Between You and Me Read online

  It was Paul’s suggestion to take the boat ride on the lake, and he made it, he told himself, because he had no idea what else to do. By the time they left the museum it was clear they would spend the rest of the afternoon together, though neither of them had said so out loud. And unless he walked her through the old part of the city, to the historic churches full of tourists, or to a beer hall he’d been taken to the previous night—either of which would send their footsteps in the direction of his hotel—he couldn’t think of any way to pass the time. He had two and a half hours until a scheduled dinner with his hosts, and that gave him just long enough, he figured, to tire of Trish’s voice and her habit of grabbing his arm, gasping, and pointing whenever something caught her eye. She did it in the middle of the street after they left the museum, gesturing, he thought, at the towers of the Grossmünster, but what she saw, as it turned out, was a bird sitting on a cable as a tram approached. She didn’t want it to get electrocuted. Couldn’t they do something? Throw a rock and scare it away? With her hand on his arm, Paul dragged her the rest of the way across the street. The bird flew off long before the tram reached it.

  Trish worked for a bank in Weehawken, administrative assistant to the chief operating officer. He was in Zurich for a conference on international lending practices and had insisted she join him. He needed someone to take notes and keep his appointments. He also gave her his camera and told her to take pictures of him with anyone who looked important. She pulled it out of her purse—an expensive Minolta with a massive lens—and snapped a shot of the boat before they boarded. “How could I say no to a free plane ticket?” she asked as they stepped onto the gangway, and then answered herself, shaking her head. “I should have known better.” Her boss had flown over, first class, on Friday, so he could spend the weekend skiing. He’d sent Trish on Monday, coach. For the past two days she’d snoozed through presentations in a windowless room, but today she’d skipped out after the morning session. She was around bankers all day at home, she said. Why do it halfway around the world? “He can kiss my ass if he thinks I’m coming back for the last day.” She didn’t ask what Paul did for a living or what he was doing here. In fact, she didn’t ask him anything—not where he was from or whether he had a family, though he made an effort to keep his wedding ring in plain sight.

  “My honeymoon was on a boat,” she said, leaning far enough over the railing to watch the wake they were cutting through the lake’s choppy surface. “A cruise ship to St. Thomas. Back then I could put on a bikini without a second thought.”

  A strong breeze stirred the water, but it did nothing to ruffle Trish’s hair, those spikes on her cheeks staying put. It whipped her slacks around her legs, sometimes tracing a perfect outline, sometimes making them appear shapeless, empty spaces disguised by rustling fabric. It was cold enough on deck that most of the other passengers were inside, looking out through tinted windows, but except for a small patch covering the sun, the clouds had mostly lifted. The Alps made a ragged line against the sky. Paul knew from one of the museum placards that Giacometti had grown up among those peaks to the south, his village set high in a narrow valley that lay in perpetual shadow. It was no wonder his figures had no skin and hardly any flesh. Paul wished the clouds would blow a few degrees to the left, to let down a little more light.

  “It was romantic enough,” Trish said. She had her boss’s camera out now, snapping indiscriminately at the water, at the mountains, at Paul. “You know, the sun and beaches and good food. We had a cabin with a balcony. Spent plenty of time in there. But I haven’t been on a boat since.”

  Only one other couple was left on the small aft deck, but the woman began rubbing her arms, and in a language Paul didn’t recognize said something to her companion, whose face was stony behind mirrored sunglasses. The two of them ducked inside, leaving Paul and Trish alone.

  “We talked about doing a raft when we went to the Grand Canyon,” Trish said, turning her back on the water, peering at Paul through the camera’s viewfinder. “That was a year and a half ago. But it was so expensive, and too dangerous with the kids. Three boys. Oldest just turned ten. Should have left them with my folks. That’s where they are now.”

  This was Paul’s chance to talk about Cynthia and the kids, how far he felt from them, how easy it was to put them out of his mind. He might have told her that he couldn’t have imagined how much Joy and Kyle would feel like his own children, and how crushing he sometimes found it that they would never be all the way his. He might have said that what he had with everyone in his life was at best a tenuous connection—with everyone except for Franklin, who had only a few years left, who might at this moment be loose in the raccoon-infested wilds of northern New Jersey—and all it took was a few days for him to feel those connections stretch and fray.

  The clouds had moved as he’d hoped, a beam of sunlight striking the painted wooden boards of the deck. Trish turned her face to the sky, eyes closed, lips parted. When she spoke again, she kept her head that way and barely moved her mouth. “It could have been romantic, too,” she said. “The sunset over the canyon. The whole place turning some crazy orange. But the boys kept getting close to the edge, and I got tired of chasing them away. It was gone before you could take it in. You get married young, and then you’re thinking about the kids for years, and the whole thing…I don’t even think I looked at him for five years. I mean, really looked at him. And then he’s standing there like a fucking idiot in the sunset, with no clue what to do when his three-year-old’s getting ready to pitch into the Grand-goddamn-Canyon.” She lowered her head and opened her eyes, blinking and then shading them with the camera. “You think divorce’ll solve everything. But then you’re working for a guy who’s been trying to fuck you since the day he hired you. You let him buy you clothes and fly you across the world, and every time he looks at you with those little pigeon eyes you’re trying to figure out how you’re going to keep him off you, or maybe you decide to just give in because it’s easier. And you get a crazy fucking haircut, you get on a boat with a complete stranger who picks you up in an art museum of all places…”

  The sun was all the way out now, and the other couple came back outside. Trish seemed to be waiting for just this moment to give him the insulted, accusatory look she’d turned on him in the airport, a mixture of scorn and challenge. She made an odd movement, crouching down and taking one step in his direction, arm flinging out as if to smack him. But then it swung up over her head, toward the water, and only after a moment did he realize she’d lobbed the camera. He caught sight of it on its descent, surprisingly far from the boat, a little black mark against the blue sky and then the gray mountains. It made no sound when it hit the lake. As soon as it disappeared, Trish ran past him, climbing the stairs to the upper deck. It was the fastest he’d seen her move. He smiled at the other couple apologetically and followed. Her back was to him, head tilted against a pole that propped a canopy overhead. He expected to find her crying, as he’d found Joy on multiple occasions over the past year, curled up on a couch or chair in a dark room he thought was vacant, and then shouting about never having any privacy, about everyone constantly getting in her face. But Trish was dry-eyed, staring out at the dark water, two fingers pulling at the point of hair on her right cheek.

  “Shit on toast,” she said when he reached her.

  “You can say someone stole it.”

  “He had pictures of his kids on there.”

  Only now did he realize the boat had turned around, the city growing again on the horizon. He checked his watch. In less than an hour he was due to meet his associates for dinner. He’d likely be late, for the first time in his career.

  Johann Becker, drunk, red-faced, showing off the brown grooves in his teeth, embraced Paul in the hotel lobby and then held him at arm’s length, a meaty hand on each shoulder. “We’ll miss you, my friend. Come back and see us soon.” Paul didn’t believe him for a moment, but he returned the smile anyway, assured him he’d be back as soon as he c
ould, and when the embrace came a second time, he patted Johann’s jacket, careful to turn his head away from the exhalation of tart breath.

  Paul wasn’t quite as drunk as Johann, but for the first time since he’d arrived he was caught up in the festive spirit of the evening. He’d laughed as loudly as his associates during dinner, hadn’t put his hand over his glass when they poured a third serving of wine. He was, in fact, going to see Johann again soon—early tomorrow morning, for the final round of negotiations before his return flight—but he acted as if this were their leave-taking, as if he didn’t know that Johann would spring some new demand on him at tomorrow’s meeting, a surprise for which Paul had been prepared since he’d first known he was taking this trip. Still, he was giddy as Johann pulled him to his chest, as he took in the smell of cigarettes and oily skin, giddy to think he’d soon be heading home.

  What cheered him most was that he’d be leaving nearly unscathed. After the boat ride he’d delivered Trish to a taxi, in front of which he’d squeezed her hand and wished her good luck, saying meaningless things about how life had a way of turning around when you least expected it, and as if to shut him up she kissed him, just briefly, and then folded herself in the most exquisite way into the back of the cab. His lips tingled where they’d been brushed by hers, the rough chapped edges grazing his chin as they moved away. He’d needed a cab, too, and could have shared hers. He could have asked for the name of her hotel, suggested they meet later. He was proud of himself for his restraint, and proud, too, that he’d have something, even something as immaterial as that kiss, to take home with him. And unlike Johann, Trish was someone he’d never have to see again.

  Except that here she was, sitting at the bar in his hotel lobby, sipping white wine. He caught sight of her legs first, no longer in slacks, crossed and angled toward him. She didn’t smile when she saw him, didn’t wave or raise her glass, just turned a hard gaze on him so there was no way he could pretend he hadn’t seen. She’d changed into a cocktail dress, dark purple, short and sleeveless, and wore open-toed shoes, no nylons. The haircut looked ridiculous to him now, a fashion advertisement superimposed on the image of a beleaguered mother of three.

  “You’re staying here, too?” he asked, not wanting to know if she’d somehow followed him, or searched him out. Or had he accidentally let the name slip? Had he invited her to meet him for a drink after all and then forgotten the invitation?

  “I’ve eaten fondue every night I’ve been here,” she said, swiveling her legs so he could slip past them and take the stool beside her. “Never had so much cheese in my life.”

  He ordered a scotch and soda, his airplane drink. What did it matter that he was on solid ground, since it felt so insubstantial beneath him? He might as well have been thousands of feet in the air. This was a notion he’d enjoy if he could convince himself to believe it: that he was adrift on haphazard or whimsical currents, indifferent to where he might land.

  “If old what’s his name—Jacko? If he’d eaten this much fondue his statues wouldn’t be so skinny, I tell you that much.”

  “That’s right,” Paul said. “He would have been a tub, like Cheese Mold Monet.”

  She laughed—for the first time, now that he thought about it—a delighted, open-mouthed, but nearly silent ripple that rocked her body back and ended with her hand falling on his knee. “Cheese Mold Monet,” she said.

  With that laugh a deal had been sealed. Or maybe it had happened with her kiss at the taxi, or with her throwing her boss’s camera overboard. Or maybe with his invitation to take the boat ride, or with his following her through the airport, staring at her legs.

  There was little left to say—for him, anyway—but they ordered another round, savoring the anticipation, he thought, putting off for just another moment what had been inevitable all along. Trish complained about the bankers at the conference, their arrogance, the new trend among the men to wear old-fashioned watch chains dangling from their vests. “They might as well have their dicks hanging out of their pants,” she said. Then, scrunching up her nose, she added, “I’d give up men altogether if I wasn’t afraid of eating clam.”

  When he still had half his drink to finish, he excused himself and stood in front of the bathroom mirror for a long minute, examining his hair and mustache, recently speckled with gray. Here was a man on the verge of crossing a threshold over which he couldn’t return. And yet he looked ordinary enough, his face flushed, suit and tie a little rumpled, but otherwise composed. Anyone seeing him, if they bothered to glance in his direction, would have noticed only a foreign businessman slightly bewildered by his surroundings, unused to drink, aging just less than gracefully. He took a breath, straightened his tie, ran fingers through his hair.

  The bar was busier when he came back through the lobby. A group of twelve or fifteen men—bankers from Trish’s conference?—had taken up several tables in back. A few were looking over their shoulders at Trish, her body in profile on the barstool, legs on display. They were thinking nasty thoughts about her, maybe making nasty jokes—they might have mistaken her for a local prostitute—and Paul found himself mildly indignant on her behalf. Couldn’t they recognize her for who she was, someone for whom life had taken unexpected turns, who felt her time running short?

  He thought he saw, for the first time, how lovely she was, one leg hooked over the other, foot dangling above the floor, kicking gently, long slender arms folded on the bar, gaunt face and full lips set off against rows of multicolored bottles stacked above soft amber light. He lingered at the edge of the lobby, where she couldn’t see him. He wanted to appreciate her as much as possible now, in case he wasn’t able to do so when she lay in bed beside him.

  One of the bankers called out to her in German, something Paul didn’t understand, and the rest laughed. But Trish didn’t turn away. She finished her wine, played with her hands in her lap. And then her movement was just as abrupt as on the boat. She snatched Paul’s drink, tossed her head back, gulped twice. The glass came down hard on the bar. Her mouth made a series of strange movements, lips sucking inward, chin tucking toward chest. She pulled her big purse onto her lap, stuck her face into it, and came out paler than before. None of the men behind her seemed to notice. She closed the purse, hung it from the back of her chair, wiped her mouth with a bar napkin. And then, as if nothing had happened, went back to playing with her hands, kicking her leg.

  It wasn’t revulsion that made Paul take a step backward. It wasn’t even sorrow for a woman halfway around the world, trying to get on with her life, puking into her purse. Rather it was the knowledge, as clear to him now as it should have been all along, that she, like most people, was better off without him. He staggered to the elevator and made his way to his empty room.

  Late the next afternoon, when the car service dropped him off at home, he found everyone where they’d been before he left: Cynthia in the flower bed, Kyle on the steps of the back porch, Joy throwing her skinny limbs around the yard. Only Franklin wasn’t where he was supposed to be. Instead of stretched out on the rock, he was sitting in the middle of the lawn, without a leash, looking sleepy and satisfied, a little black mound under an extended paw. “It’s a mole!” Kyle cried when he spotted Paul. “You should have seen him. He chased it all the way around the house. I didn’t know he could move so fast!”

  Cynthia hugged him and whispered in his ear, “Can’t wait to get you alone tonight.” A few hours later she slipped into bed, in a negligee, while he went off to brush his teeth. When he came back, her eyes were closed. He sat for a long time on the edge of the bed, listening to her whistling breath, just shy of a snore, and staring at the bathroom’s darkened doorway. There were some things love couldn’t make up for, some things it would never entirely quell. It was love all the same, though, and after a while he slid under the sheets and let his body—so heavy, so burdened by skin and flesh and bones—sink into the mattress and then into sleep.

  In the morning, he dug through his suitcase and handed J
oy her birthday present, wrapped loosely in hotel stationery. She opened it carefully, pushing her hair behind her ear and giving him a curious glance, dreamy and sanguine and full of a yearning that made him want to warn her. But it was too late. She took a long look at Giacometti’s dog—skeletal legs, pinched waist, mournful snout—before bursting into tears.

  Could Be Worse

  1987

  For a week in the middle of March, Paul felt increasingly out of sorts. Not much appetite, lousy sleep. In meetings he’d find himself absently chewing a knuckle. If the phone rang after nine at night, he braced for calamity. The wind blew hard against his bedroom window, and he imagined his neighbor’s oak tipping onto the roof. Lying in bed, with Cynthia huffing peacefully beside him, he asked himself what could be the matter and then did his best to answer. Maybe he’d been working too hard. Maybe he was troubled by the state of the world. Maybe by the fact of his stepchildren growing up too fast. Or maybe it had been four months since he’d taken his car to the Baron. As soon as it grew light outside, he picked up the phone and dialed.

  “Dr. H!” the Baron shouted on the other end of the line. “Why’s it been so long?”

  “Lost track of time,” Paul said.

  “You, maybe. But not that big beauty of yours. She needs a man who’s regular.”

  “Any chance I can bring it—her—tomorrow?”