The New Yorker Stories

In the city, I give the car to the garage attendant, who does not remember me. Milo and I lived in the apartment when we were first married, and moved when Louise was two years old. When we moved, Milo kept the apartment and sublet it—a sign that things were not going well, if I had been one to heed such a warning. What he said was that if we were ever rich enough we could have the house in Connecticut and the apartment in New York. When Milo moved out of the house, he went right back to the apartment. This will be the first time I have visited there in years.

Louise strides in in front of me, throwing her coat over the brass coatrack in the entranceway—almost too casual about being there. She’s the hostess at Milo’s, the way I am at our house.

He has painted the walls white. There are floor-length white curtains in the living room, where my silly flowered curtains used to hang. The walls are bare, the floor has been sanded, a stereo as huge as a computer stands against one wall of the living room, and there are four speakers.

“Look around,” Milo says. “Show your mother around, Louise.”

I am trying to remember if I have ever told Louise that I used to live in this apartment. I must have told her, at some point, but I can’t remember it.

“Hello,” Bradley says, coming out of the bedroom.

“Hi, Bradley,” I say. “Have you got a drink?”

Bradley looks sad. “He’s got champagne,” he says, and looks nervously at Milo.

“No one has to drink champagne,” Milo says. “There’s the usual assortment of liquor.”

“Yes,” Bradley says. “What would you like?”

“Some bourbon, please.”

“Bourbon.” Bradley turns to go into the kitchen. He looks different; his hair is different—more wavy—and he is dressed as though it were summer, in straight-legged white pants and black leather thongs.

“I want Perrier water with strawberry juice,” Louise says, tagging along after Bradley. I have never heard her ask for such a thing before. At home, she drinks too many Cokes. I am always trying to get her to drink fruit juice.

Bradley comes back with two drinks and hands me one. “Did you want anything?” he says to Milo.

“I’m going to open the champagne in a moment,” Milo says. “How have you been this week, sweetheart?”

“O.K.,” Louise says. She is holding a pale-pink, bubbly drink. She sips it like a cocktail.

Bradley looks very bad. He has circles under his eyes, and he is ill at ease. A red light begins to blink on the phone-answering device next to where Bradley sits on the sofa, and Milo gets out of his chair to pick up the phone.

“Do you really want to talk on the phone right now?” Bradley asks Milo quietly.

Milo looks at him. “No, not particularly,” he says, sitting down again. After a moment, the red light goes out.

“I’m going to mist your bowl garden,” Louise says to Bradley, and slides off the sofa and goes to the bedroom. “Hey, a little toadstool is growing in here!” she calls back. “Did you put it there, Bradley?”

“It grew from the soil mixture, I guess,” Bradley calls back. “I don’t know how it got there.”

“Have you heard anything about a job?” I ask Bradley.

“I haven’t been looking, really,” he says. “You know.”

Milo frowns at him. “Your choice, Bradley,” he says. “I didn’t ask you to follow me to California. You can stay here.”

“No,” Bradley says. “You’ve hardly made me feel welcome.”

“Should we have some champagne—all four of us—and you can get back to your bourbons later?” Milo says cheerfully.

We don’t answer him, but he gets up anyway and goes to the kitchen. “Where have you hidden the tulip- shaped glasses, Bradley?” he calls out after a while.

“They should be in the cabinet on the far left,” Bradley says.

“You’re going with him?” I say to Bradley. “To San Francisco?”

He shrugs, and won’t look at me. “I’m not quite sure I’m wanted,” he says quietly.

The cork pops in the kitchen. I look at Bradley, but he won’t look up. His new hairdo makes him look older. I remember that when Milo left me I went to the hairdresser the same week and had bangs cut. The next week, I went to a therapist who told me it was no good trying to hide from myself. The week after that, I did dance exercises with Martine Cooper, and the week after that the therapist told me not to dance if I wasn’t interested in dancing.

“I’m not going to act like this is a funeral,” Milo says, coming in with the glasses. “Louise, come in here and have champagne! We have something to have a toast about.”

Louise comes into the living room suspiciously. She is so used to being refused even a sip of wine from my glass or her father’s that she no longer even asks. “How come I’m in on this?” she asks.

“We’re going to drink a toast to me,” Milo says.

Three of the four glasses are clustered on the table in front of the sofa. Milo’s glass is raised. Louise looks at me, to see what I’m going to say. Milo raises his glass even higher. Bradley reaches for a glass. Louise picks up a glass. I lean forward and take the last one.