Michael Cunningham - Specimen Days

“You think these boys were abused?”

“Probably. Or maybe not. Some of the time, these people turn out to have had relatively ordinary childhoods.”

“You hungry?”

“No. I ate.”

“You want another drink?”

“Please.”

He took the glass from her hand. Her throat constricted, and then she was crying. One moment she wasn’t, and the next moment she was. It came out of her in great, heaving sobs. He took her in his arms.

“It’s okay,” he said softly. “It’s okay.”

She couldn’t stop. She didn’t want to stop. She let herself go on. She choked on her own sobs, struggled to catch her breath. It was as if a stone were lodged in her gullet and she were trying to weep it out.

“It’s okay,” he said again. “It’s okay.”

Finally the crying subsided. She lingered in his arms.

“Sorry,” she said.

“It’s okay.”

“It’s just. I fucked up.”

“I don’t think you did.”

“Those little boys called me, and I didn’t help them.”

“It’s okay.”

She paused over whether or not to go into the part about sounding white to a black kid. Decided against it. She knew his reassurances wouldn’t mean anything to her. She thought she should talk to him about it anyway for, you know, the sake of their closeness but she was beat, she was worried about other things, she didn’t have it in her at the moment, it was just too hard right now.

What she said was, “I’m not sure if I can do this anymore.”

“You should get some sleep.”

“I know. But I don’t think it’ll be any better in the morning.”

“Let’s wait and see.”

“I think I may need to find some other kind of work.”

“Wait and see, okay?”

“Right. Oh, I brought you something.”

“You did?”

“Just a second.”

She got to her feet, a bit unsteadily. She was slightly tipsy already. She took the bowl from her bag, gave it to him.

“Didn’t have time to wrap it,” she said.

He removed the bowl from its plastic drugstore sack, pulled away the newspaper. And there it was, in his hands. Yes, it was in fact a marvelous thing. It was all the more apparent here, in this room, where only the rare and marvelous were permitted.

Wow,” Simon said.

“It just came from a junk shop. But it’s nice, isn’t it?”

“Yeah.”

“Is it Chinese?”

“No. I’ve never seen anything quite like it before.”

He set the bowl on the coffee table. It glowed like an opal, seemed to be studded with tiny sparks.

“Thank you,” he said. “You like it?”

“Yes. I do.”

“I just… I saw it in this strange little store, and I thought you’d like it.”

“I do. Very much.”

“Good. I’m glad.”

He stood up. “And now,” he said, “it’s time for you to go to bed.”

“Yeah. It is.”

She knew when he put his hand on her shoulder. His touch was tender and kind, but something had changed. She slipped her arm around his waist. Something had changed.

“Come on,” he said.

They went into his bedroom. She started undressing.

“Are you coming to bed, too?” she asked.

“Not yet. It’s early. I’ve got a pile of shit to do.”

She got her clothes off, got into bed. Simon sat on the edge of the mattress, adjusted the covers over her. He could not have been gentler. Still, something was wrong.

She said, “Don’t stay up too late, okay?”

“I won’t.”

She took his hand, stroked his fingertips. “Simon,” she said.

“Uh-huh?”

Say it. Sooner or later, one of you has to.

“I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

Easy. Natural. No strangeness. And yet.

He kissed her. He turned off the light and left the room.

It came to her after he’d closed the door. She’d wept in his arms. She’d brought him a present, nervously anticipating his response. For the first time, she had failed to be strong and cynical, wised-up, police-like. For the first time, she’d been like the other women (there had, of course, been a number of other women): fragile, in need, eager to please him, grateful for his attention.

She tried to push the thought away. It was one night, for God’s sake. It was a goddamned crisis. Who wouldn’t fall apart? She’d be herself again in the morning. (Wouldn’t she?) This was what happened when two people got to know each other. Nobody stayed in character all the time. This was intimacy. You saw each other through the dark spells. You didn’t need you didn’t want to be spared the fears and doubts, the crying fits, the self-recriminations.

And yet, she had a feeling. She was damaged now, in his eyes. She was no longer rare and marvelous. She wasn’t a stern black goddess of law enforcement. She was someone who collapsed, who needed help, who awaited his judgment.

She could see how it would play out. She thought she could see it. Simon wasn’t a bad man; he was not out there in the other room wondering how he’d get rid of her. What he had, she suspected, was an empty spot where his admiration and his lust had been. He would think nothing of it. He’d make coffee for her in the morning. He’d be more than kind. He wouldn’t desert her when she needed him. But an unraveling had begun. She could feel it, she could see it, still months away, but coming: the end of his interest in her. The beginning of her life in his mind as someone he had dated once. It wasn’t surprising. It wasn’t exactly surprising. Simon was a collector. She understood now that he was collecting the incidents of his own past, and that one day he would arrive at his present, married to a smart, pretty white woman his own age or a few years younger, raising children, referring every now and then to his youth, when he had bought art and antiques instead of paying tuition, when he had gone to the restaurants and clubs known only to the few, when he had dated a dancer from the Mark Morris company and then an installation artist who’d been in the Biennial and then, briefly, an older black woman, a forensic psychologist who’d been involved in those terrorist attacks, who had spoken to the actual terrorists.

He was programmed for this. Smart boy from Iowa, perfectly formed, ambitious he’d naturally want, he’d need, a wild phase before he took up the life that had been waiting for him from the moment of conception. It had been all but predetermined. If he and Cat hadn’t met when they did, he’d have met another colorful character soon enough. And all the while his true and rightful wife was out there, waiting for him.

She, Cat, was a collector’s item, wasn’t she? She was an exotic specimen men had always thought so. No-nonsense, ultracompetent black girl who’s read more books than you have; who doesn’t give a shit about domestic particulars and can beat your ass at any game you choose. They liked the tough girl, but they weren’t quite so crazy about the nervous one. They hadn’t signed on for that. She and Daryl might have survived Luke’s death together, but they hadn’t survived her remorse. Daryl could have comforted her for a month or two. He couldn’t manage a year of it, not when she had nothing left for him. Not when she kept telling him, over and over again, that she had killed their child and that he was an idiot for thinking he loved her. Say something like that often enough, anybody will finally start believing you.

Who could blame these guys, really, for bailing when the messy shit came out? She didn’t like it either.

Her cell rang. She bolted awake, accustomed to listening for it. Where was it, though? Where was she! Simon’s. Simon’s bed. He wasn’t there. Clock said twelve forty-three. She got up. She was naked. She went into the living room, where Simon sat at his thousand-year-old Greco-Italian table, working at his laptop.