by Adam Ross
Her elation rose as the plane climbed. She was headed to LA to meet a man, Thom McKnight, whom she’d kissed in college nearly two decades ago and hadn’t seen since, until yesterday, though she’d thought about him with an odd frequency over the years. She remembered very few things about him: two years older, a lacrosse player, a preposterously bad singer in a punk band. What she did recall with a nearly breathless vividness—it recurrently haunted her dreams—was an evening that ended with Thom helping her climb the outer walls of the campus’s ancient observatory. In the moonlight he slid back a segment of the clamshell dome, dropped into the dark void, and called up to her, his disembodied voice urging her to trust him, to grab the edge and then hang down. She lowered herself into that blackness, dangling for several harrowing seconds until Thom’s hands firmly gripped her knees, tracing the shape of her thighs and waist, and she released her grip, touching the floor as softly as a ballerina set down by her partner. Afterward they kissed for hours, and it was so singularly for its own sake and so blissfully erotic that she would’ve been content to keep doing it until daybreak. But Thom had other ideas, and they left for her room. The night might’ve ended differently if her roommate hadn’t also gotten lucky, which she and Thom soon discovered. He lived in an apartment on the other side of the campus and was exhausted, he claimed, so she simply said good night, confident that another tryst was inevitable. But the next time they met he was both remote and with a girlfriend, and thus their immediate future ended and the long haunting began.
Sara, a freelance writer for several national magazines, was in Nashville for Vanity Fair to interview Reese Witherspoon, who was in the new Martin Scorsese movie, Cell, about a rogue federal marshal, played by George Clooney, who oversees a group of relocated, high-profile witnesses. The program is organized into cells so none of the handlers could compromise its security, but Clooney’s character suffers from a God complex. His charges are desperate for news from family and friends, and he violates every protocol by exchanging this for money and, in Witherspoon’s case, sex. Like all Scorsese’s films, this was a redemption story, almost Old Testament in its dimensions, since Clooney portrays a father at once protective and terrible. When his reckless behavior tips off the Mob to his cell’s location, he must reject his sinful nature in order to protect his own newfound family.
Sara was sure the film would mark Witherspoon’s return to A-list stature. It was also a great get. She’d interviewed her before, found her whip smart, charming, and, most important, forthcoming. They’d enjoyed a long, productive lunch yesterday, and afterward Sara visited the set, where she was shocked to run into Thom. It turned out he was the film’s assistant director, and as he gave her a quick tour they giddily caught up. He was extremely busy—married too—but one thing led to another and he asked her to dinner, an invitation she enthusiastically accepted. They ate at Ruth’s Chris Steak House, right next to her hotel, and their conversation was nearly as breathless as their kissing had been twenty years ago. Dale, her husband, called during dessert. So did Thom’s wife. “Working late,” each said. “I’ll call in the morning. Love you.” She felt like a swimmer at Set. “You haven’t changed at all,” she told Thom, who looked absurdly young. It’s all in the genes, he claimed; his grandparents on both sides had lived past a hundred. As for her, “Well,” he said, “you’ve become something entirely more dangerous.” She excused herself to go to the bathroom and, alone for a moment, checked her teeth in the mirror (that fucking spinach) and took a long, hard look.
She would follow this man right now, anywhere, no questions asked, though her reasons—she promptly listed them—were more complicated and manifold than her desire.
She was thirty-nine, though she occasionally felt fifty. She’d chosen a profession that condemned her permanently to homework and consequently was never not working. She looked forward to traveling alone because on the road she could bathe in peace, without the sound effects of her family. Away from them, finally, she felt bereft. Meanwhile, private school ran thirty-six thousand dollars a year, times two. Yesterday she was breast-feeding Rob and now he was six. Tanner, her first great love since her husband, used to live for the sight of her, but these days cared mostly about his father and Rafael Nadal. She wanted another child, if only to have a baby to hold again, to which suggestion Dale replied: “I’d like to retire with dignity.” This was reasonable, of course, yet she was heartbroken. She thought the planet was self-immolating. She missed her husband desperately, in spite of the fact he was right there, or possibly because of it. She occasionally glimpsed his naked body and realized she felt nothing. She’d catch him staring at hers in the mirror, suspecting that he felt the same thing. She couldn’t remember what she did the day before, though each went something as follows: get the boys ready for school; clean up the study enough to concentrate; conduct multiple phone interviews; do notebook dumps and transcription; return or delete e-mails; eat her meals standing up; have no exercise whatsoever; attend editorial meetings uptown, midtown, or downtown; arrive home to prepare Dale’s dinner and not spit at him while he pours himself a drink, turns on the television, and promises to do the dishes so she can “be with the kids” (i.e., help them with their homework); put the boys to bed; wash her face and brush her teeth; burn with rage that she hasn’t had a single moment to herself in eons. Understand, as she now did in this bathroom, that she had a year, perhaps two, in which she might still consider herself young.
Take something for yourself, she thought, while you still can.
Thom, waiting at the restroom door, took her in his arms and kissed her. There is such a thing as a time machine. They pressed their foreheads together and made plans. He had dailies to review but could get to her room by eleven. Though he was leaving for LA around lunchtime the following day, the whole morning was free and clear. “Then I’ll hang the DO NOT DISTURB sign on the door,” she said.
Back at the hotel, she fired her husband a text, knowing he’d be asleep. Early meeting. Flight pushed back. Will call in the afternoon. She showered, put on makeup, brushed her teeth twice, and waited.
But Thom didn’t show. Just past midnight, he texted her: Hung up. Complete cluster fuck. Here’s a long shot: Come to LA tomorrow?
It occurred to Sara that the corollary to her memories of their long-ago night together was a promise that if in some implausible future a rendezvous like the one they were planning presented itself—with agreed-upon limits, a thing both enduring and self-canceling—then it would be an abiding and nurturing secret she could always tell herself. Sinning, she’d be redeemed, because she would’ve wholly given herself to an experience and closed a circle that had remained open. What she’d never seriously imagined was that she could enjoy the consummation of this fantasy with its progenitor.
Yes, she wrote, then immediately made the arrangements. And in the morning, she unwittingly left the DO NOT DISTURB sign dangling on the door.
About a half hour into the flight, Mr. Window gently touched her wrist and mumbled something she couldn’t hear.
Sara removed her earbuds. “Sorry?”
“I couldn’t help noticing.” He pointed to her laptop’s screen. “You interviewed Reese Witherspoon?”
“I did.” Normally she’d be in blow-off mode, but he was clearly so self-conscious about his height, sitting there so still and hunched, with his elbows tucked into his sides and his hands folded in his lap, that she felt she owed him her attention. And he’d been such a gentleman earlier, giving up his seat.
“She’s doing that movie in town,” he said.
“Cell. I read the script. It’s amazing.”
“I’m glad to hear you think so.”
“Why’s that?”
“I wrote it.”
He stated this matter-of-factly, with neither arrogance nor a hint of delusion, but Sara still couldn’t help puckering her lips.
“What’s your name?”
“Peter Handel.”
She held out her palm. “L
icense, pal.”
He straightened a full two feet stuffing his hand down his pocket, then offered her his ID.
She promptly returned it. “Unbelievable.”
“That’s what I said when they picked the director.”
“Didn’t I read in Variety that it was a two-picture deal?”
“That’s correct.”
“The other’s in production too, isn’t it?”
“You’re looking at a lottery winner.”
“I’d have assumed a screenwriter with a couple green-lighted films wouldn’t be flying coach, much less Southwest.”
“After taxes and my agent’s commission, I decided to give up the private jet.”
“Still.”
“Who knows? Maybe both movies’ll tank and it’s back to the day job.”
“Which was?”
“Profesor de español.”
“Duh,” Sara said.
Peter’s features were angular, his cheeks indrawn: he was very blond, almost towheaded, and his bangs hung boyishly over his light eyes.
Sara gave him her card, promising to send him the article. “You must be crazy doing rewrites,” she added.
“I’ve flown more miles this year than in my entire life. But hey, who’s complaining? The kids’ college tuition is paid.”
“Amen. How many?”
“Three. One by my first wife, two by my second.”
“How is that?”
“The second marriage, or having three kids?”
“Both, I guess.”
“The second marriage is good, thanks, though our two daughters are only fourteen months apart.”
“How old?”
“Four and three.”
“Yikes.”
“When people saw Cynthia with a baby bump and an eight-month-old, they’d ask me when we found out we were pregnant again. To which I’d answer, ‘When I came home and she started throwing shit at me.’ ”
Sara laughed. “I cannot imagine.”
“It’s like having one big baby, really. Except its right side is underdeveloped and sort of drag-foots along.”
The attendant handed Sara her orange juice, then Peter his Coke.
“As for my first daughter, Maxine—”
“Great name.”
“Thanks.”
“By the first marriage?”
He nodded. “The divorce hasn’t been easy on her. She’s eleven now—we were very young when she was born—and she misses me. Also blames me for the entire thing. She lives with her mom in St. Louis. Glenda wanted to be near her family after we split, so I’m between here and there pretty often.”
“That must be hard.”
“It is. But I’m flush with Southwest drink coupons, and introducing Max to George Clooney and Zac Efron has healed many wounds.”
“Efron’s in the other film?”
“Can I tell you a secret? I had no idea who he was until last year.”
“You are a lottery winner.”
“Yet I remain humble and hardworking.”
“Maybe I should be interviewing you.”
“I kind of thought you were.”
“So tell me about the movie.”
“It’s called Fifty States. It’s about a kid who in his freshman year of high school meets his true love, but they split up because his father’s a traveling salesman and he ends up going to school in all fifty states. To deal with his heartbreak, he takes on the identity of each place he lives, so in DC he runs for class president, in Montana he becomes a cowboy, in Hawaii a surfer. Anyway, his true love’s a military brat who travels all over too, and by a complete fluke they reunite in South Beach, where Efron’s gotten into the club scene and decided to assume his most daunting identity yet.”
“Which is?”
“Drag queen.”
Sara chuckled. “Complications ensue.”
“The last act’s like Some Like It Hot and The Birdcage rolled together.”
Smiling, she stared out the window at the green-brown quilt of farmland, not a single road in sight. She forgot for a moment where she was going and why. The thought of Rob, her second child, came to her, how he’d often appear at her desk, ask if she was still working, and then sit facing her after she’d lifted him onto her lap, slapping her cheeks with his palms. “All right,” she’d tell him. “I can take a break.” He’d lay on her chest, or she’d turn him around to watch the screen as she typed. She loved to smell his scalp, especially when it was hot and slightly sweaty, his scent revivifying her. She then considered Tanner, whom last week she’d watched play tennis with Dale, himself pretty accomplished, at the Central Park courts, chuckling when he aped Nadal’s mannerisms before every serve, fastidiously tucking his hair behind his ears as he stood at the line. His strokes were still herky-jerky, but three years from now, she thought, he’d be trouncing Dale. She recalled one crosscourt blast so viciously angled it made his father drop his racquet and applaud, looking at her as if to share this harbinger of his doom, a gesture that also gave her a sense of her husband as a boy himself. The three of them walked back to the apartment together, and to her amazement Tanner held hands with them both, and Dale pressed a finger to his lips when she glanced up. She tried to pinpoint the last time they’d made love and was surprised she could. It was about two weeks ago, on a Saturday night, after the opening of the New York Film Festival. They often found each other like this, emerging from dreams, and there was something so purely efficient about their foreplay, the opposite of rote, that enclosed them and reminded her of why they’d fallen in love, the shape and stiffness of Dale’s cock as familiar to her as her own hand, the length of their lovemaking perfectly adapted to their middle age, their endurance, and their ever-so-slightly-waning need for this pleasure, its variation over time as subtle and unnoticeable as the changing shape of a spouse’s face.
“Is that why you’re going to St. Louis?” Sara asked. “To see your daughter?”
“Actually,” Peter said, “my ex-father-in-law’s getting remarried.”
“And you’re attending the wedding?”
“Yup.”
“You, sir, are one rare bird.”
“Hey, I love the guy. I was as sad to lose him as I was my wife.”
“It doesn’t sound to me like you did.”
“No, but it changed things.”
“Is your father alive?”
“Yes, but we aren’t close. We’re very different.”
“How so?”
“Too long a story to tell,” he said.
Here, she thought, was a nerve best left alone.
“Anyway, my father-in-law and I just connected, you know? We played a lot of golf together too. He has three daughters himself and was thrilled to have another guy around. But he’s had terrible luck with women until now.”
The captain asked everyone to check their seat belts; they’d be landing in St. Louis shortly.
“Is this his second marriage?”
“His fourth. His first wife, my ex’s mother, committed suicide. She was bipolar and shot herself—with his rifle, no less. He returned from a business trip to find her dead in their gazebo. She’d been up and down psychologically for years but lately seemed to have turned a corner, on a new medication, and then …” He snapped his fingers. “They found fifteen notes for friends and family in his study. She’d been planning her death for months.”
“That’s terrible.”
“It gets worse. Less than a year later he got remarried, to a true saint who taught at my wife’s elementary school, and she got killed in a car accident only months after the ceremony. Not surprisingly, he went into emotional lockdown afterward, which only made him a more desirable bachelor.”
“Why’s that?”
“Because women love a challenge.”
“Are you really going to hit me with the myth of the unattainable man?”
“It’s been my experience that only two kinds of men succeed with women: those who hate them, and those w
ho love them.”
“Don’t forget those who happen to be rich.”
“Well, he’s also really successful. He began in the trucking business but then started a logistics company that coordinates the transportation of temperature-sensitive materials all over the world.”
“Maybe you should introduce him to me.”
“You’re both already taken. Anyway, where was I? Ah. Tragedy temporarily made him a hater, so—”
The plane touched down. The sky had gone gray and the flags along the runway were puffed conical with the breeze.
“Oh, well,” Peter said. “I’ll save it for another flight. Suffice it to say that after marrying a gold-digging harridan—and there’s a really Gothic story, mind you, with affairs and drug dealers and people getting wired by the FBI—he finally met a woman whom he loves and who loves him back.”
“I’m glad.”
“Me too. Wow.”
“What?”
“That went fast. I talked a lot.”
“I asked a lot of questions,” Sara said.
“This always happens to me on flights. It’s like therapy. The honesty. The openness.”
“It’s the anonymity. It lowers your defenses. Plus I’m a professional.”
“Clearly.”
They’d arrived at the gate, the signal gonged, and passengers immediately filled the aisles. It always tickled Sara, this hurry to stand.
“One more question,” she said.
“All right.”
“Why did your first marriage end?”
Peter seemed to have anticipated this, rubbing his upper lip while considering his answer.
“Actually,” Sara said, “I’m sorry. That was inappropriate.”
“Don’t apologize. The truth is, I wouldn’t have time to tell you the whole story even if I was going on to LA.”
She touched his forearm, and he glanced at her fingers resting there. He shook his head, shrugging, crossed his arms, and leaned toward her. “I had an affair,” he said, lowering his voice. “Which is cart before the horse, okay? It wasn’t the reason, I mean.” He cleared his throat. “The reason, the reasons. The fucking lack of reason. Maybe it’s a guy thing, but in spite of all the fights my ex and I had, all the problems and the history, I’ll tell you what: the moment I slept with this other woman, I knew my marriage was over.” There was bitter resignation in his voice. Then he stood up, towering above everyone around them. “Anyway,” he said, “good luck.”
