Joanna Rakoff - A Fortunate Age

“He didn’t,” said Emily. “She left him.”

“ No .”

“And the baby,” Emily added.

“And the baby ?” Beth repeated.

Over the dregs of their coffee, Beth came to the point—the question she’d meant to pose right away, before she knew that Emily was in possession of a wealth of knowledge about Will. “Have you ever slept with a man who says he’s impotent?” she asked, briskly ignoring the various contradictions and impossibilities in this question.

“Well,” Emily began, fiddling with the collar of her shirt. “Yes. I have. I mean, I was with this guy for a while who couldn’t, you know…” Her voice trailed off. “You know about that whole thing.” Beth shook her head. “Really? I’m sure I mentioned that guy to you. Pellegrino Bongwater?”

“ What ?”

“Pellegrino Bongwater,” Emily said sardonically, but she was mocking herself as much as the guy in question. This was why Beth loved Emily. “He was a writer for Conan . Does this ring a bell?”

“Not yet,” said Beth. “Did I ever meet him?”

Emily chewed thoughtfully. “Maybe. He was very tan? And he wore, like, sweater vests?”

Beth shook her head again.

“Anyway, he was poached for some new audio-streaming television thing. They offered him like a million dollars or something.” She rolled her eyes, then peered at something behind Beth’s head and waved broadly.

“Hello, hello, hello,” cried Sadie, squeezing Beth’s shoulders from behind and planting a cool, soap-scented kiss on her cheek. “Can I pull up a chair? Do you think there’s room?” There wasn’t—the next table was uncomfortably close and its inhabitants looked annoyed at the prospect of Sadie encroaching on their territory—but the waitress grabbed a seat from across the room and gave Sadie a smile. “I’ll need to scoot behind you,” she warned.

“Of course,” Sadie told her, shrugging off her coat, a nubby tweed. “Thanks so much. Really. And I’d be so grateful for a cup of coffee when you have a chance.” She arched her narrow back against the bentwood chair, squared her shoulders, then looked from Emily to Beth and back again. “So,” she said, raising her dark brows, “have you guys talked to Lil?”

Emily and Beth shook their heads.

“She’s completely freaking out. Tuck’s magazine was sold to some big conglomerate.” She picked up the coffee that was placed in front of her and took a delicate sip, tendrils of steam rising in front of her nose. “Well, not big . But big-ish. She thinks they’re going to fire Tuck.”

“Why?” asked Beth.

“He’s the newest hire,” Sadie said, with a shrug. “And he’s not really a reporter.” She put down her coffee and smiled. “So what’s with Will Chase?”

“Um, nothing,” said Beth. “How did you know?” What’s with you and Tal? she wanted to ask, but somehow she didn’t ask such things of Sadie.

“Lillian Roth-Hayes told me.” Sadie smiled and shrugged.

“ Nothing ?” asked Emily.

“The famous Will Chase!” Sadie went on, undeterred, her smile widening to include her teeth. “Did he tell you his tale of woe?”

“Sadie’s not so keen on him,” said Emily, returning Sadie’s grin.

“Oh,” said Beth, at once relieved and mortified.

“He’s fine,” said Sadie primly, her smile turning into a little moue. Emily and Beth exchanged a glance. They knew there would be more. Sadie pressed her lips together and folded her long fingers in her lap. “He’s just such a know-it-all,” she said quickly. “And he just never asks about anything other than—” She stopped and smiled again, her lips tightly closed. It was, Beth thought, a pretty expression. “I’m going to shut up.” A pause. “I suppose, maybe, he seems like a jerk to me, because he doesn’t like me . He seems like the sort of guy who, if he’s interested in you, can be completely charming, right?” Emily and Beth nodded. “How was it? Was he nice?”

“He was great,” said Beth, looking into her coffee cup. “I had, just, a really wonderful time.”

“That’s great,” said Sadie. “And you heard about the wife and the little boy and all that.”

“Actually he didn’t talk much about it,” admitted Beth.

“Hmmm,” murmured Sadie, maddeningly.

“Em was just telling me the whole saga.”

“Oh?” Sadie brightened at the prospect of a story. “What part are you up to?”

“We’re done,” answered Emily. “We’ve moved on to”—she paused and gave Sadie a look of mock seriousness—“Pellegrino Bongwater.”

“Oh my God,” cried Sadie, clapping her hands with delight. “I’d forgotten all about him!” She turned to Beth. “You’ve missed so much! He was this ridiculous guy who was just always tan—”

“Like, George Hamilton tan,” Emily added.

“Where did he work, Emily? At some start-up?” Emily nodded. “And what was his story? All they did at his office was smoke pot. Out of this enormous bong, right?”

“Yep. An enormous cobra-shaped bong. And he was convinced that they would get cancer or something if they used tap water in it. That’s how much pot he’d smoked. He was permanently paranoid. So he insisted on filling it with Pellegrino water. The refrigerators at his office were, like, stocked with it, so what did he care? I mean he wasn’t paying for it.” Beth laughed. “And he could not,” Emily said, adopting a mock formal tone, “get. It. Up.”

Sadie turned to Emily, her mouth widened into an O . “I didn’t know that,” she said. Emily shrugged.

“Was it because of the pot?” asked Beth.

“I assume,” Emily told her. “But he was a fucked-up guy. And he was just kind of weird about women. I don’t know that he’d ever actually had sex.” She gave Beth a hard look. “But why do you ask? Is it Will? Because it sounds like he could be seriously messed up about women. I mean, considering…”

Sadie had swiveled around in her chair, searching for the waitress; discussions of sex made her uncomfortable. “Ask what?” she said, distracted. “What did Beth ask?”

“Yeah, you’re right,” said Beth, ignoring Sadie’s question. She’d lost track of how many times the waitress had refilled their cups, and her hands were beginning to shake from the caffeine.

“Because of what happened with his wife,” said Sadie sharply.

“I know,” said Beth. “She was just so awful to him.”

“Well, not just that,” said Emily, her voice also taking on an edge. She’s had too much coffee, Beth thought. “ Because he had a wife. That wife. What kind of person marries someone he’s never even had dinner with, never spent any time alone with? Other than in bed?”

“A messed-up person,” said Beth, turning her eyes to the window. Dozens of people now waited for a table. They really should leave and give theirs up. It wasn’t fair to the waitress. They would have to leave a huge tip.

“No,” said Sadie. “No. A hopeless romantic.”

The next morning Beth awoke to find that the mild anxiety of the past few days had been supplanted by a feeling that could only be described as dread. It was Monday. All her friends were heading off to work or school, while she was alone in this large, silent, grown-up apartment, surrounded by the belongings of some stranger—his mod furniture, his shelves of Douglas Coupland books—in the middle of a neighborhood in which she knew no one, many train stops from everyone and everything she cared about. And it seemed to her now that there was something demoralizing about living in Queens, wasn’t there? As though one had given up on any semblance of hipness, as though one had simply relinquished all hopes of participating in the world of art and culture and commerce. She’d parted with most of her savings to live in this place, in New York, through May: the two months rent and the security deposit had come to more than two thousand dollars, a large percentage of her teaching stipend. And here she was, with nothing to do, nowhere to be, no one to see.