Hangman's Game (32 page)

A quick Google search that night at home confirmed what I suspected, which was that Joyce DeWitt is actually the name of an actress on the '70s sitcom
Three's Company
, which now reruns daily on basic cable. In the show, DeWitt's character was the dark-haired “smart one,” and her most rebellious act was to trick Mr. Roper into letting two girls have a male roommate, by telling the landlord that he was gay. Green Day's name is in fact a reference to a fondness for marijuana.

It is nearly 10:00
P.M.
, and Jessica's house is glowing with electricity, a sure sign that her husband Dan hasn't returned from his trip. Jessica likes to keep every light in her house turned on while she is awake. Her husband, as befits an ambitious Fed official moving in a socially aware universe, favors a more environmentally conscious policy toward energy use; when he is home he dims as many lights as he can. Then he goes away and Jessica returns to draining the power grid.

I ring the bell.

“Who is it?” I hear Jessica call from what sounds like a couple of rooms away.

“Norman Fell,” I answer, as lightheartedly as I can while shouting through a door. “I've come about the rent.”

I hear footsteps approaching, and Jessica opens the door with a dramatic swing. Which is in itself a surprise, because when I visit she usually pulls the door back slowly, shielding herself behind it, lest we be seen together by her neighbors for even a second. She imagines someone might be taking pictures.

But tonight she stands unabashed in the doorway, wearing a loose white tank top that shows off the lean musculature of her arms, and billowy paisley pants. Her black hair is pinned up in a way that accentuates the sleekness of her features—the dark narrow eyes, the high cheeks, the thin aquiline nose that she swore to me had never been worked on.

“Now why in the world would Norman Fell see Joyce DeWitt about the rent?” she sneers. “Mr. Roper would see Janet about the rent. I would call that a subtle difference, but it isn't really that subtle, is it?”

The banter seems light enough in its content, but the energy behind the words is decidedly sharper.

“You're right,” I say. “This really isn't about the rent.”

She narrows her eyes.

“Did you come here to let me have it?” she says. “This should be
soooo
good.” She turns her back to me and walks through an arched foyer into the high-ceilinged living room. I follow her, closing the door behind me. She settles into the corner of a red-and-white-patterned sofa with high armrests. The sofa is flanked by two purple slip-covered chairs. On a wooden end table sits a glass of port, a crystal dish filled with walnuts, and a copy of
InStyle
magazine.

Also on the table is a framed photo of her husband, Dan. In the photo he is wearing a suit and sitting at a table, speaking into a microphone. Dan has a slight build, and is pale and completely bald. “Now I know what Moby would have looked like if he had gone to business school,” I joked when I first saw the photo a few years ago. “He is testifying before Congress in that picture,” Jessica responded. “Believe it or not, some people might find that more impressive than kicking a football.” She could cheat on Dan, but she would not let me run him down in her presence.

“Can I get you something to drink?” Jessica says, though she is deeply nestled into her seat and making no gesture toward moving. “Maybe some white wine? I have a half-open bottle of barely adequate Sancerre in the fridge. You would probably like it. Though it seems that lately you prefer champagne. Or is that only in the afternoon?”

So she did see the photo of Melody and me.

“I should have come by sooner,” I say.

“It's fine.” Jessica yawns. “I know how busy you've been.”

Her line echoes a running joke between us, born from our indolent afternoons together. When one of us proposes a future rendezvous, and the other seems to wonder if that time would work, the other quickly inserts, “I know how busy you are.” The joke being that, especially out of football season, neither of us is ever all that busy.

“It seems like you found the time to buy yourself some new clothes,” Jessica continues dryly. I am wearing a thin light blue sweater, part of my Boyd's haul. “I suppose it does force you to upgrade your wardrobe, when you know the paparazzi are going to be taking your picture.”

I feel like she is baiting me to bring up what she did to my apartment. She wants me to raise the heat.

I cross my legs, spread my arms and lean back in my chair. “Funny how long we lasted, isn't it,” I say. “Three years. It's not something I ever expected.”

“I certainly didn't,” Jessica says. “Not with the way you talked.”

“Talked—about what?” We have never discussed our future, beyond the next date, as far as I can recall.

“You are always going on about how punters don't have any job security,” she says. “You make it sound like you could get cut after one bad game.”

“I could,” I said. Punters and kickers are the easiest players to replace. Take one out, plug in another, and you're ready to go. It's not like we have an entire offense to learn.

“That first summer of our little dalliance, your team signed another punter to compete with you in training camp, that guy, Mallard Fillmore.…”

“Phil Mallamore,” I correct.

“I know what his name was,” she says. “But we called him Mallard Fillmore. You made it sound like he was going to take your job. But he didn't. And then last year it was the Australian … What was his name?”

“Liam Menzies.”

“Right. You went on for weeks about how appalling it would be to lose out to a man named Liam.”

“That was a joke. For your amusement.”

“And I'm sure there's some other punter this year that you're all worried about. What's the name this time?”

“Woodward Tolley,” I say. “He's the best one yet, actually.”

“I'm sure. And I bet you've been obsessing about how the Sentinels will cut you any second now. Am I right?”

“It happens,” I say. “All the time.”

“But you made it sound like it would happen to you. We've had good-bye sex more times than I can count, but you've never had the courtesy to actually leave.”

This conversation isn't getting us anywhere, but at least she is speaking with directness and honesty.

“I want to ask you one question,” I say. “And I want you to promise me you'll give an actual answer. No zingers, no deflections, no crazy stories.”

The wineglass in one hand, she reaches back with the other and tugs down on her shirt, which has been slipping revealingly in front. “Fine,” she says, shoulders square. “One question. Go ahead.”

“Thank you,” I say. “Ready?”

“Out with it,” she says with a taunting swirl of her index finger.

“How come you and Dan haven't had any kids?”

She starts a little and her throat tenses, as if she is choking, and then puts down her wine. Then she stands up and walks out of the room. I hear a door closing, and then no more movement. Ten seconds pass. Twenty seconds. A minute.

She is not coming back. I wonder about leaving, but then decide to wait her out.

I study the painting on the wall opposite my chair. It is one of Jessica's, and it is, by her design, impossible to describe. It looks like there might be a wooden table in the foreground. Below the “table” is what I believe to be a human arm—but I am just guessing, and that is the point. Jessica wants her paintings to instill uncertainty. You can see that some sort of figurative action going on, but it is impossible to identify, because she has made the point of view so close. You would need to zoom out by a few factors to take in the full scene. “That's how most people live their lives,” she once explained, tiredly, when I pressed her. “They can't see what's right in front of their faces. Because they're too close to it.” At the time I took her answer as a jibe at her husband; now I wonder if she hadn't been talking about me as well.

I hear a flush, and then Jessica returns, striding swiftly. She repositions herself from the sofa to the purple chair opposite mine, and she sits straight up, legs crossed in those billowy paisley pants, retrenched and ready for battle.

“So this is how it is,” she says. “For three years, we never talk about anything more personal than the ingredients in your smoothies. And now you want to unearth the secrets of Jessica's cold, dark soul?”

She is talking about herself in the third person. Never a good sign.

“That doesn't answer my question,” I say.

“You're not thinking that it's because of you, are you?” she says. “That I haven't had a child with Dan because I'm holding out hope that we can have little baby punters? Is that what you want to hear?”

“No,” I say. “It's the last thing I want to hear, actually.”

“Fine,” she says. She places her hands on her knees, and holds her head high. “Here's the truth. I don't want to have children because I want to put an end to it all. I just don't want things to continue. This is my gift to the world. I am putting an end to it all, or at least I am clipping off my personal branch of the tree. Think globally, act locally…”

“What are you talking about?” I say. “What is it that you don't want to continue?”

She shakes her head. “I promised to answer one question,” she says. “That's a second, and a third. Please, Nick, for the sake of all that is good and holy, in the name of God and football, let's respect the rules of the game.”

She picks up her wine again and resumes drinking, all the while staring me down.

Either Jessica's reason is a dark and difficult one, or she is just being melodramatic and she knows it: she doesn't want to say out loud whatever she is thinking and hear how self-pitying she sounds. She does not want to find out that what she really lacks is not a solution, but courage.

This, after all, is a woman who never attempts to sell her paintings, lest she subject herself to the indignities of the marketplace.

“When is Dan coming home?” I ask, changing tack. Yet another question, but this one she answers.

“Not for a couple days,” she says. “He sent me an iPhone photo last night of himself with some minister from Portugal. Want to see?”

She offers the phone but I decline with a wave.

“My idiot husband, he's figuring out a way to save the European economy,” she says with a forced smile. “Meanwhile, he doesn't have a clue that I've been taking birth control pills for the past four years.”

“He sent me another message today,” I say. “I think he's figured out about us.”

Jessica shakes her head in disgust. “He hasn't figured anything out, trust me.” She unfolds her legs and sips her wine.

“Can we talk about my apartment?” I ask, with almost academic detachment.

“Oh, the apartment,” she answers. “I hope you didn't mind.” She adds a naughty smirk, as if all she has done is play a prank on me.

“How did you get in?” I say. “I bet it is those damn swipe cards, isn't it?”

She nods. “What else would it have been?” she says. “I'm not the crowbar type. I had an old Jefferson card in my handbag.”

“So you go to the front desk…”

“… in a low-cut top with no bra and tell them that my card has been demagnetized. I've been in and out enough.…”

“… that they just assume I gave you one. Very smart.”

“Thank you,” Jessica says triumphantly. “If you lived in a regular apartment with a lock and key, this never would have happened.” I imagine her in my apartment, tossing my clothes, rooting through my refrigerator for bottles to overturn. I wonder if she let her anger show on her face then, if her eyes were aflame, if her movements were suddenly spastic and haphazard rather than graceful and assured.

“How about another favor?” I say.

“What'd you have in mind, Troy?” she says, raising her eyebrows.

In her inviting eyes I see that in spite of what she has done, and all the tension of this evening, we can pick up again right there, just as if nothing has changed, and her vandalism would be shoved away into its compartment, and our clothes would be off in seconds. This episode wouldn't matter at all, except to give fresh confirmation of how little anything matters.

Which sounds good, now that I mention it.

I rise from my chair, walk over to Jessica, remove the wineglass from her hand, and set it on the table. Then I lean down over her chair, slide my index finger gently under her chin, prompting her head to tilt her head back, and I kiss her. Before long I slide my left arm underneath her legs and my right arm around her waist. When I have her secured, I squat down and lift her up. She throws her arms around my neck, and it feels as if the whole of her body is curled into my chest.

I carry her upstairs. It feels like this was my purpose for coming here tonight, I just didn't know it. We arrive at the bedroom and I set her down on top of her crimson comforter. For the first time all night, Jessica's dark eyes relax.

I pull her top off, and then she and I race to remove her bottoms. We remove them together, the pants and her pink cotton panties coming off in one bunch. She falls backward, nude, throwing her arms overhead, waiting for me to settle in on top of her. But I stand up and close the bedroom door. Then I go to the wall switch and flick off the bedroom lights.

From that distance I take in the sight of her lean and shadowy figure. She is lying on her side, the lines of her thin hips and shoulders caught in the dim illumination of the light from the hall seeping under the doorway.

“Get over here,” she breathes. “Now.”

*   *   *

It is nearly 2:00
A.M.
and we are still awake. Jessica lies on her stomach, head turned and resting on her hands, as I sit beside her and run my index and middle fingers slowly up and down her spine. My touch begins as a caress but turns into more of a massage as Jessica urges me to press harder. I groove more deeply with each pass from the top of her neck to the softness of her bottom. Jessica once declared to me, “I want my ass to be as tight as a Coen brothers' movie. Not one of their comedies either. My ass is going to be like
No Country for Old Men
.” Jessica goes to the gym at least five times a week, taking yoga, Pilates, kickboxing, Zumba, and whatever else the teachers roll out. And while her bottom is shapely and firm as a result, it is not quite
No Country for Old Men
. Only in a movie can you actually edit out all the looseness.