The Pack

by Jason Starr

  “You know nothing about him.”

  “I know he has a kid.”

  “He told you this?”

  “No, I just saw his kid’s stuff in the apartment.”

  Diane considered this for a few moments, then said, “Well, that makes me feel a little better, at least. I mean, if he has a kid how crazy can he be, right?”

  They ate for a while without saying anything. While Diane was eating her salad, avoiding eye contact, and Olivia was picking at hers—she hadn’t had much of an appetite lately, losing four pounds in the past few days—she was imagining Michael pinning her down on the bed while she ran her fingernails down his muscular back. He’d told her he couldn’t get together tonight, that he was going out with some friends. It was going to be rough not being with him. She already felt like she was in Michael withdrawal.

  After maybe thirty seconds had gone by, Olivia broke the silence with, “Well, enough about me and my crazy sex life. How have you been?” She was purposely trying to make light of the whole situation, to hopefully ease the tension. It worked—well, for a little while anyway. Diane started telling her how she and Steve were planning to take their first vacation together, to Turks and Caicos, and Olivia tried to focus, but her mind kept drifting. She managed to make appropriate comments like, “Wow, that sounds great” and “You’re so lucky,” but the conversation seemed forced, more like a business lunch than a lunch with a close friend.

  Diane seemed aware of the awkwardness, rushing to finish her salad, like she couldn’t wait to get away. When she looked at the time on her iPhone and said, “Oh, shoot, it’s almost one, I have to get back to my office for a phone conference,” Olivia knew it was just an excuse.

  They left the park and didn’t talk at all until they were on Sixth Avenue when Olivia said, “I’m really sorry if I sounded a little nutty before. You know how excited I always get when I meet someone. This time, for some reason, it’s just so much more intense.”

  “No, it’s my fault,” Diane said. “I shouldn’t’ve come on so strong. I was probably out of line.”

  “No, you were just looking out for me, and I appreciate it,” Olivia said. “But don’t worry about me. I’m a big girl.”

  They hugged good-bye.

  “How about we do lunch again next week?” Olivia asked.

  “I’m swamped and then I’ll be in Turks and Caicos,” Diane said.

  “Oh, that’s right. Then how about when you get back? Or, I know, how about the four of us go on a double date? I really think you have the wrong impression of Michael. If you just got to know him, you’d see why I think he’s so special.”

  “Okay, I’d love that,” Diane said, but Olivia could tell she wasn’t into the idea at all.

  On the way back to her office, Olivia wanted to call him just to hear his voice, but she remembered him telling her he didn’t like to talk on his cell phone. When he’d called her the other day, what had he said? Oh yeah, “Don’t call me.” His directness was so damn sexy.

  Suddenly she realized she was in her office, at her desk. Wow, how did that happen? It seemed like only a few seconds ago she was saying good-bye to Diane and somehow she’d walked across Sixth Avenue and along Fortieth Street, ridden the elevator to the seventh floor, and gone down the corridor to her corner office. This had been happening a lot lately—she was always so involved thinking about Michael that she seemed to skip from place to place and thought to thought in a delirious daze and it was hard to get anything accomplished. It was unlike her to get so distracted because normally she was extremely focused, especially at work. She routinely put in fourteen-hour days and micromanaged her company. She had nine employees plus two interns from the School of Design, and usually she was on top of everything that went on at her company.

  Diane had been right—she definitely wasn’t acting normal—but why was that such a bad thing? She’d finally found a guy she connected with, who raised her pulse. Spacing out was just a side effect of falling in love.

  She answered work e-mails that had accumulated in her inbox, including one from her assistant, who had set up a meeting with Mr. Kyoto, a potential major client from Japan who was coming to town soon. Kyoto was the decision maker for a chain of high-end Japanese restaurants expanding in the city and was considering hiring Olivia’s firm to do the signage, menus, and other graphic design. She tried to focus on her work, but it was hard to get Michael out of her head.

  Later in the afternoon, at a staff meeting, Kathleen, a project manager, was giving a presentation.

  “What do you think?” Kathleen asked.

  Fantasizing about Michael’s irresistible manly scent, Olivia said, “I’m sorry, what exactly are we discussing?”

  EIGHT

  Looking in the full-length mirror behind the bathroom door, Simon couldn’t tell if the beige turtleneck and navy sport jacket made him look hip or uptight. He knew the guys would be well dressed tonight, and he wanted to be well dressed too. But he wanted to be casual, relaxed ; he didn’t want to look like some stuffy college professor.

  “Like what you see?”

  Simon hadn’t heard Alison enter, and he jerked a little.

  “Wow, and nervous too, ”Alison said. “Jeez, what is it with you today? It’s like you’re going on a date.”

  “Sorry, didn’t expect you to sneak up on me like that,” Simon said.

  “Isn’t that the third outfit you’ve tried on?” she asked.

  Actually it was the fifth.

  “Second,” he said.

  “I thought you were just going out to a bar tonight?”

  Was he imagining it, or was there a slight accusatory tone in her voice? Yeah, probably. When you’ve been married for eleven years, the subtleties in your spouse’s tone were hard to miss.

  “It’s not a bar,” he said. “It’s a brewery.”

  “How do I know you’re not having a wild affair with some beautiful young nanny you met at the playground?”

  He knew she was being sarcastic, but he detected bitterness in her tone.

  This time he decided not to let it go. “Did I do something wrong? Are you angry at me?”

  “No.” She turned away. “Why?”

  “You’ve been acting distant the past few days,” Simon said, “and you barely said a word during our last session with Hagan.”

  She turned back suddenly and said, “Okay, there is something wrong, okay? I want things to get better, and they’re not getting any better.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Simon said. “What things?”

  “You, us, our lives,” she said. “I just thought everything would improve without you working. I thought you’d be under less stress and we’d . . . I don’t know . . . be happier. But we still have the same problems.”

  “I know I’ve been a little distracted lately,” Simon said, “but I think I have a pretty good reason for it, don’t you?”

  “This has nothing to do with you getting fired.”

  “Look,” Simon said. “Like I said in counseling, I’ll work on it, and I was serious about what I said about getting Christina to babysit. I think we should have a regular date night.”

  “It’s not just a date night,” Alison said. “Don’t you get it?”

  “Mommy.” Jeremy was at the door.

  “Yes, sweetie?”

  “My neck feels funny.”

  Jeremy always said his neck hurt when he had a sore throat.

  “Okay, sweetie, I’ll be right there.”

  Jeremy left the room.

  “I better take his temperature, ”Alison said. “I hope he’s not getting sick.”

  “I think we need to discuss this,” Simon said.

  “I don’t think there’s anything to discuss,” she said, and went to tend to Jeremy.

  Simon hated when Alison did this—started a big drama or discussion about something and left before he had a chance to express himself. He knew from experience that when she lashed out it usually had no
thing to do with him. She was probably just stressed out about work, or her family situation—her parents had been killed in a car accident in Florida three years ago and her sister in San Francisco was her only close relative—and was taking it out on him the way she sometimes did. He would talk to her about it another time, when she was ready to actually have a conversation.

  He tried on a few more outfits—including the turtleneck and sport jacket again—and finally settled on a simple pair of jeans and a black long-sleeved shirt. It was perfect—he looked casual, not too dressy, and not like he was trying too hard to look good. He usually didn’t blowdry his hair, but what the hell, he could use a little volume; after all, his hair wasn’t getting any thicker. Finally he added some gel, and his black leather bomber jacket completed the look. He checked himself in the mirror again, thinking he looked good . . . damn good. Yeah, he’d definitely fit in well with the guys tonight.

  Then he went out to the living room and saw Jeremy on the couch next to Alison. He looked noticeably pale and she was holding a moistened washcloth against his forehead.

  “He’s one oh one point four and it’s going up fast,” Alison said. “It was just a hundred point nine.”

  “Oh no.” Simon felt Jeremy’s head. “Yikes, he does feel hot. Did you give him Tylenol?”

  “Yes, I gave him Tylenol.”

  Alison sounded snippy, but Simon didn’t take it personally. She always got anxious when Jeremy was sick.

  “Did you hear about any viruses going around?” Alison asked.

  “I think one of the babysitters mentioned something about a virus; I’m not sure.”

  “My throat hurts really bad.” Jeremy was making the sad, heartbreaking face that all children mastered.

  “I hope it’s not strep,” Alison said.

  “Maybe I should cancel and stay home,” Simon said.

  “No, it’s fine,” Alison said. “Once the Tylenol kicks in he’ll fall right asleep. In the morning I’ll call Dr. Leibner.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Positive. Go out with your friends tonight. Have fun.”

  If she thought she was hiding the nastiness in her tone, she wasn’t.

  “My neck really hurts, Mommy.” Jeremy started crying.

  “It’s gonna be okay, kiddo,” Simon said.

  “I don’t want you to go, Daddy,” Jeremy said.

  “Just go,” Alison said. “Before he has a total fit.”

  Simon kissed Alison good-bye and left the apartment quickly. In the hallway, as he locked the door, he heard Jeremy wailing.

  Riding the elevator to the lobby, Simon felt awful. In the lobby he was about to call Alison to make sure everything was okay. But he stopped himself, realizing a phone call right now might upset her even more. After all, he didn’t want her to think he was usurping her in some way. Besides, there was no real reason to stay home. Jeremy was just having one of his usual melodramatic crying fits and had probably settled down already.

  As Simon headed toward the subway at Eighty-sixth and Central Park West, guilt kicked in—not about Jeremy, but about what Alison had told him, about how she wasn’t happy. Maybe she wasn’t dumping on him and had a legitimate gripe. It was true he hadn’t been paying enough attention to her lately. He didn’t kiss her enough or compliment her when he knew that was what she wanted from him. He loved her and wanted to make her feel special and do nice things for her, but life always seemed to get in the way.

  Then, remembering Dr. Hagan’s advice about one way to increase intimacy in their marriage, he texted her:Just want you to know I love you very much and I’m thinking about you!

  Knowing how much she’d appreciate the intimate text, he descended the steep stairs to the Eighty-sixth Street subway station.

  Outside the Bedford Avenue subway station in Brooklyn, Simon checked the GPS on his phone, trying to orient himself. He’d always had a lousy sense of direction, and even with a map and his location and the location of the brewery indicated, he was still afraid he’d get lost.

  Michael had said the brewery was “near DUMBO,” but the hip, gentrified neighborhood was nowhere in sight. Following his GPS, he headed into a no-man’s-land of old abandoned factories and empty trash-filled lots toward the old Brooklyn Navy Yard. It was near dusk, but the streetlights weren’t on yet, so it was darker than it would be at midnight. According to his phone he was heading in the right direction and still had a few more blocks to go. He turned onto Assembly Road, a dingy, barren street, and walked toward the East River. Could this be right? It certainly didn’t look like a block where there was a brewery, at least not an active brewery. He reached a building on the corner, and according to the GPS this was the address Michael had given him.

  The entrance to the building was gated shut. Simon looked around but couldn’t find a bell to ring. He tried rattling the gate, hoping it would get the attention of someone inside, but there was no response.

  He’d just realized he didn’t have the guys’ cell numbers when he heard, “Hey, big guy.”

  He tensed, his city instincts kicking in, thinking he might be in danger. But he looked to his right and saw Ramon approaching, smiling widely.

  “Hey.” Simon was glad to see him too. He extended his hand to shake, but Ramon gave him a big tight hug instead.

  “It’s great you came,” Ramon said. “It’s so amazing to see you, bro.”

  Simon let go right away, but Ramon kept squeezing for a few seconds longer than necessary before finally letting go.

  “Yeah, you too,” Simon said. “Actually, I didn’t know if this was the right place. There’s no bell to ring or anything.”

  “You gotta be buzzed in.”

  “But how do you—”

  “Michael!” Ramon’s voice boomed so loud Simon actually had to cover his ears. “Charlieeeeeeee!”

  Several seconds went by, and then a buzzer sounded and Ramon opened the gate.

  They entered into a big dilapidated lobby with peeling paint on the walls and piles of torn-up floorboards and other garbage strewn around. A large rusted chandelier hung from the ceiling, but only a few bulbs were functioning.

  “Beautiful, right?”

  Simon wasn’t sure if Ramon was joking or not, but he didn’t think he was.

  “Yeah, I love comin’ down here,” Ramon said. “It’s like an oasis in the middle of the city.”

  Oasis?

  Simon thought this was a little weird, but so what, he’d have a fun night out, an adventure. What with all the parenting he’d been doing lately, and everything he’d gone through at work, he deserved to have some fun.

  Ramon called for the old steel industrial-style elevator. The door opened halfway and got stuck.

  “Don’t worry, that’s just the way it is,” Ramon said. “Come on.”

  Simon got on with him and the doors shut and then, after a dramatic pause, the elevator began creeping upward. Simon, who suffered from mild claustrophobia, was suddenly glad he wasn’t alone, though he didn’t know what Ramon could do to help if the elevator stalled. This was the type of elevator you could die in if it got stuck and you couldn’t get a signal on your cell phone.

  “By the way, meant to say when I saw you, I love that jacket.” Ramon reached toward Simon and rubbed the collar of the jacket between his fingers. “What brand is it?”

  Simon felt a little weird, like Ramon was violating his space.

  “Um, Guess,” Simon said.

  “Calvin Klein,” Ramon said.

  “No, I meant it’s Guess,” Simon said. “That’s the brand.”

  Ramon laughed. It sounded especially boisterous, but maybe it was just because they were in the elevator. Then he said, “I love how the leather’s so worn; that’s what gives it its character. Clothes say a lot about a person. My grandmother, God rest her, was a clothing designer in Puerto Rico. She taught me all about clothes. Like she always told me, ‘No es cómo se mire, es cómo se siente.’ It’s not how you look, it’s how you feel. Bu
t you pull it off, man. That’s all I’m sayin’.”

  Finally Ramon stopped rubbing Simon’s collar.

  “Thank you,” Simon said. It felt good to get the compliment, especially after stressing for so long about what to wear tonight. He was going to reciprocate, tell Ramon that he liked the black blazer he was wearing, but then the elevator suddenly stopped short again and after another very long pause the doors opened.

  Simon was stunned. After seeing the lobby he was expecting the entire building to be in disrepair, but this floor was immaculate. Simon was no expert on architecture, but it looked to be from the period of the Empire State Building. Art deco, high ceilings, and an incredible view of Manhattan at dusk across the river.

  “Wow.” Simon couldn’t think of anything else to say. That pretty much said it all.

  “This way,” Ramon said, and led Simon through a room that seemed to be a lavish office with floor-to-ceiling windows and a panoramic view of the Manhattan skyline. It was almost fully dark, and the moon loomed low, just above the highest buildings.

  “Okay, so now I know what you meant by beautiful,” Simon said.

  Simon, following Ramon, was still admiring the stunning views as they went through the office, and then they went into a much darker, windowless room. It was so dim, Simon could barely see. Michael and Charlie were seated next to each other on a leather sofa but immediately sprang up when they saw Ramon and Simon enter.

  Charlie was first over, saying “Hey, my man,” and giving Ramon a bear hug that lasted at least ten seconds. Then Charlie hugged Simon, and Michael hugged Ramon. Lastly Michael hugged Simon, and his grip was noticeably tighter than the other guys’. Simon actually felt like his lungs were being squeezed and it was hard to get a breath. He was about to tell Michael to let go when he released him.

  Simon’s arms and rib cage ached, and he had to catch his breath. Then he said, “Thanks . . . thanks so much for having me here. This place is something else.”

  “Yes, I love it,” Michael said.

  “So, um, when did the brewery close?”