire walls.

  Matt walked into the living room and crouched down to pull out a steel bin of records. He inspected the contents without envy or judgment, even though Matt was the one who’d been president of the radio station at MIT.

  “Find anything good?” Geraldine asked.

  Matt didn’t reply. He just carefully removed a black disc from a paper sleeve and set it on the turntable. He made a gun with his fingers and pointed it at the ceiling, holding still as he waited for the funky instrumental to give way to the vocals.

  “Betty?” Rachel said once the singing started, and Matt nodded. “Betty Davis was on one of the first mixes Matt made for me,” she told Geraldine.

  “I remember those mixes.” Geraldine sounded wistful. “I still have the one you copied for me, with that psychedelic Brazil—”

  “Matty! Ladies, you made it,” said Jeremy. He and a few others came in a rush from the back. He must have acquired a new toy he needed to show everybody. Rachel saw, with a modicum of relief, that Jeremy had invited Don and Henry, a couple she’d met and utterly failed to make conversation with a few times before.

  Rachel introduced herself to the girl at Jeremy’s side. She had ruler-straight hair and full, pursed lips. Her youth was blinding. So were her teeth. “I’m Renata,” she said. “I’ve heard so much about you.” Her arm undulated at Rachel like a tentacle.

  “And my favorite Torontonian. That’s what you call yourselves, right?” Jeremy kept a courteous distance as he hugged Geraldine, his feet unmoving in spite of his tilting torso. “It’s good to see you. We didn’t get enough time together at Sunny’s thing.” Geraldine gave a graceful smile and tucked her chin. Something about the apartment’s lighting made her hair look more golden than apricot-colored. Jeremy swiftly turned to Rachel. “No Cleo? I told Matt you could park her in one of the bedrooms.”

  “My brother’s babysitting,” Rachel told him. “Here, for you.” She handed Jeremy two bottles—the one that Geraldine had brought home, the other that Rachel had swiped from a photo shoot at work. If anyone would appreciate this double-fisted gift, it was Jeremy.

  “Cheers,” he said, scanning the labels. “How’s Jesse doing?”

  “He’s okay. Still smarting a little after his arrest.” Rachel had meant it as a joke, but Jeremy’s friends looked slightly freaked-out. “He got taken in for disorderly conduct at the rally in DC right after the inauguration,” she explained. “He’s not, like, a drug dealer.”

  “We’re becoming a fascist state,” Renata pronounced, fluttering her lips.

  It wasn’t long before they were all seated, spooning pureed parsnip soup into their mouths. Geraldine was earning her place at the table, laughing musically and recalling a book of Nordic fairy tales that she’d been obsessed with as a child. “There was one about a girl whose father sold her to a witch who trapped her in an attic. She ended up falling in love with a bat who covered her with kisses. It was possibly the most inappropriate thing ever,” she said with a snort. Rachel felt a glow of appreciation for her friend. Geraldine was at her best when her self-consciousness fell to the floor like a dinner napkin. She’d light up from within and hopscotch through conversation, proffering oddly charming connections—“Romaine lettuce could not be a more buttoned-up vegetable” or “We should all be forced to spend a week of our lives as a puppeteer.” Her artless delivery made her words all the more surprising and beguiling. This would have served her well in the life role everybody had believed she was meant to lead, Rachel thought, her remarks scattering magic dust around her and Peter’s Toronto extravagant dinner parties.

  Rachel hadn’t known what to make of Peter at first. She’d never met anybody like him, not even at Amherst, which was rife with the entitled sons of scions. Peter had inherited the magazine from his family, erstwhile steel barons who’d once held control of the Canadian Pacific Railway company and who’d run the journalistic institution for the past century. The Rickers had a camp in British Columbia, and Peter seemed to spend an awful lot of time canoeing under the northern lights. When he showed up at work, Rachel spotted him flirting with the young women whom he employed. This was only a decade ago, but a wholly different era. Nobody seemed to fault Peter for his management practices. It was just the way things were. If Rachel were to be horribly honest, what made her bristle most was that he made it clear he didn’t find her attractive. He preferred his women pale and enigmatic, a nicer way of saying Christian and quiet. Rachel wasn’t the least bit su
rprised when Peter took up with Geraldine, who had a serene temperament and looked a little like Lauren Hutton minus the tooth gap.

  By the second course, Rachel was able to deduce that Renata was a recent Columbia graduate and had been an intern at Jeremy’s company. Now she worked for an interior decorator, primarily making inspiration boards.

  “But Jeremy and I weren’t together till I found another job,” Renata said, as if anybody cared—or believed her.

  “May I ask a random question?” Geraldine said during a conversational lull. “Does anyone here have a podcast they’re obsessed with?”

  Henry perked up. “Is this some personality test?”

  “I’m supposed to be developing ideas for the CBC and could use some inspiration,” she explained. This account didn’t exactly square with Rachel’s understanding of how Geraldine and her CBC interviewer had left things, but she respected Geraldine’s optimism.

  Rachel had glanced at Geraldine’s email when she was taking a shower. How demoralizing it must be to keep flying into New York for meetings only to receive an email from Barb saying, “Sorry Tom didn’t have better news for you. Chin up—we’ll keep chatting.” And the Barrett thing, oof. He’d written to tell Geraldine that Katrina knew somebody who might be interested in the room—was she comfortable living with a classical flutist who might want to practice when Geraldine was at work and only sometimes at night? Rachel wasn’t proud of snooping in Geraldine’s in-box, but she suspected that Geraldine did the same to her.

  As Don gave Geraldine a hard sell on what sounded like a sleeping pill of a podcast that purported to make astrophysics understandable, Jeremy pulled his chair closer to Rachel’s. “Is it terrible that I don’t listen to podcasts?” he whispered. “Can you give me a list of them? Also books I should buy? I just got the new Colson Whitehead.” This was what he always asked Rachel when he wanted to brag about whatever book he’d just picked up that day at McNally Jackson. He never seemed interested in discussing things he’d actually read—only what he planned to read soon.