Гвен Купер - Homer's Odyssey

Homer had shown me that, too.

So, one Sunday morning in early October, I closed my eyes and leapt. That is to say, I called Laurence to tell him how I felt.

“Listen,” I said, “I have to tell you something, and it’s okay if you don’t feel the same way, but …” I paused, finding it difficult to know how to continue. Suddenly, I was too far in to back out, but I still had no idea where I’d land. “I think … I think I have feelings for you that are more than friendship. And I understand,” I rushed on, “if you don’t—”

“Yes,” Laurence interrupted. “I do. I always have.”

We talked for a long time—more laughing than talking, and saying very little that was coherent. It was a conversation that, now that we were having it, seemed inevitable. Yet it was equally hard to believe it was really happening.

“You know,” I said, “it could be really awkward if things don’t work out for us. Because of Andrea and Steve, I mean.”

“I’ve thought about that,” Laurence replied gravely. “There’s only one solution.”

“What’s that?” I asked.

“We’ll have to be madly in love with each other for the rest of our lives.”

Laurence and I hung up an hour or so later, having made a plan to see each other the following night right after work. I made a mental note to carefully review my wardrobe options. And I would have to call Andrea. Andrea had to know about this new and startling turn of events (although probably not so startling from her perspective) as soon as possible.

But all of a sudden, I found that I was too exhausted to think about any of that. Homer and I got into bed, and the two of us slept straight through until Monday morning.

22 • A Canticle for Vashowitz

May heaven grant you in all things your heart’s desire—husband, house, and a happy peaceful home; for there is nothing better in this world than that man and wife should be of one mind.

—HOMER, The Odyssey

IT HAD ALWAYS BEEN MY OPINION THAT WHEN A COUPLE DECIDE TO move in together, they should find a new apartment rather than having one person move into the other’s home. I had developed this theory years earlier, around the time when I’d moved into—and subsequently moved out of—Jorge’s house. Humans, in my experience, can be as territorial as cats, and it’s best to head off any but I’ve always used this closet to store [fill in the blank] arguments before they crop up.

It was a fine principle, as such things go, but it failed to take into account that first commandment of Manhattan real estate: Thou shalt not relinquish a rent-controlled, three-bedroom/two-bathroom apartment with a balcony. Laurence paid less in rent than I did for my studio, and had more than twice the space. When we decided to move in together, it was never a question that my cats and I would move into his home.

Still, Laurence and I were a couple for a full year before I moved in. Shortly after my I’m in love with Laurence Lerman epiphany, I had begun writing a novel about South Beach. I couldn’t tell you why I had woken up one morning so completely convinced that what I truly wanted in life was to be a writer (although the four layoffs I’d endured in a two-year period had persuaded me of the glories of self-employment). Nor could I tell you why I persisted when everybody I knew in publishing told me that the only thing less likely than an unpublished writer’s landing a book deal was an unpublished writer’s landing a book deal for a novel.

But I’d learned from Homer long ago that the difference between “unlikely” and “impossible” was all the difference in the world. After many months and I don’t know how many rejection letters (I stopped counting when I reached twenty), I found an agent and the whole thing became an honest-to-God professional endeavor. Since I continued to work full-time, it took me just over a year to finish a first draft of the manuscript, and during that time—wherein Laurence patiently read, critiqued, and then reread every word I wrote—we agreed that it made sense for me to finish writing before I moved.

It would be misleading, however, if I were to suggest that my South Beach novel was the only thing keeping Laurence and me from cohabitated bliss. The truth was, Laurence was not thrilled at the prospect of living with three cats.

Laurence and I had innumerable quibbles during the first year we dated, but only one knock-down, drag-out fight—and that was over the cats. “Do there have to be three of them?” he asked one day, about six months into our new relationship—and he couldn’t have precisely worded a question more likely to turn me cold and unyielding as a lake that had frozen over. “I don’t know if I can live with three cats.”

“Well, there are three cats,” I replied. “There have always been three cats, and there will always be three cats. If you’re having any Sophie’s Choice delusions, I suggest you forget them.”

It was and remains the only moment when I was halfway convinced that Laurence and I, as a couple, were a failed experiment. It wasn’t learning that Laurence didn’t like cats—I’d always known Laurence didn’t like cats (although, Laurence indignantly insisted, it wasn’t that he “didn’t like” cats; it was just that he did like dogs). But I felt that nobody could truly love me—could profess to care about my happiness—and even consider subjecting me to the wholly unbearable pain of … what, exactly? Deciding which of my cats I loved least and sending him or her to live with strangers? Or to a shelter? While I could understand someone’s not wanting to live with three cats, it struck me as the kind of thing that—having known me well for three full years before we were a couple—Laurence should have thought about far earlier than this. Had I walked into Laurence’s apartment and found him in bed with another woman, I couldn’t have been more convinced that I had been completely— completely— miles wide of the mark in my assessment of his character.

Deep down, ever since the day I’d first considered adopting Homer, I’d been waiting for the moment when a promising relationship would fall through because the man in question was unwilling to live with three cats. I’d always known it would happen, and the only surprising thing was that it had taken so long.

Laurence and I fought for hours, until finally we arrived at the crux of what he really meant. “You always stay at my place,” he said. “You’ve never once let me into your apartment. Maybe there’s something so horrible about living with three cats, you don’t want me to see it. Or maybe you’re not ready to let me into your life.”

Well, he had me there. It was true that I’d never invited Laurence into my home. Before we were dating, there had been no imperative reason to do so. Now that we were a couple, I was too anxious about our relationship to make any mistakes—and I was terrified that if the four of them met and didn’t like each other, I might lose Laurence. But my clever plan of avoiding this scenario by keeping everybody separated had obviously backfired. I could understand why Laurence found it difficult to believe I was serious about spending the rest of my life with him, when I wouldn’t even let him spend the night with me in my own home.

So we arranged for an overnight visit, and it couldn’t have gone worse. Scarlett had sprained her leg that morning due to an overly enthusiastic leap, and limped away from the newcomer in an even surlier fashion than usual. He’ll think I’m running a halfway house for blind and lame cats , I thought. Vashti peed in Laurence’s overnight bag. Homer had gotten used to a life without doors—the only door in my apartment was to the bathroom, and I always kept that open. When Laurence went in to use the bathroom, closing the door behind him, Homer sat at the door and wailed, crouching down to slide one leg, all the way up to his shoulder, into the crack between the door and the floor. The visual of Homer’s disembodied leg and outstretched claw reaching for him beneath the bathroom door was, as Laurence reported, “terrifying.”