“I’m not going home,” James says. “I’m going to a press conference.” He paws through his clothes. He still doesn’t feel quite . . . normal. (He feels high. Probably from all the cocaine he consumed the night before, combined with the shot of Demerol they gave him in the hospital last night. Or rather, early this morning. When he thought he was having the heart attack. From cocaine. Other people have done worse. They’ve shot up heroin. But they aren’t married to Winnie.)
“Do you have a notebook I can borrow?” he says.
“I want you to go home.”
“No,” he says. If he gives in now, he’s finished.
“What do you mean, ‘No’?”
“No,” he says. “What do you think it means?”
“You must still be high,” she says.
“Probably,” he says. He looks up at the TV. He doesn’t feel unpleasant. The world has an interesting intensity that is, for once in his life, nonanxiety producing.
“Where are you going?”
“To a press conference.” (He has something important to do, too.)
“A press conference!”
“Monkeys,” he says. “Chimpanzees.”
“Which, James?” Winnie says (cleverly, he thinks. If she is back to her old tricks of trying to trick him, maybe she’s not that angry).
“I need a pen, too,” he says. “I can’t find my watch. I can’t leave without my watch.”
“Oh, for Christ’s sake!” she says. She marches (and she’s the only person he knows who does march) the few feet to the head of the bed and presses the buzzer with her thumb. “I am praying that none of our friends get wind of this incident. This could ruin your career.”
“Could,” he says.
“Do you even care?”
“No,” he says.
A nurse comes into the room. “Yes?” she says.
“My husband can’t find his watch,” Winnie says. “Can you find it for him, please?”
“It’s on his wrist.”
“Well, how about that,” James says. He leans back on the pillows and looks at his silver Rolex with fresh appreciation. “It’s ten-thirty.”
“I know what time it is. I had to leave my office. Now get up and put your clothes on.”
The doctor walks in. “How are we doing this morning, Mr. Dieke?” he says.
“Richard?” Winnie says.
“Winnie?”
“How are you?” Winnie says, smiling pleasantly, as if James weren’t lying in a hospital bed, high, smelly, and partly naked. “I didn’t know you worked at Lenox Hill.”
“Why should you?” Richard says. “We haven’t seen each other since college.”
“We went to college together,” Winnie says. “What a coincidence. Richard Feble, my husband, James Dieke.”
“Well, I’m happy to say that your husband is doing just fine,” Richard says. “His EKG and his chest X rays came back normal, so all I can say is since you never know what’s in this stuff, stay away. If you have to indulge in illegal substances, smoke a joint. Okay? I don’t want to see you guys in here again.”
“Believe me, Richard, this was a complete fluke,” Winnie says. “James and I never—”
“I’m not your mother,” Richard says. “By the way, we found this in Mr. Dieke’s pocket. You might want to keep this.” He hands Winnie a small brown vial. It’s half full of white powder. He winks.
“Oh,” Winnie says. “Thank you.” She puts it in her purse. Glares at James. Now she’s a drug addict too. What if she gets caught with this stuff?
Richard pats James on the leg. “I’ve read your stuff in Esquire. You must lead a wild life.”
“Untamed,” James says. He doesn’t look at Winnie.
“I’ve got a column in X,” Winnie says, naming the magazine she works for.
“Oh, we always knew you would succeed,” Richard says.
“Let’s get together sometime,” Winnie says, cocking her head to the side and smiling. “Are you married?”
“Me? Nah. Listen guys, I’ve got rounds. Nice to see you, Winnie,” Richard says. He points at James. “Can’t wait to read your next piece. Stay alive, huh, big guy?”
Richard walks out of the room. Winnie turns to James. “Untamed?” she says. “Oh James, now I’ve heard everything.”
James looks at her. He feels like sticking his tongue out. But he doesn’t. Instead, he smiles.
SOMETHING GOOD HAPPENS
James slips into the back of the grand ballroom in the Hilton Hotel just in time for the commotion in the front of the room.
An attractive (on second thought, make that very attractive) dark-haired girl in a tight-fitting purple top (her breasts look like they could spill out at any second) is waving her arm frantically. “Hey, Danny. Danny!” she says in a raspy voice. “Where were the customs agents in all this?”
Danny Pico, the head of customs, a greasy-haired balding guy in a cheap navy blazer, glares at her. “Not today, Amber,” he says. “Not today.”
Amber! James can imagine what her breasts would look like. Full and soft. And quivering. He hasn’t had breasts like that in a long time.
“Please, Danny,” Amber says. “Why are taxpayer dollars being wasted on completely irrelevant scientific experiments?”
“Next,” Danny says.
“Hello. The fourth amendment,” Amber says, waving a hand with blue fingernail polish.
(The fourth amendment?)
“This press conference is over!” Danny Pico says. The room erupts. Amber turns and clomps towards the door on a pair of four-inch platform sandals. She’s wearing a short skirt. Leather. White. She’s headed straight for James.
“Excuse me,” he says, touching her arm as she passes.
She stops and turns. “Huh?” she says. “Do I know you?”
“I’m James Dieke.”
Her face lights up. “James Dieke. Ohmigod,” she says. “You’re one of my heroes.”
“I am?” (He is?)
“Sure. I loved your piece on satellites. You’re the only writer who could make magnesium sulfide interesting. Important. You know?”
“Really,” James says. (Magnesium sulfide?)
She switches some papers from one arm to another. She holds out her hand. “Amber Anders.”
“Wow,” James says.
“Wow?” she says.
“Your name. It’s great.” (It sounds like a porno star’s.)
“You think so? I always thought it was a good name for a byline. I write for X,” she says, naming the same magazine Winnie works for. “I’m a staffer. But I hope not a lifer.” She leans closer. “Some people never get out of there, you know? I swear, there are dead editors in obscure offices hidden behind piles of back issues.”
“I’ll tell you something,” James says. “There are always dead editors. Lurking in obscure little offices. Torturing writers.”
“Hey, you’re funny, you know that. Nobody ever said you were funny.”
“Maybe they don’t know me,” James says. He wonders if she knows Winnie. (He wonders if she knows he has a hard-on.)
“Who are you covering this for?” she asks.
“The Sunday Times Magazine,” he says.
“Cool,” she says. She sticks her finger in her mouth and nibbles at her nail. She looks up at him. Her eyes are large and brown. Uncreased. “These guys aren’t talking. But it doesn’t matter. I’ve got the address of the warehouse in Brooklyn where they’re hiding these monkey fuckers.”
“Monkey fuckers?” James says.
“The monkeys. The chimps. The chimps they’re doing the secret government experiments on. Get it?”
James can’t help it (how could he help it?), he follows her right out of the hotel and onto Fifty-sixth Street. “And you’ll never believe where I got the address,” she says. “Danny Pico’s driver. Can you believe that?” They’re on the sidewalk, walking toward Fifth. “Got a cigarette? No? Well, never mind. I didn’t figure you for a smoker. Hey, why
don’t you come with me?”
“Come with you?” James says.
“To the warehouse, dummy. The warehouse in Brooklyn. I’ve got the address, remember?”
“Oh, right. The address,” James says. “But how are we going to get to Brooklyn?”
Amber stops and looks at him. “Company car service. How else?”
“Car service?” James says.
“Well, I’m not taking the IRT in this outfit.”
Fifteen minutes later, she says, “Hey, James. I have an idea. Why don’t we cover the story together? Like Woodward and Bernstein. Only I don’t want to be the short one. What’s his name again?”
“Who?” James says, looking at her breasts. “Woodward? Bernstein?”
“Yeah,” Amber says. “That’s the one.” They’re sitting in the back of a Big Apple town car. Crossing the Brooklyn Bridge. Amber leans across the seat and puts her hand over his. “Isn’t this a blast?”
“Have I told you my theory about alpha males?” James asks.
WINNIE MAKES A DECISION
Winnie wants to be loved.
She wants to be cherished. She wants to be valued. (She doesn’t really know what “cherished” means. Does anyone?) She wants a man to say, “I love you, Winnie. You’re so beautiful.”
She wants him to give her a nice piece of jewelry.
Is that asking too much?
Was she ever really loved? Her mother loved her. (She would rush home from school to see her mother. They would go to the supermarket together. And to Ann Taylor. Her mother bought her sweaters and skirts in bright colors. Kneesocks. She wore kneesocks even in college. Headbands too.)
Her father criticized her. A lot. About everything she did. (If she got straight As, and she did get straight As most of the time, he said, “That’s what I expect. That’s what I expect from a child of mine.”)
Her father made her feel like she wasn’t good enough. Like she was missing something (maybe some brain cells). That was his favorite trick.
“Winnie,” he would say. “What’s your address?”
“One, one, one . . .”
“You’re so stupid.”
She was three and a half. And she could read. How can you be stupid when you’re three and a half?
“Winnie? Which is bigger? The sun or the moon?”
It was a trick question, and she had known it was a trick question. (She knew that she wasn’t good at trick questions. She always overtricked herself). “The moon?”
“You’re so stupid.” (She was four.)
Her father didn’t understand her. (Neither does James.) She couldn’t understand him (her father. And James). Couldn’t understand why everything she did was wrong. (What did he want? What did men want? Nothing. Maybe to be left alone.) Couldn’t understand why whatever her father said was law, even if he was wrong. (Why did she have to listen to him? Why couldn’t he listen to her?) And he often was wrong. He let their French poodle run without a leash, and he got attacked by a German shepherd. (“I knew he would,” Winnie sobbed. “Shut up,” he said.)
“I’m tough on you, Winnie,” he said. “I have to be. You’re lazy. If I’m not hard on you, I don’t know how you’ll turn out.”
She certainly is smart enough (she’s achieved a lot). Why does she have to fight for every ounce of respect? James doesn’t.
Why does everyone make her feel like a bitch? For standing up for herself. “You’ve got to learn to stand up for yourself, Winnie,” her father said. “Because nobody else will.”
He was right. Nobody else has ever stood up for her. Especially men.
What a useless gender. Ever since she was four and had to go to school with them and then her mother actually had one, she’s believed they should just be eliminated. Aborted. Okay, a few could be allowed to live. But only for their sperm. And they’d have to be excellent specimens.
What was all that crap about men that she grew up with? That one day, one of these (pitiful) specimens was going to fall in love with her (and actually love her—hah—whoever dreamed that one up should be worth a kazillion dollars), and make her whole. Give her something she couldn’t live without. (She can live without most of the penises she’s met so far, so it’s all a lie.)
Take James.
She had to get him. (It was supposed to be the other way around. But if she had waited, let him “make all the moves” the way men are always telling you to let them, she’d still be waiting.)
She had to pursue James the way she’s had to pursue everything else in her life. With straightforward determination. (She didn’t know how to play the boy-girl game. No one ever taught her. And besides, it seemed disgusting and dishonest.) “Listen, James,” she said at the beginning, after she and James had had six dates (and slept together on the fourth). “Listen, James. I’m not going to play games.” This was one week after their sixth date, and James suddenly wasn’t calling. She had to call him. (How dare he? And why? Why was he treating her this way?)
“I’ve been on deadline,” he said.
“You could have called me,” she said. (No one is too busy to pick up the phone, to make a one-minute phone call. No matter how busy they say they are. Sorry.)
“I forgot,” James said.
“You . . . forgot?” Winnie said. (Was it possible for a human being to be so stupid?)
“I’ve been on deadline,” James said. (As if this were an excuse. She should have known then. She should have run in the other direction.)
She didn’t know how to play games.
“You forgot,” she said. Again. (And he was an award-winning journalist.) “How dare you forget,” she said. “I slept with you, James. I had sex with you. We have a relationship. How dare you?” She hung up the phone. (She was shaking.) She called back.
“And you’re fucking lucky to be going out with me.”
Ten minutes later, he called. “Do you want to go to a book party with me on Monday?”
She accepted.
She should have run in the other direction.
She didn’t.
(A man once described his love for a former girlfriend to her: “She was like my lover, my mother, my sister, and my child,” he said. To James, she is only his mother.)
James needed her. (He still does nothing.)
When she met him, he was living in a tiny studio apartment with a loft bed. He had a bureau and a desk under the loft. He had one old couch and bookshelves made of cinder blocks and two-by-fours. He was thirty-two and his sink was full of dirty dishes.
Winnie washed his dishes.
“Listen, James,” she said. “You’re fucking lucky to be going out with me.” (She was an editor at a women’s magazine. A full editor. She got a free ride home in the company car if she worked past seven. She assigned pieces and had lunches with writers; sometimes she had to kill pieces too. Then she’d call the writer and say, “I’m sorry, this piece just isn’t working for us. Maybe you can try to sell it someplace else.” Sometimes the writers would cry. Everyone said that Winnie was going to go far.)
“Listen, James,” Winnie said. “I think you have a fear of success. You have a fear of change. You’re afraid that if you commit to me, you’ll have to change. You’ll have to acknowledge your success.”
“Do you think so?” James said. “I never thought about it that way. You could be right.”
All James does is agree. He agrees and then he does nothing.
“It’s too much, James,” she says now. “It’s too much for me.”
“I know,” he says. (He can’t even plan a vacation. She plans it, and then he goes along for the ride.)
He does nothing.
Winnie knows what she has to do. She has to stop taking care of James. And start taking care of herself. Isn’t that what all the shrinks tell you to do in relationships? Stop focusing on the man? And focus on yourself? (Of course, if you stop focusing on the man, he’ll probably leave. That’s what they forget to tell you.)
She has to focus o
n her needs.
Winnie is going to sleep with Tanner and she’s excited.
She calls her office. Speaks to her assistant. “What’s up?” the assistant says.
“I’m still in this emergency situation. I won’t be back this afternoon. I’ll call at the end of the day.”
“Someone named Jess Fukees called,” her assistant says.
“He’s not important. He’s only the CEO of the company.”
“Okay,” the assistant says. (Sarcasm is beyond her.)
“It’s not okay,” Winnie says. “Call his secretary and tell her that I’m out of the office . . . no, out of town, and I’ll call him first thing tomorrow.”
“You go girl,” the assistant says, and hangs up.
Winnie goes home. “Hello,” she says to the Jamaican nanny, who jumps up and quickly turns off the TV. Winnie ignores this.
“Mrs. Dieke. You’re home early.”
“I’m not home at all,” Winnie says. “I’m just stopping by. On my way to a meeting.”
She goes into the bedroom and opens her closet. Rifles through her shoes. Unopened, and still in their box, are the strappy sandals James gave her for her birthday.
She puts them on.
“Good-bye,” she says to the Jamaican nanny.
She hails a cab. “Morgans Hotel on Madison Avenue,” she says. At the desk, she says, “I’d like you to ring Mr. Paul Bunyan, please.”
“Is he expecting you?”
“Yes,” Winnie says. She looks around the lobby. It’s so small, it’s claustrophobic. She drums her nails on the white linoleum.
The desk clerk turns away and whispers into the phone. “Mr. Hart? There’s a woman here to see you?”
“Winnie,” Winnie says.
“Winnie,” the clerk says. He puts down the phone. “You can go up. It’s Suite A. Top floor.”
“Thank you,” Winnie says.
She takes the elevator. Gets out in a narrow, gray-carpeted hallway. She presses the buzzer for Suite A.
“Just a minute . . . coming,” Tanner says. “Coming . . . uh . . . uh . . . ohmigod . . . co-o-o-o-ming.” He flings open the door.
“Hello,” Winnie says.
“This is an unexpected surprise.”