Before the divorce started he’d spent much of his nonworking time building fantastic miniature reproductions of medieval towns using balsa wood and soft chromium. His Salzburg could hold its own against any model out there. His Venice was the work of a maestro. But now he’d sit down at his worktable with a stack of three-eighthinch wood squares and an X-acto knife and a tube of wood glue, unable to pick up anything without his hands shaking and a drifting—no, a darting—mind. In his current condition the only cities to which he could do justice were World War II–era Dresden or Hiroshima or Coventry. Maybe an earthquake San Francisco. And he’d reached a point in life where he hadn’t any friends. Or: he had friends, but not friends whom he could call and tell about the he-said/she-said of the divorce, the Thursday afternoon meetings at Anne’s lawyer’s office, where he and his lawyer and she and her lawyer sat at a diplomatic table using diplomatic language better suited to the Treaty of Versailles than to the breakup of two people who’d loved each other intensely once, who’d cried when the other got hurt and exulted when the other felt joy and said “forever” and “completely” and “unconditionally.” The end of this marriage foretold everything. It said that he was incapable of sustaining a loving relationship and doomed, at best, to serial monogamy until he died. No growing old with someone. No twenty-year anniversaries and wistful recollections of their younger bodies and younger passions and younger worlds.
His colleague friend Greg Souza’s divorce was because of rote infidelity and Greg had had nothing thoughtful to say on the occasion that he and Steve went through the verbal condolences with each other, the I-can’t-believe-how-everything-changes. Although Greg was technically staying with him until he found an apartment, he’d been spending his nights at Marlene’s and was never around.
So Steve was alone on Saturday, December 11, trembling knife in hand, when the doorbell rang. He’d managed to forget Anne for a minute and was remembering what Silas Carlton, an old patient, had told him about birds: they have extremely small lungs and so use their bones to circulate oxygen. “Very nice,” he said, and opened the door.
Elaine Perry stood with one foot on the welcome mat, holding two plastic garbage sacks. Hints of the previous day’s makeup were so subtle that he thought her lips were naturally the color of persimmons.
“Hi, Steve,” she said.
They hadn’t seen each other in maybe ten months. Anne had always praised Elaine as the best of his doctor friends’ spouses, as a woman wisely unconcerned with extravagant houses and her children’s orthodontic work.
“Hi,” Steve said.
“I don’t want to make this awkward, but Greg said he’d pick up these bags a couple of days ago and he never did. Do you mind if I drop them off? Is he here?”
“He’s out, but I can take them.” They were heavy and full of pointy, uncomfortable objects that dug into him as he held them against his chest. “I wanted to say—I should say I’m sorry about what’s going on.”
“Thanks. I’m sorry for you, too.”
They smiled more by effort than by natural feeling. Like so many outward signs of health and normalcy.
“Would you like to come in?” Steve asked, unsure of what else to say. “For a cup of coffee?”
“No, thanks. I shouldn’t be here when Greg comes back.”
Steve was about to tell her that Greg never came back before noon, but then thought better of it. He shifted the bags in his arms and it didn’t occur to him to set them down.
“I hope we can be normal with each other,” she said.
“What?”
“I hope that you being Greg’s friend doesn’t mean we have to avoid each other at the supermarket or in Old Town or wherever.”
“No, absolutely not.” He’d never run into her at the supermarket or in Old Town before, but that didn’t mean it couldn’t happen in the future. Eureka was a small enough city that you sometimes saw your dentist or hair stylist or friends’ ex-wives at restaurants. You perfected an ever-readiness to talk about your teeth or hair or neutral, non-friend-related gossip. You skated across the surface reality like a water beetle, and only when the surface broke and you fell in did you feel that drowning was inevitable, that staying afloat had been a fantasy.
Elaine said, “I just—maybe you feel the same I don’t know—I don’t want to feel like getting divorced means that a whole world of people will disappear. You know? All of Greg’s friends and patients I’ve met. I’d hate to think that now we have to act like we’ve never known one another.”
“I know what you mean,” Steve said. “I agree.”
Elaine held out her hand. Still holding the bags, Steve shook it awkwardly with his whole upper torso. Then she turned and walked to the street, massaging her left shoulder with her right hand. Steve watched her get in her car and drive away, someone else’s former everything.
Several blocks away, Sadie Jorgenson’s willpower deserted her in the wall-to-wall linoleum sparklage of her kitchen, with batter all over her hands, making one Swedish pancake after another, smothered in powdered sugar the weight and consistency of pixie dust. She was a therapist whose client list was longer than any of her colleagues’, meaning that at the end of a grueling workweek she owed herself a little—or rather a lot—of pleasure. And so didn’t she feel magical with each bite of pancake, a wild transport to zones of physical ecstasy she never experienced otherwise? Sadie, thirty-seven, hadn’t gotten laid in years, which she knew was partly because of morning binges like this one, but what could she do since the cycle was already started and each production of one kind of happiness diminished her chances for the other? Undress another stick of butter. Fondle the pan handle. And the radio on and she with a lot of boogie left to her bottom that hadn’t lost its attitude, so she let the pancake sizzle while she clapped her hands and danced around the island counter and nodded (“you know it, ah-hahn”) and licked an ample finger.
And yet all this might soon change. Her sister Marlene had called the night before and known the perfect guy, an academic. An academic? Yeah. What’s that mean? Someone who traffics in ideas for a living. That doesn’t sound as lucrative as, say, trafficking in narcotics. It isn’t. Is that why he’s still unmarried? He’s new to town and hasn’t met anyone. I think you two would hit it off. Why? Because he’s interesting. What’s he look like? He’s tall and— How tall? I don’t know, five ten. You call that tall? It’s taller than you. Don’t be rude. How old is he? Thirty-seven. That’s my age. Yeah. Guys don’t go out with women the same age as them. It’d be better if he were older. He’d appreciate me more. He seems above all that. And he’s bald. As long as he has the right head for it. Not too big or bumpy, like a smooth small skull that draws attention to his face. Yeah, sort of. And there’s one other thing. He’s missing four fingers on his right hand from when he was young and worked with heavy machinery. Oh. Other than that he’s normal and attractive. Oh. I didn’t even notice until it came up in conversation. Oh. So what do you say? I wish he hadn’t lost those fingers. I’m sure he does, too. Can I set something up, completely nonbinding and informal, like the four of us have dinner at Folie à Deux this weekend? What four of us? Greg makes four. How can you go out with Greg in public? He and Elaine have a new understanding, an unspoken agreement not to pry into each other’s personal lives. Their personal lives? They’re married. You know what I mean. So what has it become, an open arrangement? With their kids so young? Not open, in that they haven’t discussed it in those meaningful terms, but they’re having problems and are basically separated for a while. Marlene! Homewrecker! He’s a doctor and you’re a nurse and it’s so predictable. How long do you think this can go on? It’s not about worrying about the future. So are you in for