Marie-Helene Bertino - 2 A.M. at The Cat's Pajamas

In the back bedroom of her family’s row home, Clare Kelly dozes on her chaise lounge, busted leg propped on a pillow, dreaming of GLORY and THIGH GAPS.

Louisa Vicino heats popcorn on her brother’s stovetop. She catches sight of herself in the kitchen window, so serious, shaking kernels in the pan. She gives herself a shimmy. Laughs. Gives herself another shimmy. Unfurls one arm, then the other. She can feel the snakes’ smooth, pearlized skins, their buttery breaths on her neck, the pleasant squeeze as they wind around her belly.

Her brother calls from the other room. “How’s that popcorn coming?”

Louisa goes into a split on the kitchen’s unforgiving floor. Hand flourishes. One last shimmy. Big finish.

Principal Randles wants a nightcap with the tax attorney. Dinner concludes over two modest pieces of mochi. He slips a credit card into the bill. “Would you like to …”

“I would love to,” she says.

He is noticeably relieved. “I know just the place.”

In the deep moss of cigar smoke, Sarina reglosses her lips and wishes for strength. She switches off the light and closes the door. Ben is where she left him, only now a man in a gray suit is pumping his hand like an oil rig, a man who, Sarina realizes with pain when he pivots to greet her, is her ex-husband, Marcos.

Marcos is a man whose cologne precedes him. He runs a successful hedge fund in Connecticut and owns homes on two different beaches in two different countries. Ben had been reading the Sunshine book when Marcos descended upon him. Ben hasn’t seen Sarina’s overly enthusiastic ex-husband in years and has spent exactly no time weeping over it.

“What luck running into you,” Marcos says. “I’m on my way to a truly special place.”

Because he knows Marcos can’t, Ben says, “Stay for a drink.”

Sarina approaches and does not reclaim her stool. Ben has asked her ex-husband to join them which means he does not want to be alone with her. Perhaps he has been hoping for an interruption or planning a demure exit. She hates the moody figure of this night.

“Still doing pro bono work?” Marcos asks Ben. “Pro bono work is so …”

“… noble,” Sarina finishes.

Marcos chucks her shoulder. “Still finishing my sentences, hon.”

Ben says, “I am still doing pro bono work.”

“Too bad.” Marcos orders a seven and seven, hands the bartender a twenty, and tells him to keep the change.

Ben and Sarina sip their drinks.

“Tell me about this special place,” Sarina says.

“Truly special,” Ben says.

“It’s a club with a house band to beat the …”

“Band?” Ben offers.

“Oho!” says Marcos.

“Now I’m finishing your sentences.” Ben downs his drink in a succinct gulp. “We should get married.”

Marcos is regularly trailed by the feeling he is being taunted in a way he cannot articulate. He is aware of being intellectually late to every party with pissants like Ben Allen lurking in the periphery, ready to remind him. It doesn’t bother Marcos. He has five walk-in closets and a young girlfriend who thinks it’s cute to call him Daddy. He enjoys the fact that men like Ben never seem to be able to meet his gaze.

“Where is the club?” Sarina says.

“Fishtown.” He cradles the back of an invisible partner. “Dancing.”

“Dancing.” Sarina looks wistful. “But I wake up early to paint.”

“How’s it coming?” Marcos says.

“It’s coming.”

“What are you painting these days?” Ben says. “Still lifes?”

“Not exactly,” Marcos says. His and Sarina’s shared smile creates a box on the outside of which Ben simpers into his Churchill.

“What’s this?” Marcos points to the book.

“A dragon,” Sarina says. “… Who joins the circus.” She holds up a picture of Sunshine selling cotton candy. “See?”

Ben, grateful for the chance to flaunt his knowledge, says, “He also has a friend who is a talking peanut named Sky.”

“This is new information!” she says.

“I read it while you were in the bathroom.”

Marcos looks from Sarina to Ben. Sarina to Ben. What is this excitement for children’s ephemera, this allusion to shared time?

Sarina and Marcos had married after a brief, aggressive courtship. He was brawny, cocksure. She was elegant, kooky. He liked the shape they made at parties. As Sarina spent more and more hours in her studio, the brevity of the courting time occurred and reoccurred to Marcos. They were incompatible but he liked her, then and now, very much. Even during the divorce proceedings, she was kind. What is she doing here with this failed lawyer? Marcos recalls Ben’s pale wife, who had a propensity for poly blends. This is a dangerous situation for Sarina, but Marcos’s concern for his ex has a time limit. A nubile redhead waits for him at the other end of the city.

“The Cat’s Pajamas,” he says. “… Is the name of the club … and I must go.” He registers Sarina’s relief. “… Miles to go before I sleep.”

“Whitman,” Ben says.

Marcos throws a few dollars on the bar. “Frost.”

Ben frowns. “I think it’s Whitman.”

“Well, it’s Frost.”

“Don’t mess with him on American poetry,” Sarina says. Marcos beams at her and for a moment, they are still married. Then a redheaded moment takes its place.

“Walk me out,” Marcos tells her, shaking hands with Ben. He knows she won’t want to, but she will. These are the residual obligations of having been married to someone.

Marcos curses when they reach the street. “I hate this weather.” He whistles for a cab. “Let’s go to Mexico.”

“Can you have me back by Christmas?” Sarina says.

“Skip it,” he says. “What are you planning to do for it anyway?”

“My sister’s. Her kids. Baked ziti, I guess. Dry chicken.”

“The sister.” Marcos’s tone is playful. “She single yet?”

A cab brakes in front of them. “Good-bye, Marcos,” she says.

“What are you doing in there?” He jerks his chin to the bar.

“Having a drink with a friend.”

“Is that what you call it?” Marcos gets into the cab and closes the door. The window descends. “Be careful, girl.”

Sarina watches the cab leave. She spent most of their two-year marriage in a bathing suit. He could spend an hour kissing her knees. He was his own kind of gentleman. When they were married he would never have been on a two-hour walk with someone else when she was at home sick.

Marcos’s knife-through-butter certainty has lifted the evening’s scrim. She can no longer act like this is a meaningless walk. She will say good-bye to Ben. It will not be a sorry thing.

As she walks toward him at the bar, Sarina memorizes him. Lanky legs hiked up on the stool as if ready to spring.

His rueful smile stops her. “Annie and I have separated.”

Greg Michaelman is getting married in the morning! He and his friends have been staked at a booth in the cigar bar for hours drinking scotch! Greg has already fielded three phone calls from his fiancée, who is upset for reasons he cannot understand! One of his boys decides they need a picture immediately and produces a camera! But who will take it!

Ask her, someone says, and points to the only girl in the bar, a short-haired stick figure sitting with some jag. They are in conversation but there is no conversation more important than taking a picture of Greg Michaelman and his boys!

“Take my picture!” Greg Michaelman yells. “I’m getting married tomorrow.”

The girl does not hear, so Greg yells again. She turns, pale with anger. Greg feels the scotch tingle darkly in his throat.