Julia Pierpont - Among the Ten Thousand Things

Like Stanley’s, but harder. Colder. All-business Stanley. “The woman seems all right, but she’ll press charges.”

“She said that?” Jack rolled onto his side, propping his head up on his hand and squinting in the morning light. Blinds would have ruined the picture windows.

“Right now she says she won’t— most likely, she says — but she called a lawyer in to the hospital.”

“She’s still at the hospital?”

“I think she needed a scan—”

“What they should do is check her into the psych ward.”

“I think it would help if you released some sort of statement. We could do it on your behalf, but—”

“If I make a statement, do we reopen?”

There was a pause, and Stanley sighed. “What you aren’t getting, Jack, is that everyone who was in that gallery last night could sue for something. And they wouldn’t be going after you.”

“Then why don’t you sue me, Stanley?”

“Be serious.”

“Look, say what you want to say. Write up any little release you want, and I’ll sign it, all right?”

“We don’t need you to sign—”

“You know what? I don’t have time for bullshit; do what you want. Just make it go away.”

Stanley hung up, but Jack stayed with the phone to his ear. He checked the time under the TV. Not yet seven. Stanley was one of his oldest friends, but what kind? He’d gotten rid of Stanley, but he wasn’t really done talking, so he called Nicky.

“Nicolo! You’re awake,” Jack boomed, detecting a whiff of subdued life on the other end of the line. “I’m glad I caught you. Meet at the studio? I can be there in an hour.”

“I have work.”

“Right, right. Shit. Where’re you at again?”

“Man, please, do not come to my work.”

“What? Maybe I want a Frappucino.”

—

At half past nine, Jack was at the coffee shop at Astor Place. He ordered an americano.

“What size?”

“Whatever, large.”

“Come on, boss, you know the sizes.”

“Venti. Nicky, look, it’s clear you’ve been hibernating the last fifteen hours, but at some point while you’re up for air, you’re going to hear some things about last night.” A line was forming behind him. “Ring me up for one of these biscotti things too.”

“Was the video not okay?”

“We didn’t get that far.” He fished a credit card out from his back pocket. “Listen, you remember that girl, Jordan Esberg?” Last October, when Jack was starting to worry things were getting too serious, he’d wondered out loud why the girl had never shown an interest in Nicky. Maybe they should give it a shot. They were about the same age. The girl had stared at him; Jack had smiled. What? He really did just want everyone to be happy. “Do you think you could reach her for me?”

“I don’t even think I have her number still.” That Halloween, while Jack and Deb stayed home distributing fun-size candy bars to ghosties and junior pirates, Nicky and the girl had gone to a costume party. “Can’t you reach her?”

“She’s been ignoring my calls.”

“If she doesn’t want to talk to you, I definitely don’t think she’d talk to me. I don’t get it. Why would she be ignoring your calls?”

Another employee appeared behind the register, the manager in a green corporate visor. “Friend of yours, Nick?”

“I’m a customer.” Jack wielded his biscotti.

Nicky handed him back his card and receipt. “Your drink’ll be at the bar, sir.”

At the bar Jack ate his stick of cookie, which was stale and crumbed on the keyboard of his phone. The day after Nicky and the girl’s date, All Saints’ Day, Nicky had turned up at the studio with a pair of sparkling black wings that she had left at his apartment that morning, tiptoeing out while he was still asleep. A few hours later the girl had come to Jack and when she did he teased her about it, her obvious intentions, to make him jealous. He made her angry, then made nice with her, pushing up her short sleeves and kissing her round shoulders, the knobby back of her neck, until she began to smile and tell him about her night, sliding out of her clothes and into her wings before leading him to the sofa, floating glitter and doom all behind her.

The trial by dinner had not been a total catastrophe, but it had helped Deb to make her decision, and the next morning, on the walk to Simon’s subway station and Kay’s school bus, she wedged herself between them to talk about What Next. Again she found herself using old standards, the clichés, like, people make mistakes, and wondered if the kids recognized them as such, or if she could get away with it because of their ages. Were they too young to know the words were rewarmed?

“What your dad did has nothing to do with the two of you,” she said at the corner, barricading them back as she looked both ways. “It isn’t about you. It isn’t even really about me,” she added. (Did she believe that?) “Mostly it’s about himself.”

“Okay,” Simon said, knocking into her arm as he hopped off the curb.

“Your father and I have been married a long long time. People make mistakes.”

“You said that already,” said Kay.

There. So now it was a cliché.

Simon stopped short at the newsstand across the street. “It’s okay if you guys want to get a divorce,” he said, pulling open the glass refrigerator door. “Can I get a water?” He shook the wet off the bottle and looked down at the morning papers.

“Well, thank you for your permission.”

“Donald’s parents got divorced and it’s not like his dad even did anything.”

“That’s enough, all right? Be a little sensitive.” Deb draped an arm around her daughter. “Sweetheart, you want something? A Snickers or something?”

“Can I get gum?”

“And can I get this?” Simon held up a Post. “For the train.”

“I’ll buy you the Times. ”

“This is cheaper.”

“I’d rather you read the Times. ”

“But this one has sudoku.”

“Fine,” Deb said, and bought everything. Thinking: We have raised two entirely city children. She and Jack had reared these urban creatures, so different from themselves, a southern boy and a suburban girl. Art and dance had carried them to the city, but what kept them — kept Deb, at least — was the sense that it all was happening there for the first time, would ripple out in lesser versions across the country, like touring companies of a Broadway show, like everything everywhere else was an echo of something that had happened there. She never took New York for granted, but it had never belonged to her like it did to her kids, and there was still that pane of glass between herself and where she lived, showing her her reflection, in the darker places, where she was afraid. How could she guess at what her children were afraid of, then? Were they afraid of anything?

Simon had started down the subway stairs when Deb called him back. “Listen.” Pressing her palm against the strap of his bag. “I don’t know about Donald’s parents. I know that your dad is sorry, and I know that this takes time to figure out. And he knows that too.”

“So, what, he’s going to be sleeping on the couch?”

“Does that bother you guys?”

“It’s just Donald is coming over tonight.” He telescoped and untelescoped his Post.

It is so hard to know the right thing and so important to make it seem easy. “Your father will be in our bedroom, then.”

That, as far as Simon was concerned, settled it, and Jack was permitted back into Deb’s bed to steel the family from judgment by a fifteen-year-old boy named Donald.