But William had nothing but time to go to the store, even so close to Christmas. Especially now, as his office was closed. He loved stores because he never knew what he wanted. He had to touch everything until his fingers selected the right one, generally without his permission. He was doing just this when his phone rang.
The owner, Arturo, whose left eye was lifeless and listing, called out to William as he set down the copy of Alfred Hitchcock’s Suspicion so he could answer the call.
“Forty-nine cents I got that for! Not a scratch on the disc! Stupid teenagers that ran the Blockbuster on Seventy-eighth Street didn’t even know who Cary Grant was. I told them, ‘This is an American god, you cretins! This man could act circles around your Bin Diesel, your Channing Tater, your Catrina Gomez!’”
Expecting a call from his mother, William answered the phone without glancing at the screen.
“Annyeonghaseyo, eomeoni.”
“William? Is that you?”
At the sound of Irene’s voice, he gripped the rack of classics unsteadily.
“William,” she continued cheerfully. “Sorry to bother you. I’m sure you must be busy right now, but I was hoping I could ask you a favor.”
“No,” he said quickly. “I mean, no, it isn’t any bother. How are you feeling?”
“I’m feeling fine. No change. But it’s my building. Practically in the middle of the night, the super came around just now to tell us we have to evacuate because of some kind of infestation. Pill flies or sharp beetles or something like that. Thank god it’s not bedbugs, but anyways, I just ran out — stupid me — without packing a thing, and I’m terrified to go back. Everyone’s out of town, and I need a place to sleep if it’s not too much to ask. Just on the couch or somewhere, I’m not picky. I don’t want you to think I have the wrong idea—”
Wrong idea? William wanted to ask. Which idea was wrong, exactly? The idea of them sleeping together again? Or the equally ineradicable idea that they were nothing more than two more people who ought never to have slept together in the first place? He kept his mouth shut, which was about all he trusted himself to do.
“I know that things have been — well, I don’t know what they’ve been. Sorry for babbling on like this. I know it’s — shit.”
“No,” William blurted. He instantly wished he’d just let her keep going; he wanted nothing more than her babbling on and on. But now she’d fallen silent and clearly expected him to say something. Panicked, he stared down at Cary Grant on the Suspicion DVD cover. Each time they kissed, the tagline read, there was the thrill of love… The threat of murder! Cary Grant’s lowered eyebrows bespoke a smoothness that William wished he possessed.
“Good,” he said, trying to sound Grant-like, “I’ll let the doorman know you’re coming.”
“William, you’re the best,” she sighed.
“Don’t mention it,” he said, lifting the DVD.
Irene sighed happily and ended the call.
William texted his address to her phone and then rushed over to Arturo with the DVD in hand, hoping that if he hurried, he might be able to study a scene or two before Irene buzzed up.
“One of Hitchcock’s best,” Arturo said, looking adoringly down at Joan Fontaine in her low-cut red dress. “Except for the ending, which RKO made him change—”
But William could hardly hear him. He paid and left the store, thinking at first he’d buy some of the Bollinger Blanc she’d liked last time — or get a bouquet of roses that he could throw into a vase, only he didn’t think he owned a vase — and moreover, this wasn’t what Cary Grant would do, he was fairly certain. Cary Grant would never be so presumptuous. She said she didn’t want him to think she had the wrong idea. Whatever else, that probably meant he ought to play it cool. Cool like Cary Grant.
William left the video store feeling stone-jawed. This lasted two thirds of his way home, when he slipped on a patch of ice and slid into the branches of one of those Christmas trees out for sale on the sidewalk.
• • •
Irene went over immediately. She’d thought about going back to her place for his scarf, but she didn’t want to waste time and risk him losing interest. William greeted her at the door and said he had just been watching an old movie and asked how she was feeling. But she cut him off — she didn’t want to talk about that. She instead gushed that she loved old movies and that she would have to insist they watch the rest together. She hated to interrupt when he was being so generous. But after an hour passed, sitting there on the couch watching Grant and Fontaine flirting, Irene found it difficult to focus.
William’s apartment distressed her. More and more, Irene felt as if she were watching the movie from the set of another movie. Not only was his place achingly coordinated in maroons and teals and mahogany leather, but it was filled with showroom-style homey touches. On one wall above a sideboard hung a gigantic bronze architect’s compass, surrounded by framed black-and-white photos: a medieval cathedral apse, a Roman atrium, the gable of a seaside cottage. She was positive these were not vacation photos but the kind of black-and-white “art” pictures that you could get twelve for ten at IKEA. She was grateful that he didn’t have a single Christmas decoration up, but she’d have preferred an evergreen to the inexplicable basket of neatly arranged branches that sat in the corner. It was like something you saw in a magazine, not anything that a real person owned. Steadily, she became convinced that she was sitting in the completely fabricated living room of a completely fabricated person.
Irene excused herself to use the restroom, and William paused the movie. On the way down the hall she looked for evidence of a personality, photographs of friends or kitschy mementos, but she found nothing. William’s family was Korean, yet she couldn’t spot a single piece of art with any Asian influence whatsoever. She knew that he had studied classics in college, but the only Greek object she saw was a small urn, filled not with significant ashes but with potpourri that didn’t smell of anything anymore. What sort of self-respecting bachelor owned potpourri? In the bathroom Irene found a mirror whose frame was strategically flaked of its paint, and a little soap dispenser adorned with tiny, irregular mosaic tiles, as if some artisan a millennium ago had carefully glued them onto a Crate & Barrel sanitizer pump. On the way back to the couch, she checked his bookshelf to be sure the spines had been cracked. She was relieved to find that, at least, William wasn’t the full Gatsby.
It didn’t help that he himself was speaking like a movie character. “Could I pour you another glass of wine?” he asked when she got back. Once he did, he looked up as if he’d just surprised himself with the thought and said, “Pass me the clicker, if it’s not too much trouble. The sound is a little dim, wouldn’t you say?”
“You smell like pinesap,” Irene said as she passed him the clicker.
“Ah, yes. I had a run-in with a tree salesman out on the street. Nice fellow, though he shouted a bit when I ran off.”
“Are you being British?” she asked.
That seemed to catch him somewhat, and his cheeks reddened in the way that she remembered. “Not intentionally, no. I suppose I should take that as a compliment.”
“Should you?” Irene asked under a sigh.
William didn’t hear, now the volume was up.
When the movie was over, Irene was tired but too uncomfortable to sleep. She didn’t want to stay in the false-living room. Nor did she want to go to bed with this false-William.