It was the same look that caught my eye that day on the subway, the one that said: I have everything on my side except destiny.
“Get out,” Paul said. “Both of you.”
Loring took a step forward like he wanted to say something to Paul. I had no idea what he could have said, but I shot him a look and he kept quiet.
Paul spoke again. This time he raised his voice, but only on selective words. “Get out of my god damn house.”
He went into his room and closed the door. I'd expected a slam, had yearned for it even. But Paul shut it so gently it hardly made any noise at all.
I walked to the door and leaned my forehead on the splintery wood, picturing Paul in the same position on the other side. When I reached down and touched the knob, he said, “Don't you dare.”
I heard him flip the lock and walk across the room. Then I heard the sound of something, possibly a guitar, crash against the wall.
“Go,” he said. “Now.”
I went into my room, sat down on my bed, and pondered, just for a moment, the absurdity of sacrifice.
I stuffed a duffel bag full of clothes and shoes and whatever else I thought I might need. Then Loring and I walked out of the apartment, down the stairs, and got in a cab.
In the impatient tone of a native New Yorker, the cab driver asked his two dazed passengers where we were going. I almost told him to take us to Coney Island, for lack of any better idea, but I wasn't sure where or what Coney Island was, and at the last minute I decided I wanted to cross the Hudson River.
“Jersey,” I said.
Loring looked at me sideways, as if the possibility I was out of my mind had just dawned on him. He leaned forward so that his head was past the Plexiglas partition that divided the front seat from the back and said, “Seventy-seventh and Central Park West.”
I was shivering, only partially from the cold, and when I reached across my chest to bundle up I realized I was still wearing my robe. I slipped on a pair of jeans and a sweater while Loring stared out the window and the cabbie tried to sneak a peek.
“What just happened back there?” Loring said once I was dressed. “It was like you knew he was coming. Like you did it on purpose.”
There was a penny on the floor next to my left foot. I picked it up and said, “My mom used to tell me pennies were from heaven.”
“What?”
It was weird mentioning my mom. I did it so rarely. But once in a while a memory would surprise me, and I would feel the need to let it out. “My mom said if you found a penny on the ground, or somewhere it was unusual for a penny to be, like the floor of a cab, you're supposed to check the date on it because someone who was born or died in that year sent the penny to you as a message of love.”
Loring asked me what year was stamped on the penny but I slipped it into my pocket without looking because I had no desire to know who was trying to communicate a message of love at such an inconvenient time.
“Are you going to tell me what's going on?” Loring mumbled.
I fingered the penny, trying to guess which side was heads and which was tails.
“Eliza, you kissed me. Don't you think you owe me an explanation?”
“Stop the cab!” I screamed, even though traffic was at a standstill and the cab hadn't moved in a minute.
I jumped out and trudged in slow motion down the sidewalk, wanting to run but feeling like I was underwater. Glancing back, I saw Loring get out after me. He accidentally knocked my robe to the pavement, picked it up, and tossed it back into the car. I heard him tell the driver not to go anywhere, and then he was calling my name, asking me to wait.
I stopped at the corner of Houston and Broadway, covered my face with my hands and began to sob.
Loring put his arms around me, pulled my head into his chest, and told me everything was going to be all right. And I believed him, one-hundred percent, until some jackass in a tie-dyed shirt interrupted the safety of the moment by tapping Loring on the shoulder and asking him if his old man was ever going to put out another freakin' record.
Loring made the best milkshake in the world. So good I told him he could win an award. So good it would have made Burke and Queenie pee their pants.
“I make them for the boys when they have boo-boos,” he said. But he wouldn't tell me what was in it. “Secret recipe I'll take to my grave.”
I saw him add milk, chocolate ice cream, and a thick glob of peanut butter to the blender, but after that he pulled a couple of tin cans off his spice rack, covertly threw in a pinch of this and a pinch of that and then presto!—the best milkshake in the world.
While I drank my milkshake, I talked and Loring listened. I started at the beginning, with Doug's dying-man-on-the-cross analogy, his “save the savior” advice, in case Loring had forgotten my Sonica treatise on the subject, and so it looked like I had at least peripherally sane justification for my behavior. Then I told Loring about Feldman, about the latkes and the sticky fingers, about Paul intending to turn down the tour, and about how I refused to be responsible for ruining the lives and careers of the two men whose happiness meant more to me than my own simply because I was too chickenshit to fly.
After I finished the milkshake and the explanation, Loring said, “So, technically, this is my dad's fault?”
I had to laugh, even if it was a weak laugh that made my eyes water again.
“Dying man on the cross, my ass.” Loring's face was sardonic. “He was probably high when he said that.”
Loring didn't get it. His approach to his work was too effortless, too practical. Not life-or-death like it was for Paul and Doug. Neither did Loring grasp the significance of his vocation, nor the mediocrity of the industry with which he had to contend.
I gazed up from my glass and noticed Loring gazing at me in a way that filled me with remorse. “I can't believe you're still speaking to me,” I said. I reached out to touch his hand, but then decided against it. “I'm so sorry, Loring. For not having the decency to talk to you last week, for not calling you back, and for kissing you like that.”
He picked up my glass and began rinsing it out.
“You think I need a lobotomy, don't you?”
He shut off the tap but kept his hand on the faucet as if he needed it to lean on. “What I think is that you're being incredibly unfair to Paul. You do realize he thinks there's something going on between us now? Way more than that kiss, no doubt.”
“That's the whole point. Come on, even you have to admit only a fool would turn down an opportunity to tour with the Drones.”
“Has it ever occurred to you that maybe Paul doesn't want what you think he wants?”
“He doesn't know what he wants.”
“Yes, he does. And more than anything, it seems he wants you.”
“Then he's a bigger fool than I give him credit for.”
While Loring continued to clean up the kitchen, I forced myself to do what I'd been dreading since the whole incident went down. I had to call Michael and Vera.
Vera answered, and her tone was disparaging, to say the least. “Mother-of-Pearl, Eliza, Paul is freaking out. What in the name of God are you doing?”
“Can I crash with you for a few days?”
“Can you crash with us? That's all you have to say? I'm your friend, remember? Two days ago you told me you weren't interested in Loring.”
“Can I or can I not stay with you?”
Vera put her hand over the mouthpiece, garbled something I couldn't hear, then got back on and said, “Michael said we don't have room.”
Their couch converted into a bed. They had room.
“Forget it.”
I hung up and Loring said, “You can stay here, you know.”
“Thanks, but I don't think that's a good idea.”
“For the record, I don't agree with what you're doing. But if you're hell-bent on making Paul think we're having some sort of torrid affair, moving in with your brother isn't going to convince him.”
He was right
. In any case, I didn't have a choice. Burke and Queenie's apartment wasn't much bigger than a station wagon, and when I tried to reach Michael again later, Vera said the reason he couldn't talk was because he was with Paul.
The bed in Loring's guest room was made as nicely as his had been the day I interviewed him, and I considered sleeping on top of it instead of getting underneath the covers so I didn't mess it up.
Loring gave me an extra blanket in case I got cold, and told me if I needed anything else, or if I just wanted to talk, all I had to do was knock on his door. He said goodnight, and then hesitated before leaving the room. “I know it's none of my business, but I'm going to say it anyway: He deserves to know the truth.”
“Promise me you won't say anything to him.”
“Eliza—”
“Please, Loring. You have to promise.”
He scratched his temple. “I promise.”
The next morning Loring woke me up with a sequence of quiet knocks, then leaned his head into the room. “Your brother's here.”
I sat up, pushing my hair off my face. “You didn't tell him anything, did you?”
“No. And I can tell by the way he's looking at me I've become the devil incarnate. He thinks this is my fault.”
Michael met me wearing a mask of confusion, narrowing his eyes every time Loring moved. It was unusual for Michael to display so much blatant hostility and it immediately put me on edge.
Loring excused himself, saying he'd promised Sean and Walker a soccer game in the park even though it was January. Before he left he took me aside and said, “Think about what you're doing before you do it.”
Michael gazed out the wall of windows and kept his back to the elevator until Loring was gone, and then he turned around with his hands deep in the pockets of his coat. “I'm only here because Paul asked me to come. I have no idea what to say.” He wandered over to the table behind the couch and picked up a photograph of Doug and Lily with the twins between them. “Any minute now,” he sighed, setting the photo back down, “feel free to tell me what's going on.”
I bit the sides of my cheeks. “It's complicated.”
“Complicated? I'll say. I thought you and Paul were in love. I thought you were moved by each other. Do you have any idea what he's going through right now?”
I didn't want to know, and I was sure I would disintegrate if Michael told me. If I was going to pull off the farce I'd started, I needed to imagine Paul in a state of perpetual bliss, the cocky-bastard grin plastered across his face. “I wish I could explain but I can't.”
“Can you try?” Michael didn't raise his voice but he didn't have to. His aggravation manifested itself in every gesture, and something about his stoicism, in combination with his height and hair, made me want to run and hide. It felt like being reproached by Abraham Lincoln.
“You know,” Michael huffed, “when you and Paul got together, I lost a lot of sleep worrying he was going to break your heart. Never in a million years did I think you'd be the one out fucking around.”
If Michael was trying to make me feel as small as possible, it was working. The irony was that he should've been thanking me, not chastising me.
“Eliza, I heard that song in Boston—”
“Listen, I really don't need you to judge me right now. You have no idea what I'm doing or why I'm doing it.”
“Are you or are you not sleeping with Loring?”
I knew it wasn't Michael posing the question. He would never want to know a thing like that. “Did Paul send you here to ask me that?”
“Why do you make it sound like that's relevant to your answer?”
My ensuing silence only angered Michael more. He marched to the elevator and pushed the call button.
Approaching him with caution, I said, “What about the tour?”
“The tour? What about the tour?”
The elevator arrived, and Michael couldn't get in fast enough, but I stood in the way of the doors. “Has Paul said anything about the tour in the last twenty-four hours?”
“Let me put it this way, due to recent developments he's looking forward to getting away for awhile.”
I took a step back, watched the elevator close, and actually thought I heard the sound of my heart crack in two.
Every day before the band left for San Francisco was a pin prick in my chest. Not since Adam left had I felt so lost. Somehow Loring managed to keep me from completely falling apart. As a friend, his attention to detail was flawless. He went running with me, checked up on me at work, made sure I ate, and on weekends he would eclipse the bounds of compassion and pathos by inviting me to Vermont with his family.
I never went to Vermont. Between Loring's explanation to his relatives and my own evasiveness, what the Blackmans knew of the situation was highly skewed and, I figured, would only produce Three's Company-like confusion.
Everyone knew Loring had feelings for me. They knew Paul and I had split up. And they knew Loring was the supposed catalyst for the split—a rumor he was under strict orders not to deny. Lastly, they knew I was bunking at Loring's apartment. But the situation was incomprehensible to all except Sean and Walker. They were the only ones who got straight answers.
“Daddy,” Sean said, “does Eliza live here now?”
“She's staying for a while.”
“Why?”
“Because she's a friend and she needs a place to live. And that's what friends do, they help each other out.”
“She doesn't have a house?”
“Not right now.”
“What happened to it?”
“Someone else is living there.”
“Who?” Walker asked, suddenly interested in the conversation. “The boy with the shiny belt?”
It's amazing what kids remember, I thought.
“That boy's name is Paul,” Loring told his son.
“Paul!” Walker yelled the name with a series of energetic nods.
“Where's Paul?” Sean said.
Loring picked Sean up and kissed his head. “Paul's getting ready to go on tour.”
I waited for Loring to explain what “going on tour” meant. Then I realized Sean and Walker already knew. They'd spent half their little lives on tour.
The Friday before Bananafish was scheduled to depart for San Francisco, Vera called me at work and asked me to meet her for lunch.
I'd been avoiding Vera. I was afraid of all the questions. But I missed her. And earlier that day Lucy had gotten wind of my new living situation. She'd stopped me in the hall and said, “I heard you and Junior finally came out of the closet,” and I knew if I didn't take time to see my friend, I was apt to murder Lucy before the clock struck twelve.
Putting on a happy face, I met Vera at a diner on Ninth Avenue that smelled like retro coffee—what coffee used to smell like before it got hip.
“This place stinks like Folgers,” Vera said when she walked in.
The next three words out of her mouth were: “So, how's Lori?”
“Fine. Good. Great.” I tried to sound normal, and I was obscuring my face with the menu so Vera wouldn't be able to read my expressions. “I mean, well, he's going to Vermont tonight. With the boys. But he's great.”
While we waited for a server, Vera pulled a package of peanut M&Ms from her purse, poured half the bag into her palm and offered me the rest.
“Start talking,” she said.
I turned down the candy and went on about work. “I'm finally getting some good assignments. Lucy still hates me, of course. But Terry thinks I've got a voice. That's what he said. He likes my voice. I might get to interview David Bowie in April.”
I thought that would distract Vera. David Bowie was one of her favorites. Or maybe I was trying to spark my own interest. A year earlier I would've been doing cartwheels over the chance to interview David Bowie. But, talking about it with Vera, I felt nothing.
Maybe it was true what Paul said about dreams. When they come true in reality, they never feel the same as they do when you
imagine them.
“I don't mean work,” Vera said.
Telling Vera what she wanted to hear turned out to be easier than I'd anticipated. I made up an elaborate, off-the-cuff story about how I'd been confused, that between the wedding, the tour, and then Loring's wooing, it was all too much and I just cracked.
Two at a time, Vera ate her peanut M&Ms. Except for the red ones. These, she alleged, were made from the guts of dead bugs. She put the red ones in a pile next to the salt shaker. “I'm not here to judge you, you know that. I love you no matter what happens. I just want to make sure you're making the right decision.” Vera accidentally put a red candy in her mouth. She didn't notice and I didn't know whether to tell her.
“I am,” I said. “Anyway, all is fair in love and war, right?”
It was, by far, the dumbest cliché I had ever uttered. It was an insult to love and an inadmissible exoneration of war. And certainly history proves that there's nothing fair about either one.
Sliding my hand across the table, I squeezed Vera's hand. I wanted Vera to know things she couldn't know. I wanted her to know the truth.
“What?” she said.
“Nothing. Just thanks, that's all.”
I tried to arrange Vera's red M&Ms into the shape of a P but there weren't enough. The closest I could get was a lowercase l, or maybe it was a capital I. Either way I took it as a devastating omen.
“Have you seen him?” I asked.
“Paul? I saw him last night. I see him every night.”
“Is he all right?”
Vera laughed glibly. “Hmm. No.”
Forget that stupid saying about it being better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all. Letting Paul go felt like the end of the world, and there were nights when I wished I'd never met him.
The day my twenty-eighth birthday rolled around, I would have been content to let it slip by in abeyance, but Michael and Vera insisted I celebrate with them, and the three of us met at a Mexican restaurant on Amsterdam Avenue for an agonizing meal.
Because Michael was getting ready to leave, he and Vera were in a lovey-dovey mood, holding hands and feeding each other tastes of this and that, sharing margaritas. I wanted to push them both into a deep manhole and close the lid.