The Man of My Dreams (27 page)

AMAZINGLY, UNTIL YESTERDAY
Hannah had never once, during seven years’ worth of appointments, cried in Dr. Lewin’s office. What prompted yesterday’s tears was, as much as anything, the logistics of moving: Earlier in the afternoon, Hannah had gone (for the fourth time in a week) to the shipping store, planning to buy more medium-sized boxes, and the store was out. Back at her apartment, she waited on hold for nearly half an hour in an effort to get her gas turned off and her account closed, then finally hung up the phone when she needed to leave for Dr. Lewin’s. At the T stop, she arrived just in time to see a train pull away, and the next one took so long to come that she was six minutes, or $12.60, late for the appointment. (Dr. Lewin’s sliding fee has slid up over the years.) Plus, it was a grotesquely humid ninety-five degrees, the sun blazing overhead and air conditioners everywhere straining to keep the indoors even moderately cool. Why on earth had she brought along this pink cotton sweater? Hannah set it on the floor next to her chair, which was thick and leather. Her damp skin stuck to it.

“I’m sorry for being late,” she said for the second time.

“It’s really all right,” Dr. Lewin said. “How are moving preparations?”

In reply, Hannah burst into tears. Dr. Lewin passed her a box of tissues, but in the moment, it seemed like a better idea to Hannah just to yank up the neck of her shirt and use it to wipe her eyes and nose.

“You have a lot going on,” Dr. Lewin said.

Hannah shook her head; she couldn’t speak.

“Take your time,” Dr. Lewin said. “Don’t worry about me.”

For another two or three minutes ($4.20 to $6.30), Hannah collected herself but then thought of, well, everything, which started new tears streaming, which necessitated recollecting herself. Eventually, there appeared to be no more tears forthcoming, the cycle sputtered out, and Dr. Lewin said, “Tell me what’s worrying you most.”

Hannah swallowed. “Moving to Chicago isn’t a terrible idea, is it?”

“Well, what’s the worst that could happen?”

“That I get fired, maybe. I mean, probably I could find another job then.”

Dr. Lewin nodded. “Probably you could find another job.”

“I guess the truly worst thing would be if it doesn’t work out with Henry. Am I psycho for moving there if we’re not dating?”

“Do you think you’re psycho?”

“With all due respect”—Hannah sniffled a little—“aren’t you in a better position to answer that question than I am?”

Dr. Lewin smiled dryly. “As far as I can tell, you recognize there are no guarantees with Henry or with anyone else. What you’re doing is taking a risk, which is perfectly healthy and reasonable.”

“Really?”

“You’re twenty-six,” Dr. Lewin said. “Why not?” This
why not?
type commentary had been a relatively recent development, mostly since Hannah’s breakup with Oliver: Dr. Lewin had, after all these years, gotten a little jaunty. Once when Hannah told Dr. Lewin that whenever she and Oliver had sex, she imagined that she could feel herself getting an STD in that moment, Dr. Lewin said, “So why don’t you quit having sex with him and buy yourself a vibrator?” Hannah’s eyes must have widened, because Dr. Lewin added, “They’re not against the law, you know.” Hannah could not help wondering, was it possible, even in a small way, that Dr. Lewin might miss her?

“Twenty-six isn’t
that
young,” Hannah said. “It’s not like twenty-two.”

“The point is that you’re unencumbered. It’s not irresponsible for you to take a chance.”

The chance Hannah was taking—is taking—is that she is moving to Chicago to see what might happen with Henry. It had all come about rather quickly. Fig’s wedding (that’s what Fig herself called it, a wedding—she’d say, “A commitment ceremony sounds so
gay
”) happened in June. It was small and elegant and took place in a private room at a restaurant on Walnut Street in Philadelphia. Zoe wore a white pantsuit, and Fig wore a simple white dress with spaghetti straps, and they both looked hiply beautiful. Allison and Hannah were Fig’s bridesmaids, and Nathan and Zoe’s brother were—well, not groomsmen—but the really clever idea on Fig’s part was to ask Frank to officiate, thereby eliciting a tacit generational endorsement that Fig’s own parents went along with. Frank was both dignified and warm, and Fig’s parents seemed to enjoy themselves. Afterward, at the dinner, Nathan had several martinis and gave a toast that started “Given what a slut she’s always been, who ever thought Fig would go lezzie?”

And also: Henry was there. Hannah had not seen him since her junior year in college, but there he was; she was pretty sure Fig had invited him solely as an act of generosity. He and Hannah were seated next to each other at the reception and he was completely easy to talk to. Instead of the conversation whittling away, getting closer and closer to nothing the longer they spent in each other’s presence, it enlarged and enlarged. There was an infinite amount to cover, and nothing he said bored her at all—one of his stories was about how, after he’d checked in to his hotel that afternoon, he’d gotten trapped in an elevator with an eighty-nine-year-old Russian woman who was soon feeding him piroshki and scheming to set him up with her granddaughter, though actually, Henry said, he’d stepped off the elevator feeling slightly in love with the eighty-nine-year-old herself; her name was Masha. They also discussed what Henry called Fig’s “change of heart,” and he did not seem personally disgruntled. He said, “How can I not be happy for her? She’s the most at peace I’ve ever seen her.” When Hannah told him all about Oliver, he said, “Hannah, the dude sounds like a total jackass. He doesn’t sound worthy of you.” They’d both drunk a fair amount, and this was sometime after midnight, as the reception was winding down. “And you still share an office with the guy?” Henry said. “What a drag. You need to get out of Beantown.”

“I’m not sure where else I’d go.”

“Go anywhere. It’s a big world. Come to Chicago. Chicago is definitely better than Boston.”

She looked at him sideways, pursing her lips a little. She was so much better at this than she’d been back in college—also, she was pretty sure she looked considerably better. She’d cut her hair to chin-length, she was wearing contact lenses, the strapless bridesmaid dresses Fig had picked out showed her shoulders and arms to flattering effect. As it happened, this was the first time in her life that Hannah had worn a strapless dress. She was thinking she might do it again.

In perhaps the most coquettish voice she’d ever used, she said, “You think I should move to Chicago?”

He was smiling. “I think you should move to Chicago.”

“What would I do there?”

“You’d do what people everywhere do. Work. Eat. Have sex. Listen to music. But all of it would be better because it’d be happening there.”

“Okay,” Hannah said.

“Really?” Henry said. “Because I’m holding you to this.”

As the night proceeded, it seemed harder and harder to believe something physical wouldn’t happen between them, but the logistics were complicated—his hotel was downtown, she was getting a ride back to the suburbs with her mother and Frank. Everyone in her family knew Henry as Fig’s ex-boyfriend. It would have been tricky to explain. On the street, with her mother and Frank waiting in the car, Hannah and Henry hugged, and he kissed her cheek, and she thought that this was how it would be when they were husband and wife and saw each other off at train stations and airports. It almost didn’t matter that nothing more happened. As she sat in the backseat riding home, her heart kept clenching with how much she liked him.

And what was to stop her from moving? If Fig was married to Zoe, then Fig and Henry weren’t going to reconcile; they were definitely and absolutely finished. Besides, if Zoe could get Fig to fall in love with her when Zoe wasn’t even the
gender
of person Fig believed she was attracted to, then why was it so far-fetched to think Hannah and Henry might end up together? Really, Zoe and Fig’s courtship was emboldening; it gave Hannah hope.

Of the five nonprofits she sent résumés to in Chicago, one—the educational outreach arm of a medium-sized art museum—asked for an interview. She flew out in late July, and the interview was fine (she wasn’t entirely paying attention, anticipating her evening with Henry), and then she had dinner with him and his friend Bill and it was great again, the three of them went to a billiards hall on Lincoln Avenue and played pool and darts for six hours straight, Henry was touchy-feely, Hannah turned out to be okay at darts, and when, after her return to Boston, she was offered the job, it was hard to think of a reason not to take it. Dr. Lewin didn’t disapprove—ahead of time, Hannah had felt sure she would, but later Hannah couldn’t remember why.

Yesterday at their last session, which Dr. Lewin let run over by an unprecedented eight minutes, Hannah wrote her a check that had two softly lit frolicking yellow Lab puppies superimposed on the “pay to the order of” section. “I know you probably don’t care,” Hannah said, “but I just want to say, obviously these aren’t my usual checks, and the reason I have them is I ran out of normal ones but there was no point in getting another whole set since I’ll be opening a new bank account in Chicago, so they just gave me a bunch of samples. See, they don’t have my address.” Hannah ripped the check from the book and held it out, and Dr. Lewin glanced at it for half a second before taking it. Then Hannah extended the whole book; now the check on top featured an orangutan with a forearm resting atop his head, his right armpit on full display. “Look,” Hannah said. “This one is even worse.”

“Hannah.” Dr. Lewin stood, and her voice seemed to contain both fondness and a kind of warning. “I know you well enough to know you’d never order checks with furry animals on them.”

Hannah stood, too. She should have brought Dr. Lewin a present of some sort, she thought. Did clients do that on bidding farewell? Fancy chocolates might have worked, or a geranium. “Thank you for meeting with me ever since I was a freshman in college,” Hannah said. This felt absurdly inadequate.

“It was a privilege.” Dr. Lewin reached out and squeezed Hannah’s hand—more than a handshake, less than a hug. “I want you to take care of yourself, Hannah, and I want you to let me know how things turn out.”

“I definitely will.” Hannah nodded several times before saying goodbye and turning to walk outside into the stifling heat, without her sweater.

IT’S AFTER FOUR
o’clock when Hannah says, “I kind of need to pee, so if you want to take one of the next few exits, that would be great.”

“Maybe if you didn’t snack so much, you wouldn’t need to pee so often,” Allison says.

It’s not untrue that Hannah has been snacking most of the afternoon, but that’s because Allison didn’t want to stop for lunch, after they already didn’t have breakfast. “Can’t you just buy something here?” Allison asked when they last got gas, so Hannah gathered up pretzels, caramel popcorn, and a little packet of cheese and crackers. The cheese was the texture of mud and came with a red plastic stick for spreading.

“It’s not food that makes you pee,” Hannah says. “It’s drinks.”

“It’s food, too,” Allison says, and before Hannah can respond, Allison adds, “This is a stupid conversation.”

“Fine,” Hannah says, “but unless you want me to wet my pants, you have to stop.”

At the gas station, Allison uses the bathroom after Hannah does (
See,
Hannah thinks,
you needed to go, too
), and when her sister emerges, Hannah says, “Want me to drive?” She hopes Allison will say no. Besides the unwieldiness of the truck, they’ve just passed signs for construction up ahead.

“Sure,” Allison says. As she hands Hannah the keys, she says, “Watch the temperature gauge. If the traffic gets too slow, we should probably turn off the AC.”

The worst part, as Hannah expected, is the lack of rearview visibility. The second worst part is sheer size. It has never occurred to her until now that whenever she sees one of these move-it-yourself trucks on the road, there’s a strong possibility that it’s being driven by someone as incompetent as she is. No matter who gets in front of her, she thinks, she’s definitely staying in the right-hand lane.

Allison mashes up her sweatshirt and presses it against the window, then sets her head against it and closes her eyes.
Thanks for the moral support,
Hannah thinks, but after a few minutes, she’s glad her sister is asleep, or at least faking it; Hannah can get her bearings without an audience. The one good part of the truck is height. Really, way up here, how can anyone not start to feel superior to some little Honda?

About forty-five minutes have passed, and Hannah has settled into the rhythm of the road (the first round of construction turned out not to be lengthy) when something—a thing that is brownish and has a tail, a neither large nor small thing—scurries in front of the truck. “Oh my God,” Hannah says aloud and then, almost immediately, she has run over it: a low bump under the left wheels. She brings her hand up to her mouth, making a fist in front of her lips. “Allison, are you awake?”

Allison stirs. “Where are we?”

“I think I just ran over a possum or a raccoon. What am I supposed to do?”

“Just now you did?”

“Should I turn around?”

Allison sits up straighter. “You don’t do anything,” she says. “You keep driving.”

“But what if it’s not fully dead? What if it’s suffering?”

Allison shakes her head. “You still don’t do anything—it would be really unsafe. Have you never hit roadkill before?”

“It’s not like I drive that much.”

“Are you sure you even hit it? Did you see it in the rearview mirror?”

“I hit it,” Hannah says.

“Then don’t think about it.” Allison’s voice is nice but firm. “This happens all the time—did you see that deer on the median a couple hours ago? That was a lot worse than any possum.”

“Have you ever hit something?”

“I think so.” Allison yawns. “I actually don’t remember, which must mean I’m not as compassionate as you are.”