The Travelers

by Chris Pavone

  “What?”

  “I’m sorry. I forgot to tell you.”

  “Well that’s shitty. There goes another month, wasted.”

  Wasted isn’t exactly what Will would call the month. “Sorry.”

  “So you keep saying.” She shakes her head. “Look, I have to go.”

  Chloe walks to the bed. The mattress is on the floor, no frame, no box spring. Will has a mental image of the perfect frame, but he hasn’t yet been able to find it, and he’d rather have nothing than the wrong thing. Which is why the house is filled with doorways without doors, doors without doorknobs, sinks without faucets, bare bulbs without fixtures; to Will, all of these no-measures are preferable to half-measures.

  This is one of the things that drives Chloe crazy about the renovation project, about her husband in general. She doesn’t care if everything is perfect; she merely wants it to be good enough. And this is exactly why Will doesn’t let her handle any of it. He knows that she will settle, will make compromises that he wouldn’t. Not just about the house.

  She bends down, gives him a closed-mouth kiss. Will reaches for her arm.

  “Really, I’m running late,” she says, but with little conviction—almost none—and a blush, a suppressed smile. “I gotta go.” But there’s no resistance in her arm, she’s not trying to pull away, and she allows herself to fall forward, into bed, onto her husband.

  —

  Will sprawls amid the sheets while Chloe rearranges her hair, and replaces earrings, reties her scarf, all these tasks executed distractedly but deftly, the small competencies of being a woman, skills unknowable to him. The only thing men learn is how to shave.

  “I love watching you,” he says, making an effort.

  “Mmm,” she mutters, not wondering what the hell he’s talking about.

  Everybody says that the second year of marriage is the hardest. But their second year was fine, they were young and they were fun, both being paid to travel the world, not worrying about much. That year was terrific.

  It’s their fourth year that has been a drag. The year began when they moved into this decrepit house, a so-called investment property that Chloe’s father had left in his will, three apartments occupied by below-market and often deadbeat tenants, encumbered by serious code violations, impeded by unfindable electrical and plumbing plans—every conceivable problem, plus a few inconceivable ones.

  The work on the house sputtered after demolition, then stalled completely due to the unsurprising problem of running out of money: everything has been wildly more expensive than expected. That is, more than Will expected; Chloe expected exactly what transpired.

  So flooring is uninstalled, plumbing not entirely working, kitchen unfinished and windows unrepaired and blow-in insulation un-blown-in. Half of the second floor and all of the third are uninhabitable. The renovation is an unmitigated disaster, and they are broke, and Chloe is amassing a stockpile of resentment about Will’s refusals to make the compromises that would allow this project to be finished.

  Plus, after a year of what is now called “trying” on a regular basis—a militaristically regimented schedule—Chloe is still not pregnant. Will now understands that ovulation tests and calendars are the opposite of erotic aids.

  When Chloe isn’t busy penciling in slots for results-oriented, missionary-position intercourse, she has become increasingly moody. And most of her moods are some variation of bad: there’s hostile bad and surly bad and resentful bad and today’s, distracted bad.

  “What do you think this is about?” she asks. “The extended trip?”

  Will shrugs, but she can’t see it, because she’s not looking his way. “Malcolm hasn’t fully explained yet.” He doesn’t want to tell Chloe anything specific until he has concrete details—what exactly the new assignment will be, any additional money, more frequent travel.

  “How is Malcolm, anyway?”

  As part of the big shake-up at Travelers a year ago, Will was hired despite Chloe’s objections—both of them shouldn’t work at the same struggling company in the same dying industry. So she quit. She left the full-time staff and took the title of contributing editor, shared with a few dozen people, some with only tenuous connections to the magazine accompanied by token paychecks, but still conferring a legitimacy—names on masthead, business cards in wallets—that could be leveraged while hunting for other opportunities.

  Hunting for Other Opportunities: good job title for magazine writers.

  Chloe came to her decision rationally, plotting out a pros-and-cons list. She is the methodical pragmatist in the couple; Will is the irrational emotional idealistic one.

  “I think the takeover is stressing Malcolm out,” Will says. “The negotiations are ending, both sides are doing due diligence. He seems to have a lot of presentations, reports, meetings.”

  “Is he worried for his job?”

  “Not that he’ll admit—you know how Malcolm is—but he has to be, right?”

  Chloe grunts an assent; she knows more about Malcolm’s office persona than Will does. Those two worked together a long time, and it was a difficult transition when Malcolm eventually became her boss. They both claimed that her departure was 100 percent amicable, but Will had his doubts. The closed-door I-quit meeting seemed to last a long time.

  They also both claimed they’d never had a thing—no flirtation, no fling, no late-night make-out session in Mallorca or Malaysia. Will had doubts about that too.

  “Okay then,” she says, leaning down for another kiss, this one more generous than their previous good-bye. “Have a good trip.”

  —

  People can spend hours packing for a weeklong overseas trip. They stand in their closets, desultorily flipping through hangers. They rummage through medicine cabinets, searching for the travel-sized toothpaste. They scour every drawer, box, and shelf for electrical adapters. They might have some of the foreign currency lying around somewhere, maybe in the desk…? They double- and triple-check that their passports are in their pockets.

  It’s been a long time since Will was one of those amateurs. He collects his bright-blue roll-aboard—easy to describe to a bellhop, or to spot in a lost-and-found. It would also be easy to ID on a baggage carousel, but that will never happen. Will doesn’t check luggage.

  He mechanically fills the bag with piles from dresser drawers, the same exact items he packed for his previous trip, each in its preordained position in the bag’s quadrants, which are delineated by rolled-up boxer shorts and socks. It takes Will five minutes to pack, long-zip short-zip upright on the floor, the satisfying clunk of rubberized wheels on bare parquet.

  He walks into his office. One bookshelf is lined with shoeboxes labeled in a meticulous hand: W. EUROPE, E. EUROPE, AFRICA & MIDEAST, ASIA & AUSTRALIA, LATIN AMERICA & CARIBBEAN, USA. From W. EUROPE Will chooses a small stack of euros from among other clipped-together clumps of paper money, and a packet of Paris Metro tickets, and a burgundy-covered street-map booklet. He grabs a plug adapter, refits his computer charger with the long cylindrical prongs, ready to be inserted into exotic European outlets.

  Last but not least, his passport, thick with the extra pages from the State Department, filled with stamps and visas, exit and entry, coming and going. It’s the rare immigration officer who fails to comment on the peripatetic paperwork. Will has been detained before, and no doubt will be again.

  Will stands in the doorway, looking around, worried that he’s forgetting something, what…?

  He remembers. Opens a drawer, and removes a box clad in wrapping paper and bound in silk ribbon, just small enough to fit into his jacket pocket, just large enough to be uncomfortable there.

  Will clambers down the long flight of rickety stairs to the parlor floor, and out the front door. He picks up the newspaper, descends more dangerous steps, and exits their postage-stamp yard, where a surprisingly undead rose vine clings to the iron fence, a handful of perfect red blooms.

  He sets off toward the subway, dragging his bag, j
ust as he’s done every few weeks for a decade.

  The bag rolls over the remains of a single rose that seems to have met a violent end, petals strewn, stem broken. Will glances at the little red mess, wondering what could have happened, and when, why someone would murder one of his flowers right here in front of the house. He can’t help but wonder if it was Chloe who did this.

  Will has been increasingly worried that his bride is slipping away, that theirs may become another marriage that succumbs to financial pressures and work travel and the looming specter of infertility. Worried that love is not always enough, or not permanent enough. Worried that all the nonfun parts will eclipse the fun parts.

  Will bends over, looks closer. This decimated flower is not a rose, not from his yard, nothing to do with him. It’s someone else’s dead carnation, someone else’s crime of passion.

  Maybe he’s worried about all the wrong things.

  NEW YORK CITY

  The door’s plaque reads simply EDITOR, no name plate, as if the human being in there is interchangeable with the ones who came before, and the ones who will come after. An office that’s occupied by a job, not by a person. There have been only four of them in the magazine’s seventy-year history.

  “Come!”

  Malcolm Somers is sitting in his big executive chair behind his big executive desk, across from Gabriella Rivera, her profile framed by the floor-to-ceiling window onto Avenue of the Americas. Nothing is visible outside except other office buildings, up and down the avenue, thousands of windows into other lives, suits and ties, computers and coat racks, ergonomic chairs and solar-screen blinds and pressed-wood L-shaped desks exuding formaldehyde, and not even the barest glimpse of sky above nor street below, which can be seen only with face pressed against the glass, something no one except a child would do. Malcolm’s kids do it.

  Gabriella doesn’t turn to see who’s entering. She remains sitting perfectly still with her perfect legs crossed, one low heel dangling from the aloft foot, a sleek elegant figure, like an ad for something, a product, Sexy Professional Woman Sitting in Stylish Chair™. An ad for the product that is herself.

  “Sorry to interrupt,” Will says. “I’ve got a flight…”

  Will stands in the doorway of the big room, waiting for permission to enter, for Malcolm to dismiss Gabriella.

  “Gabs?” Malcolm asks.

  The deputy editor waits a punitive beat before she nods. She stands and smooths her skirt, a garment that straddles the line of decency, depending on point of view. Most men would say it’s just the right amount of tight and short; most women would disagree.

  Gabriella turns, gives Will that dazzling smile. But beneath the veneer of those white teeth, those plush pillows of lips, Will can see the resentment at her interrupted meeting, maybe more. Will senses something in the air here, between these two. And not for the first time.

  “Sorry,” Will reiterates, apologizing to another woman who doesn’t want to hear it.

  She shrugs, not his fault, something else at play. “Have a good trip. France, is it? How long?”

  “A week.”

  Gabriella cocks her head, considering something. “We should have a drink soon,” she says, though Will doesn’t think that’s what she’d been considering. “It’s been a while.” On her way past, she squeezes Will’s arm, and he feels a jolt from the strong current of sexual energy that flows from this woman.

  Malcolm calls after her, “The door, please?”

  She shuts it from the far side, perhaps a little too firmly, but still perfectly deniable, not a slam.

  Malcolm’s suit jacket is hanging on a wooden valet, his sleeves are rolled at the cuff. As always, the top button of his shirt is undone, the knot of his necktie loosened, like he just finished a long hard day, having a glass of scotch, neat. He looks exhausted, bags under his eyes, a hollowness to his cheeks. He’s usually an extra-healthy-looking specimen, a natural athlete who spends his weekends outdoors, on boats and grass and sand, with little children and golf clubs, with the wholesome perks of his position.

  But not now. Now he looks like crap.

  “How are things, Rhodes?” Malcolm asks. “Sorry I couldn’t stay for the after-party last night. Who was there? Did that hot wine rep of yours come along?”

  “Come on, man, stop saying things like that. You know someday somebody is going to overhear you, and get me in a whole lot of trouble.”

  Malcolm holds up his hands, mea culpa, a smirk that’s the tell that his baiting is mostly—or partially—an act. Malcolm is playing a role, a trope, a fictional misogynist, a guy’s-guy buddy. Just as he plays the role of hypercritical boss and mercurial editor-in-chief, the role of lustful middle-aged married man, one role after another that he inhabits with patent detachment. Malcolm is so consistently ironic about so much that he’s even ironic about his irony, which makes it tough to know what Malcolm truly feels about anything.

  “And the Luxembourg trip? You went to a formal thing at the—what was it?—palace? Castle? How was that?”

  “Deadly. Though I did get to shake hands with the grand duke. The party was at his palace, a sprawling pile in the middle of the city. Diplomats and bankers and a smattering of Eurotrash nobility and, probably, no shortage of spies in black ties.”

  Malcolm stares at Will, one corner of his mouth curled, not quite committing to a smile. “So tell me, Rhodes”—he says, shifting gears—“are you ever going to turn in that sidebar on the Swiss Alps? How long does it take to write three hundred words? You think that just because you’re not hideous to look at, you can get away with—”

  “Not true.”

  “—anything, but if we have to hold the issue—”

  “Stop! I’ll finish today.”

  Malcolm stands, stretches, walks around his desk. His limp is always most pronounced when he’s been sitting awhile. After two hours in a theater or airplane seat, he hobbles like an arthritic old man. But not on the tennis court.

  “I just need to cross my i’s and dot my t’s. I’ll hit Send before liftoff. And it’s five hundred words, not three hundred, you ignorant bastard.”

  Malcolm plops into an armchair, next to the coffee table. “Listen, sit down, will you? I want to talk about that new column I mentioned. It is indeed for you. Congratulations, Rhodes, you’re moving up in the world.”

  “I’m honored.”

  “Try to restrain your enthusiasm. It’ll be called ‘Americans Abroad,’ and it’ll be about—wait for it—Americans, who are living where?”

  “I’ll go out on a limb: abroad?”

  “That’s the sort of sharpness I expect from you East Coast media-elite types.”

  “I’m from Minnesota.”

  “With your Ivy League liberal-arts degrees.”

  “I majored in journalism at Northwestern. But didn’t you go to school somewhere in the Northeast? Athletic uniforms a color called crimson?”

  “It’ll be the whole expat experience, Rhodes, the communities, the lifestyle. Why’d they move there? How’d they choose the locale? Did they integrate into the local culture, or not? We’ll explore the reality behind the fantasy. But without digging too deep, without unearthing all the ugly sad lonely crap down there. You know…” Malcolm gestures in the vague direction of ugly sad lonely crap, which as it happens is toward Times Square.

  Will is not sure that he understands. “What’s the point, Malcolm? What’s this about?”

  “What’s it ever about?” Malcolm extends his hand, opens it, explanation self-evident, voilà. “Escapist fantasy. Aspirational lifestyle. Ad sales. It’s a pay bump, Rhodes, five K per annum. Plus feature bylines with big contributor-page photos guaranteed for four issues per year. That is, if you can deliver the four pieces, you lazy shiftless piece of shit.”

  Will turns this idea over in his mind. It’s not exactly the career advancement he was hoping for, which is an elusive concept to begin with. Will doesn’t have any concrete vision more rational than a movie deal for an art
icle he hasn’t written, a contract for a book he hasn’t conceived.

  He’d like to imagine he’ll get what he deserves. He wants to believe that this is how the world—or at least his world, upper-middle-class, college-educated, white-collar white-people America—works: meritocracy. This is the promise.

  But what does Will Rhodes merit? Does he have the right to be envious of what he doesn’t have? Or should he be extremely grateful for what he does have?

  Will is on the cusp of the collapse of his idealism, alternating hope and despair day by day, sometimes minute by minute, wondering if his life can still turn out to be perfect. Like being twelve years old, toggling back and forth between little kid and teenager, crushes on girls but also clutching a teddy bear in the middle of the night.

  Malcolm is on no such cusp. A decade separates the two men, and somewhere in there is the point at which idealism gave way to pragmatism, completely and irrevocably. Will doesn’t know how this is supposed to happen, or when. Is it getting married? Having kids? Is it when one parent dies, or both? Is it turning thirty, or forty, fifty? What’s the thing that happens that makes people think: it’s time to grow up, face reality, get my act together?

  Whatever it is, it hasn’t yet happened to Will. So he finds himself constantly disappointed in the world, in its failures to live up to his ideals.

  “What are we looking for, Mal? Anything different?”

  “We’re always looking for something different, Rhodes, you know that. Different, in the same precise goddamned way. Plus, you know what this assignment means?”

  Will shakes his head.

  “Rampant opportunities. There are a lot of expat housewives out there. Bored, hot, horny expat housewives. A target-rich environment.”

  “Give me a break.”

  Malcolm smiles. “Start putting together notes. That’s why we booked you for a few more days in southwest France. The Paris bureau has contacts for you.”

  “Really?”

  “What? You have a problem with drinking wine in the South of France?”

  “No, it’s just that I’ve been going through the archives, and we’ve run dozens of full-length articles—no exaggeration, dozens—about southern France.”