Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney - The Nest

I like our life, Walt had said to her that morning, pulling her close. I like you . Can’t you pretend — just a little — to like me, too? He smiled as he said it, but she knew he sometimes worried. She had relaxed then into his reassuring girth, breathed in his comforting scent — soap and freshly laundered shirt and spearmint gum. She’d closed her eyes and pictured Nora and Louisa, lovely and lithe, clothed in satiny caps and gowns on a leafy quad in a quaint New England town, the morning sun illuminating their eager faces, the future unfurling ahead of them like an undulating bolt of silk. They were so smart and beautiful and honest and kind. She wanted them to have everything — the chances she’d never had, the opportunities she’d promised. I do like you, Walter, she’d mumbled into his shoulder. I like you so much. It’s me I hate.

AT THE OPPOSITE END OF GRAND CENTRAL,up a carpeted flight of stairs and through the glass doors that said CAMPBELL APARTMENT, Jack Plumb was sending his drink back because he believed the mint hadn’t really been muddled. “It was just dumped in there as if it were a garnish, not an ingredient, ” he told the waitress.

Jack was sitting with his partner of two decades and legal husband of nearly seven weeks. He was confident the other Plumbs wouldn’t know about this place, which was the former office of a 1920s tycoon, restored and reimagined as a high-end cocktail bar. Beatrice might, but it wasn’t her kind of spot. Too staid. Too expensive. There was a dress code. At times the bar could be annoyingly full of commuters who were in mercifully short supply on this Saturday afternoon.

“Version 2.0,” Walker said as the waitress placed the remade drink in front of Jack.

Jack took a sip. “It’s fine,” he said.

“Sorry for your trouble,” Walker said to the waitress.

“Yes,” Jack said as the waitress walked away, under his breath but loud enough for Walker to hear, “terribly sorry for making you do your job.”

“She’s just delivering the drinks. She’s not making them.” Walker kept his voice amiable. Jack was in a mood. “Why don’t you take a nice generous sip of that and try to relax.”

Jack picked a piece of mint from his glass and chewed on it for a second. “I’m curious,” he said, “is telling someone to relax ever helpful? It’s like saying ‘breathe’ to someone who is hyperventilating or ‘swallow’ to a person who’s choking. It’s a completely useless admonition.”

“I wasn’t admonishing, I was suggesting.”

“It’s like saying, ‘Whatever you do, don’t think about a pink elephant.’”

“I get it,” Walker said. “How about I relax and you do what you want.”

“Thank you.”

“I am happy to go to this lunch with you if it helps.”

“So you’ve said. About a thousand times.” Trying to provoke Walker was mean and pointless, but Jack was trying anyway because he knew that snapping at Walker would briefly loosen the spiraling knot of fury at his core. And he had considered inviting Walker to lunch. His family preferred Walker’s company anyway; who didn’t? Walker with his rumbling laugh and kind face and bottomless bonhomie. He was like a clean-shaven, slightly trimmer, gay Santa Claus.

But Jack couldn’t invite Walker because he hadn’t told the other Plumbs yet about his early September wedding to Walker, the wedding to which they hadn’t been invited because Jack wanted the day to be perfect and perfect for Jack meant Plumb-free. He did not want to listen to Bea’s worries about Leo’s accident or hear Melody’s lumbering husband telling everyone who might listen that his name was Walter-not-Walker. (That Jack and Melody had chosen partners with almost the exact same name was something that still rankled both of them, decades on.)

“I’m sorry I snapped at you,” Jack finally said.

Walker shrugged. “It’s fine, love.”

“I’m sorry I’m being an asshole.” Jack rotated his neck, listening for the alarming but satisfying little pop that had recently appeared. God, he was getting old. Six years until fifty and who knew what fresh horrors that decade had in store for his slender-but-softening physique, his already-fraying memory, his alarmingly thinning hair. He gave Walker a feeble smile. “I’ll be better after lunch.”

“Whatever happens at lunch, we’ll be fine. It will all be fine .”

Jack slumped deeper into the leather club chair and proceeded to crack the knuckles on each hand, a sound he knew Walker loathed. Of course Walker thought everything would be fine . Walker didn’t know anything about Jack’s financial straits (another reason Jack didn’t want him at lunch, in case the opportunity arose to tell Leo exactly how much the little escapade on the back roads of Long Island was costing him). Their retirement account had taken a terrible hit in 2008. They’d rented the same apartment on West Street since they’d been together. Jack’s small antique shop in the West Village had never been hugely profitable, but in recent years he felt lucky to break even. Walker was an attorney, a solo practitioner, and had always been the wage earner in their partnership. Their one solid investment was a modest but cherished summer place on the North Fork that Jack had been borrowing against, secretly. He’d been counting on The Nest, not only to pay off the home equity line of credit but because it was the one thing he had to offer Walker as a contribution to their future. He didn’t believe for a second that Leo was broke. And he didn’t care. He just wanted what he was owed.

Jack and Leo were brothers but they weren’t friends. They rarely spoke. Walker would sometimes push (“you don't give up on family”), but Jack had worked hard to distance himself from the Plumbs, especially Leo. In Leo’s company, Jack felt like a lesser version of his older brother. Not as intelligent, interesting, or successful, an identity that had attached to him in high school and had never completely gone away. At the beginning of ninth grade, some of Leo’s friends had christened Jack Leo Lite and the denigrating name stuck, even after Leo graduated. His first month at college, Jack had run into someone from his hometown who had reflexively greeted him by saying, “Hey, Lite. What’s up?” Jack had nearly slugged him.

The door to the bar opened and a group of tourists barged in, bringing in a gust of air too cold for October. One woman was showing everyone her soaking wet shoe, a cheap ballet flat in a tacky shade of red. “It’s completely ruined,” she was saying to her companions.

“Silver linings,” Jack said to Walker, nodding to indicate the shoe.

“You probably shouldn’t be late.” Walker lifted his wrist, presenting the watch that had been a wedding gift from Jack, a rare Cartier tank from the ’40s in perfect condition. It had cost a small fortune; Walker had no idea. Just another thing to resent about Leo’s fuckup, how now Jack couldn’t help but mentally affix a huge neon price sticker to everything they owned, regretting briefly every single purchase of the last year, years, including all the not-insignificant expenses surrounding their otherwise idyllic wedding.

“I love this watch,” Walker said, and the tenderness in his voice made Jack want to fling his glass against the opposite brick wall. He could almost feel the sweet relief that would flood in as the leaded crystal smashed into a million tiny pieces. Instead, he stood and placed the glass back on the table, hard.

“Don’t let them rile you,” Walker said, placing a reassuring hand on Jack’s arm. “Just listen to what Leo has to say and then we’ll talk.”