“Yes. Is that why you’re calling me?” I’m rubbing the bridge of my nose with one hand and turning the volume down on the receiver with the other.
“No, I’m calling because I didn’t bring anything for lunch today, and I want you to come with me to that new place on Riverside.”
“You want me to walk to Riverside Drive?”
“Stupid question, huh?”
“Yes. Very, very stupid. But you should feel free to bring me a sandwich when you come back.” I smile to myself. I don’t know what I’d do if I didn’t have David here to bullshit with.
I’m sitting on the roof of Lucas’s apartment building with his dog, Maverick. Maverick is wearing a cashmere sweater, and we are waiting for Lucas to come back up here with a bottle of wine he’s been talking about. Lucas wanted to come up to see the sunset before daylight saving time turns the city dark at 4:30 p.m. It’s Sunday, and other people seem to have had the same idea. Manicured boxwood hedges are separating the section we are sitting in from other seating areas on the roof, and every now and again, I see the plume of someone else’s cigarette smoke.
There are lots of those big space heaters that look like giant silver dildos wearing beanies, and Maverick and I are sitting close to one. He’s on my lap, on top of a huge orange horse blanket with a big H in the corner that Lucas insisted I bring upstairs. If I owned an Hermès blanket, I probably wouldn’t actually use it, let alone bring it to the dirty outdoors.
Lucas rounds the bend from the elevator, carrying a crystal decanter filled with burgundy liquid and two spotless glasses. Maverick doesn’t pay him any attention and instead burrows farther into my lap. Lucas makes a big show of waving away the smoke as he walks by another couple holding cigarettes, as if he were the only one allowed to poison his pristine lungs. He gently lays the two glasses down on the teak coffee table and swirls the wine around in the decanter.
“This is the one I was telling you about when we were at dinner the other night. I’ve been thinking about it, and tonight seems like a good time to bring it out.”
“Sounds good to me.” I wipe some stray hairs out of my eyes and watch as he pours about three sips’ worth of wine into each glass. He hands me one and leans back into his chair with his nose buried in the other as he puts his feet up on the table. He closes his eyes and inhales deeply. He tells me to do the same.
“What can you smell?” he asks, his eyes still closed.
I stick my nose into the glass of wine and swirl it around like he showed me. I smell wine. “Leather,” I say, because I’ve heard him say that before about red wines. I pull out a cigarette and place it between my teeth. “And tobacco,” I add.
“Good. What else?” He is in a different universe, his pretentious wine world, where there’s no such thing as just having a glass of wine. There’s no such thing as drinking. There is only a full-body, total-immersion experience. I light my cigarette. His eyes snap open at the scratch of the flint. He pulls his feet off the coffee table and swiftly grabs the cigarette out of my mouth. The filter sticks to my dry lips, and, as he snatches it from me, he pulls away a piece of skin. “You can’t smoke while you’re having an ’86 Margaux! You’re going to ruin the experience. For yourself and for me. Jesus, Sam. Pay attention!”
His scolding cuts me, like I’m some petulant child who can’t follow directions. His look of disappointment and contemptuous attitude cram me further down into a feeling of emptiness. When I lose his approval, he seems to get so big, and I feel so small. He was being nice today, and I had to go and fuck it up.
“I’m sorry; you’re right. I didn’t mean to ruin it. What should I be smelling?” I suck my bleeding lip and try to listen to him. I lean forward and hold the glass to my nose, but now all I can taste is the metallic blood in my mouth, and when I sip the wine, it stings. Maverick notices the tension and begins to get restless. He sniffs around my mouth and awkwardly readjusts himself on my lap. As I try to hold him and stabilize his little paws, I tip the glass and spill the tiniest drop onto the orange blanket. The dribble of wine seems to escape my glass in slow motion as I hold Maverick, whose furry paws are slipping off the cashmere blanket, and try to catch the drop back into my wineglass. My ears are hot and full, and I watch helplessly as the drop of ’86 Margaux splashes onto the big H. I look up to catch Lucas witnessing this, and already angry, he drops his head. Before I can apologize and blot the stain with the sleeve of my sweater, he picks up his decanter and walks away. Maverick laps at the wine. I wipe at it furiously with my fingers, but it’s not helping. It’s hardly even visible, but I know that to Lucas, I’ve wrecked the blanket.
I gather my cigarettes and wineglass into one hand and put on Maverick’s leash with the other. My heart is beating in my throat as I fold the blanket the way Lucas likes it folded and tuck it under my arm. I push the chairs back into their original position, and steel myself to go downstairs and face him. He had a perfect plan designed in his head, where we would drink his perfect wine, and watch his perfect sunset, and his perfect dog would sit calmly on his perfect blanket, and I spoiled it all. I shouldn’t have lit that cigarette. I shouldn’t have spilled the wine.
I push the button for the elevator, and my stomach squeezes and flips. I step inside the mirrored elevator and see the fear on my face. Maverick sits on my foot and looks up at me as we descend. The adrenaline is pumping fast now as we walk toward Lucas’s apartment. And then it subsides when I see his front door. My handbag, the contents of which are now strewn around the carpeted hallway, is upended in front of his door. This is my invitation to leave. I bend down and gather my things, shoving everything back into my bag. I hook Maverick’s leash to the doorknob and gently place the wineglass on the carpet. I fear for a moment that Maverick will try to lap at the wine and knock the glass over, so I gulp down the Margaux. Doesn’t taste like such a big deal.
I see a pad of yellow Post-it notes in my handbag, with bits of fuzz and tobacco stuck to the gluey line at the back. I fish a Typhlos pen out of a zipper pocket and write “I’m sorry I ruined your evening” on a bent note with frayed and blackened edges. I peel it off and stick it to the door. I snuggle Maverick’s face as the first tear falls, and I think to myself that this humiliation is better than the alternative. If he had left the door open or invited me in, I would be recovering for days.
It’s Tuesday at 11:00 a.m., and Richard is about to come sit in my office for an hour. To date he has said nearly nothing to me until I ask him to focus on paperwork, and then he squeezes out one-word answers or angry refusals to respond. I am still scared of him, but it’s getting better. I’m trying to show Rachel that I am capable of managing this, that I will be the singular psychologist able to get through to him and eventually give him the help he needs. I need to maintain her approval, keep her A-plus rating. It keeps me functioning.
Despite wanting to save the day, my mind is elsewhere this morning; I’m harping on what could have been on Sunday night, so I am thinking of bailing on the attempt to work on the files with Richard. I haven’t yet made more progress than any of my predecessors, but I can’t handle another issue right now.
I hardly notice as Richard walks through my door and sits down with his stack of papers. He takes his hat off in my office and gently sets it atop his pile of newspapers. Sometimes he wears the tweed newsboy cap; sometimes it’s a gray one. He seems to have gotten more comfortable around me, now that we’ve had a few sessions and groups together. He sometimes says good-morning, sometimes nothing, but today I wouldn’t have heard him if he had greeted me.
After a short while, he speaks. “You’re different today.”
“Nope,