Emma's Table (20 page)

It was just after five o'clock on Monday afternoon.

“That was Emma's office,” Susan called in. “She's not going to make it home tonight until seven.” Emma's office phoned him all day long with little updates on her shifting whereabouts, and pointed inquiries—it seemed to him—regarding his. He found it mildly annoying.

“Thank you, Susan.”

Bobby never asked his secretary to stop her shouting—to phone him on the intercom or walk to his doorway instead. He wasn't the sort of person who needed to express every last one of his preferences. He'd never said anything to Emma either, about her constant checking-in. She'd only get defensive, and he supposed she'd have every right to be. His determination to reconcile had caught him by surprise almost as much as it had her; he could hardly blame her for a little healthy skepticism. She probably thought he was leaving for good every time he walked out the front door.

Bobby had a capacity for taking the long view.

He laid down the document he'd been skimming, for the condo-ization of an old veterinary hospital. He was only too happy to set it aside.

The
smell
, he thought, wrinkling his nose as he pictured the putrid apartments that would result from his work.

He may have had the corner office, but he didn't take the proceedings there near as seriously as Emma took hers. Sometimes he wondered if his desire to reconcile with her was attributable, in part anyway, to professional boredom.

Could be, he thought, a little indecisively.

He knew that a much greater share of it had to do with Emma's fall from grace, the vulnerability he saw in all those newspaper photos, and on every channel of his television set.
That
was the woman he knew, looking out from all those pictures—the woman he loved. Bobby had been deeply moved by the backlash against Emma. It was so inevitable, he thought. Just when you get the taste for it—the power and the glory—they come after you with guns blazing. And it was just as inevitable, it seemed to him, that Emma would never have seen it coming.

He smiled at the notion of the
New York Post
bringing her back to him.

Bobby surveyed his cluttered desk, but nothing leaped out at him. He supposed he was finished for the day.

He checked his wristwatch. He had a couple of hours still.

Bobby was in no rush to head back to Emma's place, to wait by himself in those palatial rooms. So he ambled over to his briefcase instead, on the nearer of the lounge chairs in the corner, and unzipped the small compartment.

Bobby was headed back to the secret flat. He'd have a glass of wine and some
All Things Considered
on the radio. He'd make it back to Park Avenue in plenty of time for dinner with Emma.

He hadn't expected their reconciliation to be easy, not by any means, but he hadn't expected it to be quite so difficult either. Emma had begun to close herself off again as soon as he moved into the apartment with her, and he hadn't helped matters, he knew, by renting the place on Seventy-eight Street.

Something has to give, he supposed, but he knew full well that it wouldn't be Emma.

Bobby kept poking around the bag's small compartment, but to no avail: the keys weren't there. He felt himself snapping to attention, as if that silky lining were a live electrical outlet, and he was shocking himself, again and again, jamming his fingers in like that.

“Hang on,” he mumbled, keeping calm.

He prided himself on his even temper in the face of small annoyances and terrible calamities, but he felt seriously challenged this time out. He kept running his finger all around that pocket, closing his eyes, as if to enhance his sense of touch; but it didn't matter how long he swirled his index finger, those keys were not to be found.

Bobby began to lose his nerve.

He walked straight to the coat closet in the corner, a little faster than usual, frisking his topcoat like a detective on TV, patting down the navy cashmere as if it were armed and dangerous. He didn't feel them. So he pushed his hands into those navy pockets—all the way down deep—the two at hip level first, lined in chamois. They were meant to keep his fingers warm on chilly days, but that wasn't his problem now: his palms felt clammy to the touch as he pulled them out again—empty. He checked the pocket up high—the one at his breast, where he kept his wallet sometimes, but never, once, his keys.

No one in the world had ever kept his keys up there.

Bobby rushed back to his desk and seized on the briefcase—his first hope and his last. He snatched out every folder and every single pad, shaking them as he did, just to be sure. He took the pencils out and the pens, the small roll of mints at the bottom of the bag, as if his keys might have wormed their way inside the silver foil. But no luck. He upended the
bag, listening for the music of jangling keys, the metal rods clanging as they clattered to his desk, but Bobby wasn't much of a musician, it turned out. All he produced was a fair bit of dirt and three silver paper clips, a pile of white paper scraps that come from ripping sheets of paper from spiral-bound notebooks.

Where can they be? he wondered.

He ran his hands around the suede lining of the bag.

“Susan!” he called, as helpless as a child, nothing like the way he usually sounded. He didn't walk to the doorway either. He felt relieved when she appeared: a sensible woman of fifty or so, average in most every respect—save her extravagantly dyed hair. She'd turned sun-kissed blond a few years back, and was meticulous about keeping it up.

“I've lost my keys,” he told her.

She looked back at him as if she weren't quite sure what he wanted her to do about it; she looked down at the pile of rubble on his desk.

“I'm sure they were here,” he said, pointing into the bag. “But I can't find them now.”

“I'm sorry,” she said, a little uncertain still. “I haven't seen any keys.”

Bobby kept looking at her, waiting for something more.

This was a job for Emma, he suspected. She'd have found those keys already; she'd have found them before he knew they were missing—the thought of which made him more nervous than before. Emma must never, ever find those keys.

It would be curtains for him if she did.

Susan walked to the desk and took the bag from his hands, like a mother who saw, at very long last, that there was no alternative to stepping in: her little boy would never do up
those buttons all by himself. Bobby let her take it willingly. She made a thorough search of the bag, her eyes peering in. Then she sorted through the contents lying in a heap on top of his desk: there were no keys. She swept the dust and the paper clips into her open palm, the scraps of paper; she threw them all into the trash can beside his desk.

“Have you checked your coat?” she asked, as if she were inspired.

Bobby nodded.

“And your suit jacket?” she continued, looking up at him.

He walked back to the closet, all filled with hope—to his gray suit jacket, hanging beside his topcoat in the narrow closet. It was impossible, he knew, but it was a fresh thought, at least. He confirmed they weren't there.

Susan walked around the room, her eyes ranging high and low, like a pair of headlights on a dusky road.

“I'm sorry,” she said. “I don't see them.”

He thanked her kindly; he meant it too—for stepping in when he needed her. He sat down at his desk again. It was just a set of keys, he supposed, trying to settle himself down. It wasn't as if Emma would know what doors they unlocked even if she had found them. He knew it was true, but he couldn't tolerate lapses.

Bobby needed to be vigilant where Emma was concerned.

Susan called in again: “Should I let Emma's office know?” she asked.

“No!” he called back, startled and loud. “Don't do that.”

“Well, you're locked out of the apartment, aren't you?” she asked, appearing in the doorway again, as if by magic. The emergency seemed to have had a salutary effect on her office etiquette.

“No,” he said, “I've got those still”—in something like a normal tone of voice. He watched her looking back at him quizzically. “Don't worry,” he said, cutting her off before she asked the question that he didn't want to hear. “I'll be fine,” he said, nodding his head in brisk dismissal.

Bobby stared at the empty briefcase in front of him.

He remembered emptying his trouser pockets the night before; he remembered pulling out a delivery slip for a turkey sandwich. He'd made sure there was no address on it before he threw it away. I would have remembered a set of keys, he thought—especially with the tension from the dinner swirling all through the apartment, Cassy's bickering, and Emma stewing just a room away.

He could remember admonishing himself, earlier in the afternoon, as he stood in the peach-colored hallway, the girl across the way locking his apartment up tight: Be careful with those keys, he'd thought.

Still, he couldn't remember what he'd done with them.

Had the girl kept them, he wondered—the sexy one with the ugly face? He seized on the possibility. Maybe she hadn't given them back? It was unlikely, he thought, but his only hope.

He remembered the girl and her black go-go boots, her tight red coat and piercing stare.

Why couldn't he remember the one thing he needed to?

Bobby snatched up his briefcase and his blue overcoat. “Good night,” he said, walking past Susan a little too fast, straight down the hall to the elevator landing.

“Don't stay too late,” he said, the way he always did, but it sounded like an afterthought. He was busy pushing an arm through the sleeve of his navy coat, willing the elevator to ar
rive on the spot. He needed to get to the girl across the hall. He jumped into the elevator as soon as it came, pressing buttons right and left—lobby, door close, lobby, door close—his right sleeve dangling down behind him. He transferred the useless briefcase to his free hand, its zipped compartment as empty as his pockets. He finished putting on his coat and buttoned it up tight.

I'm sure I put them back, he thought.

When the elevator doors opened again, Bobby rushed through the lobby, just like everyone else in the world, hurrying to find that very first cab; he was heading uptown before he knew it.

Where could they be? he wondered.

Twenty minutes later, he walked into the secret building, straight to the elevator and onto his floor. He ran his hand tenderly over his beige metal door—no means of entry, but a foolish hope in his heart. She probably wouldn't be home from work yet. Bobby knocked on her door.

The girl answered it right away, just as fast as she did everything else—whipping it open as if a fierce wind were blowing through. She looked like a NASCAR racer that afternoon, in a short leather jacket with colorful patches and tight black leggings underneath.

“You're here!” he cried, so happy to see her. “I'm sorry to bother you,” he said, “but I was—”

“Oh, my God,” she interrupted—talking loud and fast, trampling over his every word—past his early jubilation and his polite apology too. “What was Emma Fucking Sutton doing here today?” That was the only thing she wanted to know.

Bobby dropped his chin to chest.

He supposed he'd known all along. He was sure he'd put
those keys back. So that's the end of that, he thought, closing his eyes for just a second. The hallway was quiet, but Bobby heard a riot of noise: the ticking of fluorescence overhead, and the water whooshing through pipes in the walls; he heard the girl breathing right in front of him, and his own heart beating, steady and slow.

He heard Emma in every decibel.

This time you've gone too far, he thought.

 

MELORA FLOATED HER ARMS UP INTO THE AIR—AS
long and light as two helium balloons, touching palm to palm above her head, in perfect time with a long, deep breath.

Benjamin looked on in wonder.

They were facing each other in the open room, his own bare feet not twelve inches from hers. Then she dropped her arms in a slow, sweeping arc, her hands carving the open air, and bent forward at the waist like a pocketknife—a silvery blade retracting back to its sheath. She touched the top of her head right onto the floor, and placed her forearms flat as any stony sphinx.

It was a yoga class, for couples: Monday night at six o'clock.

Benjamin was meant to be doing the same, but he froze as he watched his girlfriend perform: her movements as smooth as a clock's second hand, ticking past each minute mark, no faster—or slower—than the one before.

I can't compete with that, he thought, lifting his arms halfheartedly up and bending over as far as he could go—which turned out to be not very far at all. His head hung down like a bunch of grapes.

He felt lucky to reach the floor with his fingertips.

It's not a competition, he reminded himself, as he often did on the brink of loss. Benjamin felt plenty competitive though: there was a teacher there, after all.

He strained his fingers farther down.

“Now melt deeper,” the teacher called, in a soft monotone, that breathy voice that's used for reporting dreams to friends. He was a rough-looking man with tattoos running down his naked arms.

That voice didn't suit him at all.

There were pairs of men and women scattered all around the room—eight couples, he counted, plus the pair of women at the back who couldn't keep their hands to themselves.

Benjamin was having a rough time. He couldn't stop his whirring mind or concentrate on the poses at hand. His thoughts hopped from place to place like a grasshopper in a bed of Boston ivy, leaping high and covering improbable distances: from the rough confrontation with Tina Santiago at school, to Emma's squabble with her daughter the night before, then on to the rent that would be due in fifteen days. He had no idea where his thoughts might land.