“I saw your name on my phone, and I swear I started to speed. I am lucky I didn’t get a ticket. I already have points on my license and holy fuck I need this job. I’m going to your reading tonight. I am so fucking psyched Zahid Azzam is in the back of my car. You made my year. Seriously.”
It was a clean car, but nothing special. An old Honda. It was no town car. I did not merit such treatment. I used to be treated like a star, but obviously I was no Salman Rushdie.
“A reading?” I asked her.
As far as I was aware, I had not agreed to that. I was interviewing for a job that, according to Kristi, was already mine. I would teach a class tomorrow, go out for lunch with the head of the department. Now they wanted me to read. Didn’t I have to fucking agree to that? Probably I fucking had. I had only half listened to Kristi, trusting that she would take care of the details. Well, fuck. Fine. I would read to them. I had packed my suit. I had my new pages.
“Yeah,” she said. “Didn’t you know?”
“I must have forgotten.”
“Everyone is going,” she said. “Well, a lot of people aren’t on campus for the summer, but everyone who is here.”
“How old are you?” I asked her, curious, comparing her to Rachel.
“Twenty-six,” she said.
I shook my head. Fuck, Rachel was young.
“How old are you?” she asked.
I was thirty-six.
“That’s a good number,” my driver said.
“Why?”
“I don’t know. There is a nice quality to it. Six times six. Twelve times three. Four times nine.”
“I thought you were a writer.”
My driver laughed. “Next year, thirty-seven, is a prime number, so watch out. That’s unlucky.”
“Huh,” I said. I wondered if I was required to talk anymore. I closed my eyes and my driver seemed to get the hint.
Earlier this summer, in Pakistan, my mother had asked me when I was going to get married. When I was going to start having babies. She no longer cared if I married a Muslim woman. She was past religion. She was almost as American as I was. She bought her clothes at the Gap and Old Navy. She just wanted grandkids. She said that it was long past time to be over my broken engagement.
Often, when I thought of my fiancée, my mind flashed to all of the presents we had to return. So many good, expensive things. I had kept a Le Creuset pot when I found out how much it would cost to put it in the mail. I am a man but I had always wanted that big orange pot. I was the one who’d put it on the registry.
I had thought I would miss her, my beautiful and talented fiancée, but I did not miss her. I missed the life. But as far as babies went, there I was lucky, at least, to be a man. I did not have to worry about my eggs going bad. Becca, of course, would not be having any more babies. My mother would not like that.
“Oh, Mom.”
I realized I might have said it out loud. I did not want to have any babies.
My driver laughed.
Yes, I had said it out loud.
I had to put my dancing shoes on.
Why was I such a fucking mess? I needed a few more weeks in Connecticut. All that equanimity. All that good health. Fresh air and good food. Good sex. I was swimming laps every day. I could swim a length of the pool underwater without taking a breath. I could do a flip turn. I had made significant improvements. I was not ready for this next step. I did not want to have a job. I was a writer, for Christ’s sake.
Here I was.
Iowa City.
Was this where my life was leading me?
Was I a little bit self-pitying? Could I bear to hear Kristi mock me to my face? I was tempted to ask my driver to take me back to the airport. She would do it, of course. She would have a story to tell tonight at the local bar where the grad students hung out.
“You’re here,” my driver said. “This is Professor Taylor’s house. Are you okay?”
It was like the plane, again, déjà vu. All of these women, rushing me along, wanting things. Do this. Do that. Why did I not have any male friends? And there was Kristi, stepping out of a small white house. Her hair was wet, long and dark, a single braid soaking the shirt above her breast. Kristi Taylor. It had been too long. Why had I thought I could live without her?
“Zahid,” she said with a grin.
I got out of the car and she ran to me, wrapped me in her arms.
“It’s been too long,” she said.
I kissed her hair.
One day, someday, Kristi was going to regret letting me go.
Khloe
The phone was ringing and ringing.
“What?” Jane groaned, sitting up, looking for her cell phone. It was my phone. My fucking sister, Kristi, trying to ruin my life. I answered, but didn’t say a word. I kissed Jane lightly on the lips and she returned my kiss.
“Shhh,” I said. “You are still asleep. Go back to sleep.”
I took the phone into the kitchen.
“Khloe, is that you? Are you there, Khloe? Khloe?”
“What, Kristi?” I said. I didn’t have to take the call, I realized. But it was too late now. “What do you want at ten in the morning?”
I wished that our parents had given us different names. Names that did not have that ridiculous alliteration. Khloe and Kristi. It was a twin thing, something done to us by my idiot parents, a tradition inflicted upon twins since time began. Kristi had always complained that I had the better name. She was right. I did have the much better name, even if it was constantly spelled wrong. My mother randomly liked the K’s, as if the unusual spelling would make us that much more special. Jane was asleep in my bed. There was nothing Kristi could do that would spoil that.
“It’s nine in the morning in Iowa.”
“Of course it is,” I said. “What do you want?”
“What do you mean, what do you want?”
“I mean you are calling me, so you must want something.”
“Can’t I just want to talk to you?”
“Yes, you might want to talk to me, but you probably also have a reason.”
“I don’t have to have a reason,” Kristi said.
“But you probably do.”
Sometimes, I got a kick out of being obnoxious. I did it at work, too. I liked to mess with the heads of the other analysts. The news had been overflowing with sexual harassment stories, and it was working out for me. Everyone was being extra careful. On their best behavior. No one grabbed my ass anymore and I was going to get promoted soon, I could feel it in my bones. This meant more money. More money to spend on Jane. I would take her on vacations. She had complained, more than once, about how low her salary was. But I was getting ahead of myself.
“Can I tell you something good?” I said to Kristi. “Something really good.”
“Yes, of course,” Kristi said. “Tell me.”
“But what about what you want to tell me?”
“It’s not important,” Kristi said. “I don’t have anything to tell you.”
“Yes, you do,” I said.
“Well, okay, I do, but you go first.”
“You called me,” I said.
“Khloe.”
“Kristi.”
I laughed. I was so fucking happy, that’s what I was realizing. Jane had actually listened to me, it was a small thing, but she’d gone back to sleep. We had had a lot to drink last night. And thank God for alcohol. I wanted to scream from the rooftops. I really did. I was grinning. I pressed the phone between my ear and shoulder and I made coffee. I was a talented person. I had skills: finance, lovemaking, making coffee.
“Guess who is sleeping in my bed right now?”
“Ooh,” Kristi said. “This has to be someone good. I know. I know. Keri Russell. Is it Keri Russell?”
“No,�
�� I said, laughing. “But that’s a good guess.”
Keri Russell lived in Brooklyn, reportedly in the same neighborhood as Zahid’s apartment, and I had had a crush on her since Felicity. She was hot in The Americans, with her straight hair and martial arts skills, but she was completely unattainable, remarried with kids.
“Better,” I said. “It’s Jane.”
“Jane, the babysitter?” Kristi said.
“Yes.”
“Seriously?”
“Seriously.”
“Oh my God, Khloe.” I could actually hear Kristi clapping her hands. “I am so happy for you.”
I nodded. I was biting my lip. I shouldn’t have told Kristi. It was too soon. It was last night. I put on a short dress and met Winifred at a literary party in Chelsea, and went home with Jane instead, the true target of my affection. There was good music playing at the party. There was dancing. There were unlimited mojitos.
The jealousy plan had worked better than I could have anticipated. Jane and I had taken the subway back to Brooklyn together, fingers entwined, not looking at each other. Knowing. Knowing what we were going to do. We had left Winnie in tears, shouting at us, “I am not even gay. I don’t care. I am not gay.” And I think a gay writer might have thrown his drink at her. It was an amazing party. At literary parties, I had discovered, everyone got good and drunk.
I had thought Jane would change her mind, every step of the way, on the subway, when I was fumbling for the key to the apartment, taking off Jane’s dress, kneeling in front of her, pulling down her underwear. I knew just what I wanted to do, I had imagined it for so long, and she didn’t stop me. And now, she was asleep in my bed. It occurred to me that I should have a hangover, but I didn’t. I felt great.
I sat down on the floor, watching the coffee percolate.
“How?” Kristi said.
“I was flirting with this girl she was with. She got jealous. That’s what did it.”
“You are so bad, Khloe,” Kristi said.
“I know.”
“I can’t believe it,” Kristi said.
“I know.”
For a while, we didn’t say anything.
Seriously, I had achieved one of my life goals. It was a little bit scary. Where did I go from there? I had slept with my babysitter, something I had dreamed about for years and years. I wanted it to be more, of course. This was not a drunken hookup. This was real. I was in love.
I looked at the closed bedroom door, reassured. Jane couldn’t sneak by me, make a fast exit unnoticed.
I had not expected this. I had genuinely planned on going home with Winnie. I was curious, actually, about her apartment. Her life. She did not seem real to me, too perfect to be true. I wished I could have been born into family money.
“This is epic,” Kristi said. “Epic.”
“You are not allowed to write about this.”
“Awww.”
“I am serious, little sister.”
I had told Kristi about the first time I slept with a woman and she put it in a short story and then, later, in the novel that had made her almost famous. The character in her novel had been molested by her babysitter, something I had never told Kristi about. There was no way she could have known. The girl’s twin sister had died of some random illness not long after birth, as if somehow that made it okay. Kristi could not be trusted. I made this mistake over and over.
“It is so romantic,” Kristi said. “You have had a crush on her forever.”
“It is romantic,” I said, with a long sigh. I guess I had wanted to tell someone in order to believe that it was true.
Part of me was also afraid that it wasn’t even flirting with Winnie that had precipitated this enormous event. It was Zahid Azzam. It was that I was living in his apartment. I was afraid that my babysitter thought she was somehow getting closer to her writer by being with me. She had had sex, for instance, in Zahid Azzam’s bed. That sounded weird, but Jane wasn’t weird. She was ambitious. I could totally believe that Jane had ulterior motives. That was something Jane and I had in common. We were both ambitious. She could try to use me, but I couldn’t help her in the Zahid Azzam department. I had fed her some day-old lentils. Her orgasms were real.
“Why did you sigh?” Kristi said.
“I don’t know,” I said. “I guess I am worried. It’s brand-new. I shouldn’t have told you.”
“No, no,” Kristi said. “It’s good. Of course you should have told me. Who else would you tell? Who else would understand?”
It was true. No one else would understand. I stared at the closed door.
“Why did you call?”
“Actually, it’s sort of connected,” Kristi said. “Maybe.”
“What?”
“Well, it’s about Zahid.”
Normally I would have no interest in Zahid Azzam. But whatever I found out now, Jane would want to know. Jane might not have slept with me if I did not live in his apartment. How was I supposed to know?
“Okay. Tell me.”
“Well, Zahid is here, now.”
“In Iowa?”
“Yeah,” Kristi said. “He came for an interview. He gave a reading yesterday. He read new stuff. It was terrific. They are going to offer him the job. Isn’t that amazing?”
“Is it?”
Wasn’t Jane anticipating him back to New York in September? The summer was going by so quickly. It was already August. I had spent June and July working. I was going to call a real-estate agent. I had been saving money. I could rent a nice two-bedroom. Jane could move in. She could bring her books. Her cat.
The coffee was ready. I got up and poured myself a cup, poured half-and-half into my coffee.
“What this means,” Kristi said, “is that you can stay in Zahid’s apartment, probably for another year if you want it.”
I nodded. I could stay in Zahid Azzam’s apartment and fuck his editor, my babysitter. I had to stop thinking of her that way. We were equals now. I was a grown-up. I made more money than she did. I wore better clothes. Her underwear was a disgraceful mess. Mismatched, cotton, a hole in the crotch. I closed my eyes. I took my first sip of coffee. It was good. I loved good coffee.
“What about his dog?” I asked.
“His dog?” Kristi asked. “The dog is with this rich woman in Connecticut. Wow, now that I think about it, this job is better than I thought. I have to get Zahid away from her.”
“Why?”
Zahid had gone to Connecticut to check on his dog and he’d never come back. I had thought he would be trouble, the situation with his apartment, his need to sleep somewhere, but he wasn’t. He had stopped in once during the day while I was at work and packed some of his clothes. The apartment was mine.
Connecticut, he’d written in a note, is like a dream.
“Why?” Kristi said. “He does not need to be mixed up with some rich white woman with nothing better to do. She is cooking Zahid salmon.”
“That sounds awful.”
“She is giving him expensive wine. Letting him swim in her pool.”
“Really awful.”
The situation actually made sense to me. The man clearly needed someone to take care of him. Kristi was not a caretaker. I could attest to that. Sometimes, she might take a person on as a project, but she would grow frustrated when the person she set out to help did not cooperate. She would get angry then.
It was funny that she objected to the woman being white. This was a new thing for Kristi, always emphasizing her blackness. Publishing essays about being a black person mistaken for white. Only hanging around with people of color. People of color who might as well have been white: Ivy League, good jobs, people who ate arugula.
“The woman is still married, Khloe. She is going to ruin him. I’m afraid that they are fucking.”
“Maybe h
e will ruin her.”
“He already fucked the daughter,” Kristi said.
“Jesus.” I did not know that. “What an asshole.”
“I know. And somehow, we are still friends. I am trying to save him from himself.”
I drank more coffee. I wondered what would happen when Jane woke up again, this time for real. Hopefully she would not be too hungover. We would drink the coffee. We could make love again. She would probably want to go to brunch. Jane loved all of that Brooklyn yuppie bullshit. Poached eggs. Sautéed brussels sprouts. I would take her to brunch. We could order mimosas. Hair of the dog. She could read The New York Times.
I thought about Zahid in Connecticut, the note he had written to me. “You might have trouble getting him back,” I said. “I don’t think he wants to teach. Maybe he shouldn’t. You always complain that teaching drains all of your energy. Takes away from the writing.”
“All writers teach.” Kristi was annoyed with me now. Invariably, with every phone call, one of us got on the other’s nerves. “And complain. It’s what we do.”
I could hear Jane getting up, the creak of the floorboards. I had to get off this phone call.
“I can keep his apartment?” I said. “Is that what you are saying?”
“Well, he has to take the job first,” Kristi said.
“Or he can stay in Connecticut,” I said. “I can still keep the apartment. It’s all good.”
“No,” Kristi said. “No way.”
“You sound jealous, little sister.”
Kristi was ten minutes younger than me.
“That is ridiculous,” Kristi said.
Kristi sounded completely jealous. Whereas I didn’t care what Zahid Azzam did. Honestly. It was ridiculous to think that Jane was suddenly attracted to me because of my summer sublet. You did not have sex with a woman to get into an apartment. Jane had been denying her feelings for me. Now she knew better. I had proven to her that I was no child, once and for all. This was a stupid conversation. I would get my own apartment. I made the money. It was too early to be talking to my sister. I should be back in bed, waking Jane up with sweet kisses.
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