“Ramie!” I gasp.
I collapse on the sofa and wriggle out of Jill’s coat.
“Ramie, are you here?”
She’s not. She’s at Marguerite’s in “the city,” where she always is nowadays. I pull the cell phone out of Jill’s coat pocket and call her, but she doesn’t answer.
Lying on the couch, I try to evict the sense memory of Jill’s near deflowering, but I’m not so good at repression. That’s a Jill skill. For me, the sensation of Larson’s thing so close to hers is as crisp and vibrant as the pain in my lungs from all that running.
To add insult to injury, I’m hatching a boner. I stand up and try to walk it off, but it won’t go away. Giving in, I lie down on Ramie’s bed and dredge up vivid memories of the last time we had sex. But this only reminds me that I hardly saw her at all last phase. My most vivid memory is of her running down the stairs after our fight. After a few minutes, the Viking deflates. It’s almost a relief.
Exhaustion reappears, and I fall asleep in Ramie’s bed.
The next morning, the cell phone chirps me awake with a text from Ramie.
OMG! Did u do it?
I call her back immediately, but she tells me she can’t talk because she’s doing “pickups” for another assistant-to-the-assistant gig with Marguerite. When I tell her I absolutely must see her, she sighs in frustration, then gives me Marguerite’s address, along with the warning that she swears to God she can only spare, like two seconds.
I shower quickly to wash off the residue of Larson, then throw on a clean T-shirt and jeans, grab my coat, and run to the subway. Marguerite’s apartment is a block away from the FIT campus in a fancy brownstone from another century. Marguerite opens the door.
“You’re?” she says.
“Jack,” I say.
She keeps staring.
“Ramie’s boyfriend?” I say.
She nods slowly as the concept begins to make sense to her. “Oh yeah,” she says. “Jill’s brother, right? Jack McGee?”
“McTeague.”
“Of course,” she says. “Come in.”
She leads me into a gaping entrance hall, which is almost as beautiful as she is.
I hate that she’s so beautiful.
“It’s ridiculous, isn’t it?” she says. “This town house was my great-grandmother’s. My family has always had a great affinity for New York. The English can be like that, you know.”
“Uh-huh,” I say.
She leads me farther inside to an old-fashioned drawing room with wood-paneled walls, a baby grand piano, and a humongous chandelier. She’s right. It is ridiculous. My mother would love it. Class and old money everywhere, but all of it casually tarnished as if it didn’t matter so much. Every surface is draped with clothes and plastic hanging bags for clothes. Marguerite has turned this palace into a workspace.
“Ramie’s gone,” she says. “You just missed her.” She picks up two sequined dresses by the hangers and lays them across a pile of other dresses on top of the piano.
“It’s okay,” I tell her. “I can wait.”
Her eyes flick to mine for a second; then she searches around the room. “She’s not coming back.” She stalks over to a wingback chair, picks up a black velvet jacket by the hanger, and lays it across the other clothes on the piano. “She’s at a showroom.” She searches around the room for something. “And then she’s going straight to the airport.”
“Airport?” I say. “Why is she going to the airport?”
Marguerite looks at me in surprise. “She didn’t tell you?”
“Tell me what?”
“Hmm,” she says. “That’s interesting.” She glides across the room toward another pile of dresses.
“What didn’t she tell me?” I ask.
Half an hour later we’re in the back of a town car on its way to JFK. Turns out Marguerite and Ramie are off to London together to shoot with this hot new photographer who’s on the verge of “blowing up.” This trip is key for both of them because the “London mags,” according to Marguerite, are where it’s at nowadays. If they can get in with a few photographers and fashion editors there, they’ll be able to “blow up” too. All of which is just fine and dandy, but I’m not going to the airport to wish Ramie a bon voyage.
I’m going to stop her.
I don’t tell Marguerite this. I sit quietly next to her while the town car barrels treacherously down the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway. Marguerite is content to purr about how great it is that someone with Ramie’s “provincial” upbringing “gets it”—“getting it” meaning, apparently, moving to London as soon as possible to dive headfirst into the “epicenter of editorial fashion.”
Marguerite grew up in London but made the “absurd mistake” of assuming New York was the place to make it in fashion. When she laughs about her naïveté now, it’s with the light-hearted condescension only the truly wise can afford. She’s even more beautiful when she laughs. My antipathy to her grows.
“New York is dead,” she says. “Ramie’s wise to realize that now, before she invests too much time here.”
I don’t tell Marguerite that if she thinks she’s dragging Ramie to London with her permanently, she’s out of her mind. I also don’t tell her the giant rhinestone snail on her lapel is stupid. There are a great many things I don’t tell Marguerite, because I am cultivating the tactic of surprise. As far as Marguerite is concerned, I’m a quiet, supportive boyfriend who only wants a nice kiss goodbye before disappearing into irrelevance so that his girlfriend can “blow up” in London. I achieve this feat of subterfuge by nodding silently at Marguerite’s graceful patter while subvocalizing the words I am going to kill you one day, you red-haired Ramie thief.
“You really do look a lot like your sister,” she says. “Have you dated Ramie for long?”
She doesn’t know? Ramie hasn’t told her even that small detail about me?
“All my life,” I tell her.
“Hmm,” she says. Then she looks out the window as if I were no more substantial to her than those wispy clouds in the sky.
Antipathy crosses the line into hatred.
Fueled by anger but committed to a calm exterior, I enter the British Airways terminal at JFK dragging one of Marguerite’s gigantic suitcases. Ramie waits inside, sitting on one suitcase with another at her side. When she sees Marguerite, she jumps up and waves. Seeing me, her face travels briefly through surprise, then fear, before settling finally on guilty resignation.
I help Marguerite drag her suitcases to the check-in line, which switches back on itself twice. Ramie approaches me cautiously.
“What are you doing here?” she says.
“I could ask you the same question.”
“Yeah,” she says. “I thought I’d have time to see you at Marguerite’s, but I got held up at one of the showrooms.”
I nod. Marguerite busies herself by getting the plane tickets out of her purse.
“So how are you?” Ramie says. She touches my arm sympathetically, as if I’ve been ill recently. Then, remembering something, she says, “Mal, how’s Jill? Did she …”
I stare at her.
“What?” she says. “What happened?” Something dawns on her suddenly. “Oh no.” Her hands clasp in prayer around her face while she envisions the lurid possibilities. Then she lowers her voice. “Did you show up while she was there? With Larson?”
I keep staring at her. I have no interest in recounting Jill’s aborted sexual adventures of the previous night, though for the record, I think it’s appalling that Ramie failed to respond to Jill’s text or comment on her outfit. She knew how important this was, how much Jill had built up the losing of her virginity.
“What aren’t you telling me?” she says.
Ramie’s tone draws Marguerite’s attention briefly. The three of us shuffle forward in the check-in line. I’m still calm on the exterior, but something is building inside of me.
“Ramie?” I say, ignoring her queries entirely. “How long were you
planning to be in London?”
Ramie’s big brown eyes lock onto mine. “I know,” she says. “I know. But Jack, you have to understand—”
“How long?”
She swallows. “A week?”
The word cuts through me like a jagged blade.
“I didn’t know you were here,” she says. “You keep coming early.” Marguerite glances up, then moves forward a few feet to give us some space.
Ramie keeps her voice low. “It’s impossible to plan anything around your cycle anymore.”
“But you would have?” I ask. We kick the suitcases forward. “If you knew I was coming, you would have turned down this job with Marguerite?”
She stares at me, then takes a deep breath.
“So you wouldn’t have,” I say.
She sighs, then shrugs vaguely. “I don’t know.”
I push Marguerite’s suitcase right up against hers. “What do you mean you don’t know?”
My raised voice garners the attention of Marguerite and everyone in our vicinity. “Come here.” I grab Ramie’s wrist and try to pull her from the line so we can speak in private.
She resists.
“I want to talk to you,” I say.
Ramie twists her wrist free. “We can talk here. I can’t leave Marguerite with all the bags.”
Marguerite sneaks glances at us while pretending to study her ticket. I stare Ramie down, resisting the urge (but only just) to throw her over my shoulder and drag her out of the airport.
“You have to stop doing this,” she says. “You have to stop trying to control me.”
But I’m not trying to control her. I’m trying to hold on.
“This is important,” she says.
This, not me.
“Can’t you understand?” she says. “It’s my career we’re talking about.”
Her career? Three months ago she was goofing off at the beach all day with me. Just yesterday she was a college freshman. When did she acquire a career?
“All I know,” I say, “is that every time I show up, you disappear.”
“And all I know,” she says, “is that every time something important happens for me, you try to hold me back.”
We stare at each other in silence for a few seconds, then push the suitcases around the bend. The people behind us, sensing danger, leave a larger than normal gap between themselves and us.
“Just come outside with me,” I say.
“No.”
A security guard, alerted to our disagreement, eyeballs us menacingly. I don’t fancy my chances with him. It might be a federal offense to argue with your girlfriend in an airport.
Quickly I change tactics. Pressing up against Ramie gently, I bring my lips to her ear. “I need you,” I whisper.
She shakes me off and tries to inch forward, stopped only by her suitcases.
I stay on her. “Come on,” I say. “I’m your one and only, remember? There’s no one else like me. No one in the world.”
“Stop it,” Ramie says, but softly, without conviction. And she doesn’t shake me off. I know how her mind works. As irritated as she is with me for trying to hold her back, whatever that means, she’s even more thrilled by my single-minded commitment to getting her home. The urgency of my hunger is her number one turn-on. This I know. And oh, how I’ve exploited it.
“Stop being coy,” I tell her. “You know where you belong.”
“What do you mean?” she says.
To the offense and discomfort of everyone around us, I pull her close and wrap my arms around her. “You belong with me,” I say.
I can feel the collective cringe around us. Not only does it not bother me, it fuels me.
“Forget London,” I say. “Let Marguerite assist herself.”
Big mistake. The word “Marguerite,” despite being delivered with a pointed sneer, awakens something in her.
“Stop it!” she says with a powerful shove.
The security guard, previously regarding us with reluctant curiosity, comes over now.
“I’m going to London,” she says. “You have to deal.”
“I’m not dealing,” I say. The airspace between our bodies enrages me.
The security guard walks right up to us now. “Is there a problem?”
Ramie and I both look at him.
“Can I see your tickets?” he says.
Marguerite steps over the bags. “I’ve got them,” she says.
While the guard flips through Marguerite’s tickets, Ramie and I stare each other down. Without words, I broadcast my intense disappointment with her. How can she resist my seductive powers? I’m her love god. That’s what she’s always telling me. At least it’s what she always used to tell me. But Ramie is silently broadcasting something else now. A pigheaded resolve.
While we stare at each other in stubborn silence, people around us shuffle nervously, intrigued by the unfolding drama but fearful of being injured by it.
“I only see two tickets here,” the security guard says.
I ignore him. I ignore everyone but Ramie. The need to be alone with her overwhelms all other concerns. If we are not in the back of a taxi within minutes, I’ll self-destruct. I’m sure of it.
The guard steps forward. “Which one of you is Ramie Boooly—Boolyoox?”
I’m only dimly aware of Marguerite trying to neutralize him. The rest of my attention is focused on Ramie.
“If you leave today,” I tell her, “it’s over.”
Ramie’s mouth drops open. “You’re making me choose between you and my career?” she says.
“Yes,” I say.
“But—”
“Choose.”
In the background, the security guard uses words like “has to leave” and “no ticket.” I should be concerned, but the only thing that matters to me is Ramie’s face and the failure of the words “screw London” and “you’re all I need” to tumble sighingly from her lips.
The next thing I know, the guard’s hand is on my arm. I don’t resist. My iron certainty has gone limp, given way to the inevitability of defeat. I let him peel me out of the check-in line, away from Ramie, who watches me go without moving. When the security guard has led me all the way to the door, I turn around and shout, “If you leave now, don’t ever come back!”
Ramie’s nose wrinkles as she stares at me. She’s on the verge of tears. I want her tears. Even more than I want her to come with me now, I want her to suffer.
The security guard deposits me outside, then goes back in. Ramie turns her back to me and rests her head on Marguerite’s shoulder. The gesture sends a bullet to the base of my spine. My knees buckle, and I almost drop to the cold, cigarette-strewn pavement.
Eventually the guard comes out and tells me to leave. I don’t remember which words he uses, only the tinge of pity in them. His pity is irrelevant to me.
Later, I find myself on the subway. It’s a long, confusing ride back to the apartment. I wind up in Manhattan at one point and have to retrace my journey. When I finally make it back home, only the one-armed mannequin awaits me. There is a hush in the stale air as we stare each other down.
“She’s gone,” I say. “She chose her career over me.”
I don’t go into the details. There’s a film of dreamlike uncertainty over the whole thing. Eighteen-year-old college freshmen don’t have careers. At times I can’t believe it happened. I suspect that the ride with Marguerite was just a lucid dream, or something I invented. That Ramie’s still in “the city,” doing pickups or studying for a test. She’ll be home tomorrow, and we can put this whole episode behind us.
I spend the next two days taking long walks in circles around the neighborhood while trying to make sense of Ramie’s irrational behavior. I don’t get very far, and eventually frustration and anger give way to old-fashioned loneliness. I even toy with the idea of apologizing, not because I’m wrong, but because I can’t bear her absence.
I’ve known solitude before. Recall that I spent most of my life al
one in Jill’s bedroom. But solitude has freshly visceral characteristics now. Ramie’s absence is physical, like a missing limb. Even silence is newly malignant, a tight-fitting helmet.
For better or worse, though, I’m constitutionally incapable of faking an apology just to win her back. Maybe it’s stubbornness or an inability to lie. Whatever it is, if I were a Shakespeare character, it would be my tragic flaw.
Ironically, it would be Ramie’s too.
The third afternoon, when I can no longer tolerate the silence, I decide to call Daria. She answers on the first ring.
“Jill!” she says. “Oh my God. I can’t believe it’s been so long. How are you?”
When I tell her it’s me, the joy drains right out of her.
“Sorry,” I say.
She takes a moment to manufacture fake delight at hearing from me. “No, no,” she says. “It’s great to hear from you. How’s it going? Is Jill okay?”
“Yeah,” I say. “How are things at UMass?”
“Oh mal,” she says. “You would not believe what happened to me.” She goes into this long, meandering story about these “raging sluts” who live in her dorm and live-cam their sexual exploits online. While I’m listening politely, I realize that Daria is no fountain of consolation. Nor is she even my friend. She remained supportive of Jill throughout the summer, but she never fully accepted me. Though too polite to openly reject me, she acted like I was a dangerous puma Ramie had unwisely acquired as a pet. I constantly forgave her for this. It’s what you do with Daria. But I get nothing from this conversation. I can’t relate to her dorm story at all.
“So what’s up with you and Ramie?” she asks finally.
In the end, I decide to spare her the details because it would only upset her. “Nothing much,” I say. “Same old same old.”
“Well, um, I kind of have to meet this friend?”
“That’s cool,” I say. “I’ll tell Jill you said hi.”
“Deeply!” she says. “And Ramie too. Tell them to call me!”
“I will!” I say with faux enthusiasm.
When I hang up, I realize the whole conversation ate up only five minutes. And I’m just as alone as before.
That night, while I’m waiting for the mean lady to hand me my slice of pizza to go, I commit the profoundly desperate act of texting Tommy Knutson the following:
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