The Romantics (21 page)

An only child, Tripler had been subject to all of her mother’s attention and none of her approval. That her mother frowned on her vocation was predictable, but that she disparaged every other choice Tripler made—her weight, her wardrobe, the color of her hair—was almost too much to bear. Mrs. Pane was not even satisfied with Yale, having hoped for Harvard. The constancy of her disapproval permeated Tripler’s every thought, causing her behavior to oscillate, much like her weight, between obedience and rebellion. It was as though her mother had infected her with a germ at conception, haunting Tripler with the suspicion that she was defective. Nothing she had done in her twenty-nine years had done much to convince her otherwise.

Her girlfriends heaved a collective sigh when, just over a year ago, Tripler asked, by way of mass e-mail, if anyone knew of a good shrink. All four had replied within the hour. And it seemed to be a divine intervention. In the last year, Tripler had kicked bulimia, lost twenty pounds, and gotten her first part in an indie movie, a three-day stint that confirmed her belief that movie sets were her natural habitat. Unfortunately, this progress was offset by a handful of new bad habits. The state of her marriage—and her affair with cocaine—had been unsettling of late. She had looked forward to Tom and Lila’s wedding with childlike anticipation—as though it were her own wedding—hopeful that time with her best friends from college would give way to the feelings
she had
in college—the giddy excitement, the hopeful anxiety, the oblivious confidence. She had not felt any of those things for so many years.

“Hey,” said Tripler. She swatted at Jake as he leaned in for a second sniff. But she was too slow to respond. Jake had already inhaled the pile.

The basement seemed like the right part of the house to tackle first. It was accessed from the kitchen, so the path was likely deserted. Even so, the chill of clay tiles on their feet took them by surprise.

“Shit,” Tripler snapped, looking down at the floor. “Of course, she did terra-cotta.”

Jake was actually relieved by the cold. The feeling of tile against his bare feet reaffirmed his connection with the ground.

“Are you sure this shit isn’t laced,” he demanded. “I’ve done cocaine, and this is not how it felt.”

“Don’t be retarded,” Tripler said.

She took the lead and opened the door to the basement, marching fearlessly ahead while Jake followed behind.

The planks of the stairs were wider and darker than the floorboards in the rest of the house, revealing the shifts of the house’s foundation far more honestly than the polished floors of the public areas. This realization gave Tripler an odd sense of satisfaction. It was pure thrift, the sneakiest of economics, that would compel a homeowner to skim-coat the dining room walls but shortchange the hidden spaces.

A muffled but indisputable thud stopped them in their path.

“What the fuck was that?” Jake whispered.

Tripler froze, cocked her head to the ceiling, then continued down the stairs. “It’s a spooky old haunted house,” she quipped. “What do you expect?”

A single bare lightbulb hung from the ceiling, surrounded by spiderwebs. Tripler fumbled for a moment, then tugged at the string, spreading light throughout the room. She moved past an old refrigerator into a smaller adjoining room. The furnace and fuse box rattled with every step she took.

Jake trailed slightly behind, ears pricked for suspicious sounds. He was already quite overwhelmed by the high. Everything in the room seemed to spin as though he were the axis of a carousel. He clenched and unclenched his hands, suddenly convinced they were going numb. Gulping his drink helped the cause, sending tingles of sensation to his extremities. Against his will, he forced himself to scout the adjoining room. Inside, he found a bare, makeshift office that was bathed in an inch of dust. A plaid sleeper sofa languished on a worn Persian rug. Two metal music stands stood across from the sofa, their height and distance causing them to look like eager guests. Calming slightly, he crossed the room to examine the music stands. They held consecutive pages with a five-line staff, a musical work whose title was scrawled at the top of the page:
The Last Great Love.

A flickering light interrupted Jake’s investigation. He followed the signal back to the main room to find Tripler standing under the bulb, tugging its string impatiently.

“He’s not here,” she announced.

“Yeah, I noticed,” Jake said.

“He’s obviously with Lila,” Tripler said. She tugged violently at the string, casting them back into darkness.

Cocaine, though not a hallucinatory drug, had a strange effect on the search. Even Tripler found the task of tiptoeing through the unlit house a trial. As she walked, objects appeared in sharp relief, as though it were noon on a winter day, not sometime after midnight. Her balance was dulled to the same extent that her perception was sharpened. And the combination of these two things made it very hard to walk.

She had intended her supply to last through the weekend but quickly gave in to the drug’s logic, concluding that one excessive night was better than several moderate ones. As they crossed through the kitchen, she treated herself to a quick replenishment. There was something irresistible about doing lines off Augusta’s countertops.

“How’s your job going anyway,” she demanded. She poured and divided a sizable pile into two unequal portions, then handily inhaled the larger pile and offered Jake the smaller one with a gracious nod.

“I got fired last week,” said Jake. “But I haven’t told Weesie yet, so please don’t say anything.” Jake attempted to mimic Tripler’s technique, but he lost concentration in mid-snort and sacrificed the rest to a cough.

“You haven’t told Weesie yet?”

“Nope. And I’m not planning to for a while.”

“Where does she think you are all day?”

“I don’t know. I don’t care.”

“Oh God, Jake. That’s awful,” said Tripler. She ran her finger over the counter. “I’m sure she would understand.”

“You think? But would you understand?” Jake paused. “If I was totally pulling your leg?”

“Fuck off,” she snapped. “Excuse me for giving a shit about my friends.”

“I’m just joking,” Jake said.

“Hilarious,” said Tripler. “Next time, I won’t even ask.”

“I’m sorry,” said Jake. “Don’t be mad. How about you? How have you been?”

“Lately?” asked Tripler “I don’t know,” said Jake. “How have you been since college?”

Tripler opened her mouth to reply with typical bravado. But the drug revised her response, and the truth came out instead. “Not so great,” she confessed.

“How are you and Pete?” Jake tried.

“Great,” she lied.
“Really good.”

“That’s good,” said Jake. “Us too.”

Tripler looked down and stared at the counter, as though she were trying to count the grains in the stone. She remained like this for a moment, stifling a wave of sadness. But before she could name the emotion she was fighting against, she burst into tears. “We’re terrible,” she admitted. “Really bad.” A cascade of sniffles obscured her speech.

“Oh Trip,” said Jake. He leaned across the counter and placed his hand on her shoulder.

“Everyone seems so happy,” she sniffled. “No,” said Jake. “No one’s happy.”

“Really?” she asked. She stopped sniffling for a moment, as though comforted by this thought. “Really,” Jake said.

“Well, you people should try acting. You’re better at it than me.”

Jake tilted his head thoughtfully in mock consideration. “Hmm, maybe I should,” he said. “The writing thing hasn’t panned out.”

Tripler offered a grateful smile. “At least you know you have talent. I haven’t done anything worthwhile since I was eighteen years old.”

“What’d you do then?” Jake asked.

“I got into Yale,” she said. She shook her head, fighting another swell of despair. “I was headed for greatness then.”

“You still are,” Jake said.

Tripler closed her eyes as a teardrop slid down her cheek. “I can’t even take credit for that.” She winced. “I cheated on my SATs.”

On reflex, Jake’s mouth fell open, and he sat, gaping for a moment. Then he realized the severity of his expression and consciously closed his mouth.

Tripler sat, head bowed and eyes closed, reveling in the release of the confession, then, without warning, she burst into tears again as though trying to best her previous performance. “We’re such horrible clichés,” she said. “Everything we are. Everything we say.”

Jake smiled compassionately, shook his head.

“Now’s where you say, ‘Don’t be silly, you
are
a great actress. And then I say, ‘Your novel is going to change the world.’”

“And then I say, ‘Weren’t we supposed to
save
the world?’”

“And then I say, ‘The world’s all gone to shit. What does it matter anyway?’”

“And then we kiss in a desperate displacement of our need to connect.”

Tripler paused, confused by the new tenor of their conversation. Were they still speaking theoretically? Or had they agreed on a secret code? And because she had reached the summit of her high and the low point of her self-respect, she was at a loss to tell the difference. So she took Jake at his word, leaned over the counter, and kissed him on the lips.

Jake kissed back for several seconds before pushing her away.

“What,” she said. “What’s the big deal?”

“Weesie, for one. And Pete.”

“God,” said Tripler. “Don’t be such an altar boy. I’m totally wasted.”

Luckily, this explanation succeeded in relieving both her guilt and mortification. Unfazed, she dismissed Jake with a disapproving shrug and inhaled the remainder of her supply.

The trek up the stairs was far more treacherous than the basement search. It essentially required sneaking past an entire household—eight rooms filled to capacity with sleeping family members and guests. Therefore, the best approach, Tripler and Jake decided, was to move at maximum speed, to sprint on their tiptoes from the living room to the third floor of the house.

They completed the climb to the second landing easily, their footsteps muffled by a runner bolted to the stairs. The second flight was far more precarious as the runner gave way to wooden planks. Jake paused for a moment as he approached the third landing, cautioned by a partially open door and the glow of a bedside lamp. Tripler motioned for him to proceed with an exasperated look.

Moving slowly, she walked to Lila’s door with exaggerated stealth. She craned her neck around the door, already wearing a triumphant smile. But she was totally stilled by the scene inside: Lila
sat on her windowsill, staring out at the lawn. Tom was nowhere to be found.

Surprise cost Tripler her composure. Instinctively, she recoiled. As she leapt toward the stairs, she inadvertently rattled Lila’s door. “Hello?” said Lila.

Tripler froze. Jake gestured toward the attic. “Mother?” called Lila.

Tripler darted up the stairs with Jake trailing behind. As they fled, they abandoned propriety, bolting up two steps at a time with all the subtlety of wild boars.

When they opened the door to the attic, they were greeted by a chilling image: a figure dwarfed by a wedding dress several sizes too large, as though it had emerged from the grave, shrunken and brittle, to reclaim the forgotten apparel. The surroundings did little to soften the image. The spectral figure was lit by the moon so that light sifted in from the window through her hair, casting a ghoulish shadow on the nearest wall. At the sight of the eerie silhouette, Tripler nearly fainted. Jake, however, was quick to respond. He turned on his heels, sprinted down the stairs, and disappeared into the darkness.

T
ripler slipped out the door to the attic and stood still as Jake peeled off across the lawn. But she rued the decision within seconds. God knew how many people he had roused as he fled. She should have run while there was still time. “Hello,” said Lila. “Who’s out there?”

Tripler tried to mute her panting by breathing through her nose. “Laura, Tripler? You guys are late.” A door swung open on the third landing.

“It’s just me,” Tripler called, then she improvised, “Are the others here yet?”

“No,” Lila snapped. “They’re not.”

Tripler started down the stairs, walking very slowly. When she reached the third floor, she entered Lila’s room and loitered awkwardly near the door, hanging her head like a teenager busted for missing her curfew.

Lila’s room was an impeccable, if slightly studied, model of
femininity. A white lace bra dangled from an upholstered chair. An antique mirrored vanity offered up a trove of silver dishes, each one crammed with alluring rings and bangles. Tiny flowers seemed to bloom in every corner, dotting the sofa and the curtains. This room, even more than the rest of the house, had the quality of caricature, presenting a vignette of purity that all but called for deconstruction. As Tripler waited for her scolding, she wondered idly how many boys had seen the room before her.

“Where the fuck is everyone?” Lila barked. She stood in the doorway in pink pajamas, a petite variation on an angry general.

Tripler stood in silence, staring at Lila’s attire. Her pajamas were scattered with puffy white clouds, and her hair was pulled back in a loose braid, both of which combined with Lila’s acid tone to be comically incongruous. “I’m sure they’re on their way,” she lied.

“They better be,” Lila said. “You guys promised you’d be here at midnight. You’re almost an hour late.”

“I know,” Tripler lied. Drugs and alcohol had conspired to blur her memory of their scheduled visit. “Jake smuggled wine from the club,” she said, selling out her friend without hesitation. “They’ve all had so much to drink, I’d be surprised if they’re still conscious.”

Lila stared at Tripler, unmoved.

Tripler looked to the window, focused on the rosebuds. “It’s unbelievably rude,” Lila hissed. “You said you wanted us to have fun,” Tripler tried. Lila widened her eyes, enraged.

Tripler immediately regretted the joke. All Lila craved was contrition. “I’m sorry,” she said, recanting. “We totally let you down.”