The Rest of Us: A Novel (32 page)

“We were just discussing Rimbaud. I’ve always thought Satie was his equivalent in the musical realm. Every art form has its mirror in another,” he said to Lindsay, who nodded knowingly.

He continued, “To Neruda there is André Kertész, a mood-inflected Hungarian photographer. Very emotive work. In just the shadow of a fork against a plate, he could convey a lifetime of loneliness.”

This was an almost word-for-word rip-off of what I had said two days ago, when I’d taken Rhinehart to see the exhibit at the ICP.

“Time for din-din,” Hallie said, appearing next to Lindsay and taking her thin arm. Once they were out of earshot, Rhinehart said to me, “Young women are constantly touching themselves, making
all these little adjustments to their clothes and hair. So distracting—I kept losing my train of thought.”

“You seemed to be doing okay.”

He looked expectantly around the room. “I had hoped to get one of these young fathers to discuss his methods of disciplining with me. Maybe at dinner.”

We went into the dining room and Rhinehart found his place next to Lindsay, who was already seated. “Isn’t this fortuitous!” he said robustly, shooting an unhappy look at me.

The man to my left, who had a rough-hewn face and a disarming way of speaking about his wife as if she wasn’t sitting two seats down, was talking about his new home in Englewood Cliffs. They were going to close on it next week. The homeowner offered to pour me a glass of wine. I passed. Across from me, Rhinehart was responding to something Lindsay said with his forced laugh, “Ha, ha, ha,” like clumps of snow falling off a roof.

Kate had arrived finally, a little breathless, just as we were assembling at the table. Whatever I had been expecting, it wasn’t this. Everything about her seemed to indicate an average suburban mother, her thick sandy-colored hair, her sporty white ensemble that resembled a tennis dress with a long skirt. In fact, walking into this scene without prior knowledge, I’d place a bet that the seductress was Hallie, with that harlot-colored gown, and darting eyes, and loud, flirtatious talk at the end of the table.

•  •  •

I was trying to discreetly watch Adán, who had finally taken his seat—he’d been continuing a conversation he’d started in the other room, and once at the table, kept leaving to fetch photographs related to it. He was flush with laughter and talk, enjoying himself immensely—I wasn’t sure I’d ever seen him so happy. Catching my eye, he said, “Hola, guapa! I didn’t even greet you.” He came around to my side of the table, kissing me on my cheeks, and reaching down to rest his hand on my stomach. “How beautiful you look—so happy and
healthy looking. A very natural woman. And the father there—” He pointed across the table to Rhinehart, who looked as if he’d just been presented an award. “He is very happy, too. Muy orgulloso as we say in Spanish—” Adán swelled out his chest. “Very proud. Like a toreador.”

•  •  •

Kate was telling the story of why she was late—the nanny had come down with the flu at the last minute, and after frantic calling around she was finally able to bribe a neighborhood girl out of her movie date to come over. “The worst is that I said, ‘Don’t worry, I’ll feed the kids.’ I’d made them spaghetti and meatballs! Which they love, they were over the moon, but when it comes time for them to eat, I’m already dressed, and I’m wearing this
white
dress”—she pointed to herself—“and two aprons, one around my hair, scrambling around trying to serve without getting near the food.”

“And this little Bobby, he eats with his hands,” Adán said to Rhinehart. “Like this,” and he made as if he was flinging food past his mouth and behind him. He was laughing. But was this unusual? Did it indicate he’d spent time at Kate’s house alone? I’d seen him looking a little distant earlier, maybe he was thinking about her, or her abandoned kids, or about sailing away on his own boat with a twenty-year-old. How the hell was I supposed to know?

And anyway, Liza seemed like the bigger problem, the way she kept pulling on Adán’s arm, and flashing her tan boobs and ropey biceps and big teeth. He appeared to be enjoying that, too. I watched his hands, waiting for them to creep below deck. But they remained in sight, where they could assist him with eating the salad. We just might get through this dinner without a scene after all, I thought, relieved.

Just as the main course was being served, Rhinehart stood, presumably to go to the bathroom. Glancing over, I saw the front of his pants smeared with black. I gasped. He followed my eyes down and said, “Good Lord!”

What had Hallie used! It looked like motor oil. He was dipping his napkin in his water glass, wiping at the stain and making it worse.
I leaned across the table and said, “Maybe you should do that in the other room.”

By now most of the table had noticed. Kate got up and went into the kitchen to retrieve salt and seltzer. Win came out, still carrying dinner plates, saying, “No, no. Bleach is the only thing.” The man next to me agreed. “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” his wife called down the table, “we stopped buying bleach months ago, because it yellows the fabric. We use Murphy Oil Soap,” she told the woman next to her. “It’s what chefs use on their whites.”

“What the hell is this? Tar?” Rhinehart was running his hand under the table, where he said it felt sticky. His fingers came back coated in a viscous black fluid, so now he couldn’t touch anything.

Adán was apologizing to everyone, saying “seat” instead of “sit” and “please ate your dinner.” He’d gotten out the flashlight and from under the table, we heard him curse. “It’s all over this legs! Everywhere!” But then he came up again, saying, “Not to worry, just a little oil in this section. The rest is fine.” But many people, watching Rhinehart still struggling with his pants, remained standing, and were nibbling on bread or asparagus spears they’d taken off their plates. One man was leaning against the wall and eating, as if at a barbecue. Liza and Lindsay and a few others had left the room and could be heard laughing in the hall. Hallie had disappeared. A woman had gotten some black on her dress, even though she’d been seated by Hallie, and was saying repeatedly that it would never come out. Other women began inspecting their dresses. Kate discovered some black on her elbow and a few drops on her knee. I stood up, banging my stomach against on the table lip and gestured furiously to Rhinehart to follow. We passed Hallie standing in the hall, frozen with indecision. Her face had gone pale, all the blood drained out, like a death mask.

•  •  •

Locked in the bathroom together, the light bouncing metallically off the stainless steel and mirrors, Rhinehart and I assessed the damage.
“Did someone touch you?” I asked. “Did Lindsay?” But she had been sitting on the other side of him, away from the oily ink.

“Why would she touch me there? I must have brushed against something.”

Eventually, we pieced it together. Leaning over to talk to Kate, he had grabbed on to the table, coming in contact with the oil under her place setting. Hallie hadn’t been as precise as she thought in applying it. Rhinehart, black on his hands, and not noticing, had then smeared it while adjusting himself, as the pants he’d chosen to wear were too tight in the crotch.

We’d made a mess of his pants. The entire front was a dirty gray color. The wet linen had gone transparent and I could see the tender outline of his thigh, the white section of pocket. He shook his head. “How humiliating. How could I have been so clumsy?”

“It wasn’t entirely your fault,” I said. “I’ll tell you the whole story when we get home.”

But he wasn’t that easily consoled. “How humiliating,” he said again, rubbing at the stain. “At this party, of all places.”

“Since when do you care so much what others think?” I said. And then it occurred to me that he’d probably been anxious to see Hallie after all these years, which is why it had taken him so long to get ready. He was also probably self-conscious in this young, affluent crowd, some of whom knew him by his work. He was no longer just a writer. I, along with the baby, had forced him into a new role and one that could be easily caricatured—an aged goat chasing after his youth.

I put my arms around him, spontaneously. I suddenly loved him so much, it felt like something I would never be able to find proper words for. I knew it only as this tenderness, a dull ache at the center of my heart.

We realized we’d ruined the towel. I folded it and set it alongside the tub, behind the shower curtain. Rhinehart wondered aloud why Adán hadn’t come to check on us. “He’s such a gracious host.”

“I think we should try and sneak out,” I said, holding his face in my hands and kissing him. He still looked upset.

“I was really enjoying myself, too.” He sighed. “I hope they invite us back.”

•  •  •

While we were in the bathroom, Hallie must have confronted Kate. A small crowd was gathered at the end of the hall and Kate was crying—another woman had retrieved Kate’s purse and was arranging for people to move their cars so she could leave.

“What’s going on?” Rhinehart said to me.

I saw Adán through the open door of his study, where he was smoking a cigar with his business associates—did he know what was going on? Was he pretending not to? He no longer seemed like the host, but some defamed guest, looking deflated and ridiculous in his rumpled white tux, the red bow tie that matched his wife’s dress.

I walked up to Hallie and saw her eyes were still burning aggressively. In a voice high with false cheer, as if Kate hadn’t just walked past her, sobbing, and out the door—she made a big, theatrical apology for Rhinehart’s pants—she’d had some men come in and fix the table leg and they had probably left grease behind. I told her I was leaving. She kissed me roughly on both cheeks, her overheated face bumping mine, and signaled that she wanted to talk to me alone, but I was angry and pretended not to notice—I’d had enough for one night.

I
was dreading Hallie’s phone call. But I didn’t hear from her all day. Or the next day, or the next, and that’s when I started to wonder whether she was angry with me, or with Rhinehart for screwing up her trap. I broke down and called her. Before I could even say hello, she said, “Adán’s left me.” Then the line disconnected. I called back several more times but there was no answer. I was getting my things together to drive to Jersey, when Rhinehart stopped me. “Give her until tomorrow, at least.” And because I always seemed to be forcing people out of their shells to comfort me with assurances of their well being, I listened to him.

The next day I went to the florist and selected a large bouquet of her favorites, sunflowers and orange roses, which we used to give each other when we were down. Fresh flowers reminded us of my dad’s farm. I had them sent to her house with a note telling her to call me when she was ready. I wrote six versions of that note, debating on whether I should include the line: “I’m worried about you.” Protective sentimentality often annoyed her, so in the end I left it off.

The afternoon passed with no word, and I wondered if she was too sad to even appreciate flowers. I called, and she picked up on the first ring. “Those were from you? I thought this entire time they were from Adán!”

“There was a card. Didn’t you see it?”

She dropped the phone, and I could hear her in the background
rustling around in the cellophane and paper. Then quiet. Then her on the phone again. “Why did you
do
that? I was going to call him and thank him. I would have looked like such an
idiot
!”

I was apologizing, but she had hung up.

•  •  •

The following day I received a phone call from Clare Severeson. They had chosen me for the opening in the gallery’s schedule. I was stunned. My own show. She wanted to meet this week and go through my portfolio again, pulling the images we thought would work best in the space, including the series with the birds in Rhinehart’s bedroom that I had finally finished after we returned from Florida. I saw Rhinehart hovering in the doorway, listening. He disappeared. When I hung up, he was back with a bottle of sparkling cider he’d bought down at the corner store. “A solo show!” I said aloud, and we toasted. “It’s actually coming together!”

“It was only a matter of time,” he said.

I drained the glass. “I’m going to celebrate with some wine. Don’t give me the scolding look. It’s a special occasion. I feel like I’m at my sixth-grade graduation with this cider.”

“It’s appropriate,” he said. “Congratulations, graduate!”

•  •  •

I’d imagined I’d have to select and sequence the images myself, and then present them to Clare, but she dispensed with that idea in the first five minutes. After looking through my portfolio, and asking me a series of questions about how I saw my work, she suggested an arrangement for the show, a gradual move from realism to surrealism, that had an internal logic I could never have come up with. We didn’t agree on everything—I resisted including some older shots taken out east, near my father’s farm, that I didn’t think were strong enough, but I said I would at least get prints made, so that we could pin them up and see how they looked. The gallery, which had seemed a bit cold to me when I first went in there with my portfolio, was now a
familiar, congenial space. Just walking through the heavy glass doors was uplifting, greeting the assistant, Mark, and passing behind the frosted glass that hid Clare’s office. I was so appreciative, I’d sent Laura a bottle of wine along with a card, thanking her for all she’d done to make it happen.

•  •  •

More than a week had passed since I’d spoken to Hallie, and I was feeling incredibly guilty. She had said she wanted time alone, and in truth I’d been too busy to check up on her that frequently. I’d found someone to take over the lease on my Brooklyn apartment, and so I’d been packing my things, destined either for Rhinehart’s or storage. I was also training my replacement for Marty, although we were calling it “a leave of absence,” and I was often rushing from there to the photo lab or the gallery. When I finally got Hallie on the phone, I tried to break the awkward silence by apologizing for the flowers.