The Opposite of Drowning

by Erin McRae

  Eliza wished dearly her sister would shut up.

  “WHY DID YOU DRIVE ALL the way down here to bring me a toaster and my clothes?” Eliza asked an hour later and a good deal sweatier. All the boxes from Marianne’s car were now cluttering the tiny studio apartment. Eliza wondered if she’d brought too many dresses. As she’d been packing nearly two months ago in her parents’ home in Boston, her clothes selection had barely seemed sufficient. Now she wondered how New Yorkers lived with so little closet space. “Not that I don’t appreciate the help,” she went on. “But that’s a hike.”

  “You try living in Newton with a toddler and a house to keep up. You’d want to go on a road trip, too. If I have to plan one more cocktail party this month I’m going to lose my mind.”

  “You know, those are choices you’ve made,” Eliza said quietly.

  “Are they? Are they really? I can hardly be expected to do anything else.”

  That was both true and not, but Eliza thought the better of pointing it out. These miseries would be her own soon enough. “Trouble in paradise?” she asked with some trepidation.

  “I wouldn’t change it for the world.” Marianne smiled with the obvious lie. “But I’d give a lot to live someone else’s life for a day.”

  Eliza didn’t believe that for a moment. Marianne had thrown herself so deeply into her society wife obligations, she hardly knew how to do anything else. Motherhood – her son had just turned two – had only further underscored an approach to life that was an odd mix of status and fear. Her monologues about organic food, unscientific concerns about vaccination, and whether three was too early to start violin lessons were more than Eliza could bear. If those were the rewards of a marriage well made, Eliza wasn’t sure she wanted one. At least her inevitable role in Cody’s political career would provide her with a somewhat different path.

  And for now she had an apartment that was hers – and only hers – to arrange.

  “Ugh, this kitchen,” Marianne complained, looking over the tiny cupboards and the postage stamp’s worth of counter space. “You’re going to need a new microwave, I think this one’s been around since the Soviet days. In fact,” she poked the silver dial control dubiously. “I think this might have come from the Soviets.”

  “It’s not that bad,” Eliza protested, stacking cardigans on the armchair that had come with the place. She wouldn’t be able to reach the dresser to put them away properly until they cleared out a few more boxes.

  “You only think that because you’ve been living with awful European appliances for the last month,” Marianne said. “You need a new one. But don’t get anything too fancy, you’ll get a nice one when you get married. Have you started your registry yet?”

  Eliza made a noncommittal sound, and decided not to tell Marianne that she didn’t need a microwave at all.

  “You’ve got to register for the new KitchenAid mixer too, it’s to die for.”

  “I hate cooking,” Eliza said flatly.

  “Well get it for your cook, then. She’ll thank you.”

  “We don’t have a cook,” Eliza all but snapped.

  “Yet!” Marianne sang. “Trust me, it’s so worth it to have people helping out. Especially once you have kids.”

  Eliza stared at Marianne in horror. Did she not hear herself? Or did she not care that every word that came out of her mouth was laden with the ugly side of privilege and a heavy dose of assumption?

  “I’m just trying to live my life right now,” Eliza said quietly.

  Marianne turned sharply, her curtain of hair flipping over her shoulder like the star of a shampoo commercial. “Oh God,” she exclaimed. “Why?”

  Eliza squinted and glanced side to side, as if the barren walls of her microscopic corporate apartment would hold the answer.

  “Because it’s amazing,” she said at last with a certainty she hadn’t known she felt. “I’m good at what I do. I get to travel all over the world. Last month I lived in Wales and this month I’m living in New York City....” She trailed off when Marianne didn’t look convinced.

  “One room,” Marianne said, gesturing to the space. “High pressure obligations you don’t need. A long-distance relationship.”

  Eliza sat down on the thinly padded window seat that hid a radiator. She pointed to herself. “Big life; small space.”

  Marianne smirked. “And me? Small life, big space? Is that what you’re saying?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe. You only do things for other people. Maybe I think that’s strange.”

  “And maybe I think you’re selfish,” her sister said.

  Eliza smiled. “I know you do. You always have.”

  “You steal Halloween candy. And Easter baskets.”

  “I didn’t say you were wrong.” Eliza had stolen candy from her older sister through the whole of their shared childhood. “I admire you, you know. In so many ways. But I have this feeling,” she said, looking out the window at the lights reflecting off the clouds rolling in from the ocean. “Something wonderful is going to happen here. Something impossible.”

  And it had to, because this cramped apartment was the last place Eliza would ever live alone. When she wasn’t careful, she felt the future closing in on her, and it didn’t feel kind.

  Harry

  HARRY HAD BEEN PROMISING to visit Steven and his wife Mallory for as long as they’d been living in Bethel. Failing to ever follow through on that promise had been part of their ongoing cycle of ease and silence. Once Steven had gotten his diagnosis, it had been part of Harry’s bargain with the universe. Steven couldn’t die, not with so much left unsaid and so many promises left to keep.

  He sent Steven an email from the train, apologizing. For not being in town when Steven got the news. For blowing off invitations to visit for years and always dragging him down to the supposed virtues of the city instead. And for vague, nebulous transgressions that seemed minor when they happened but felt huge now that there might be so little time to make up for them.

  Steven responded within fifteen minutes with a message containing some of the most impressive profanity Harry had ever seen. Especially coming from Steven, who was usually calm and unflappable. Steven cursed Harry, his parentage, his manners, and his presumption that Steven was dwelling on his past or his illness.

  Harry knew the screed was meant, at least in part, to make him feel better. It didn’t quite work.

  STEVEN PICKING HIM up at the station made it worse.

  “I was perfectly prepared to take a cab,” Harry said by way of greeting. He spluttered with irritation as Steven grabbed his bag and tossed it into the backseat of the car.

  “There’s long list of things I’m happy to let you be angry about, but my not being bedridden isn’t among them.” Steven climbed into the driver’s seat and pulled the door closed.

  “Double negative,” Harry muttered as he got in the car himself.

  He darted glances sideways at Steven as they pulled away from the station. He was well aware that none of them looked the way they had when they were twenty, but Steven, it always seemed, had changed the least.

  Both Harry and Dennis had grown rather soft. Meryl looked the best she had in her life. But even with the chemo that had left him with greying stubble under his knit ski cap Steven seemed to be a face out of time. His features were still strong, his skin only slightly lined. Some days that was comforting. Today, Harry felt spooked, as if Steven had stepped out of the stream long ago, leaving him to go on alone.

  “Harry.” Steven’s voice snapped Harry out of his reverie.

  “What?”

  “I’m glad you’re here. But this trip is not a pilgrimage. It won’t be when I’m sicker either.”

  There were so many things Harry wanted to say, and all of them were horrible. How long? Why this town, so far from New York? But what came out was, “Did you really have to ruin Christmas?”

  Steven made a derisive sound. “You don’t even like Christmas.”

  “Fine, New Year’s.
”

  Steven gave him a lopsided smile. “You’ll be fucking Meryl like you do every year. That won’t change whether I’m there or not. Unless you can talk your new girlfriend into going?”

  This was what Harry got for emailing his friends with updates on his angst over his new coworker. He’d well earned the teasing about Eliza. But he didn’t know where to start with Steven’s comment regarding Meryl. Steven had always been slightly judgmental about the two of them, and not without reason. Discussing – defending – Eliza was so much easier.

  “She’s not my girlfriend and no, I am not subjecting her to the Miscreants for anything.”

  Steven shrugged. “Suit yourself.”

  “You’re being awfully passive aggressive.”

  “Did someone tell you death is enlightening? Because if they did, they were lying.”

  “I’m not used to you being sharp. I don’t like it,” Harry said. He felt so helpless. “And why do you even care what Meryl and I do?”

  Steven took a deep breath. “Because once or twice it was me.”

  “That was a long time ago,” Harry said. “And for all of a month on summer holidays.” He hadn’t expected the topic to come up so soon. Or even, for all his regrets and bargains, at all.

  “It was.”

  “Are you jealous?” Harry didn’t know why he said it. The question seemed cruel, unnecessary, and not one he wanted the answer to. But if quiet, even-tempered Steven, who was more often than not a balm against the world, was going to speak to wound so would he.

  “No,” Steven said. “But that doesn’t mean a man can’t acknowledge that the past never really goes away.”

  “Are we actually talking about this?” Harry turned his head to stare out the window.

  “We don’t have to. But we should, perhaps. Some day. Looking back on that year now seems different than it used to.”

  “It was decades ago. Of course it seems different,” Harry snapped.

  “I didn’t behave as well as I could have.”

  “Well, neither did I. Neither did anyone! We were nineteen.”

  “Why did you never wind up with anyone, Harry?”

  “Because I don’t like people. Not because I was pining over you.”

  Steven shook his head and let out a long breath. “Look, next year, things may change.”

  “Is there any scenario where that’s an improvement?” Harry asked bluntly.

  “A few. I’m going to be fine for a while. The doctor said if we manage it right, I might even have four or five years left. Just, when it happens, it’s going to happen fast, and there’s no guarantee I’ll get that long. And I don’t want you idiots having to find me medical care in a city devoid of everyone but German tourists and our miserable book club of disreputable middle-aged drunkards.”

  “My German is very good,” Harry volunteered.

  “Your German is shit.”

  Harry was, inappropriately, put in mind of Eliza.

  STEVEN AND MALLORY’S house was a new construction, a depressingly suburban colonial in a cul-de-sac. There was nothing to set the house apart from the other ones on the street, unless it was an even greater spareness and anonymity in the landscaping. In one of the neighbors’ backyards a dog barked. The people next door had wrapped the railing of the front porch in fake, fall-colored leaves.

  Mallory was in the kitchen, a dishtowel tossed over her shoulder as she stirred something at the stove. When Steven and Harry stepped into the room, she kissed Steven and said hello to Harry with a kiss to his cheek.

  “Harry,” she said.

  “Mallory.” They exchanged smiles, though Mallory’s wasn’t very enthusiastic. Harry could hardly blame her. She looked tired, though given the situation she was confronting, Harry knew he would look a good deal worse than tired. She had chin-length purplish-red hair and eye makeup that was several shades darker than what the rest of the women in their social circle considered tasteful. Not that Steven had ever chosen his lovers based on what others would think. The Miscreants had called her ‘the child’ when Steven had first met her going on five years ago now. The nickname hadn’t been about her age – she was the same age as Steven – but about her fashion choices. That had felt unkind at the time. Now, knowing her current struggles and the grief that was in store, Harry knew it had been downright cruel.

  “How was the train?” she asked him.

  “Dreadful,” Harry replied with a sigh. Harry liked Mallory, as he would have liked almost any person who found themselves drawn to and compatible with Steven. Plus, she had always shared his weariness and exasperation with the world in a way Steven, with all his gentleness and patience, never had. It was one of the reasons, he suspected, that she liked him better than she did the rest of the Miscreants. She was always freer with her tongue whenever she managed to separate Harry from the herd. Even if she had found out about her nickname when Meryl had accidentally included her in a group email about her.

  “There’s not much scenery to look at this time of year,” Mallory said. “Especially with the weather we’ve been having.”

  “There’s not much to look at any time of the year. Why on earth did you let Steven drag you all the way out here?” he asked.

  “So I’d have to put up with all of you less. Coffee?”

  Dinner was stilted, the conversation stiff and awkward. Harry thought that was rather less about him, and more about Mallory and Steven not knowing how to deal with the outside world interacting with their own private one. Harry couldn’t help them with that and so strove to be as charming and normal a guest as possible, sharing stories from Frankfurt and his general dismay at Philippe’s latest brainstorms.

  Their conversation was interrupted by Harry’s phone ringing. Apologizing, he moved to silence it, until he saw that it was from Anika.

  “I really should take this,” he said. He wondered if the publisher had decided to take one more last-minute issue with his Brittany book. Or maybe Anika had finished his Vienna book and had thoughts she wanted to share?

  “Special someone?” Mallory asked.

  “The specialest.” He used his most cloying voice. “My agent.”

  Harry stepped out onto the back deck to take the call. It was dark now, and he gave an involuntary shiver in the chilly New England November evening. “If this is about the Brittany book, the answer is no,” he said.

  “Actually, it’s about your Vienna manuscript,” Anika replied.

  “And?” Harry asked, not without trepidation. He’d almost reached fifty, and he still had terror every time anyone gave him feedback about a new piece of work.

  “What’s going on with you?” Anika asked.

  “What do you mean ‘what’s going on with me?’” Harry asked. She probably didn’t want to know he was freezing his balls off in his dying friend’s backyard in a particularly stultifying part of Connecticut.

  “It’s... workmanlike.”

  “Midlist author, midlist book,” Harry offered, unenthused about being the butt of his own joke.

  “You’ve always been better than your sales, Harry. And this isn’t quite your best work.”

  “Not quite my best work, needs some revisions? Or not quite my best work....” Harry left it hanging.

  “It’s a piece of shit.”

  “Excuse you.” Harry stood up straighter, laughing, even as a piece of him shriveled up, just a little, at the criticism. He trusted Anika, and she probably wasn’t wrong.

  “There’s no hook, your themes are tenuous at best, and you somehow fell in love with the passive voice. What is up with that, by the way?”

  “I was in Frankfurt?” Harry tried. As far as he was concerned, the German love for the passive voice was endemic.

  “Yeah, for five days, after you sent this in. I mean, it’s not hopeless, we can work with this, but you’re going to want to do some thinking on what this book is about. Preferably before you blow by the due date. Which, it’s my job to remind you, is coming up.”

&
nbsp; Harry dutifully agreed, and they set a time to talk more about the book once he returned to New York. After he hung up he stood on the porch, his arms folded on the railing, and stared into the quiet, uneventful, Connecticut evening.

  That the Vienna manuscript wasn’t his best work wasn’t news to him. Harry had spent seven slightly miserable days there a year ago, battling a cold and trying to find something new and interesting to say about the city and all its terribly grown-up nightlife. He’d been suspecting he had failed, but had hoped that he was wrong on that point. Evidently not.

  Vienna was perfect for him, in theory at least. A spectacular city for anyone over forty, Vienna in all its sophistication and East-West fusion was supposed to have been about enjoying his age. But now, one of his best friends was dying. His own body, though healthy, was creakier than it had been. And what did he have to show for any of it? Travel memoirs that sold decently enough to keep contracts coming in, but not enough to make any sort of name for himself? An unremarkable career minding other people’s publication schedules? Who would want to read about that set against a fairly provincial outpost of a lost Europe?

  Harry had more time left than Steven, but what was he actually going to do with those years except more of exactly the same?

  No wonder his Vienna book wasn’t about anything, he thought as he slid open the door and stepped back into the warmth of Steven and Mallory’s kitchen. Beyond weariness, he didn’t even know what his own life was about.

  LATE THAT NIGHT, AFTER Steven and Mallory had gone to bed, Harry fled into the shower in the guest bathroom to stop himself from listening for their whispers amongst the sounds of the house. He was getting out when his phone, balanced on the edge of the sink, chirped with a text notification. Securing a towel around his waist, Harry unlocked it. This late at night, he would normally ignore texts, but with the recent call from Anika, he didn’t want to take his chances and miss anything that might be important.

  To his very great surprise, the text wasn’t from Anika or Meryl or Jonathan or anyone else Harry might have expected to hear from at this hour. It was from Eliza, and all it said was WTF?