Jay McInerney - Bright, Precious Days

“You have to let the artists win once in a while,” Corrine said, taking his arm as they retreated to the parking lot. “I mean, haven’t you guys won the last three years?”

“Please don’t try to cheer me up,” Russell snapped. “That was possibly the most mortifying moment of my adult life,” he added.

“Oh, come on, it’s just a game.”

“No, it’s not. It’s never just a game.”

—

Two weeks later, their friends came out in force, including Steve Goldberg, who made no reference to the game. What he could not have predicted was the number of strangers who showed up, some in the company of invitees and some simply drawn by the buzz, like fish responding to chum in the water. A rock star with a home down the street arrived with a brand-new girlfriend on his arm — a debut that dominated the coverage of the party in the gossip press, which identified the mystery woman as a celebrity spinning instructor who’d previously been involved with the former wife of a hedge fund manager.

More significant to Russell were the graying literary lions who paid their respects. As the night progressed, the new arrivals became younger and less familiar, a fistfight broke out between romantic rivals, and the booze ran out just as the cops arrived in response to complaints from the neighbors.

The success of the party briefly revived Russell’s spirits, although the hangover the next morning and the eventual bill for damage and cleanup quickly dampened them, as did, later, after they’d returned to the city, the description of him in New York magazine’s paragraph on the party as “the editor behind the recent faux hostage scandal.”

WHERE? WHAT?

She woke feeling anxious, as if she’d left some mundane but important task unfinished the day before, and it wasn’t until she turned on the news that she was reminded of the date. Outside, according to the local Eyewitness News team, it was once again sunny and clear, as it had been that brilliant, balmy day seven years ago, with its cleansing breeze from the west, which bent the plumes of smoke from the towers east toward Brooklyn and beyond, as if pointing toward the ultimate source of the destruction. Russell had already fed the children and taken them up to their new school.

She carried her coffee to the front of the loft, looking out the windows, which needed washing, past the fire escape at the brilliant slot of blue sky where the twin towers had once loomed. Her phone chirped as she sipped her coffee. The caller ID showed Luke’s number.

“Are you back in the city?”

“Indeed,” Luke said. “Would it be disrespectful to say ‘Happy Anniversary’?”

“Actually, we met on the twelfth,” she said.

This summer he’d been traveling in Europe with his daughter and winding things down at the winery in South Africa, which he was in the process of selling. They’d spoken frequently, but she hadn’t seen him since just before she’d moved out to the Hamptons, and he hadn’t bombarded her with proposals.

“Can we meet for a drink?”

“Is that a euphemism?”

“If you want it to be, it is.”

“Where?”

“You could come here, see my new place. I’ve sublet a loft in SoHo.”

“Well, that’s certainly convenient,” she said. “I can’t tonight, we’ve got a screening.”

“Tomorrow night, then.”

—

It would have been simpler, less nerve-racking, less fatal to her sense of the innocence of her intentions, to go to Luke directly from the office. She’d already told Russell that morning that she was having drinks with her colleague Sandy, preparing her excuse in advance. Yet here she was again in front of the vanity, having left work early, touching up her makeup and her hair. As she waited for Russell to get home, she gave herself a final check in the mirror and was startled when she saw Storey framed in the glass, behind her.

“Gosh, you scared me.”

“Where are you going?”

“I’m having a drink with Sandy, from work. She’s getting married.”

Storey seemed on the verge of delivering some sort of challenge, but then she turned and disappeared.

When Corrine emerged from the bedroom, Russell was at the kitchen counter, pouring Maker’s Mark into a glass. It was not a festive cocktail, but a palliative one — such was clear from his drawn mouth and drooping posture.

“Are you going out?”

“Meeting Sandy for drinks. Remember?”

“Oh, right.”

“You’re awfully dressed up for just Sandy,” Storey said.

“I’ve had this dress for ages,” Corrine said, trying to control the timbre of her voice.

“Why are you wearing your black lace bra?” Storey said.

“What? How could you possibly know what bra I’m wearing?”

“I saw it laid out on your bed.”

She froze, trying to decide whether to deny the charge, but Russell seemed indifferent.

“You only wear that bra on date nights with Dad.”

“Sometimes it makes me feel better to wear something nice underneath. Especially when I don’t feel like going out. It’s a way of psyching myself up.”

That Storey’s suspicions were essentially correct only served to exasperate Corrine. Why was she so mistrustful and hostile to her own mother? So bitchy? She clearly sensed something was not as it should be. Corrine had always worried about Russell finding out, imagined the scenes and the possible outcomes, but the idea that one of her children might discover her secret had somehow never occurred to her. And had Russell just now turned and walked to the couch, plunking himself down in front of the news, because he was suspicious, or angry? Or was he utterly oblivious? The latter, she decided, when she walked over to check, ostensibly to bid him farewell. He was watching something on CNBC about Lehman Brothers — the company logo plastered at the top of the screen above a bunch of talking heads. Jeremy plopped down beside his father. She kissed them both on the top of the head.

Storey allowed herself to be kissed on the cheek. Corrine couldn’t think of anything to say to her; instead, she tried out an indulgent smile that was meant to indicate tolerant bemusement. If she thought she was going to shame Corrine into changing her course of action, she was entirely mistaken.

—

Decanted from the cab into the glistening street, contemplating the entrance of the building, she felt a weird frisson of recognition. She was almost certain she’d been here many years ago, visiting Jeff — thought she recognized the elaborately ornamented cast-iron facade and Corinthian columns framing the tall, arched windows, although the building she remembered had had a filthy, sooty facade, with rust showing through the peeling paint. But, of course, the neighborhood had been transformed, like the rest of the city. It sort of made her sad, how polished and prosperous and tasteful it had become, like the streets of SoHo, the real art galleries long ago replaced by shopping mall versions selling mass editions of Erté and Dalí and Chagall to the tourists — as if gentrification were a disservice to Jeff’s memory, as if everything should have stayed dirty and dangerous forever.

Beside the door, in place of the series of assorted buzzers and doorbells mounted on plywood that she thought she remembered was a sleek stainless-steel panel with five identical buttons, each with an apartment number engraved beside it. Pressing 5, as instructed, she remembered Jeff leaning out of a window four or five stories up, throwing down a piece of wood with a key attached by a chain.

Luke’s metallic voice on the intercom: “Come in. I’ll send the elevator down for you.”

There hadn’t been an elevator then, had there? Or if there had been, it was broken, like practically everything else in the city back then. She recalled a long, ramshackle staircase, rising and receding toward the back of the building.