Bright Lights, Big City, Page 7

  If your parents were not thrilled with the living-together arrangement, they went out of their way to give her a home when you returned to the East Coast. Your mother never turned away a stray dog, or heard about the plight of children in other parts of the world without volunteering her time or reaching for her checkbook, and she greeted Amanda as if she were a refugee. Amanda’s need to belong was part of her attraction. It was as if you came across one of those magazine ads-“You could turn the page, or you could save a child’s life”-and the child in question was right there, charming and eager to please. Long before the wedding she took to calling your parents “Mom and Dad,” and the house in Bucks County “home.” You were all suckered. Your father once asked you if you didn’t think the vast difference in your backgrounds might be a problem in the long haul, the only expressed reservation you remember.

  Before you had given the subject much thought, there was on all sides the imminent assumption of marriage. After two years of living together, it seemed the thing to do. You were uneasy-had you lived enough of your life yet?- but your scrutiny of the situation yielded no decisive objections. Amanda was desperate for it. She was always saying she knew you would leave her someday, as if you had to behave like all the other swine in her life, and apparently she thought that marriage would delay or perhaps even cancel your flight. You did not feel that you could open quite all of your depths to her, or fathom hers, and sometimes you feared she didn’t have any depths. But you finally attributed this to an unrealistic, youthful idealism. Growing up meant admitting you couldn’t have everything.

  The proposal was not entirely romantic. It came about after you had stayed out late with some friends at a party Amanda did not choose to attend. You crept in toward dawn and found her awake watching TV in the living room. She was furious. She said you acted like a single man. She wanted someone who would make a commitment. She didn’t want the kind of bum her mother kept bringing home. Your guilt was aggravated by a headache. The sun was coming up and you felt that she was right. You were a bad boy. You wanted to amend your life. You wanted to make it up to Amanda for the shitty life she had had as a kid. You told her you would marry her, and, after sulking de rigueur, she accepted.

  You arrived in New York with the question of what Amanda was going to do. She had talked about college, but lost interest when it came time to fill out the applications. She wasn’t sure what she wanted to do. For several months she watched TV.

  People were always telling Amanda she could be a model. One day she stopped in at one of the agencies and came home with a contract.

  At the start she hated modeling and you took this as a sign of character. It was okay by you as long as she didn’t take it seriously. When she started bringing home all this money it seemed even more okay. Once a week she said she was going to quit. She hated the photographers, the hustlers and the hype. She hated the models. She felt guilty making all this money on her looks, in which she didn’t believe anyway. You asked her if she thought being a secretary was fun. You told her to stick with it long enough to salt away some money, and then she could do whatever she wanted.

  You thought it was kind of kinky that she was doing this as long as she was slumming, as long as she wasn’t really a model. You both joked about the real models, the ones who developed ulcers over pimples and thought menopause set in at twenty-five. You both despised people who thought an invitation to X’s birthday bash at Magique was an accomplishment equal to swimming the English Channel. But you went to X’s birthday bash anyway, with your tongues in your cheeks, and while Amanda circulated you snorted some of X’s very good friend’s private stash of pink Peruvian flake in the upstairs lounge.

  Her agent used to lecture her, telling her that as a professional she had to take it more seriously, stop getting ten-dollar haircuts and start going to the right places. Amanda was amused. She did a fine imitation of this agent, a modeling star of the fifties who had the manner of a dorm mother and the heart of a pimp. Over the months, though, you started eating at better restaurants and Amanda started getting her hair cut on the Upper East Side.

  The first time she went to Italy for the fall showings, she cried at the airport. She reminded you that in a year and a half you had never spent a night apart. She said to hell with it, she would skip Italy, screw modeling. You convinced her to go. She called every night from Milan. Later on these separations did not seem so traumatic. You postponed your honeymoon indefinitely because she had to do the spring collections three days after the wedding.

  You were busy with your own work. There were nights you got home after she was asleep. You looked at her across the breakfast nook in the morning and it often seemed that she was looking through the walls of the apartment building halfway across the continent to the plains, as if she had forgotten something there and couldn’t quite remember what it was. Her eyes reflected the flat vastness of her native ground. She sat with her elbows on the butcher-block table, twisting a strand of hair in her fingers, head cocked to one side as if she were listening for voices on the wind. There was always something elusive about her, a quality you found mysterious and unsettling. You suspected she herself couldn’t quite identify the longing that she variously attached to you, to her job, to having and spending, to her missing father, and that she had once attached to the idea of getting married. You were married. And still she was looking for something. But then she would cook you a special dinner, leave love notes in your briefcase and your bureau drawers.

  A few months ago she was packing for a trip to Paris when she began to cry. You asked her what was wrong.

  She said she was nervous about the trip. By the time the cab arrived she was fine. You kissed at the door. She told you to water the plants.

  The day before she was due home, she called. Her voice sounded peculiar. She said she wasn’t coming home. You didn’t understand.

  “You got a later flight?”

  “I’m staying,” she said.

  “For how long?”

  “I’m sorry. I wish you well. Really I do.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “I’m going to Rome for Vogue next week and then Greece for location work. My career is really taking off over here. I’m sorry. I don’t mean to hurt you.”

  “Career?” you said. “Since when is modeling a fucking career?”

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I have to go now.”

  You demanded an explanation. She said she had been unhappy. Now she was happy. She needed space. She said goodbye and promptly hung up.

  After three days of transatlantic telexes and calls you located her in a hotel on the Left Bank. She sounded weary when she picked up the phone.

  “Is there another man,” you asked. This was the track your mind had followed for three sleepless nights. That wasn’t the point, she said, but yes, there was. He was a photographer. Probably the sort who called himself an artist. You couldn’t believe it. You reminded her that she had said that they were all fags.

  She said, “Au contraire, Pierre,” ripping the last strained tissues that held your heart intact. When you called again later she had checked out.

  A few days afterward, a man purporting to be her lawyer called. The easiest thing all around, he said, would be for you to sue his client for sexual abandonment. Just a legal term, he said. His client, your wife, would not contest anything. You could split the possessions fifty-fifty, although she drew the line at the sterling and crystal. You hung up and wept. Sexual Abandonment. He called again a few days later to announce that the car and the joint checking account were yours. You said you wanted to know where Amanda was. He called back and asked how much money you would settle for. You called him a pimp. “I want an explanation,” you said.

  This was months ago. You haven’t told anyone at work. When they ask about Amanda you say she’s fine. Your father doesn’t know. When you talk to him on the phone you tell him everything is swell. You believe your filial duty is to appear happy and prosperous. It is the
least you can do for him after all he’s done for you. You don’t want him to feel bad, and as it is, he has plenty to worry about. Then, too, you feel that spilling the beans would be irrevocable. He would never be able to forgive Amanda. As long as there is a chance she might still return, you don’t want him to know about her treachery. You want to tough it out on your own. You plead work, commitments, parties with Nobel Prize-winners as your reasons for staying in the city, even though home is only two hours away. Sooner or later you will have to go, but you want to put it off as long as possible.

  You stand in front of Saks Fifth Avenue and stare at the mannequin. Sometime last week, when you started shouting at it, a policeman came over and told you to move along. This is just how she looked at the end, the blank stare, the lips tight and reticent.

  When did she become a mannequin?

  Back at the office, your resolution to pursue the facts of the recent French elections has staled. A little nap in one of the upstairs offices would be the thing. But you’ve got to hang in there. You make yourself a cup of instant espresso with four tablespoons of Maxim. Megan tells you there have been three calls for you: one from the president of the Polar Explorers, one from France and another from your brother Michael.

  You go into Clara’s office to snag the page proofs but they’re not on the desk. You ask Rittenhouse about this, and he tells you that Clara called and asked to have the proofs delivered to Typesetting. She also told him to messenger a photocopy down to her apartment.

  “Well,” you say, not sure whether you are horrified or relieved. “That’s that, I guess.”

  “Do you have any last-minute changes,” Rittenhouse asks. “I’m sure there’s time for some last-minute changes.”

  You shake your head. “I’d have to go back about three years to make all the necessary changes.”

  “I don’t suppose you remembered that bagel,” Megan says. “Not to worry. I’m not really hungry anyway. I shouldn’t be eating lunch.”

  You apologize. You beg her pardon. You tell her there are so damn many things on your mind. You have a bad memory for details. You can tell her the date of the Spanish Armada, but you couldn’t even guess at the balance of your checkbook. Every day you misplace your keys or your wallet. That’s one of the reasons you’re always late. It’s so, hard just getting in here every morning, let alone remembering all that you’re supposed to do. You can’t pay attention when people talk to you. So many little things. The big things-at least the big things declare open combat. But these details… When you are engaged, life or death, with the main army-then to have these niggardly details sniping at you from the goddamned trees…

  “I’m so sorry, Meg. I’m really, really sorry. I’m just fucking everything up.”

  Everyone is looking at you. Megan comes over and puts her arm around your shoulders. She strokes your hair.

  “Take it easy,” she says. “It’s only a bagel. Sit down, just sit down and relax. Everything’s going to be all right.”

  Somebody brings you a glass of water. Along the windows, the potted plants form a jungle skyline, a green tableau of the simple life. You think of islands, palm trees, food-gathering. Escape.

  COMA BABY LIVES!

  Everyone is so kind. They all want to cover for you, take care of the work on your desk. You have been inclined of late to underestimate the goodness of the race. But Megan, Wade, Rittenhouse-they want you to relax, go home. You don’t want to go home. Your apartment is a chamber of horrors. There are instruments of torture in the kitchen cabinets, rings in the walls, spikes on the bed. That place is must-to-avoid. Now that you have released your cramped grip on your responsibilities here, the office seems a quaint place, a place you love because you’ve already lost your lease

  You wander down to the library to browse through back issues. Marianne, the archivist, is glad to see you. She doesn’t get many visitors. All day long she slices issues of the magazine into column-width strips and pastes them into file volumes by author, subject and year. She can tell you where everything is. At first she is disappointed that you are not looking for anything in particular, then amazed when you try to talk to her. Suspicious when you ask where she lives, she gradually warms to the neutral subject of movies. She is a fiend for the comedies of the thirties and forties-Lubitsch, Capra, Cukor. “Have you seen Trouble in Paradise,” she asks. Oh yes. You certainly have. “Movies aren’t what they used to be,” she says, then hints that a certain so-called film critic known to both of you has trashy taste, not to mention a filthy mouth. Marianne is loyal to the magazine but concerned about infiltrators and climbers who are trying to subvert it from within. The Druid, she worries, is getting bad advice from flatterers. Ducking into the cage of bound volumes, she comes out with 1976. She flips through the pages and puts her finger under a passage containing a four-letter word, its first appearance in the magazine. Granted, it was only fiction, granted that the author had won the National Book Award. But still… The dam is crumbling. She considers it an institutional imperative to maintain standards. “If we don’t say No, who will?” You find it touching, almost heartbreaking, this ethic of appearances.

  “It’s not just that-it’s the ads,” you say. “Look at the ads. Women doing suggestive things with cigarettes, diamonds set in cleavage, nipples everywhere you look.”

  “It’s everywhere,” she agrees. “Do you know what a little boy-not eight or ten years old-said to me on the subway this morning?”

  “What was that?”

  “I can’t even repeat it. It was unbelievable.”

  You know all about unbelievable; you don’t even think about it, much less repeat it.

  Later you go up to the empty thirtieth-floor office of a writer on a detox sabbatical. You need a private phone. You practice your spiel aloud, trying out a British accent. You take a deep breath and dial Amanda’s agency. You don’t recognize the voice on the other end. You identify yourself as a photographer and say that you are interested in.working with Amanda White. Is she in New York, by any chance? The woman on the other end is clearly new, else she would not be so forthcoming with the information. Agency policy is to treat all male callers as potential rapists until proven legitimate. This voice tells you that, as a matter of fact, you are in luck, since Amanda has recently returned to New York for a couple of weeks. “She’s based in Paris, you know.” You ask if she’s doing any shows; you’d like to see her on the runway before you book her. The woman mentions a show on Thursday before you hear someone in the background.

  “Could I have your name, please?” the woman says, suddenly all vigilance and officiousness. You’re already putting the receiver back in its cradle. Now you need only the location of the show, which a quick call to a friend at Vogue will provide. In your mind images of revenge and carnage do battle with scenes of tender reconciliation.

  Coming back down the inside stairs, you catch a glimpse of Clara marching into the Department. You bolt up the stairs and duck into the Fiction Department Men’s Room.

  You know you will have to face her sooner or later, so it might as well be later. Much later. Your equilibrium is fragile. Perhaps you will meet over drinks someday and laugh about this whole thing. This antic chapter of your life, “Youthful Folly,” will follow “Early Promise.” The magazine, ever forgiving, will be proud to claim you as one of its own. You’d gladly sleep through the intervening years and wake up when this part is over. In the meantime, a truckload of Librium and a nice long coma.

  You are studying your face in. the mirror when the door is opened by Walter Tyler, the travel editor. It’s hard to know how to greet Tyler, whether he will stand On the dignity of his position and New England lineage or be just another guy who likes the Yankees. Either way, he’ll be offended if you guess wrong. Sometimes the sound of his Christian name in an underling’s mouth is sacrilege to his ears. At other times his sense of hale fellowship is offended by a formal address. So this time you nod and say hello.

  “I’ve always wanted to
ask someone from Fact,” he says as he takes up his position in front of the urinal, “does Clara piss in the Men’s Room or the Ladies’?”

  Now you’ve got the cue. “I don’t believe she pisses.”

  “Marvelous,” he says. It’s taking him a while to get going at the urinal. To fill in the silence he asks “So how do you like it down there?” as if you had joined the staff last week.

  “All in all, I’d rather be in Fiction.”

  He nods and tends to business for a while, then says, “You write, don’t you?”

  “That seems to be a matter of opinion.”

  “Hmmmm.” He shakes and zips. At the door he turns and fixes you with a serious look. “Read Hazlitt,” he says. “That’s my advice. Read Hazlitt and write before breakfast every day.”

  Advice to last a lifetime. Your advice to Walter Tyler is to give it an extra shake or two if he wants to return to his office with dry chinos.

  You make for the elevator. Some troll you have never seen sticks his head out of an office door and immediately retracts it. Rounding the corner, you narrowly miss running down the Ghost.

  The Ghost cocks his head to one side, peering, his eyelids fluttering. You say good afternoon and identify yourself.

  “Yes,” he says, as if he knew all along who it was. He likes to give the impression that his reclusiveness is an advantage, that he knows more than you could ever expect to. You’ve only seen him once before, this legend, this man who has been working on a single article for seven years.

  You excuse yourself and slide past. For his part, the Ghost glides away silently, as if on wheels. You escape the building without incident. Your jacket, small ransom, is back in the Department.

  It is a warm, humid afternoon. Spring, apparently. Late April or early May. Amanda left in January. There was snow on the ground the morning she called, a whiteness that turned gray and filthy by noon and then disappeared down the sewer grates. Later that morning the florist called about the bouquet you ordered for her return. Everything becomes symbol and irony when you have been betrayed.