Jay McInerney - Bright, Precious Days

Luke was waiting at the elevator door, which opened directly into the loft. “Welcome.”

She wasn’t sure how it would feel to see him, but once she kissed him, everything came back to her.

He beckoned her inside with a broad sweep with his left arm to encompass the wide-open space, the high ceilings supported by a central colonnade of Corinthian columns with tall, arched windows on either end. Unlikely as it was, it might have been the same apartment, but she couldn’t be certain. The furniture was haute loft — two chrome and leather Corbusier sofas, Marcel Breuer chairs. Big colorful Frank Stella geometric prints on the far wall, along with an Andy Warhol flower series litho and a big abstract color-field painting she couldn’t identify. This could be any loft in SoHo, she thought, or, for that matter, in any city in the country.

“It came furnished,” he said, observing her scrutiny. “Though the owner removed the expensive artwork and put it in storage. Apparently, he had a Bacon. All in all, not particularly original, I admit.”

“No, it’s nice,” she said. “It’s just, for a minute I thought I’d been here before.”

“It does have what the realtor called a ‘state-of-the art kitchen,’ complete with a cappuccino machine and a wine cooler. Could I offer you a glass of champagne?”

“Yes, please.” It was something to do, a way of postponing serious conversation or action. She didn’t really know what she wanted and yet felt drawn to him, if only, perhaps, out of a long-standing habit, a Pavlovian reflex, whereby opportunity, rarely as it came, was inevitably seized. Given so little time together, they could hardly afford to waste any.

She followed him into the kitchen area and watched him unwrap the foil and untwist the wire.

“Don’t you have a friend who works at Lehman Brothers?” he asked, grabbing the bottle with one hand and the cork with the other.

“Veronica Lee.”

“Has she said anything? You know they’re on the verge of going under.” The pop of the cork seemed inappropriately festive.

“Oh God, I heard something about that, but I haven’t had a chance to talk to her lately.”

“The stock’s cratering and they can’t find a buyer. Unless they get a bailout, I’d say she’s about to be unemployed — along with thousands of other people.” He poured two glasses of bubbly and carried them over to a nearly invisible coffee table in front of one of the sofas, motioning for her to sit. “Do you own any stock?”

“Not Lehman, but I own some others.”

She did have a secret little portfolio, a rainy day fund she’d never told Russell about, at first because it didn’t seem worth mentioning, and, later, because it had grown just enough that she felt guilty about it, though not quite substantial enough for the down payment on the house in Harlem.

“I’m liquidating a lot of my portfolio, and you should, too. Financials especially. This will be the biggest man-made disaster since 9/11.”

“That sounds alarmist.”

“Let’s hope.” He sat down beside her on the couch.

She felt her pulse picking up, a flush rising on her face. “So what’s happened with the foundation?” she asked. “Will you keep it going?”

“I’ve hired a new exec director. And I’ll stay involved.”

As he was pouring her another glass of champagne, he leaned over and kissed her, catching her by surprise, hooking his arm behind her on the couch and pulling her shoulder toward him, kissing her gently as she gradually eased into the kiss. She wasn’t quite prepared for this and yet her body was responding without reference to her scruples, reacting to his familiar earthy scent as much as to the pressure of his hands and his lips. As he parted her lips with his tongue, she felt herself surrendering, leaning into him and pressing her breast into his hand, kissing him back, her body moving heedlessly forward along the rails of habit, unbuckling his belt and undoing the little clip in the front of his chinos, unzipping him without breaking her lock on his lips, while he, in turn, undressed her.

—

“That was amazing,” Luke said, afterward.

“It was. I keep hoping it will go away.”

“What?”

“This…desire bordering on compulsion.”

“Why would you want it to go away?”

“Because it’s complicating my life.”

“So uncomplicate it. Move in with me.”

“Yeah, that would simplify everything. But where, exactly, would I put the kids?”

He looked around. “It’s only a sublet. I don’t plan to stay here long.”

“That would be a real aphrodisiac — you and me and my two children.”

“You’ve got to make a choice sooner or later.”

“Why? Isn’t this enough?”

“You were the one who said it was complicated.”

She sat up and started to gather her clothing. “If you’d stayed married, it would’ve been much simpler.”

“Let’s go back to the Berkshires next weekend,” he said.

“We just got back from the Hamptons,” she said, pulling on her dress.

“Then the weekend after.”

She kissed his forehead. Suddenly, she realized, she couldn’t wait to get home to her husband and children.

—

She hoofed it down Mercer Street, regretting her choice of heels, dodging her way through the drunken Friday night malingerers, pausing for breath at Kate Spade and setting off again before landing a clueless cabbie, who took her east on Canal toward Broadway, as opposed to West Broadway.

She half-expected to be greeted at home by an accusatory daughter and husband, but in fact, the household was asleep: Storey in her bed, wheezing softly; Jeremy silent in the boy-funky dark of his own room; and Russell snoring in bed, manuscript pages splayed on his chest — a sight that struck her as almost unbearably poignant and blessedly familiar.

A THREE-BOOK CONTRACT DESERVED to be celebrated with a three-night bender — that was Jack’s feeling. Whether he’d ever complete three more books was a mystery he chose not to plumb too deeply. Highly unlikely at this rate. For the third night running, he found himself at the Beatrice Inn, sitting at the bar drinking vodka and watching the pretty club kids dance and snort and smoke. Cara had brought him here a few months ago and it had become a habit. Crazy fucking Cara, who found him any kind of drug he wanted and let him fuck her any way he wanted. Just last night, she’d gone down on him in the bathroom here while he was bumping up. But after two nights, he needed a break and had told her he was busy. He’d picked up this groupie girl at KGB and had had sex with her back at her apartment, but afterward he was still wide awake, and he’d ended up at the Beatrice. He was still trying to decide if he liked the place or not, but the fact that they let him in and let him do pretty much anything once there gave him incentive to approach the question with an open mind. Certainly low-down enough to suit his tastes, it looked and smelled like a dive. A smoky basement full of pretty, skinny skanks and hipster boys with clunky glasses and Chuck Taylor low-tops. Everybody smoking like it was 1948 and snorting coke off their keys, off the backs of their hands, off the top of the toilet tank in the bathroom, like it was 1984. X-heads with pinwheel eyes sucking lollipops after dropping disco biscuits. It was pretty much anything goes. Some celebrities, who seemed to behave themselves better than the party monsters. And old friends he’d made last night or the night before, including that painter Tony Duplex, who seemed to be on a tear after several years of — or so Jack had been told — yakking about his struggle against addiction. Here he was again, all dressed up in some kind of tight red suit with white winklepicker shoes that almost disguised how ragged and strung out he was — sunken eyes, dilated pupils.