The Interestings

  Ash grieved for a long time for her mother, and called Jules a lot, wanting to talk, asking her if she was being too much of a pain. “How could you be a pain?” Jules said. Ethan, following his run of bad fortune with Alpha, the failed spin-off of Figland, had a failure so big and public and expensive that it seemed to threaten the whole Figland enterprise. An article ran in the Hollywood Reporter called “An End to All Things Figman?” Ethan had created and written a high-budget animated feature film called Dam It! using animated beaver characters to tell the story of the plight of child labor. It received bad reviews and did poorly, as Jules had warned him it would when he first told her he was thinking of trying to develop it as an idea. “Are you sure you want to do that?” she’d said. “It just sort of sounds unappealing and preachy, Ethan. Just stick to the actual cause. You don’t have to make it into a cartoon.” “Other people have been really encouraging about it,” he’d replied. “And Ash likes it.” But other people usually said yes to Ethan, and Ash was generally encouraging to him too; it was her way. “The Ishtar of cartoons,” wrote the Reporter. Every failure was the Ishtar of something; years later, Ethan would pronounce the Iraq war was the Ishtar of wars. No one at the studio blamed Ethan openly, but of course it was his fault, he explained to his friends over dinner one night, because the urgent work of the Anti-Child-Labor Initiative apparently did not translate into whimsy. “I should have listened to you, Jules,” he said moodily, looking at her across the table. “I should always listen to you.”

  After the movie’s terrible opening weekend, Ethan took several days off and stayed in the house on Charles Street, but there he was made more aware than ever of how, when you took away work, you were left with the actual meat of your personal life: in this case, specifically, the developmental disability of his son. His young son, Mo, who was fractious and often unresponsive, and cried and cried, and was given therapy throughout the week by a rotation of teachers and therapists. Kind young women still streamed through the house, all of them lovely, all of them named Erin, Ethan joked, all of them deeply thoughtful and kind to the extent that they seemed angelic, and in comparison he seemed, at least to himself, cold-hearted and indifferent, or even worse.

  His daughter, Larkin, was easy to love, so advanced and creative. Already she was talking about how when she was a teenager she wanted to be an apprentice at her father’s studio, the Animation Shed. “I could write cartoons and draw them on paper,” she said, “the way you used to do, Dad.” Which killed Ethan, because of course he’d moved far away from the old pen and paper days. Ethan still did the voices for his two Figland characters, and he still oversaw preproduction, and he was there at table reads, and in the recording studio, and stalking the floor of the Animation Shed even at the end of the day, when the staff probably said to themselves, Oh please, Ethan, not me; I just want to go home, I just want to have a little time to myself and my family. I’m not like you, Ethan; I can’t work this much and still have a life. Though Ethan’s feature film was a calamity, and his TV spin-off a dud, the original show itself was still robust. It might go on and on forever.

  Ash kept directing serious and usually feminist though somewhat uninspired plays, receiving respectful reviews from critics who were impressed by her modest but sly touch, especially in contrast with the very public, hyperkinetic work of her high-profile husband. She appeared on panels called “Women in Theater,” though she resented the fact that people thought such panels were still interesting or necessary. “It’s embarrassing to have to keep being seen as this minority. Why do we keep only looking to male voices again and again for authority?” she complained to Jules. “Well, I shouldn’t say ‘we.’ We don’t do it, but ‘they’ do. I mean everyone else.” It was astonishing and depressing to her that even now, in this enlightened age, men had the power in all worlds, even the small-potatoes world of off-Broadway theater.

  Jules’s practice had been reasonably populated, but like all therapists, she’d experienced an increasing thinning-out of patients. People took antidepressants now instead of going into therapy; insurance companies paid for fewer and fewer sessions; and even though she kept her fees low, some clients ended therapy quickly. The ones who stayed said they were grateful for Jules’s calm, funny, kind presence. She poked and prodded at her practice as if it were kindling, supporting her family.

  Rory grew bigger, and though she’d once been deeply envious of boys, she outgrew that and enjoyed herself. She was a very physical girl, needing to be in motion at all times. On weekends she played soccer in a league, and during the week Dennis took her to the park after school, the two of them smashing a ball back and forth. Dennis still talked about going back to work, though his voice was full of trepidation when he spoke about it. He read up on the latest advances in sonography, subscribing to a professional journal because it interested him, and because he hoped he could go back one day, but just not yet.

  In March 1997, Jules and Dennis went to dinner at Ash and Ethan’s house along with Duncan and Shyla, the portfolio manager and the literacy advocate. The prick and the cunt, Jules had once called them. Jules and Dennis had never understood why Ash and Ethan liked this couple so much, but they’d all been thrown together so many times over the years, for casual evenings and more formal celebrations, that it was too late to ask. Duncan and Shyla must have felt equally puzzled at Ash and Ethan’s fidelity to their old friends the social worker and the depressive. No one said a word against anyone; everyone went to the dinners to which they were invited. Both couples knew they satisfied a different part of Ash and Ethan, but when they all came together in one place, the group made no sense.

  On this night, which was unusually warm, the three couples sat at the table in the small backyard garden of the house, in torchlight. Larkin came outside with Mo to say good night to the adults; she held her brother’s hand in a death grip while they stood in the orange light of the garden. The guests tried to make the moment light and felicitous, but it was forced. “Mo,” said Ash, “did Rose give you dinner, honey?”

  “No,” said Mo.

  “Do you want to try our food here at the table? There’s some paella left.”

  Everyone stiffly waited for his answer; their smiles were tight and anticipatory even as they tried to look relaxed. But Mo just shook his hand free, broke away from his sister, and darted back inside.

  “I’d better go follow him,” said Larkin. “I am my brother’s keeper. Good night, everybody. Oh, Mom, Dad, save me some lemon cake, please. Bring it into my room and leave it on my dresser, even if it’s really, really late, okay?” Then she kissed her mother and father and danced off winningly into the house. Everyone watched her go, in silence.

  “So adorable, both of them,” Jules finally said, and there were noises of agreement from around the table.

  The paella, prepared by an unseen cook, had been delicious; the men’s and Jules’s plates were now empty, all the rice gone and the juices and oils mopped up with bread, and with only a few mussel shells scattered; but Ash and Shyla’s plates, in that female way that unnerved Jules, were left half full. Tonight at dinner, like at all dinners lately, everyone was talking about the World Wide Web. They all had stories to tell about websites they’d been to, and startups they’d heard about. Duncan talked about a financial website he and three partners were investing in, and he teased Ethan about going in on it with them; never as he talked did he look over to Dennis and Jules to include them in the conversation, even as a courtesy.

  After Duncan was done speaking, Shyla told a story about an old friend of hers in LA, the wife of a record producer. “She and Rob had the most beautiful house in the canyon. And a place in Provence. I mean, I was jealous of their life.”

  “Oh, you were not,” said Ash.

  “I was. And one weekend when I was in LA I called Helena and asked if we could get together. She was very reluctant, but finally she agreed that I could come over. So I went, and she’d gotten heavy, actually, which amazed me. I hadn’t
seen her in years; we’d all been to the Grammys together a long time ago. I mean, if I think about who won that year, it was probably the Bee Gees. I’m joking, but it had been a while. She said she rarely left the house anymore. Nothing made her feel good, and she admitted that she was seriously thinking of taking her own life. I was very shaken. Anyway, long story short, the following week she was hospitalized at Cedars-Sinai, in some special unit where it’s like a spa but with heavy meds. And they tried her on all sorts of different things, but nothing worked. The insurance company wouldn’t cover it, but of course Rob did. They were going to start her on electroshock, but then a doctor came in during rounds and said that there was this new drug about to enter clinical trials at UCLA, but that it was controversial because it approached serotonin in a whole new way, and no one knew if it would do anything. There was going to be a double-blind study, and Rob was like, ‘Well, let’s put her in the study, but can you see that she doesn’t get a placebo?’ Apparently even he couldn’t make that happen. These researchers are totally ethical. Well, maybe not totally, because they squeezed Helena in, and I wouldn’t be surprised if they bumped someone else from the trial. Within a month she felt different. Sort of like she was a marionette that was being pulled back to life. That was her metaphor, not mine.”

  No kidding, Jules thought.

  “But the upshot,” said Duncan, “is that when Rob saw how his wife had been helped, he gave the psychiatric center the largest donation it had ever received. I know,” he said, “that double-blind means double-blind, but when potential big donors’ wives take part in a clinical trial, don’t you think it’s prudent to make sure they don’t get a placebo?” Everyone laughed a little, and Jules looked over at Dennis, who to her surprise didn’t seem all that interested in this story; she would have to be interested for him. He could get into that trial if it was still going on, she thought. He could push to the front of the line and be accepted into the trial because of Rob and Helena and Duncan and Shyla and Ethan and Ash. Because of the wealthy people being discussed at this table or sitting here. She knew that Dennis would never ask whether there was a way he could try this drug too; he wouldn’t even think it could help him. But maybe it could. As with everything, you had to know someone; you had to have connections and power and influence. LA doctors, at least some of them, were seducible by Ethan Figman and his high-end friends. When Jules called UCLA on Dennis’s behalf the following day, she was told that yes, the clinical trial was ongoing, but that it was not taking any new patients. Then Jules called Ethan, who agreed to look into it.

  Not long afterward, Dennis flew to LA to meet with the doctor running the study and have blood work and a physical done. A day later, he was accepted into the double-blind trial, and he and Jules hoped very hard that he hadn’t received a placebo. Within a month of starting the drug, Stabilivox, he was fairly sure he hadn’t. “Only the migrant farmworkers in the study have received a placebo,” Jules told Ethan and Ash. Though really, she thought briefly, maybe Dennis had received a placebo too. Maybe the idea of a drug that required knowing someone powerful just to get a chance to try it was itself so suggestive that it could change your neurology. But, no, that would only have worked on Jules, not Dennis.

  Everything inside him seemed to unfold a little, he told her; only then did he realize how folded he’d been all these years. “Crouched,” he said to Jules. He’d previously only thought of his depression as draining him, which was how she’d seen it too, but now he saw that it had also forced him into an unnatural stance. For years he’d not only been depressed, he’d also been uneasy. The opening, the return, was slow and incremental over that spring and summer, but genuine. Jules had treated a few clients who were also taking antidepressants while in therapy with her, and she’d seen this kind of shift in them, but never in Dennis.

  “My sleep is deeper,” he said in wonder. Once, in the middle of the night, he woke Jules up with his head between her breasts, and then he was crying a little, and she said, alarmed, “What’s wrong?” Nothing was wrong, he told her. He had awakened and felt good. Felt like doing things. Doing things to her. With her. Sex, which had been intermittent, returned to them like an old gift they’d once been given and which had been lost under a big pile of objects for a long time. He was unsteady at first, and one time his fingers jammed into her in a way that made her yelp like a dog whose tail has been stepped on, and then he was horrified that he’d hurt her. “I’m fine,” she told him. “Just go easy. Have a lighter touch.” There were other problems; it took him longer now, and they made jokes about her inevitable soreness later on. “You know what kind of cookware I want as a gift?” she asked him once, lying together after an episode of this new, post-depression sex.

  “What? Oh, this is a joke,” Dennis said. “A pun. Let me see . . . No, I can’t think of where you’re taking this.”

  “A chafing dish,” she said, smiling, her chin on his chest.

  By the end of the summer Dennis felt as if he’d returned to himself almost completely for the first time since he’d been taken off his MAOI in 1989. Neither of them trusted it would last forever, or even for a while. In late August, Dennis went back to work; though he had a black mark on his employment record from the previous clinic, he managed to demonstrate that his inappropriate behavior there had been due to his untreated depression at the time, and that now he was well. Dr. Brazil heartily backed him up. A clinic in Chinatown, understaffed and desperate, hired Dennis at a bad starting salary, and he began work again part-time; then, months later, full-time.

  The two families went on like this as the decade ended and the millennium began. There were fears about worldwide computers crashing, and both couples and their children and Jonah and Robert held their silly, collective breaths on New Year’s Eve at the house on Charles Street, then released them. Jules felt her envy toward Ash and Ethan seem to lighten, as though it had been a kind of long, intractable depression itself. The sight of Dennis getting dressed for work in the morning seemed to be enough gratification for her for a while.

  In time, small changes took place almost imperceptibly; among them was Ash’s slow but noticeable acceptance of her mother’s death. Her dreams about Betsy became less constant and harsh. Ash also became marginally less beautiful, and Ethan became marginally less ugly. Dennis was so relieved to be working again that his job seemed bracing to him, and Jules tried harder to be a good therapist to her crop of clients who hardly ever seemed to change unambiguously. But when she looked over at Ash and Ethan, she often felt a small reminder of how she herself didn’t entirely change. Her envy was no longer in bloom; the lifting of Dennis’s depression had lessened it. But it was still there, only closed-budded now, inactive. Because she was less inhabited by it, she tried to understand it, and she read something online about the difference between jealousy and envy. Jealousy was essentially “I want what you have,” while envy was “I want what you have, but I also want to take it away so you can’t have it.” Sometimes in the past she’d wished that Ash and Ethan’s bounty had simply been taken away from them, and then everything would have been even, everything would have been in balance. But Jules didn’t fantasize about that now. Nothing was terrible, everything was manageable, and sometimes even better than that.

  The city evolved, becoming cleaner, its homeless population pushed off the streets by a zealous mayor in crackdown mode. Everyone admitted that though the mayor and his laws were cruel, you could now walk virtually anywhere and feel safe. It was almost impossible to find an affordable place to live in Manhattan, though, and if Ethan hadn’t given them that money and cosigned their mortgage, Jules and Dennis would have been gone from here like so many people they knew. Larkin attended some private girls’ school her mother had also attended. Mo went to a special school in Queens that cost so much money that most parents—though of course not Ethan and Ash—had to sue the city in order to be reimbursed for much of the tuition. Rory attended the local public middle school, and that was fine for now,
but there would be problems when high school arrived and she’d need to apply to one of the city’s better schools. She didn’t “test well,” Jules said to Ash. But actually Rory wasn’t interested in those tests, or even all that much in school. She longed to be a forest ranger instead, though her parents pointed out that she would still need to go to school for that. They had no idea of how much school it entailed, though, or even what kind of school; they really didn’t know what they were talking about. The time Rory had spent in forests was primarily because of Ethan and Ash; up at their weekend house in Katonah as a little girl she’d waved a stick as she tramped through woods, and she’d also gone hiking around their ranch in Colorado. She was happy when she was slick with mud, wearing waders, doing activities that were outside the usual spheres of city life.

  In 2001, the World Trade Center’s destruction was an equalizer, briefly. Strangers talked to one another on the street; everyone felt similarly dazed, afraid and unprotected. Jules gave her clients her home phone number for the first time ever, and fielded frequent calls. The phone would ring at dinnertime, bedtime, even the middle of the night, and she would hear, “Jules? It’s Janice Kling. I’m really sorry to bother you, but you said I could call and I’m kind of freaking out.” Jules would take the phone into another room to talk to a client in private. She herself was frightened—it was a shock to see such primitive anger on such a large scale—but never hysterical. As a therapist in this crisis, she realized that she’d been given a kind of reprieve, in that she didn’t have the option to become overly anxious herself. Instead, she helped her clients so they didn’t fall apart. Sylvia Klein, the woman whose daughter had died of breast cancer years earlier, was very afraid now, and didn’t think she could manage her anxiety. “If there’s another attack, Jules,” she said, “and it’s the middle of the night and I wake up and hear it, I won’t be able to cope. I’ll just start screaming.”