The Collected Stories of Deborah Eisenberg

by Deborah Eisenberg

  “This is perfect,” Rosie says.

  “Just as well,” Harris says, sitting down in the little chair. “Probably is no lemon.”

  Rosie selects a tea bag and puts it in the cup. She looks up at Harris; he’s watching her. She pours the water out from the teapot, and nearly chokes from the stench of synthetic fruit. Harris frowns worriedly. “O.K.?” he says.

  Rosie nods. “Perfect.”

  “Things really do fall apart back there when Elizabeth’s away,” he says. “Not that Elizabeth’s all that domestic. But she is very…”

  Rosie looks demurely at her teacup.

  “…well organized,” he says. “Funny to remember, but there was a time, back in our very first place, when we used to cook a lot. Pent house, miles of terrace. That was all back then, when people did that. You wouldn’t remember, probably. Maybe your parents were into it.”

  Jesus fucking Christ, Rosie thinks. Who on earth might he imagine her parents to be?

  “Little dinner parties,” he says. “Sort of a blood sport. Everything just right. Very competitive. Stakes escalating…” He laughs. “Seriously, though, it was grim…”

  And how on earth old does he imagine her to be?

  He’s got the facts all wrong. But, Rosie thinks, only the facts. This man has some quality that works like intuition. It’s confidence. Or generosity of a sort. He seems to believe he has only to say something in order for her to understand it; that he’ll understand whatever it is she might say…

  He’s tapped into some great, generous reserve—the ocean that flows around everyone, between everyone, rolling like a heartbeat, making big, comforting, heartbeat sounds, oceanic sounds…approbation, pleasure…

  Mr. Gage and Mr. Peralta, the men she used to work for, were so nervous—as if they were afraid that she or one of the other secretaries would suddenly speak up. Calm down, guys, Rosie could have told them; no fear of that. What do you think those suits of yours are for? Those sad, furry suits…The shirt Harris is wearing right now probably cost what any of those suits did.

  “I wonder where these things disappear to,” Harris is saying. “These trends, or whatever you want to call them. You do something all the time, and then one day you’re telling somebody about the things you used to do. It’s peculiar, getting older.” He smiles at Rosie. “I’d advise against it. Oh, well, who has time for those little dinners? Who can afford that sort of thing these days? More expensive than eating out every night. Which is pretty much what we do now. Well, or order in, actually. Elizabeth gets sick of it, but to tell you the truth I’d much rather have Chinese in those cardboard things than one of those grand—just something from the deli. A sandwich…”

  “Pastrami sandwich,” Rosie says.

  “Pastrami sandwich,” he agrees. “In bed. Hmm!” He stands up impatiently, and walks over to the window. “Light so late.”

  Rosie looks at him. “I should probably leave,” she says.

  “No, no,” he says. “Not at all. Finish your tea.”

  For a moment there’s disastrously nothing to say. It would be rude to just run now, Rosie thinks; it would make him feel that he’d been rude. “Aren’t you going to have some, too?” Rosie manages. “Tea?”

  “Hmm,” Harris says. “Or something. Now, that’s a thought.”

  Rosie swings her feet over the side of the bed.

  “Easy does it,” he says.

  What he seems to want, it turns out, is not really to hustle her away but to resettle her in the living room. “More comfortable here, yes?” he says. “Less like death’s door.”

  She’s curled up on some divan-type thing, and he’s given her an astonishingly soft little blanket—cashmere, she thinks—to tuck around her feet.

  “So, tell me,” he says, as he makes himself a drink. “Tell me something. Who are you? What are you?”

  Rosie looks at him.

  “Quite a sight, you realize. Strolling into your own room and there’s a dying artist on the bed.”

  “I’m feeling better,” Rosie says.

  “Good,” Harris says.

  “Really much better.”

  “I notice,” Harris says, “that you’re evading my subtle but probing questions. No matter—I’ll try another. Are you…let’s see…in art school?”

  Rosie hesitates. “Actually, I’m not in school at all anymore.”

  “Um-hmm,” he says. He waits for a moment, taking a sip of his drink. “So, you are no longer in school, and now you are…”

  Rosie shakes her head, and gestures helplessly.

  “Biding your time,” Harris says. “Just biding your time…”

  “Yes…” Rosie says.

  “And painting while you’re doing it…That’s a nice thing to be able to do—paint…”

  Rosie looks down at the undrinkable reddish liquid in her teacup.

  “But it must be very interesting, what you do,” she says.

  “Not really,” he says. “It’s really rather boring, most of the time over here on our side. Tense, but boring. Elizabeth gets some of the fun—travel, dinners, armies at her command…I just sit here.” He smiles at Rosie. “Oh, not to complain. The situations, I suppose you’d call them, in my line can be quite…There are some real pirates out there, I’ll tell you. Rascals. Real buccaneers. Of course, you don’t know how some of those characters can live with themselves.”

  He doesn’t look bored, Rosie notes; a little smile has crept over his face as he thinks about it all.

  “Much better to be a painter,” he says. “You’ve got to be able to look at yourself in the mirror. Well. And is that your beau?”

  “My…?” she begins.

  “The other painter. Your beau?”

  “Oh,” she says. “Jamie?” Harris is holding his drink up so that the ice casts strange reflections on the wall. “No, Jamie’s just a friend.”

  “Ah ha,” Harris says.

  The potent, otherworldly aroma of paint pervades even this room faintly. Rosie leans back, shutting her eyes, and breathes it in. Maybe it’s coming from her.

  “I understand, from the decorator, that he’s very serious about his art.”

  “Very,” Rosie says, happily; Harris doesn’t even know Morgan’s name! “But people don’t buy his paintings much. It’s discouraging…”

  “Of course,” Harris says. “It must be hard not to lose heart…but I suppose you all must really love what you do.”

  Rosie bows her head. Poor Jamie; lucky Jamie.

  It’s twilight, she notices—twilight has drifted into the room like a fragrance, entwining with the smell of the oils. “So. You’re feeling better?” Harris says.

  “Oh,” Rosie says. “I should—”

  “Because if you are, maybe you’d like a drink.”

  She looks at him. “Well, yes, actually. Actually, I would.”

  He pours another for himself and one of whatever it is for her. “I drink so rarely these days,” he says. “Mostly when Elizabeth’s away. The thing is, drinking makes me crazy for a cigarette.”

  Rosie smiles.

  “Would you be horrified?” he says.

  She shakes her head.

  “Because I happen to know where Elizabeth hides them.”

  He leaves the room and comes back in a moment, flourishing one. “We quit together years ago, but I happen to know she still sneaks one from time to time.” He wiggles an eyebrow at Rosie. “The sneak. Oh, damn—” he says, looking around.

  “Matches?” Rosie says. “I’ve got matches—” She dives into her backpack. She’s sure there are some in there, from the old days. She comes up with a matchbook, opens it, bends a match over, and strikes it, holding it out for Harris.

  For an instant, his eyes flicker over the matches, half of them creased and blackened, then he inclines toward them and inhales, bringing the cigarette to life.

  He leans back, eyes closed, and exhales a rich plume. “Fantastic,” he says. He opens his eyes and smiles at her. “Back to the
subject. So. Where were we? Artists: not losing heart. Other painter: not your boyfriend…”

  “Well,” Rosie says. “I was going out with someone, but we broke up this winter.”

  “Pity,” Harris says.

  Rosie shrugs. Another life. Had she even really cared about Ian? No—her magic blood saw to its own cravings.

  Harris is looking at her. “Artist, too?”

  “Oh, no,” Rosie says. “Ian, never.”

  “And what was his field?”

  Rosie frowns. “Well,” she says. “Commodities, basically.”

  Harris inhales, and exhales luxuriously again. “Not for you, was it?” he says. “You found the life restricting?”

  “Yes, I guess…” Rosie says. “I was…Actually, I felt as if I weren’t even alive…”

  “Ah,” Harris says. “That’s the choice, isn’t it. That’s the question. I’m sure it seems very hard to you, an artist’s life. Restlessness, fear, discouragement…despair, yes? Even despair. While for people like me or your ex, it all seems to be under control. And in many ways, it all is under control. I’m sure you artistic types think we have it easy, and we do—aside from the normal quota of human misery, of course. But it’s all settled—it’s settled. We’ve answered the questions a certain way, we’ve made our choices. But then what? Not to say we aren’t…Not to say…which is all very well, but come my age a lot of men look around and say, ‘Wait, this is my life, it’s my only life, the only one I’m ever going to have.’ I know men whose lives were just perfect. Men who had a perfect life and just threw it all over. Left perfect wives, perfect jobs, perfect families…Because they just couldn’t resist some impulse. To spoil the perfect thing, is what some people say. But I think it’s more the thought of…we’re all going to die, do you see? Think of it, Rosie—the cold, the stillness, the finality…” He stubs out his cigarette. “Well. But you must know men like that.”

  For a moment they sit in silence. “It’s dark,” Harris says, in surprise, and switches on a lamp. “There. Let there be…You know, I’ve got so much stuff here I bet you’d really appreciate. Elizabeth and I aren’t collectors in any serious sense of the word, but we have picked up some awfully good things over the years, in my opinion. Should we see if you agree?”

  He takes her through the apartment, turning on little lights over paintings and drawings, which are now hung on all but the bedroom walls, and speaks of each one knowledgeably and lovingly. His hand rests on her shoulder, her wrist, the small of her back, as he shows her around, causing tears to come to her eyes and cruel little flames to flick at her bones, snapping around them like a lash. “What do you think of this?” he says, pausing in front of a painting.

  Rosie’s eyes clear, and the painting appears in front of her. “It’s wonderful…” she says, surprised. The painting’s alight; the whole room is alight. “Really wonderful…”

  “Yes, it’s wonderful,” he says. “That’s right. This is the one.” He gives her a pleased, brief little hug. “You’re very easy to talk to,” he says. “It’s absolutely frightening. I wish you didn’t have to go.”

  She stares at the painting in front of her. Its shapes leap and dance as Harris rests his hand on the back of her neck.

  “I just can’t tell what’s in your mind,” Harris says. “It’s an attractive quality, you know; I’ll bet you’re very attractive to men.”

  She shakes her head, slowly. Hot shame creeps up her skin as she thinks back to the sort of men she used to be attractive to, in the days when it was easier just to fuck the guy instead of having the tedious discussion about why you weren’t going to and then doing it anyhow, to get him to leave. “A long time ago,” she says, “there were a lot of men. But then, thank God, Ian came along.”

  “Hmm,” Harris says. His hand drops away. “Well,” he says again. But this time clearly, it’s an instruction: “I wish you didn’t have to go…”

  Rosie’s heart plunges. “I wish I didn’t, too,” she says, and steps obediently to the door.

  He holds it open and smiles, but when she looks up at him to see what she’s done wrong, his smile fades, and he folds his arms around her. “Going to be here this weekend?” he says into her ear.

  She rubs her cheek against his marvelous shirt; her heart is beating so furiously that for a moment she can’t speak. “Do you want my number at Jamie’s?” she says.

  “I do,” he says, and releases her. “I certainly do. Maybe we can…grab a pastrami sandwich—I’ll be at loose ends here till Tuesday evening.”

  Paper is waiting at a little maple desk. Rosie writes out her number, and when she hands it to him he puts his arms around her again, adjusts her slightly, and gives her a kiss more debilitating than whole encounters she’s had in bed; so graphic that, hours later, she’s still trembling.

  But he doesn’t call. It’s Sunday evening, and he still hasn’t called. Of course, it’s really only been two days. No, one day, really—Saturday.

  And yet there’s only Monday to go. Well, Monday, and Monday night. And Tuesday, of course—Tuesday during the day…before Elizabeth returns. At least during the day after Lupe leaves.

  “Think you might eat something ever again?” Jamie says, on a visit to the apartment. “Just as a favor to your fans? Or are you intending to spend the rest of your life in this room?”

  Rosie rolls over in bed to face the wall.

  He sighs. “Want to tell me what’s the matter?”

  “Nothing’s the matter,” she says. “Nothing. Just nothing.”

  After Jamie leaves, she gets herself into the tub, and stays, for hours, with her friend the duck bobbing blankly between patches of suds on the water’s dirty surface. Her skin is tormented from thinner, but she scrubs away at it, crying.

  Her friend the duck! She grabs it and hurls it into the corner, near the toilet. Could he have lost her number, possibly? Did he expect her to make the call? Well, but maybe he did, actually…What he’d said was he’d be at loose ends “until Tuesday evening.” And, actually, he might not have put it that way, in fact, exactly, if he wasn’t expecting her to make the call.

  When after the fourth ring he picks up the phone, she can hear a little scrap of voices even before he says hello; obviously he’s in the middle of dinner, or something. A conversation. Rosie uses her thumb to cut the connection, soundlessly. A jolly enough dinner, that’s for sure—they were laughing, all of them, whoever they were. Well, not all of them, exactly—the others were laughing; Harris, the fact is…was chewing.

  Three cheers for Mrs. Howell’s Fiorinal. It’s eradicated the time perfectly. And Rosie has finally, after all these months, got a truly decent sleep. Two dear little pills took care of Sunday night, then three eliminated Monday, and only five more, actually, were needed to roll Wednesday morning right up to Rosie’s bedside.

  For several hours now, Rosie has had to stand up and walk and talk—and she’s been able to, though her hangover still makes an odd, gauzy curtain over everything in view. Just as well: the view has included Elizabeth; the great, rumpled bed, all its noisy turmoil exposed in the glare of Lupe’s day off; and, of course, Harris. Who could not have been friendlier or more pleasant, to Rosie and Jamie as well as to Morgan.

  The five of them have stood together, looking at the bedroom walls. There’s no doubt that Morgan is satisfied, although, Rosie notes through her hangover, he’s more muted—softer—than usual; it’ll probably be some time till he runs into Jamie again. And Elizabeth is clearly pleased, in her surgical way. And, naturally, it’s all just fine with Harris.

  They’re quiet for a minute or so, turned toward the glinting blue out the window as if a trance had fallen over them. Elizabeth speaks dreamily into the silence. “Let’s get a boat next summer, darling. Let’s get a boat and go sailing off, right into the sky…”

  “We’ll discuss this,” Harris says.

  Elizabeth laughs. “Sloth,” she says affectionately. “You know you’ll love it…”

  T
hey make their goodbyes. Morgan delivers his gracious little speech of thanks to Jamie, and, as Elizabeth begins her gracious little speech of thanks to Morgan, Harris takes Rosie’s hands in both of his and looks at her. “The important thing,” he says in a low, vibrant voice, “is to keep painting, Rosie…Trust your talent. Trust your future.” And he gives her a special little smile—formal, final, but just for her. She’ll see that smile more vividly, she knows, in the starkness of memory, when the curtain rises.

  “It’s been real,” Jamie says to a wall, and turns to Rosie. “Ready?”

  “Just a moment,” Rosie says. “Let me wash my hands.”

  The slip glimmers as though it’s been waiting for her; it tumbles into her arms as she touches it. A rescue? Oh, no, not at all. Rosie stuffs it violently into her backpack as she will later stuff it violently to the rear of Vincent’s dusty shelves, and then, she assures herself, she’ll never give these people another thought.

  But what will they think, Elizabeth and Harris? Or, to put it more precisely, what will Elizabeth think, and what will Harris think? Because—Rosie removes a fleck of paint from the faucet—they’ll be thinking about her, all right. They will. Yes, let them think about her…

  Mermaids

  “Good? Not good?” Mr. Laskey said. “What do you say, girls?”

  “Kiss kiss,” Alice said, making two spoons kiss, and Janey was just staring rudely into space, so it fell to Kyla (as it had all day) to make things all right. “It’s perfect,” she assured Mr. Laskey, and, true, the old-fashioned gleam and clatter, the waitresses in their pastel uniforms, the glass dishes with their ice-cream spheres, the other little groups of wealthy tourists and even New Yorkers, all of this would be exactly what her mother was back home picturing.

  Spring vacation had been hurtling down toward Kyla for weeks and weeks, at first just a fleck troubling the margin of her vision, then closer and larger and faster until it smashed into place, obliterating everything that wasn’t itself, and Kyla’s mother was dropping her off at the Laskeys’, where they were waiting for her, and Mrs. Laskey was smoothing Janey’s dress and giving little Alice a hug, and for one fractured and repeating moment Kyla was saying goodbye to Richie Laskey, and then the car door shut Kyla in with Alice and Janey and Mr. Laskey, and Mrs. Laskey and Richie were waving goodbye, and Alice began to cry at the top of her lungs, as though she were being snatched away by killers. “Oh, grow up, Alice,” Janey said.