We All Sleep in the Same Room (3 page)

“Tonight?”

“That's the plan. Are you busy? We could reschedule for a night you're free.”

“No, no, if I'm the only one holding everyone up, you should carry on without me. I have plans. With Raina—my wife. How about you call me later this weekend to fill me in?”

“Sure. I'll have to drink extra for you.” Margaret winks.

Apparently she's unaware of my reputation as a teetotaler.

“Sounds good,” I say.

My sights fix down the hall on the wine-colored finish of Cunningham's office door. I spot his secretary Donna's ring of keys dangling from a hook behind her desk. The sound of her animated laughter emanates from the copy room down the hall. I reach over, take the keys, unlock Cunningham's door, drop them back on the hook, and slip inside.

The room is fantastically black. It's noiseless. Donna's laughter, the hum of the copy machine, the clacking of keyboards, the ring of the phones and fax machines have stopped. I reach out and feel the client's chair. For over forty years, the working class men and women of the metropolis have come, from nearly every organized profession, to sit and tell John how they've been mistreated by their superiors. My hand follows the contour of his desk. I sit in John's revolving chair. It's worn on the left arm.

Posturing there, my eyes slowly adjust. From depthless black, the outlines of the room exhibit softer shades, deep blue and purple. I open the top drawer of his desk and feel over pencils, pens, rulers, a Zippo. I go to his bookcase and run my hand along the backs of every shelf, behind all the volumes of laws and regulations. I probe around the coat rack, the umbrella stand, under the curtains. On the end of the windowsill stands a globe tilted at thirty degrees on a bronze base with a bare-breasted goddess emerging out of the North Pole. The equator is a thick, black strip with a sliver of steel running through the middle. Placing a hand on the base, and another around the goddess, I pull. The globe splits easily open on rear hinges revealing a bottle of Tanqueray. The neighboring compartment stores a martini glass.

I pour a few fingers worth into the glass and saddle up next to it on the windowsill. Times Square, the brightly lit circus, is churning on 7th Avenue. I lied to Raina and then to the partners, telling each of them I had plans with the other when really I'll be getting drinks with Jessie. Deception hadn't figured into any of this. The lies had simply come out, almost smoothly, with very little hesitation. Things are becoming shady, but I'm not yet guilty of anything. I raise my glass in the darkness and drink.

The old burn. Vicious, toxic, cleansing. Pure gin—never my drink—striking, as if to pierce through the stomach's lining, before firing back up through the throat, filling the sinuses with its hard-to-place, bitter vapors, and exiting the body behind reddened, watery eyes, leaving the brain adrift inside a liquid skull.

Nervous moments ensue. I see my son's small hand wrapped over my finger and the top of his head as he toddles below me, while Raina squats, at the other end of the living room, arms wide. Then Lily, inserting and reinserting her keycard, until a square light above the lock turns green and the door opens in.

I down the rest of the glass. This time, when the gin settles, I feel calmer. I pour another, but don't touch it right away. Then the door handle turns. I remain still as someone enters and the door shuts.

“Tom?”

I clear my throat.

“I finished my work and I've been looking all over for you,” Jessie says, coming closer. Her voice is sweet and cool.

“What're you doing in here?” She puts a blind hand out and finds my wrist. She holds it a moment and regains her balance. “You smell like alcohol.”

“I cheated,” I say. “Started early. Want one?”

She accepts the glass, sniffs the gin, and takes what amounts to a negligible sip.

“Cunningham's stash,” I say.

Earlier at Dunkin' Donuts, I'd ended things by telling her about how it used to be with Cunningham and me: Friday afternoon gin-and-tonics at the Edison back in the old days. I retrieved for her a forgotten story about a time we'd tailed a suspicious looking man, Columbo-style, all the way to the East River where he passed off one of two identical briefcases before leading us back to our very building where he'd gotten off on the 17th floor, to be spotted at various times over the next year before disappearing. Jessie was all smiles. I'd succeeded in stamping the occurrence of drinks between a senior lawyer and an aspiring lawyer as a reputable and exclusive tradition, one which she might join.

“Sorry there's no chaser.”

She takes a longer sip, sputters, waits, and then, like me, gulps down the rest.

“Whoa,” she says, bringing her wrist to her mouth. A rectangle of white teeth breaks from the shadows. “Can we go now?”

* * *

The Times Square Brewery,
as it turns out, may be the most sanitized bar on the planet. The drinkers are hoarded together to one side around a long, black,
S
-shaped counter. A barkeep in black button-down and tie is handling orders. I'm trapped between two wide-backed business types and a swarthy goateed man smiling at a woman in a lime, stretchy miniskirt.

“Let's go upstairs.” Jessie says. I nod and follow. Blood rushes to my head. The gin.

The second floor is more tables. It's as sterile as a hospital cafeteria.

The third floor, strangely enough, is carpeted in mauve, reminiscent of holidays spent in my grandparents' living room on Long Island. At one end of the floor is a square bar with a female bartender dressed identically to the one downstairs. A sheer glass wall shows off the piping and stainless steel vats where the house drafts are brewed.

I order the pilsner and Jessie gets a German beer called Dunkel. Pint in hand, I turn to Jessie who, unceremoniously, has already begun imbibing, so I peer once, straight through the suds to the bottom of my glass, and swallow. The beer is crisp and delicious, even more so than I remembered. I can't peel my gaze from Jessie. Her body in profile, a brand new angle for me, mesmerizes.

I take another swig; then I'm talking. She looks straight at me with those reflective eyes. I've started without knowing what I'm saying until I start hearing myself. It's as if I'm making a long-distance phone call with a two-second delay. I'm going on about my days in law school, how nervous I was about the bar. She's looking at me, laughing occasionally. Really we're gushing.

At some point she turns to me, brushing my calf, intentionally or not, while resting her feet on the rung of my stool.

“Another round?” I ask.

“I better start heading back to the office. Tyler should be here soon.”

I make a quarter turn to her, lowering my hand toward her thigh, before dropping it in my own lap.

She smiles. I feel myself blushing.

On the stairs, she squeezes my hand and then lets it go before we reach the lobby.

Outside, the circus is in full swing, the sky an indefinite orange. Neon colors illuminate her face. The sun is probably in the middle of setting but it makes no difference under the skyscrapers and billboards.

We're crossing over 8th Avenue, a short sprint from the office when I catch her hand, step into an alcove, and pull her toward me. Her tongue moves aggressively over mine. Then she slows—a moment of softness before it's over.

Back on 44th, we're sitting on stone stairs a few buildings from the office.

“You like it here?” I say. “At the firm?”

“Yeah, of course I like it. It's a great firm.”

“Do you want to work on this next case with me?”

“The lady at the health clinic?”

“Doreen,” I say.

“Oh, look. There he is,” she says.

Tyler's too far to discern us in the dusk. I press my lips against the base of her neck. But she doesn't react.

Tyler's a baby-faced guy in tight, brand new jeans. Jessie greets him with a kiss on the cheek.

“Tyler, this is Tom,” she says. “Tom's my boss. We're working on a case together.”

Tyler and I shake hands and with a wave they start off. I sit back down and watch them go. It's my direction too, but I don't want to leave just yet. The old warmth is rising over me like waves.

3

T
here's rustling in my bed.

“Oh no. Baby...”

I turn over and see Raina carting Ben out of the room. It's wet beneath my hand. The scent of urine.

5:32
a.m.
I'm awake. And I feel remarkably good. To evade the puddles Ben has left on Raina's side, I slither, crab-like, down the length of the bed as if her body were still lying there.

I pull off our blanket and wrench the sheets and the pillowcases. Ben's bed is damp and I strip it too. I gather everything, stuff it into a laundry bag, and go about making the beds with fresh sheets, tucking them in hospital corners the way my dad taught me. He learned in the army. I prop Elmo up next to Ben's pillow.

I expect to find Ben soaking in a bath, but he's kneeling on the bathmat in his little robe, already squeaky clean, hair parted, babbling nonsensically and directing an interaction between a pirate and a dolphin on the lip of the tub while watching his mother shower through a part in the curtain. Eyes closed, head back, her sturdy body gleams beneath the rush of water, indifferent to our presence.

“Off to the laundromat,” I say.

I kissed my assistant. I kissed Jessie. Or we kissed each other. Already it seems a peculiar memory, thrilling and distant.

* * *

By eleven a steady
rain rules out a trip to the Central Park Zoo. Raina reads the
Times
and Ben crawls in circles with his firetruck. WKCR plays softly from the radio in the kitchen. A dull pressure in my head undermines my efforts to concentrate, and gradually my morning vigor evaporates like an untended pot of boiling water.

At half past noon, I tell Raina she should go out if she wants while I stay and put Ben down for his nap. Ben is too tired to protest after his untimely shock into wakefulness this morning, and is actually grateful to have one of us lie with him.

After sending Ben on a forced trip to the toilet, we lie down on his short, freshly made bed and I read to him from
The Polar Express
. He's asleep before the train makes it to the North Pole. I'm tired too, but it's too cramped for me to sleep and my mind continues to churn.

I gaze at my son's handsome face: a mop of dark brown hair, a thin upturned nose, a dimpled chin. Six months ago, he'd been red complexioned, chubby in the cheeks and under the neck, but overnight it seemed the baby-fat had fallen away and he'd emerged, like a tulip bulb from beneath a winter frost, a knockout. Three-year-olds are cute, particularly in the eyes of their progenitors, but Ben stopped traffic. I can't recall a subway ride where he hasn't been the recipient of lavish praise. Frank reports the same. It's hard to say what exactly is so appealing about his appearance. But there it is: a universal charm. Ben's a natural with a crowd. Cal sees profit and counsels Raina on starting him in modeling and acting. I've tried to picture my son in a Pull-Ups commercial. All those smiling children on TV have to belong to somebody.

I fix on his eyes. His eyes are mine.

My mind stumbles on last night's walk home. Ninth Avenue glows and sways with the novelty of Friday-night New York. Snarling, shiny-eyed faces realized by drink and privilege. The windows of cabs, limos, sports bars, chic eateries.

I'd paused in the entryway of my building, staring into the antique mirror. Music was spilling out of one of the units upstairs. This was a rarity ever since Raina and I'd been grandfathered into our rent-stabilized one-bedroom apartment in one of the tamer buildings on the block. Her father, Dr. Stoltz, a professor of urban planning at NYU, had put her on the lease before retiring to a nursing home in Connecticut.

It turned out the music was coming from our place. The Beatles maybe. As I climbed the stairs, laughter and stomping joined the mix. I peered through the peephole in the front door.

Ben danced into view. He was naked and twisting wildly, mimicking the break-dancers he'd seen in Union Square. Then Frank's slight figure. He too was naked, save for a pair of boxer-briefs. I was shocked and momentarily frozen. Things looked bizarre and sinister in a way that's hard to explain. My right hand balled into a fist tight enough to ache. What was he doing here? And where was Raina? But then Frank disappeared and returned with pajamas, which he waved coaxingly in front of Ben.

“I don't want to get dressed,” my son moaned.

“Sorry,” said Frank, hitting pause on the stereo, “but you're going to catch cold. We can't start the music again until you put on your pajamas.”

Ben started to cry, but it wasn't one of those deep cries. It was the same I'm-not-getting-just-what-I-want cry that gets me flustered because I know he's not going to listen to me.

But Frank held his ground. He said something like, “C'mon man, you gotta cooperate, I want to keep dancing too, but it's time to put on some clothes. I'm gonna put on mine. Then we can listen to two more songs before bed.” Ben looked to his belly for a moment of reflection, before conceding, “Alriiiight,” and allowing Frank to dress him.

Alright? I couldn't believe it. Ben never cooperates like that with me when I'm laboring to get him out the door in the morning. Not that quickly. Frank was good. Really good.

I saw for the first time that Ben's hair was wet. My son didn't like to wear clothes after a bath. Frank had stripped down for bath time so Ben wouldn't soak his clothes with all the splashing. I often did the same.

I let myself in the house while Frank was dressing.

“You go away!” Ben said when he saw me.

It turned out Raina had phoned Frank last minute. She was probably getting drunk somewhere with Cal.

I let Frank put Ben to bed and then paid him. When he was gone, I dug out the Johnny Walker from the back of the liquor cabinet, twisted off the plastic seal, took a swig, and put it back.

* * *

The rain's picked up,
audibly thumping the lids of the trashcans in the courtyard. I crawl over Ben and leave him to sleep.

In the past, September weekends meant catching an early train to Raina's childhood home where her mom would serve up a hearty lunch; after which, like two teenagers, we'd borrow the Subaru for an unmapped spin through brilliant-hued Hudson Valley where we'd hike a mountain, drink a bottle of local wine, fuck like bunny rabbits, sleep at a B&B or else in Raina's tent, fuck some more, pick six bags of apples, drop off the car, and return home in time to dish out dinners at the Holy Apostle Soup Kitchen. Though ostensibly our excuse for not venturing north this fall will be our three-year-old and Raina's new job, our last private getaway or act of community service precedes both boy and job.

On NY1, there's a report about the Transit Union's plan to renegotiate worker contracts with the MTA. Thousands of miles away, two ill-conceived wars are being fought. Meanwhile, New Orleans remains underwater.

There's an invitation in the mail for my high-school reunion.

I sink into the couch and listen to the quieter sound of the rain as it falls, leaking a steady sigh into the apartment.