The Half Moon: a Novel, page 11
“Okay, well, let’s get a look at him before you work on your origin story,” Cobie said, and rolled her eyes.
But even Cobie found herself watching him, she told Jess after, and not only because meeting him was her sole purpose for visiting Gillam. She took in the bar, the crowd, the music, Jess’s other friends from home, but somehow, for some reason, when she wasn’t paying attention, she was always searching for Malcolm.
“Exactly,” Jess said. “What’s that about?”
“He has a lot of presence. And the two of you together?” Cobie asked. “You’re like the prom king and queen.”
“Him, maybe,” Jess said. “Not me.”
“Not you alone, no. But with him?” Cobie paused. “You’re different here.”
Jess met Cobie on the first day of college orientation. They’d both complained about their hometowns—Cobie’s all the way in Texas—how the rules of life were prescribed from birth, though the families they’d been born into couldn’t have been more different. Jess asked, tentatively, if it had been hard coming out to her parents, and Cobie laughed and told her she was never “in”—her parents knew she was gay before she did. No, it was something else about home that was strangling her, the notion that what’s important to one person must be important to everyone. All of Jess’s classmates saw themselves as the ones who’d broken free, but oddly, the more the others griped about their hometowns, the more Jess saw that hers wasn’t so bad. The Ryans hadn’t had money, but that wasn’t Gillam’s fault, and in general, she remembered kindnesses. Teachers telling her she was bright, encouraging her along.
She’d gotten a decent merit scholarship but had still needed a sizable loan. She ended up deferring repayment to go to law school full-time. She paid for law school with a new loan, and the loan officer seemed pleased to tell her that when the time came she could bundle her loans together, as if it made any difference to her whether she repaid with one check or split the amount into two. At twenty-two, money was still only theoretical to her, and the higher that loan amount climbed, the more abstract it seemed.
* * *
“God,” Jess said the first time she saw Malcolm, standing behind the bar, “who’s that?” It was her friend Jenny’s birthday. They’d been co-captains of the track team their senior year of high school, and they still ran together sometimes when Jess was home. Jenny had just broken off an engagement, and Jess had just broken up with a classmate she’d been seeing half-heartedly. He always finished her sentences and he was always wrong. So they were due for a night out. They’d rounded up a few other friends from high school Jess hadn’t seen in a while.
“Oh,” Jenny said, with sympathy in her tone. “You’ve never met Malcolm?”
“Hello, Jenny’s lawyer friend,” Malcolm said to her later, when it was her turn to buy a round. “Your friends were bragging about you before you got here.”
“I’m not a lawyer yet,” she said. “Working on it.”
“Well look at you,” he said.
“I’m Jess,” she said.
“I know,” he said. “I’m Malcolm.”
“I know,” she said, and laughed. “You’re a big hit around here.”
When Jess returned to the table hugging eight bottles of beer and wearing a dopey smile, Jenny said, “Don’t even think about it. He’s been with everyone.”
“Think about what?” Jess asked. But every time she got a chance, she looked over at him.
She found an excuse to go home again two weeks later. And then again two weeks after that. Later, when they were together but no one knew, Jess would shout her order over the din and he’d lean very close, as if to hear her better. It wasn’t true that he’d been with everyone. He had rules about never getting together with girls who hung around the bar too much, girls he’d have to see too often when it ended. He wasn’t interested in girls who wore their designs on him too bluntly, the girls who got too drunk and sagged against him at the end of the night. He liked the girls who kept it together, he said, who could hold a normal conversation at midnight. Like Jess.
Once everyone knew, the same friends who’d stood alongside her in sympathy the first night started side-eyeing her, sizing her up. Was she in fact too tall? Could her breasts stand to be a bit bigger? Was she actually all that pretty or was she just skinny with good hair? Sometimes it was hard to tell the difference.
* * *
Occasionally, to give her a break from all the back-and-forth, he came to her apartment in the city, but Jess knew he hated giving up a weekend night at the bar, hated circling in search of a parking spot. If she and Cobie had friends over, he asked Jess’s classmates for stories of what she was like in law school, if she was very serious or if she ever fell asleep in the back row. He said it was unfair that she could picture his day but he couldn’t quite picture hers. When they went out he always had plenty of cash and kept it neatly folded in a clip. He made the guys searching the opens maws of their wallets look like little boys.
In her third year, Jess was selected to represent her school on a tour of Southeast Asia as part of an international law initiative. She was twenty-five years old. She wore one of Cobie’s silk blouses to a meeting in Myanmar and ate the best meal of her life in Singapore. She went swimming off the coast of Cambodia and saw the towering Golden Buddha in Thailand. By then she knew she was in love with Malcolm, and sent him a postcard almost every day, mostly about food. She woke up ravenous every morning and asked her classmates if it was the same for them, if they thought it was the time difference, perhaps their bodies didn’t know when their meals were supposed to be and so wanted to eat all the time.
She was sick on the plane home, which was embarrassing. She hoped her classmates didn’t hear her retching into the tiny toilet. When she stepped out of the bathroom, a very kind flight attendant handed her a gel ice pack, told her to hold it to her face and neck, it would make her feel better. When she finally got to New York, dragged her suitcase up four flights of stairs to her apartment, she sat up late with Cobie just to talk about all the things they wanted from their lives, all the places they wanted to go. And then she slept for twenty hours, waking only to pee. When she woke up for real she was so hungry that she felt nauseated. Malcolm was on his way to see her.
Cobie said she’d clear out as soon as he arrived, but before she left she wanted to add one extra point to that conversation they’d had last night. She said, and asked Jess to please not be mad at her for saying so, that with Malcolm, Jess’s boundaries would always be Gillam’s. She thought Jess would have ended things with him by then, but instead it seemed to be getting more serious. Cobie said it was something she’d been thinking about and she’d be a bad friend if she didn’t make sure Jess knew that.
“You’ve just been to all these places,” Cobie said. “Is Malcolm interested in going anywhere besides Gillam and the Jersey Shore?”
“That’s not fair,” Jess said. “You need money to travel. Each year of that high school you went to cost more than most people pay for college. So there are things you just do not understand, Cobie. You think regular people can up and fly to Vietnam? I wouldn’t have gone to Asia if someone hadn’t picked my name out of a hat or whatever. If all my expenses hadn’t been paid.”
“There you go,” Cobie said. “They didn’t pick your name out of a hat and you know it.”
“He’s not dumb,” Jess said. “Far from it.”
“I didn’t say he is.”
“Okay.”
“Okay.”
“And there’s nothing wrong with the Jersey Shore. It’s beautiful. A lot of people don’t realize.”
“I said okay.”
“Or Gillam, for that matter.”
“I know that.”
“Anyway,” Jess said. “He’s ambitious. His plan is to own his own bar one day.” She laid a hand on her stomach and tucked a pillow behind her head.
“Great,” Cobie said. “Awesome.”
* * *
What happened in the five minutes between Fred wishing her a good night and getting up from her seat, Jess wondered later, on the flight back to New York and then a thousand times in subsequent weeks. What exactly had she been thinking on the long walk from the bar, across the lobby, past reception, to the elevator bank? Her hands had been shaking, she remembered that. She had to clasp them together and remind herself to breathe.
When Jess left the bar area and turned for the elevators, she counted to five—one, two, three, four—and then turned. And there he was, standing in the lobby, looking at her. Just where she knew he’d be.
“Hey again,” he said. He didn’t seem the least bit nervous. He stopped about three feet away from her, shoved his hands deep into his pockets, and raised his shoulders to a shrug. “Want to get a drink?” he asked. “Not here,” he added.
Jess glanced over at his buddies, and if they’d all been turned toward them, watching, she would have walked away. But they didn’t even seem to have noticed that he left.
“Where?” Jess asked.
“Upstairs?” he said, pressing the elevator button. He didn’t touch her, he just stood very close. “If you want to.”
“Just a drink?” she asked.
“Probably not just a drink, no.” He smiled, and it was a kind smile.
She wanted to seem like a woman who found the invitation to be no big deal, like it happened all the time.
“Tell you what. I’m going to room 704. If you want to join me, great. If not, then it was very nice to have met you.” He paused. “In case you don’t come up, I want to tell you that you are very, very lovely, Jessica-who-hates-her-name. I hope you have someone who tells you that.”
When the elevator door closed, she stood there for what felt like a very long time. She listened to the machinery turning, carrying him to his room, steel cables straining and pulling. Then silence. The whole building was waiting for her to decide. She put her palm to the door. She pressed the button and the system sprang to life. When the elevator arrived, she pushed number seven.
She thought she’d have a minute to collect herself, but when the doors opened, he was sitting in the armchair across from the elevator.
“Okay, I’m nervous,” she said.
He closed the space between them, took her elbows, and walked her backward slowly until they arrived at the wall. And then he kissed her. He seemed cautious at first, testing, but then she kissed him back. He pressed his whole body against her, and she could feel his knee between her legs. He had her dress partly unzipped, and she didn’t even notice until she felt his hand on the bare skin of her back.
“We should probably get out of the hall,” he said.
But it struck Jess as they moved toward his room that he might be different in there. He might hurt her. Or she might see his toothbrush on the bathroom counter in a pool of murky water and know that the way he appeared to strangers was false, that the wife he left behind in Seattle, or Toronto, or Minneapolis was sick of cleaning up after him, was working up the courage to leave him.
“Hey,” Jess said, pulling away from him. “I’m sorry. I’m going to head to my room. I’m really sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry,” he said, immediately taking his hands off her. He sighed, but he was nice about it and that made her feel worse.
“You’re sure?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said.
“Okay. Let me just—” Frowning, he reached around and zipped up her dress. He patted her back as if to say she was all set.
“Do you do this a lot?” she blurted. “I noticed your ring.”
She didn’t mean anything by it, but she could see he didn’t like the question and wouldn’t be answering. He called the elevator for her, waited politely until the door opened.
The next day, checking out, Jess waited in her room until the very last moment. Then she arranged her hair in front of her face, put on sunglasses, and got out of the hotel as quickly as possible.
During the flight home, she thought of the flight attendant on the long journey from Bangkok all those years ago. Jess tried to remember what she’d been like at twenty-five, what she thought about, what she worried about, how quick she was to speak her mind. How sweet that woman was, handing her that ice pack, later bringing her a cold can of ginger ale. How she’d asked, the second time Jess had to rush to the toilet to vomit, if she always felt ill when flying or if perhaps she was expecting. She said Jess’s face was very pale, but she said it with a small smile, as if encouraging Jess to share a secret. Jess remembered how the woman’s colleague had said something to her sharply in Thai, and the attendant who’d been so kind suddenly looked flummoxed.
“Expecting what?” Jess had asked, and only much later, in the frigid darkness of coach, thirty thousand feet above Africa, in a tube traveling five hundred miles an hour, did Jess register what she meant.
* * *
When she arrived at their little house in Gillam after a delayed departure from San Francisco and her driver from LaGuardia taking a wrong turn, she walked in to find Malcolm there, even though it was a Saturday. His face, his stance, the slight cowlick over his left eye that he tended to so carefully in the mirror each morning, the way he tilted his head and rubbed the stubble on his cheek when he was nervous, when he was trying to think of what to say, it was all as familiar to her as her own reflection.
“I returned the glasses,” he said, taking her suitcase, moving it to the landing so he’d remember to carry it upstairs. “They said the credit will show up in about a week.”
“You didn’t call,” she said. “You didn’t text me even one time.”
“Neither did you,” he said. And that had hurt, she could see. It wasn’t a sentence he was capable of saying.
Jess felt a sob gathering in her chest, so she put her hands over her face and doubled over like she’d been punched. She made a keening sound that she’d never made before, not even when she lost the baby she’d come to think of as Nora. Malcolm’s Nora.
“Jessie,” Malcolm whispered, sliding his hand through her hair, pulling her as tight as he could. The solid hulk of him compared to that stranger in a hallway. How could she have gone that far.
“Jessie. Honey. Don’t cry. Please.”
“The glasses are not the problem.”
He was quiet for a long time and then he said that he knew that, of course he knew that, but he didn’t know what to do.
five
They met at a barbeque at Siobhán and Patrick’s house, Memorial Day weekend. Siobhán called Jess at work that Friday to say that Patrick’s best friend from college had moved to Gillam, she was sure she’d mentioned that to Jess. He didn’t know anyone. He’d moved there because Patrick had talked it up so much over the years and he had to find a place fast, get the kids settled, get them enrolled in school. They’d only ever known the city but Neil liked the idea of a big yard, somewhere commutable to Midtown. Siobhán assumed he had plans for the long weekend, but it turned out he didn’t. So now they all had to come over.
“How do you know I don’t have plans?” Jess asked.
“Do you?”
“No.”
Siobhán was positive Jess had met him at some party or other, their wedding at the very least. As if Jess would be able to recollect all three hundred people who’d attended Siobhán and Patrick’s wedding seventeen years ago, after an entire bottle of prosecco and a mishap with the shuttle bus. As if she ever talked to anyone at those parties other than the people she already knew. That was Malcolm’s thing. He was the host of their table. He was the host of the elevator that brought everyone to the top floor. He was the host of the line that snaked its way to the buffet, cracking jokes and pumping the hands of everyone he knew and hadn’t seen in ages. Neil and Malcolm had both been groomsmen, Siobhán reminded her. But Patrick had had ten groomsmen, and Jess had been seeing Malcolm for only a few months. She and Siobhán were friendly at the time but not close yet. She spent most of the night waiting for Malcolm to wrap up his duties so they could hang out.
Siobhán said he was worried about his kids, the poor guy. “His ex should be in jail,” she added. “Can you imagine Patrick picking back-to-school clothes for Cara?”
“I’m sure he’d figure it out,” Jess said.
“Anyway, he’s a lawyer,” Siobhán said, in the soft voice she used when she was trying to sound innocent. “I think he does something very similar to what you used to do at the firm.”
“Oh no. No-no-no. What did you say about me? There are a zillion different types of lawyers, Siobhán! As soon as he hears how long I was at the firm and then this sudden pivot, he’ll know I left because I didn’t make partner.”
“Well,” Siobhán said. “I wanted him to know he has things in common with people here. He claims he’d never even been on this side of the Hudson before he came to look at the house he bought. He relied completely on Patrick’s stories about Gillam, so now the people in those stories have to show up! He doesn’t care why you left the firm!
“Also,” Siobhán added. “We’re having those ribs you like. I’m making the marinade right now.”
“Oh really?” Jess said. She’d just eaten a dry turkey sandwich at her desk. “I could drink that marinade.”
“I know you could.”
“Okay, we’ll be there. But stop discussing my résumé, please.”
“I love you.”
It wasn’t that he’d care. It was just embarrassing. Jess had been at Bloom for a few months by then. They owned the Half Moon but it was still so new. They weren’t behind yet, though a simple comparison of the profit and loss sheets month over month, charted on a graph, predicted very clearly where the line was headed if something didn’t change. She’d followed that line to its obvious conclusion, had stayed late at work one evening creating a spreadsheet so she could show Malcolm. And she’d been generous! There were expenses she didn’t know about, surely. The unpaid tabs. The unspoken etiquette of cash put down on a table and then pushed away. The macroeconomics of an entire industry, how to tip and why and when and to whom and how much. Cash passed in envelopes or folded into thick wedges and tucked into shirt pockets. Stacked in a safe deposit box, sure, but also removed in denominations of one inch, two inches. But when she brought home this presentation of facts, he glanced at it exactly once and then told her to just tell him what it said. When she explained, said they’d be in the red within six months, said they’d be up an actual creek if they didn’t make a change—get an investor or sell or come up with a brand-new idea for how to get bodies in a dingy room, buying drinks—he said her work was too binary, what with its columns for profit and loss, success and failure. His world was full of nuance, determined by moods, weather, current events. If the Mets made it to the World Series, the bar would kill it in October. Things like that couldn’t be captured on a spreadsheet, he said, and she said yes it certainly could, she’d done it, all he had to do was look.
