The Wonder Spot (37 page)

While I was on the phone, he looked her up in the
LMP,
the publishing phone directory. “She's still there.”

“What is that—twenty years?”

“At least,” he said.

I said, “What do you think's going to happen to her?”

He was quiet.

“What?” I said.

He told me he was thinking of the end of “Bartleby the Scrivener.” He added, “The Melville story,” in case I didn't know.

“What happened to him?”

“He refuses to leave the office,” Adam said. “And he's carted off to prison.”

I said, “And he lived happily ever after.”

He said, “Remember the last line?”

“I read it in college—if I read it.”

He quoted: “ ‘Ah Bartleby! Ah Humanity!' ”

“Ah.”

Then Adam said, “Aren't you glad I called?”

. . . . .

Neil and I went over to Robert's for dinner, and Jack and Mindy came, too. We sat in the living room while the nanny gave the twins their bath.

Robert made perfect martinis and Naomi passed pretty hors d'oeuvres, bruschetta with tomatoes and pesto.

Neil said, “Did you guys make these?”

Robert said, “I slaved over a hot counter at Zabar's.”

I could tell how nervous Neil was, and I didn't blame him. Jack was hanging back; he might as well have been wearing the robes my father had put on for court.

I said, “What's going on with
The Jack Applebaum Show
?”

“Nada,”
he said. “The producers didn't like the script.”

“That's not true,” Mindy said. “They wanted him to make changes, and he didn't want to.”

“They were idiotic,” Jack said.

“So what're you working on?” I asked.

“I'm thinking of starting a production company,” he said. He would put projects and people together. “All you really need is a business card, a phone, and an e-mail address.”

This sounded scammy to me, but I didn't say so, as I would've if we'd been alone. “So you're like a wheeler-dealer?”

“I'm more of a wheeler-wheeler,” he said.

Neil mentioned that he had a patient who was a director and said his famous name.

“Wow,” Jack said. “What's he like?”

“Crazy,” Neil said.

“Does he have a brain tumor or something?” Jack said.

Neil shook his head—he'd said all he was going to, and I was glad of that at least.

I looked over to see what Robert thought of Neil talking about a patient, but I couldn't tell.

A moment later, the nanny brought Isabelle and Max into the living room to say good night, and Neil asked if we could put them to bed.

Naomi smiled at me.

“Absolutely,” Robert said.

Neil and I lay down with them—boy, girl, boy, girl; adult, child, adult, child—and the two of us read to the two of them.

When it was Neil's turn, he used all sorts of voices and sound effects—for monsters he made his voice shaggy, for footsteps he tapped the wall, for wind he whooshed—and the twins loved it.

Right then something happened to me: I looked at Neil from the outside, like he was an alien who had somehow landed in the bed of my niece and nephew.

Then I snapped out of it: I was the alien, sabotaging a sweet moment wherein my boyfriend was trying only to show me what a good father he was. If he was being a ham and a name-dropper, it was only because he wanted the people I loved to like him.

During dinner, Jack described the loft Mindy had found for Rebecca and her new boyfriend to renovate. “It's a penthouse,” he said. “A loft with a river view.”

I asked if this was the new boyfriend I'd heard about, and Jack said no, a new, new boyfriend. “An engineer,” he said. “Nice guy.”

I said, “Plus a millionaire.”

Mindy said that the space was raw, and it was on an undesirable block in far West Chelsea. But the loft would be beautiful, she said; Rebecca had offered to throw their engagement party there.

Jack said, “Don't make any plans for New Year's.”

Under the table, Neil squeezed my hand, and I squeezed back.

I said, “Could I get a raw space on an undesirable block?”

Jack said I could if I was willing to let Aunt Nora stay with me once a week.

During dessert, Neil made a real effort with Jack and finally found an interest they shared—music—and a band they both liked. Neil said that he'd just gotten their new CD, and it was fantastic.

Jack said, “Are you serious?”

Neil said, “Yeah.”

“Come on,” Jack said. “It sucked compared to their last one.”

Neil's face froze in a sneer. “What didn't you like about it?”

“What didn't I like?” Jack said. “It sucked. They sounded like a garage band.”

Neil said, “But that was their intent,” sounding smug, and for a second I felt the strain of being on his team.

Jack said, “I don't know how much intention counts if the music sucks.”

Mindy said, “I like the new CD,” which made me love her.

“There you go,” Jack said. “Different strokes.”

When Jack got up I followed him.

At the bathroom door, I said, “What are you doing?”

“What?”

“Attacking Neil,” I said.

“Sophie,” he said, “disagreement is the way straight men get along.”

“Oh.”

“Watch it,” he said, “or you'll turn Neil into an even bigger pussy than he is.”

“I hate you.”

“If you don't mind,” he said, “I'd like to make wee wee.”

Mindy followed a second later, said, “Sorry,” to me, and walked in on Jack.

“Hey,” I heard him say. “Bathroom time is private time.”

When the two of them came back to the table, Jack said, “Sorry I was an asshole,” to Neil.

Neil said, “Don't worry about it.”

Mindy said, “He's just a little overprotective.”

Robert told the story about my high-school graduation, when Jack caught sight of me kissing my boyfriend and said, “What's he doing to our sister?”

Naomi brought up the importance of napping. “The twins are different children when they don't nap,” she said. “And yet a lot of parents don't let their children nap.”

Dinner slowed down then, as dinners with Naomi generally did, but on the walk to his apartment Neil said he'd had a great time. “I loved reading to Max and Isabelle,” he said, and I heard his whooshing all over again.

He said, “What names do you like for children?”

I was so taken aback that I said, “I like Ella.”

He laughed and said, “I can't have two daughters named Ella.”

“Albertine?” I said. “And Cleo.”

“What about for a boy?”

“George.”

He said, “I like George.”

We went to Neil's because it was only a few blocks away on West End Avenue. We hardly ever stayed there. The living room was filled with furniture from his parents' basement in Shaker Heights, which was where it belonged.

The only inviting room in the apartment was Ella's. He'd given her the master bedroom, though he went up to Boston on weekends and took her to Cape Cod in the summer. Her room was big and full of light, and he'd decorated it himself with a vanity and ruffled gingham curtains that matched her canopy bed, which was like the one in my childhood bedroom.

Neil's room was small and bare—a brown shag rug, a futon on a platform, a clock on a crate table—a room that made me want to turn out the lights.

In the dark, we kissed. “Naomi is a very, very slow speaker,” I said very, very slowly.

Five minutes later, Neil said, “I. Noticed.”

. . . . .

In my office, Joe was designing the fulfillment package for all the enthusiastic mothers who checked “
YES
!
Send me my
FREE
baby wipes.”

“Do you realize what we're doing?”

“Of course I do,” I said.

“You don't seem to be suffering as much as you should be.”

“I'm suffering in silence,” I said.

“You're whistling,” he said, with real concern. “I heard you whistle.”

. . . . .

Over breakfast, Jack told me that Mindy really liked Neil.

“Good,” I said.

“I'm sure I would've liked him better . . .” and I waited for him to say,
If he weren't your boyfriend.
Instead, he stopped. “It's just that Mindy's last boyfriend was a doctor. She has a doctor thing,” he said. “She's a mediphile.” Then he said, “You know who he reminds me of? Who was that friend of Robert's who used to come over wearing pajamas and a bathrobe to study?”

I said, “Ivan Tarsky.”

“Ivan Tarsky,” he said.

“I loved Ivan Tarsky,” I said.

Jack said, “So, what're Neil's friends like?”

I thought of the only one I'd met. What was Jules like? He'd seated us right away. “Nice.”

Jack said, “That's good,” and he seemed genuinely pleased. He told me how much he liked Mindy's friends and smiled, maybe thinking of the ones he liked most.

“The only thing I will say about Neil,” Jack said, “is he seems a little young.”

“You only grew up about fifteen minutes ago,” I said. “With Mindy.”

He said, “I did grow up with Mindy.”

“What happened?”

“Beats me,” he said. “I was just ready. It was time.”

“I feel like that,” I said.

He said, “You're just saying that because I said it.”

. . . . .

Neil had met a lot of my friends, and I didn't want to ask outright why he hadn't introduced me to his. I waited until we were in bed with the lights out. Then I said, “Let's go out with your friends some night, if you want.”

He didn't answer.

I was almost asleep when I heard him say, “I was friends with other couples,” he said. “And when Beth found out about Darcy . . .”

I thought,
Who's Darcy?
He'd never told me her name.

. . . . .

“Is Glatz a friend?” I asked, after Neil got off the phone with his second Glatz patient of the evening and came back to the table to finish the dinner I'd made—pork chops in a rosemary marinade and peas with mint.

“Are you kidding?”

I said, “Why do you cover for him all the time?”

He shrugged. “It's a pain in the ass,” he said. “And it's not like I get paid for it.”

“Can you get out of it?”

Even before he answered, I knew what he was going to say: “Glatz does have some pretty interesting patients, though.” Neil mentioned the rock star he'd spoken to—and he sort of laughed and shook his head, like,
Me! Dorky Neil Resnick from Shaker Heights High.

“Neil,” I said, “I got a bad feeling when you told Jack about that patient.”

All the pleasure left his face. “Because he's Glatz's patient?”

All I said was, “Name-dropping—” and he nodded, not for me to go on but for me to stop.

He got quiet and busy then, clearing the table and running water. “Can we do these in the morning?” he asked.

“Sure,” I said.

“I'm beat,” Neil said. “I am beaten down. I'm ready to batten down the hatches.”

I didn't know if he'd always free-associated like this, or if I was just noticing it now. It irritated me, and I was triply irritated at myself for being irritated. He was nervous, and I thought,
Why wouldn't he be?
I was acting like the cool girl I myself would have feared in high school. I was acting like my grandmother, the pre-stroke Steeny, who'd looked at all of us like we weren't quite good enough to be related to her.

When I got into bed, he said, “I'm getting on your nerves, aren't I?”

“I don't know why,” I said. “It's me. I'm sorry.”

“No,” he said. “I'm annoying. I know that.”

. . . . .

At Jules, Kate said, “You're going to have a baby with this guy.” She herself was trying to have a baby, on her own, and she suggested we coordinate our pregnancies.

We'd finished dinner and were having coffee; Neil was outside talking on the phone.