Jane Mendelsohn - Burning Down the House

—

It was a beautiful night so they decided to walk downtown, all the way home. It could have been so pleasant, but it wasn’t. Alix had had too much to drink and Ian was distracted, unintentionally provoking her with his lack of interest.

You know I realized something tonight, she said.

What was that?

I don’t like musicals.

Ah. Thanks. My life’s work.

Oh please, you’re taking this personally?

No, no, of course not.

I just realized that I don’t respond to that kind of theater, that’s all.

I get it. Thank you.

Isn’t it a little interesting? Aren’t you the least bit curious how someone could not like something you like?

They ambled along Fifth Avenue, past stores as imposing and massive as Greek temples, painted gods and goddesses posing in the windows.

People have different tastes.

Yes, but I’d think you’d want to understand those tastes.

You know, Alix, some of us have to make a living.

Of course! I know that. You think I don’t understand that?

No. I don’t. But don’t take it personally.

Well, you’re wrong. I understand it perfectly. We all have to make a living, even if we don’t have to make money. Everyone has to make a life.

That’s what I mean…

What?

You don’t get it.

Should we have this out? Finally? This unspoken conversation that’s been simmering between us all these years? Because if you resent me for my family circumstances you should know by now that they’ve been pretty fucking miserable.

I don’t resent—

Yes, you do! You’re jealous.

Ian laughed. No, no, I’m not.

You wouldn’t even know if you were, that’s how little insight you have.

So who’s resentful? Sounds like you think I don’t understand you, don’t appreciate your pain.

That about sums it up. Yes. She kept going: And you have such naïve views about money anyway, as if you don’t benefit from the rich as much as anyone. As if money isn’t what we make of it.

She continued: Morality is the real issue. Humanity.

Yes, she said, if an immoral person has access to great wealth they can misuse it, but it’s not inevitable. And if an immoral person without money wants to act out their problems, then they can do a lot of damage with very little money, believe me.

Are you finished? he asked.

Yes, she was calming down.

So we’re equally disappointed in each other, he said. A perfect match.

—

Her head was hurting, her feet were hurting. She wished she could take off her heels and walk barefoot on the sidewalk.

—

He wanted to tell her about Poppy, almost told her about Poppy, needed to show her that his pain, his guilt, his unhappiness, his predicament, were so much worse than she knew. But then he let it go. Some of it was cowardice; he didn’t want to get into morality or humanity right now, maybe not ever, with her, on the subject of Poppy. Some of it was pity for her, for Alix. Some of it was friendly love and some of it was the distance that comes from growing, gradually, apart.

—

A perfect match, she repeated.

—

The white and screaming lights from a gargantuan storefront lit up her dry, brittle, shoulder-length hair. A demented and drooping halo. What had happened? She had been his best friend for so long. Was it just the secret between them now creating an abyss? No, he thought, it wasn’t just that. She was right. It was true. He had taken her horribly for granted. The rest of the walk they discussed trivial matters. They had exhausted this topic of conversation.

TODAY WHAT FASCINATES Felix is the history of the Zane family, about which he has been told nothing. When Poppy falls onto his bed, sleepy, hair in her face, looking a complicated combination of crazy and serene, she asks him to tell her what he is researching online.

Our distinguished forefather: “Ebenezer Zane was an American pioneer, road builder, and land speculator.”

You’re sure we’re related to him? I don’t think so.

It makes sense. He was in real estate.

Everyone is in real estate.

Poppy, is that true?

Just go on, keep reading.

With his brothers Silas and Jonathan — Jonathan! — he headed west and established Fort Henry in 1769. “During the Revolutionary War, Zane and his brothers defended Fort Henry against two Native American attacks.”

Interesting.

He had a sister!

No way.

Her name was Elizabeth. They called her Betty. “She was celebrated for her courage during the second siege in September 1782 when she left the fort to retrieve a much needed keg of gunpowder and sprinted safely under a hail of gunfire.”

Just like me, said Poppy. An American heroine.

Then he built some other stuff. A town in Ohio was named after him. He died of jaundice in 1811.

Our ancestor.

So you believe me?

No.

You’re so annoying today. So negative.

Wow, if you think I’m more annoying and negative than usual I must be really bad.

Not bad, just unhappy. I think, said Felix.

Who made you the most understanding person in the world?

Ebenezer Zane.

Well, I didn’t get those genes. And anyway he sounds like a militaristic land grabber to me.

I think it’s really cool to have a family lineage that goes back to the American Revolution. If you don’t think so that’s your loss.

Brother, I’m nothing but loss.

Poppy, don’t be so bleak. It’s not all grim.

You keep researching Ebenezer and our distinguished ancestors. You do that. I’m going to go back to my room to keep crying. Or maybe I’ll do it outside.

Poppy…

No really, I shouldn’t be bothering you.

I like having you here. Even when you’re a dark cloud.

She kisses him on the head and says as she leaves the room:

Excuse me, I have to go rain.

—

It’s there, in that moment, that she sees that she has gone away, been transported, is watching herself as if she were onstage. The sounds ripple from her mouth in waves she cannot comprehend. Her gestures are theatrical, otherworldly, seen under the light of a glowing moon, clouds racing across its surface, casting strobelike shadows on the player. Who is this girl so desperately unhappy, so transparent, so at odds with the world? This performance captures an essential, universal sadness, and it is too painful for her to watch.

—

She manages to toss some items into a bag and get herself out the door. She would have died if she hadn’t gotten out of the apartment. The spring air punches her in the face in a good way, she feels like a cartoon character, thwacked, with a blast of sweet smells and breezy nonchalance. But then she notices the chill, it is late afternoon, a cool day near the end of May, and she is pissed that she didn’t bring a jacket. Her arms are bare and cold. Her jeans have a rip. She walks downtown, half thoughtlessly, half intentionally, not knowing how such a mental state is possible but it appears that it is. She knows where she is going, but she doesn’t allow herself to really know. Such is her disorganized, post-traumatic-stress-disordered brain filled with the colors of the budding branches all soft and pastel and curving and bending, surging and dipping, like gentle fireworks, blurry, in slow motion, frozen in midair. The world is an explosion of pink and white, lavender and yellow, and she walks under the archway of trees along the park side of the street for several blocks until she turns eastward and heads in the direction of Not-Jasper’s apartment. He has been providing her with a steady supply of that pill he gave her the first time they met. And even though he sickens her, she hates him, he is evil, she cannot forget those little, well, actually they aren’t so little, pills. And now he hasn’t been in school for a few days, hasn’t returned her texts, and so she has been going kind of crazy. She thinks she remembers what building he lives in, something east of Second Avenue, a forgettable old structure squeezed in between two postwar buildings, a buzzer, a tiny elevator. She recalls the aroma of takeout Asian fusion and exterminator fluid that filled the cramped space as they rode up together. Now she waits outside while no one answers the intercom. She hunches over her phone and texts again, fingers whizzing over the letters, while simultaneously leaning against the buzzer. Normally she would not be so rude as to let the whiny honk of the intercom drone on but she figures his parents — Does he really even have parents? she wonders — are probably not home and he doesn’t deserve decent treatment anyway. He deserves to go to jail but she doesn’t know how to make that happen, is too ashamed to tell anyone what occurred, too enthralled by the pills, too messed up at this point to think clearly about consequences, values, safety, love…