The Hole in the Middle (29 page)

I nod, and she smiles her wonderful smile at me.

“It gets easier,” she says. “I promise. But in the meantime, you should try to remember that it's your life too, and have a little fun when you can.” She gets up. “It's not always possible—I have a meeting now, for example, which has zero prospect of being fun—but there's honor in the striving.” She winks.

“Margaret?” I ask, as she prepares to leave. “Can I ask who the exception is?”

“Oh, it wouldn't be appropriate for me to tell you that,” she says. “Let's just say that he lost his day job recently and his name rhymes with ‘hairy.' And I'm on my way to meet with him now. But you shouldn't give it any thought, because no one, least of all me, is listening.”

My BlackBerry hums on the table. “Go ahead and answer that,” says Margaret. “We'll speak again soon.”

I recognize the number. “Hi, Lil,” I say.

“Sophie!” Lil shouts over the noise of a busy restaurant. “I'm at the Four Seasons with the Gala gals.”

“Who?”

“Addie, Katerina, Jane, and Janelle. We've come up with the most divine idea for the Gala. Did you know that the eighties are back in vogue? Absurd, really, since that decade seems like last week to me and wasn't all that fabulous the first time around.”

“I did know that,” I say.

“Do you remember Janelle's daughter, Chelsea?”

“I met her at your party,” I say. “Doesn't she have a band that does eighties covers?”

“Exactly, you clever girl.” Her voice fades slightly. “Don't be silly, Janelle, you're too modest. Chelsea is a major talent. This could be her big breakthrough. Imagine how proud you'll be!”

I hear the buzzing of voices in the background, and Lil says, “Yes, Jane, Chelsea's band would be an excellent choice from a budgetary perspective.” More buzzing, and then Lil again. “Costumes! What a marvelous idea, Addie.” The volume cranks up as Lil yells into the phone again. “Sophie, are you there? What do you think of costumes?”

“Why not?” I say. “Tell her she can wear as little as she likes.” Lil
snickers and says, “Sophie says it will be very fashionable, very
now
. Just the theme we were looking for, Katerina.”

“Do we have your blessing, Sophie?” Lil shouts. I picture Janelle being berated by Lil over Cobb salad, hoisted with the petard of her own maternal pride, silently calculating the social cost of a failed event featuring her daughter in place of an aging rock star. It makes me smile.

“You do,” I say. “Actually, I love it.”

“I knew you would,” says Lil, and hangs up.

I shake my head and cross one more item off my mental ROAR list as I head back to my office. Really, it's been a remarkable day, and I feel stronger and more in control of my life than I have in weeks, maybe even years. I scroll lazily through my e-mail, safe in the conviction that today, there's nothing the universe can dish out that I can't handle. And then the phone rings.

“What are you doing?” says Zoe.

“What do you mean?” I ask.

“I
mean
, Sophie,” she says, “what are you doing with Will Shannon? You can't send this e-mail.”

“Why not?” I ask. “Don't I deserve an answer after all these years?”

“It's not a question of what you deserve,” says Zoe. “It's a question of what it will cost to get the answer—an answer, I might add, that doesn't actually matter.”

“How can you say that?”

“Sophie,” she says. “You have to let go of the idea that there's some alternative reality out there in which you and Will live happily ever after. It was never going to happen. You keep picking at this old scab and it's going to bleed. You're better than this.” Her voice softens. “Every woman has a ‘what if' guy somewhere in her past, Sophie. But that's where he belongs—in the past. You can't let him mess with your future.”

“Fine,” I say, my voice rough. I know that she's right. “I won't send it.”

“Good,” she says. “Because I don't think you even know what you want from him.”

But for once, Zoe's dead wrong. I know exactly what I want from Will. I want to know that he regrets Paris.

august 20, 2014, and august 20, 1995

“Sophie!”

Jesse's voice is insistent, which is somewhat justified since I assured him that I would be ready to go fifteen minutes ago. But I'm taking my time tonight. After all, it's not every day a girl turns forty, and I'm pulling out all the stops; I'm not naïve enough to believe that we're headed out for a quiet dinner, and I want to appear as well-preserved as possible.

“Sophie!” The bathroom door opens, and Jesse appears. “Wow,” he says, taking in my form-fitting black sheath dress. “You look fantastic.”

“Really?”

“Really,” he says, and pulls me in for a kiss.

“Good luck, my friend,” I tell him. “I've got some serious body armor under here. You're not getting through it without help.”

Jesse laughs. “That's probably just as well. We're going to be late for our reservation.” He catches sight of the journal with the watermark cover on the vanity. “I didn't know you still had that,” he says.

“I was feeling nostalgic,” I say. “It's my fortieth birthday, after all.” I raise an eyebrow. “Do you want to tell me what Zoe has planned?”

“It's just a little party,” he says.

“Head count?”

“Not sure,” he says, evasively.

I shake my head. “You're a terrible liar, you know,” I say.

“True,” he says. “And if you let on that I spilled the beans, there will be serious consequences for all concerned.”

“At least we're not in costumes this time,” I grumble, thinking back to the Baxter Just Wanna Have Fun Eighties Dance Party Gala this past spring and the sight of Jesse in a white suit with a tightly curled black wig, a silver glove, and stuffed chimpanzee. “How did she get you to wear that outfit, anyway?” Of all the things I've seen Lil pull out of the hat in the past twenty years, Jesse in a Michael Jackson costume is one of the most astonishing.

He shrugs uncomfortably. “She called in an old favor,” he says.

“Must have been some favor,” I say.

Jesse declines to elaborate. “Let's not keep your fans waiting,” he says.

Jesse calls a taxi while I give some final instructions to Dulcie. Six months after hiring her as our nanny, I can hardly remember what misguided philosophy persuaded us that daycare was a viable option. “Go on,” she says, making a shooing motion with her hands. “Have fun. We'll be fine.” She turns to the boys. “Who wants to build a pillow fort?” The boys shriek in unison and sprint for the playroom without a backward glance. Jesse helps me into my coat. “Are you ready?” he says, holding out a hand.

“Are you ready to order?” asks the waiter. He addresses me in English, having determined early in our acquaintance that the table will be liberated more quickly if we stick to my native tongue. He's not contemptuous, though, being an expat himself, Australian possibly. Zoe, who made the reservation for me, assured me that this little wine bar, a haven for English speakers in Paris, is perfect for a date with destiny. In the event that destiny fails to unfold in the way I intend, Zoe has promised to take me dancing later.

I've been sitting here for half an hour already, nursing a glass of red
wine and Waiting for Will. In the thirty-two excruciating minutes that have elapsed, I've descended from Frank Capra–land to Samuel Beckett territory, recording the entire psychological journey in my journal for posterity. I've moved on from my initial reticence to use A.J.'s gift to preserve in writing my feelings for Will; perhaps someday I'll become a writer and draw inspiration from this sordid episode, and thank A.J. in the acknowledgments. I've been told that young writers come to Paris to do exactly this: sit alone in restaurants and wallow in red wine and sorrow. I should feel romantic and free of confining social norms, but actually, I feel like a loser.

This is exactly what Zoe has anticipated, I know, although she's been gentle with me in the way that people are careful around the very ill: she neither wants to raise nor dash my most desperate hopes. Since my arrival in Paris, we haven't talked much about my relationship with Will or what I'm hoping will happen when we meet. Neither of us wants to hear Zoe say aloud that Will is a manipulative man-slut or that I'm a deluded fantasist, which is why we're both avoiding the subject.

I order the duck with marmalade sauce and another glass of wine, and then rashly call the waiter back to add a starter. I've saved up for this birthday party, working at my mother's side to deliver one picture-perfect wedding after another all summer for a parade of young women blissfully content with conventional social norms and their place in them; I can afford a few leaves of lettuce and some goat cheese. And although my hope that Will might still walk through the door is flickering out, and being replaced minute by awful minute with the sure knowledge that I will be alone forever, I can't make a spectacle of myself by sobbing or rending my clothes or running out into the street, because Zoe is dropping by at nine to pick me up. So I continue drinking and torture myself by remembering the last conversation I had with Will.

I hadn't been around much; I'd been going home every weekend since my dad's funeral and logging long hours at the library to make up for the weeks I'd missed. Still, I'd managed to write all of my exams on
schedule and submit my honors paper with a couple of weeks to spare. And now I was surrounded by cardboard boxes, at various stages of assembly, preparing to move home to Port Alice for the summer. I'd originally planned to stay in the house and get a job temping downtown, but my mother had wedding bookings every weekend all summer and was so shattered by my dad's death that she could barely get out of bed, let alone run her wedding factory at full production. I'd agreed to help her get through the season, provided that I could take the last two weeks of August off to visit Zoe in Paris.

I was acutely conscious of Will's comings and goings: I knew when he was in the bathroom or the kitchen; I knew the sound of his footsteps on the stairs; I could distinguish from all the other doors in the house the distinctive creak his bedroom hinge made when it opened or closed; I knew that he hadn't had any overnight guests. But I didn't seek him out. It was painful to make small talk with him, and I was too weary to attempt anything more. Oddly, my relationship with A.J. had altered in unspoken ways as well. Since the awful day that he drove me home to Port Alice, we'd become friends. It wasn't like any other friendship I'd ever had, in the sense that I didn't know much about what made A.J. tick, but I felt comfortable being quiet around him. We'd do things side by side, like watching television in the evenings and sharing the paper in the mornings, and occasionally we'd talk, about school or our families, but never about Will. I'd discovered many things over the course of my year-long experiment in male anthropology, and one of them was this: the lives of boys and men are full of white space, where no dialogue occurs and the plot doesn't seem to advance, but, in fact, many exchanges of significance happen there. I thought there was a good chance that A.J. and I might stay in touch after graduation, maybe grab a coffee or a beer once in a while.

I heard Will's bedroom door open, and listened to him take a few steps. Was he going to the bathroom, or down the stairs? But the foot-steps came closer and he appeared in the doorway, movie-star handsome in ripped jeans and a white T-shirt.

“Hey,” he said.

I sat back on my heels. “Hey,” I replied.

“You're packing up?” I nodded. “When are you leaving?”

“In the morning. My brother rented a van and we're going up together.”

“I thought you were going to keep your room here for the summer.”

“I was,” I said. “But my mom needs me home, and realistically, I won't get back here very often. And Zoe will be back in the fall, so we'll get a place again.” I couldn't resist asking, “Why? Will you miss me?”

“Of course,” he said lightly. “Good roommates are hard to come by.” He shoved his hands into his pockets and leaned in against the door frame. I waited. “I know I made you a promise,” he said. “I haven't forgotten. But I'd like to request an extension.”

“Well,” I said, “you have to have a good reason to get an extension. It can't just be that you'd rather stick hot needles in your eyes than have an awkwardly personal conversation.”

“Yeah,” he said, not meeting my eye, “I get it. So here it is. I had a lot of fun with you over Reading Week. But everything about this situation is too intense and I can't figure out how I feel about it. So what I'm proposing is that we both get a little distance and postpone the analysis.”

This is heady stuff and I'm careful to keep my tone even. “What did you have in mind?” I asked.

“You're going to Paris in August, right?” I nodded. “I'm traveling this summer too. What if we made a date to meet there?”

“In Paris?”

“Right. We could go on a date, have dinner maybe. See how we feel without all the pressure.”

In fact, Will's plan to meet in the most romantic city in the world for a scheduled dinner to discuss the possibility of a future together seems inescapably fraught with pressure, but I'm not going to tell him that. I'm in. “August twentieth,” I said. “It's my birthday.”

“August twentieth it is,” he said. “We'll have dinner at Willi's Wine Bar. Zoe knows it. Get her to make a reservation at seven.”

“You'll be there?”

“I'll be there,” he said.

And now here I am, in Willi's Wine Bar in Paris. I check my watch again. Seven-forty-five. I know now that Will isn't coming. I wonder, briefly, if he ever intended to, but I push the thought away. I couldn't have been so mistaken in him. I might eventually believe that Will never loved me, but I won't believe that he intended this humiliation. My salad arrives and I'm just about to ask the waiter to cancel the rest of my order and bring me my bill when a voice that isn't Will's says, “Hi, Sophie.”