When the Messenger Is Hot (5 page)

I didn't really know what to say right then, but a little more time went by, and I have to say I wasn't enjoying my luxury pad so much anymore. I wasn't going to jump. But that thing he said stuck in my head like a burr, like that thing I heard about how A.A. really fucks up your drinking. I never got that before, I kept thinking,
But you're not supposed to drink in A.A
. But when the elevator man said that thing about jumping up, not only did I have a very visual image of myself in some depressed superhero costume soaring up to the roof, I felt like I couldn't really enjoy my little palace anymore. Plus I was still thinking he was so cute and that there was no chance he was going to want to settle down with me, or up, as he pointed out. A fog rolled in, quickly obliterating the skyline and everything else, and stayed for what seemed like a month; it would've come right into the terrarium if I'd left the door open. The elevator man still came up and hung out and washed my hair, but I was getting to the point where even though my hair felt clean, the rest of me didn't, and I really wanted a shower, and I started having actual dreams about that dinner-plate-size showerhead down at Anna's. Also I thought that the fog would go away sooner or later but it didn't, and apparently I didn't seal up those edges around the door frame so well after all, because the fog eventually crept inside, and after a while I couldn't make out the letters on my keyboard, and then it got so thick I wasn't 100 percent sure I was even there. Finally I found myself tiptoeing into the hallway by the Chihuahuas' place, waiting by the elevator. I didn't hear the Chihuahuas at all, but I didn't know if that was because I was so quiet or if the lawsuit settled in favor of the prosecution. I'm not sure how long I was there, but I hadn't had a chance to ring for the elevator before my elevator man opened the door and let the Chihuahua lady off (no Chihuahuas present, but another dirty look). He smiled at me, the elevator man.
I think I'm just gonna go take a shower at Anna's
, I said.

Cool
, said the elevator man.

H
ER FANTASY IS, at best, unlikely. The man lives in New Zealand. He's married. He has three children. She believes that he is faithful (see: married) and devoted (see: children). She knows that the chance of anything ever happening between them is, as far as anyone is concerned, nonexistent, but recognizes that in a fantasy, the need for any basis in fact is negligible. She does have what is perhaps an unnecessary preoccupation with propriety, given that propriety might not be at the top of one's fantastical concerns. It's not as though the fantasy is going anywhere outside of her head. She's aware that in addition to the impropriety inherent in disclosing the fantasy, even just to the man who the fantasy is about, this particular fantasy might possibly portray her as being somewhat unbalanced. So it's a private, karmically correct, inherently impossible imaginary scenario.

In the fantasy, the man, an actor that the woman has known since she was young and stupid,
¹
comes to America after he's cast in a featured role
²
in a Bruce Willis movie that happens to be shooting in Chicago, where she lives.
³
On location there for several weeks with considerable free time, the man and the woman become inseparable
⁴
and then have to figure out what to do. Finally, the man decides that, on the brink of a major American film career,
⁵
he will move his family back
⁶
to the States, and the woman will wait to get involved with him until he and his wife drift apart and eventually get divorced naturally and the wife gives her blessing to the man and the woman because she knows they are in true love,
⁷
and so then the woman won't have to feel so bad that he lives ten thousand miles away from his children.
⁸
The woman won't be explicit about sex (not her thing, writing about it, because why, why would she do that, why would anyone do that? Sex is the end of something, maybe it's the end of everything, it matters, but it's not
the
matter; everyone knows it's great, or it should be great, but it doesn't very often tell you anything in and of itself, well maybe it does in some very specific circumstances, like if it's really terrible, or if it's violent [which is certainly not anything this woman has anything to write about] or in some way weird [which probably she could write about, but still won't], but she's not interested in that, she thinks there is always a way to write about whatever is relevant, in any particular sex act, that doesn't require being explicit about the details, that the language available for that subject is fully inadequate, that she rarely reads in a book/sees in a movie a sex scene that's remotely arousing, or that enlightens her in any way,
⁹
or is more relevant to the piece than some other scene that shows how the two characters interact with each other, certainly she can't even think of one that ever related especially to any of her own experiences, plus her father might read this) but will say that the man is very tender and gentle, but also skilled, and all the way around makes her feel sincerely cared for and truly loved.
¹⁰

That's the fantasy. In reality, the woman has been cheated on and doesn't much care to pass those feelings on to anyone else. She believes that people who cheat once cheat again, although this arguably adds both to his appeal and to the quandary, since he has no history of cheating. He has a history of being faithful. The woman believes in karma. She has a conscience, but it has never really been tested insofar as it's no big struggle for her not to steal, or kill, or tell really bad lies, and hasn't fully been tested in this scenario either, because of the New Zealand thing. And, really, she's not even sure how she feels about him. She thinks she could be in love with him. Or that she was in love with him once. That he was the only one she ever loved, really. Or that she could fall in love with him, easily. She thinks he's the one who got away. She remembers all of the romantic gestures
¹¹
and minimizes her previous reservations,
¹²
the ones she had long before he had a wife, and in some cases doesn't remember the reservations at all.
¹³
She will deny that this is on her mind for any other reason besides her finally being sober long enough to recognize her feelings, past and present. In reality she has seen him once, seven years ago,
¹⁴
and the time before was probably seven years prior to that.
¹⁵
Mostly, this is about something that was unresolved for a couple of summers in New York when she was home from college
¹⁶
and a few love letters
¹⁷
and moony long-distance phone calls.
¹⁸
This is about a kiss that never happened. Now, they talk
¹⁹
or exchange a card or letter about once or twice a year. Now, he has three kids, lives in New Zealand, has a good career and apparently it's very beautiful and affordable there and he would have no good reason to leave and six good reasons to stay. Or, in the event that any part of the fantasy ever came true, one reason to think about leaving and five much better reasons to stay. Or one person to try to convince to move to New Zealand and no reason to leave. Now, she has a bookmark on her Internet service that tells her what time it is in New Zealand (she can never remember if it's thirteen or seventeen hours ahead, but whenever they talk it's usually the next day there; whichever it is, the day that she's in is usually done for him [and she's not even going to think about that metaphor]) and checks it whenever she's thinking about calling him, which of course is almost always in the middle of the night, or at the crack of dawn, which again, points to the severely poor chances between them, considering there's only maybe a half hour of the day when they're both awake, in their separate hemispheres. Now, although she certainly has a much better life than she ever had before, doing work she wants to do and growing flowers and living in a city that feels like home and no longer feeling completely confused, or stressed out, or worried, or frustrated, or not useful, or not appreciated, not most of the time anyway, she does have a little bit more time than she has in the past, a little too much time, to contemplate her love life, which even though it has not gotten worse, recently, has not improved and has actually kind of dematerialized altogether. But anyway, he does still say sweet romantic things like he used to and keeps telling her he loves her in that shy kind of way that totally breaks her heart and eventually it comes out that he was in fact separated for almost a year, which she didn't hear about until it was over, and apparently it wasn't because either of them was unfaithful, although he makes it out like it was more his fault than hers, except he doesn't really say in what way, but which makes it seem like they really did drift apart naturally. The woman asks him why he didn't call her that whole time, and he says,
Are you joking? If I had talked to you even once I would have been on a plane to the States in a second and never looked back
. Meaning, you know, good for her, and bad for the three kids and the wife. Which makes it even more tragic a tale of heartbreak, when you think about the lengths she goes to to set up a fantasy in which she's not a totally terrible person, when it turns out there was a whole year when she wouldn't have been any kind of a terrible person if the super fantasy had been real.

But it probably doesn't matter.

Because it will not happen this way.

_________________

¹
Okay, that might be a little harsh.

²
As an apprentice criminal whose boyishly innocent appearance masks his true evil

³
Briefly, the woman considered making the fantasy take place in New Zealand, which is arguably a more beautiful and exotic setting than Chicago, but she's never been there and didn't think she had a lot to say about the atmosphere except for she's heard they have a lot of sheep, finally deciding against it to avoid any sort of sneaking around; even though it's a fantasy, she has a thing about making it as believable as possible, otherwise she has a hard time actually imagining it.

⁴
Platonically, but not

⁵
A questionable notion; though he's a fine and trained actor, and though the woman thinks he's awfully cute even though he has a lot less hair than he had when they first met, he's more of a character actor than anything else, and the only other reason she can think of why he'd go to the States is if his parents fell ill, or something, and if that ever actually happened later she'd be fairly freaked out at any weird prescience plus having already been through such a thing herself she'd really rather not have some tragedy that isn't even real figure into her fantasy.

⁶
Obviously, since the woman has never been to New Zealand, they first met here, when they were both working at a restaurant in New York.

⁷
Likely the most fantastical of concepts in the fantasy

⁸
She also thinks that if they did get divorced naturally she could maybe move to New Zealand, for the sake of the kids, but since her mother died she feels like she doesn't want to be so far away from her own family, while they're still around.

⁹
Maybe
Lolita
, in which it's totally relevant, but which obviously has no similarity at all here, thank god

¹⁰
Which is the reason she keeps fantasizing about him in particular versus some random movie star, or anyone else she knows who might actually be single and live in the same country; this man is the only one who ever felt this way toward her whose feelings she might also have returned, again, had she not been young and terrified

¹¹
Origami birds “because it's Tuesday,” daisies “because it's Wednesday,” midsummer valentines “because I love you all year” — you get the idea

¹²
Basically that he was a crazy lying drug addict, when in fact he was no crazier than her and was not a liar at all, but actually had had a troubled childhood in which certain things occurred that were so unusual and sad that they seemed like lies, but weren't, and furthermore, he gave up drugs about ten years before she gave up booze, which she very much needed to, rest assured, which is to say that she was in no position, really, to be saying anything about anyone's drug problems

¹³
For example she has no recollection at all about being completely and totally overwhelmed by the intensity of his feelings for her, which had a lot more to do with why she never even kissed him, if you can fucking believe that, than his being a crazy lying drug addict (which didn't prevent her from subsequently getting involved with a long list of psychos/liars/drug addicts who were not in any way as intensely in love with her as the man was).

¹⁴
On a trip to L.A., where he lived at the time, they had breakfast at Hugo's, which is as close to an actual date as they ever had (when you think about it, when they were kids they didn't have any money and tended to just walk around all the time) even though he was already married then, and even though they still never kissed but by then they were talking about it, or more accurately now he's not the only one talking about it, and when he tells her that someday he's going to just have to kiss her, someday when he makes his wife understand that this started long ago and it has nothing to do with her and that she should just understand it as retroactive, or something, and when he tells the woman that he wants to kiss her, she says okay instead of saying don't say that or stop it or something; there were discussions that involved flirting/negotiations of possible kissing in which they both participated.