by Nina Solomon
“Ms. Brookman,” he said, bowing slightly from the hip. “I will be forever indebted to you.” As he spoke, Grace detected a hint of Maurice Chevalier in his voice, a whiff of aftershave in the bracing air. Penelope all but swooned. Grace felt herself immediately disarmed and became even more defensive. She took Penelope aside.
“Do you know who this is?” Grace whispered.
“Of course, I do. He told me the whole story.”
“Penelope, allow me,” Mr. Dubrovsky said, patting her lightly on the arm. “May I call you Grace?” he asked. Grace didn’t respond. The whole situation was ludicrous, even by the reality-lax standards of her life, but she remained, in the hopes that it might somehow begin to make sense. He continued. “I must apologize for having deceived you. When Griffin’s mother, Merrin, called and asked me to locate Mr. Brookman, I had no idea how entangled this situation would become. If I have caused you any injury, I am sorry and I would like to try to make amends. But my involvement with you has indeed changed my life. If not for you, I would never have found my Penelope.”
“Oh, Adrian,” Penelope said, nuzzling his neck. Grace felt herself about to sneeze, that nose-tickling sensation when things seemed right. Grace pictured the three of them strolling around the reservoir, admiring the cherry blossoms the following spring. Even Griffin and Kane along with Chloe and Pete popped into view like a Japanese paper fan opening to its full peacocklike splendor.
“I have your book,” she told him.
“I have no need for it now,” he answered, linking Grace’s arm in his, as they continued down the path.
WHEN GRACE ENTERED her building, she knew something was amiss. José was directing people to the stairwells, and the fire doors were propped open. Instead of the usual overhead lights, there were lanterns placed along the corridor.
“Happy New Year, Mrs. Brookman,” José said as she walked into the lobby.
“Thank you, José. Happy New Year to you, too. Why is it so dark in here?”
“When they shut down the elevators, the whole building blacked out. The generator is on a timer. Should come on about twelve-thirty, one o’clock. What a night! And the people in 10J were having a karaoke party.”
Grace walked up the stairs to her apartment. A lantern had been placed at the top of each landing, and she noticed her shadow growing longer and longer with each step.
She opened her door, then walked into the kitchen. On the table, in front of Laz’s place, was a folded napkin and knife, a half-filled glass of water was on the counter. She must have placed it there absently. Old habits, she realized, were hard to break. She could have kept up the pretense in her sleep. Opening the utility closet, she took out a flashlight, a perfunctory gesture since due to Marisol’s reorganization, there was really no need for light. She could find anything, even with her eyes closed.
In the distance, she heard fireworks. She went to the window and watched the muffled pyrotechnics display. Everyone was ringing in the New Year—Penelope and Adrian were no doubt toasting at the finish line; her parents and the Sugarmans would be squabbling about how much they would pay for Francine’s chocolate mousse, all over a cup of low-cholesterol eggnog; and somewhere, Laz, too, was celebrating, even if by proxy. Tonight she and Laz were supposed to have been at Lincoln Center. Laz had written Contact in his date book. Grace had always wanted to see that play.
Although it was not late, she was exhausted. She threw off her coat and left her clothes on the bedroom floor. Then she collapsed into bed.
She was awakened by a dream so vivid that she felt every muscle in her body vibrating. It was as if Laz were inside her mind and body. He spoke to her through synapses that she thought had been sealed off: I’ll never leave you again. She heard the words like a distant melody. They were the very words she’d imagined in her head day after day, the words she would have had him say if she could have orchestrated his homecoming as precisely as she had perfected his presence.
I’m here, Gracie. I’m home for good. I’m never going to leave you again. The words reverberated in her head.
So hard had she wished to hear those words, and for so long, yet something about them rang false. She was sweating. She felt a weight on her chest. Suddenly, the bedside light went on as if José, himself, had switched it on from some central circuit breaker. She opened her eyes and realized she was neither dreaming nor hallucinating—Laz was lying next to her. It was not a phantom of him, air-brushed and absent of anything as unseemly as a stray hair follicle, body odor, rough hands, a too-studied look, or a masking smile, but Laz in the flesh. He was almost unrecognizable. A stranger was in her bed.
Laz lifted her hair off the nape of her neck and kissed her the way he had on the ski lift. She shut her eyes, and it was as if no time had passed and her feet were once again off the ground. She opened her eyes and saw herself reflected in his pupils.
“Happy New Year, sweetness. I love you,” he said, rolling onto his back. His voice was low and slightly hoarse. “I’m so sorry. I put you through hell. But you know how I am—it was just too much for me. I couldn’t take it. But none of that matters anymore. Not even the Pulitzer. What matters is that we’re back together. And we always will be. This is only the beginning. I promise. I need you now more than ever.” He closed his eyes. Grace pictured his side of the bed in the morning—a rumpled, twisted frenzy—unsure that he could produce evidence of himself as finely wrought as she had. “I missed you so much. I promise things will be different. You’re the only one I’ve ever loved.”
He kissed her again and wrapped his arms around her. She was about to tell him it was as if he’d never left, when he fell asleep.
The flash from the lights going on had distorted Grace’s vision, making everything she looked at glow green, like a modern-day, urban Emerald City. But she hadn’t been torn away from home in the wake of Laz’s tornado. She was already home, no more or less now than ever.
She put her head on the pillow, staring at the ceiling. The man before her was not the one she had been expecting. She had finally come to herself. The dream was what she had thought she had wanted all along, and now that it had arrived, she was free to let it go.
AT DAWN, GRACE slipped out of bed to make a cup of tea and to get José’s coffee. It had become her ritual, but today she prepared it in an earthenware mug that Marisol had found in the music cabinet. The mug had been filled with pencil stubs and rubber bands. Grace knew she was supposed to feel unencumbered by her uncluttered apartment—no more secrets hiding in crevices, no mysteries, no surprises under the bed, nothing lost along the way, no treasures undiscovered. Everything in its place. She should have experienced something of a catharsis, but instead, she felt an absence. It had been her clutter, her circuitous route, detours and all. She just hadn’t realized it until now.
The living room was ablaze as the Christmas tree and the Duro-Lites blinked in unison. She left them on and went into the bedroom to put on her motorcycle boots, taking care not to wake Laz. He was a sound sleeper. The room smelled different to her, as if she’d forgotten their particular alchemy of pheromones. She opened the window a crack and then went to stand by the door. He was home. His legs dangled off the side of the bed, the sheet twisted underneath him. His watch was on the nightstand, his shoes and pants in a corner by the ottoman. Generic details, totally lacking imagination and flourish. If she hadn’t heard the sound of his breathing, she would barely have known he was there.
She ripped a page out of one of her blank books. Glad you’re back, but I’m sorry, I can’t stay. I don’t live here anymore. Grace.
She placed the note, her engagement ring, and wedding band next to the orchid on the dining room table, and left her clay sculpture of the woman rising from the chair alongside, directly in the spotlight of the Duro-Lites. Then she took her grandmother’s afghan, along with Mr. Dubrovsky’s copy of Oblomov—which she would finish this time—and went downstairs to bring José his coffee before venturing out into a driving rain, as prepa
red as she ever needed to be.
Acknowledgments
I owe a debt of gratitude to those people in my life—my angels, mentors, and friends—who gave me the courage to stay on the path. To my stellar editors, Andra Olenik and Elisabeth Scharlatt, for their inspired vision and dedication to this book. To Patricia Bozza, for her keen attention to detail. To my agent, Irene Skolnick, for making this all happen. With admiration and respect to Kaylie Jones, for her unswerving faith and insight. And to Betsy Crane, for her friendship and example.
Many thanks to my constant readers and advisors: Tim McLoughlin, Renette Zimmerly, Janine Veto, Pamela Brandt Jackson, Adam Levin, Christopher Rothko, and Thane Rosenbaum. To Betsy and Richard Shuster, the truest of friends, for allowing me to bring Grace with me everywhere, even to poker night. To Michael Fleisher, for helping me see what I couldn’t. To John Lippert, Jennifer Reicher, Carole Ridley, and Richard Zabel, for always being there.
And with love to my mother and father.
Published by
Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill
Post Office Box 2225
Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27515-2225
a division of
Workman Publishing
225 Varick Street
New York, New York 10014
© 2003 by Nina Solomon. All rights reserved.
This is a work of fiction. While, as in all fiction, the literary perceptions and insights are based on experience, all names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. No reference to any real person is intended or should be inferred.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available for a previous edition of this work.
E-book ISBN 978-1-56512-833-0
