Jonathan Lethem - You Don't Love Me Yet

Falmouth was at his desk the morning after the debacle, seeking consolation in routine. The gallery office was shuttered against the day’s light, Falmouth’s face lit by the blue-toned screen as he attacked his e-mail. Falmouth was the first person Lucinda knew to use it. It might have been his invention, an artwork he’d tricked the world into adopting, the true Aparty. Lucinda stood beside him and cleared her throat. Matthew hung back, never happy to visit the gallery.

“Boss, I need some money.”

Falmouth looked up, scowling. “Didn’t you people get some sort of signing bonus last night? Isn’t a number-one record worth anything anymore?”

“We’ll reimburse you out of our first royalties.”

“No, you’ll waste it all on cocaine and prostitutes, because that’s what rock stars do.”

“Just enough for breakfast.”

“This is severance pay. You’re all fired. I had an epiphany last night. The world of complaints can carry on without my help. It has a certain inexorable momentum. Frankly, I’m not sure it needed me in the first place.” Falmouth’s gallery had a crestfallen air, Lucinda saw now. An enterprise that teetered on despondency, it had been restrained from that brink by Falmouth’s will, a gambler’s bluff. Today the place felt vacated, rustling with ghosts of spectators moved elsewhere, to the next curiosity.

“You already fired me the other day,” she said gently.

“That was different, that was affectionate.”

“In retrospect this will be affectionate too.”

“You’re losing me.” Falmouth waved his hand. “You know what I would like? For someone to take me to breakfast every once in a while.”

“You want to come to breakfast?” said Lucinda, surprised, glancing at Matthew. Yet perhaps Falmouth was innocent of the grudge.

“I’ll still pay,” Falmouth said, almost begging now.

“Matthew and I have things to discuss,” she began.

“Your future recording career under the hand of Jules Harvey,” suggested Falmouth, his voice withering.

“I don’t even want to hear that name today,” said Lucinda.

“Come along,” said Matthew. “I don’t have any secrets.”

Falmouth climbed past the passenger seat, into the back of Matthew’s Mazda, another astonishment on this first morning after the Aparty. Falmouth ordinarily piloted his own car to any rendezvous, refusing passenger status even in a front seat. Now he sat dreamily trapped in Matthew’s two-door, seated on a cushion leaking yellow foam, his shoes topping a heap of rubbish. The backseat had likely been the kangaroo’s transport, though Falmouth had no way of knowing that. Oddly childlike, he rubbed at the five o’clock shadow on the back of his head and blinked at the street as though seeing it for the first time.

“What about that place that makes that great oatmeal frittata?” he said. “With the strawberries and cottage cheese on top.”

“Hugo’s, you mean?” said Matthew.

“Yes, that’s it.”

“Fine with me. Lucinda?”

“How about oatmeal frittatas, Lucinda?” said Falmouth. “Since I’m paying, and Matthew’s driving.”

It only took an accumulation of two ex-boyfriends acting un-characteristically cheery to make a swarm, a blooming conspiracy. Lucinda wondered irritably whether she was missing a phone call at home. She wanted to tell Matthew and Falmouth how she was changed entirely, not who they took her to be, not a mere bassist or ex-girlfriend, foil for banter, kangaroo confidante. Her liaison and bender with the complainer had thrown her world off its rails, but not hers alone. If Matthew and Falmouth felt in some way changed this morning it was due to how the complainer had crept into their lives too, through the gallery telephones, through the lyrics and his secret collaboration with Bedwin. She wanted to tell them but the complainer’s injunction of secrecy felt as profound as his touch, the trails he’d left across her.

Calls might be stacking up on her machine. If they spoke she’d want to see him. Anything seemed possible: Carl might even be waiting for her in her house, or outside it. The carousel only seemed stopped because she instead bumped along in Matthew’s shockless Mazda, hell-bent for brunch. Matthew and Falmouth were at the moment discovering common ground, an animated cartoon they both liked, something to do with a Chihuahua and a cat. She should cherish this interlude, perhaps. Besides, she was ravenous for frittata. Sunlight strobed through the moonroof. She tilted her head back and shut her eyes to feel it batter her lids.

matthew explained to Falmouth about Fancher Autumnbreast’s radio show, The Dreaming Jaw . Playing one of Autumnbreast’s live in-studio sets had launched careers, everyone from the Rain Injuries to Souled American to Memorial Garage. Matthew also explained how Autumnbreast had been Janis Joplin’s boyfriend, the only one, according to her, who’d never taken advantage of her. He’d also spent a famous weekend consoling Marianne Faithfull in Morocco after her breakup with Mick Jagger. The three of them sat outside, on Hugo’s long deck, spectating as new brunchers grouped at tables around them. Their own chairs had been pushed back from the table, their meals demolished, oatmeal and egg white and curds scattered to plates’ edges and beyond, juice glasses emptied, coffees filled a third and fourth time. Matthew’s fingers stole across the settings to harvest appetizing chunks that had been abandoned on Falmouth’s and Lucinda’s plates. He looked healthier than in weeks, his sallowness fleshed again with glamour, with rock-star prospects. The kangaroo seemed forgotten for the moment.

Falmouth smoked and listened intently as Matthew talked, pursing his lips and shaking his head, stripped of irony. He interrogated Matthew precisely. It was as though his solipsism had been dissolved by the revelation of a rock-and-roll demimonde hiding in plain sight before him, now uncovered by the events of the Aparty.

“This person, this Autumnbreast, never wanted to play music himself?”

“He’s more like the most virtuoso listener who ever lived,” said Matthew. “When he listens, other people hear things. He’s like a site, an occasion for things to happen. His radio show’s like a clearing in the woods where the history of contemporary sound just happens to stroll through.”

“See, I like that very much,” said Falmouth. “It’s not a passive role. His sensibility declares itself, and others pay attention. He’s presiding.”

“Right.”

“Who cares?” said Lucinda.

They both stared.

“What a lot of malarkey. Presiding. You only like the way that sounds because it reminds you of yourself. It’s like the gallery. You don’t want to be an artist, it’s too vulnerable. You want to be a collector instead, a curator of happenings. But that’s what pushed you into the arms of Sniffles Harvey.”

Falmouth blinked, smoked, refused to lash out.

“And you,” she said, turning to Matthew. “You only like Autumnbreast because he calls you sweetheart, Matty-o, honey bunch.”

“I don’t think he actually called me honey bunch, Luce.”

“I thought we were supposed to be an art band, something alternative.” She felt herself growing vicious, couldn’t quit. “I didn’t realize you’d fall over your own feet getting caught up in some sleazy sixties rock dude’s clutches.”

“He’s responsible for getting attention for a lot of alternative bands,” said Matthew, with defensive precision.

“I’ve never heard of any of those bands you mentioned. Except the Rain Injuries. And you hate those guys.”

“Well, that’s probably because you don’t listen to much of anything, Luce.”