Bertrand Court (12 page)

He laughed with his whole body, shrugging his shoulders and throwing his head back. “God, I'm a dope sometimes. Did I embarrass you?”

“Totally.” She loved that he didn't care that the joke was on him. No wonder he was so masterful at charming clients. How could she not like him?

Nikki took charge of the ordering, and the food arrived swiftly.

“Oh, my God.” He closed his eyes and sucked on a plantain. “This is damn good. Are these fried bananas?”

“Plantains.” She dipped one in the sour cream and fed him.

He took a sip of his second margarita. “So, a looker like you must have a boyfriend.”

A looker? Nikki's
dad
used that term. “Let's just have fun tonight,” she said. How Helen Gurley Brown of her to take control of the evening, to brush their respective romantic entanglements to the side.

He persisted. “Still got your college boyfriend?”

Nikki recoiled, as if he had asked, “Still sleep with your retainer?” She glanced around for the waitress and crossed her legs, kicking him lightly by accident.

He smiled. “Mysterious, aren't you?”

“Yes, I'm very mysterious.” She winked. Where was this coming from?

They didn't talk about the office gossip she'd been collecting at happy hours, like the pending merger or Jack's partners' campaign to force him out. Instead, Jack told her about his first job, selling radio time for a big, fat, ornery manager of a country-western station, and described what it was like to don an orange vest, sip whiskey, and wait for the leaves to rustle with the promise of an eight-pointer. His eyes softened, his fingers tracing the rim of his glass, his back shaking off the tension of the day, of the life. A man clearly used to directing a conversation, he stopped every few minutes, as if he'd been woken from a nap, and asked, “Do you really want to hear all this?” Nikki nodded, taking him in. He seemed lonely, like he needed something from her.

“I haven't done this in years.” He looked shy.

Oh, you and your wife don't date other people? she almost said, but discretion trumped sass and rum, so she only smiled and watched him sign for the check.

When they got to his car, she stood next to him, arm to arm, a full head shorter than he was. The wind cut through her jacket, but she was too drunk to care. She felt around in her purse for the bag of Cadbury Easter Eggs she'd bought at the lobby store that day during her lunch break and held one out to him.

“No thanks.” He looked at her as though everything she did was amusing.

She felt amusing. “Right. You're driving.”

He opened the car door for her, and she arranged herself in the padded leather passenger seat, ignoring her skirt sliding up her thighs. She peeled the foil off the egg and began to eat it one layer at a time: first the pastel-colored
candy coating, and then the thick layer of chocolate beneath, and finally the core of a crunchy malted milk ball the size of a marble.

He grinned at her. “I've never seen anyone eat a piece of chocolate like that.”

“Try it.”

“Okay. Give me one.” He stretched out his hand, unwrapped the egg, and licked the purple candy coating, his brow furrowed in concentration.

She giggled.

“What's funny?” He raised one eyebrow.

“Your lavender lips.”

He licked the sugar off his lips, laughing, and started the car, jutting out his chin in time with a Creedence song that came blasting from the radio. He looked free, boyish, and comfortable in Nikki's presence.

“Here.” She pointed to her apartment building, and he pulled into a coveted spot a block down from her entrance, right in front of a broken streetlight. Kismet. He put the car in park.

“You're a great girl, Nikki.”

High on mojitos and her hold on this man, she ran her fingers along the side of his face. A face unlike those of the boys she'd been with up until this point. The skin felt craggy beneath her hand. He looked old and vulnerable and very much hers for the taking. She leaned over and kissed him, tasting the chocolate. They alternately deflowered the Cadbury eggs and kissed until Nikki's stash ran out, giggling like children home from a night of trick-or-treating, sneaking extra candy, dancing on the sofa, daring their parents to stop them.

It wasn't until they were on the last egg that Nikki noticed the keychain that had been dangling in front of her the whole time, a photograph of his family tucked safely inside a rectangular plastic case. Clad in matching Hawaiian shirts, Jack and his teenage son sandwiched a willowy redhead with a purple lily in her hair.

The mojitos and plantains threatened to make an encore. Bad karma she was creating here. She'd pay for this one day. In blood. “Better go.” She kissed him on the cheek.

“Let me walk you to your door.” His voice turned businesslike, almost fatherly, as though he could erase whatever had happened between them if he wished.

“You watch too much local news,” she said over her shoulder as she hoisted herself out of his car and ran to her apartment, trying not to think of the liquor store two blocks down that had been robbed last week, or of Jack's wife waiting for him in their cold bed, or of Nate listening to bad folk music in some bar in the Village, or that she was minutes from throwing up an evening of excess.

She was still camped out on the pink furry rug in the bathroom when Georgia came home from work. “I'm ill,” she groaned. “Very, very ill.”

Georgia refrained from commenting that the bathroom smelled like a still. “Did you take aspirin?”

Nikki knew Georgia wouldn't ply her with questions. Georgia kept quiet when she sensed Nikki had a story to tell. She said nothing as she reached into the medicine cabinet for the aspirin bottle.

“Would you rather date a married man or ingest a tub of Crisco?” Nikki asked, still a little drunk.

“Choose the Crisco, Nikki.” Georgia dampened a washcloth with cold water and held it to Nikki's neck.

During the half hour leading up to Nikki's final siege of vomiting, she swore that she'd become the kind of person who would glance at that photo of Jack's lovely wife and never speak to him again. She would call Nate and tell him that she'd go wherever the Peace Corps chose to send him and end her love affair with Washington and all its charms. The moment passed, and for the balance of Jack's wife's conference in Hilton Head, Nate's training in the Big Apple, and Georgia's turn working the late shift — three days total — Nikki and Jack ate and drank at passé watering holes and traded kisses in his car while his key chain dangled inches shy of his groin.

Georgia finally arrives at Rodeo's, soaking wet, glasses foggy, brown turtleneck accentuating her breasts, elasticity intact. She's aged well, better than Nikki. She apologizes for her tardiness without explanation, but Nikki guesses that she lost track of time in her windowless editing suite. Georgia would never brag — she hates talking about herself — but Nikki learned from a neighbor that Georgia's a big deal in the documentary world, that one of her films was nominated for an Emmy last spring. These films are Georgia's children, Nikki persuades herself when she's staving off the occasional pang of jealousy.

Georgia kisses Nikki on the cheek and orders a glass of wine. The mariachi band has arrived; Nikki's sweater has dried and she's energized by her foray into her past. She fancies herself Nikki O'Neill, no relation to Tip, star
Democratic rainmaker, charmer of powerful men like Jack O'Dell. She's animated when she serves up amusing yet self-deprecating tales of her attempts to train Hugo, whom she hates.

“You loathe dogs,” Georgia says.

“Gives Tad's life some purpose.” Nikki pours herself another glass of sangria and looks away. “I didn't just say that.”

Georgia never offers false comfort like “He'll find something” or “It will all work out” or “Let me ask Jim or Marcus or Skip if they can make a few phone calls.” She looks at Nikki with that expressionless, nonjudgmental Georgia look that's always given Nikki's other friends the willies. Nikki regains her composure, and they discuss Georgia's new film on recidivism.

After the waiter places a fresh bowl of salsa on the table, Nikki offers up a few of the girls' funny little observations on life. An Austen purist, she rants about a film adaptation of
Sense and Sensibility
she rented last weekend. A dazzling résumé, a dog-loving husband, smart kids, superior taste in literature — she's hoping that the young woman wearing the gray wraparound dress is eavesdropping on her conversation and has recognized that Nikki has it all.

“You're in a mood tonight.” Georgia stares at Nikki.

In an attempt to recapture her good spirits, Nikki points her chin in the direction of the girl, who is now cocking her head, listening intently to the older man regaling her with a tale, probably one that features himself as the hero. “Who do they remind you of?” Nikki starts to grin, sure that Georgia will call up her man-eating days and Jack O'Dell.

Georgia pauses and stares at the couple thoughtfully while Nikki fights the urge to give hints. “The woman could be any ambitious Capitol Hill nubile.”

Nikki swallows her grin, reeling from Georgia's unintentional sucker punch.

Still focused on the couple, Georgia narrows her eyes, examining the handsome man. “And him? That's a no-brainer.”

Nikki's neck reddens. She wonders if Georgia even remembers Jack O'Dell.

“He's Tad.” Georgia reaches for a chip.

Nikki swivels her head toward the man. Yes, she can see the resemblance: same business casual slacks, same fading tan, same “I'm in charge” wink to the waitress, same empty eyes. Eyes that crave the adulation Tad now receives from his training buddies, who join him in squandering their family time with long runs, long naps, long bike rides. Eyes that crave the sexual hunger that drained from her body with her breast milk and the energy it's taken to prop him up. But this man wears a wedding ring, and Tad no longer does, which now bothers her.

Georgia glances at Nikki's doppelgänger with a look of recognition and a poor attempt to mask her pity.

Nikki steals a sip of Georgia's water and swallows, rinsing her mouth of the taste of sangria, once sweet, now all alcohol and bitterness from the orange rind. She tries too hard to sound flip when she says, “Would you rather be blind or invisible?”

The mariachi band begins to play to the near-empty restaurant, too festive and off key, but loud enough to drown out Georgia's answer and the rain and the laughter of the couple two tables over.

HARVARD MAN

Tad Chamberlain, July 2003

M
y wife, Nikki, and I have our most enthusiastic sex on the nights when Georgia comes over for dinner, which hasn't been for a long time. She's due here in twenty minutes, and I'm still sweating like a swine from biking down to the Jefferson Memorial, twenty-three miles roundtrip.

I peel off my jersey and contemplate the unopened package of razor blades sitting next to the bathroom sink. Who will notice if I don't shave? Georgia Dumfries. Nikki and I have never discussed it, but we habitually pose for her friend's cameralike gaze. Nikki will kiss me hello tenderly on the lips, or I'll pick up one of my daughters and swing her over my head until she belly laughs. Small embellishments like that. And after Georgia leaves, we'll stretch out on our king-size bed and agree that she deserves to find a good man, because beneath her reserve she's warm and kind. We'll run through the tired, diminishing list of our single friends and come up with nobody for her. And then we'll sigh, and Nikki's breathing will quicken, and we'll ravage each other like we did during our early courtship, when we spent full Sundays in the bedroom of the apartment she shared with Georgia, who likely heard our every groan and giggle through the paper-thin walls. Things shift around in my biking shorts in anticipation of the end of the evening.

I run a hot shower to loosen up my quad muscles. Too many hills today. I'm getting old, a thought I brush aside, along with the phone call I received from my college roommate yesterday, telling me that he's running for the Senate. He'll win too. Goddamned chads. I'm on my third job since Dubya stole Florida. Lobbyists used to dribble my name like a basketball; the Gores showed up at the kids' christening (they gave us two BabyBjörns, which we still keep, even though the girls just turned seven).

I raise the water temperature, and the combination of the scalding heat and my endorphin buzz anesthetizes me, for now anyway. Through a thickening mist, I see Nikki come in and open the medicine cabinet. I haven't seen that blouse since early in our marriage, when I got jealous as hell the night she wore it to a dinner meeting with a charming Midwestern real estate mogul. She didn't need to rely on a tight blouse to make gallons of rain for the Democrats. The first Thanksgiving we spent in Phoenix, she almost persuaded her uncle Richard — Barry Goldwater's drinking buddy, no less — to write a check to the Clinton campaign.

When the water turns tepid, I open the shower door and Nikki faces me through the scrim of steam. Nursing two babies stole the perkiness from her breasts, and her blouse pulls between the middle buttons, revealing a dingy beige bra. “Here,” she says, offering me a Gatorade with her jaunty smile, which during the early days of my professional purgatory meant something besides pity and resignation.

“Georgia!” She's always prompt. I mean to kiss her cheek, but she moves her head and my lips land on a patch of her wiry hair. She's contributed her usual brick of Stilton cheese toward dessert. She and Nikki remind me of the women I knew in college who read a lot of George Eliot and Margaret Drabble and drank tea instead of Diet Coke in the late afternoon.

The kitchen smells like mint and garlic and Nikki's lilacs, which puts me in a festive mood. Nikki opens the back door and in bounds Hugo, our German shepherd–lab mix. He pounces on Georgia, who's built like a slightly bottom-heavy Eastern European gymnast, and knocks her off balance. A true cat person, Georgia recoils.

“Down, Hugo,” Nikki orders without conviction. It's been months since Hugo joined the family, and she still hasn't learned how to control him. She feebly grabs his collar, and he tugs her shoulder toward him. She looks up at her friend. “That green suits you. You should wear pastels more often. The girls used to love it when I wore pink, the official princess color. Who would have thought? Runs against the grain of my inner feminist,” Nikki prattles on to Georgia, which is easy to do, since Georgia always waits a few seconds after you finish talking before she responds.

“Girls, Georgia's here,” Nikki calls.

Georgia and I follow her to the family room, where the twins, scrubbed and dressed in matching pajamas, are parallel reading
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
.

“Hi, Sophie,” Georgia says. “Which do you like better, Slytherin or Gryffindor?” She gets her name right on the first try, when even my mother can't tell the girls apart if they're wearing the same thing.

“Gryffindor,” Sophie answers shyly.

“Slytherin's mean,” Emma pipes up.

I tug lightly at their ponytails. “In this house, you've got to keep up with your Hogwarts trivia,” I tease. Then I kiss my daughters goodnight, and they head upstairs with Nikki.

Georgia examines me. She hasn't seen me since I started working out, and damn it feels good to be back to my fighting weight: 174 pounds.

“I hear you're competing in triathlons.” She dips a carrot stick into Nikki's famous and labor-intensive artichoke dip. “Sounds like a lot of work.”

“Not if you love it. I swim with a masters team at the crack of dawn, over at Hains Point. I can usually squeeze a four- or five-mile hoof on the Mall into my lunch hour, and weekends are for long rides.” When I describe my routine to Georgia, it sounds more self-indulgent than impressive. “I signed up for a half Ironman in Texas in late fall,” I add for no reason.

Thank God Nikki appears. She gives a little clap. “Let me show off my peonies before it gets dark.” We follow her into the garden, where the cicadas are screeching in cadence. I love summer.

Georgia bends over to sniff a pink flower, nodding in appreciation. “Remember that orchid you stole from Perry Eisenfeld's wedding?”

She means Perry Eisenstadt; he had a thing for Nikki when he worked for her. She wore stilettos to his wedding, which gave her a good inch on me. Sexy. After a few gin and tonics, she led the guests in a plucky if less than graceful version of the electric slide. A couple of hours later, I held her hair while she retched from an unfortunate encounter with a shrimp cocktail. Luckily for me, I'm allergic to shellfish. Luckily for me, she decided to marry me that night.

Nikki smiles wistfully, fingering the pendant I gave her for our tenth anniversary. “Seems like another lifetime.”

We return to the den to find that Hugo has polished off the artichoke dip. Nikki and I exchange glances. Mine says, “He never would have gobbled up
my
artichoke dip.” Nikki's says, “I'm working on it, Tad.” And even though we haven't spoken, I feel like Georgia has heard every word of our conversation.

I clear the spotless — thanks to Hugo — dip bowl, a wedding gift that we rarely use anymore. These days, we mainly invite other families over for pizza. The energy is different when it's just Georgia, who almost always arrives solo. After the twins were born, she showed up with a manic bass player who looked like an exterminator but apparently oozed sex appeal onstage. He lost his charm when he tried to light up in our living room, only a few feet from our dozing infants. Georgia's visits grew less frequent after that.

Nikki is sprinkling dried cranberries on the salad when Georgia asks me about my new job.

“I write a lot of op-eds, even though people are about as excited to read about health-care issues as they are to hear the details of someone's Disney vacation, in real time.” I chuckle, more out of truth than self-deprecation.

Nikki gives me a courtesy laugh. She used to love my analogies.

“I'm the number-two guy at the association, so I have quite a bit of freedom.” Code word for boredom, but the money is good, and I haven't had to give up much training time.

Nikki adds brightly, “One of Tad's Harvard buddies wants him to coauthor a book.”

Ever since my career went on life support, Nikki's been sneaking my Harvard degree into conversations: “When Tad lived in Cambridge…” or “He graduated with Tad, Harvard, class of '82…” or “Tommy Lee Jones lived in Tad's dorm.…” She used to drop the H-bomb to mock her snotty little pedigree-happy DLC staffers, back when we were a power couple. Now she says these things without irony.

Hugo interrupts us by barking at some neighbors strolling past our dining room window. “Hugo,” I command. He quiets down immediately, and I rub his belly with my foot.

Georgia nods toward the dog. “So are the girls helping with him?”

Nikki's pale blue eyes reveal amusement. “Hugo is definitely Tad's puppy. They run together in Rock Creek Park, and then he takes him to Starbucks.” In a singsongy voice, she crafts an entire album of Kodak moments for her friend, as if she's composing our annual Christmas letter.

“Hugo would be your dog too, love, if you asserted yourself.” I sound like I'm scolding one of our daughters.

Nikki sighs dramatically. “Are we going to have this alpha-rolling squabble again?” Another Georgia thing we do is stage fake arguments for her to settle. “Tell me what you think of this, Georgia. Tad's upset with me because I refuse to alpha-roll the dog.”

“Alpha-roll?” Georgia raises an eyebrow over her glasses.

My enthusiasm for this topic crackles like a hot tin of Jiffy Pop. I describe how I stumbled upon a book called
How to Be Your Dog's Best Friend
, written by the monks of New Skete. They based their advice on scientific
studies of wolf behavior conducted in the 1940s.

“Georgia, you may know from editing nature documentaries that dogs order themselves, like wolves.” I take a sip of wine, which goes straight to my head after my long bike ride. “You've got to show the dog that you're dominant, or alpha. That's the only way they'll listen to you.” My voice is loud.

Georgia adjusts her glasses and blinks. “So have you alpha-rolled Hugo?”

“I have.” I look at my wife. “Nik won't do it.” This is Georgia's cue to offer an obvious solution to our discord, granting the illusion that we've acquiesced to her idea and not to each other.

Instead she furrows her brow. “What does it entail?”

Despite her soft voice, I feel like she's putting me on the witness stand, and I don't like being challenged. “You flip the dog onto his back and hold him in that submissive position, sometimes by the throat, and then you growl at his jugular.”

“This works?”

“Have you noticed how Hugo only responds to my commands?”

Georgia pauses for her usual few seconds, during which I assume she's registering my wise choice of technique. “Doesn't this traumatize the dog?”

Did she hear me say that a group of fucking monks thought this up?

Nikki scoops up a stray walnut with her fingers. “That's right, Georgia. I knew you'd go to bat for me.”

“Make that you and Hugo.” Georgia puts her salad fork on her plate with finality.

People don't listen to me like they used to. I even caught an intern, a little sorority girl from the University of Alabama, playing Sudoku while I led a staff meeting. This just didn't happen when I worked four offices down from the President. The anger I numb daily with exercise is pitching a tent in my gullet like a Bedouin in a sandstorm.

Georgia helps Nikki clear the salad plates while I hunt through the refrigerator for another bottle of wine. Nikki reaches out to stroke my arm, but I move away from her. The last thing I need right now is her propping.

“Here, Georgia.” She hands her friend a bag of feta to sprinkle on the eggplant dish and then removes a pan of Greek chicken from the oven. “Did I tell you that Becca Coopersmith is taking a pole-dancing class?” She's trying to maneuver the conversation to safer terrain. Nikki has been feeding stories about Becca to Georgia for a while.

“Striptease pole dancing or folk pole dancing?” Georgia's tone is sardonic.

“The former.” Nikki giggles.

“Is she still having the adult bat mitzvah?”

“Yeah. Ooh, this is hot.” Nikki puts the Pyrex pan on the stove. “All in the name of self-actualization. Becca takes
very
good care of herself.”

I love the bite in her voice; I miss the random moments of bitchiness she used to reserve for me alone. “Well, all that dancing melts that middle-aged sag, like a slab of butter on a hotcake,” I say, glancing toward Nikki's belly, focusing my gaze on the spot where her blouse labors over a fold of skin that won't budge no matter how many crunches she does every morning.

Georgia averts her eyes as if she'd just walked in on Nikki giving me a blow job. Nikki blinks, almost as if I've cold-cocked her. She pauses for a second, and then looks right into my soul and replies in perfect body language, “You miserable sack of shit.”

By the time Nikki cuts the first piece of lemon tart, I've polished off the rest of the Williams Selyem 2001 Chardonnay and my head is pounding. We've been chatting too politely, exhausting our topics of conversation: Emma and Sophie's summer plans, Washington bike paths, Georgia's film on Lewis and Clark, and Nikki's new fundraising client, a literacy group based in Northern Virginia.

Nikki fills the tea kettle and rummages in the pantry. “No tea. How can we enjoy our sweets and Stilton without tea?”

“I'll fetch you some,” I offer, trying to be funny and a little mean, too. Mainly, I just need air.

“Take Hugo with you, Tad.” Nikki looks at me like I'm a stranger. I've really pissed her off. Took long enough.

The Coopersmith-Kornfelds can probably spare a tea bag. I knock on their door, not knowing what I'll do if Becca answers. Tell her that all her pole dancing is paying off? That I liked what I saw when I watched her unload her groceries the other day? Hugo needs to crap, which saves me from myself. I walk away quickly, not knowing if she even answers the door. I haven't played ding-dong-ditch since I was twelve.

I'm too drunk to drive anywhere, so I walk a mile to the 7-Eleven. They'll carry Lipton, which will have to do for the Brontë sisters, who are probably shredding me right now. Not that I don't deserve it. I'm a cad. I've become that underachieving Harvard guy whose arrogance unsuccessfully masks his “I got picked last for kickball” disappointment in life. I'm Charles Emerson Winston III, the Bostonian whom Alan Alda torments in old
M*A*S*H
episodes. My insignificance overwhelms me. A ball-breaker wife like Becca Coopersmith would have lassoed me, insisted that I pull myself together. Nikki used to be like that; I want that Nikki back.