Chapter 28
Emily consumed the weekends. When Monday came, Emily wanted more of Gen and was forced to wait.
She worked on her manuscript, writing feverishly, filling the empty time when the children were at school.
Sometimes she woke at night and wrote until the gray hours before dawn.
She wrote and rewrote the moment when Athena first sees Arachne: I wanted to soak into the fibers of her being.
I wanted to dye her wool with my permanence.
I wanted to be crimson on her skin, in the way of cherries and pomegranates. I loved her arrogance.
The season began to turn. Days stayed lighter longer.
The cold grew less desperate. Gen always slept at Emily’s place; Emily hadn’t seen her Brooklyn apartment.
She wasn’t invited and didn’t ask. She tried not to be hurt by this.
Gen kept a pair of sneakers in Emily’s closet and would, each Saturday and Sunday, go for a ten-mile run and return sweaty, her expression faraway, altered, as though instead of running she had visited another dimension.
She opened the closet door before she did anything else, even before she poured a glass of water, and tucked the sneakers at the back, lining them up neatly amid Emily’s shoes.
Gen kept a toothbrush in the bathroom Emily shared with her children, yet the toothbrush was placed back in its original packaging so that it looked unopened, brand-new, and was then stowed in a drawer beneath Q-tips and Star Wars Band-Aids.
“You don’t have to do that,” said Emily. “They’re not going to wonder about two adult toothbrushes in the medicine cabinet. Even if they did, they won’t guess what it means.”
“Maybe you don’t want to have to lie, if they do.”
Emily bought a supply of new toothbrushes.
At the end of each weekend, Gen threw hers away.
On Monday mornings, Emily looked around her apartment and saw no trace of Gen, only caught her scent.
The regular wiping away of evidence made the time she and Gen had been together seem unreal.
The smell of sex on the sheets, imagined.
Sometimes Emily opened the closet door to reassure herself that the sneakers were there.
Emily and Gen didn’t discuss what they were doing—not their hunger for each other, not the ritual of Gen’s self-erasure.
It was true that Emily didn’t want the children to know about Gen, who would leave New York in June.
This—Emily didn’t have a name for what this was—might end even before then.
She couldn’t ask the children to keep a secret—she had taught them not to keep adults’ secrets, in part because she had always worried about what Jack might do that they would feel compelled to hide.
If Connor and Stella knew about Gen, then Jack would know.
She couldn’t predict the course of his response, only his anger.
“It’s okay,” said Gen. “I’m not ready for them to know about me either.”
Emily didn’t know if it really was okay but she couldn’t ask. If the answer was Gen’s third rule, it would hurt too much. Not yet, she thought. Not now.
They continued hiding shoes and throwing away toothbrushes. Gen’s running clothes were washed, folded, and mingled with Emily’s.
One Saturday morning in early March, Gen didn’t go on her usual run.
Restless, she poked through the books on a mostly empty shelf.
The apartment still looked half lived-in, the odd piece of furniture flimsy and almost timid, as though aware of its disposable nature.
Gen drew out Memoirs of Hadrian . “A good one.”
“You’ve read it?”
“In college.” Gen set the book back on the shelf. “Mostly because I thought it was something that you’d like.” She went into the kitchen and found a mug.
“Do your friends know that you’re a closet intellectual?”
“They did tease me about the Sports Illustrated cover. Something about misleading femmes into believing I was an uncomplicated jock.” Gen poured ground coffee into the maker but spilled some on the floor. She bent to clean the coffee grounds, then straightened stiffly.
“You’re injured.”
Gen wiped her hands on her jeans. “I’m old.”
“You’re thirty-three.”
“Ancient, for an athlete. London will probably be my last Olympics, if I make the trials.”
“You will.”
Gen grimaced. “Eventually the body won’t do what you tell it.
It betrays you. I did something yesterday—didn’t stretch enough, set my foot wrong, didn’t ease off when I should have, I don’t know.
Isn’t it crazy, how you can make a mistake and not even know it?
” The coffee burbled. “What’s especially hard is that I’ve really needed to run.
Not just to train. To think. It helps me. I have needed to think about us.”
Emily’s throat went dry.
“I haven’t been clear with you,” said Gen.
“You have.” She wanted Gen to stop talking. She knew how this would end. Not yet, she thought. Not now.
“No.” Gen dragged a hand through her hair.
“I don’t want to fuck up again. I’m not good at this.
I have a gift for saying the wrong thing.
Or maybe that’s just with you. I want to say it right.
Because this really fucking hurts.” Gen swept a hand from her temple toward the floor, a gesture that seemed to reference her entire body.
“You said that first night didn’t have to mean anything. Is that true?”
Not yet. Not now. Reluctantly, Emily said, “No.”
“What did it mean to you?”
The intercom buzzed. Emily ignored it, but it buzzed again, and again. It buzzed in Morse code. Dot dot dot, dash dash dash, dot dot dot—
Emily pressed the receiver. “ What? ”
“Mommy!” came Connor’s happy shout.
“Oh shit,” said Gen.
“Hi, Mommy!” said Stella. “We’re here with Daddy!”
“Fuck,” said Gen.
“Hey, Em,” said Jack. “We were in the area and thought you might want to get pizza. I tried texting, but you didn’t answer.”
“Daddy never lets us get pizza!” said Connor. There was the sound of the front door opening—had a neighbor entered the lobby?—and a ding . Connor’s voice came again, farther away: “Stella, get the elevator!”
Jack chuckled. “I guess we’re coming up.”
Emily released the receiver.
“I can’t believe this,” said Gen.
Emily had a moment to be grateful that they were both dressed, then small hands hammered at the door.
Connor and Stella leapt at Emily. “Can we get pizza? Can we?” they cried.
Jack appeared in the doorway with a rueful expression that didn’t suit his grin.
“Sorry,” he said. “I couldn’t hold them back. ” He kissed Emily’s cheek.
“Hi,” said Gen.
Jack, who hadn’t yet noticed her, flinched in surprise.
Stella untangled herself from Emily and looked up at Gen. “Are you a boy or a girl?”
“Girl.”
“Stella, that’s rude,” said Jack.
“I don’t mind”—Gen’s voice had a touch of warning—“when it’s a child who asks.”
“You’re tall,” said Stella.
“Who are you?” said Connor.
“I’m your mom’s friend,” said Gen. “I came by for coffee.”
“Smells amazing,” said Jack. “Mind if I have some?” He went into the kitchen. Gen lost her smooth, friendly expression.
“Aren’t you glad to see us?” Connor asked Emily. He hadn’t let go.
She returned his hug and said, “I’m always glad to see you and Stella.”
“Can I get pepperoni? Daddy said yes if you said it was okay.”
“Want a cup, Em?” Jack called. He hadn’t recognized Gen.
Though she had been at their wedding, the reception had been enormous and they hadn’t been introduced.
Nor had he placed her as the sort of person who’d been invited to the White House.
Then again, Jack hadn’t really looked at her.
You can’t recognize someone you don’t see.
“Em? Coffee?”
“No.”
“I’ll take some,” said Gen.
Jack gave Gen a mug and moved into the living room to sit on the couch. The children joined him, snuggling close on either side. Gen, with an incredulous glance at Emily, drank from her mug and sat opposite Jack, who said, “Really sorry to interrupt.”
“So can we go?” Connor asked Emily.
“I can’t. I have a guest.”
“But, Mommy!”
“That’s not fair!” said Stella.
“Come on, kids,” said Jack. “Mommy didn’t know we were coming.”
“Don’t let me stop you.” Gen settled into her chair with a casual grace that made Emily see—as she hadn’t seen before, at least not in person—the Gen that did interviews and posed for photos.
This Gen was comfortable in any company.
There was something unnerving about this Gen, because Emily knew that she was upset—angry even, possibly as angry as Emily felt—and that no one else could tell. “I was going to leave soon anyway.”
“Don’t go,” said Emily.
“I’ll finish my cup first.”
“Do you want to come with us?” asked Stella.
“No, sweetheart,” said Gen, “but thanks.”
“How do you two know each other?” said Jack.
“From school.” To the children, Gen said, “I’ve known your mom a long time, since I was about your age. Connor, you’re ten, right? I met Emily in fifth grade.”
“What was Mommy like?”
“She was good to me when not many people were.”
Stella nodded. “Mommy’s nice.”
“She cries when there’s a sad part in a movie,” said Connor. “The happy parts, too.”
“She cries during commercials .”
“Okay, okay,” said Emily, aware that her quelling tone would make the children hunt for other embarrassing habits of hers that they could reveal.
Which was fine. She wanted the conversation to be about anything but Gen.
Jack appeared relaxed and pleased, so she didn’t think that he had connected Gen with the story she had told him, long ago, about dating a girl from high school.
At least, not yet. It occurred to her that he might have imagined someone very different from Gen. Possibly, he had imagined the kind of woman he liked, and had assumed that that was what Emily liked.
“Commercials get me, too, sometimes,” said Gen. “Like when someone comes home after a long time away. Or a person works hard and another person cares.”
“I like ones with dogs,” said Stella. “They don’t make me cry but they give me a funny feeling like I might cry.”
“I know that feeling.”
“Commercials just sell stuff,” said Connor dismissively.
“Well, they’re about wanting things, so they remind you of what everyone wants, even when it’s not about money, like having a nice mommy. Commercials are boring to make, though.”
“What do you do?” said Jack.
“I’m a runner.”
“I mean for work.”
“That is what I do for work.”
“You’re a courier? A messenger?”
“I’m an Olympic athlete. I won a silver in Sydney and a gold in Beijing. Other medals, too, but those are the ones I’m most proud of.”
“Wow,” said Stella.
“Will you be in the 2012 Olympics?” said Connor.
“I’m going to try.”
“Can I see your medals?”
“Sure, someday.”
“Em, how come you never told me about your talented friend?” To Gen, Jack said, “She never mentioned you.”
Gen set down her mug.
Emily said, “We weren’t in touch.”
Gen stood. “Thanks for the coffee.” She gave a brief wave, as though the others were an anonymous crowd gathered in the stands and her mind was focused on an event to come.
Emily wasn’t sure, when Gen left, if she’d see her again.
In the crowded pizzeria, Jack let the children order soda and smiled at their shocked joy. “Just once in a while,” he warned. They cheered.
Emily remembered how, before Connor and Stella were born, she and Jack went on a trip to London where he ordered bespoke shoes made by an exclusive cobbler.
Emily’s feet were traced, her arches and ankles and heels measured.
The cobbler carved and sanded wooden lasts of their feet, so that, in the future, when Jack and Emily wanted a new pair of shoes, he could fit the leather to their lasts, which were stored in his shop.
She imagined the cobbler holding hers: cream-colored wood as smooth as soap.
She imagined her last accepting the leather and forming a space for the real foot.
She imagined that she was the last, breeding leather vessels for the jointed foot, the one that flexed and felt, that had a ripple of toes.
Emily was the wooden body double. Her job, to be handled and shoved into place.
“Mommy, you’re not eating your pizza.”
Jack smiled. “Dreamy Emily.”
What a fool she was, to be sitting there, thinking about shoes so that she wouldn’t think about Gen.
What a fool to eat her pizza, and know that the shoe last was not symbolically herself, but Gen, dismissed, made to feel lesser in the company of what looked like a real family, and that Emily had been thinking about her all along, while pretending that she wasn’t.
Gen sent a text. Will you come over when you’re done? There was an address in Williamsburg. We need to talk.