The End of Men

by Karen Rinaldi

  ISABEL OFFERED JESSIE a fantasy day. She told her young friend that they would do whatever it was she wanted to do as long as it was in Manhattan. She gave her $100 to spend as she wished. The first stop was the Central Park Zoo to visit Gus the Polar Bear. Isabel thought Gus’s pacing from glass wall to the rocks and back again, a routine he’d had for as long as Isabel could remember, was a clear sign of his depression. It seemed a cruel fate for the bear to be stuck inside the same structure day after day, year after year, repeating the same exact motions for hours on end. To Jessie, however, the fact of a polar bear living in Central Park was enough to delight her. After Gus, they visited the silly penguins—ditto on depression and delight.

  Isabel felt a sense of wonder at Jessie, who, while still very much a little girl, had a definite sense of herself. At such a young age, she already possessed a personal style and all the makings of the remarkable woman she would surely become. Isabel was drawn to Jessie in both a maternal and sisterly way. She could remember that age as if it were not that long ago. Isabel often thought about how today she was more as she was at six or seven years old than she was as a young woman. Those wobbly pubescent years and the ones following into the late teens and early twenties, filled with self-doubt: those were years when being female felt most precarious.

  The attention commanded by someone still in the act of becoming who she would be felt essential to Isabel and brought home the enormous responsibility she carried in her womb. She placed her hands on her stomach instinctively. How different will it be to raise a son? Isabel pondered. Will I be able to know what’s in his heart the same way I would a little girl? She felt ready to give herself over to her son, but she struggled with the not knowing what her life would be like once he was born. Will my priorities rearrange once my boy arrives? What if they don’t? What kind of mother would I be then?

  Famished by late afternoon, Isabel and Jessie decided to indulge in a snack of sweet crepes at a SoHo café.

  Isabel ordered a decaf café au lait. “Jessie, do you want a hot chocolate or something?”

  “I want a coffee too. Can I?”

  “Does your mother let you have coffee?”

  “Sometimes she lets me, on weekends.”

  “Okay—it’s a weekend and it’s a special day. Café au lait pour deux, s’il vous plait!” Isabel told the waitress.

  Isabel wanted to ask Jessie about her dad and struggled to find a way to broach the subject with her, but in the end, she let the subject go. They shared a butter and lemon crepe and a chocolate one with fresh strawberries.

  “What was your favorite part of today, Jessie?” Isabel asked.

  “Every part!”

  “I liked the penguins in the Central Park Zoo,” Isabel said. “They’re so funny—part bird, part sea animal—so strange!”

  “I like zoos,” Jessie offered, and then hesitated before continuing. “But then I think how trapped all the animals are and it makes me feel sad inside. Will they all die there?”

  “Yes, I know what you mean . . . and I imagine they will die there. I’d never thought of that before.” Isabel paused, lips pursed. “But some animals are born there too, and I like to think they are well taken care of in their zoo home.”

  “I hope so,” Jessie said quietly.

  Halfway through their snack, the waitress brought over a handwritten note and told them the gentleman who had been sitting just two tables away sent it. The note read: “The crepes are on me. What a beautiful mother and daughter you are!” When Isabel looked over to thank him, the table was empty and he was nowhere in sight. Isabel inquired about the man to the waitress. “Oh, that was Robert, the owner of the café. He said to come back any time.”

  Isabel had promised Beth to have Jessie home by five o’clock. They’d made plans for dinner out and a movie, but by the time they made it back to Eighteenth Street, Isabel was so spent from trekking around New York all day that they decided to order in Chinese and watch Netflix instead.

  ON SUNDAY MORNING (the old Catholic in her screamed: A day of reflection, not indulgence!) she met Christopher at the Loeb Boathouse café before walking through the lush summer green of Central Park to his apartment, where they spent the afternoon in bed. In the moments with her lover—borrowed, transitory—their passion came tenderly, rather than with urgency.

  Sipping tea while they lounged side by side on a double-wide chair on Christopher’s terrace, Isabel demanded, “Tell me a story about when you were seven.” Inspired by her time with Jessie the day before, Isabel had a sudden curiosity about Christopher as a boy.

  “I don’t remember much before I hit puberty . . . I know I was lonely at seven . . . and at eight and nine . . .”

  “What about your sister? Didn’t you spend time with her?”

  “No, we existed in our own spheres. I don’t know why, but we never connected. Maybe that contributed to my loneliness. She was only a year older, but she seemed worlds away from me. My parents worked all the time, so I never saw them, or at least we never spent any meaningful time together.”

  “That does sound lonely,” Isabel said as she entwined her foot with Christopher’s. “Do you have a favorite moment from your childhood?”

  “I can’t think of any. Though I do recall very clearly, when I was about eight or nine, I poured extremely hot hot sauce into a soup spoon and covered it with grape juice and offered it to my sister to drink.” Christopher’s smile widened devilishly at the memory.

  “Did she take the bait?” Isabel was certain she had or he wouldn’t be telling her the story.

  “Yep, and then she immediately spewed hot sauce and grape juice all over the dinner table. We both got into trouble, though I don’t know why. It was entirely my fault.”

  Christopher and Isabel cooked dinner together that evening, a light meal of tabbouleh and grilled chicken breasts. In their domesticity, Isabel found herself missing Sam more than ever.

  THE FOLLOWING WEEKEND, Sam was stuck in Chicago again. Christopher seemed to have radar for Sam’s coming and going. On Thursday, less than an hour after Isabel spoke with Sam, Christopher called. After several entreaties, she gave in and met up with him for dinner. Dinner turned into breakfast and into dinner again, until she realized that they hadn’t left each other’s side for two and a half days.

  Sam’s schedule barely allowed him to be home one day a week. Isabel didn’t feel abandoned as much as sad for Sam, because she knew it meant a lot to him to be with her throughout the pregnancy. She’d never seen him so happy as the first time they saw the baby on the ultrasound during the amnio test. Sam shook with pride and excitement as he held Isabel’s hand throughout the process. He wasn’t squeamish or frightened, the way she’d heard so many husbands were. One friend had her husband out cold on a hospital gurney next to her, having fainted at the sight of the eight-inch needle going into his wife’s uterus. He’d hit his head on a hospital cabinet and had to get six stitches.

  Sam, so secure in who he was, never pulled any stunts to draw attention to himself. He didn’t even bother correcting the nurse when she called him Mr. Ducci. Even so, Isabel couldn’t explain how it did nothing to mitigate the sense that she was on her own. Sam’s sense of autonomy had always been okay with her, but now that she was going to be a mother, she couldn’t know what she might need and from whom.

  ISABEL DECIDED TO participate in the panel discussion as a favor to Beth and Maggie. On the crisp October day of the taping, she traveled uptown to Bloomberg studios on Park Avenue at 8:00 A.M. When she arrived, Maggie was pacing outside the building while Beth sucked hard on a cigarette. Anna hadn’t arrived yet.

  “I can’t fucking believe it. How could they do this?” Maggie was yelling at no one in particular, but Isabel guessed the comments were directed at Beth.

  “Let’s look at the bright side . . .” Beth’s tone was less than convincing, and she didn’t even bother to suggest what the bright side might be. She was clearly enjoying herself.

  “Hey, Ma
ggie. Hey, Beth. What’s happened?”

  “The show was one person short so the producers said they would provide a mother for the roundtable,” Beth explained. “Well, they provided a doozy . . . We just walked into the green room and there she was. I have to say she was incredibly cool, considering. Maggie almost plotzed on the spot.”

  “Who are you talking about?” Isabel asked Beth before their attention was diverted by the producer coming out the front door just as Anna emerged from a taxi. Taking in the scene, Anna flashed a look around that clearly said, What the fuck?

  The producer pulled Maggie to the side, and whatever magic she spoke appeared to calm Maggie down. Maggie turned to everyone and said with characteristic enthusiasm she always managed to muster, even in the toughest of times, “Okay, let’s go, ladies!” Beth squashed out her cigarette and held the door open as the women filed in and up to the green room where the fifth participant awaited them.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Beth

  ONCE PAUL HAD recovered from respiratory failure—miraculously, the doctors said—he was back to work two weeks later. Just before Labor Day, he called Beth as though nothing had happened.

  “Do you and Jessie want to come with me to the South of France? I have a few meetings in Monte Carlo. You guys can hang out while I work for a few days, then we can drive down to Portofino and Santa Margherita and fly out of Florence. What do you think?”

  It seemed crazy to Beth to take Paul up on it, considering the potential downsides—he could get sick while they were away, they could be at each other’s throats the entire trip, Jessie would miss school. But they’d be gone only a week, she slowed down and rationalized, so anything that came up could be dealt with by simply flying home early if necessary. And if it all went smoothly, Jessie would get to spend time with her father, time she would not have in the future.

  “Okay,” she told him. “Jessie would enjoy it.”

  APART FROM BEING the inspiration for the roundtable on motherhood, Beth hadn’t thought much about the protests earlier that summer. The fallout had simmered to an occasional outburst from individuals online, easy enough to ignore. Beth had relegated the events to a kind of ad hoc marketing effort with the net effect of an increase in awareness about what RHM had to offer.

  RHM planned to launch its next series of ads now that marketing had found twins in a stunning tenured professor of mathematics at Harvard. Forty years old and having suffered three miscarriages, Dr. Rebecca Crane was fortunate enough to have naturally conceived twins, a boy and a girl. She was distinguished in her career, and she was game. They had a photo shoot with the professor at eighteen weeks, when she was just starting to show with a slight, sexy swell, and would have another at thirty-two weeks when she was nearly to term, then wait for the call to let them know when Dr. Crane went into labor. Photographers were at the ready, hoping to shoot Dr. Crane just before and right after she gave birth. Beth couldn’t wait to see what this new campaign would bring to RHM.

  The Tuesday after Labor Day, Sacha walked into Beth’s office holding an envelope and piece of paper. All the color had drained from Sacha’s face. She handed the items over to Beth and stepped back as if from an explosive.

  A manila envelope, addressed to “The Head of RHM, Beth Mack” (odd enough), contained a photocopy of Agnes Seymour from the previous ad campaign. Her breasts and belly and baby had been scribbled over violently with bright orange pen ink as if to erase them. On the reverse side, the sender had copied a centuries-old illustrated poem entitled “Ode to the Death of a Young Maiden.” The image lay askew on the page and the entire thing looked to have been created in haste. Beth thought back to that defaced print ad from the day of the protests and felt a jolt of recognition. Could this be from the same sick fuck?

  “God, the world is populated by lunatics.” Beth ran her hands through her hair and held them there. “Let’s hope this is someone’s bad idea of a prank,” Beth said in an unsuccessful attempt to make them both feel better.

  “Where did you find this?” Beth asked Sacha.

  “It was sitting in my in-box. It looks like someone hand delivered it. There’s no postmark or address.”

  “Did you show this to anyone else?” Beth held the paper gingerly.

  “No, I brought it right to you,” Sacha told her. “What should we do with it?”

  “Let’s take it down to security.”

  Beth explained to the building guard about the magazine tear sheet from the day of the protests and handed over the new missive. She wished now she hadn’t been so dismissive about it. The guard looked at the note and nodded, telling Beth he would share it with his security company. The fact was there was really nothing to be done since the threat was not deemed overt or needing immediate action. Beth chose to consider it idle until, well, until proven otherwise.

  Beth thought about canceling the trip to France and Italy, but she couldn’t bear to disappoint Jessie, who was looking forward to time with Paul.

  One week later Beth, Jessie, and Paul flew Alitalia to Nice, where they rented a Mercedes station wagon, then drove to the small town of Menton on the French-Italian border.

  While Paul entertained business partners, Beth and Jessie worked their way along the coast from Menton to Beaulieu-sur-Mer to Cap Ferrat. In the small beachside village of Villefranche-sur-Mer, Beth bought a small drawing at the Chapelle Saint-Pierre, a church used for many years as a storeroom for fishing equipment, by an artist in homage to the sailors he’d met there. Isabel’s birthday was around the time the baby was due, and Beth picked up a sweet Madonna and Child watercolor she’d found in the chapel shop as well.

  Jessie loved swimming in the Mediterranean and delighted in the lack of swimsuits.

  “Why don’t we swim naked at home?” she asked.

  “Americans are pretty uptight about nudity. It goes back to the Puritans.” Beth paused and turned her full attention to her daughter. “Does that mean anything to you?”

  “No,” Jessie answered, distracted. “Mom, is Paul going to die soon?”

  Instead of answering immediately, Beth offered to buy Jessie an ice cream as a distraction. Mother and daughter sat quietly on a stone wall, staring out at the water and licking their Miko ice cream bars. Beth leaned over and kissed Jessie’s lavender-scented hair from the local shampoo they used the night before.

  “Is he, Mom?”

  “Oh, honey, we don’t know. Your father is not well and he will die from his illness, but we can’t say when. We can hope that he gets better, but the truth is it’s not likely.”

  Beth saw tears well up in Jessie’s eyes as she stared out over the water, and Beth pulled her close.

  “I’m glad we all came on this trip together,” Jessie now said, resolute.

  “Me too, Jessie . . . me too.”

  ON A DAY when Paul didn’t have to work, the three of them climbed the narrow hilltop streets of Èze and had dinner at La Chèvre d’Or. They watched a group of old men play boules on a small patch of dirt and sipped chilled white burgundy on a trellised patio overlooking the petit moyen and the sea. There was an unexpected ease in the way they related to one another that added a fresh layer to Beth’s sadness over the inevitability of Paul’s failing health.

  In spite of his weakness, Paul made great effort to play with Jessie. One afternoon, as they were walking through town to the beach, he ran ahead up an alley and disappeared. When Jessie followed him but then couldn’t find him, she called out to him, “Pop, where are you?”

  Paul had found a way through one of the small shops to come up behind her, shouting in terribly accented French, “Je suis ici!” which made her jump with surprised delight.

  Jessie followed suit, announcing, “Now I’m going to hide!” A frenzied game of hide-and-seek ensued between father and daughter along the steep cobblestone streets.

  Watching them play reminded Beth of why she fell in love with Paul in the first place. He could make any place home. She’d never seen him uncomfor
table, not in any social setting, nor in solitary repose. What was so perplexing about Paul was the comfort he seemed to have in his own skin even as he couldn’t admit to his most basic physical need. How did men and women less self-possessed than Paul fare so much better with accepting their desires?

  Relieved from his professional commitments, Paul was now free to enjoy their little vacation without interruption. The day after their escapades in Èze, in the soft light of early morning, the three headed into Italy and drove down the winding roads of the Italian coast toward Portofino. They parked their car so they could walk by the water. Just as they reached the marina, the sky grew greenish and dark, and gusts of wind blew over the Lavazza umbrellas meant to shelter the tables at a small café. The locals ran to batten down their small boats, and three large black-and-white short-haired mutts barked and ran wildly in warning.

  Beth, Jessie, and Paul made it under an awning of a small trattoria facing the inlet just as fat drops of rain began to fall. The storm cleared the streets quickly by forcing people to seek shelter indoors, and the town became eerily abandoned. The rainwater on the cobblestones intensified the salty, musty smell of the old Italian port, and for one quick moment Beth experienced a feeling of timelessness as if they had all died together and existed now in some otherworldly limbo. Beth, both discomfited and calmed by the moment, held fast to Jessie as they watched Paul staring past the churning water of the marina toward the horizon. The momentary fracture in time was repaired when the maître d’ appeared with a grandiose “Buongiorno, signore, signora, e signorina!” and served up a plate of olives, salty pecorino and great big chunks of thick-crusted bread.

  They spent the afternoon enjoying a multicourse lunch of quick-fried and salted bait fish, prosciutto di Parma, focaccia, and cacciucco. Jessie, having befriended the owner’s seven-year-old daughter, played happily for hours, the language barrier no impediment. Paul and Beth shared a bottle of Lambrusco and were feeling the soporific effects of the alcohol.