Emma Straub - Modern Lovers

“Andrew, you’ve got a few choices here. You can dig in your heels, and make us prove that your wife signed your name, and make a lot of things difficult for a lot of people. Or you can just sign the form, and give your consent. I know the term ‘life rights’ sounds like agreeing to euthanasia, and trust me, we have our people working on that, too, the phrasing of it, but let me be clear: You are not giving us your whole life. You are giving permission for there to be a character in a movie who has some things in common with you. That’s it. He won’t have your face. He might not even have your name.”

Andrew had the brief worry that all his work at EVOLVEment was making his insides visible on the outside of his body, a giant flashing neon sign.

“So those are my options? Fight or roll over?” It was a hot day, and his upper lip was slick with sweat.

“We have very, very good lawyers. I know you have tons of money, and so you probably have a good lawyer, too, but ours are pretty much rock stars.”

Andrew twitched.

“Bad choice of words. They’re the best, is what I’m saying. I’m sure that we can all come to an agreement. You just need to accept that it’s going to happen. It’s a movie. It’ll come out, and then it’ll go away. That’s how it goes.”

“So you came here to tell me that I have no choice.”

Naomi rolled her neck around, producing spectacular cracking noises. “Well, kind of. I mean, you have choices, but it’s sort of like when you go to the dentist. You can choose to bite them, and to grit your teeth, but that’s just going to make it take longer. I’m just here to tell you to open up and say ahhhh. You might even enjoy it.”

“The dentist?”

“The movie. In my experience, people often enjoy seeing versions of their lives on-screen. It doesn’t happen to everyone, you know.”

All of a sudden, Andrew heard “Mistress of Myself” begin to play, a tinny, canned version.

“Oh, that’s my phone,” Naomi said, and reached into her back pocket.

“You’re kidding,” Andrew said.

“Hang on,” Naomi said, answering and then skipping down the porch steps to the sidewalk. In Andrew’s head the song kept playing, a shitty karaoke version of his life. He closed his eyes and imagined an ocean wave crashing over him and pulling him out to sea.

Darcey was smiling politely, but Elizabeth could tell that she was doing something else — research, maybe. She was wearing a black tank top and cutoff shorts. She was thinner than Lydia had been at Oberlin, but that was the magic of the movies, the removal of cellulite and blemishes. Elizabeth leaned back and looked out the window. She missed actual Lydia’s sturdiness, the prickly hair on her legs.

“What was that?” Naomi was facing the street, and Elizabeth couldn’t see her face. Andrew looked pissed off, but then he laughed. She wasn’t sure.

“Oh,” Darcey said. She reached back into the bag at her feet. “Copies of this.” She pulled out a marbled notebook and handed it to Elizabeth. “You should really meet my friend Georgia, the one who plays you. You really look like you could be her mom — it’s, like, perfect. She’s so uptight, and I’m always the one who’s, like, let’s go run around naked! It’s hilarious.” Darcey wiggled back and forth. “Hilarious.”

“Thank you,” Elizabeth said. She opened the notebook gently. Lydia’s handwriting was distinctive — the product of a carefully crafted personality. That was probably under “traits of narcissists” in the DSM . “I feel guilty, but I probably shouldn’t, right?”

Darcey nodded. “That’s just what Georgia would say. As you, I mean. Classic victim stuff.”

“Excuse me?” Elizabeth said, but then she began to read, and she understood.

She’d never been a jealous girlfriend. That was for other people, insecure people. Elizabeth had always felt as solid as a tree trunk. When she was heavily pregnant with Harry, at her last ob-gyn visit, her doctor had pronounced the baby enormous, but then when Elizabeth had slid ungracefully off the paper-lined table, he had looked at her hips and said, Oh, you’ll be fine. She hadn’t been wounded. Zoe would have cried. Lydia would have burned the place to the ground. But Elizabeth had thought, Yes, I will. She wasn’t a saint, of course — Elizabeth had always been jealous of Zoe, and other girls too, high-school friends, or other young mothers she’d had tea dates with when Harry was small. But she’d never been a jealous girlfriend. It was a psychological math problem: Twenty years later, was she angry? She thought about the restaurant, about Lydia’s snuggling against Andrew’s chest, the way Lydia had always looked at her with crocodile eyes. Yes, she was angry.

“Excuse me,” Elizabeth said. She stood up and straightened out her skirt. Darcey pulled out her phone and started texting, probably writing to Georgia to describe whatever she felt had just occurred. Elizabeth herself wasn’t sure. She walked slowly to the door and opened it. Andrew was sitting on the porch with his eyes closed. Naomi was halfway down the block, laughing loudly into her cell phone.

“Andrew?” Elizabeth said.

He opened his eyes and looked at the notebook in her hand. “Fuck,” he said.

“Yes,” Elizabeth said. “That seems to be the problem.”

“What did you read?” Andrew shoved his fingers into his mouth and began to chew.

“Does it really matter? She’s not making it up, right? You were sleeping together?” Elizabeth heard her own voice getting louder at a somewhat alarming rate, like a fire-engine siren. The neighbors would hear. She couldn’t help it. In her whole childhood, she had never heard her parents speak loudly to each other, and during Harry’s entire childhood, she had only yelled when he was about to jump off something he shouldn’t, or lick an electrical outlet. She didn’t shout. And yet her voice was getting so loud that her ears began to ring.

“It only happened a few times. Half a dozen, maybe. Lizzy, it was a lifetime ago.” Andrew started to walk toward her, but Elizabeth put her palms up, a traffic light. A few aggressive bees circled Andrew’s head, and he swatted them away. Elizabeth wished they would all sting him simultaneously.

“You were never going to tell me, obviously.” Elizabeth kept her hands out.

Andrew shook his head. “I didn’t think it mattered. I mean, at the time. We weren’t even married yet. Doesn’t that make a difference?”

“Oh, yes, I think it does. I think it does make a difference that I married you without knowing that you’d been cheating on me. Don’t you think that might have affected my decision to do so? I’m not saying I expected you to be a virgin, but come on, Andrew.” Elizabeth heard something inside and turned toward the window — Darcey was leaning against the window, her ear to the glass. She waved. “Jesus!” Elizabeth said. “She’s everywhere!”

“I was going to tell you.” Andrew crossed his arms over his chest.

“You just said that you weren’t!” Elizabeth’s voice went up several octaves — if she’d known that her voice could do that, Kitty’s Mustache would have been a better band. Across the street one of their nosiest neighbors, a tall woman with a German shepherd, turned to look and gave a half wave. Good luck ever selling her house, Elizabeth thought.

“Back then I wasn’t. But with the movie and all this.” He gestured toward Darcey, still a little goblin in the window. “I was pretty sure I would have to. Can’t say I was looking forward to it, but I will say I did not imagine it going quite this badly.”

Elizabeth felt like she had a hair ball stuck in her throat, and hacked up a cough. “I’m so sorry for your experience.”