The Book of Jonah (15 page)

When Brett was gone, Sylvia gave Jonah a kiss—lips parted, lascivious and lingering—and then she drew away, skipped across the floorboards to the center of the room. “I love it,” she said, spinning and swinging her bag.

“I do, too,” he answered—though this love was more theoretical than felt. He could recognize the New York–real-estate-porn characteristics of the place: the high-end appliances, the exposed beams, the double-height windows, and the rest. But he couldn't quite gather these features together to form a coherent reaction to them. What he really loved was how happy Sylvia was.

“We could put those walls up,” she said, this time leaving no room for doubt about what she alluded to. “Jonah,” she said to him. “Can't you picture our life here?”

She had settled beside one of the beams, her bag hanging from the bend in her elbow, one foot in a black ballet flat tucked behind the other, was staring toward the back wall, the longest in the loft, with her index finger resting lightly on her nose—silent and smiling, as though even the bare wall was a source of delight. She rarely assumed such moods, such poses. Her job required seriousness: She worked on deals involving billions of dollars, thousands of jobs, international parties. That seriousness—the hours and the effort of it—inevitably bled into the rest of her life, made the moments such as these, when her whole attention was captured by a seemingly undisturbed happiness, fewer, and harder to sustain. He recognized the same in himself.

He was struck now by an entirely new feeling toward her: compassion. He felt, so strongly, that she deserved ease, contentment, glee—wow features and children and whatever else she imagined of an orgiastic future she could see as if projected on the long blank wall she stared at. He loved her. He felt the truth of this with such simple and perfect clarity. And in the same moment of inarguable lucidity, he understood that they had no future—here or anywhere—together.

They had been set up by mutual friends on a blind date: strolled through an exhibition at the Whitney called “Metaphysics and the Modern,” and then ate dinner at a Middle Eastern fusion restaurant. It had surprised both of them how well it went: to find the other attractive, and successful career-wise, and intelligent, and funny at times, and not possessed of any ruinous quality that torpedoed most blind dates. Maybe merely that surprise had been enough to inspire a second date, and then a few more—and then the ball was rolling and here they were.

It seemed to him now, though, that each time they increased the seriousness of their relationship, it had been done with the expectation that at this point—at last—things would be truly good between them. Because from the start there had been fights: the petty squabbles and skirmishes of their early days evolving into the open brawling of recent months. And, of course, up until the day before, he had been cheating. They weren't stupid, they both knew something was wrong. But it was as if they believed they could find a solution if only they burrowed deeply enough within their relationship: if they only saw more of each other; saw only each other; if they lived together.

Jonah now understood that this was false hope—a sustaining myth between them. They didn't struggle on account of a failure to find the solution to their problems: There was not some mode of togetherness that would make her feel secure in his respect for her upbringing (rich and Republican), properly supported in her career; would make him feel that her love had depth and warmth, that she wanted to be with him and not a version of him she might fashion. Their problems were a fact of their togetherness itself.

It made him nauseous again, to understand—with the sudden force of revelation—that for all the fighting, for all the relationship work, for all the efforts of two very capable people, for whatever they might ignore, tolerate, learn to live with, for all the nights on the couch, the takeout and delivery and movies and restaurants and exhibits and cocktails and mornings shopping in SoHo and afternoons lazing in Central Park, for all the thoughtful gifts, vacations, orgasms—for the time in Cape Cod when she had emerged from the water in her red bikini and flopped beside him on the sand and in that moment his heart had almost overflowed with a sense of undiluted contentment—for all the luxuries of any loft they might share: Something would always be missing.

“This would be our home,” she said.

Now was the time to tell her: about Zoey, about what he'd seen, all of it. Didn't he owe her the truth when he recognized it? “Sylvia,” he said.

She had her hands behind her head, elbows in the air, adjusting the bobby pin in her hair—she twisted at the waist and their eyes met. She had caught something in his tone—already there was a tension, the anticipation of disappointment, in her face. But hadn't he decided—that he would ignore— The thought seemed to stumble into pieces as it formed. What, exactly, did this have to do with God?

“You don't like it,” she said, her hands dropping, her smile closing.

The nausea was growing. “No,” Jonah said defiantly. “No, I love it. And I love you. And I want it—I want to live here with you.” He was hurrying toward the elevator as he said this, pushed the button. “I'm going to tell him.”

“You—really?”

Still not looking at her—wanting to avoid the dubious look he knew she was giving him, wanting to avoid the doubts of his own—he pulled open the elevator door as it arrived, said, “Just need some air, but I'll—security deposit.”

He made it to the ground floor and out of the building. Unfortunately, the humidity had thickened as the morning continued, and he managed only a few steps toward his intended target—the metal-caged base of a tree—before he vomited an incompletely digested bagel onto the sidewalk. After that, he dry-heaved for several minutes, beads of sweat dripping from his forehead onto the ground. Maybe there were worse things than the lightning bolt.

A paper napkin appeared at the corner of his eye. He looked up from his doubled-over position. Brett was offering him the napkin, smiling sympathetically. Jonah took it, wiped his mouth. “I have breath mints when you're ready,” he said.

“Thanks,” muttered Jonah, still doubled over.

“Few too many last night?”

“Something like that.”

Brett nodded with understanding. He held out another, clean napkin, with this took the dirty one from Jonah, walked to a trash can, and threw them away. When he returned, Jonah straightened, and Brett gave him a breath mint.

“I think we want the place,” Jonah said. “Don't hold this against us, okay?”

Brett laughed. “When I was at Lehman I used to do that every morning. I used to spend twenty dollars at dinner, tip the waiter a hundred so he'd charge me three, expense the whole thing, and then use the other two hundred to buy coke. EAB, we called it: expense account blow. And you know what I worked on? Sure, I'll say it. Mortgage-backed securities. Jonah, I've learned not to hold anything against anyone.”

The nausea returned and Jonah was doubled over with dry heaving again. Brett continued, “I've learned that nothing matters in this world except happiness. That's an incredibly liberating idea. Look at this magnificent, sunny day!” The muscles of Jonah's torso felt as if they were trying to yank themselves free of the bones of his rib cage; he was physically incapable of moving his head to look at anything but the puddle of vomit on the sidewalk directly beneath him. “When I worked at Lehman, do you think I ever took a moment to appreciate this?” He sighed with satisfaction. “Forget the past. Forget the future. How are you doing right now? Right this second?” Jonah's stomach spasmed violently, and a guttural anti-chortle shook out of his windpipe. “Jonah, maybe you'd be interested in meeting my guru.”

Finally, Jonah collapsed back into a seated position, his face dripping, his arms limp at his sides. Brett was holding out a business card—Jonah reached up and took it. It had a picture of a sage white man with a long gray beard; phone numbers and a URL and a Twitter handle appeared beneath the words “Guru Phil,” written in a mustard-yellow Oriental font.

“This is some kind of … Eastern thing?”

“Not exclusively,” Brett said. “Guru Phil teaches the best of Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, and Hinduism. His message is one of universal love, acceptance, and self-esteem. Jonah, I think he could help you. Guru Phil will show you that whatever your drinking is about, it's really not that important.”

“I'm not an alcoholic,” Jonah answered, offering the card back.

Brett chuckled knowingly. “You know how I knew I wasn't an alcoholic? Because I took a quiz online. The guru teaches that it doesn't matter what's on the Internet. True knowledge can only be found on the inner-net.”

Jonah found this unspeakably corny—but it was clear Brett wasn't going to relent and take the card back, so he put it in his pocket. Brett looked pleased. He helped Jonah to his feet and gave him another two breath mints.

“Can we not make a point of mentioning this to Sylvia?” Jonah said—ashamed enough at having to ask this that he felt his cheeks redden.

“No problem,” Brett said. “Just make me one promise. The next time you think about having a drink—”

“I'm really not an alcoholic.”

“Remind yourself that God loves you, and Jesus loves you, and the Buddha loves you, and the Prophet Muhammad loves you, and all these faces of God love you for one simple reason: Because. You. Exist.” He put his hand on Jonah's shoulder. “I exist. You exist. You exist, Jonah.”

“I know.”

“You exist,” Brett repeated, nodding.

“How much is the security deposit?”

“It's eighteen thousand dollars. Plus the broker's fee. You exist, Jonah.”

“Let's go upstairs now, Brett.”

*   *   *

Sylvia and Jonah ate lunch (Jonah had a salad, for which Sylvia praised him, but really there was nothing else on the menu he could stomach), and then they got on the subway to go to his apartment. She had a couple of hours of work to do before dinner; he would begin filling out the paperwork for the loft so they could submit their application on Monday morning. Sylvia held Jonah's arm as they descended the subway steps, discussing possible furniture configurations for the loft. He still felt physically overwrought, emotionally overwhelmed, and on top of that was enduring the itch of a nicotine craving—entirely familiar, even after all these years. But he was thinking he could at least take a nap before dinner, which would help on all fronts.

“What if we ask my friend Maya to help us decorate?” Sylvia said as they swiped their MetroCards at the turnstile. “Do you know who Patrick Robinson and Virginia Smith are?” She knew she didn't need to bother to wait for his response. “She did their townhouse in Tribeca.”

“I dunno,” Jonah said, pushing through the turnstile behind her. “Wouldn't it be better if we did it ourselves?”

“This from a man who didn't even own a bath mat when we met,” Sylvia laughed, taking his arm again as they descended another set of stairs to the platform. “It's not like either of us has the time over the next few months to go hunting around for furniture. Besides, I'd only ask Maya where to go. Why not have her go there for us?”

“Yeah, but hiring a decorator, doesn't that seem a little…” He wiped his forehead with his hand; it was fifteen degrees hotter on the subway platform than it was outside. “I just think it's a little bourgie,” he told her.

She drew in her lips briefly, let go of his arm, took out her phone. Scrolling through emails, she said, “It's going to take a lot longer to do it ourselves.”

“That's okay with me.”

She held down the button to lock the phone, dropped it back in her bag. She hadn't taken off her sunglasses when they headed down into the subway, was facing across the platform to the tracks—a view that, with or without sunglasses, was a barely differentiated field of sooty grays and dust-blackened rusts and browns. “You realize that this is something I'll have to do, right? If we don't hire a decorator, it's going to fall on me to furnish and decorate our apartment?”

“I'll help.”

“You'll veto.”

She was right, of course—and by way of acknowledging this, he rested a clammy hand on her lower back. “Can I at least talk to Maya before we hire her? I mean, I feel like if it's your friend, it will skew toward your style, and okay, maybe that's inevitable, but I just want it to be clear when you walk in that a guy lives there, too.”

She was looking into his face, he could see her eyes darting to watch his behind the honey-colored lenses of the sunglasses. “Why are we fighting about this?” she asked.

He hadn't even noticed that they were fighting—or rather, hadn't noticed any difference between it and not fighting. He said—to reassure himself as much as her—“Apartment hunting is stressful. But that doesn't mean we aren't making the right decision.”

She leaned her head forward and rested it on his chest, wrapped her arms around his back. “Jesus, you're sweaty,” she laughed.

“It's fucking eight thousand degrees down here.” And she laughed again. He kissed her on the top of her head. It wasn't easy—to love her so much and to end up fighting so often. Then with a tremendous Doppler roar and grinding of hundred-year-old metal against metal and the labored moan of air brakes and brake pads and the cataclysm of thousands of pounds of subway train redistributing its weight from speed to stillness as it foreshortened madly toward them—the train was in the station.

The subway wasn't crowded; they took two seats toward the middle of the car. “I wish you could stay tonight,” he said to Sylvia. He'd immediately felt better entering the hyperactively air-conditioned train—believed he could spend the rest of the afternoon sitting there.

“I'll bet you do,” she said.