Next Year, for Sure Page 7

  Kathryn pulls the book from the sack and holds it in both hands, not opening it. She doesn’t say anything, just stares at it. Then she lifts the book to her nose and breathes deeply. God, he loves her.

  She leans into him. The press of her is reassuring.

  Where did you find this? she says.

  Last night. At Fuller’s.

  Kathryn nods.

  They sit like this, half awake, while the parking lot fills with the smell of baking bread. People start to pull into parking spaces here and there and sit in their cars. Chris can hear the patter of news radio coming from a station wagon.

  Is that what you really want? Kathryn says. To see her every day?

  Chris considers this possibility, for the first time really. He does want Emily in his life like that, in that every day kind of way.

  Kathryn exhales.

  I’m not talking about sex, Chris says. Just that closeness.

  And you don’t see how that’s a problem?

  He doesn’t see. He doesn’t see how it’s any different than having a best friend, like Kathryn has in Sharon.

  It’s not like that at all, Kathryn says.

  It is. You talk to Sharon every day.

  I don’t.

  I see you, Kathryn. I’m there right next to you when you do it.

  Chris feels demented, hissing at each other, sleep starved in the halogen spill of a Safeway parking lot. The driver of the station wagon is eyeing them.

  Look, Chris says, I don’t need to date her. I don’t need to kiss her, I don’t need to hold hands, which by the way, you and Sharon do all the time—

  Do you want to guess how many times I’ve talked to Sharon this week?

  Well you used to, he says. You used to see her every single day.

  Yes, but I’m not in love with Sharon.

  They’re almost yelling now. People are getting out of their cars. The automatic doors slide open and shut.

  —

  Inside, the size of the store disorients them. They keep having to trek from one end to the other, hunting for each item. None of the food looks like food.

  Why did you tell me to ask her out? Chris wants to know.

  Kathryn is contemplating frozen peas.

  Why do it in the first place? he says.

  Do we have to figure this out right now?

  For months, you’re all, Call her up, ask her out, get to know her. And then when I do you say, No, cancel that, stop everything.

  I didn’t say cancel anything.

  It’s not fair to me and it’s not fair to Emily.

  Oh, says Kathryn, her eyes flaring hot. Now we have to be fair to Emily?

  She’s part of this, too. What we do affects her.

  No, Kathryn says. We’re not having our first fight in nine years in a fucking Safeway. She puts the basket on the floor and strides down the frozen aisle to the exit.

  They walk home in silence. It does them good.

  —

  They don’t really know how to fight. They both keep inviting each other to go ahead and start. Mostly, they just sit there at the kitchen table waiting for it to happen.

  Around mid-morning, Kathryn’s cell starts ringing.

  Is that Sharon? Chris asks.

  Kathryn nods and sets the phone back down on the table. They listen to it ring until it stops.

  Why are we doing this? Chris says.

  Kathryn shrugs.

  I’m sure you had a reason.

  People get crushes, Kathryn says. I get them all the time.

  You don’t date them.

  Chris, you couldn’t stop talking about her.

  Kathryn’s phone starts again.

  Go ahead if you want, Chris says.

  Kathryn nods, as if she might, but she doesn’t move to answer. They watch the phone light up and go dark.

  I wanted you to be happy, Kathryn says.

  I was happy. Chris is exasperated. Who’s happier than us? he says. Seriously, who do we know who’s half as in love as us?

  I know, Kathryn says. And it’s true. Most of the people they know envy their relationship. You two are so good together, people say. You guys are the perfect couple.

  So how would you feel if we decided to call it off? Kathryn says. The Emily thing.

  Off-off?

  Kathryn nods.

  I’d be sad, but—

  See, that’s exactly what I don’t want.

  Kathryn’s phone is ringing again.

  Wow, Chris says, Sharon really wants to talk to you today. He isn’t trying to score a point, but it does seem like Kathryn gets to talk to her best friend every day.

  —

  They try to conjure lunch from what they have in the house—ketchup, hazelnuts, cornmeal. They pull Kathryn’s emergency can of tuna down from the top shelf and sit around it with two forks.

  Tell me what you like about her, Kathryn says.

  Chris doesn’t know what it is exactly. It’s like an instinct, some secret scent that says: Leave the ocean, brave salmon, and swim up this particular stream without knowing why. Or like those kids who start eating chalk or dirt or whatever, and people figure they’re crazy, these kids, because why would anyone eat chalk, and then it turns out they have some mineral deficiency.

  What’s your particular deficiency? Kathryn says.

  But it’s not that. It’s more like this new part of himself. Like if you’d lived in the same house all your life and then someone comes over to visit and they say, Where does this door go?, this door you’d never noticed, and when you open it, you find this whole floor you didn’t know was there, all these rooms.

  She makes you feel like a better person, Kathryn says.

  A bigger person. More capacity.

  Chris feels at this moment that he could do anything, and that Kathryn is there with him, excited for him. Then she is paving over again.

  —

  The phone rings, the landline now.

  Probably Sharon, Chris says between rings. But it’s Emily. Chris and Kathryn take turns listening to the message:

  EMILY: Hi Chris. Hi Kathryn. It’s Emily calling. And Chris, I’m not just calling because you said I never call you. It’s totally coincidental—I just keep thinking of things I want to tell you. There’s so many, I’m actually writing them down, but I don’t have a fancy little book like yours, so I’m writing them on my hand and it’s getting a little messy, so call me soon, okay? Hey, how did Kathryn like the book? Kathryn, how did you like the book? Chris was so excited about it. Okay, well. Call me when you can and maybe we can pick a day to do something. I have some ideas. Next time, I think I’m in charge. Okay. Can’t wait to see you.

  Kathryn says, And can you honestly tell me that it’s not about sex? What if Emily wants to go snorkeling?

  Years ago, Chris had compared having sex—wanting sex—to snorkeling. Chris has been snorkeling, he explained, and it was great. But it has never occurred to him to go again. Snorkeling just doesn’t call to him the way other things do. But here’s the thing: If someone Chris loved got a sudden yen to go snorkeling, if Kathryn, for instance, said, Hey Chris, I’d really love to go snorkeling with you this weekend, he’d be more than happy to go. Because he loves that person and he loves doing things with them. And once he got there, it would probably be fantastic, minnowing through the water and exploring the hidden world. Of course he would go snorkeling! But then he might not think about it for weeks or months until the flippers and mask were brought out again.

  I don’t even know if Emily wants that, he says.

  But she might, Kathryn says. And then you might.

  Chris can’t say he won’t.

  —

  The sun falls down. They order pizza and wait forever. Sharon phones eleven more times. Chris and Kathryn sit on the kitchen floor and start sentences. They look up sleep delirium on the computer. The food arrives at last and sits on the counter uneaten because now they are crying, and by the time Kathryn falls asleep, they are all but b
roken up.

  It had never occurred to Chris that they might break up. He had never imagined that one day they’d be talking in the kitchen and the ground would open up between them and Kathryn would say, My life is on this side and what you need is on that side, and that he would stand there on his side and nod.

  Chris is curled up beside her on the floor, close, but not touching. Not her hip resting against his, or the tips of his fingers tucked under the waistband of her underwear. After nine years of touching, it feels impossible that they could ever sleep so separate. He studies her slack face and tries to imagine them being strangers. Or worse, acquaintances, who have to recognize each other and then stand there trying to sort out how long it’s been so they know where to start the summary: Living in Toronto now. Yes, two kids.

  It’s shameful. It’s shameful for two people to love each other for so long and then decide to stop. The shame of it rears up and pulls him under.

  —

  They sleep past noon and wake up tender and aching. The floor has betrayed them.

  They’re in the shower when Chris wonders if they should still shower together.

  I don’t ever want to not be able to shower with you, Kathryn says, and they hold each other until the hot water runs out. They eat the sweating pizza and go back to bed, and when they wake up on Monday, they are more or less together.

  NOVEMBER

  CHAPTER 8

  Aboutness

  Kathryn is drawing pineapples on the pages of the fucking manuscript. Pineapples are the only thing she knows how to draw from memory, and she draws them well. She likes the spiky, repeating pattern.

  Kathryn has told the publisher she is having a family emergency, which bought her another week with the fucking manuscript. She did not tell the publisher that the family emergency entailed sitting up all night discussing ways that she and her boyfriend might sleep with other people. She let the publisher think someone was dying.

  Kathryn tries not to hate anyone. Where she grew up, even the word wasn’t allowed in the house. But she hates Jeremiah Raelson, the idiot polymath who wrote this book. Kathryn has Googled him a couple times, looking for some personal insight that might help her get a handle on the manuscript, but it only made her hate him more. He has broken her brain with his terrible book.

  So she’s sitting there drawing pineapples in his margins when Emily rings the doorbell.

  —

  Kathryn can see through the curtain that it’s Emily. Kathryn considers not being home. It’s a Thursday afternoon. Who’s to say Kathryn’s not out meeting a client?

  Kathryn opens the door. There is a dog with Emily, the one she walks, presumably. He’s sitting on his bottom like a good dog, looking up at Kathryn expectantly.

  Chris is at work, Kathryn says, which Emily surely knows. Chris works nine to five; it’s not a hard schedule to remember.

  We came to see you, Emily says.

  The dog’s tail is starting to scoot his rump back and forth on the porch.

  I wanted to see if you’d take a walk with us, Emily says.

  Listen, Kathryn says, I’m talked out.

  We don’t have to talk about any of that stuff.

  God, what else is there? Kathryn says, and Emily laughs like this is a wise joke. But seriously, that stuff is all Kathryn talks about anymore. She spends her days locked in dread silence with this fucking manuscript and her nights talking interminably with Chris, vivisecting their relationship.

  I have this deadline, Kathryn says, and she waves her hand toward the manuscript on the other side of the room.

  Emily nods like she understands. The dog is adorable, though. On principle, Kathryn’s heart is closed to purebreds, but this is an old dog. Kathryn can see the beginnings of cataracts in his cloudy brown eyes. She squats down to say hello, to touch the soft fur behind his ears, the curls on his chest. He is genuinely happy to see her. Kathryn can feel his breath on her face. She likes the smell.

  You might work better after a walk, Emily says.

  —

  Cornelius walks between them all the way to the dog park, his tail smacking their thighs. He looks up at them every couple of blocks, first at Emily, then at Kathryn, always in that order.

  So what’s it about, Emily says. The book.

  But that’s the problem—as far as Kathryn can see, the book isn’t about anything. An index is a prediction, she hears herself telling Emily, a prediction of everything a reader might someday want to know. But Kathryn can’t find anything in this book that a reasonable person would ever want to know.

  This is terrible conversation, Kathryn knows. She’s holding forth. Venting, really. But Emily seems interested—she keeps asking questions—and it makes Kathryn feel better to talk about something she really knows.

  But isn’t the worst book in the world still about something? Emily asks.

  So Kathryn tries to describe the book to Emily, tries to address this lay-question of aboutness, and as she does, she finds herself having to make the book more elusive and confounding than it actually is, because as Kathryn is describing it, the book is opening up before her like a puzzle box. She sees how to index it. She could sit down and do it right now. She can see, too, that she was wrong about the book. This book is no shittier than any of the other shitty books she has worked on—just one more piece of civilization for the landfill. She doesn’t hate Jeremiah Raelson. She hates her job.

  —

  At the park, Emily produces a tennis ball from her coat pocket and they take turns throwing it for Cornelius. Kathryn throws farther than Emily and this pleases Kathryn. She throws as hard as she can every time. Cornelius hurtles after the ball and returns it to their feet with real urgency. It’s fun, actually, for all three of them.

  The park is mostly empty, save for some soccer players, way at the other end. They’re running drills, cheering each other on.

  Impressive clouds are sliding across the sky, making the park bright one moment, almost warm, then dark and cold, now divided down the center, a hard, sharp shadow moving across the grass. Cornelius bounds into the shadow after the ball and emerges squinting into the light.

  But how can you predict? Emily says, still on the index. How can you know in advance what any one person might want to know?

  It’s easy, Kathryn says. What’s a book you’ve read recently?

  Emily shrugs, like this might be a rhetorical question.

  Any book, Kathryn says. Non-fiction.

  Emily bends down to get the ball. I’m not a strong reader, she says, and she stands up and takes several steps forward to hurl the ball deep into the heart of the park.

  Kathryn recognizes this language. It’s something you might write in a student’s file: Not a strong reader. But you don’t say it to the child.

  —

  Cornelius is wearing himself out, but he won’t quit. He still barrels after the ball at top speed, but then he plops himself down at the far end of the throw and pants heavily, and blinks long blinks—the ball held down with one paw—before trotting back. He’ll go forever like this.

  Kathryn and Emily sit down on a bench. Over at the far end of the park a woman is pacing back and forth and calling out some name—Aisha, maybe—over and over. Kathryn has a sick feeling about this. Aisha is not a dog’s name.

  The woman is getting louder now, more frantic. The soccer players have stopped their drills and are looking around. That’s what everyone is doing now—looking left and right and back and front, but there are no children in this place. Kathryn can see the whole park from where she is and there’s nowhere to hide, even if you were terribly small.

  The woman is shrieking now, and the soccer players are rushing over to her, but she bats them away, veers off in a new direction, and then stalks out of the park crying out the name.

  That’s so awful, Emily says. The park is filling again with the ambient roar of the city and they sit in it. Cornelius gently drops the ball into Kathryn’s lap, and then when nothing happens,
retrieves it and places it in Emily’s lap. Kathryn and Emily watch the soccer players try to regroup, standing close together now and kicking the ball weakly to one another.

  Do you want kids? Emily says.

  I had thirty, Kathryn says, and she can feel Emily’s eyes on her. I taught kindergarten, Kathryn says. One year’s worth, anyway. I had nightmares about losing a kid.

  Emily nods. She stands up, throws the ball, and sits back down. I might want one, Emily says. But then I can’t imagine, and she gestures to the space where the woman had been.

  —

  There are sirens somewhere. Kathryn and Emily listen closely, trying to discern what the sirens might tell them. Help is on the way? The worst is yet to come? It sounds at first like the wails are coming closer, but then they are fading into the distance and gone.

  My friend lost a baby, Kathryn says.

  Kathryn had been there in the exam room when the doctor told Sharon. It was Kathryn who had asked all the questions. It was Kathryn who wrote down the procedures and dosages on a piece of paper she dug out of Sharon’s purse. It was Kathryn who slept in the waiting room and yelled at people when they needed to be yelled at. It was Kathryn who tracked down Kyle at his conference and told him to come home. And it was Kathryn who got Sharon home in one piece. And it was Kathryn who made the dozens of phone calls to postpone the wedding, which had been scheduled, confidently, for a month after Sharon’s due date.

  Even in the months that followed, when it was less clear what could be done, Kathryn had been there every day with food and love, until men came with a moving truck and took everything away.

  It sounds like you were a wonderful friend, Emily says.

  And it’s true. Kathryn had been a wonderful friend. She would have done anything for Sharon and she’d do it again, though at the moment Kathryn is avoiding Sharon’s phone calls.

  When she rescheduled the wedding, Kathryn says, she put it on my birthday.

  On purpose? Emily says. Why?

  Kathryn doesn’t know why. All she can think of is Sharon on the floor of that exam room.

  —

  Cornelius knows the way home. He is leading them there. He is a demonstrably happy dog and Kathryn and Emily discuss what kind of animal they would most like to be. Kathryn says a cow—she has been saying cow since she was five—but then Emily says manta ray, which makes Kathryn want another turn.