Break in Case of Emergency (23 page)

“I can't figure out if we're going for a bonsai or a synecdoche,” Pam was saying over the ambient blare of the cement mixer parked across the street from her studio. As Jen arrived, Pam had just marked off three-eighths of the studio's square footage with electrical tape and stood at one corner with hands on hips, trying to visualize how to cram in some representative cross-section of the original
Break in Case of Emergency.
From the floor, Nick Cave seethed tinnily from mason jar–sized speakers attached to a Sony Discman that Pam had rescued off a Greenpoint stoop the previous day,
Murder Ballads
still inside.

Her backpack still slung over one arm and a plastic dry-cleaning bag folded over the other, Jen chewed one thumbnail. “What if it almost became like a living sound installation?” she asked. “The WellnessSolutions operators would be milling around, talking into their headsets, but then you'd also have the parody commercials, the sounds of breaking glass—”

“The sound of Jim popping bubble wrap,” Pam interjected, her eyes still on the empty space. She wore a tight little smile.

“Oh, yeah, he loved that part,” Jen said.

“You know,” Pam said, “people asked me if Jim was part of the installation. Did I ever tell you that?”

Pam's tone was needling, but Jen couldn't discern where the sharp points were aiming. The cement mixer revved and groaned.

“No, you didn't,” Jen said, following Pam's eyes down to a scuffed floorboard. “He'll be happy to hear it.”

“I wish everyone had been as into it as Jim was,” Pam said.

“Yeah,” Jen said.

“Too bad Mrs. Flossie Durbin wasn't so into it,” Pam said.

Jen exhaled and sank down to the floor, hugging her knees with her forearms, backpack and dry cleaning bunched in her lap. “Okay, since you brought it up—”

Pam drew herself up to her full height and squinted with renewed intensity at the empty space. “Since I brought what up?”

“I didn't know,” Jen said, “if it would be weirder to bring it up or weirder to not bring it up, so let's just do it: I'm sorry that Mrs. Durbin came to see your work and—and whatever—got distracted by mine.”

Pam brayed, a short, sharp expulsion of laughter. “Oh,
come the fuck on,
Jen,” she said.

“I'm sorry if it made things awkward—I don't—I don't know how to do this or what to say,” Jen said. She felt abject down on the floor, but getting up would only reinforce what a bad decision it had been to assume a supplicant's pose. “I'm sorry.”

“Stop saying sorry,” Pam said.

“I'm glad it happened, of course,” Jen said, “only I wish it had happened differently.”

“Meaning what?” Pam asked.

Jen tried to smooth the plastic sheet across her legs. “You are making this harder than it needs to be,” she said.

“And you are making this a thing when it's not a thing,” Pam said.

Things aren't things unless they happen to Pam,
Jen thought, and shook her head to shake the thought away.

“I'm sss—I shouldn't have brought it up,” Jen said, although Pam had brought it up.

“What do you want me to say, though?” Pam asked. “Do you want me to say that I'm envious?”

Jen closed her eyes. “You have no cause to be envious of me,” Jen said. “No cause.”

Jen rested inside her head for a moment. When she opened her eyes, Pam had sunk to the floor, too, arms wrapped around her knees. They stared together at the same floorboard.

The blare of the cement mixer halted, and the dirge of Nick Cave's baritone rose all alone through the empty air.

And with a little pen-knife held in her hand

She plugged him through and through

Jen and Pam laughed, exactly at the same time. Each dropped her head back, chin in the air, open smile as if to catch raindrops on her tongue. It was a gesture that Pam had picked up from Jen, or maybe that Jen had picked up from Pam, or maybe both of them had picked it up from Meg, but it belonged to all of them now.

“Is that what I think it is?” Pam asked, her finger making tiny circles in the air in the direction of Jen's lap.

Jen stood up and held the dry-cleaning bag aloft by the hanger. “We should put this somewhere safe.”

Pam stood up, stepped out of her leggings, and yanked off her tunic. She walked toward Jen in only her underwear. She was still so thin, Jen thought. The curves of either side of her waist had flattened out. Her breasts were lower and heavier, her round belly hard and taut. Pam ripped open the plastic bag in Jen's arms and pulled The Dress over her head.

“I am a bride in white,” Pam murmured, looking down at herself. “So it has come to this.”

“You are going to be a wife and a mother,” Jen said.

Silently, Pam fingered the fabric pulling at her hip as Jen smoothed one of the straps against her shoulder. Nick Cave was leering at Pam from the floor.

There she stands, this lovely creature

“This is so fucking corny—let's turn this off,” Pam said matter-of-factly, her head still bowed.

“Don't worry,” Jen said, as she leaned over to inspect a loose thread on the hemline. “He's not singing about you.” Jen stepped back to look at Pam in The Dress from head to toe, and she smiled. “The lovely creature doesn't make it to the end of the song. But we will. Just wait.”

“I think it will be great for Pam in terms of exposure,” said Jen. “But I think
Break in Case of Emergency
in its original form is the stronger statement.”

On the night of the LIFt party, the train was all messed up again. On the long, blustery-cold walk to the closest working station in her highest heels and translucent hose, Jen tried to talk enough to drown out her own discomfort.

“Twice as strong,” Jim replied, “because it had twice as many of your paintings.”

Jen rubbed Jim's arm rapidly, as if to file down the edge in his voice. “Pam will be there tonight, by the way,” she said brightly.

“Even though doing an interview with your boss destroyed her reputation?” Jim asked.

“No, it turns out that Paulo's mom knows Leora somehow, overlapping social circles—anyway, Pam could not have been nicer about Mrs. Durbin's, um, endorsement of me,” Jen said.

“You were in some suspense about that?”

“Well, it was Pam's show, but I—I ended up with some of the attention. That could have been awkward for both of us.”

Jim
pfft
ed.

“She was really sweet about it, seriously. And sweet doesn't come easily to Pam. It was funny—Taige Hammerback told Pam that a Flossie Durbin endorsement is actually a kiss of death, and Pam told him no, it's the jaws of life, and then Taige said—”

“Pam will have to get in line and become a paying customer now,” Jim interrupted. “You're going to get so many commissions. By the way, how much did you get for the Flossie Durbin painting? I want to get Franny a new Cat Scratch Mountain and I'm hoping Mrs. Durbin can foot the bill.”

Jen was quiet.

“This is suspenseful,” Jim said. “It's a number so large that we need a new language to express it.”

“I didn't—there wasn't—nothing,” Jen stammered.

Jim was quiet.

“Nothing will come of nothing, child, speak again,” he said evenly.

“I never negotiated a fee with Mrs. Durbin,” Jen said, almost defiantly.

Jim was quiet.

“I
meant
to,” Jen plowed on, her defiance receding as abruptly as it had broken in, as if she were speaking over Jim's protests. “But it just never came up, and she never asked, and it seemed so awkward to broach it, and—”

Jen swallowed some air, and Jim still said nothing.

“And you know, I'll get paid in exposure, you know? Like you said, I'm already getting so many commissions, word of mouth—”

“You are unbelievable,” Jim said into his collar, as Jen pulled her arm away from his. “The way you let people take advantage of you.”

“That's not fair—”

“Why was it
her
show?” Jim asked.

“What do you mean?”

“Why was it billed just as Pam's show?”

“Honey, I can't even keep track of what we're talking about from moment to moment—”

“Seriously, listen to me. You did a bunch of fucking giant paintings for her show. At least one of which Taige Hammerback is probably masturbating on right now. You worked forever on those fucking things, and they were awesome, and they were the only evidence of
any technical aptitude whatsoever
in her entire fucking show, and your name was in tiny fine print in the program.”

“It wasn't
tiny
and I don't
care,
honestly.”

“And now it's going to happen again. Are you even mentioned in the new show?
Do you exist?
”

“I don't care.”

“It's stupid that you don't care.”

Jim's voice was spiking in volume as they neared the block of the Deli of Death. Hundreds of feet away, Jen could already hear the dogs barking halfheartedly.

“Don't call me stupid,” Jen said.

“I did not call you stupid. I do not think you are stupid. I
do
think it's stupid not to care that a rich woman steals your work.”

“Pam did not steal my work,” Jen murmured. Then she realized that Jim was referring to Mrs. Durbin. She hadn't told Jim about Paulo's family yet. Pam's family, now.

“And I
do
think it's stupid not to care that Pam took credit for your shit.”

“She did not! It was work-for-hire, or—”

“It was hundreds of hours of work
not
for hire. She didn't pay you a fucking penny. And need I remind you, you were unemployed at the time.”

“Right! It's not like I had anything else going on. Jesus! She's my friend.”

“And need I remind you that at the time you were—you were—”

“Don't, don't—”

“Surrounded by paint fumes, inhaling that stuff, for all you know that could have caused you to—”

“Stop it,”
Jen said, halting in her tracks and clapping her hands over her temples. “Stop it, please, stop it. I can't talk about this. I can't.”

“She could have
helped
you.” Jim was pacing in a semicircle in front of Jen. His eyes were round and dark. “Your
friend.
And you ask her for one fucking favor and she puts you in friend jail and you're supposed to be so grateful that you've been pardoned for your crimes. After all you did for her
for free.
”

Jen lowered her hands and began walking again, faster. “So this is all about money,” she said, as Jim fell into step next to her.

“No!” Jim said. “You've totally missed the fucking point as usual! This isn't about money. This is about you having some self-respect and not letting people walk all over you, whether it's your friends or people at work or Flossie fucking Durbin.”

“So if I had taken money from my friends that would mean I have self-respect,” Jen said. Walking faster, faster. “It's all so simple!”

“No,” Jim said, “what would mean having real self-respect was if you stopped laying yourself at people's feet all the time, trying to earn their approval. It's like, if you could write somebody a check to like you, you would.”

Jen stopped again, a dead stop, arms hanging limp at her sides, mouth agape. Jim walked a few more steps and then stopped, too, covering his face with his hands. Now the dogs had spotted them approaching, whereupon they began barking with renewed vigor, purpose, and focus.

“I'm sorry,” Jim said into his palms, then turned to look at Jen, one hand reaching for her. “I'm sorry, I didn't mean—”

“Don't touch me,” Jen said. His face back in his palms.

Jen watched him and waited.

She saw herself at the edge of a diving board hanging over an empty pool. She could feel the tingle in her toes, the last effervescent vertiginous moment before her feet pushed off, the board rippling.

“It's all about money,” Jen said. “We can pretend like it's not, but it is. Always. And it always will be.”

Jim said nothing.

“Maybe if I had real self-respect,” Jen said slowly, champagne burbling inside her stomach, “I wouldn't have married a man who doesn't earn a decent living.”

Jim put his hands behind his head and stared at the pavement.

“Maybe if I had real self-respect,” Jen said, “I wouldn't have married a man who makes nothing nine months a year and then sits on his ass all summer.”

Jim smiled grimly at the pavement.

The vertiginous feeling was gone. All Jen could see was the concrete bottom hurtling toward her. The champagne bubbles distended and popped.

“Maybe if I had real self-respect,” Jen said, her voice choking, “I would have been more pragmatic. I wouldn't have married someone just because I loved him.”

Jim's head laughed mirthlessly, loud and yawping. “Nice try,” he said. “I'm going home.” He turned and loped back in the direction of their apartment, the dogs now behind him.

Jen walked quickly after him, struggling to keep up, her heels almost slipping out from beneath her footfalls. “No, no, you can't—you have to come with me.”

“Fuck you, Jennifer,” he said, one middle finger raised in salute over his shoulder, his strides growing longer and quicker.

Jen stopped and watched him for half a block. She turned and looked at the snarling dogs, and at two tall men who had emerged from Brancato's to watch the show, and turned back again to Jim's retreating figure. What happened next happened without her permission.

“You can't just leave me here!”
she screamed. Her voice shattered. An animal sound, primal and desperate, naked.
“You can't just leave me here!”

She watched as Jim turned 180 degrees and speed-walked toward her. Rage contorted his face. He stalked past her toward the train station. She tried to keep up, her heels scratching and scrabbling after him; the side of her right foot touched the ground just as her left foot caught her fall with a hard momentary plant. Jim and then Jen passed the men and the dogs, who were baying and snarling, leashes taut, choking on their own aggression. Hurrying along behind her husband, toes scuffing and heels listing, Jen didn't feel frightened of the dogs anymore. The dogs were choosing sides in a playground battle. If not for their leashes, they still wouldn't have attacked. They would have formed a circle around the couple, rooting on the combatant of their choice.