Three-Martini Lunch (37 page)

“Joey!” I cried.

We went on struggling. My heart began racing as—for a split second—I was able to read his mind: He was seriously considering killing me. Finally, I got ahold of his face and kissed him. He kissed me back, then punched me savagely, then kissed me again. We went on like this until the punches dwindled and finally ceased and our hungry mouths took over everything. I felt his hands under my clothes. He ripped my shirt and I reached for his belt.

•   •   •

A
fterwards, we lay together on the floor next to his bed, holding each other. The hateful rage that had enveloped us not more than twenty minutes earlier had now fallen away from us in a shift that was both exotic and perfunctory, like a woman shedding a silk kimono. I lifted my head to kiss him very gently on the temple.

“For a minute there, I thought you might murder me,” I commented.

“For a minute there, I did, too,” Joey said in a quiet, serious voice, and as he said it I understood he absolutely meant every word. We fell into silence again.

“Miles,” he said finally, “don't you ever fucking leave me like that again.” He shuddered and squeezed me tighter to him. I reached a hand to smooth his cheek, the back of his neck.

“I won't,” I said. It was a promise, but already I wasn't sure I could keep it. I was already terrified of what I had reignited in both of us.

62

T
his,” Mr. Nelson said after calling me into his office, “is quite good, Eden.” He patted the stack of typed pages I'd rescued from the wastebasket in the wake of Cliff's nervous breakdown. It had been a week or so since I left the manuscript on his desk, and without a peep from Mr. Nelson, I had worried my judgment was off-kilter, the pages weren't as good as I'd thought, and Cliff had struck out yet again. But now I smiled, gratified.

“Is it?”

“Yes, very good. And you say the author submitted it to our offices anonymously?”

I bit my lip. A tiny trill of nervous energy went through me. “Yes,” I said, proceeding carefully. “But I know the identity of the author.”

“Oh?” Mr. Nelson raised an eyebrow. “Well?”

“I can tell you . . .” I said.

“Yes, out with it,” Mr. Nelson replied in a friendly tone.

“I can tell you,” I repeated, “but I'd also like to talk,” I ventured, “about officially being made a reader.”

The Santa Claus twinkle vanished from Mr. Nelson's blue eyes, his brow instantly furrowed, and the corners of his mouth twitched in anger. “I hope you're not proposing to hold this manuscript hostage,” he said.

“Oh! No, sir,” I said. “I only thought we could revisit the subject, as we discussed some months back.”

Mr. Nelson looked at me and cocked his head, scrutinizing the details of my person. He pursed his lips off to one side, as though trying to decide something. Suddenly the cloud of anger that had darkened his face lifted and he brightened.

“What time is it?” he asked.

I glanced at my watch. “Quarter to noon,” I answered.

“All right. We will discuss this further over lunch, then,” he said. It wasn't really a question. He shuffled some papers on his desk and stood up and straightened his tie. It was obvious he expected me to fetch my coat.

“But . . . you already have a lunch appointment on your calendar,” I reminded him. “With Mr. Morris.”

“Phone him up and cancel,” Mr. Nelson commanded in a matter-of-fact tone.

I was flustered. The last time I had been to lunch with Mr. Nelson—the
only
time I had been to lunch with Mr. Nelson—was directly after my job interview, when I'd been made to pass along the news to a very lovesick Barbara that her services as a temp were no longer needed. I could only imagine what Mr. Nelson had in store for me now.

“As I've said before, Eden, I don't pretend to understand you modern gals these days. But if you're going to play hardball like a man, then we'd damn well better have this discussion over martinis.”

•   •   •

W
e went to Sardi's and sat among the caricatures with their exaggerated ski-slope noses, clownish eyelashes, and wide, maniacal grins. We began
with martinis and some small talk. When our food arrived, Mr. Nelson ordered a second round of drinks.

“I was here with Ring Lardner once,” he remarked. “He knew just about everything a man can know about baseball. There's his portrait right over there.” He pointed to a rather unflattering profile of Mr. Lardner hanging on a far wall.

The waiter set a fresh martini glass on the table before me, filled to the brim with crystal-clear gin. As a general rule, Mr. Nelson preferred gin, and he was the one doing the ordering.

“Cheers,” Mr. Nelson said, and I carefully raised my glass to clink with his. The glass was too full; the tiniest wobble of my hand sent cold rivulets of gin and vermouth dribbling over my fingers. I lifted the toothpick that was balanced on the rim and slid one of the olives off with my teeth, then set the toothpick on my bread plate.

“All right, Eden,” Mr. Nelson said in a voice that was perplexingly stern and merry at the same time. The Santa Claus twinkle had come back to his pale blue eyes, and I realized this was likely Mr. Nelson's usual procedure: two martinis, a little business, and a third to seal the deal. I wasn't sure I could keep up, but I knew it was imperative that I try. “Name your terms,” he said.

“Reader, for now,” I said. “And then, in another six months, I want to be considered for assistant editor, based on the number of manuscripts you acquire on the recommendation of my reader's reports.”

He cocked an eyebrow at me. “Well, you've certainly proven you know how to maneuver,” Mr. Nelson said.

“You told me yourself, maneuvering is part of the job.”

“Yes . . .” he mused. “Fine, then. I'll agree to make you a reader.” He straightened up. “Now, about the manuscript. I'd like to get this matter squared away. Is anyone else reading?”

By
anyone else
, he meant other editors at other houses. “No,” I said.

“Well, why the shroud of mystery in that case? Surely this fellow wants to be published.”

“Yes.”

“And published by Bonwright?”

“Oh, very much so. I can vouch for that firsthand.”

“So, let's have it, then. Who is the author?”

Under the table, I crossed my fingers. Then I took a breath.
Here goes nothing.

“The author . . . is your son.”

Mr. Nelson's eyes widened and he very nearly choked on his martini. Coughing, he carefully set the glass down and dabbed his chin with his napkin.

“I don't understand. Clifford wrote this?
My
Clifford?”

“Yes.”

“Well,” he said, shaking his head. “That's rather difficult to believe . . .” He stared down at his hands on the table and began to drum his fingers, lost in thought. “You know, he submitted a different manuscript to me a week or so ago. I dealt with it privately. It was . . . well, not at all like this.”

I know,
I thought silently to myself.

“Is there any chance . . .” He hesitated. I had a funny feeling I knew what he was getting ready to say. “Is there any chance . . . this originated elsewhere?” he finished. I understood why he posed the question, but I was glad Cliff was not present to hear it. As his wife, I even felt a little punched in the gut on Cliff's behalf.

“Well, I saw the original pages written out in longhand,” I offered. “In his handwriting. And then he must've transcribed them with the typewriter.”

Suddenly, Mr. Nelson's gaze came back into focus and landed squarely on me. He squinted.

“You seem awfully familiar with my son, Eden. I wasn't aware the two of you had met.”

“Oh,” I said, flustered once again. “I know him through a group of mutual friends.”

This was true: I
had
met Cliff through a group of mutual friends. But I wasn't ready to divulge any of the rest of it, not without talking to Cliff. Looking back on it now, I see it was rather foolish of me, but I had an idealized notion in my head of how everything would work out. I'd get my promotion, Cliff would become a famous author, and Mr. Nelson would get to publish the novel he'd been after ever since the war ended. Then, I imagined, Cliff and I would reveal our marriage at a strategic moment. Judy was right: It was a story to tell our grandchildren someday. A secret, romantic elopement; I would be the one who managed to bring Clifford Nelson's talent to the attention of his illustrious editor father.

I am rather ashamed to say, I pictured all of this coming to pass: my grand role in the publishing world, part of a great literary family.

“Well,” said Mr. Nelson. “I'll admit I'm a bit overwhelmed . . .” He shook his head again. “I have to say, I wasn't very kind to Clifford last week. I thought it was for his own good and that he needed a dose of tough medicine. But if he can write like this, perhaps I was wrong. I hope he'll forgive me.”

“If you're offering to publish his work, I believe that's all the apology he'll need.”

Mr. Nelson smiled, looking relieved. I knew then: Cliff had never been very good at apologies, and I assume this trait had been passed down from father to son.

“Yes. Now, let's discuss
how
we'll publish . . .” Mr. Nelson said, and we went on making plans through the rest of our lunch. I was surprised to see how excited he was; he wanted to rush things along as quickly as possible. “It seems to me it needs only the lightest of edits, do you agree?”

I did agree. I was flattered he'd asked my opinion. Between that and
the martinis, I had quite a buzz. A question occurred to me, and the gin made me bold enough to ask it. “Do you think you would've liked the manuscript just as much if you had known ahead of time it was Cliff's?”

Mr. Nelson hesitated.

“I don't know. I see your point, and perhaps I
have
been too hard on him over the years. But the most important thing is I see the merit of this manuscript very clearly at present, and I'm very proud of him.”

His eyes watered slightly, I couldn't tell whether it was due to the gin or because his paternal spirit had moved him. By that point the bill had already been paid and there was only one swallow left in each of our martinis. Abruptly, Mr. Nelson lifted his napkin from his lap and threw it upon the table.

“Let's go tell Clifford the good news, shall we?”

63

F
or a brief, blissful spell, I forgot all about my composition book. Recovering Joey was like recovering a part of myself. Our lives began to braid themselves together again, and at first I was happy. Joey, just as he had proposed on the houseboat in Sausalito, took the train from Washington to New York and we spent our weekends together. By then the city had entered the full throes of winter, and we strolled the city streets bundled into heavy overcoats, chuckling about it as we occasionally bumped shoulders, rounded and armless as a pair of fat
matryoshka
dolls knocking into each other. Sometimes we warmed ourselves by popping into a bookshop, the smell of newsprint and wet wool filling the air. Other times we watched the ice-skaters in Rockefeller Center or wandered down quieter, brownstone-lined streets, the tree branches above us white and bare, the dry brown remains of their leaves slowly crunching into dust underfoot.

But, more than anything else, we spent a great deal of time alone together in Joey's hotel room. As it is with all lovers during the winter
season, the dark and cold jointly provided adequate excuse for us to linger about in a tangle of warm bedsheets, gazing at the dull gray windowpane and disdaining the fools willing to venture out and leave such coziness behind. We spent hours loving each other, but we also spent hours lying about doing nothing, too. We held each other with lank arms, sharing our private musings about the world, our skin smelling of sweat and of the cheap white soap inexplicably preferred by most hotels.

I always made time to see him. My weekends were his. I made excuses and, I'm ashamed to say, I lied to a great many people. I told Janet my mother was sick and needed me to help around the house, and I told my mother I was sleeping at Janet's; my mother grumbled her disapproval but accepted this based on the dual facts that Janet and I were engaged and Wendell was growing more and more irritated with my continued presence in what he considered “his” apartment.

Those were the most remorseless lies I have ever told, for together Joey and I made our own world, a place where I needed no reprieve; it was a temporary life—made up of only two days that bracketed the week—but one that absorbed me even more fully than our time together on the houseboat. We became one human being. Everything we did during those weekends, we did together. On Sunday mornings we bought a single newspaper and exchanged the different sections until the entire hotel bed crinkled with paper and the sheets were smudged with newsprint, at which point we would do the crossword together, laughing and kissing.

Weekends weren't enough, and we began sneaking in weekdays, too. After several visits to the city wherein we hardly left the room, Joey became preoccupied with the idea we would grow bored of each other if we did not make an effort to get out of the hotel room and go somewhere from time to time. This, as far as I was concerned, was ridiculous. I could never get enough of Joey's company, indoors or out. But I had to agree that, if nothing else, the hotel room could be quite stuffy and hot, and it would do our lungs good to take the air.

“Where do you want to go?” I asked one Friday when he'd come into town a day early.

“The park,” he said, meaning Central Park. “And then the Metropolitan Museum of Art.”

“All right,” I agreed, realizing I had been a terrible tour guide. I loved New York, and all at once I wanted Joey to love it, too.

We took the Lexington line to Seventy-ninth Street on the east side and trekked into the park from there. It had just snowed, and we followed the footpath that led past the small, manicured pond of the conservatory and deeper into the park, towards the Boathouse and the lake. We crossed through the terraced brick clearing that contained Bethesda Fountain, that winged angel of the waters forever taking one ethereal step forward and dutifully blessing the pool below her. The fountain was turned off for the season, and the empty pool was laid thick with a layer of ice. As we neared the fountain, Joey began to laugh and trot towards it, faster and faster. He climbed in, and me after him. There was something slightly childish and giddy in our play. We touched the four cherubs, something a visitor might never do in summer. Once we'd climbed out of the fountain, we followed the footpath over Bow Bridge, and then followed the paths that wound into the Ramble. The ground grew more hilly, the trees more dense, and the path more winding. We laughed and began to chase each other in the snow. The snow was clean and white and gave that satisfying squeak with every step we took.

Suddenly, Mister Gus flashed into my mind, that newspaper article, and everything he had said during my last week working in his mansion.

“Joey,” I called out. “Let's go to the museum now.”

“Sure,” he agreed. I doubled back and we retraced our steps, staying in the park's more civilized areas and proceeding into the Ramble no farther. Having been born in New York and having lived in Manhattan all my life, I knew there was a way to cross through the Ramble, a way that would
eventually take us back to the museum, but my memories of Mister Gus's words had me spooked.

We left the park and followed Fifth Avenue up to the neoclassical façade of the museum and climbed the steps. There was a special kind of busy, enthusiastic energy in the air near the entrance to the Met. We pushed through the great glass doors and tumbled into the large marble double-winged foyer and found our way first to the coat check. Despite the cavernous space, it was humid and warm with all those bodies clustered together, the great hall echoing with the squeak of rubber galoshes. The woman in front of us spoke only in Japanese and handed over a beautiful silk overcoat to the man behind the coat-check counter. He looked at it and harrumphed to himself as he hung it up, muttering something under his breath about the war.

“What's your favorite spot in this place?” Joey asked once we were free of the coat check and we had paid our entry.

“There are two,” I said. “One is the hall leading into the Impressionist gallery upstairs, and the other is in the Egyptian wing, where they keep the mummies.”

Joey raised his eyebrows. “An Egyptian mummy? Here, inside this building?”

“Yes,” I said. “A few of them.”

“Let's go see that.”

We set off in the direction of the mummies and strolled leisurely, like idiots, into the Egyptian wing.

There was a school group there, and a sea of excited, bobbing heads shifted around us as children scurried from this exhibit to that, a few harried teachers trying to herd them back into order. They were second- or third-graders, I'd have guessed—somewhere around Cob's age—and almost all of them colored, making me think this was a public school outing. My eyes fell on a little boy standing slightly apart from the group, staring into
a glass case. As we drew nearer, I got a look at what he was staring at. It was a case full of jewelry made out of the iridescent carapaces of some kind of scarab beetle. The little boy wore an expression of fierce concentration, as though trying to memorize every detail of the beetles' shells. He looked an awful lot like Cob, I thought to myself, until I realized with a start that it
was
Cob. In that very moment the spell of his concentration was broken and his gaze flicked in my direction.

“Miles!” he called out, his eyes going wide. He ran over to me.

“Cob,” I said weakly, still stunned. “What are you doing here?”

“It's our field trip day, remember?”

A faint memory from the previous week of Cob babbling on about some kind of field trip came back to me. How could I have been so careless, so foolish? “Of course,” I said. Joey was standing next to me, slightly puzzled, and now Cob's focus turned to this mystery figure.

“This is my friend Joey,” I said to Cob. Cob nodded and put out his hand.

“How do you do?”

Joey shook it and smiled with genuine affection, deducing that before him stood the great insect collector he'd heard so much about. Cob smiled back at Joey, then frowned at me.

“Ain't you supposed to be at work, Miles?” Cob asked.

“They gave me the day off,” I said. Cob looked at me suspiciously. He was seven, but not stupid. “You'd better get back over there with your classmates,” I said. One of the teachers was glancing in our direction, obviously concerned by the sight of two strange men talking to one of her young pupils. “We were just going,” I said, giving Cob a quick pat on the head and moving away. “I'll see you at home.”

We left, Joey picking up on my cue and following closely on my heels. I looked over my shoulder just once and saw Cob still standing where we had left him, frowning.

We didn't talk as we stood in line for our coats. Joey could tell I was disturbed. Once outside, he finally asked, “That was your kid brother?”

“Yes.” I realized I was panting; panic had crushed the very air out of my lungs. I stood there thinking of what to say to Cob the next time I saw him, whether to explain or act cool and casual.

“Quite a smart little man,” Joey grinned, an encouraging, upbeat note in his voice.

“I need a drink,” I said.

“All right,” Joey said, catching on to my mood and looking at his watch. “But it's only three o'clock. Where should we go?”

“Let's . . . go down to the Village,” I said. There was a certain stiffness to the Upper East Side that unnerved me. I was desperate for anonymity, and the Village seemed like a safe bet. Artists and bohemians; nobody looked at you twice. Even when you knew people, they didn't act as though they cared what hour you'd started drinking or who you were with, so long as you were being authentic, whatever
that
meant.

“Hey, Miles, don't worry over it,” Joey said as we walked in the direction of the subway. “He thinks you're playing hooky but he doesn't think anything else. He's too young for that.”

I didn't say anything to this.

“He seemed like a nice kid,” Joey said in an encouraging tone. “Kind.”

“Leave it alone, Joey,” I said. “Let's just go have a drink and forget about it.” The rest of the way down to the Village, we were silent.