eleven
Monday morning comes in a hurry as is always the case when you’re not quite sure how to play your hand. Since Saturday night, I have been all over the map with my Leo-Drake strategy—everywhere from never calling Leo back, to telling Andy
everything
and making him decide about the shoot, to meeting Leo face to face to hear all the exciting details of the biggest assignment of my life to date.
But now, as I pause at the door of our apartment after kissing Andy good-bye for the day, with Drake’s mesmerizing voice in my head, singing “Crossroads,” a song about the disastrous aftermath of one unfaithful evening, I know what I must do. I turn and run across the family room, sliding over to the window in my fluffy purple socks for a final glimpse of my husband descending the stairs of our building and striding along the sidewalk in his handsome three-quarter-length navy overcoat and cashmere, red-plaid scarf. As he disappears toward Park Avenue, I can make out his profile and see that he is cheerfully swinging his briefcase at his side. It is this fleeting visual that solidifies my final decision.
I walk slowly back to the kitchen and check the clock on the stove. Nine-forty-two—plenty late enough to phone anyone. But I stall anyway, deciding I need coffee first. Our coffee maker broke a few weeks ago, and we don’t own a kettle, so I bring a mug of tap water to a boil in the microwave and rifle through the cabinet for a jar of instant coffee, the kind I watched my mother make every morning. I gaze back at the familiar gentleman on the Taster’s Choice label, marveling that he used to seem so
old
to me. Now he seems on the young side—early forties at most. One of time’s many sleights of hand.
I unscrew the cap and stir in two heaping teaspoons, watching the brown crystals dissolve. I take a sip and am overcome with a wave of my mother. It really is the little things, like instant coffee, that make me miss her the most. I consider calling Suzanne—who can sometimes ease these pangs by simple virtue of the fact that she is the only one in the world who knows how I feel. For although we had very different relationships with our mother—hers was often turbulent as she inherited my mother’s stubborn gene—we are still sisters who prematurely lost our mother and
that
is a powerfully strong, permanent bond. I decide against calling her, though, because sometimes it works the other way, too, and I can end up feeling even sadder. I can’t afford to go down that road right now.
Instead, I distract myself with the Style section of the
Times,
leisurely reading about the new leggings trend that Margot predicted last year, while I sip my stale-tasting coffee, wondering how my mother stood it for all those years. I then make the bed, finish unpacking our duffel bag, organize my sock drawer, then Andy’s, brush my teeth, shower, and dress. Still not feeling quite ready, I alphabetize the novels on my bookshelf by author’s last name, a project I’ve been meaning to undertake for ages. I run my fingers over the neatly aligned spines, feeling a rush of satisfaction, relishing the underlying order despite the chaos in my head.
At eleven-twenty-five, I finally bite the bullet and make the call. To my simultaneous relief
and
frustration, Leo doesn’t answer, and I go straight to his voicemail. In a rush of adrenaline, I give the speech that I’ve pieced together over the past thirty-six hours, while at church and brunch with the Grahams, then afterward as we casually drove around Buckhead looking at more homes for sale, then on our uneventful flight home.
The gist of my spiel is that a) I’m impressed that he has a Drake Watters connection (why not throw him a harmless bone?), and b) very appreciative that he thought of me for the job, and c) would be positively thrilled to take the assignment, but d) don’t feel “entirely comfortable with the notion of a renewed friendship and think it’s best if we not go there.” At the last second, I excise e) “out of respect to my husband,” as I don’t want Leo to think he is in the Brad “You’re so fine you bug my husband” Turner category, rather than the Ty “You’re so harmless that it’s fine to yuck it up with you in my backyard” Portera category.
I hang up, feeling relieved, and for the first time since seeing Leo weeks ago, nearly lighthearted. The call might not be closure in the classic sense of the word, but it is still closure of
some
sort, and more important, it is closure on
my
terms. I called the final shot. Which is even
more
meaningful given that I had the perfect excuse—
Drake Watters
for goodness’ sake—to meet Leo, jollily chat him up, and even segue into a more somber conversation about “what really happened between us, anyway?” But I turned down the opportunity. Slammed the door on it, in fact. Not because I can’t
handle
a friendship with Leo, but because I simply don’t
want
one. End of story.
I imagine Leo listening to the message, wondering if he’ll be crestfallen, a tad disappointed, or largely indifferent. No matter what, though, I know he’ll be surprised that his power, once so all-encompassing, has dried up completely. He will surely take the hint—and his photo lead—elsewhere. And I will just have to live with the fact that I could have photographed Drake Watters. I smile to myself, feeling strong and happy and righteous, and then belt out the only uplifting line from “Crossroads” in my dreadful, tone-deaf singing voice:
When the light breaks, baby, I’ll be gone for good.
Several unmemorable days later, after I’ve almost completely purged Leo from my system, I am working in my lab on the fifth floor of an industrial warehouse on Twenty-fourth and Tenth Avenue. Sharing the space, along with the rent, are Julian and Sabina, photographers who work as a team, and Oscar, a solo printer, paper conservationist, and fine-art publisher. The four of us have been together in the bare-bones workroom for over two years now, and as such, have become very close friends.
Sabina, a pale, wispy woman whose anemic looks don’t match her brash personality, does most of the talking, rivaling only Oscar’s BBC radio that he keeps at a frustrating volume, one that I can’t quite hear and yet can’t quite tune out. She is now regaling us with a story of her three-year-old triplets’ latest stunt: flushing her husband’s entire vintage cufflink collection down the toilet, causing a flood in her fourth-floor walk-up and extensive water damage to the apartment below. She laughs as she tells the gory details because in her words, “What else can you do but laugh?” I happen to think she secretly delights in the tale, as she often accuses her husband of being materialistic and uptight. I enjoy Sabina’s stories, particularly during mindless retouching projects, which I’m in the middle of now. Specifically, I’m removing a constellation of acne from the face of a skateboarding teen for a print ad for a small record label.
“What do you think, guys? Should I give this kid a slight chin implant?” I ask.
Oscar, a somber Brit with a streak of dry humor, barely glances up from one of his many small drawers filled with lead, antimony, and wooden typefaces. I know from standing over his shoulder when I arrived that he is working on an artist’s book using Etrurian, his favorite Victorian font. I love watching Oscar work, perhaps because his craft is so different from mine, but more likely because of his graceful, almost old-fashioned manner.
“Leave the poor kid be,” he says as he dampens paper and then mutters something about “digital-plastic-surgery malarkey.”
“Yeah, Ellen. Quit being so shallow, would ya?” Julian, who just returned from his umpteenth smoking break of the day, chimes in, as if he, himself, hasn’t shaved down the thighs on many a size-zero woman.
I smile and say, “I’ll try.”
Of my three workspace colleagues, I probably like Julian the best of all—at the very least, we have the most in common. He is about my age, and is also married to a lawyer—a lively, cool girl named Hillary.
Sabina tells Julian to hush as she scurries toward me in tight blue jeans, ripped at the knee, her long, sixties-style hair swishing behind her. She apologizes in advance for the garlic on her breath, mumbling something about going overboard on an herbal supplement, and then peers down at the print in question.
“Great movement there,” she says, pointing to a blurred-out board in mid-air.
I consider movement my single greatest weakness as a photographer so I really appreciate this comment. “Thanks,” I say. “But what about his chin?”
She holds the print to the light and says, “I see what you mean, but I almost think his chin makes him look more surly … Does surly work for the ad?”
I nod, “Yeah. They’re called Badass Records. So I think surly will do just fine.”
Sabina takes one last look and says, “But I might make his nose a bit smaller. That’s more distracting than his weak chin … Have you ever noticed how often weak chins and big honkers go hand in hand? Why is that, anyway?”
My cell phone interrupts Sabina in mid-thought.
“One sec,” I say, expecting it to be Margot who has called twice in the last hour. Yet when I glance down, I see that it’s Cynthia, my agent.
I answer, and as usual, she shouts into the phone. “Sit down. You’re not going to
believe
this one!”
Leo streaks across my mind, but I am still dumbfounded as I listen to her gush the rest of the news.
”
Platform
magazine called,” she says. “And get this, girlfriend, they want
you
to shoot
Drake Watters
for their April cover story!”
“That’s fantastic,” I say, feeling a mix of emotions wash over me. For starters, I simply can’t believe Leo went ahead with his lead, although in hindsight, I can see clearly that I left a huge, rather
convenient
back door open for him to orchestrate everything through my agent. Still, I honestly didn’t think he’d be so selfless. I thought—and perhaps even hoped—that the Drake bone was more of a power play, a design to lure me back in and force my hand in a borderline inappropriate friendship. Now I’m forced to see the gesture, if not Leo, in a new light. And of course, overshadowing all of this is the simple, giddy, unmitigated thrill of photographing an icon.
“Fantastic?” Cynthia says. “
Fantastic
is an understatement.”
”
Incredibly
fantastic,” I say, now grinning.
Sabina, always nosy but never in an offensive way, whispers, “What?
What?
”
I scribble the words
Platform
and
Drake Watters
on a notepad. Her eyes widen as she does a comical exotic dance around a pole connecting raw ceiling to cement floor and then rushes over to give Julian the news. He looks up and flips me off with a smile. We’re not competitive, but definitely keep a friendly score. Before this, he and Sabina had the solid lead with a Katie Couric shoot for
Redbook
out in the Hamptons where Julian used to do all his work before he married Hillary and she lured him into the city full time.
“Did they say how they got my name?” I calmly ask Cynthia after she runs through a few details of the shoot—namely that it will take place in L.A.; the magazine will pay three thousand dollars, plus airfare, equipment rental, expenses, and a stay at the Beverly Wilshire.
“No,” she says. “And who really cares? You should be celebrating right now, not asking questions!”
“Right,” I say, wanting so much to believe this very thing. After all, I think, as I thank her, hang up, and field a round of congratulations, there is principle, and then there is stubborn, prideful foolishness.
Malarkey,
as Oscar would say. And surely anyone, even Andy, would have to agree that Drake Watters isn’t worth sacrificing for a bunch of ex-boyfriend malarkey.
twelve
About a week later, after much informal revelry, Andy and I are officially celebrating my upcoming Drake assignment at Bouley, one of our favorite restaurants in the city. Beyond the exquisite food and warm atmosphere, Bouley has sentimental meaning for us, as it is where we dined the night we first made love, which was, incidentally, exactly one month after our first date. The morning after, I teased Andy that it took Chef David Bouley’s New French fare to inspire him to want to sleep with me.
“You’re right,” he snapped back playfully. “It was the venison. I will
never
forget that venison. Best I’ve ever had by a long shot.”
I laughed, knowing the truth—that the wait had everything to do with Andy’s romantic, respectful ways. Aside from the high stakes of my friendship with Margot, Andy cared about me enough to want to do things
right
rather than rush into bed after one too many drinks, the methodology most men favored on the New York dating scene—or at least the two I had slept with after Leo. And although some might have criticized our first time as lacking spontaneity, I wouldn’t have changed a thing about it. And still wouldn’t.
Which makes it an even nicer surprise tonight when we are seated at the same intimate corner table in the vaulted dining room. I raise my eyebrows and say, “Coincidence?”
Andy smirks with a shrug.
Clearly, this is no coincidence. I smile at my husband’s unwavering thoughtfulness. Sometimes he really does seem too good to be true.
In the next few minutes, after an extensive review of the wine list and menu, we decide on our appetizers—the foie gras with a fricassee of cremini for me and the eggplant terrine for Andy—along with Bouley’s best bottle of champagne. Andy stumbles over the pronunciation when ordering the latter, despite having taken at least ten years of French growing up. Our waiter murmurs his wholehearted approval, if not of Andy’s clumsy accent, then at least of our selection.
Minutes later, after our champagne and appetizers arrive and Andy makes a toast to his “beautiful, brilliant wife,” he launches right in with the nitty-gritty of the shoot. “So what poses are you gonna put Drake in?” he begins.
I smile at the word
poses,
which hardly conjures a glossy, stylized magazine spread, but rather a Sears portrait sitting of the sort Suzanne and I endured growing up, complete with a white-picket fence, fake clouds in the background, and a nappy brown rug, rough against our elbows.
But I know what Andy’s getting at—and the question, stated in a more technical way, has occurred to me dozens of times in the past few days. I tell him I’ve yet to talk to the art director or photo editor—so I’m not sure what they want, but that I have some definite ideas about the feel of the shoot. “I’m thinking moody. Almost somber,” I say. “Especially in light of Drake’s AIDS work.”
“Will you shoot him inside or out?” Andy asks.
“You know I prefer natural light. Either near a lot of windows or outside. Maybe overpowered,” I say.
“What’s
overpowered
?” Andy asks, the way I frequently ask him what are probably basic procedural, legal questions.
“It’s a technique where the subject is well-lit, usually in the middle of the day, but the background sort of fades to black,” I explain. “It’s a pretty common way to shoot outside. You’d know it if you saw it.”
Andy nods and says, “Well, maybe the hotel has a terrace. That’d be cool. Or you could go out by the pool. Or, hell,
in
the pool! You know—tossing a beach ball around, that kind of thing.”
I laugh, picturing Drake in a Speedo and thinking that as excited as I am, Andy seems even
more
so. In part, I think it’s because he’s remained a much more loyal and ebullient Drake fan over the years. But mostly, I think it’s just due to his star-struck tendencies, which are in marked and amusing (although Margot would say
mortifying
) contrast to the way most Manhattanites completely downplay celebrity sightings, almost as a badge of honor. Like the more blasé they are, the more they are making a statement that their own lives are
just
as fabulous, minus the hassle and tedium of fame, of course. But not Andy. I think of his wild enthusiasm when we spotted Spike Lee at an ATM on the West Side—and Kevin Bacon and Kyra Sedgwick running in the park (“two for the price of one!”)—and Liv Tyler perusing stationery at Kate’s Paperie—and the greatest score of all, Dustin Hoffman walking his black lab in East Hampton. After we passed the pair, Andy told me he had to use every bit of restraint not to burst out with that famous line from
The Graduate
—“Just one word …
plastics
!”—which cracked me up, but probably wouldn’t have been quite as amusing to Dustin.
But Dustin Hoffman on the beach is one thing; Drake Watters at a photo shoot is quite another. So when Andy asks, only half in jest, if I’m going to get an autograph for him, I shake my head resolutely.
“Not a chance,” I say.
“C’mon,” he says, reaching across the table to steal another bite of my foie gras, which we both agree is the better selection by a very slim margin. “Just have him write something short and sweet. Something like …‘To Andy, my dear friend and great inspiration. Yours in melody, Drake Watters.’ Or he can simply sign it ‘Drake’ … Or even ‘Mr. Watterstein.’ It all works.”
I laugh, having forgotten from my
Teen Beat
–purchasing days that Drake’s real last name is Watterstein. I think of how I used to pore over those juicy details—
Drake’s real name! Rob Lowe’s fave food! Ricky Schroder’s love interest! River Phoenix’s new puppy!
Andy looks crestfallen—or at least pretends to be. “You really won’t hook me up? Seriously?”
“Seriously,” I say. “I really,
really
will
not
.”
“Okay,
Annie,
” he says. “Be that way.”
It is about the third time that he’s jokingly, but with a note of admiration, referred to me as
Annie
or
Ms
.
Leibovitz,
and every time I feel like a bit of an imposter. A fraud for not telling him the full truth of how I got the job. Otherwise, though, the assignment has begun to lose its Leo connotation, and I’ve been able to largely convince myself that it really
was
my talent alone that scored me the job. After all, I reassure myself, Leo’s true intentions (to assuage guilt over how he once treated me? pure benevolence? because he’s seen my work and truly thinks I’m talented? to seduce me, at least mentally?) are really completely beside the point now. The job is mine, and it is a job I know I can do well. I refuse to be intimidated by Drake or
Platform
. And I refuse to feel indebted to Leo, if that is, in fact, his aim.
As I take my final bite, I appease my husband. “Fine. Fine,” I say. “I’ll play the autograph thing by ear … If Drake and I hit it off, and the shoot goes well, I’ll tell him that my dorky husband wants his autograph. Deal?”
“Deal,” Andy says happily, ignoring my “dorky husband” comment as only a very secure man would. I smile, thinking that there are few things sexier than a man who doesn’t take himself too seriously.
Our waiter stops by our table to expertly refill our champagne glasses, the bubbles reaching the highest point possible without spilling over. Andy gestures to our nearly empty bottle, asking whether I’d like more. I nod, savoring the ease of marital, nonverbal communication and envisioning intoxicated, celebratory sex later this evening. Andy orders us another bottle, and we continue to talk about Drake and the shoot.
Then, sometime in the graceful interim between appetizers and our entrées, Andy’s posture straightens and his expression becomes uncharacteristically grave.
“So,” he starts. “I want to talk to you about something else.”
For one second, I panic, thinking that he saw my cell phone bill, or that he otherwise knows that I’ve been in touch with Leo.
“Yeah?” I say.
He fiddles with his napkin and gives me a slow, tentative smile, as I think that if he were the wife, and I the husband, I’d be certain that we were going to have a baby. That’s how solemn, disquieted—and yet simultaneously
excited
—he looks.
“What?” I say, feeling grateful that
I’m
the one who gets to break that particular bit of news.
Andy leans across the table and says, “I’m thinking about quitting my job.”
I give him an expectant look as this is hardly a newsflash. Andy has been talking about quitting since his very first day of work, which apparently is par for the course for large firm associates. “What else is new?” I say.
“I mean
imminently,
” he says. “I drafted a letter of resignation today, in fact.”
“Really?” I say. I’ve heard of this infamous letter many times before—but have never known him to actually write it.
He nods, running his hand along his water glass before taking a long swallow. He dabs his napkin to his lips and says, “I
really
want to quit.”
“To do what?” I say, wondering if Andy would ever follow his brother James’s path—and do essentially nothing but sleep, play golf, and party.
“Besides mooch off my famous wife?” Andy asks, winking.
“Yeah,” I say, laughing. “Besides that?”
“Well,” he says. “I’d like to continue practicing law … but I’d like to do so in a smaller, more low-key …
family-oriented
setting.”
I think I know what he’s getting at, but wait for him to spell it out for me.
“In Atlanta,” he finally says. “With my dad.”
I take a sip of champagne, feeling my heart race with a range of unprocessed emotions as I say, “You think you’d be happy doing that?”
“I think so,” he says. “And my dad would be
thrilled
.”
“I know,” I say. “He only mentioned it
five
times when we were in town.”
Andy looks into my eyes and says, “But what about you? How would
you
feel about it?”
“About you working with your dad?” I ask. I know that I’m being obtuse, that he’s asking about something much greater than his job, but I’m not sure why.
“No. About Atlanta,” Andy says, fidgeting with his knife. “About living in Atlanta?”
Obviously Andy and I have talked about the move before, especially since Margot left the city. We even drove around and looked at houses on our last visit, but this time feels different. This time feels real, not theoretical—and in Andy’s own words,
imminent.
To confirm, I say, “You mean moving there
soon
?”
Andy nods.
“Like this year? That soon?”
Andy nods again and then rushes into a nervous, heartfelt speech. “The last thing I want to do is pressure you. If you want to stay in New York—or feel that it would hurt your career to leave—I can stay. I mean, it’s not like I hate the city or feel desperate to move out or anything like that … But after that last visit to Atlanta … and looking at houses … and just thinking about our little niece on the way, and my folks getting older, and
everything,
really … I don’t know—I just feel ready for a change. For an
easier
life. Or at least a different kind of life.”
I nod, my mind racing. None of what Andy is saying is out of left field, not only because we’ve discussed it all before but because we’re at the age where lots of our friends are marrying, having babies, and making an exodus to the suburbs. But it still feels somehow astonishing to think about leaving the city in such immediate terms. My head fills with classic New York images—Central Park on a crisp fall day; ice skating at Rockefeller Plaza; sipping wine on an outdoor terrace in the dizzy height of summer—and I suddenly feel nostalgic for the past. I even feel nostalgic for tonight, for the meal Andy and I are having together, the very memory we are making now.
“Say something,” Andy says, pulling on his ear, something he only does when he’s anxious—or when he
really
cares about something. There was definite ear pullage when he proposed, and it occurs to me that this moment isn’t so different. He is asking me how I feel about a big change. A step that we’d be taking together. It is not the same commitment as marriage, but in many ways, it’s an even bigger change.
I reach for Andy’s hand, taking it in mine, wanting so much to please him, but also wanting to be completely honest with him. “I think it could be really great,” I say, sounding less tentative than I feel—although the truth is, I’m not quite sure
how
I feel.
Andy nods and says, “I know. And believe me, I’m not trying to put you on the spot. But … I did want to show you this.”
He lets go of my hand and reaches into the inner pocket of his sport coat, pulling out a folded piece of paper. “Here ya go.”
I take the paper from him, unfold it, and gaze down at a large cedar and brick house with a covered front porch, similar to the home listings Margot has been e-mailing me since our last trip, always with subject lines like, “Next-door neighbors!” or “Perfect for you!”
But
this
house isn’t from Margot passing the time at her computer during the day.
This
house comes from Andy over champagne at Bouley.
“Do you like it?” he asks hesitantly, although it is very,
very
clear what he wants my answer to be.
“Of
course,
” I say, skimming the details in the written-up section below the photo—five bedrooms, four-and-a-half baths, fenced backyard, heated pool, high ceilings, screened-in porch, finished daylight basement, three-car garage, butler’s pantry, dumbwaiter servicing all three levels.
There is absolutely nothing
not
to like. It is a dream house in every way—like no house in my hometown or even anything I could have imagined as a child. Not even when my mother told me that she was certain that I would have a good life filled with beautiful things, beautiful people.
“I’m not worried about you, Ellie,” she had said, stroking my hair. “Not at all.”