“It is, yes. There are names that are more suited for affairs?”
“Well, I’m just saying. Does Stanley have a good voice?”
“What does that mean? Is that also one of the criteria for an affair? A sexy name and a good voice?”
“It doesn’t hurt. Is he attractive?”
“He’s not, um, conventionally attractive.”
“He’s not conventionally attractive?” Larissa paused again. “Jonny is such a good-looking man,” she said. “And he has a very good voice.”
“I live with Jonny! I don’t need to have an affair with him.”
“You’re right. Well, what’s this Stanley like?”
“He’s riveting, and interesting, and I love to listen to him, he is incredibly smart, and he’s in a band. I’m completely taken with him, Lar. I’m not thinking of being with him because I want someone conventionally attractive. Jonny is plenty handsome.”
“This is so true. Hey, would you like some cheese strudel? I bought some at your Chatham Bakery, and it’s unbelievable. Come on, share a piece with me.”
Bo began to suspect that Larissa was going to be surprisingly little help. “What do I do?” She fidgeted with the tips of her fingers.
“Well, I don’t know!” Larissa stridently replied. “How should I know? What do you want to do?”
“I don’t know. What do you think I should do?”
“What do I think you should do? Who am I, the Pope? How would I know, Bo? Why are you asking me?”
“Because you’re my friend.”
Larissa came around the island and put her arm around Bo. “I’m sorry. Of course. But, darling, it’s not my life, it’s your life. What do you want to do? And I thought Jonny got a job?”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
Larissa looked pensive. “I thought you wanted him to get a job.”
“I did! But again, what does that have to do with anything?”
“Well, I don’t know. I thought it made things better.”
“I’m not unhappy with Jonny. I’m just not happy. We’re in a rut, stuck in the same place for years, bored, spinning our wheels.”
“Huh.” Bo watched Larissa studying her, chewing her lip. Larissa with her light flawless makeup, so composed and polite, so exquisitely superficial, smiling, pleasant, groomed. Her hair shiny, straight, parted, down, perfect. Bo had never come to Larissa with anything personal before, and maybe this was why. They’d been friendly, but in that adult way—when you talk about everything but the state of your life. Perhaps she had been wrong to give Larissa her confidence. She tried one more time.
“I think I still have feelings for Jonny, Lar.”
“Of course. That doesn’t go away immediately. You’ve been together so long. You have a family, you built a life, you have children…”
Bo narrowed her eyes at Larissa. “What are you talking about, Larissa?” she asked. “You know we don’t have any children. Who are you talking about?”
Larissa blinked. “Uh—you know what I mean.” She emitted an embarrassed chuckle.
Bo studied Larissa carefully.
“You know what I think, Bo? I think we should get Maggie in on this.”
“You don’t think she’s too judgmental?”
“No, no. She is very smart. And she is kind. She has excellent ideas. Let’s all talk it over. Because you see, I have to run, unfortunately. I’ve got to pick up Emily from school. She is auditioning for the talent show, and it’s almost 4:30. And Asher’s got cross country till 5:00. I’m…this is a terrible time for me to give you my undivided attention. I feel a little distracted and that’s not fair to you.”
“I’ve been calling you all day,” Bo said plaintively. “Where’ve you been? I even called Pingry, but Ezra said you’re not always there on Mondays.”
“This is true.”
“I don’t know what to do. I’m bored, I guess. I want to add a little spice to my life.”
“You’re bored? Bo, how can you be bored? You go into the city every day. You work at the Met, for goodness’ sake. You work on fantastic exhibits, the best in the world, you meet powerful, fascinating people, you travel. You have a cute boyfriend who’s smart, and who now also has a job.”
“I know all that. But we are getting stale. We’re so familiar with each other…”
“So break up with him, Bo,” Larissa said. “You’re not married. It’s easy. You’re so lucky. You’ve got no kids, no commitment. Isn’t this why you didn’t want to get married? So you could leave your options nice and open?”
“No,” Bo said defensively. “Larissa, you have it all wrong. I didn’t want to get married because both Jonny and I don’t believe in marriage.”
“But that’s great! That’s so convenient! Now you don’t want to be together anymore, so break up.”
“Who said?”
“Well…didn’t you just say…?”
“I didn’t say. I said I didn’t know. I’m not even sleeping with Stanley yet.”
“Oh. Yeah…” Larissa trailed off. “You’re making it all needlessly complicated, I think. You know what I mean?”
“Larissa, me and my mother are living in an apartment that was left to Jonny by his mother when she died. I can’t just pack up and move out. Besides, I don’t even know if Stanley would want me to move in with him. We haven’t even…”
“Oh. Right. Yeah, you might want to…first…and then afterward ask him if you can move in.”
“I don’t know if I want to break up with Jonny, Larissa. I love Jonny.”
Larissa smiled. “Now we’re getting somewhere.”
Bo couldn’t believe that she had just professed her love for Jonny.
“I gotta run, darling,” Larissa said. “You’re welcome to stay for dinner. But I have to go get my kids.”
“No, no,” said Bo, getting up off the bar stool. “I think I best be running along.”
“Let’s have lunch with Maggie. We’ll come out to the city like we used to.”
“You haven’t done that in a long time,” Bo said.
“Yeah. Been so busy. You know how it is.”
“Do I?” said Bo, as Larissa ushered her to the back door. “Can you come to the city tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow? Let me call Maggie, see if she can do it. She’s been feeling under the weather lately. Hasn’t been up to doing much. I’ll call you tonight?” Larissa kissed Bo on the cheek, opened the door, waved genially, and before Bo was at her car, the back door was slammed and Larissa had vanished.
3
Middle of the Night
The phone rang at a strange hour. It was 2:30 in the morning, and when the phone rang, Larissa was startled out of sleep. Her first reaction was not to answer it. She didn’t have a plan, but who on earth and for what good reason would be calling this late at night? Sure it could be her mother with some scary health news, but with Larissa’s bad luck, it could be bad luck calling. Her heart thumping a hundred times in the four rings before the answering machine picked it up, Larissa lived through Kai’s voice, and Jared’s voice, her life twisting yet again, metal breaking screeching—
It was Jared who harrumphed out of bed. “You don’t hear that?”
“Hear what?” she said in the dark, with no lights. Her voice didn’t sound like her own.
Jared answered it. “Hello?”
Larissa couldn’t hear the rest, whether he listened or responded. She was panting, deaf to him. She felt him nudging her arm, passing her the phone. “God, it’s for you…” He rolled away. She put the phone to her ear.
“Hello?”
“Larissa, baby!” The voice was dim, the satellite connection fragmented. It was Che.
“Che! Oh my God! Che!”
Jared groaned with judgment, pulling the covers over his head. Jumping out of bed, Larissa, relieved beyond measure, her spirit revived, her heart resuscitated, left the bedroom and ran downstairs.
“Che, it’s nearly three in the m
orning! Is everything all right?”
“Larissa Stark, you tell me. Why do you think I’m calling? What would make a penniless woman call her best friend in the middle of the freaking night?”
“I don’t know.” Larissa thought about it, rubbing her groggy eyes. “Wait…you’re not…are you…you’re pregnant?”
“Yes!”
“Ahhh!”
“Ahhh!”
“That’s the greatest thing I ever heard!”
“Isn’t it?”
“Oh my God!”
“I know! Oh my God! Isn’t that the greatest?”
“The greatest.”
“Finally.”
“Finally.”
“Oh, Che, I’m so happy for you. I’m so happy.”
“You’re the first person I called. I miss you so much.”
“I miss you so much.”
“Larissa, I can’t believe it’s finally happened.”
“How many weeks are you?”
“Like two minutes. I think we just had sex yesterday.”
Larissa laughed. “How do you know you’re pregnant?”
“The nuns told me.”
“The nuns told you?”
“Yeah. They know this stuff. They’re like soothsayers.”
“Hmm, Che, maybe you should go to a doctor? You know, just to be on the safe side.”
“Oh, I went, silly. He confirmed today what the nuns told me two weeks ago.”
“He did a blood test?”
“Yada, yada. Yeah, he did a blood test. But the nuns, Lar, they knew because they felt her soul inside me.”
“Her soul?”
“Oh, yes. Sister Agatha told me.”
“She can tell this?”
“A girl soul? Of course. Oh, Larissa…you have to be here for the birth of my baby. I can’t give birth without you.”
“You conceived without me, didn’t you?” They giggled.
“Ahhh!”
“Ahhh!”
“Is Lorenzo happy?”
“I don’t know. He’s gone fishing. He’s trying to start his own business as a fisherman, like his parents.”
“How’s it going?”
“Slow. He says there are no fish. Between you and me, I don’t think he’s a very good fisherman.”
“Oh, Che.”
“Oh, Larissa.”
“How much time do you have left on your calling card?”
“I don’t know. We may be cut off at any time. Why the hell haven’t you written to me in over six months?”
“I’m sorry.”
“You should be sorry. Something is very wrong. I can tell.”
Larissa started to cry.
“Lar, are you crying? Oh my God. It’s Jared, isn’t it? What has he done? I’ll kill him. What has he done?”
“No, no, Che…it’s nothing like that.”
“So what’s the matter, darling? Why on earth would you be crying? What could possibly be the matter?”
“Because I’m in desperate trouble, Che,” whispered Larissa. “I’m in terrible trouble. I couldn’t write you about anything because it’s just too awful to put into a letter. But I really need your help.” The words were coming out unintelligible. “I have no one in the world to turn to. You’re so far away, and I need you so much. I can’t tell you how much I need you.” Larissa blew her nose, wiped her eyes. “Che? Are you there? Did you hear me? Che!”
They’d been cut off. Larissa couldn’t go back to sleep, pacing around her dim silent house. The next morning, she went to the mall, bought fourteen maternity outfits, two for each day of the week, and sent Che a package, with a money order for a thousand dollars. She included a congratulations card but no letter. She had absolutely nothing to say.
4
Larissa the Epicurean
Ezra and Larissa were having their monthly lunch to go over department things.
“Why do you look so nice?” Ezra asked.
She was wearing a denim Escada jacket and black True Religion jeans. “Not that nice, Ez,” said Larissa. “Jeans and a jean jacket.”
He looked her over. “I don’t know. Pretty put together for a Tuesday afternoon is all I’m saying.”
“Well, thank you. And I like your green corduroy blazer. It goes with your purple tie.” She smiled.
“Uh-huh. So listen,” said Ezra, “Have you been thinking about the spring play?”
“No! It’s January! We’re still in rehearsals for Godot, with that insufferable Leroy.”
“Here’s the thing. We’re reading Shaw’s Saint Joan in AP English. It might be a nice parallel for the kids to perform it while they studied it.”
Larissa considered it. “Saint Joan? Spending three months listening to Bernard Shaw apologizing for the English?”
Ezra smiled thinly. “Saint Joan is brilliantly written, and it’s got like twenty parts in it. But who could play Joan? The whole play is in her casting.”
Larissa sighed. “I don’t know. Tiffany?”
“Give me a break,” said Ezra with tired bemusement. “She was okay and camp in Dracula, but she’s not serious enough. Saint Joan is about sacred things.” They both petered off; Ezra looked down into his coffee, Larissa into hers.
“Can we make it into a musical, Ez? With interpretive dance numbers. Maybe when Joan is getting burned at the stake the dancers can sing, ‘Dawning of the Age of Aquarius.’”
“Too avant-garde for me.”
“What about a melancholy guitar that from stage left punctuates the action with song?” Larissa stirred her cold coffee. “Listen, it’s not the worst idea you ever had. Let me find it at home, and I’ll reread it. I’ll let you know.”
“No need to search,” Ezra said, pulling out a copy from his worn briefcase.
“You’re something else.” She took it from him, noticing the gaunt red look around his eyes.
“You okay, Lar?”
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t know. You seem…”
“I’m fine.” Larissa frowned. “Why do you ask?”
“I dunno,” he said. “You’ve been a little off lately.”
“Off, like spoiled milk?”
He smiled. “Off, like something is not right.”
“Funny, because I was going to say the same about you.”
“I’m fine.” Ezra paused. “Maggie hasn’t talked to you?”
Larissa became alert instead of inert. “About what?”
He sighed. “She hasn’t been feeling well.”
“She’s mentioned that, yeah.”
“Well. She’s got this…” He broke off.
“She told me a while back,” Larissa continued for him, to help him, “that she keeps getting…what is it…oh, yes, urinary tract infections.”
Ezra’s lip twisted. “Actually…I’m surprised she hasn’t told you, but she’s been diagnosed with chronic kidney disease.”
“What? No. Poor Mags.”
“Yeah. Not quite a UTI, is it?”
“No. What causes that?”
“High blood pressure in her case.”
“Maggie has high blood pressure? I didn’t know that.”
“She’s been on blood pressure meds for years.” Ezra frowned. “What do you mean, you didn’t know that? She had hypertension with Dylan. Had to deliver him six weeks early. It’s the reason she can’t have more children.”
“Yes, of course. Funny, I thought it was pregnancy-induced and temporary.” Larissa hurried past Ezra’s puzzled, scrutinizing eyes. “But now what?”
“Now she’s sick all the time. The kidneys aren’t filtering fluids like they’re supposed to. They keep getting infected.”
“What do they prescribe for that?”
“Believe me, she’s taking one of everything. Twice a day. She’s still miserable.”
“Well, inflamed kidneys will do that.”
“Yeah.” Ezra was not looking at Larissa. “It’s changed her life, our life. And not for the better.” r />
“Oh, Ezra. Are you worried about her?”
He waved his hand. “A little bit. She’ll be okay. It’s just that…I don’t know if she’s spoken to you about this, but one of the effects on her is this thing sapped her of all energy and health. She’s been constantly sick.”
“This I’ve noticed.”
“You girls haven’t been out much, not shopping, or lunch.”
“No, nothing.”
“She’s actually thinking of stopping teaching.”
“No!”
“I know. Seems inconceivable. I told her, why? You’re going to stay home and do what?”
“Exactly,” Larissa agreed. “I should talk to her.”
“Please. But I don’t want her to think I’m complaining to you. She won’t like that.”
“You’re not complaining. You’re worried about her. That’s different.”
Ezra wasn’t looking at Larissa again. “Except for one tiny thing…”
“A little complaint?”
“Tiny one.” He cleared his throat. “This whole kidney business has really put a damper on our, um, love life.”
“Really?”
“Yeah.”
“Like how much of a damper?”
“Like…a dam sort of thing.”
“Hmm. Dam: a little water released every once in a while?”
“No, uh-uh. More like totally dry beds.”
“Dry? Really? For how long?”
Ezra was silent at first. “Since summer.”
Larissa was shocked. “But, Ezra…”
“You’re telling me.”
“Oh, Ez. I had no idea.”
“I thought she might’ve mentioned it.”
“It is strange she hadn’t.”
“You know, Lar, Maggie says she’s finding it harder than usual to talk to you these days.”
A disconnected Larissa didn’t ask for clarification.
“She says you’re not listening.”
“To what?”
“To anything.”
“Well, that’s silly. Of course I listen.”
“You’re very good at covering up. I’m just telling you what Maggie said.”
“Maybe that’s why she hasn’t talked to me. Because she thinks I’m not listening.”
“Perhaps.”
“I’m going to try to do better,” Larissa said. “Okay?”