The Power Couple

by Alex Berenson

  She never went full anorexic, she and her skinny-ass friends liked to joke, You never go full anorexic, the line stolen, repurposed, from Tropic Thunder. No, you starve yourself just enough so everyone says how good you look. You turn the boys’ heads and the girls’ too. Not so much that you can count your ribs. Not all of them, anyway. Good anorexia, they called it.

  But good anorexia was a balancing act. And Kira tipped far enough the whole world treated her differently that fall. Like she was a crystal; Baccarat, shiny, precious, easily shattered. She watched her parents watching her at breakfast and dinner, dancing around the issue. They snuck looks at her plate, asked if she wanted more yogurt or carrots. They never knew what to say. Looking back, Kira had to admit that watching Becks—sure-footed Rebecca—turn wobbly and tongue-tied had been part of the appeal. Cruel and selfish in retrospect. Maybe even at the time.

  Lucky her, even if she didn’t think so back then, she liked to eat too much to starve herself. She never went below one-two-two, maybe one-two-one on the digital scale she bought. And she was past all that now. She hadn’t even needed to see someone—a phrase that Mrs. Daye, her kindly physics teacher, tossed out after she nearly fell over one morning—to get her head on straight.

  She just decided she was tired of being hungry. She wanted to be strong. She wanted to play soccer without worrying she was going to collapse. She was about one hundred thirty-eight now, one-three-nine, though she tried not to weigh herself too often. When the numbers lined up in her head she swiped them left.

  But on that fine December night, morning, whatever 3 a.m. was, her parents and brother asleep, she’d woken up hungry. That month was the worst of it, her lowest point. She’d always liked eating at Thanksgiving and Christmas, not just the turkey but the desserts, all those carbs and gooey fillings.

  She snapped awake with one thought, the leftover pumpkin pie, creamy and sweet. She stepped out of bed. Every light in the house was off, her dad liked a completely dark house. She’d learned how to move in the black. She heard Tony snoring in his bedroom on the other side of the wall and behind it a murmur she didn’t recognize.

  Until she opened the door and stepped into the hall.

  And realized Becks and Bri were most certainly not asleep. What she had stumbled on was not the nonsense all parents got on with from time to time, Go to sleep kids, Mom and Dad need a little time together. No. Rebecca was moaning, low and wordless and involuntary. Like she wanted to catch her breath and couldn’t. Like something inside her was breaking loose and taking her with it.

  Kira was a virgin back then. She’d spent the fall playing around with a cute senior named Jared. He was gentle, never pushed her. She was just realizing he might be gay. She didn’t care. One strange part of not eating: though she got more male attention than before, she was less interested. And her friends who’d had sex said things like I’m glad it’s over, It didn’t hurt that much, It was fine fun actually. Though Leigh—the soccer goalie, who had more experience than the others—had refused to say much, just, Oh, you’ll see, her eyes stunned and quiet. Kira hadn’t understood why. Now she did.

  Because what she heard in that hallway was not fine fun actually but something she hadn’t known existed, a pleasure she had thought was a fantasy that YouPorn proffered to horny boys.

  She stood frozen, feet locked to the hallway carpet. Suddenly her mother groaned, a long low sound. Kira couldn’t imagine what could make Becks make that noise. Couldn’t imagine, though she knew. Whatever her father was doing or saying she couldn’t hear, a minor blessing.

  She sidled back to her bedroom, shut the door firmly.

  Though now that she knew what was happening she couldn’t help but hear. It went on another fourteen minutes, she clocked it. And who knew how long before? She was almost proud of them; they were both over forty.

  By the time she fell asleep, she knew she’d never think about sex the same way again. Not now that she knew what it could be. She dumped Jared that afternoon. Maybe she wasn’t ready to lose her virginity, but she was done hanging out with a guy who was more interested in his fellow baseball players than her. She started eating again too—she remembered a couple months later seeing her parents grin as she insisted her father fire up the grill on a cold February night and barbeque a steak.

  In fact, Kira saw now what she never had before. That night had marked the beginning of the end of her anorexic episode. You couldn’t have the pleasures of the flesh if you were a skeleton.

  Great talk, Kira.

  Kira Unsworth, nineteen, five foot nine inches tall, majoring in who-knows-what at Tufts University. Volunteer at Boston Children’s, and not in a half-assed way: She never missed a week. She made the kids forget themselves for a little while. Secret reader of romance novels, the old Harlequin ones. Bit of a smart-ass.

  She wasn’t perfect. She’d spent a month flirting with a pretty lesbian in her Introduction to Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies class just to see how it felt. When the girl finally tried to kiss her, Kira had said, Oh, no, I’m straight, like the girl couldn’t possibly have thought otherwise. She’d dumped her last boyfriend by text. He’d deserved it.

  She was okay, really. Not the worst.

  Ten fifty-nine.

  Right on time Jacques showed up.

  With a girl.

  2

  Rebecca and Brian and Tony found the wide stone apartment building just where they’d left it on Carrer de València. Twelve twenty-three a.m.

  No Kira.

  No shock, either. Rebecca had expected Kira would want to prove her independence by running late. She’d be back soon enough. Or maybe she’d text, Promise 1.

  Rebecca didn’t love the idea of a nineteen-year-old girl out alone in a foreign city. But Barcelona was safe—safer than Boston—and Kira had insisted she wanted a few hours to herself. She was cool-headed for her age, trustworthy. She had survived her first year at Tufts without much damage, one cheating boyfriend and one stolen jacket notwithstanding. She was the one her friends texted when they found themselves stumbling out of the party with the quarterback and his two best friends: find me plz they say its cool idk…

  Rebecca couldn’t imagine being the mother of a quote-unquote difficult teenager. The easy ones were difficult enough.

  Still, she was faintly disappointed Kira wasn’t waiting. She’d imagined maybe they’d go for a drink, leave Bri and Tony at the apartment. She should have said so before dinner. But she’d worried Kira might give her a half-pitying Mom, you’re way too old for these places look.

  The foolish pride of the fortysomething woman.

  * * *

  She walked hand in hand with Brian up the sweeping marble staircase to their second-floor apartment. “A Grand Apartment,” the listing had promised: a living room with twelve-foot ceilings, a crystal chandelier, a Juliet balcony, and yes, a grand piano. Four hundred sixty euros a night. But they said they wouldn’t worry about money on this trip. Rebecca said, anyway. Let’s do it right. I’m budgeting a thousand dollars for every year we’ve been married, she had told Brian.

  Twenty K? His nostrils twitched the way they had in the lean years. Bet you’ll have no problem spending it.

  She hadn’t.

  The big problem with the apartment: no air-conditioning. After fifteen years in Birmingham and Houston and Washington, three cities where ice-cold air was practically an entitlement, Rebecca wondered how she would sleep. No wonder the Spanish stayed up so late.

  Still, she liked Barcelona better than Paris, which felt like a theme park. All those Americans and Brazilians and Chinese shuffling around Notre Dame, hoovering up skirts at the Galeries Lafayette, We’re not so different, we all love to shop. Someone needed to create a Disney World–style app to beat the lines, optimize the experience. She should tell Brian.

  Barcelona had tons of tourists too. Still, it felt a little more real. And the Gaudí architecture was fascinating. Buildings that seemed to be melting. Maybe they were. Maybe s
he was. She mopped the sweat from her forehead, flopped on the couch, kicked off her low black heels, stretched out her legs. Still good. Legs were the last to go. Ask any coroner. Based on her calves she might be as young as twenty-five, but her neck proves she’s forty-three. Forensics!

  She was buzzed, she realized. If not flat drunk. Besides the pitcher of sangria the three of them had shared, she and Brian had split a bottle of wine. She hadn’t had this much to drink in a long time.

  Maybe since that last dinner with Todd Taylor.

  All at once she could see his face. His hazel eyes and creased tan skin. She shoved the memory down. In the garbage. Where it belonged. Especially at this moment.

  * * *

  “Wine?” Brian said. They’d bought two bottles at a convenience store. With fluorescent lights. Even in Barcelona not everything was cool.

  “The white is cold, right?”

  “Coldish.”

  “Rhymes with goldfish. Sold.”

  “Can I have a beer?” Tony said.

  Rebecca: “No.” Brian: “Yes.”

  Brian liked to be the cool one, make her play the villain.

  “It’s Barcelona.”

  She had a feeling she would hear that answer a lot on this trip. It’s Barcelona. It’s Madrid. It’s our anniversary.

  “You think he doesn’t drink at home, Becks? Remember that morning, we picked him up—”

  She remembered. Tony had texted, I’m in Silver Spring please get me please. When they arrived they found that someone had written I LUV DICK! AND BEES! in orange on his forehead. “AND BEES!” seemed especially cruel.

  Tony Let me wipe that off.

  Wipe what off?

  “He needs to learn to hold his booze,” Brian said now.

  “Okay, one beer. You pour it in a glass though and drink it like you’re civilized.”

  “It’s actually slower to drink it from the bottle.”

  “Quit while you’re ahead, my number one son.”

  “Anyone see an opener?” Brian yelled from the kitchen.

  She looked at the wine bottle. “It’s a screw top.”

  “My favorite kind of top.” Brian reappeared with three wineglasses.

  “Dad!” Tony said.

  Any sexual banter between them creeped Tony out. Rebecca supposed the reaction was normal. Kira had never seemed as bothered. Instead she looked at them with her cool blue eyes—Brian’s eyes. A look that shut the jokes down in a hurry, as Kira no doubt intended.

  Brian poured the wine, handed Tony the third glass. Tony raised his eyebrows, Beer from a wineglass?, but wisely kept his mouth shut. Brian sat beside her. “Cheers.”

  “I love you, husband.” She did, too. Even if she’d forgotten for a while. A long while.

  His eyes flashed. She wondered if he too was thinking about the years they’d spent wandering the marital desert. He kissed her lightly. “Here’s to twenty years. And three months.”

  “And twenty more with these rug rats out of the house so we can do what we like.” She put her glass to his harder than she had intended. The clink echoed off the high ceilings and wine slopped out.

  “Glad I didn’t splurge on the twelve-euro bottle.” He nodded at the piano. “You should play.”

  “I’ll be terrible.”

  Not true. She’d be excellent. She’d played growing up, lessons four times a week for eleven years. She was skilled enough to impress people who didn’t know better, but also skilled enough to know how big a canyon lay between her and greatness. She played the piano. The true artists felt it, melded themselves to it.

  In college she’d quit. Cold. She’d told herself playing was as effete and pretentious as every other part of her life at the time. Though she knew it wasn’t, knew she’d earned her skill and she ought to protect it. Knew the real reason she quit was that she couldn’t accept she wasn’t good enough to get into Julliard. Brian was the one who’d sent her back to playing, and for that she would be forever grateful.

  * * *

  She slid across the polished wood floor in her stocking feet and sat at the piano.

  “Remember this?” She hadn’t played the Schubert in years but the notes came back effortlessly.

  The sangria made her sloppy, and this piano hadn’t been tuned in a while. No matter, she played with flair, half-drunk melodrama, raised her hands high, pounded the keys. Made sure the neighbors would hear and the cats on the street.

  Then the Schubert was done and she slid into the Beethoven, lush and romantic. Now and again she turned her head toward Brian. He leaned against the wall and sipped his wine and watched with his unreadable smile, the one she’d loved until she hadn’t and now did again.

  When she finished he came to her, stood behind her. Put his hands on her shoulders and leaned over and kissed her.

  “Bed,” he murmured in her ear.

  “Tony,” she whispered back.

  * * *

  Across the room Tony stood from the couch like he’d heard his name.

  “Mom. You know it’s like one twenty.”

  She loved Tony more than anything, her only son, et cetera… but he seemed to have no idea that she and Brian were having a moment. He desperately needed a girlfriend, or just a girl friend.

  “Yes, so?”

  “Where’s Kira?”

  3

  “Kira.” Jacques kissed her cheek. “This is Lilly. Lilly, Kira.”

  Lilly was early twenties, brown eyes, with a long platinum-blond wig.

  Kira’s stomach knotted. Jacques had brought his girlfriend?

  “My sister.”

  Now Kira saw the resemblance: the strong chin, the narrow mouth.

  “You didn’t think…”

  Tonight he was wearing a baseball cap with a big unbroken bill and a logo she didn’t recognize. She didn’t like the hat. It made him look like a bro. “I didn’t bring my brother.”

  Lilly said something in French.

  “I don’t speak French.”

  Lilly smirked. “I said, American heartbreakers, better keep an eye on you.”

  That fast Kira couldn’t stand this hipper-than-thou Paris chick. Lilly wore a black Violent Femmes T-shirt, purple velvet pants tucked into knee-high black boots, and a sneer. Jacques’s eyes tracked between the two women as if he’d just realized his mistake.

  “Let’s have a drink.”

  Kira lifted her Estrella. “I’m okay.”

  The place was filling now, louder by the minute, the bartenders busy. They were stuck at the bar for a while before Jacques could order. Kira had dressed for a date, an off-the-shoulder white peasant top, a black flowered skirt, mid-calf gladiator-style sandals for an edgy touch.

  “Nice sandals.”

  Was Lilly being sarcastic? Better to be polite, Rebecca always said. Be the higher mammal. “Thanks.”

  “So popular in Paris two years ago.”

  At least now Kira didn’t have to wonder.

  The bartender handed Jacques a pitcher of sangria and three copper mugs. They squeezed around a circular table in the back. Lilly gabbed at Jacques in French. No doubt intentionally, knowing Kira couldn’t understand. Kira didn’t mind, she had to figure out her next move. She was torn between wanting to ditch them and making sure Lilly didn’t win without a fight.

  Jacques poured sangria. “To new friends. Salud.”

  “First time in Europe, yes?” Lilly said.

  Kira wished she could spin a fable about her globe-trotting youth. “Oui.”

  “Here I thought you didn’t speak French.”

  “You at the Sorbonne too, or do you spend all your time looking for velvet pants?”

  “They don’t sell these at Abercrombie.” Aber-crombie.

  During Kira’s anorexic days she’d found she could be nasty. No surprise, hunger didn’t improve her mood. Now that she lived on full rations she didn’t usually play the mean girl.

  Except on special occasions. Like tonight. She poked at Lilly’s Violent Femmes T
-shirt, just above the waist of the pants. As she’d expected they were a touch too tight, giving the French girl the hint of a muffin top. “Pro tip. Up a size next time.”

  Lilly muttered under her breath, stood up, and walked off.

  “Why is she here?”

  Jacques shrugged and an oddly helpless expression crossed his face. “I promise you she’ll find a guy, she won’t bother us.”

  “Hope she finds somebody soon, because I can’t stay out all night.”

  “What time?”

  “I turn into a pumpkin at one.”

  “One? That’s barely one hour and a half.”

  “One thirty maybe. But you’ll be here tomorrow, right?”

  “Yes, but I have to go back in the afternoon. I have clients.”

  Easy come, easy go. What had seemed like true love barely twenty-four hours ago had turned into a one-night stand before they’d even properly kissed. Lilly’s fault. Or maybe the baseball cap’s. Either way, Kira wasn’t sure how to undo it. More sangria, maybe. She raised her mug. “To Barcelona.”

  He smiled. She looked at his cracked tooth and nearly forgave him for his terrible sister. “Yes, Barca.”

  The bar was nearly full now, cool kids shouting in multiple languages. “They know how to have a good time.”

  “We’re lucky, aren’t we?” Jacques said abruptly.

  “How so?” She hoped he wasn’t going cheesy, I’m so glad we found each other—

  “To be so privileged, live in peace, have the money to do what we like, all the knowledge in the world on a computer in our pockets, bip bip boop—”

  “You are aware that’s not how they sound—”

  Lilly came back, poured herself a fresh cup of sangria. “I always feel better after a nice piss. How about you, Kira?”

  Kira ignored her.

  “What were you talking about, anyway?”