Romantic Comedy, page 26
I kept moving in and out of certainty and uncertainty, composure and despair. As the sun set over the ocean, a loneliness seized me that didn’t pass. By this point, it was nine in L.A. and midnight on the East Coast, and while there was a time I wouldn’t have hesitated to call Viv or Henrietta at midnight, that time had been prior to them or their wife being extremely pregnant. I really should have made more than two friends back when making friends was still possible, I thought, and then I thought, Danny.
I texted Can you talk now? and a few seconds later, he was facetiming me, wearing a tie-dyed T-shirt, reclined on a floral sofa. He said, “What’s shakin’, Chuckles?”
“Can you imagine Noah being my boyfriend? Not just as a pandemic hookup, as a real long-term thing.”
“Hank and Roy have always said you’re a eunuch, and I’m like, ‘Nah, man, she’s got a beating heart.’ ”
“Thanks?”
“Are you in a cave right now?”
“I’m in a hotel room, and only the bathroom light is on.”
“That doesn’t sound at all depressing.” Just as I decided that reaching out to him had been a mistake, his expression turned serious. “You okay, Chuckles?”
“Not really. I didn’t have contact with Noah from the time he hosted until about a month ago, then he emailed me, then we had this emailing frenzy, then I drove out here to L.A. and we had a great time, then I ruined it. I think I want to quit TNO and stay here with him, but why should I get to be Noah’s girlfriend? What makes me deserving? And anyway, isn’t being in a relationship with a famous person kind of terrible?”
“Okay, back up. To be crystal clear, you and Noah have been banging?”
“Correct.”
“You’re asking separate questions, so let’s go in order. Why should you get to be Noah’s girlfriend? You’re in overlapping industries, you met, and obviously you hit it off if he was still thinking of you two years later. And the banging was decent?”
“Yes.”
“And you’re easy to talk to, so that covers the conversation part. It’s not necessarily more complicated than that. Next up, what makes you deserving? You’re funny, you’re cool, and you pretend to be tough but you’re a softie.”
“I’m sorry to beg for compliments, but aren’t I the least cool person you know?”
“I don’t mean I’d take advice from you on what sneakers to buy. I mean cool like having your shit together. For the isn’t-being-in-a-relationship-with-a-famous-person-terrible question—yeah, probably. Or it has some sucky parts, but all relationships have sucky parts. Here’s my question for you. Do you like him a lot or a little?”
“More than anyone I’ve ever met.”
“Then what’s the problem?”
“Lots of people don’t get what they want in life. Why should I?”
“Didn’t we already cover this?”
“I think I’m better at using rage and disappointment to fuel my creativity. Happiness makes me uneasy.”
When he laughed, I said, “I wish I was kidding.”
“I know you’re not. Here’s another way of looking at it. You’re, like, forty, yeah?”
“Thirty-eight.”
“But you’ve experienced your share of hookups and relationships that didn’t work out. Elliot or whoever?”
“Who told you I had a thing for Elliot? Elliot?”
“I never reveal my sources. My point is that even if Noah is the love of your life, your batting average is still pretty bad. So is mine, and so is most people’s. Of all the couples that ever existed, most aren’t together now. You’re not together with your ex-husband. I’m not together with Annabel. I believe you that you’re bad at dating, but you can be bad at dating and still fall in love once a lifetime.”
“That logic is enticing yet very, very tenuous.”
He grinned. “I’m good at falling in love, and it makes my batting average a lot worse than yours.”
“How are things with you and Lucy?”
“Are we finished with you and Noah?”
“The fact that he’s way more attractive than I am—you really think that doesn’t matter?”
“Oh, man, I’m excited you asked me this. There are three topics I’m an authority on. You know what they are?”
I shook my head.
“The movies of Bethany Brick. The menu at the Big Wings on Forty-eighth Street. And I don’t know if you’ve heard of this, but there’s something called the Danny Horst Rule. And the amazing thing is, I’m Danny Horst.”
“Touché.”
“Chuckles, you and Noah are the ones who decide if it matters. It doesn’t seem like it matters to him so that just leaves you.”
“When you put it like that, it almost makes me sound like a self-sabotaging asshat.”
“I’m not going to say the rule doesn’t exist, but it’s like Santa Claus. It’s only real if you believe in it.”
“Well, if you’re Jewish and I’m agnostic…thank you for this, Danny.”
“Anytime, Chuckles. And things are good with me and Lucy.”
“Give my regards to Nigel.”
* * *
—
When my phone rang the next morning at seven, I again, of course, thought it was Noah, until I saw on the screen that the call was from my aunt Donna.
“Oh, Sally, Jerry isn’t doing well,” she said after I’d answered. “I think he has it.”
“You think he has—” I paused, but I already knew. “Covid?”
“On Sunday we went over there with Barbara, and we were sitting on the deck, but it started raining so we went inside. We tried to stay six feet apart, then Barbara tested positive and I’m sure it’s because her grandsons are staying with her, and Nicholas works at Starbucks.”
“When you say Jerry isn’t doing well—do you mean—what do you mean?”
“I talked to him on the phone just now, and he sounds weak and a little, well, a little disoriented. He said something about clearing snow from the driveway. Sweetheart, I want to help, but with my diabetes and Richard’s cardiomyopathy, I’m afraid it’ll get all of us. I went there this morning and rang the doorbell, hoping he’d come to the window so I could see him for myself, but he didn’t. Who’s the mother in the family next door?”
“Charlotte?”
“She came out when she saw me on Jerry’s stoop and said that at five in the morning Sugar was wandering in their yard with no leash. They also didn’t get an answer when they knocked on Jerry’s door, and she said she was about to call the police when she saw me pull up in Richard’s car.”
“Where’s Sugar now?”
“I told her Jerry’s not well, and she said they’ll keep her.”
Even more alarming than the idea of Jerry having Covid was the idea of Jerry letting Sugar wander the neighborhood unattended; he never did that.
“Okay,” I said. “I’ll come back. If I get in the car now”—I meant, of course, in Donna’s car—“I can be there tomorrow morning, but I’ll check flights, too.”
I wondered if she’d try to dissuade me. Instead, she said “Sally, he told me not to call you, but I thought you should know.”
* * *
—
“Hey,” Noah said when he answered his phone, and his voice contained the scratchiness of sleep.
“I think Jerry has Covid,” I said. “I just tried to reach him, but he didn’t pick up. Sorry for waking you.”
“No, it’s fine. Are you considering going back there?” The absence of any irritation on his part—the presence of sympathy, the immediate willingness to suspend the unresolved tension between us—felt like a significant data point, one I could have guessed at but not have been sure of.
“I’m definitely going back, but I’m trying to figure out if I should drive or fly.”
“How sick is he?”
“I don’t know. His sister, my aunt Donna, called, and she has her own health issues so she hasn’t seen him, but she said he’s disoriented and the neighbors found Sugar in their yard this morning. Jerry’s pretty healthy as eighty-one-year-olds go, but—well, he’s eighty-one.”
“You should fly. Let me make a few calls.”
I could have pretended that I didn’t understand what he meant, or I could have protested that it was too extravagant, because I already knew I wouldn’t be paying for it. Instead, I said, “Thank you, Noah.”
* * *
—
It was a Gulfstream, with eight white leather seats in the cabin. In addition to the two pilots, there were two flight attendants, all of them in navy-and-gold uniforms, all of them wearing masks, as Noah and I also were. Noah’s presence on the plane was the surprise. He’d called me back forty minutes after I called him and said, “Okay, Leah and I are going to come to you, she’ll take us to the airport, you’ll give her your car keys, and she’ll go later today to your hotel to get your car and drive it back to my house. The flight’s out of Van Nuys, not LAX.” Leah, whom I hadn’t previously met, was his personal assistant.
I had flown on private planes a few times, including when the 2015 Emmy Awards ceremony was the same week that the real Hillary Clinton—and not just the cast member Lynette, who played her—was appearing on TNO and I was writing the sketch. Those times on private planes, always at TNO’s expense, I’d felt like a cross between an imposter and a tourist, discreetly taking pictures of the interior to send my mother. This time was decidedly less festive.
On the tarmac, after we’d climbed from the car and walked to the boarding stairs, Noah held out an arm to indicate that I should go first. In the front of the cabin, four of the white leather seats were arranged facing each other in pairs, with a table between them on which were water bottles and a dish of mints. I glanced over my shoulder, unsure where I should sit, and Noah said, “Why don’t you go there?” and nodded toward the window seat in the pair facing forward. After I had, he slid in next to me, pushed up the white leather armrest between our chairs, and wordlessly set his right arm around my shoulder. I wordlessly turned my face into his chest and closed my eyes. Through my mask, his neck smelled the way he smelled on waking, some combination of being outside in the woods and bread, and I thought how in the last few weeks, the idea of him had sometimes made me nervous but the reality of him always comforted me.
One of the flight attendants offered us coffee, which we both accepted, and blueberry muffins, which he declined and I accepted, pulling down my mask to take bites. Over the sound system, the pilot apologized for our bumpy ascent, then the ride smoothed out, and the flight attendant refilled our mugs. I’d been scrolling on my phone, and Noah had been scrolling on his iPad, and he said, “Do you want to watch a movie?” He told me to choose, and I picked a historical drama that, while not as well written as it seemed to think, was at least somewhat distracting. By the time the credits rolled, we were twenty minutes from landing.
“Unless he’s really in horrible shape, he shouldn’t go to the hospital,” I said. “Right? Because couldn’t that be even worse in terms of overcrowding and lack of ventilators?”
“Leah tracked down a doctor who’s supposed to meet us at the house at three. I think we let him assess.” Noah squeezed my hand. “And she ordered a car to take us from the airport.”
I looked at him in confusion. “Like a concierge doctor?”
“Yes,” he said. “Like a concierge doctor.”
* * *
—
I’d removed the key to Jerry’s house before I’d given my car keys to Leah, and I pulled it from my jeans pocket as we walked up the path leading to the front door. The house my mother and I had moved into in 1983 was a modest colonial with maroon shutters. Noah and I kept our masks on as we entered.
I had since the plane took off been gripped by mutually exclusive anxieties. The first was that we’d find Jerry doing chair yoga or eating Raisin Bran, wondering what the fuss was, and it would turn out I’d used Donna’s call as an excuse to summon Noah, or to test him. The other anxiety was that we’d find Jerry dead.
I called his name several times, but there was no response. With Noah close behind me, I hurried up the steps, which were covered in a beige carpet from my youth. The door to Jerry’s bedroom was open, and when I confirmed the slight rise and fall of his body beneath the sheet, I, too, exhaled. “Jerry, it’s Sally,” I said. “I came back from L.A.”
He was lying on his side, facing the door. His eyes blinked open in his long, thin face. He looked confused, and something in his expression was strangely childlike, an impression exacerbated by the fact that clear mucus was dripping from one nostril.
“It’s Sally,” I said again. “I’m wearing a mask because of Covid.”
“Hi, honey,” he said in a subdued voice.
I knelt beside the bed. “How are you feeling? Do you think you should go to the hospital?” I set my palm against his forehead, and it was burning.
“It’s my throat.” He touched his neck and in his subdued voice said, “It’s not good.”
“Have you had anything to eat or drink lately?”
Behind me, Noah said, “I’ll get him some water.”
Jerry closed his eyes, and I recalled not having responded to his email about the pupcakes. It was hard not to think of what I’d been doing while he’d been deteriorating—hiking with Noah, having sex with Noah, declaring to Noah that his cleared-out office was an affront to my independence.
Noah returned with two glasses of water, one with ice and one without, and held them both out to me. As I reached for the one without ice, he said, “I couldn’t find any straws, but I can go get some.” Because of how close Jerry was to the edge of the bed—unsettlingly close—I couldn’t perch beside him on the mattress. Instead, I continued kneeling on the rug and held the glass to his lips. Though some water dribbled down his chin and neck, he drank several sips.
“What about some crackers?” Noah said. “Or applesauce?”
“Maybe crackers,” I said. “I don’t think he has applesauce.”
This time when Noah left the room, I said, “That’s the friend I was visiting in L.A., Noah. He came with me to—” I paused. “Check on you.”
“Yes,” Jerry said, and his eyes shut again.
I had wondered, on entering the room, if I was smelling death, but I’d quickly realized I was smelling feces, and not from the bathroom. Tissues were scattered atop the sheet and on the floor, and there was a low scraping noise that I soon deduced was a humidifier with no water left in it. I set the glass on his nightstand, walked to the outlet, and yanked out the cord.
Noah brought in a small plastic container of vanilla pudding and a teaspoon on a plate with a few Ritz crackers. I said, “If I lift him, will you fluff his pillows so he’s more elevated?”
As I reached around Jerry with both arms, he felt shockingly frail. “How about a few bites of food?” I said. “To give yourself a little energy?”
Jerry didn’t reply, and I said, “How about some pudding?”
“Pudding,” he repeated.
I pulled the tab off the plastic cup, but before I’d peeled back the foil, I said, “Oh, we should wash our hands.”
“I did in the kitchen.” Noah nodded at the pudding. “Want me to do that?”
I passed it to him and walked into Jerry’s bathroom to use the faucet. When I came back, Noah was kneeling where I’d been before, holding the teaspoon to Jerry’s lips with the creamy glob on it. As I watched, Jerry parted his lips slightly, and Noah slid the spoon in.
Jerry swallowed then said, “That’s enough.” Once again, he closed his eyes.
“How much did he have?” I asked.
Noah held up the container, which was still mostly full. “Three or four bites.” He stood, motioning with his thumb to the doorway. “Wanna go talk?”
I led him across the hall to my room; neither of us remarked on the white wicker furniture. I instinctively sat sideways in my desk chair, and Noah sat on the bed and lowered his mask to his chin. He said, “I meant to pack the pulse oximeter Margit got when I was sick and I forgot it. I’ll go out and see if I can find one.”
“He seems horrible, right?”
“He doesn’t seem great, but it’s hard to separate what’s because he’s old, what’s lying in bed for a few days not really eating or drinking, and what’s Covid. And we don’t even know that he has Covid.”
“This isn’t what he’s like under normal circumstances. He’s not one of those elderly people who runs marathons, but he walks around and makes sense.”
“I’m going to go look for a pulse oximeter and straws. Should I call an Uber or take his car?”
“Are you comfortable driving a 2002 Buick?”
Noah smiled slightly, and I said, “That’s a serious question.”
“Where are the keys?”
“And also, no offense, but if you’re going to Target or whatever, do you know how to shop at Target? Have you ever done it before?”
“Yes,” Noah said. “I know how to shop at Target.”
We both went downstairs, and I found the keys where Jerry always left them, on a hook just inside the door that led to the garage; the key chain was a leather oval with a gold metal duck in profile, something Jerry had used for as long as I could remember.
Noah wrapped his arms around me. I hugged him back, and neither of us said anything.
* * *
—
Leah texted Noah to say that the concierge doctor was running late, and he showed up not at three o’clock but at almost seven. Dr. Fischer arrived alone, as I hadn’t expected, and wearing so much protective gear that he was barely recognizable as human, which I suspected further disoriented Jerry. I certainly couldn’t fault Dr. Fischer for it, but in addition to a white mask over his nose and mouth, he wore a hood with a clear shield in the front and, on his body, pale blue plastic coveralls. On his hands were latex gloves, and, over his shoes, white booties. He administered a Covid test via Jerry’s nostrils, the first Covid test I ever saw, and said his office would notify us of the results the following day but that we should operate on the assumption that Jerry did have it. We were to watch for Jerry’s skin or lips turning blue, an inability to catch his breath, or complaints of chest pain; if any of these symptoms occurred, we should call an ambulance or take him to the hospital immediately. In the meantime, we should encourage fluids and use the pulse oximeter on him twice a day.
