Brimming with pride, Fred nodded.
“Excellent. Vincent we’ll need to start sketching Dracula’s Castle for Act I as soon as possible. That has to be done just right. Ask Dara, who runs the art department, to come and see me at ten tomorrow. I want to use some of her students to help us. This is a big project. They should all be involved. Sheila, better order forty copies of the script. I have a feeling we’re going to need them.” Larissa stood up from the table. Everything had to look and function as normal, more than normal. It had to buzz with efficiency and sameness, temperature 72degF at all times, oven 350degF, burners on medium, nothing singed, burned, left unattended, nothing out of place, nothing, nothing, nothing.
8
Love
She was against the wall, suffocating under his hands, she was on the wood floor, suffocating under his body, she was being ravaged with his starving lips, his bare and starved body. “Larissa,” he kept whispering. “Larissa…”
She was a song without words. He didn’t even admire her outfit, her tanned legs, her tie-up wedge sandals. He admired nothing. She was certain he hadn’t looked at her before he took her, groping for her in darkness, though the September day was hot, was blazing glory sunshine. And she was moaning and crying and crying and coming. Not long ago, I lay in a chair under the sky and imagined this. Why is reality so much more bitter? “I missed you,” she whispered into his neck, her arms, her legs around him, his sweat dripping on her. I love you.
“Really?” He was panting, his eyes closed.
“I can’t take it anymore…please.”
“Please what?”
She didn’t reply.
“Please what? Please more, or please stop?”
She was crying.
“You have never been fucked like this,” he whispered. “And you never will be again.”
Larissa didn’t want it to be true. But she feared it was.
He didn’t leave her. He remained in the space that contained them both, until he was ready for her again. Afterward she washed herself with cold water, no soap or shampoo, just water, to erase the smell of him, to soothe the swelling sting of her bare flesh, to calm herself.
She sat naked on the unmade bed. She was about to get dressed, leave, but she didn’t want to. She had to. She had no choice. This was not a false choice. She had no say in the matter. Whatever she wanted to do, the New Jersey Central School District didn’t care, it let the kids out every afternoon at 2:40 p.m. with absolutely no thought to what the mothers were doing, whether it be feeding the homeless or sitting here in a bright room, not feeding but falling.
Except…it was good. It was beautiful.
It was everything else that was the not-beautiful.
Kai sat up; Larissa quivered. To look at him, to see his hands stretching out for her, to swallow her. One day she was going to simply forget it was 2:40. Conveniently forget. She would live a life in which 2:40 no longer existed, it would be just like 1:40, or 5:45. Just another meaningless number, just one among three hundred and fifty-nine others. The way Che lived, the way Bo lived. And in those three hundred and fifty-nine other minutes, his hands would remain outstretched to her, and she would not get off his bed.
“Oh, Kai,” she said, an elocution for the lost, a declamation for the longing.
“I can’t live without you,” he said, watching her.
“Please don’t say that.”
“It’s true. I can’t live without you,” Kai repeated. “And yet I watch you after not being with you the whole summer walk out of my bathroom, washing my love off your body. Washing me off your body. You say you love me, yet this is what you do.”
“Did I?” Larissa said, sinking down, defeated, hanging her head. “Did I say that?”
“Yes. In your most fragile moment, you did. You say you love me. Yet, this is what you do.”
PART II
SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS
I was not in safety, neither had I rest, neither was I quiet; yet trouble came.
Book of Job 3:26
Chapter One
1
The Disappearance of Tenestra
“Did you hear that Abel’s daughter Tenestra has disappeared?” Ezra lowered his voice. Abel was one of Ezra’s Classical Lit professors.
“She ran away from home?” They were playing poker, but Larissa dropped her cards on the table.
“Well, sort of. She ran away from rehab.”
“Rehab! Get out. Not Tenny. Impossible.”
“Be that as it may.”
“Rehab for what?”
“Crack.”
“You are so full of it.”
Ezra raised his glass. “All right. Whose turn is it to deal?”
“Mine,” said Larissa. “Maggie, is it true?”
Maggie shrugged. “He tells me it’s true. Is that the same thing?”
“No!”
“Why are you so surprised?” Ezra asked. “Because it’s Tenny?”
“Yes, because it’s Tenny.” The girl was the valedictorian of her eighth grade class. Granted, that was three years ago, but still. Why did it make Larissa sad to hear it? She palmed her Margarita glass. She didn’t know what was more distressing, Tenestra on crack, or Emily coming home last week and dramatically flailing her arms, telling her that her friend Jemma, all fifteen years of her, was seeing a nineteen-year-old sophomore from Drew. Jemma, whom Larissa had known since Jemma was seven, seeing a boy nineteen years old. It was oppressive.
In the here and now she heard Ezra’s voice. “What, you think valedictorians don’t have serotonin?”
“What?” Larissa struggled to get back on track with crack.
“You think they don’t have reuptake inhibitors? They don’t feel euphoria? Haven’t you heard? Crack is the greatest high you can have.”
Larissa didn’t believe it; she didn’t believe crack was the greatest high you could have.
“But humans are so perversely made,” Ezra continued, reaching for the cards. “That the greatest high is accompanied barely two hours later by the greatest low. All you want is to be up again, be that happy.”
“Ez, I don’t believe it. No one runs away from rehab at Christmas,” Larissa said.
Ezra laughed. “There are so many logical fallacies there, I don’t know where to begin. Is it that no one runs away at Christmas, or is it that no one is in rehab at Christmas? Which is the thing that galls you most?”
“I don’t know where to begin,” said Larissa carefully, watching Ezra shuffle. “So where is she?”
“If they knew where she was, we wouldn’t have a missing person, would we?”
“What’s her father doing?”
“Going nuts. What do you think he’s doing?”
“Yeah, really, Lar,” said Maggie. “Imagine it was one of your kids.” She shuddered. “I can’t even begin to think of Dylan getting involved in something like that. The thought alone is intolerable.”
“No, no, Dylan is a very good boy, don’t worry.”
“Yes, tell that to valedictorian Tenestra!”
From the corner of the dining table where she sat, Larissa glanced through the wide hall into the open space of the den where Emily and Asher were on the floor playing hide the ball from the dog, while Michelangelo sat on top of Asher’s back and tickled him.
“Are they looking for her?”
“Of course! Larissa, what’s wrong with you? Of course they’re looking for her.”
“Where?”
“Everywhere. There’s an APB out on her. She’s a runaway minor.”
“Does she have money on her?”
“This worries Abel more than anything,” said Ezra.
“The fact that she does?”
“No,” Ezra said. “The fact that she doesn’t.”
2
Jonny and Stanley
Bo had been desperately calling Larissa all Monday morning and unable to get through. No one was picking up the phone. Bo was a clarion of frustration. She wanted, n
eeded to see her friend immediately. And Larissa usually picked up the phone. She was known for it. What did Larissa do on Mondays? Was she having lunch with Maggie? Bo could never be sure on which alternating day Maggie worked and on which she hung out with Larissa. She didn’t want to have lunch with the two of them. She needed Larissa all to herself today. Maggie was all judgment, and Bo needed counsel not judgment. She lived in a two-bedroom apartment in Chatham, which she shared with her boyfriend and her frightfully hypochondriacal mother, going downhill ever since the divorce eighteen years ago. Her mother’s last wish, as she would (very often) state, was to see her daughter finally marry the boy she’d been with since college. Though it was theoretical. Mrs. Purch was in love with marriage, not Jonny. Jonny her mother couldn’t stand. Bo and Jonny had quite a fire going when they were sophomores at Rutgers. But that was ten long years ago.
Bo had Larissa on speed redial and speakerphone as she continued to put on her makeup in front of her big oval mirror. Mondays the Met was closed, but sometimes Bo went in anyway (as a press writer for the Met art exhibits, her job never ended), though not today. That’s it. If Larissa didn’t pick up, Bo would drive to her house. Was that rude to just pop in? What if she was washing the floor? Or taking a shower? Or indisposed in some way? Bo herself would be mortified if someone popped in on her when the breakfast dishes from two days ago were still on the table. Or if her mother was still in her robe. Bo spent half her day—which meant half her life—being humiliated by her mother’s lack of personal hygiene. How Jonny continued to live with her under these conditions she didn’t know. Sometimes Bo brought up a “facility,” and her mother glared at her as if Bo were a gargoyle. “What are you talking about, nursing home?” she’d say. “I’m in perfect health. I’m only sixty-nine.”
Bo didn’t want her mother’s nursing home death on her conscience. She was waiting her mother out. A small apartment, a sick mother, two cats, one of whom peed all over the house, and the appetizing sight of sunny-side-up eggs half-eaten, dried on the plate, left on the round Formica table. Yes, if someone just popped in, Bo would be mortified. She’d have to stop being friends with them. She’d have no choice.
It was all about appearances with Bo. As long as no one saw her actual life, but saw her, neat, ironed, straight slick hair freshly brushed, a ready smile on her face, then all was okay. Bo was an attractive woman. She was tall and stately, and though she seesawed in weight, even the extra twenty pounds, which is what she was packing at the moment, distributed itself around her hips and breasts. Because she was five-ten, it was hardly even noticeable. She owned all her clothes in two sizes; she would wear the larger size and that would be that. Appearance was the thing.
Dressed as if for work, Bo made sure her mother had a cup of tea in her hand, the TV was on, a window was cracked open despite heavy protestations, and made for the front door.
“You’re going to work so late!” said Mrs. Purch. If ever there was a reason to get married, it was so she wouldn’t be Bo Purch anymore; what a name! But Jonny’s was not much better. Jonny Zolle. Bo Zolle? No luck with the last names. She wished she could have Larissa’s. Stark. And even her maiden name had been elegantly nondescript. Connelly. Larissa had all the luck. “They’re going to fire you,” added Mrs. Purch.
“Just running a little late, Mother. It’s fine,” said Bo, wishing she could strap her mother to the couch. Just to make sure she was safe. Chatham was ten minutes away from Larissa’s house. Seven if she made the lights near the intersection of the highways.
Larissa showed up at 3 p.m. with Michelangelo in tow.
Bo jumped out of her Saturn. “God, Larissa! I’ve been desperately trying to get in touch with you all day. Where’ve you been?”
“Food shopping.” She popped open the trunk to get the grocery bags. “Whazzup? Michelangelo, be polite, say hello to Bo.”
“Hello, Bo.” He stood close to his mother with his navy school bag. Larissa handed him a bag of paper towels and tissue boxes.
“Hi, honey.” He was so cute, that curly head of blond hair made you want to squeeze him, tousle his hair. So Bo did; she squeezed him, she tousled his hair. “How was your day? How was school?”
“Good. I had art today. We painted. Wanna see?”
“Sure, let’s go in.” And to Larissa, Bo said, “I really need to talk to you. I stayed home hoping we could have lunch.”
“Why didn’t you call me?”
“I did call you!”
“On the cell?”
“Yes!”
“You know, the phone never even rang. Don’t know what’s wrong.” Larissa shook the phone, put it to her ear. “Here, call me right now, let’s see if it works—oh, wait, no, let’s do it later, I’ve got to get the food in or the ice cream will melt. Is everything okay?”
“No, everything is not okay.”
“Sorry about that. Would you mind grabbing a couple of bags?”
Bo took two bags, looking baffled at Larissa. Why was she acting as if Bo weren’t standing in her driveway in dire straits? She was acting like this was the most normal thing, Bo taking off, waiting in Larissa’s driveway, wanting to talk to her! As Larissa walked by her, coat open, Bo couldn’t help but inhale Larissa’s scent. She became even more puzzled. Because under the halfway normal Larissa smells of deodorant and faint perfume, Bo could swear, could almost swear in a court of law, that she could smell the sweat of sex. There was no other smell quite like it, fluids and perspiration from man and woman intermingled on the woman. That smell was like the smell of firewood. Unmistakable. But was Bo mistaken? Didn’t Larissa say she was out food shopping? Maybe Larissa hadn’t had a shower since this morning, Bo reasoned. Perhaps this is what she and Jared got up to before he left for work. No wonder they had a perfect marriage. If that was Jonny, maybe Bo wouldn’t be coming to tell Larissa what she wanted to tell her.
“We can talk in front of the boy,” Larissa said as they walked through the back door to her kitchen, “just euphemize, ‘kay?”
Bo watched Larissa mill around the kitchen, unpacking the groceries. She was wearing light skinny jeans, a snug cashmere Henley with the seams exposed. Were the jeans too skinny? The four-inch-heel boots that went with them—chocolate suede, Gucci?—were definitely too high. Is this how Larissa went food shopping?
“How’s everything with you?” Bo asked slowly.
“Good. You know, same old, same old. Nothing exciting ever happens here. Hey, want some ice cream?” Larissa asked cheerily. “Or a sandwich?”
“A sandwich might be nice. I’m hungry.”
“I’ll make you and Michelangelo tuna. Honey, want some tuna?”
“Yes, Mommy. On an English muffin. With pickles. But can I have a little tiny snack while I’m waiting?”
“You got it, bud. Take your folder out. We’ll get started on the homework while I make your snack appetizer and snack main course.” Larissa turned to Bo from the fridge. “What would you like to drink, Bo? I can make us coffee.”
Larissa then proceeded to tell Bo about the six different varieties of coffee she had at her house, and how they each tasted, especially when run through the espresso maker. What was Bo in the mood for? “The French roast is bold but not too spicy, and the Colombian is very mild but good, then I’ve got some Italian espresso which is quite strong, and the best of all is the Jamaican blue, though it’s deceptively mild. Which would you prefer?”
“I guess, um,” Bo said dully, “the Jamaican blue.”
“Good choice. Coming right up. Now do you like half and half, or milk in yours?”
“Larissa…”
“And sugar or Splenda?”
Bo turned to the island to glance at Michelangelo, who was cutting and pasting a dinosaur while munching a cup of dry Cheerios, a string cheese, a cookie, a glass of milk, and a fruit cup, while waiting for the tuna sandwich. “Lar,” Bo said lamentably, “I met someone.”
“Oh, yeah?” Larissa was grinding the coffee beans on a loud settin
g, while breaking up the tuna into little morsels in a steel mixing bowl with a metal fork and putting boxes of tea in the cabinet, which she then slammed shut. The English muffins were toasting. “Who’d you meet?”
“Larissa!”
Larissa turned around, still mixing the tuna.
“You’re not listening! I met someone,” Bo stage-whispered, raising her groomed and freshened eyebrows. She was hoping Larissa would know all about stage whispers.
“You what?”
Finally something got through. Larissa went to sit at the island next to Michelangelo and across from Bo. But only for a second. A second later, she was up again because the English muffins had finished toasting. Bo let Larissa make the espresso and the tuna sandwiches, and finally they sat down, and Larissa nodded invitingly, ready to listen. Bo began to speak. She spoke for a long time. When she finished, there was a pause between the women. Fortunately in the middle of the monologue Michelangelo had sneaked off with his sandwich to watch TV in the den.
Larissa’s pause lasted unusually long on her inscrutable face. Eventually she spoke. She said, “You’re thinking of having an affair with someone named Stanley?”
Bo was completely taken aback. “That’s all you have to say?”
“No…that’s just the beginning. That’s where I’m starting.”
“What’s wrong with Stanley?”
“Nothing…just doesn’t seem like a name for an affair.” Larissa took a long sip of her coffee. “Coffee’s good, isn’t it?”