Burning Down the House (22 page)

A
WOMAN TOOK
their jackets and Alix snooped after her, looking into the enormous closet, a room really, lined with hooks. On the hooks were baseball caps layered three or more deep. All teams, all colors, a preponderance of black caps. A billionaire's mudroom. He could wear a different cap every day. Alix pictured him grabbing a fresh cap as he sauntered out of his townhouse, into a waiting car or perhaps for a stroll with one of his dogs a couple of blocks away in Central Park, his unlined face shaded beneath the brim. Or did he have someone else pick out his hat for him? She had been in so many houses like this, but she never entirely understood the inhabitants or felt a part of this world. She preferred apartment dwelling, and little help. She was a hermit, in a way, and too many objects and servants made her uncomfortable.

She followed Ian from the ground floor up a curving staircase, swept along by the flow of people. Ian rushed ahead; he'd meant to be there earlier but she had been late to meet him at the theater, and he wanted to get to the performers upstairs to run over a few things. Alix felt nervous on his behalf. These fancy benefits in private homes. Special previews for the heavy donors. Creating buzz, building interest, giving an inside peek. An easy audience, but still. Everything had to go smoothly, perfectly. Or what? What would actually happen, she wondered. Would the god of disappointed benefactors spoil the show? Would tomatoes rain down from the 1940s French light fixtures? What was at stake, really? Was she sensible to question the value of these events, or was she being haughty? Did she not understand because she had never had to work for a living? But she did work, she had been working on her monograph on medieval art for fifteen years, and she lived modestly, could afford a room for baseball caps but chose not to have one. Did this make her better? Or was she a phony? Should she live in a double-wide house and collect art? Someone had to support artists. Of course she did support artists. Hadn't she supported Ian for years until he could support himself? Didn't she give? In fact, hadn't she paid to attend this fund-raiser? Of course she had. The rich people needed the artists and the artists needed the rich people. They were all connected. No one was pure. Everyone was complicit. Some fortunes were built on a crime, but most weren't. Money was neither good nor evil; only people were.

The champagne was excellent. Her thoughts were bubbling. Her vision the teensiest bit pixilated. Was that a Picasso? Why yes it was. And over there, did she recognize a de Kooning? So many powerful images in one room it felt a bit like a boxing ring. She was punched from every side by muscular, perspective-wrenching paintings, manly agonies assaulting her wherever she turned. This was like being in a poorly hung museum. Too many masterpieces on one floor. She decided to keep heading upstairs.

In the library more-contemporary works mingled with objects and books. A Guston drawing, a Marden print, an Agnes Martin, yes! A woman artist, finally. She could be happy here. A Lisa Yuskavage painting. Well, now, she might just sit down. As she entered the room farther she noticed that in the corner sat a woman reading, wearing a long Fortuny silk gown, looking not the least bit overdressed or out of place. She sported significant jewelry on her bare arms and around her neck, interesting, complicated, yet elegant arrangements of metals and stones. Her face, on closer inspection, was shockingly asymmetrical. She was sexy and unsexy. It turned out, after she and Alix had struck up a conversation, that she was also the woman of the house, the billionaire's wife. Alix vaguely recognized her, an actress in a former life and now a mother, a philanthropist, a supporter of the arts. But not musicals. She detested musicals. That's why she was hiding out in the library. Zinging piano music leaped and kicked its way up the stairs, seeming to illustrate her point. Alix confessed that she didn't much care for musicals either, but that she was there to cheer on a friend. She said goodbye to the woman, Genevieve was her name, and went back to the parlor floor for the presentation.

It was a beautiful night so they decided to walk downtown, all the way home. It could have been so pleasant, but it wasn't. Alix had had too much to drink and Ian was distracted, unintentionally provoking her with his lack of interest.

You know I realized something tonight, she said.

What was that?

I don't like musicals.

Ah. Thanks. My life's work.

Oh please, you're taking this personally?

No, no, of course not.

I just realized that I don't respond to that kind of theater, that's all.

I get it. Thank you.

Isn't it a little interesting? Aren't you the least bit curious how someone could not like something you like?

They ambled along Fifth Avenue, past stores as imposing and massive as Greek temples, painted gods and goddesses posing in the windows.

People have different tastes.

Yes, but I'd think you'd want to understand those tastes.

You know, Alix, some of us have to make a living.

Of course! I know that. You think I don't understand that?

No. I don't. But don't take it personally.

Well, you're wrong. I understand it perfectly. We all have to make a living, even if we don't have to make money. Everyone has to make a life.

That's what I mean…

What?

You don't get it.

Should we have this out? Finally? This unspoken conversation that's been simmering between us all these years? Because if you resent me for my family circumstances you should know by now that they've been pretty fucking miserable.

I don't resent—

Yes, you do! You're jealous.

Ian laughed. No, no, I'm not.

You wouldn't even know if you were, that's how little insight you have.

So who's resentful? Sounds like you think I don't understand you, don't appreciate your pain.

That about sums it up. Yes. She kept going: And you have such naïve views about money anyway, as if you don't benefit from the rich as much as anyone. As if money isn't what we make of it.

She continued: Morality is the real issue. Humanity.

Yes, she said, if an immoral person has access to great wealth they can misuse it, but it's not inevitable. And if an immoral person without money wants to act out their problems, then they can do a lot of damage with very little money, believe me.

Are you finished? he asked.

Yes, she was calming down.

So we're equally disappointed in each other, he said. A perfect match.

Her head was hurting, her feet were hurting. She wished she could take off her heels and walk barefoot on the sidewalk.

He wanted to tell her about Poppy, almost told her about Poppy, needed to show her that his pain, his guilt, his unhappiness, his predicament, were so much worse than she knew. But then he let it go. Some of it was cowardice; he didn't want to get into morality or humanity right now, maybe not ever, with her, on the subject of Poppy. Some of it was pity for her, for Alix. Some of it was friendly love and some of it was the distance that comes from growing, gradually, apart.

A perfect match, she repeated.

The white and screaming lights from a gargantuan storefront lit up her dry, brittle, shoulder-length hair. A demented and drooping halo. What had happened? She had been his best friend for so long. Was it just the secret between them now creating an abyss? No, he thought, it wasn't just that. She was right. It was true. He had taken her horribly for granted. The rest of the walk they discussed trivial matters. They had exhausted this topic of conversation.

T
ODAY WHAT FASCINATES
Felix is the history of the Zane family, about which he has been told nothing. When Poppy falls onto his bed, sleepy, hair in her face, looking a complicated combination of crazy and serene, she asks him to tell her what he is researching online.

Our distinguished forefather: “Ebenezer Zane was an American pioneer, road builder, and land speculator.”

You're sure we're related to him? I don't think so.

It makes sense. He was in real estate.

Everyone is in real estate.

Poppy, is that true?

Just go on, keep reading.

With his brothers Silas and Jonathan—Jonathan!—he headed west and established Fort Henry in 1769. “During the Revolutionary War, Zane and his brothers defended Fort Henry against two Native American attacks.”

Interesting.

He had a sister!

No way.

Her name was Elizabeth. They called her Betty. “She was celebrated for her courage during the second siege in September 1782 when she left the fort to retrieve a much needed keg of gunpowder and sprinted safely under a hail of gunfire.”

Just like me, said Poppy. An American heroine.

Then he built some other stuff. A town in Ohio was named after him. He died of jaundice in 1811.

Our ancestor.

So you believe me?

No.

You're so annoying today. So negative.

Wow, if you think I'm more annoying and negative than usual I must be really bad.

Not bad, just unhappy. I think, said Felix.

Who made you the most understanding person in the world?

Ebenezer Zane.

Well, I didn't get those genes. And anyway he sounds like a militaristic land grabber to me.

I think it's really cool to have a family lineage that goes back to the American Revolution. If you don't think so that's your loss.

Brother, I'm nothing but loss.

Poppy, don't be so bleak. It's not all grim.

You keep researching Ebenezer and our distinguished ancestors. You do that. I'm going to go back to my room to keep crying. Or maybe I'll do it outside.

Poppy…

No really, I shouldn't be bothering you.

I like having you here. Even when you're a dark cloud.

She kisses him on the head and says as she leaves the room:

Excuse me, I have to go rain.

It's there, in that moment, that she sees that she has gone away, been transported, is watching herself as if she were onstage. The sounds ripple from her mouth in waves she cannot comprehend. Her gestures are theatrical, otherworldly, seen under the light of a glowing moon, clouds racing across its surface, casting strobelike shadows on the player. Who is this girl so desperately unhappy, so transparent, so at odds with the world? This performance captures an essential, universal sadness, and it is too painful for her to watch.

She manages to toss some items into a bag and get herself out the door. She would have died if she hadn't gotten out of the apartment. The spring air punches her in the face in a good way, she feels like a cartoon character, thwacked, with a blast of sweet smells and breezy nonchalance. But then she notices the chill, it is late afternoon, a cool day near the end of May, and she is pissed that she didn't bring a jacket. Her arms are bare and cold. Her jeans have a rip. She walks downtown, half thoughtlessly, half intentionally, not knowing how such a mental state is possible but it appears that it is. She knows where she is going, but she doesn't allow herself to really know. Such is her disorganized, post-traumatic-stress-disordered brain filled with the colors of the budding branches all soft and pastel and curving and bending, surging and dipping, like gentle fireworks, blurry, in slow motion, frozen in midair. The world is an explosion of pink and white, lavender and yellow, and she walks under the archway of trees along the park side of the street for several blocks until she turns eastward and heads in the direction of Not-Jasper's apartment. He has been providing her with a steady supply of that pill he gave her the first time they met. And even though he sickens her, she hates him, he is evil, she cannot forget those little, well, actually they aren't so little, pills. And now he hasn't been in school for a few days, hasn't returned her texts, and so she has been going kind of crazy. She thinks she remembers what building he lives in, something east of Second Avenue, a forgettable old structure squeezed in between two postwar buildings, a buzzer, a tiny elevator. She recalls the aroma of takeout Asian fusion and exterminator fluid that filled the cramped space as they rode up together. Now she waits outside while no one answers the intercom. She hunches over her phone and texts again, fingers whizzing over the letters, while simultaneously leaning against the buzzer. Normally she would not be so rude as to let the whiny honk of the intercom drone on but she figures his parents—Does he really even have parents? she wonders—are probably not home and he doesn't deserve decent treatment anyway. He deserves to go to jail but she doesn't know how to make that happen, is too ashamed to tell anyone what occurred, too enthralled by the pills, too messed up at this point to think clearly about consequences, values, safety, love…

His legs appear first, running down the stairs. Of course he wouldn't take the elevator when he was alone, he's too big for it. His torso shows up next and then he comes forward, disjointed by all the panes of thick glass in the double doors of the building. He arrives in pieces, fragments of a classical sculpture, only this one wearing a hoodie and sneakers, jeans, a wool hat. His eyes wary, narrow, stoned, angry.

Hey. What are you doing here?

The heavy glass door swings shut slowly behind him. He doesn't invite her in. They talk on the low stone steps of the building.

Why haven't you been in school?

He pushes his hands into his pockets, looks to the side.

I got kicked out.

What? It's almost the end of the year. I thought that was basically impossible.

Well, I managed to pull it off. It helps if you're on financial aid.

She pushes her hair behind her ear and shivers a little in the dusky shadows of the unexpectedly pretty trees that line the street.

Okay, whatever, I don't even care why they kicked you out. But why haven't you answered my texts?

I've been busy.

Busy? Are you kidding?

No, I'm not kidding. What do you want from me?

You know exactly what I want from you.

He steps down to the sidewalk and leads her to the side of the building. They walk to a darker spot, in the dimmest shadows, near a dripping air conditioner that sticks out of a first-floor window, held in by duct tape and rusted metal bars.

I'm out. I don't have any more.

She closes her eyes and lifts her eyebrows in mock astonishment and real displeasure.

Nice. You get me into those and now you don't have any more. Thank you.

He does a more contemptuous version of rolling his eyes.

You know I could tell someone what you did, she says.

It's too late. You blew that one. And anyway, I've already been expelled for something else. What are you going to do?

I should send you to jail, you asshole. Tears in her eyes now.

He digs his hands farther into his pockets. He blows air out slowly, very slowly, she can't believe how long it goes on.

He turns his head to the side again and says, I can take you to the guys who have it. I don't have any money to get it myself but I'll take you to them. He looks at her, his forehead creasing like a matinee idol's over his unreadable eyes, and says: If you want. Then he looks away.

That sounds creepy, she says. Where are they?

He shrugs.

It's a subway ride.

How long a subway ride?

Does it matter?

She gathers along the way that it is indeed a long ride. When the subway lifts up, elevating on its thin outdoor track, high above the streets, levitating, it feels like to her, and she looks out over the city vast and leviathan, the tangled, cluttered, seamless stretch of buildings and streets like the oceanic debris scattered across a whale's back, the blinking lights arriving like stars drowning in the sea, the whale beneath it all sloping and drifting, the city an animal afloat on the water, half submerged, a dark living rock, she thinks she should exit, get away, turn back. Why didn't she just give him some money and tell him to go by himself? Because she thought he wouldn't return with the stuff? Because she was afraid he would rip her off? How crazy is that? He is more than a thief, more than a liar, she has put herself in peril and thrown her lot in with a bad guy, worse than a lunatic, an exploiter, a user, an amoral force. But the necessary strength to escape does not emerge. She finds herself fixed to the plastic seat, face pointed toward the view, the lights that looked like drowning stars now glinting like fires burning on a plain, the last pale haze of day having settled into early night. No, this is insanity, she tells herself. I am not watching myself on a stage. There is no moonlight. There is no magic that will save me; I am going to have to save myself. I do not want to ferry myself toward some false shore of safety, some story that I once believed in but now know better. She thinks of Felix, of Ian, of Steve. Steve, she once thought he would make her whole. Ian, she once loved him, can't find that emotion anymore, only ache. Felix, sweet Felix, she hopes he never feels anything like this. All of the people she has thrown her dreams onto speed past in the darkening window, reflections of the stories in her head. Then she remembers Neva, and the strong presence—an emanation, a beam of light in her brain—gives her a rush of hope. The next stop she manages to haul her body upward and clutches her bag as she stands to move toward the doors. But his hand is on her skin. It encircles her arm above her wrist. A dread coagulates around her heart. The sallow lights come on inside the subway car, which is practically empty. He tightens his grip.

I don't think so, he says.