Jonathan Franzen - The Corrections

“It’s my night off,” Denise said.

“Martin says he’ll send his driver,” Brian said. “I’d be grateful if you came. My marriage is over.”

She put on a black cashmere dress, ate a banana to avoid seeming hungry at dinner, and rode with the director’s driver up to Tacconelli’s, the storefront pizzeria in Kensington. A dozen famous and semifamous people, plus Brian and the simian, round-shouldered Jerry Schwartz, had taken over three tables at the rear. Denise kissed Brian on the mouth and sat down between him and the Famous British Author, who appeared to have an evening’s worth of cricket-and darts-related wit with which he wished to regale Mira Sorvino. The Famous Director told Denise he’d had her country ribs and sauerkraut and loved them, but she changed the subject as fast as she could. She was clearly there as Brian’s date; the movie people weren’t interested in either of them. She put her hand on Brian’s knee, as if consolingly.

“Raskolnikov in headphones, listening to Trent Reznor while he whacks the old lady, is so perfect,” the very least famous person at the table, a college-age intern of the director, gushed to Jerry Schwartz.

“Actually, it’s the Nomatics,” Schwartz corrected with devastating lack of condescension.

“Not Nine Inch Nails?”

Schwartz lowered his eyelids and shook his head minimally. “Nomatics, 1980, ‘Held in Trust.’ Later covered with insufficient attribution by that person whose name you just mentioned.”

“Everybody steals from the Nomatics,” Brian said.

“They suffered on the cross of obscurity so that others might enjoy eternal fame,” Schwartz said.

“What’s their best record?”

“Give me your address, I’ll make you a CD,” Brian said.

“It’s all brilliant,” Schwartz said, “until ‘Thorazine Sunrise.’ That was when Tom Paquette quit, but the band didn’t realize it was dead until two albums later. Somebody had to break that news to them.”

“I suppose that a country that teaches creationism in its schools,” the Famous British Author remarked to Mira Sorvino, “may be forgiven for believing that baseball does not derive from cricket.”

It occurred to Denise that Stanley Tucci had directed and starred in her favorite restaurant movie. She happily talked shop with him, resenting the beautiful Sorvino a little less and enjoying, if not the company itself, then at least her own lack of intimidation by it.

Brian drove her home from Tacconelli’s in his Volvo. She felt entitled and attractive and well aerated and alive. Brian, however, was angry.

“Robin was supposed to be there,” he said. “I guess you could call it an ultimatum. But she’d agreed to go to dinner with us. She was going to take some tiny, minimal interest in what I’m doing with my life, even if I knew she’d deliberately dress like a grad student to make me uncomfortable and prove her point. And then I was going to spend next Saturday at the Project. That was the agreement. And then this morning she decides she’s going to march against the death penalty instead. I’m no fan of the death penalty. But Khellye Withers is not my idea of a poster boy for leniency. And a promise is a promise. I didn’t see that one fewer candle in the candlelight vigil was going to make much difference. I said she could miss one march for my sake. I said, why don’t I write a check to the ACLU, whatever size you want. Which didn’t go over so well.”

“Writing checks, no, not good,” Denise said.

“I realized that. But things got said that are going to be hard to unsay. I frankly don’t have a lot of interest in unsaying them.”

“You never know,” Denise said.

Washington Avenue between the river and Broad was lonely at eleven on a Monday evening. Brian appeared to be experiencing his first real disappointment in life, and he couldn’t stop talking. “Remember when you said if I weren’t married and you weren’t my employee?”

“I remember.”

“Does that still hold?”

“Let’s go in and have a drink,” Denise said.

Which was how Brian came to be sleeping in her bed at nine-thirty the next morning when her doorbell rang.

She was still full of the alcohol that had fueled completion of the picture of weirdness and moral chaos that her life seemed bent on being. Beneath her soddenness, though, an agreeable fizz of celebrity lingered from the night before. It was stronger than anything she felt for Brian.

The doorbell rang again. She got up and put on a maroon silk robe and looked out the window. Robin Passafaro was standing on the stoop. Brian’s Volvo was parked across the street.

Denise considered not answering the door, but Robin wouldn’t be looking for her here if she hadn’t already tried the Generator.

“It’s Robin,” she said. “Stay here and be quiet.”

Brian in the morning light still wore his pissed-off expression of the night before. “I don’t care if she knows I’m here.”

“Yeah, but I do.”

“Well, my car’s right across the street.”

“I’m aware of that.”

She, too, felt strangely pissed off with Robin. All summer, betraying Brian, she’d never felt anything like the contempt she felt for his wife as she descended the stairs now. Annoying Robin, stubborn Robin, screeching Robin, hooting Robin, styleless Robin, clueless Robin.

And yet, the moment she opened the door, her body recognized what it wanted. It wanted Brian on the street and Robin in her bed.

Robin’s teeth were chattering, though the morning wasn’t cold. “Can I come in?”

“I’m about to go to work,” Denise said.

“Five minutes,” Robin said.

It seemed impossible that she hadn’t seen the pistachio-colored wagon across the street. Denise let her into the front hall and closed the door.

“My marriage is over,” Robin said. “He didn’t even come home last night.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I’ve been praying for my marriage, but I get distracted by the thought of you. I’m kneeling in church and I start thinking about your body.”

Dread settled on Denise. She didn’t exactly feel guilty — the egg timer on an ailing marriage had run out; at worst she’d hurried the clock along — but she was sorry that she’d wronged this person, sorry she’d competed. She took Robin’s hands and said, “I want to see you and I want to talk to you. I don’t like what’s happened. But I have to go to work now.”

The telephone rang in the living room. Robin bit her lip and nodded. “OK.”

“Can we meet at two?” Denise said.

“OK.”

“I’ll call you from work.”

Robin nodded again. Denise let her out and shut the door and released five breaths’ worth of air.

“ Denise, it’s Gary, I don’t know where you are, but call me when you get this, there’s been an accident, Dad fell off the cruise ship, he fell about eight stories, I just talked to Mom —”

She ran to the phone and picked up. “Gary.”

“I tried you at work.”

“Is he alive?”

“Well, he shouldn’t be,” Gary said. “But he is.”

Gary was at his best in emergencies. The qualities that had infuriated her the day before were a comfort now. She wanted him to know it all. She wanted him to sound pleased with his own calm.

“They apparently towed him for a mile in forty-five-degree water before the ship could stop,” Gary said. “They’ve got a helicopter coming to take him to New Brunswick. But his back is not broken. His heart is still working. He’s able to speak. He’s a tough old guy. He could be fine.”

“How’s Mom?”

“She’s concerned that the cruise is being delayed while the helicopter comes. Other people are being inconvenienced.”