Andy nods and says, “Well, maybe the hotel has a terrace. That’d be cool. Or you could go out by the pool. Or, hell, in the pool! You know—tossing a beach ball around, that kind of thing.”
I laugh, picturing Drake in a Speedo and thinking that as excited as I am, Andy seems even more so. In part, I think it’s because he’s remained a much more loyal and ebullient Drake fan over the years. But mostly, I think it’s just due to his star-struck tendencies, which are in marked and amusing (although Margot would say mortifying) contrast to the way most Manhattanites completely downplay celebrity sightings, almost as a badge of honor. Like the more blasé they are, the more they are making a statement that their own lives are just as fabulous, minus the hassle and tedium of fame, of course. But not Andy. I think of his wild enthusiasm when we spotted Spike Lee at an ATM on the West Side—and Kevin Bacon and Kyra Sedgwick running in the park (“two for the price of one!”)—and Liv Tyler perusing stationery at Kate’s Paperie—and the greatest score of all, Dustin Hoffman walking his black lab in East Hampton. After we passed the pair, Andy told me he had to use every bit of restraint not to burst out with that famous line from The Graduate—“Just one word…plastics!”—which cracked me up, but probably wouldn’t have been quite as amusing to Dustin.
But Dustin Hoffman on the beach is one thing; Drake Watters at a photo shoot is quite another. So when Andy asks, only half in jest, if I’m going to get an autograph for him, I shake my head resolutely.
“Not a chance,” I say.
“C’mon,” he says, reaching across the table to steal another bite of my foie gras, which we both agree is the better selection by a very slim margin. “Just have him write something short and sweet. Something like…‘To Andy, my dear friend and great inspiration. Yours in melody, Drake Watters.’ Or he can simply sign it ‘Drake’…Or even ‘Mr. Watterstein.’ It all works.”
I laugh, having forgotten from my Teen Beat-purchasing days that Drake’s real last name is Watterstein. I think of how I used to pore over those juicy details—Drake’s real name! Rob Lowe’s fave food! Ricky Schroder’s love interest! River Phoenix’s new puppy!
Andy looks crestfallen—or at least pretends to be. “You really won’t hook me up? Seriously?”
“Seriously,” I say. “I really, really will not.”
“Okay, Annie,” he says. “Be that way.”
It is about the third time that he’s jokingly, but with a note of admiration, referred to me as Annie or Ms. Leibovitz, and every time I feel like a bit of an imposter. A fraud for not telling him the full truth of how I got the job. Otherwise, though, the assignment has begun to lose its Leo connotation, and I’ve been able to largely convince myself that it really was my talent alone that scored me the job. After all, I reassure myself, Leo’s true intentions (to assuage guilt over how he once treated me? pure benevolence? because he’s seen my work and truly thinks I’m talented? to seduce me, at least mentally?) are really completely beside the point now. The job is mine, and it is a job I know I can do well. I refuse to be intimidated by Drake or Platform. And I refuse to feel indebted to Leo, if that is, in fact, his aim.
As I take my final bite, I appease my husband. “Fine. Fine,” I say. “I’ll play the autograph thing by ear…If Drake and I hit it off, and the shoot goes well, I’ll tell him that my dorky husband wants his autograph. Deal?”
“Deal,” Andy says happily, ignoring my “dorky husband” comment as only a very secure man would. I smile, thinking that there are few things sexier than a man who doesn’t take himself too seriously.
Our waiter stops by our table to expertly refill our champagne glasses, the bubbles reaching the highest point possible without spilling over. Andy gestures to our nearly empty bottle, asking whether I’d like more. I nod, savoring the ease of marital, nonverbal communication and envisioning intoxicated, celebratory sex later this evening. Andy orders us another bottle, and we continue to talk about Drake and the shoot.
Then, sometime in the graceful interim between appetizers and our entrées, Andy’s posture straightens and his expression becomes uncharacteristically grave.
“So,” he starts. “I want to talk to you about something else.”
For one second, I panic, thinking that he saw my cell phone bill, or that he otherwise knows that I’ve been in touch with Leo.
“Yeah?” I say.
He fiddles with his napkin and gives me a slow, tentative smile, as I think that if he were the wife, and I the husband, I’d be certain that we were going to have a baby. That’s how solemn, disquieted—and yet simultaneously excited—he looks.
“What?” I say, feeling grateful that I’m the one who gets to break that particular bit of news.
Andy leans across the table and says, “I’m thinking about quitting my job.”
I give him an expectant look as this is hardly a newsflash. Andy has been talking about quitting since his very first day of work, which apparently is par for the course for large firm associates. “What else is new?” I say.
“I mean imminently,” he says. “I drafted a letter of resignation today, in fact.”
“Really?” I say. I’ve heard of this infamous letter many times before—but have never known him to actually write it.
He nods, running his hand along his water glass before taking a long swallow. He dabs his napkin to his lips and says, “I really want to quit.”
“To do what?” I say, wondering if Andy would ever follow his brother James’s path—and do essentially nothing but sleep, play golf, and party.
“Besides mooch off my famous wife?” Andy asks, winking.
“Yeah,” I say, laughing. “Besides that?”
“Well,” he says. “I’d like to continue practicing law…but I’d like to do so in a smaller, more low-key…family-oriented setting.”
I think I know what he’s getting at, but wait for him to spell it out for me.
“In Atlanta,” he finally says. “With my dad.”
I take a sip of champagne, feeling my heart race with a range of unprocessed emotions as I say, “You think you’d be happy doing that?”
“I think so,” he says. “And my dad would be thrilled.”
“I know,” I say. “He only mentioned it five times when we were in town.”
Andy looks into my eyes and says, “But what about you? How would you feel about it?”
“About you working with your dad?” I ask. I know that I’m being obtuse, that he’s asking about something much greater than his job, but I’m not sure why.
“No. About Atlanta,” Andy says, fidgeting with his knife. “About living in Atlanta?”
Obviously Andy and I have talked about the move before, especially since Margot left the city. We even drove around and looked at houses on our last visit, but this time feels different. This time feels real, not theoretical—and in Andy’s own words, imminent.
To confirm, I say, “You mean moving there soon?”
Andy nods.
“Like this year? That soon?”
Andy nods again and then rushes into a nervous, heartfelt speech. “The last thing I want to do is pressure you. If you want to stay in New York—or feel that it would hurt your career to leave—I can stay. I mean, it’s not like I hate the city or feel desperate to move out or anything like that…But after that last visit to Atlanta…and looking at houses…and just thinking about our little niece on the way, and my folks getting older, and everything, really…I don’t know—I just feel ready for a change. For an easier life. Or at least a different kind of life.”
I nod, my mind racing. None of what Andy is saying is out of left field, not only because we’ve discussed it all before but because we’re at the age where lots of our friends are marrying, having babies, and making an exodus to the suburbs. But it still feels somehow astonishing to think about leaving the city in such immediate terms. My head fills with classic New York images—Central Park on a crisp fall day; ice skating at Rockefeller Plaza; sipping wine on an ou
tdoor terrace in the dizzy height of summer—and I suddenly feel nostalgic for the past. I even feel nostalgic for tonight, for the meal Andy and I are having together, the very memory we are making now.
“Say something,” Andy says, pulling on his ear, something he only does when he’s anxious—or when he really cares about something. There was definite ear pullage when he proposed, and it occurs to me that this moment isn’t so different. He is asking me how I feel about a big change. A step that we’d be taking together. It is not the same commitment as marriage, but in many ways, it’s an even bigger change.
I reach for Andy’s hand, taking it in mine, wanting so much to please him, but also wanting to be completely honest with him. “I think it could be really great,” I say, sounding less tentative than I feel—although the truth is, I’m not quite sure how I feel.
Andy nods and says, “I know. And believe me, I’m not trying to put you on the spot. But…I did want to show you this.”
He lets go of my hand and reaches into the inner pocket of his sport coat, pulling out a folded piece of paper. “Here ya go.”
I take the paper from him, unfold it, and gaze down at a large cedar and brick house with a covered front porch, similar to the home listings Margot has been e-mailing me since our last trip, always with subject lines like, “Next-door neighbors!” or “Perfect for you!”
But this house isn’t from Margot passing the time at her computer during the day. This house comes from Andy over champagne at Bouley.
“Do you like it?” he asks hesitantly, although it is very, very clear what he wants my answer to be.
“Of course,” I say, skimming the details in the written-up section below the photo—five bedrooms, four-and-a-half baths, fenced backyard, heated pool, high ceilings, screened-in porch, finished daylight basement, three-car garage, butler’s pantry, dumbwaiter servicing all three levels.
There is absolutely nothing not to like. It is a dream house in every way—like no house in my hometown or even anything I could have imagined as a child. Not even when my mother told me that she was certain that I would have a good life filled with beautiful things, beautiful people.
“I’m not worried about you, Ellie,” she had said, stroking my hair. “Not at all.”
It was one week before she died, right after she returned from the hospital for the last time, and I remember listening to her soothing voice, picturing my own grown-up life with a husband, a house, and children—and wondering if any of that could ever erase the pain of losing my mother.
I look up from the flyer now and say, “It’s beautiful, Andy. Really beautiful.”
“And it’s just as beautiful inside, too,” Andy says, talking rapidly. “Margot said she’s been inside…for some children’s clothing trunk show or something. She said there’s a huge workspace in the basement where you could set up shop. You wouldn’t have to rent an office anymore. Just go right down the steps in your pajamas…And the best part is—it’s, like, a hundred yards from Margot and Webb. How awesome would that be?”
I nod, taking it all in.
“It really is perfect,” Andy says. “Perfect for us. Perfect for the family we want to have.”
I gaze back down at the house, noticing the price tag. “Shit,” I say.
Money is something Andy and I don’t talk about often—he and Margot have that in common—but whereas she seems oblivious to her family fortune, he sometimes seems sheepish about it, almost apologetic. As a result, he makes certain choices, like our small apartment, and I sometimes forget just how wealthy he is. “You really are rich, huh?” I say, smiling.
Andy looks down and shakes his head. Then he looks back into my eyes and says earnestly, “We’re rich…In more ways than one.”
“I know,” I say, basking in the moment.
We stare at each other for what feels like a long time, until Andy breaks our silence. “So…What do you think?”
I open my mouth, close it, then open it again.
“I love you, Andy,” I finally say, my head spinning from champagne and so much else. “That’s what I think.”
“I’ll take it,” Andy says with a wink, just as our lobster arrives. “It’s no Drake autograph, but I’ll take it.”
Thirteen
“I knew you’d get sucked in all the way,” my sister says a few days later after I call her and tell her about our potential—likely—move to Atlanta. Her tone is not quite critical, but one of definite forbearance. “I just knew it.”
And I knew this would be your reaction, I think, but instead I say, “I wouldn’t call it ‘sucked in.’ For one, we haven’t even made a final decision—”
Suzanne interrupts, “Just promise you won’t start talking in a Southern accent.”
“Atlantans don’t have much of an accent,” I say. “It’s too transient…Andy barely has an accent.”
“And don’t start using the word y’all,” she says somberly, as if asking for a pledge that I won’t join a creepy religious sect and drink their Kool-Aid. “You’re a Yankee, and don’t you forget it.”
“Okay. If we move—and that’s still an if—I will safeguard against an accent, and I’ll faithfully stand by ‘you guys’ instead of ‘y’all.’ I also vow never to drive a pickup truck, fly the Confederate flag, or distill whiskey in the backyard,” I say as I take a break from sorting dirty laundry into a pile of darks and lights and sit cross-legged on the bedroom floor.
Despite the consistent sense I get from Suzanne that she doesn’t entirely approve of Andy or Margot or their world, I am still smiling. I have great affection for my sister, and it feels good to finally hear her voice after weeks of playing phone tag. Since college, our communication has been sporadic, depending on our schedules, and more important, depending on Suzanne’s mood. Sometimes she simply goes underground, and no amount of pestering will make her reemerge before she is good and ready.
As a result, I have learned to keep a list of topics to catch up on, which I pull out of my date planner now. I know I won’t forget the big ticket items—like Atlanta or Drake—but I never want the trivial ones to fall through the cracks for fear that our conversations will lose their everyday, comfortable feel. I can’t imagine it happening, and yet I know it does happen between sisters all the time, particularly when they don’t live near one another or have a lot in common—or for that matter, a mother holding them together. Somehow I feel that if I catch her up on the mundane details in my life—whether it be the new under-eye cream I’m using, or the out-of-the-blue e-mail I received from a junior high acquaintance, or the random, funny memory I had of our parents taking us back-to-school shoe shopping one Labor Day—we will never be relegated to sisters-in-title only. We will always be more than two adult women who call and visit out of nothing but a thread of familial obligation.
So I tick through my list and then listen to her updates—which aren’t really updates, just more of the status quo. Namely, Suzanne still hates her job as a US Airways flight attendant, and she still isn’t engaged to her boyfriend, Vince. She’s held both the job and Vince for nearly six years, each befitting her carefree lifestyle when she adopted them. But now, at thirty-six, she’s tired of serving drinks in the air to rude people, and she’s even more tired of serving drinks to Vince and his immature friends while they cheer on the Steelers, Pirates, and Penguins. She wants her life to change—or at least she wants Vince to change—but doesn’t quite know how to make that happen.
She’s also stubborn enough never to ask advice from her little sister. Not that I would know what to tell her anyway. Vince, a general contractor Suzanne met and exchanged numbers with during a highway traffic jam, is unreliable, won’t commit, and once lived with a stripper named Honey. But he also happens to be warm, witty, and the absolute life of the party. And, most important, Suzanne truly loves him. So I have learned to just offer an empathetic ear—or laugh when it’s appropriate, which I do right now as she details how Vince handed her an unwrapped ring box on Valentine?
??s Day right after they had sex. Knowing Vince, I am pretty sure where the story is headed.
“Oh, no,” I groan, resuming my laundry sorting.
“Oh, yes,” Suzanne says. “And I’m thinking, ‘No freaking way. Tell me I haven’t waited six years for a cheesy Valentine’s Day proposal. In bed, no less. And, God, what if it’s a heart-shaped ring?’…But at the same time, I’m also thinking, ‘Take what you can get, sister. Beggars can’t be choosers.’”
“So what was it?” I ask, in suspense.
“A garnet ring. My fucking birthstone.”
I burst out laughing—it’s just so bad. And yet, a little bit sweet. “Ahh,” I say. “He tried.”
Suzanne ignores this comment and says, “Who the hell over the age of ten cares about their birthstone?…Do you even know what yours is?”
“A tourmaline,” I say.
“Well, I’ll be sure to tell Andy to get right on that. Get you that sweet pad in Atlanta, with a tourmaline to go.” Suzanne laughs her trademark airy laugh that almost sounds like she can’t catch her breath, as I think that her sense of humor is what saves her life from being outright depressing. That and the fact that, despite her big, tough act, she has a very tender heart. She really could be bitter in the way that a lot of single women who are waiting in vain for a ring are bitter, but she’s just not. And although I think she’s sometimes jealous of my better fortune, easier road, she is also a great sister who genuinely wants the best for me.
So I know she will only be happy to hear about my Drake shoot—which I’m bursting to tell her about. Like Andy, Suzanne loves Drake, but less for his music than his political activism. Although my sister is not an outward hippie—she gave up weed and her Birkenstocks right after her Grateful Dead stage in college—she is very impassioned when it comes to her causes, particularly the environment and third-world poverty. And by impassioned, I don’t mean that she simply talks the talk—Suzanne actually gets off her butt and does things that make a difference—which serves as an unusual contrast to the inertia that has always plagued her personal life. When we were in high school, for example, she could barely make it to class or maintain a C average, despite her genius IQ—fourteen points higher than mine—which we knew from snooping through our parents’ files. Yet she did find the time and energy to found the school’s Amnesty International chapter and circulate petitions urging the administration to put out recycling bins in the cafeteria—unprecedented stuff at the time, at least in our town.