Lunar Park

other.

“First the man takes a drink, then the drink takes a drink, and then the drink takes the man,” she was murmuring.

I smiled apologetically. Ordering a cocktail had been so natural an act that I hadn’t even thought about it. It had been involuntary. “I’m sorry . . .”

“Why are you having a drink?” she asked.

“It’ll be my reward vodka?”

“How did I know you’d say something shitty like that?” But there was no rancor in her voice, and we were still holding hands in the dimness of the restaurant.

“Do you really want to be here this week?” Jayne asked.

It was as if the intensity of the heartfelt plea—on my knees, with my head bowed—in Dr. Faheida’s office had vanished from memory. But then I thought, During that impassioned speech, were you thinking only of yourself? “What do you mean? Where else would I want to be?”

“Well, I thought maybe you’d want to take a week off.” She shrugged. “Marta will be there. And Rosa.”

“Jayne—”

“Or you could come to Toronto with me.”

“Hey,” I said, leaning forward. “You know that would definitely not work out.”

“You’re right, you’re right.” She shook her head. “That was a dumb idea.”

“It wasn’t a dumb idea.”

“I just thought maybe you’d like to go someplace. Have a vacation.”

“I’ve got nowhere else to go.” I was doing my Richard Gere in An Officer and a Gentleman impersonation. “I’ve got nowhere else to go . . .”

She laughed lightly, and it didn’t seem faked, and we squeezed hands again.

Then I decided to tell her. “Well, I’m up for this Harrison Ford thing and they might want to meet this week.” I paused. “In L.A.”

“I think that’s great,” Jayne said.

Though I wasn’t surprised by her enthusiasm, I said, “Really?”

“Yeah. You should definitely think about it.”

“It would only be for a day or two,” I said.

“Good. I hope you do it.”

Suddenly I asked, “Why do you stay with me?”

“Because . . .” She sighed. “Because . . . I get you, I guess.”

“Yet all I do is disappoint you,” I muttered guiltily. “All I do is disappoint everybody.”

“You have potential.” She stopped. The unspecific comment was transformed into something else by her tenderness. “There was a time when you made me laugh and you were . . . kind . . .” She paused again. “And I believe that will happen again.” She lowered her head and didn’t look up for a long time.

“You’re acting like this is the end of the world,” I said softly.

The waiter came with our drinks. He pretended to recognize Jayne only now and grinned widely at her. She acknowledged this and offered a sad smile. He warned us that the kitchen would be closing soon, but this didn’t really register. I noticed people slipping away from the bar. There was a whirlpool in the center of the dining room. After Jayne sipped her wine she let go of my hand and asked, “Why didn’t we work on this more?” Pause. “I mean in the beginning . . .” Another pause. “Before we broke up.”

“I don’t know.” It was the only answer I could come up with. “We were too young?” I guessed. “Could that have been it?”

“You never trusted my feelings,” she murmured to herself. “I don’t think you ever really believed I liked you.”

“That’s not true at all,” I said. “I did. I did know that. I just . . . wasn’t ready.”

“And you are now? After one particularly volatile session?”

“On the volatility scale I would say that was only about a seven.”

And then after we both tried to smile, I said, “Maybe you never really understood me.” I said this in the same soft voice I had been using since we entered the restaurant. “You say that you did. But maybe you didn’t. Not really.” I thought about this. “Maybe not enough to resolve anything? But that was probably my fault. I was just this . . . hidden person and—”

“Who made it so impossible to resolve anything.” She finished the sentence.

“I want to now. I want to make things work out . . . and . . .” My foot found hers beneath the table. And then I had a flash: Jayne standing alone over a grave in a charred field at dusk, and this image forced me to admit, “You’re right about something.”

“What?”

“I am afraid of being alone.”

You stumble into a nightmare—you grasp for salvation.

“I’m afraid of losing you . . . and Robby . . . and Sarah . . .”

If something is written, can it be unwritten?

I tensed when I said, “Don’t go,” even though this wasn’t meant literally.

“I’ll only be gone a week.”

I thought about the week that had just passed. “That’s a long time.”

“ ‘There’s always summer,’ ” she said wistfully, a famous line from a movie she had made—the elusive love interest who strands the fiance at the altar.

“Don’t go,” I said again.

She was unfolding a napkin. She was quietly crying.

“What?” I reached for her. I felt the corners of my mouth sag.

“That’s the first time you’ve ever said that to me.”

This would be the last dinner I ever had with Jayne.

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 5

19. the cat

I woke up staring at our darkened ceiling in the master bedroom.

The writer was imagining an intricate moment: Jayne saying goodbye to the children, kneeling on the cold granite of the driveway, a sedan and its driver idling behind her, and the kids were dressed for school and she’d left them so many times before that Sarah and Robby were used to this—they didn’t sulk, they barely paid attention, because this was just business: Mom going nowhere again. (If Robby was slightly more emotional that day in November, he did not reveal it to Jayne.) Why was Jayne lingering when she said goodbye to Robby? Why was she searching his eyes? Why did Jayne stroke his face until Robby pulled back and flinched, Sarah’s fingers still restlessly entwined with her mother’s? She crushed them in a hug, their foreheads touching, the front of the house looming over them with the wall that was a map sprawling across its surface. She would only be gone a week. She would call them that night from her hotel room in Toronto. (Later, at Buckley, Sarah would point at the wrong plane cruising the sky, passing in and out of clouds, and tell a teacher, “My mommy’s up there,” and by then Jayne’s pain would have faded.) Why did Jayne weep on the ride to the Midland Airport? Before Jayne left the darkness of our bedroom, why had I said the words I promise? My pillow was wet. I had cried in my sleep again. Sun was now filtering into the room and the ceiling was lighting itself indifferently in an enlarging diamond, and the umbrellas were still spinning and iridescent halos revolved around me—the remnants of a dream I couldn’t remember—and mid-yawn my immediate thought was Jayne’s gone. What the writer wanted to know was: why was Jayne so frightened the morning of November fifth? Or, more accurately, how did Jayne intuit what was going to happen to us during her absence?

Ignoring everything is very easy to do. Paying attention is much harder, but this is what was demanded of me since I was now the momentary guardian.

It was time to condense things, and because of this everything started moving faster. I now had a list that needed to be checked on the morning of November fifth. The newspaper needed to be scanned for any information about the missing boys. (Nothing.)