Perfect Life

by Jessica Shattuck

  It was not as though Laura had never thought of these inequities before, but they had not reared up in her head with such regularity or urgency until recently. She had become reflexively aware of the sheer luck of her existence, and the grand and disturbing scale on which she blundered through the universe.

  But here at Clio, sitting across from Mac muted the volume on all this. He believed in possibility and hard work and the rewards of this. He never second-guessed anything in his life. There was something calming about this. Mac lived in the world of facts and figures distinct enough to be mastered, of worth that was measurable in coin, of talk that followed convention and conveyed surety. He was a man you would want at your side if there were a disaster—an earthquake or a terrorist attack. Neil, on the other hand, was not.

  Tonight Mac was making an uncharacteristic effort to engage. He asked Laura about her work—about the books she had read lately, whether (this was what it always came back to) the Beacon magazine had given her a much-deserved raise. The proportion of hours spent to money earned in the world of arts and letters was appalling to Mac. Ungraspably disproportionate.

  He asked about the children: How was Miranda’s nursery school working out? And was she worried about how sensitive Genevieve seemed to be? There was something sweet about his foggy concerns.

  And, prattling on while sipping her stubborn glass of Pinot Grigio, Laura felt an utterly unexpected swell of appreciation for Mac. He was a good provider. He worked hard. He was ambitious and intelligent, if not witty. He did not ruminate on the pain and absurdity and futility of human existence—in fact, he did not give much thought at all to the larger questions of life. Laura did not spend the meal registering the waste that went into washing the table linens and she got over the ridiculousness of the fifteen-dollar corn cake. She ordered the lobster and morel stew without a second thought.

  But it was because of Neil that Laura could feel, for the first time in a long time, the chemistry of being a woman and Mac being a man. When she got up to use the ladies’ room, she felt Mac’s eyes on her and was aware of the flattering drape of fabric over her breasts and the strand of hair that had escaped to lie along the curve of her neck. The sting of Neil’s radio silence made her hungry for Mac’s admiration. It was perverse, even despicable, but true.

  Two-thirds of a bottle of Château Gloria later on her part (of course Mac had been right, she would drink it) and two cognacs on his (Mac was a great lover of antiquated, after-dinner drinks), they made love for the first time in almost six months. It was a little clumsy—infused with shyness and a self-conscious sense of momentousness—but maybe because of this, a little bit exciting. They did not speak afterward, but lay side by side in the darkness, breathing, the room buzzing with everything left unsaid.

  After some time Mac lifted his hand and took hers, lightly. The innocent childishness of the gesture felt horribly sad. Laura felt too ashamed and dishonest to squeeze his fingers in return. So she lay very still and pretended to be asleep while a kind of cold and dreadful panic overcame her: what had she done?

  The next morning Mac did not leave for work at the usual crack of dawn. He was still in the shower when Laura began assembling the girls’ breakfast—a chaotic, bleary-eyed routine for all three of them, characterized by Laura’s frustratingly interrupted efforts to get coffee made, Miranda’s quick and violent changes of mind about what she wanted to eat, and Genevieve’s endless daydreamy dawdling.

  Upstairs, Laura could hear Mac padding around in his study as she buttered toaster waffles and divvied out frozen raspberries, braided Genevieve’s hair, changed Miranda’s diaper, and let Cocoa out into the yard. She wrestled the full trash bag out of the can and scribbled a grocery list for Kaaren, who absolutely lived for trips to Whole Foods, but given no instruction would return with giant bags of bulgur and rye flakes and dried yellow split peas—none of the pitifully limited array of basics that the children actually ate.

  It was in the middle of this that Jenny called. Laura greeted her coldly. She had been trying, unsuccessfully, to reach her friend for nearly two weeks. She had left messages twice volunteering to help unpack boxes and not heard so much as a polite refusal in response.

  “Can I call you back?” she said. “I’m just trying to get everyone out the door.”

  “Oh. Of course—just—” Jenny cut herself off. She sounded a little strange. “Do call me later. I need to tell you something.”

  “Oh!” Laura’s first thought was of Neil. That somehow Jenny had found out. And was going to…what? Press charges? This was what popped into her mind, although of course it made no sense. “Okay. I will,” she blurted robotically, and stood pressing the receiver down into its cradle.

  “Who was that?” Genevieve wanted to know.

  “Jenny.”

  “Where she?” barked Miranda, who loved Jenny and her loud, cheery, talking-to-kids voice.

  “At home,” Laura said. “At her new house,” she was correcting herself when Mac appeared in the doorway. She had forgotten he was home.

  “How are my princesses?” he asked. He looked a little uneasy, fresh-faced and damp-haired from the shower.

  “Aren’t you late for work?” Genevieve asked.

  “No, I’m not late for work, miss,” Mac said. “I can go in whenever I want.”

  “Shoulder ride?” Miranda asked, standing up on her chair.

  “So you usually want to go before we get up?” Genevieve said.

  “No.” Mac scowled, scooping Miranda up. “I usually have meetings.”

  “Mmm.” Genevieve looked knowingly down onto her remaining waffle, and Mac walked out into the yard with the squealing Miranda, little hands sunk deep into his plentiful hair.

  “Kaaren says Americans work too hard,” Genevieve said.

  “She does?” Laura paused midlist.

  “There’s no balance.”

  “Mmmm.” Laura nodded, though in fact she was still mulling over what Jenny could have to tell her. Something not good, she guessed by the sound of her voice.

  “Except you,” Genevieve said, bringing her plate to the sink.

  “She said that?” Laura asked.

  Genevieve shot her a sideways look. “No. I did.”

  “Why? Because I’m so balanced?”

  “No.” Genevieve looked quizzically at her. “Because you don’t work very hard.”

  “Oh!” Laura exclaimed, as Mac and Miranda barged back in.

  “Alright,” Mac said. “Shoulder ride’s over.” He ignored Miranda’s protests and set her on the floor, where she collapsed, wailing. “See you,” he said, putting a hand briefly on Genevieve’s head.

  “Bye-bye,” Laura said automatically. “What do you mean, I don’t work hard?” she turned back to Genevieve, but Genevieve was already engaged in a heated argument with her sister.

  And looking around the disastrously messy kitchen, her squabbling children, and her coffee-stained bathrobe, she felt the sting of recognized cliché.

  It was not until after she had dropped the girls off at school, run a few errands, and settled herself back down in her little study that she returned Jenny’s call, which was certainly going to be about Neil. She had spent the last few hours weighing explanations and excuses, apologies and defensive tirades (why is everything about you, Jenny? why should it even matter?), so when she picked up the phone and dialed the number her brain was abuzz with anxiety.

  But Jenny was not calling about Neil.

  “I haven’t called you because Jeremy has cancer,” Jenny said flatly.

  And almost before sadness or worry or confusion, Laura felt blindsided by guilt, at the superficiality of her concerns.

  17

  JENNY HUNG UP THE PHONE and sat looking at the bright, cheerful pill that only a few weeks ago had seemed so full of promise and excitement. It still looked good. Even pretty. But the promise it held, right now, on the damp palm of her hand was of a different, more personal and less professional sort. She was tempt
ed to pop it into her mouth.

  For all of her time spent marketing antidepressants, she had never taken one. She could recite the benefits and drawback of this SSRI, she could explain in great and nuanced detail the effect it had on the pathways and chemistry of the human brain, could even list the possible side effects down to itchy eyes, and could certainly reassure and convince even the most reluctant depressive that it was worth a try. But she had no idea what it felt like. Like nothing, she told people. It wasn’t a high. It wasn’t a rush. It was simply, over time, something that you might notice evened things out, enabled you to stop obsessing, make decisions with more confidence, sleep. Her mind slipped immediately into the marketing pitch she knew so well. But what did it mean, really, to feel “more even” or “perseverate less”?

  She had never before been tempted to find out. After all, she had already felt “even.” She had never “perseverated.” She slept like a rock. But now, in the last week, she suspected that she could use help.

  Since diagnosis, Jeremy had been calm, even steadfast. It was not good. It was advanced renal cancer—stage four. It had spread already to his liver and chest. He would have surgery and chemotherapy and a newer immunotherapy that would, in attempting to arm his own body to fight the cancer, make him very, very ill. It was odd, though, in the face of this grim prognosis, he had more energy than he had had before. He searched the Internet exhaustively and set up interviews and appointments with preeminent doctors and acquaintances or acquaintances of acquaintances who were researchers in the field. He was on the phone for hours. And he ordered books from Amazon by the truckload. They were the first things he filled into the void of his cavernous office in the new house.

  “Are you sure this is good for you?” Jenny asked. “All this information?”

  Jeremy had barely noted the question, posed from the doorway of his office, where Jenny leaned as though she couldn’t possibly hold her own weight upright. In her hands she cupped one of her suddenly ubiquitous cups of tea. (Since when had tea seemed like such a palliative? She was a coffee drinker, but suddenly she craved tea, with honey and milk, lots of it, just as her mother had made her when she was sick as a girl.)

  Jeremy was determined. He had taken an immediate leave from work—had literally, and uncharacteristically, gone into the office only once since the diagnosis to wrap things up. The goal, as far as his treatment was concerned, was to have surgery to remove the cancer. But until the growth of secondary tumors on his liver and his lungs was checked, this was impossible. And so first chemo—and possibly some radiation. The order of treatments, in which each next step hinged on the outcome of the previous, was like a bewildering bog to Jenny—there was no map, no path, and certainly no guarantee of a way out. But somehow Jeremy seemed able to comprehend it, or in any case to form a steadfast routine in the face of the uncertainty.

  The efficiency and discipline with which he proceeded through the day-to-day was actually more “Jeremy” than any behavior she had seen from him in what felt like years. He rose at seven, mixed up an unpleasant-looking spirulina shake, and went for a speed walk in the fancy, and up until now unworn, windbreaker and sweat suit Jenny had given him last Christmas. He came home and checked into the bewildering web of cancer sites he seemed to have sussed out and categorized in record time. Then he napped, ate lunch, and did two hours of yoga at a local studio that he had apparently been going to for months without Jenny even knowing.

  The only unregulated activity of his day was the time he spent with Colin. It was, maybe, the biggest transformation of his illness. His relationship with Colin had changed from one of benign neglect to one of great engagement. Even more than engagement, love. Playing with him on the floor, making his toy monkey jump and making him laugh, building block towers and playing peekaboo, these became Jeremy’s primary recreation. He wanted, suddenly, to put Colin to sleep, to feed him dinner, to take him for walks in the stroller. And the time he spent with the boy, for whom Jeremy himself was a delightful new discovery, was the only time Jenny ever saw him smile. It was as if his illness had suddenly awakened some playful, nurturing side of him that found its expression in the boy. It would have made Jenny jealous if—well, if it weren’t so goddamn tragic.

  Meanwhile, Jenny herself was unusually and uncharacteristically scattered. She was flummoxed by decisions. Should she order a sectional couch for the new TV room or two cushy sofas with a giant ottoman? Should she enroll Colin in a playgroup at the local nursery school or was it too early? Was Maria changing his diaper often enough?

  At work she was distracted, and she tended to get in at eight-thirty as opposed to her usual seven forty-five sharp. That twit Galena had noticed. “Would you like me to take over the Priorities Memo?” she asked with insidious sweetness. The Priorities Memo was something Jenny had always sent out by eight-fifteen. Was this an Eastern European thing? Was Galena’s ambition a product of being free—finally—of the communist hangover that had dampened her country’s progress and aspirations for so long? Or was she simply a born player—in the same way (Jenny did not dwell on the thought) Jenny herself was?

  Jenny had not let anyone at work know about Jeremy’s cancer. She needed to tell them. She could see that. Especially since Jeremy had already broadcast it in his own office, and who knew what sort of obscure overlap would turn up? Boston was, after all, a small town. But she did not want pity. Or gestures of helpfulness. And below this, she had the primal feeling that admitting weakness could be dangerous. Take Galena, for instance, waiting in the wings, teeth sharpened on Jenny’s own tough diet of hard work and ruthlessness.

  On the day of Jeremy’s first chemo injection Jenny had told Violet, Eric’s assistant, that she could not attend the monthly progress meeting because her mother was having an operation. Two hours later, she had gotten a call from Eric himself: Was her mother all right? Did Jenny need extra time to help her out? Oh, no, it was just knee surgery, temporarily incapacitating but not dangerous, Jenny had reassured him. She had worked this out beforehand, but she was flustered by Eric’s kindness and concern. And now the lie, which had been conceived as a stopgap, had taken on a momentum of its own. On top of all the reasons she did not want to talk about Jeremy’s cancer in the first place there was now, in addition, the fact that her initial weird cover-up would be exposed. It would draw attention to her own psychological weakness.

  So instead she sat at her desk and considered the beautiful pill. Perhaps a dose of protease inhibitors was just what she needed.

  There was a knock on her door and Jenny slid the pill off her palm into the drawer of her desk. It was Galena.

  “Walk over to the meeting together?” Galena said, sticking her head just inside the door.

  Jenny frowned. “Which meeting?”

  “ZGames! Of course!” Galena said brightly. “Did you forget about them again? Tsk, tsk.”

  “Right.” Jenny smiled icily. “I guess they’re not exactly top priority right now.”

  “Oh, but this will be big, if it works,” Galena said, smirking. “All those depressed misfits out there.”

  “I’ll meet you in the conference room,” Jenny said. “I just have a few things to wrap up.”

  Galena shrugged and sauntered through the door.

  Jenny called up the marketing plan they had presented ZGames with. Shit, it struck her as the logo unfurled across her computer screen—was this the company that Galena had told her Neil worked at? There were three game companies they were pitching, so she could not be sure, but looking at the dripping black “Z” of the title she felt it was. Of course it was now, with the world caving in around them, that Neil had to resurface, trailing mess and complication. And turning out to be such a weirdo! A computer game designer! It was like finding out an ex-boyfriend was bisexual—it gave her an unsettled, anxious feeling. Was Colin going to turn out to be a weirdo too? She should just turn the whole project over to Galena. Forget overseeing it. After all, how badly could the girl screw up?

&nbs
p; But, of course, this morning there was no backing out.

  With an almost frantic vigor she opened the drawer she had slid the pill into, hunted it out, and popped it into her mouth. It had a sweet taste on her tongue and slid smoothly down her throat. Twenty-five milligrams. A typical starting dose. She did not need anyone to prescribe. It was an aid. A crutch to help her through a hard time. Hadn’t she been pitching this for years?

  It was that evening, halfway through her second glass of Merlot, that the possible side effects occurred to Jenny. Was the Setlan making her drunk? She was at Cobblestone’s, the kid-friendly restaurant beloved across the Boston area for its combination of sophisticated adult food options (Moroccan lamb terrine and sweet pepper fried cod cakes, for example) and the cheerful, germy play area for unruly toddlers. Beside her, in the restaurant high chair, Colin chewed intently on a spoon. Across from her, Laura sat with her hands folded on the edge of the table, looking painfully empathetic and concerned. All around there was the din of clanking plates and children playing and adults making loud conversation to be heard above the general racket. Jenny was not seeing things through particularly foggy or otherwise inebriated lenses this evening, was she? No. The grating clatter and wail of a fight breaking out at the train table settled it. If anything, she felt particularly flat. She gulped at the merlot hungrily, wishing for the relieving tingle of a buzz.

  Laura, who had risen to make sure the scuffle in the play area did not involve Miranda, sank back into her seat across from Jenny and began tearing up. “And how is Jeremy dealing with it?” she asked, the tears spilling over and running down her cheeks.