Jay McInerney - Bright, Precious Days

Not a type at all, he realized happily, recognizing what he took to be the singular staccato rhythms of her thought, though he was baffled by the reference to cabbages. “I’m just glad you came at all.”

“Well, I didn’t want your last impression of me to be flustered and tongue-tied. As I suspect I was the other night.”

“I thought you were very composed.”

“ Please. I was…flummoxed. I had no idea what the event was, or that you were the focus of it. Kind of a shock, really. You could have warned me you were coming to town.”

“If I had, you might’ve raced off in the opposite direction.”

“I can’t believe I was totally oblivious to the fact that it was your charity.”

“Do you know what I was thinking about when I was up on the podium?”

“Your wife’s dimples?”

“I was thinking about making love to you on that musty old couch in Nantucket with Gram Parsons singing ‘Love Hurts.’ ”

“Gram Parsons was correct,” she said. “It does hurt. It would behoove us both to remember that.”

He started to sing softly: “Love hurts, love scars, love wounds and mars—”

“Luke, for God’s sake.” She was blushing, embarrassed by the attention he was attracting, not to mention the quality of his singing. “That was terrible. You shouldn’t be allowed to sing outside the shower.”

“I bought the album after that weekend. I’d never even heard of Gram Parsons.”

“Shouldn’t you be singing to your wife? How the hell old is she, by the way?”

“Young enough to be my daughter, but older than my actual daughter.”

“Well, close enough, no doubt, that they can become BFFs.”

“She’ll be thirty-two next month.”

“And you are, let’s see, fifty-seven?”

He nodded.

“What’s the rule of thumb I heard the other night, the remarriage formula? Half your age plus six years, that’s the ideal equation for a second wife in this town. I guess by that measure she’s just a little young.”

She was smiling, but he definitely detected the edge. “I admit, when you put it that way, I’m feeling like a cliché.”

“Does she know about me?”

He shook his head.

“I’m glad of that at least.” She seemed to ponder this. “Cappuccino,” she said. “I’d like a cappuccino to go. I have to leave in five minutes.”

When he returned with the coffees, he could tell her mood had turned darker. “You know, I almost broke up my family for you,” she said. “And then I don’t hear from you for three years. I’d have thought, at least, we were friends.”

He was taken aback at the iciness of her tone. “We were far more than friends, Corrine. What was I supposed to do, write you e-mails about the weather? It was painful. I wanted you and it didn’t seem possible and I had to pull away. Hell, I went halfway around the globe to forget about you.”

He hadn’t necessarily realized this back then, but in retrospect it seemed obvious.

“What did you feel after that night at the Carlyle a few years back? When you ran back to Tennessee, when you stopped calling and returning my e-mails?”

“I was afraid we were just falling back into an untenable situation. Our circumstances hadn’t changed. You were still married. I was sad and the situation seemed hopeless. I’m pretty certain now that I may have gotten married again in an attempt to get over you.”

“So it wasn’t just that you’d forgotten me?”

“I had an accident about a year ago, and it was touch-and-go for a couple of days whether I’d make it.” He fingered his scar, still numb, to illustrate. “Strangely enough, when I came to in the hospital, my wife was asleep in the chair beside me, lying with her face turned away from me. All I could see was her hair — and I was convinced it was you. I even called your name.” He wasn’t actually sure if he’d said her name out loud, but he’d indeed imagined, briefly, that the woman in the chair was Corrine, and he wanted to tell her so.

She was staring at him intently, apparently weighing the truth of this assertion. “Was your left eye injured?”

He nodded.

“Can you see out of it?”

“Not really. Sorry, I know it’s disconcerting.”

“ Please. I’m the one who should be sorry.” She lifted her cup and looked down into the foam. “Do you know where the name comes from? Cappuccino?”

He shook his head.

“From the color of the coffee-milk mixture, which reminded someone of the color of a Capuchin friar’s habit.”

“That’s one of the things I miss about you.”

“My pedantry?”

He shrugged. “That sounds negative. Your eccentric erudition, let’s say.”

“You didn’t have all that much time to get used to it, did you?”

“It’s hard to believe it was only two, three months.”

“Ninety days, as it happens.”

“Was that it?”

“From the day I first saw you walking up West Broadway, covered in ash, till the day after The Nutcracker, when we said good-bye in Battery Park. You see, I really am a pedant.”

“That sounds more romantic than pedantic.”

“Well, whatever. I’m off to work.”

“What are you writing?”

“I’m not writing, actually. I decided there were plenty of unemployed screenwriters in the world already.”

“But The Heart of the Matter was produced. I read a great review in the Financial Times. ”

“I must’ve missed that one.” She shrugged. “Let’s just say it was less than a blockbuster.”

“I thought it was great.”

“You actually saw it?” She seemed skeptical.

“I own the DVD. Watched it three times.”

“Twice more than I did.”

“You were always self-deprecating, almost to a fault. It’s a very rare quality.”

“In this city, perhaps.”

“So now you’re…”

“I work for an organization called Nourish New York. We solicit excess food from local restaurants, food banks, farmers, grocery stores, and try to get it to the people who need it.”

“Sounds somewhat familiar.”

She blushed and looked away. He was touched that her new vocation connected her to their shared past in the soup kitchen.

“Did you ever write that book about samurai movies?”

It took him a minute to figure out what she was talking about; he’d forgotten that this was one of many projects he’d conceived after retiring from the firm, samurai films having been a passion for many years. “I discovered I don’t have the patience or concentration to sit down and write a book.”

“It’s probably true,” she said. “I’d forgotten how hyper you are. Like the way you tap your foot when you talk.” She paused. “Anyway, gotta go.”

“Where?”

“A housing project in the Bronx. We have a bimonthly distribution program for fresh fruit and vegetables. Today it’s carrots, apples, cucumbers and onions.”

“Can I come along?”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“Don’t you have volunteers?”

“Well, yes.”

“So that’s what I’ll be, then. I have experience, remember? You might recall I was the one who got you involved with the soup kitchen down at Bowling Green.”

“Surely you fulfilled your monthly good deeds quota the other night.”

“Perhaps, but I didn’t get to spend any time with you.”

She regarded him skeptically.

“I want to see what your days are like.”

“Well, you asked for it. Let’s go.”

“I have a car,” he said, holding the door open for her.

She shook her head. “If you actually want to see what my days are like, you’ll need to take the subway.”

She seemed determined on this point. He knew that look, so many of her gestures and expressions coming back to him so clearly.