The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P. (16 page)

“It’s been, what? A month? A little longer?”

“Something like that.” It had been six weeks since he and Hannah first went out, about four since they’d begun to see each other in earnest.

“I’m really glad for you, Nate.”

Aurit was nodding and smiling at him like he’d made it through naptime without wetting his pants.

Suddenly, it was essential to Nate that he complicate Aurit’s narrow viewpoint. “It’s not
that
big a deal. Who knows what will happen?”

Aurit had just purchased an iced coffee. Through the plastic lid, she had been stabbing at the caramel-colored liquid with her straw.

“Oh?” She looked up at him. “Is something wrong?”

“No. I just don’t want to blow it out of proportion, that’s all.”

Aurit frowned. “Uh huh.”

What he wanted to get across was a general demurral from Aurit’s romantic monomania. He didn’t see his getting together with Hannah as quite the epic, life-defining event that Aurit’s relationships were for her. His new relationship, though consuming when he was with Hannah, wasn’t the only thing on his mind, especially as time wore on and he became more acclimated to her presence in his life. Particularly in the past few days he’d had new preoccupations. He had gotten a journalism assignment that he was pleased about, a big and well-paid piece for a glossy magazine. Jason had recommended him for it. He had also had the germ of an idea for another book. And it wasn’t only writing. The relationship, nice as it was, shared space in his mind with other things—with his interest in thinking abstractly, about things other than his personal life, for one, even with his interest in sports. But he couldn’t think of a way to explain this to Aurit that wouldn’t seem to her to imply discontent with Hannah.

They walked in silence. The plastic bag with the bottle of wine Nate bought for the picnic bumped rhythmically against his knee and shin.

“Is she coming today?” Aurit asked finally.

“No. She wanted to do some work. She’s working on a book proposal.”

Aurit nodded. Then she took a big sip of her drink and glared into the plastic cup.

“Ugh. An iced mocha shouldn’t taste like chocolate milk.”

Nate had nothing to say to that.

For the last day of July, the afternoon was lovely—not too humid, the sky a non-washed-out shade of blue—and the scene, as they entered the park, was idyllic, almost too idyllic. Technically, Prospect Park’s natural amenities (wooded hills, rolling meadows, crescent-shaped pond with requisite ducks and swans) probably didn’t outshine those of other parks in other cities. But unlike the parks Nate had known growing up in the suburbs, frequented almost exclusively by delinquent teens, gay cruisers, and sundry procurers of crack, this one didn’t feel rickety and abandoned. (“When people have their own backyards, they grill alone,” Jason had said once.)

Prospect Park teemed with cheerful people doing cheerful things: walking, running, biking, playing Little League, watching Little League, eating drippy ice cream cones while watching Little League. Groups of young professionals toting canvas bags from local bookstores staked out places on the grass next to Caribbean families with plastic coolers full of elaborate foods that somehow all smelled of plantains. The park was a liberal integrationist’s wet dream: multiracial, multiethnic, multiclass.

When he and Aurit arrived at the picnic, a rapid-fire exchange of effusions ensued. “Congrats!” “It’s official!” “Thanks for coming!” “Have something to eat!”

On an adjacent picnic blanket, Jason was holding court. “I’m sorry to have to tell you, but no amount of quality day care or liberal education is going to produce a nation of self-critical adherents
to the Golden Rule,” he was saying. He was speaking to two bemused-looking women and paused only long enough to nod at Nate and Aurit. “It’s just not in everybody’s DNA. Virtue is its own reward for some—but not for everyone. And that’s a good thing. There are a lot of things that moralists are incapable of doing.”

“Like what, building pyramids?” Aurit muttered. “It’s amazing what you can do if you’re willing to use slave labor.”

“Exactly!” Jason said. “Pyramids, the settling of the New World, industrialization. Think of the brutality!” He beamed. “Moral people wouldn’t have pulled off any of it. And then where would we be? Not sitting here in lovely Prospect Park with our cushy jobs and preening social consciences.”

The women he was talking to—or at—exchanged a glance. “What about the victims of these immoral people?” asked one, a friendly-looking redhead.

“Of course, there’s a social tax we pay for having psychopaths running around,” Jason conceded. “But society needs the cunning to make things happen, just like it needs the conscientious to enforce the rules, to keep the thing from turning into a game theorist’s nightmare. Just like it needs
artists
”—he spoke the word with mocking emphasis—“by which I include writers, musicians, and the like, to attract would-be loners to the communal campfire and fold them into the clan.”

“That’s a moving theory,” the redhead said.

The argument petered out. The redhead, whom Nate sat down next to, told him she was a grad student in art history. Before she went back to school she had been an editor at his publishing house. She and Nate began running through various common acquaintances.

Jason turned to him. “Where’s
Hannah
?”

Nate’s jaw tightened. He knew Jason thought he had the temperament of a sad, whipped schmuck, a conviction that certain women might have found hard to credit but was nonetheless
unshakable as far as Jason went. (Jason had, in the past, attributed this to Nate’s “squirrelly, smarmy” need for everyone to like him.)

“We’re not attached at the hip,” Nate said.

He turned back to the redhead. After a few minutes, their conversation began to run dry. He wished there were a way to politely exit, but she was so smiley and friendly that Nate didn’t want to hurt her feelings. Finally, she nodded at the red wine he was drinking. “I think I’m going to look for some white,” she said.

“Of course!” Nate said.

He remembered something he wanted to ask Mark. He flicked Jason’s upper arm. “Is Mark coming today, do you know?”

Jason shook his head. “Dunno … I haven’t seen him for a while. You know he started dating someone, right? The hot little ticket from that reading? Carrie? Cara?” He whistled. “
Cute girl
. Hey, wait. Didn’t you talk to her first?”

“Maybe,” Nate said, tugging a blade of grass from the ground. “Yeah. I guess I did.”

“And you didn’t … ? Oh, that’s right.” Jason smirked. “
Hannah
.”

Before Nate could respond, a woman he had dated briefly years ago came up and said hello. She was now married with a small child, which she had brought along with her. When they dated, Nate had thought that she was a little too maternal for his taste. The well-being she projected now, as she held up the little blond thing for him to admire, seemed to confirm his intuition. When she put the child down, it lurched toward a squirrel. Laughing, she tottered off after it. “Good to see you!” she called behind her.

Nate accepted some carrots and hummus from a plate being passed around.

“Did I tell you Maggie started dating someone?” Jason asked.

Maggie was a girl Jason worked with. He had made out with her once the year before and talked about it frequently.

“The guy sounds like a real douche,” Jason continued. “Some kind of freelance Web site designer or something that basically anyone could do in their spare time.”

The sun had emerged from behind a cloud. Nate lifted a hand to shield his eyes. “Not that you care, right?”

“I care about Maggie a lot,” Jason said, swatting one hand against his arm. “
Fucking mosquito.
Maggie’s happiness is extremely important to me.”

“Right …”

Nate’s cell phone rang from inside his jeans pocket.

“The girlfriend?” Jason asked as Nate fished for the phone.

Nate hit the
DECLINE
button to make Hannah’s name disappear from the screen. “You know, Jase,” he said. “I was trying to remember. When actually was the last time you got laid? Who was president? Did you have dial-up or broadband?”

Jason stared at him for a moment. Then he smiled broadly. His distended lips reminded Nate of the bellies of starving children. “I can’t help it if I have high standards,” he said.

The group was called to attention to toast the couple.

Afterward, Jason turned to him. “I get the feeling you think I don’t like your new girlfriend.”

“I didn’t—” Instinctively, Nate started to deny that he’d given the subject any thought whatsoever, but Jason continued over him.

“That’s not true. I might have thought she was a little mousy at first, but I was wrong. I think she’s a cool girl.”

Nate was surprised to hear this—also surprised, and a little embarrassed, by just how glad he was to hear it. He nodded with studied casualness. “She is cool.”

“I was surprised, at first, only because I didn’t think she was your type.”

This was clearly a provocation. Nate knew he should ignore it. “What do you mean, not my type?” he asked.

“You know …” Jason said. “You usually go for—I don’t know how to put this—sort of girly, high-maintenance women. You know, like Elisa.”

“That’s ridic—!” On the other side of the picnic blanket, Aurit,
in conversation with someone Nate didn’t know, glanced up at him. Nate lowered his voice. “—ulous. Don’t you think I liked Elisa in spite of her being, as you put it—so generously, I might add—‘girly and high-maintenance,’ and not because of it?”

“Well, I’m sure you think so—”

“There were a lot of reasons I liked her. Not one of them had to do with her being high-maintenance. That did have something to do with why I broke up with her.”

“Calm down,” Jason said. “All I’m saying is that we’re hardwired to respond to certain things—I know I am—and not all of them are what I’d call good.”

“Kristen wasn’t girly or high-maintenance.”

“No, she wasn’t,” Jason agreed. “Anyway, it doesn’t matter. If you’re happy, that’s great. As I said, I think Hannah’s a cool girl.” Without giving Nate a chance to respond, Jason turned away. “Hey, Aurit, can you pass some of those vegetables?”

“Speaking of Elisa,” Jason said a moment later, “what’d she say when you told her you were doing her friend?”

Nate started to react to that last bit but checked himself. “I haven’t told her yet,” he said. “I’m going to.”

Jason was nibbling on a broccoli floret with a delicacy that was almost effete, especially in contrast with the leer that took shape on his lips. “Tell her if she needs a shoulder to cry on, she can call me,” he said. “I’ve always got time for her tight little ass and big blue eyes.”

“For fuck’s sake.”

Nate did meet up with Elisa several days later. He’d been putting it off, and indeed he should have done it sooner. She had already heard about Hannah from someone. To Nate’s surprise, she was mad not at him but at Hannah.

“I thought she was my friend,” Elisa said.

“She feels bad,” Nate said. “She really likes you. She assumed it was cool since you and I are friends.”

“I’m sure she feels
awful
. A person who dates her friend’s ex, who she met at her friend’s own house—at her friend’s
dinner party
… I’m sure she feels terrible.”

Nate studied the grain of the wood on the bar. They were at a steak place, in midtown, near Elisa’s office. He was beginning to wonder whether this get-together was a good idea. Making such a big to-do about him and Hannah seemed to confer undue legitimacy to Elisa’s anger.

Elisa was aggressively stirring her martini. “What a bitch.”

“That’s not fa—”

But as Elisa turned her eyes from the smoky mirror behind the bar to meet his, Nate let the words trail off. Sometimes, it hit him all over again, the rawness of Elisa’s unhappiness. For all her beauty, she looked—around her eyes—haggard, stricken.

“I’m sorry, E,” he said softly. “I really am. I didn’t think you guys were close. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

Elisa’s lower lip protruded sulkily. She didn’t so much shrug as raise a thin shoulder, causing her collarbone to jut out above the wide neckline of her blouse. Apart from her eyes, she looked as pretty and fashionable as ever, with her blonde hair swept up in a loose bun. She was wearing a long, loose white shirt and tight-fitting black pants.

“You’ll meet someone,” Nate said.

Elisa looked at him, her perfect features perfectly still. As one beat passed and then another, her expression seemed to deepen until her face projected a profound weariness.

“Maybe,” she said finally.

Nate braced himself for her to start in on familiar accusations. He had poisoned her future relationships. She could no longer trust that a guy who claimed to love her wouldn’t change his mind at any moment. He had made her feel that she wasn’t smart enough or good enough. How was she supposed to recover from that?

But she must have sensed that for now she already had Nate’s sympathy. There was nothing to gain by taking that tack.

“By the way,” she said. “I’m sorry about last time. My dinner party, I mean. And afterward. I had too much to drink. I shouldn’t have put you in that position. It’s just … I don’t know, things have kind of sucked lately. I’ve been feeling really down.”

Nate shifted his weight on the well-padded bar stool. In his chest, various emotions—guilt and pity and simple sadness—swelled miserably. He almost preferred when she berated him.

“Don’t worry about it,” he said. “I’m sorry you haven’t been happy.”

Elisa shrugged again as she scrutinized one of her hands and began repositioning a ring that had slid off-center.

Nate sought something diverting to say. “What’s the boss up to these days?”

Elisa very subtly shook her head as if in wry amusement, as if she knew he was changing the subject because he was a coward, but was by now resigned to his immaturity. With touching pliancy, she launched into an anecdote.

Elisa worked for a Very Important Magazine. Nate, as she well knew, liked hearing about the goings-on there. She told him about a well-known writer who’d pissed off her boss, the editor in chief, by withdrawing a piece rather than submitting to his editorial suggestions. The writer had then published the piece in a competing publication, incorporating many of those suggestions.