David Gates - Preston Falls

When the plane levels out after takeoff and she can read without getting sick, she opens Emma to the part where Mr. Elton starts quote making violent love to Emma in the carriage, which of course back then only meant pouring your heart out, but you still can't help picturing him tearing at her antique clothes and her weeping and trying to push him off as he's plunging his penis. After like two pages, she starts closing her eyes a little between sentences and sinking into the rushing noise of the airplane and mixing up what she's reading with things in life, and then she's asleep with the book open on her leg. When something's said about lunch she wakes up enough to say no, thank you, and doesn't come to again until the plane starts bumping and pitching and pointing nose-down, and someone announces that the captain has put on the fasten-seat-belts sign and they're almost on the ground. She has to wipe drool from the corner of her mouth — not, thank God, the side turned to Anita, who's sitting there reading away like one of those people who never get airsick. Jean wonders if she was snoring as well as drooling. She closes her eyes again and tries her meditation — she hates landing even worse than takeoff — but she can't go deep because she's worried that Anita will think she's praying.

The car that picks them up takes them on superhighways right through the futuristic downtown. Anita's oohing and aahing and point-

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ing, which isn't so brilliant if her idea is to come off as cosmopolitan; maybe she's trying to seem spirited. Though in fairness, she could be genuinely interested. Eventually the buildings get lower, and they take an exit and go maybe half a mile along a kind of truck-route-looking street with a banged-up metal divider, then turn into a strip mall with a Staples (the anchor), a TCBY, and the two small empty stores The Paley Group is leasing side-by-side and making into a single space. The white stucco seems to pulsate in the sunlight; you can imagine it on a hundred-degree day in August.

Jerry turns to face the back seat. "Well, this is grim."

"You saw the pictures, Jerry," Howard says. "Nothing has been misrepresented."

"Hey," says Jerry, and holds up a hand. "It wasn't your call." They pull up in front of the empty stores, the windows covered with brown paper. ''Or mine. I campaigned for the space in that tower until I made myself obnoxious — and no cracks out of ^'o^^, Karnes." He looks out his window. "Where the fuck is this bozo? He was supposed to — ah." A golden-haired man in a brown leather jacket is walking toward them, eating with a spoon from a TCBY dish. Jerry pokes the button, and the window goes down.

"You got to be the folks from New York," says the man, who has a sort of ex-con-looking face. "I'm Dan Lineberry? You have to excuse me — this is lunch and breakfast."

They follow him into the left-hand storefront. There's nothing to see: four people have flown a thousand miles to inspect freshly sheet-rocked walls, cables hanging down from an unfinished ceiling and two separate rectangles of dirty old carpeting, one gray, the other dark gray, that haven't been ripped up yet. A strip of concrete floor in between. Jean looks for Anita, in hopes of making eye contact, hypocritical as it is to try to make her an ally at this late date. But Anita's pacing around, brows knit, as if picturing desks and dividers. She takes Jerry's sleeve and points at a blank sheetrock corner. Jerry nods, then follows her point as it sweeps along the wall. Just about now, Mel and Roger are getting out of school.

Jean hasn't stayed in a hotel since she and Willis spent a night at the Tarrytown Hilton a year ago. One of their last attempts. What she mostly notices about her room at the Airport Marriott is its beigeness—

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carpeting, bedspread, draperies — and a big walnut-veneer piece of furniture that must have a television inside. She should take a shower before they regroup down in the lounge, and before that, she should call home. But even before that, she needs to zone out for a few minutes. She takes off her shoes, lies down on the bed and picks up Emma.

The telephone wakes her, and she gropes for it on the nightstand.

"Hi, it's Anita. Jerry thought I'd better call. You okay? We're all down here."

"Oh, I fell asleep'' Jean says. "God, what time is it? Am I keeping everybody waiting?" And she's got to take a shower, change clothes, do something about her hair. . Crap.

"It's only six-thirty," says Anita. "Take your time. You must be exhausted — ^you slept the whole way down. Are you sure you're all right?"

Jean can hear music and chattering voices on the other end. "I'm fine. It's just a combination of not enough sleep and also getting my period." A totally weird thing to come out with, since she's not getting her period.

"Oh, I hate that," says Anita. "And if I take anything, then I'm like — uhh."

"Well, that's actually what happened. I took a couple of Advils, and the next thing I knew…" This is so odd: the last thing she is, ordinarily, is a liar. She must be more desperate than she knows to estabUsh some bogus woman-to-woman thing.

"Listen," says Anita, "I'll just teU them — God, what should I say? You want me to say you were working on something? And the time just got away from you?"

"No, just tell them I fell asleep and I'll be down in a minute, okay? So what are we doing tonight — do we know yet?"

"Anybody's guess. But I think it could be a long one. Listen, could I ask you? Do you have any idea what we're doing down here? I just think this is bizarre."

"Well, it hasn't exactly been action-packed. But it does make a difference to actually see the space. And the thing tomorrow morning, it probably makes sense for Jerry and Howard to get on a personal footing with someone from the bank."

Dead air.

"Okay," says Anita. "So we'll see you in a few."

Jean says, "Okay," but Anita's already hung up. Brilliant: you mope

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around wishing you had a woman ally, and now you keep her at arms' length because of some stupid paranoia. What, she's going to betray you if you agree this is bizarre? So no wonder your marriage fell apart.

She decides to skip the shower and use the time to call home. On the fourth ring, she gets the machine: "This is five five five, one five three six," says Willis's voice. "You know what to do."

"Hi, dear hearts," she says. "I guess you guys must've gone out. I'm just calling to say hi and that I miss you" — now don't you start weeping—"and I'm doing fine. It's warmer down here, but not real warm, so if you're picturing me lying out by the pool or something, forget about it. Anyway, I'm just about to go out to dinner, and I'll try you again later. I know you already have the number here, but just in case." She actually gives them the stupid number again.

It would be self-dramatizing to sit here on the edge of the bed staring forlornly, so she goes into the bathroom and paws around in her travel kit for a toothbrush — which she evidently forgot to pack. There's a little thing of blue mouthwash in a basket on the countertop, along with little bottles of shampoo and conditioner, so she sloshes some of that around in her mouth, running her tongue over her teeth, then tips back her head and gargles. This will have to do. She makes some quick repairs on her hair and makeup so she looks a little less like shit — it hurt when Jerry said that, even if it was meant to be some double-reverse irony.

Down in the lounge, Jerry and Howard and Anita are perched on tall stools around a tiny table on a chrome stalk.

"All right" Jerry pats the seat of an empty stool. "Sit down and what's your pleasure? Miss Bruno— Mizz Bruno — is drinking white wine, like the lady she is. I'm drinking Wild Turkey so nobody'U know I'm a New York Jew, and our friend Howard here is drinking — what are you drinking again, Howard?"