Tear You Apart

  When the cab pulls to a stop in front of Will’s building, I shift a little, moving to give him the room to get out without awkwardly bumping into me. I murmur something that sounds like “goodbye” but tastes like “hello,” all bright and summer-yellow on my tongue. We’re both turning, turning, he’s getting out of the cab, the door is open, the rain and cold are coming in.

  Will kisses my mouth. Short, hard, an inelegant and unglamorous, unerotic peck on the lips, the sort you’d give the prom date you didn’t really want but settled for when your crush turned you down. Three seconds, maybe less, and he’s gone, the door closing behind him and the cab already pulling away, leaving Will standing on the curb and my mouth open in protest.

  Wait is the word on my tongue. Unacceptable. Terrible. Disappointing. It was supposed to be better than that.

  And then, sitting back against the seat in stunned dismay, I press my fingertips to the place where he kissed me and think, He kissed me. Oh, God. He kissed me on the mouth.

  It’s not until I get home that I realize I’m still wearing his jacket.

  Chapter Thirteen

  I should be working from the Philadelphia office today, but I’ve made the trip into New York on the pretense that Naveen and I need to talk about some invoices. He’s still ignoring me. I’m pretending I don’t notice. We haven’t had a true conversation in weeks. It’s the longest I’ve ever gone without talking to him since that last year of college. Then we didn’t speak for six months and got back in touch only when he wrote me a long, sincere letter begging me to forgive him. We had to do it old-school back then, I think with a faint smile. No email. No texting. Long distance calls too expensive. I still have the letter in a box with all my other mementos. I haven’t read it in years, but could probably recite at least bits of it from memory, that’s how many times I’d read it before I replied to him.

  I’ve brought Will’s jacket, folded neatly and in a plastic grocery bag. It sits on the edge of my desk, unobtrusive but always in the corner of my eye. I wait until Naveen is with a client, an interior designer who often purchases entire lots of art with which to fill her customers’ foyers. Sarah Roth charges exorbitant rates and never seems to care about the subject matter of what she buys, exactly, only that whatever it is follows the color scheme and “tone” of the place she’s decorating. Her hair is never the same color twice. She’s pretty amazing, and I envy her style.

  In Naveen’s office, I scroll through his computer’s address book until I find Will’s number. I could’ve asked Naveen for it. He’d have given it to me, if he bothered to speak to me, which he still seems bent on refusing to do. The soft rise of laughter bubbles outside the door, turning my head. It’s going to take more than a letter to get me back in Naveen’s good graces, and to be honest, I’m not sure I’m ready to make such an effort. He can hold a grudge a long time, and what I’d said was hurtful. Truth, but hurtful.

  I punch Will’s number into my phone before I can stop myself. Not a call—that would be too forward. Too insistent, somehow, on taking up his attention. What if he’s busy? With someone? But an email takes too long, if he doesn’t check his regularly, as I don’t unless I’m expecting something important.

  But a text message, that’s just right. Not too intimate or demanding, yet immediate. He can answer when it works for him. My fingertip taps out the message and I hit Send before I can regret it.

  I have your jacket.

  Then I wait. Unable to concentrate on the busywork I’ve made for myself, I pace. I drink coffee from the machine down the hall, cup after cup. And finally, just as I’m getting ready to go for lunch, my phone hums.

  Meet me?

  Oh, yes. Anywhere, I think, but don’t type. We arrange to meet not at a coffee shop—neither my bladder nor my nerves could’ve handled it—but at the Museum of Modern Art, close to where he’s been shooting some pictures. I take a cab. The ride’s longer than expected, due to construction. We text the entire ride. Simple conversation, weighted with what we aren’t saying.

  How was your day? What are you working on? Have you seen this movie, read this book? What’s your favorite band? Where did you grow up?

  Which do you like better, the ocean or the mountains? Will asks.

  The ocean, I reply at once. I love the ocean more than anything else in the whole world.

  It’s my turn then. Have you ever touched an elephant?

  I don’t know why I asked him that. I’m restless, irritated by the driver’s seeming inability to get me where I want to be without encountering every single traffic snarl in downtown Manhattan. It came out of the blue, suddenly, as necessary for me to know as his favorite flavor of ice cream, or the color he likes best.

  His answer doesn’t come right away. I picture him pondering it, second-guessing his decision to meet me even if it was ostensibly to get back the jacket he’d lent me. I imagine him scratching his head, fingers sliding through that wheat-brown hair to make it stand on end, and I lean back against the seat as heat filters through me at the image my mind built.

  No.

  The answer surprises me. I’ve touched elephants at the circus, when you can pay twenty dollars for a ride on their smelly broad backs around the sawdust-covered ring. Once at the zoo during a special behind-the-scenes tour. Once at a Ren faire, where “Lady Wrinkles” would take from your palm treats you could buy from her handlers. Elephants are amazing, beautiful creatures, and it hasn’t occurred to me that Will might never have been close enough to touch one.

  “We got another block to go,” the driver says roughly, looking over his shoulder. His brows are bushy and wild, his lips moist. His teeth very white. “You want to get out here and walk? It’s gonna take another twenty, thirty minutes in this traffic.”

  “I’ll get out. Thanks.” I pay him quickly, not giving myself the chance to take advantage of the delay.

  I am not dressed for walking. New York women totter along the sidewalks in impossibly high shoes, never breaking stride. I dodge puddles of dubious origin and wobble on cracked pavement in my modest three-inch heels and wish for sneakers. I’d spent an hour in front of my closet trying on different outfits. This shirt with that skirt, this blouse, that dress. Jewelry. More time spent on my hair. I didn’t want to look as if I was trying too hard. Now I wished I’d spent even more time, paid better attention to the lining of my eyes and mouth. I’d ended up dressing for a day in the office, not for meeting a lover.

  Oh, God.

  I see him before he sees me. He’s smoking, which shouldn’t surprise me but somehow does. He leans against some scaffolding—it’s everywhere in New York. The city is forever putting on a new face. Looking away from me, Will takes a long, deep drag before tipping his head back to let the smoke seep from his nostrils toward the sky. He’s wearing dark jeans and a midnight-blue henley shirt with the sleeves pushed up on his arms. A series of braided leather bracelets tangle around one wrist. He is so beautiful that I’m frozen in place, buffeted by the never-ending press and rush of people in a hurry.

  There’s a moment when I could turn around and walk away. Catch another cab. I could be back on the train and on my way home in an hour. I can delete his number from my phone.

  But I can’t erase the memory of that kiss.

  That stupid fucking mouth-on-mouth.

  He turns, gaze scanning the crowd but his expression blank. Then he sees me. And everything about him lights up.

  Will stubs out the cigarette against the side of a trash can and tosses the butt inside as I cross the street to get to him. “Elisabeth. Hi.”

  “Hi.” I hold out the plastic bag, though the weather’s turned much warmer and he wouldn’t need it now. “I brought your jacket.”

  “Thanks.” He takes the bag without looking inside.

  We stare at each other, and I can’t stop my smile. I am suddenly and
inexplicably suffused with a joy so fierce I have to duck my head. I don’t want him to see it on my face. I look instead toward the museum entrance.

  “Should we go in?”

  “If you want to.” Will gestures a little awkwardly.

  “I haven’t been here in a long time. Sure. I’d like to.”

  He leads the way, but steps aside to let me go through the door first; for a few seconds his fingertips press the small of my back. Other than that, we don’t touch. We each pay our own way to get in, and move through the lobby toward the stairs. It’s not too busy today—the last time I was here it was almost impossible to get through the throng, and I’d had to wait in line for twenty minutes just to get close to Van Gogh’s Starry Night. It was worth it. It’s always worth it.

  It’s where we go first, though neither of us suggests it. It’s as if our feet simply take us there while we chat of inconsequential things, as though we’d never had our texted conversation at all. As if we’re strangers. They’ve changed the location since the last time I was here. Before, it hung on a wall with a bunch of other paintings, but now it’s on its own wall, set off from the others to make it easier, I guess, for many people to gather around it.

  Will and I stand in front of Starry Night. Our shoulders touch. I am moved, as I always am.

  “What do you see?” Will asks. “When you look at this?”

  Surprised, I glance at him without moving. “What do you mean?”

  “Tell me.”

  I sip a breath. “Well...I love the colors. The bold strokes. It looks like the night sky to me, obviously. But...it’s also like...honey. Warm honey dripping off a silver spoon. The flavor of it. The smell, too.”

  I can’t describe it better than that. Will doesn’t ask. Slowly, slowly, his fingers curl against mine. Our pinkies link. We are joined.

  And then the cavorting squall of schoolkids shows up. Will and I snap apart. He grins at me as he lets a couple kids push in front of him.

  “I’m hungry,” he says. “You want to get something?”

  The café is directly across from the gallery we were in, which is convenient enough to make me wonder if he’d planned it all along. I study the menu, musing at the prices. “Museums should be cheaper,” I say in a low voice, not really complaining. Just thinking aloud. I look at him over the hoity-toity menu. “Art should be more accessible.”

  “I can agree with you because I’ll never have anything hanging in a museum,” Will says. “Especially not this one.”

  We laugh together as the waiter comes to take our order. Will gets the cheese plate and some kind of fancy salad. I order a quiche. We both get the MOMAtini, which has raspberries in it. My first sip hits me hard. By the second, I’m pretty sure I’ll be on my way to tipsytown.

  “That good?” Will says when I tell him this.

  “I’m not a big drinker.” I take another savory sip. The drink is good. “When I drink too much, I always feel like I want to speak French, but badly. Because that’s the only way I know how to speak it. Do you speak French?”

  “No. But I think you should have another drink.”

  “I think I need to be a little drunk for some of the stuff in here.”

  He laughs again and clinks his glass to mine. “You don’t like modern art?”

  On an empty stomach the drink hits me faster than normal. I study the crimson liquid and take another sip, eyeing him. “I like my art to look like stuff.”

  His brows raise. He leans back in his chair. I feel the knock of his boot against my foot, but I don’t move it.

  “You’re a realist,” Will says.

  “Maybe.” My tongue runs over my bottom lip, along the sweetness left behind by the liquor.

  He’s watching me. I shift a little. My cheeks are flushed. I’m too conscious again of how I look, if the neckline of my blouse is a little too low. Or not low enough. If my hair’s starting to come loose around my face.

  “Not a romantic?”

  “Oh,” I say, a little too loudly. “No. God, no.”

  Will studies me for a second. “You like photographs.”

  “Yes.”

  “Better than paintings.”

  “Mostly, yes. Especially paintings that don’t look like anything other than four barely different shades of black in a big box or something like that. That shit,” I say as I lean a little forward to put my empty glass on the table between us, “is like something a kindergarten kid could do.”

  Will snorts laughter, either at my language or my slightly slurred description, I can’t be sure. “Oh, c’mon.”

  “I’m serious!” I shake my head, giving him a sideways smile. “Tell me you don’t think so.”

  “Art is subjective, yeah,” he says after a second. “If you hate modern art so much, why’d you agree to come here?”

  I shrug. “Because I love Starry Night. Because you suggested it. I don’t know.”

  Because I wanted to see you, I think. And it didn’t matter where.

  Will gestures to catch the waiter’s attention, and to me he says, “You should definitely have another drink in order to get through it, then.”

  Our food arrives along with a second set of drinks I should decline, but don’t. We eat and talk, sharing our food. No longer strangers. He offers me a bite of soft cheese spread on a slim slice of hard toast, and right there in the MOMA café, in front of the world or at least anyone who’d care enough to bother watching us, I take it right from his fingers into my mouth.

  “Is it good?” Will murmurs, and all I can say is yes.

  I am most definitely drunk by the time lunch is finished, and I don’t care. The floor slides a little under my feet, but Will’s got a hand under my elbow and I’m not at all afraid of falling. He keeps me close. Herding me again, this time not across a busy street but through the late afternoon swell of museum patrons.

  In the restroom, I wet a paper towel and press it to the back of my neck for a few seconds. It does nothing to ease the flush of my cheeks, the sparkle in my eyes. My lips are red and wet, tinged from the raspberries maybe. I pull a curl of hair out of the clip and let it fall over one eye. I slide the top button of my blouse free. I stare at the woman in the reflection, but although I might like to pretend I’m someone else, there’s no doubt she’s still all me.

  “You okay, honey?” The elderly woman at the sink beside me wears bright red lipstick to match her scarlet fingernails.

  I admire her leopard print scarf. I’ve never worn animal prints. They make me feel prickly. “I like your scarf.”

  She gives it a pleased glance. “Thank you. Do you feel well?”

  I stop myself from saying “fan-fucking-tastic” only at the last minute, but make a not-so-subtle swipe at the bands of shimmery color her voice has left in the air. This is why I don’t drink, I remember. Because I forget to remember that the rest of the world doesn’t see what I see.

  “I’m fine.” I feign sobriety with another hard look at myself in the mirror. “Just had a little too much liquid joy at lunch.”

  She laughs. “I’ve done that myself, once or twice.”

  Outside, Will waits, leaning against the white wall with his hands in his pockets and one leg crossed over the other. He stands up straight when I come through the doorway. His smile tweaks my own.

  “Bonjour,” I say, and more words come, slipping out with a flavor of garlic butter and red wine. “La première fois que je t’ai vu, j’ai eu un coup de foudre.”

  “Merci,” Will says. “Jacques Cousteau. Escargot. Marcel Marceau.”

  We look at modern art together, sometimes in silence, sometimes with commentary. Mostly with sideways glances and a few stifled giggles.

  “It’s pretentious,” I say finally, in front of an exhibit that stretches from floor to ceiling. It cons
ists entirely of graph paper on which the artist has traced the lines. “It’s not even a pattern. He just traced the boxes. I did that in the sixth grade. Nobody called it art.”

  “Maybe that’s the difference. What someone else calls it.” Will rocks on his heels a few times, hands in his back pockets. “Maybe it’s not art unless someone else says so.”

  “Art,” I say seriously, “should make you feel something.”

  Will is quiet for a second or two before he looks at me with another quirking grin. “This makes you feel angry.”

  He’s right. It’s not what I meant, but he’s right, and I give him a little bow that makes the world spin a bit. Laughing, he takes me by the elbow again. Down a corridor into another room.

  This one is completely black inside, no lights except the film shining against the far wall. Black-and-white, it features a man standing in front of a barn. As we watch, the barn’s front wall comes off in slow motion, but the empty window frame is positioned so that it falls completely over him. It’s a parody or an homage to an old Buster Keaton movie, I think; I can’t quite tell which one. Over and over the front of the barn falls, the man’s expression never changing. Over and over, from different angles and distances.

  Over and over.

  Eventually the film cycles through to the beginning again. Will and I stand in the corner, the darkest spot. We blend into the shadows, and the way the light from the movie reflects off the polished walls and floor, we are almost impossible to see unless you’re looking for us. I know this because an older man in a pink polo shirt unselfconsciously picks his nose while he watches the film, and he’s only about two feet from me.

  I shudder with disgust and bury my face against Will’s shoulder to stifle my choking laughter. His arm slips around my waist, pulling me closer. Hip to hip. His thumb moves back and forth against the inner skin of my wrist, held close to my side. Slow, slow strokes. He doesn’t look at me.