When the thought occurred she was in the kitchen, mixing clots of chocolate powder into a glass of milk. This must not transpire. I can’t let this happen. Wednesday, December 12th. Out the window the river was flat, quivering like molten silver. In the other room Gary and Billy were playing. A potted fern sent FTD sat in the center of the table next to a pile of papers she had to go through — insurance reports, tax papers, bills, things that needed to be sorted. She’d foist the fern on Meg; it was a late arrival, a last-ditch effort at consolation. In a basket beneath the table she put the card with the rest; there were hundreds — people she’d never heard of from LA; movie people who poured their condolences dishonestly the same way they poured their praise thoughtlessly (if something you did was connected to the production of cash). She sensed a ruthless, grotesque quality in the arrival of this fern: it was from Ron’s old agent, a husky loudmouthed cog in a mega-agency who had been a part of Ron’s life during those few intense years he was trying his hand at screenplays.
It did snow that night — Wednesday, December 12, 1999. And they did sit across from each other at the Hudson House and converse. His skin was weathered, and he talked about Iceland most of the time until rising naturally out of his talk was the suggestion that perhaps she might want to see the country someday; nothing about dancing on the lip of volcanoes, or throwing themselves into one sacrificially, but a hint of it. He had wide wrists and a habit of clasping his hands in a prayerlike manner. His voice had a languid, serene quality — maybe a bit too comfortable — as he talked over his divorce and the subsequent years of single-fatherhood (four years in all, but sounding like a lifetime).
“I can’t say I’m a particularly lonely man,” he said near the end. It was late. The waiters stood bored in the back of the restaurant. One was poking information into a computer window screen. From the windows came a brittle hiss of snow against glass. The air smelled of singed beef; of cigarette smoke drifting up from the bar downstairs.
“That’s a funny way to put it. I mean the ‘particularly.’ You don’t sound too sure.”
“I know. I find myself, well, I guess it’s the scientist in me. I can’t help it. I look at my life objectively. I like to stand back. I think lonely people are the other way. They close in on themselves and never get the overall picture.”
“I guess I’m one of those lonely people. I’m not much of a scientist. I flunked biology. All I remember is not being able to do that …”
“Do what?” he fingered his glass, held it high, looking through the fluted stem at her.
“Stand back from it all. I think it was a cat we did in biology.”
“Ah, a cat. A dissection.”
“Yes.”
“Scientists are rarely lonely.”
“Well,” and then, before she could continue her response, the waiter came with the coffee and the conversation lulled in his presence and never returned to the subject. From that point on it was casual small talk, and then downstairs, in the street, the surprise of another fresh inch of snow; the walk home; paying Jenny, the short conversation with her in the mudroom—“How’s it going?” “Fine, fine.” “We had a good time.” “Thank you for sitting.” “Be safe, the sidewalks are slick.” And then they were alone with the soft culling voice of Gary’s breath through the monitor.
There are legends — the White River Sioux believe in Takuskanskan, the power of motion, a spirit behind all movement — and then there’s our own bland myth of sexual intercourse, that somehow souls can become transfigured in the act; that all that motion, shifting, shoving, and grunting, can remake us.
Alone on Sunday morning in his colonial up the hill, Hugh sat at a wide, oval table, facing the window, cradling coffee in a big mug he’d bought in Germany during a rock conference; in the other room the boys were watching television — a soft dribble of sound effects, of high-pitched voices. His life had changed. Of that much he was sure. There was confusion, a slight, spongy befuddlement in the center of his head. In his chest — beneath his ribs — a vacuum had formed and he was certain that it was the first stages of a mild depression settling in. To combat it he’d take a pill and drive the boys to Bear Mountain and rent skates and do laps, work on his backwards crossover. The feel of the blades as he walked along the rubber matting, just before he stepped on the ice, would set him straight. Afterwards he’d take them to the lodge for hot chocolate and then, with the dull blue, pre-Christmas twilight settling in, he’d drive home, following the ribbon of red taillights down the Hudson Valley. He’d feel better alongside a thousand other souls — all draining themselves back into a Sunday evening. Maybe when he got back to the house he’d call Grace. Maybe not. It was doubtful. She was a strange case. Too much dead weight. This morning he didn’t feel like the life-saving type. Anyway, there was a single woman named Ann he was thinking about. She worked at the reference desk at Columbia’s Butler Library. In the course of research for his book, a geological history of Iceland, he’d flirted with her enough to know she’d probably accept his offer of dinner in the country — a ride up the Saw Mill; she could spend the night (he’d take the couch and send the boys to friends’ houses), or he’d even drive her back in.
But his life had changed. It would never be exactly the same. The strangeness of that night would be hard to shake.
She had it set up, the VCR tape already inside. (When she inserted it, she felt the longing desire of the machine for the tape. It was the smaller camera cassette nestled within a larger shell mechanism that yawned the tape outward against the kiss of the playback head, all clamps and rollers and pins stretching taut.) She pushed play. Beside her on the couch, Hugh watched with a placid gaze — an expectant and politely curious look on his face as he crossed his legs and put his heel softly on top of the coffee table. His shoes were off. There were gold toes on the end of his socks and the copy of Dubliners, bound in dark green, on his lap. She hadn’t said much, just a murmur about wanting to watch something, and that was it, and the truth was, and she’d think about this later, he didn’t ask what she was going to show him. He didn’t care to find out ahead of time what in particular she was going to put on the screen. There wasn’t a need in him to know. It didn’t matter. What she’d decided to put in front of him by the way of entertainment was beside the point; the point was elsewhere. So the machine did the little windup sound — all that tension; there was a blip, a blue screen, then a black screen with some whites sinews of static along the bottom — and then, appearing out of the darkness, fading long and opening like a cornucopia of light and body parts, the scene of her and Ron making love on their honeymoon; first a blur, then dissolving (as she imagined Hugh saw it) through the darkness, a puzzle of light, the crack of Ron’s ass and her legs parted wide, in and out of focus at the same time, all accompanied by the sound of their soft moans and the camera motor — the hiss of the air conditioner, and behind that, the motorbikes buzzing down the calle.
“What’s this?” Hugh said, with a slight start, landing flat on each word.
“It’s me and Ron,” she answered; she was on the floor with her legs tucked beneath her, to the side, sitting halfway between the TV set and the couch.
“Exactly,” he said.