As he ceded the microphone, the professor singled out Edie’s roommate with a smile. The roommate bridled and nudged Edie in the ribs. Milo Baranoff stood at the podium and made a show of riffling through his notes, which he hardly needed. He had given such talks so many times before, and besides, he was buoyed by his honorarium check and the excellent dinner at the college town’s one good restaurant.
He began, “Ours is an age of near-constant scientific discoveries and hurtling technological innovation. Who can keep track of it all? At what a breathless pace we take on challenges both unimaginably vast and unimaginably small. We now know that in four billion years’ time, our galaxy and the Andromeda galaxy will collide. We have a branch of physics called supersymmetric theory, which postulates as-yet-undiscovered subatomic particles. It is a time of wonders. We have computers that sing to us, and prosthetic hands controlled by impulses from the brain. A hundred years ago, who could have imagined such a thing as the Hubble Telescope? As a cell phone? Let us not forget to bow down to the humble television remote control!”
This was a laugh line, and Milo Baranoff allowed the laughter to run its course. “It’s true that certain natural phenomena, certain diseases, and even mortality itself still elude our efforts at understanding. But here is what I offer up for you to ponder tonight: Is existence itself a solvable problem?”
Edie did not much care. She had a headache that felt as if a thick rope was being pulled from one ear to the other. By touch, she rummaged through her purse and came up with a Tylenol, which she dry-swallowed. She closed her eyes and Milo Baranoff’s voice seemed to draw her through passageways and corridors, tunnels and labyrinths, always floating back at her from somewhere just beyond her comprehension. His voice coaxed and exhorted, demanded and wheedled. It was exhausting to try to keep up with it, and to fathom what it wanted from her. Acquiescence? Counterargument? Synthesis? She lacked a sense of larger purpose. Her existence was a problem waiting to be solved.
The sound of applause brought her out of it. She opened her eyes. They felt sticky. Her roommate said, “Come on, let’s go be conspicuous.”
“I think I have the plague,” Edie said, but she followed her roommate up to the front of the room, where Milo Baranoff was receiving tributes.
The roommate made a beeline for the professor while Edie sagged into a chair. Nearby, Milo Baranoff was signing copies of his books for people, asking them how their names were spelled. It was oddly comforting to hear him speak from so close, as if she’d finally caught up with his voice and now could rest. Her roommate returned. “Come on, we’re all going out for a drink.”
“I can’t.”
“You have to. It looks weird if it’s only me. Edie!”
So she went. She and Milo Baranoff trudged across the icy parking lot behind the other two, who were chatting and bumping against each other as they walked. Edie had muttered something to Milo when they were introduced, something about having a cold, sorry. Milo kept silent. Edie didn’t look at him, only down at her own shuffling feet, which seemed much farther away than usual. When they reached the professor’s car, Milo said that no, he was fine riding in back, and he opened the door for Edie. They went to a grown-up bar, a place serving pomegranate martinis and cognac. Edie and Milo sat on one side of the leather booth like a pair of elderly chaperones. Across from them, the professor and Edie’s roommate made vivacious conversation and sniffed each other’s hair.
When it came time to order the drinks, Edie said she didn’t want anything. Her lips were chapped. She drained her water glass and bit down on the ice cubes. Milo spoke to the waiter. “Have the barman boil some water, steep a slice of lemon, then add two spoonfuls of honey and a shot of whiskey.” The waiter gaped at him. “And I’ll have a Scotch rocks.” To Edie he said, “People often suffer through my speeches, just not literally.”
Edie saw her roommate giving her a warning look: Don’t be a giant buzzkill. “Ha ha,” Edie said, and when her toddy arrived, she drank it. Stealthy heat invaded her bones and she felt recharged, almost jolly. The other three were talking about a frivolous movie that had just come out, a movie that none of them would ever see but which was easy to make fun of without seeing it. Edie joined in with a remark or two and laughed along with them and then toppled sideways off the slick leather seat and got herself tangled up in Milo Baranoff’s knees.
She had not really passed out, but she pretended she had, since she was so mortified. She was revived with cold cloths and face patting and she let her eyelids flutter open weakly. Yes, she told them, she was all right, just a little woozy. She was not going to admit that the whiskey had ridden an express elevator to her brain and she had simply lost her balance.
“At least you didn’t barf on him,” Edie’s roommate said, once they were back in their apartment and Edie was laid out in bed on her back, like a tomb effigy.
“Please don’t say ‘barf.’”
“Next time you don’t want to go someplace, just say so.”
“How did you leave it with him?” Edie asked, meaning the professor.
“He told me to have a good semester. Something about you falling into that guy’s lap made everyone focus on their inappropriate behavior.”
Three days later, a package arrived for Edie via express delivery. She opened it and found a volume of classic Japanese poetry, illustrated with beautiful ink drawings on rice paper. Enclosed was a note from Milo Baranoff, three lines typed on a folded sheet. Dear Edith, I wanted you to have a keepsake that might serve as a better memory of your evening. I hope that you are feeling much better by now, and that this small gift will find favor with you. Best regards, M.B.
Edie wrote back. Dear Mr. Baranoff, you are too kind. Yes, I am on the mend from my illness. The poems are lovely both to look at and to read. I wish I could be as wise and graceful as they are. Please call me Edie, since the only Edith anybody’s ever heard of is Edith Wharton, which is fine but a little misleading.
She read the note over again and again before she dared send it, wondering if it was too smart-aleck or flirty. What she got back was a copy of The Age of Innocence bound in soft green leather, and a note: Do you suppose you might bring yourself to call me Milo? She felt a little bad because while she thought Edith Wharton was all right, she did not consider herself a huge fan.
They exchanged e-mail addresses and phone numbers. Edie sent him a CD of a band she liked who played ’80s pop songs on a theremin. And a cartoon she clipped from a newspaper, showing a lady reclining on a fainting couch with her enervated wrist pressed to her forehead. He sent flowers, irises and peonies.
When they spoke on the phone, Edie had the same sensation of his voice leading her on to some perplexing destination, teasing her with all the things she had yet to learn. They talked about this and that. His travels, books he suggested she read. He asked questions about her family and her growing-up, he encouraged her to talk about the small news of her day. He seemed charmed by whatever she said, as if he found glittering facets in her that no one else had previously suspected, including Edie herself. Edie told herself not to be foolish, and tried to keep her own conversation with Milo light and amusing.
He hardly knew her, or she him! But there was something intense and superheated about this long-distance intercourse, especially as it extended over the weeks, something private and conspiratorial, as if the selves they offered up to each other were better and truer than the rest of the world would recognize.
Often Milo called her in the late evening, after he had returned from some symposium or gala. He lived in New York City, of course, in an apartment he called “the castle,” which he seemed to mean ironically, although Edie was not entirely sure of this. She imagined him coming in the door and emptying the contents of his pockets onto a silver tray that stood ready to receive them. He would loosen his tie, fix himself his Scotch, stand at a west-facing window thinking his complicated thoughts, his mind r
eaching out to her, then pick up the phone and dial her number. Edie did not know if he had a west window, but it made for a better story.
“I get so tired of all my opinions,” he complained. “I seem to have staked out positions on nearly everything, and now I can’t remember half of them. Someone is always reminding me that I’ve registered passionate advocacy or opposition about stem cell research or organic farming, and then I have to pretend I still care one way or the other.”
“You could demur. Say you’re trying to free yourself from all ego-driven conflicts.”
Milo laughed his bark-like laugh. “You’d be the only one in on the joke. You’re the only one who knows me that well.”
“I like thinking I do,” Edie said shyly. Milo seemed to believe that likewise he knew her better than anyone else did. Certainly he knew the self she was attempting to be for him, the one who was re-reading The Age of Innocence and taking notes.
A silence. Over the phone line, Edie heard the ice cubes in his drink making their small, celebratory noise. Then Milo said, “How would you feel about coming out here for a visit?”
“Oh . . .” She would feel confused. Panicked. “New York, I’ve never been there.”
“Then it’s about time you did so. Please understand me, I am not proposing anything untoward. There’s a small hotel nearby where I’d make a reservation for you. Everything on the up-and-up. Of course I would cover all your travel expenses.”
“Oh,” Edie said again. She was having trouble with the concept, the notion of a man paying out real money for . . . what, exactly? “That’s very generous of you to offer, but . . .”
“I would want you to feel entirely comfortable about the arrangements,” Milo said, mistaking her total slack-jawed amazement for maidenly hesitation. “If you know anyone in the city, anyone who could accompany—that is—escort you, it would be perfectly fine.”
“My sister lives in Philadelphia.” Would she want to explain any of this to her sister? Did she want to take such a leap, alone or escorted, into Milo Baranoff’s lair, and confront the real, actual man? But then, spring break was coming up. It wasn’t like she had big plans of her own.
“It would be lovely to meet your sister. I mean, it would be lovely to see you again. Give us a chance to catch up in person,” Milo amended, as if aware he’d been sounding too brisk. There was a note of uncertainty in his voice that made Edie like him better. She said she would think it over and get back to him.
All his insistence on propriety naturally made her think about sex, whether sex with Milo was within the realm of possibility. She walked right up to the edge of that notion and stopped. None of her boyfriends had offered especially profound experiences; sex was simply one of the things you did together if you were a couple, like cooking dinner. Edie had come to believe she was lucky that way, not to be passion’s plaything, not to have to go through a lot of impulsiveness and contortions because her loins were burning, her various parts throbbing, etc. So that sex, with Milo or anyone else, was not a deal breaker. Just one more item on the ledger, waiting to be revealed as a pro or a con.
In the end she said yes, she would fly to New York for five days of her vacation. She called her sister Anne in Philadelphia and told her she was visiting a friend and that it would be great to see her if Anne could get away. Her sister said, “What’s this really about, what kind of friend? How old is this guy anyway?”
“He’s just a friend friend.”
“So what is he, sixty? Seventy? Eighty?”
“Thanks,” Edie said. “Yes, he’s ancient, that’s why he likes me. He’s too feeble to get anybody more attractive and desirable.”
Anne sighed. She was married, a mother, she affected a certain dreary worldliness. “Well, they say it’s better to be an old man’s darling than a young man’s slave.”
“I only met him the one time! You make it sound like we’ve plighted our troth!”
“Don’t get so upset. I’m just saying. I suppose he has money?”
In the end it was decided that Anne would come up at the beginning of Edie’s visit and share her hotel room for a night or two. On her way back from New York, Edie would go to Philadelphia to see her young niece and nephew, whom everyone assumed she adored spending time with.
Ten days later, Edie flew to Chicago, then to LaGuardia, which alarmed her with its smallness and meanness, as if she’d deplaned into a bus station. Milo was unavoidably engaged that evening; he had said he would send a car for her. No one had ever done such a thing for Edie before, and it improved her mood a great deal to see the driver waiting with her actual name written on a piece of cardboard. It was just then turning dark and the city lighted itself for her as she rode. The hotel was small and choice, its lobby paneled with green-veined marble, like something under the sea. There was no problem with her reservation, as Edie had feared. She was installed in a peach-colored junior suite with a bathroom large enough to play cards in. She ordered dinner from the extravagant room service menu, as Milo had insisted she do. Her sister was not expected until the next morning. It was delightful to have everything, even, as it seemed, the entire city, all to herself.
Her sister, when she arrived, approved of the hotel and the suite. “Not bad.”
“I imagine it’s just the way he does everything,” Edie said. “First-rate.”
“Hm,” Anne said. She stood next to Edie so that they were both reflected in the vast bathroom mirror. Both of them were long-necked and pale-skinned, with yellow hair and surprised-looking eyebrows. Anne had always been considered the prettier of the two, but her skin wasn’t holding up well and she wore her hair in a short mom-cut that spoke of defeated vanity. Some balance of power seemed to shift as they stood there, having to do with these reflections, or perhaps with Edie’s new and inexplicable status as the object of a noted figure’s attention, and this might be why Anne plucked at the sleeve of Edie’s cotton blouse and said, “You aren’t wearing that to meet him, are you?”
Milo had called Edie’s room late last night and they had had one of their usual conversations, made somewhat disorienting by the fact that there were only a dozen blocks between them instead of all those intervening states and a different time zone. “I can’t wait to see you,” Milo told her, and Edie said she couldn’t wait herself, although neither statement was really accurate, since Milo had been able to wait an entire evening while he did whatever it was he had to do instead. And Edie was beyond nervous; she was doubting the whole premise of her association with Milo, which was that through a fluke, a happenstance, two such amazingly compatible people as themselves had chanced to meet. She was losing heart. She was an idiot.
Milo said, “I had a dream about you. I dreamt I was walking along a beach, and the ocean beyond was entirely calm, a beautiful pale green, and the winds blew you ashore in a seashell, like Botticelli’s Venus.”
“Don’t be silly,” Edie said. She was pretty sure that Venus was naked in that painting, and this was concerning. “That doesn’t even sound like a real dream. I bet you made it up.”
“I did,” he admitted. “I wanted to have a dream about you, it seemed like a nice thing to do, but I’ve been taking these sleeping pills and they give me nine hours of a blank screen. Okay, you make up a dream about me.”
“I dreamed you were the pilot of a plane I was on, and terrorists tried to hijack us, and you explained to the hijackers that exercising power was a transactional process and that no one on the plane had agreed to any contingent rewards or punishments. That confused them and they left us alone.” She had picked up a lot of the lingo by now.
“What, I bored the hijackers into submission? That does sound like me.”
“You were heroic,” Edie said. He liked it when she was pert and impudent. They both laughed, and Edie felt better about everything.
Milo had told them to take a cab from the hotel the next morning. Anne sniffe
d that he could have come there himself to meet them, and Edie thought the same, although she did not say so. She was wearing one of Anne’s dresses, drapey and cream-colored, “so he won’t send you back right away,” Anne said. “I hope you’re going to have time for some shopping.” They took in the Upper East Side neighborhood, which was all about living well, with its townhouses and pleasant sidewalks and the lacy shade of the spring trees. A few people were walking fretful dogs, or dawdling expensively over coffee, but there was a sense of hidden life behind every window. Who were they, those who inhabited such a place? No one Edie could imagine knowing.
Milo’s apartment building was less imposing than most of its neighbors, which both relieved and disappointed Edie. They rang his bell and were buzzed in, to a lobby with a black-and-white checkerboard tile floor and a great many mirrors in gilt frames. “Good quality, a little old-fashioned,” Anne pronounced. “I imagine he’s used to it. Set in his ways.” Edie wondered if the stylish ex-wife had lived here, if she’d fretted at the lack of designer oomph.
They took a rasping elevator up to the fourteenth floor and started down the silent corridor. The carpeting was thick and gray and blotted out their footsteps. At the very end of the hall a door opened, and Milo himself stepped out. “Venus approaches! Come here and let me gaze on you!”
Edie did not dare look at Anne. She didn’t want to have to explain about Botticelli. Blushing, she allowed herself to be enveloped by Milo’s hug, her forehead grazed by his bearded kiss. She introduced Anne, who seemed to have retreated into some zone of private amusement. Then Milo ushered them inside. “Enter the castle!”
Edie’s first impression was of dark wood paneling lit by mellow sunlight, dust whirling in the shafts. There were a great many things to look at: paintings in heavy frames, high bookshelves turning the walls into canyons, tiny, stained-glass lamps, lit red or golden, African tribal baskets, dolls’ heads, an old-fashioned clock cased in china. Milo led them around a corner and the apartment opened up into an expansive room with pale-blue-figured carpet underfoot, more and more bookshelves, scrolled and carved furniture, and high, narrow windows that allowed for slices of the sky. East, west? She was too turned-around to say.
The Witch Page 17
