Chapter 22 #3
“Not when I play. But that’s in a tournament.
This is life. I don’t like faking around my friends…
unless I’m parting them with their money.
Back to the most important question of the evening: Know how to play blackjack?
No? Lemme teach you.” She produced a deck of cards from her denim jacket.
It was as if she had unveiled a bomb. People scrambled away from the table.
“It’s a friendly game!” Becca called. “Not for money!” But the only ones remaining were Becca, Emily, and Shipley, who watched the other two as they played.
The rest dispersed throughout the room, lounging on velvet furniture and drinking champagne.
At some point, Gen returned and dropped onto a sofa next to Paul.
He tucked back a lock of her hair. She lowered her head to his shoulder and briefly closed her eyes, looking tired, but straightened when Kate asked her a question.
Paul and Adam listened while the others talked, Gen lively now.
As bits of the conversation drifted toward Emily, she understood that they were discussing the 2012 Olympic trials that would take place in June. Emily lost another hand of blackjack.
“You’re not bad,” Becca told Emily as she shuffled the cards. “But when you’re happy about something, your eyes crinkle at the corners. When you’re not, your face goes real still. Like now. Just so you know.”
“Thanks,” said Emily. “This was my favorite part of the evening.” Then she said she was going home.
“Let me call you a cab,” said Shipley.
“I want to walk.” Emily was thirsty for the chilled air outside. She thought of Paul and Gen’s tenderness toward each other and experienced a confused jealousy, not knowing whether she wanted to be Paul, with Gen resting against her in an easy trust, or Gen, touched with such affection.
Neither, she decided. She didn’t want anything to do with Gen. Not anymore. Being around her would only go badly, like this night.
“Where do you live?” said Shipley.
“The West Village.”
“I’m in Chelsea. I’ll walk with you.”
“You’re leaving?” Gen, who had seen Emily reach for her coat, approached the table. “I’ll walk you home.”
“The Village is out of your way, isn’t it?” said Shipley. “It’d take forever for you to get back to Brooklyn.”
“Thanks anyway,” Emily coolly told Gen, who, though it looked for a moment like she might insist, closed her mouth in a flat line.
“Okay,” said Gen. “See you.”
“Sure.” Emily felt awkward. Polite lies hadn’t been part of the way she and Gen were with each other before. “See you.”
Wind rattled the trees. In the streetlamp-yellowed dark, the leaves were cloudy masses that churned on top of each trunk.
Emily imagined how the trees would be in a week or two: undressed, their leaves on the ground.
Emily enjoyed the cold for a few minutes before remembering that she didn’t like the cold.
It was almost funny how easy it was to forget things—whole habits, years of preferences—about oneself, even if not for long.
She and Shipley walked through Chinatown, where some markets remained open.
There were crates of persimmons. Tiny, glassy shrimp flicked on beds of ice.
In the cobblestone streets of SoHo, Shipley bought candied nuts to share, though they agreed that the smell was better than the taste.
“It was a big New York City first,” Shipley said.
“The disappointment of Nuts4Nuts. I know it makes no sense to keep buying them.”
Emily ate one. “Maybe you like to commemorate that first disappointment. I guess it’s important: the moment when you learn better.”
“But I didn’t. I don’t. They get me every time. They smell too good.” Shipley took some more. “What’s up with you and Gen?”
Emily wanted to be as dismissive about the past as Gen had been to her at the bar. “We didn’t date long. Less than a year. She was my first girlfriend. Only girlfriend.”
“I’m surprised at that last part.”
“It’s why I’m always saying things like, ‘I’m not straight,’ instead of what I am, because I don’t know what that is, or at least I don’t know what it is now.”
“I think you get to decide.”
“I was with a man for a long time.”
“Well, now you can date anyone you want.”
They reached the lower edge of the Village, where fire escapes zigzagged down redbrick buildings.
A CVS displayed skeletons and masks in its windows.
Emily asked if Shipley would compete in the trials for the Olympic basketball team and was told yes.
Shipley hoped to get a sponsor. “The Liberty doesn’t pay much,” Shipley said, “at least not compared to men’s teams, where the pay scale is in the millions.
I’d rather not play abroad, though I could make more money that way.
Of course, track doesn’t pay at all, really, unless you collect enough prizes or become a coach. Or unless you’re Gen.”
They reached Emily’s building. “Can I have your number?” Shipley asked. Emily hesitated, surprised, though she knew she shouldn’t have been. “How about I give you my number instead,” said Shipley, “and you can call me if you want.”
Emily gave Shipley her phone and watched the tattooed fingers move rapidly over the screen. The phone was warm when Shipley returned it. Emily slid the phone into her coat pocket, where it felt like a slim gift she wasn’t sure she should open.
The apartment smelled of Stella’s shampoo. Emily turned on all the lights but that didn’t make her feel less alone. She avoided the children’s bedroom.
Her phone buzzed. The text was from Gen. Did you get home okay?
Emily didn’t really want to respond. She sent a thumbs-up.
Gen wrote, Did you have a good time?
Your friends are nice. Thanks for inviting me
How was the walk home with Ship? After a pause came: She can be a lot
Shipley’s great, Emily wrote. I like her very much.
If Gen didn’t exist and hadn’t marked Emily with the primacy of a desire still evident, as though Emily had been stamped or engraved by it, would Emily call Shipley?
Yes, she thought so. And if Gen didn’t exist, would Emily have stayed with Jack…
or not married him? She saw a possible past where she dated only men because that was expected, but maybe she wouldn’t have, because she wouldn’t have been hurt by Gen, and so wouldn’t have believed that men were a remedy.
Gen didn’t reply to Emily’s text. Emily turned off her phone and turned out the lights.
Halloween fell on a Sunday, which meant that Jack would have the children then. “You can come trick-or-treating, too,” said Stella. “Daddy said so.”
“That’s your time with him.”
“Please?” said Connor.
“Let’s plan your costumes. There’s little more than a week left.”
“We decided already,” said Stella. “I’m going to be a bunny rabbit. Connor’s going to be a hat.”
“A hat?”
Connor shrugged.
“Is that what you want to be?”
Another shrug.
“Why don’t you be something else?”
“No!” said Stella. “He promised to be a hat! He has to.”
“Why are you upset? It’s his costume, not yours.”
“We are a together costume! It’s supposed to be magic .”
“Okay, but there are all kinds of together costumes. Let’s think of others.”
“No! I’m a rabbit and he’s a hat!”
“What do you want to be?” she asked Connor.
“A zombie?”
“No!” Stella shrieked.
“Stella, stop. Are you sure, Connor? I thought you didn’t like scary costumes.”
“That’s when I was little. Lucas said at school that he’s going to be a zombie and I want to be one, too.”
Tears dripped down Stella’s cheeks.
Slowly, Emily asked, “Was a together costume Daddy’s idea?” Neither of them answered. “He can’t make you wear it.”
“He’s not!” said Stella. “I want to be a bunny!”
“That might be fun for you, but a hat isn’t fun for Connor. He’ll go as a zombie.” Now that it had been decided, Connor looked uncertain. “It’ll be a really good costume,” she reassured him.
“Come with us,” Stella said. “Come trick-or-treating like all the years.”
Emily loved trick-or-treating with Connor and Stella.
Children were constantly at the mercy of adult rules; this one day was designed for children.
Aware that her split with Jack was a force on her children’s lives that they were powerless to change when it was what they most wanted to change, Emily found it hard to resist spending Halloween with them.
Her parents had always spent that day with her when she was little—her father, before the divorce, pretending to be scared by the costumes, and afterward, her mother, dutifully walking Emily from house to house.
Emily suddenly missed her parents. She wished that they loved her like she loved her children.
She dreaded that they’d prove that they didn’t.
Although she knew that she could call her parents, she felt entirely unable, because the only thing worse than not getting what you want is knowing that you’ll never get it.
“Please?” said Stella.
“I’ll stop by to see you in costume and take pictures before you head out.” Stella was dissatisfied but wiped her face.
Emily texted Jack to see if her plan was okay with him. His reply was immediate:
Amazing! We were hoping you’d join us.
Not for trick-or-treating. Just pictures.
Em, please. It will be fun.
When she didn’t reply, he added, No matter what, we are still a family. We should do things together. It would be good for the children.
She imagined the four of them going house-to-house, pointing at spooky decorations. Was it good to show Connor and Stella that their parents could be friendly? Or would it make them believe that Emily and Jack would get back together, and wasn’t that exactly what Jack wanted?
She told Jack no. Stella didn’t speak with her for the rest of the night.
A few days later, Gen texted, saying that her friends were having a Halloween party. Would Emily come with her?