Christopher Beha - Arts & Entertainments - A Novel

The door to the lounge opened, and John Munroe appeared, bringing in a waft of the cigarette he’d likely just smoked on the roof. Munroe had been teaching there since Eddie was a student, and his graded papers had always given off the warm scent of the Tareyton 100s he smoked from a soft pack.

“That was quite a performance,” he said.

Eddie liked Munroe, had always liked him, and he felt uneasy under his skeptical stare.

“I guess I was a little unprepared.”

Munroe laughed.

“Kids could stand to hear a bit of reality. Anyway, they’ll all forget it soon enough.”

This seemed to be his philosophy of teaching — the boys would forget it all anyway. As Munroe crossed the room, Eddie clicked the browser closed and stood up from the computer.

“I’ve got a few things to take care of in the theater before second period,” he said as he left the lounge.

The mentions of Martha and the general level of misbehavior seemed much increased in class that day. It might have been related to the talk he’d given that morning, or it might have been a natural process of boundary testing, but Eddie worried that some of the boys had already heard about the tape. They would be among the first to see the thing once it was released. High school boys were probably the target audience. It was another thing Eddie hadn’t considered. He gave the boys scripts and ran them through line readings onstage while he sat in the back of the theater, working out what he would say to Susan that night.

He had his own script pretty well prepared by the time he got home. First he would mention the rumors about Martha in the paper and wait to see Susan’s response. Eventually he would admit that the rumors had reminded him of some videos he’d made with Martha. They couldn’t be the ones in question, of course, since those had been destroyed years ago. Although, come to think of it, he’d only destroyed the ones he had. He couldn’t be sure that Martha didn’t have some herself. Susan wouldn’t like any of this, but he couldn’t see how she could blame him for it.

“How was the appointment?” he asked first.

“It was good,” Susan said. “But I’m nervous.”

“I’m sure we’re going to get great news.”

He couldn’t see how to make the transition from there. Neither of them spoke for a few minutes, until Eddie said, “You know, I read something funny about Martha in the paper today.”

“Oh, let’s not talk about her right now,” Susan said. “We’ve got our own things to worry about.”

They fell back into silence, which persisted until the phone rang. Susan jumped from the couch to pick it up.

“Hello,” she said. Eddie watched her face. “Yes,” she said. She repeated this word three or four times mindlessly, and Eddie couldn’t tell what it meant. Then she started to cry, and still Eddie couldn’t tell. Finally, she said, “Thank you, doctor. Thank you for everything.” She hung up the phone, ran back to the couch, and wrapped her arms around Eddie. “I knew it,” she said. “I knew it, I knew it, I knew it.”

“I guess we’re having a baby.”

He could barely hear Susan’s response through her tears.

“Based on my blood numbers, he thinks all three embryos attached.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means we’re having triplets.” She was still crying, and it didn’t seem entirely from happiness. “It’s so overwhelming,” she said. “How are we going to afford triplets?”

She looked helplessly around their one-bedroom apartment. Eddie wanted to let her know about the rest of money— not that it would be enough on its own to solve the problem, but at least it would take some pressure off. In a few weeks, maybe a few months, he’d say that another check had come from Korea. But he couldn’t do that too soon if he wanted the story to have even a modicum of credibility.

“We’ll make it work.”

This seemed to be what she was waiting to hear.

“It’s a blessing, really,” she said. “It’s going to be great.”

STILL SHOTS FROM THE video, cropped and strategically blurred, filled the front pages of the News and the Post on Sunday morning. “The Doctor Is In!” read the Post’s headline. The News had gone with the more esoteric “Martha Tart-in’.”

Eddie didn’t look through the papers before going back to the apartment with the breakfast sandwiches he’d gone out to buy. He needed to get to Susan before she heard from someone else. He’d tried several times in the preceding days to mention the tape to her, but everything had been so busy, and she’d been so happy.

“There’s a big story about Martha in the papers,” he said after they sat down to eat.

“These days I’d be shocked if the paper didn’t have something about her,” Susan said. “I have to admit that I’d have a hard time hearing about her pregnancy if things hadn’t worked out for us. But now I just wish her the best.”

“It actually isn’t about the pregnancy.”

“What’s it about, then?”

“People are saying there’s a sex tape floating around with her in it.”

Susan cringed.

“I hope you don’t have anything to do with that.”

“Why would you think that?”

“I’m kidding. Of course you don’t have anything to do with it. Is it Turner or Rex?”

“No one seems to know.”

“People are so gross. Who even makes these tapes to begin with? And why would they pick now of all times to release it?”

“When I read about it,” Eddie said, “I remembered something.”

Susan put her sandwich down.

“What did you remember?”

“When Martha and I were together, we made a lot of tapes. I don’t mean those kinds of tapes. Just, you know, rehearsing. Preparing for auditions. Line reading. But we may have taped some other stuff once or twice.”

“You may have?”

“It wasn’t something we were into or anything. I never even looked at them. It just sort of happened while the camera was on. I never mentioned it to you because I didn’t see the point. I didn’t think they even still existed. But I guess she might have kept it, and someone could have stolen it off her computer or something.”

“Is it you in that tape? Is that what you’re telling me?”

“I don’t know,” Eddie said. “I haven’t seen it. Martha was the one who set up the video camera. She was the one who was constantly taping everything. She probably did it with other guys. And why would this ten-year-old video just be surfacing now? But I saw this in the paper, and I remembered. So I thought I should tell you.”

“Isn’t there some way you could find out? By going online or something?”

“I guess so.”

“Don’t you want to know?”

Eddie opened his laptop and did what he would have done if he were really looking for the video. When he searched “Martha Martin sex tape,” thousands of hits came back.

“It’s all over the place,” he said. Susan got up and left the room.

The video itself was harder to find than he would have imagined. Most sites that claimed to have real footage just linked to other pages. Those that advertised free access actually showed a staged scene featuring an actress who resembled but clearly wasn’t Martha. It might have been made for the purpose or just pulled from some stock of celebrity look-alike videos. Pop-up ads crowded Eddie’s screen. He found sites that weren’t selling the video outright but included it with annual subscriptions. Bits and pieces could be had for ten or fifteen bucks. Finally, he bought the whole fifteen minutes for $49.99. Thousands of dollars must have already been spent that day. He wondered how much Morgan would make. Moments after entering his credit card number, Eddie was watching himself.