“I made him an appointment for tomorrow, I just have to get him to go.”
“Can I come along?”
“No need, sweetheart. Your father wouldn’t want us to make a big deal about it. He keeps saying he’s just out of shape. He gets winded starting the motor on the boat. You know how that thing only catches with a big yank. I’m always afraid he’s going to give one of us a black eye the way he rips at it,” she chuckled. “Okay, I’m going to get out of the pantry now. Don’t tell your dad I told you. And I’m so excited about your news, Sasha. I’m sorry to have changed the subject when this should have been a happy conversation all about you!”
“Oh, I know you’re happy for me, Mom. I can’t wait for you to come help me set up the nursery.”
“I’ll be there whenever you’re ready, Sasha.”
They said goodbye, and Sasha hung up and frowned at her phone. She suddenly felt so far away. In a fit of frustration, Sasha stalked into the sitting room and scooped up two dozen jewel cases of old CDs, dumping them into a bag. She opened the skinny drawer of a marble-topped side table and gathered up the assorted ballpoint pens, ancient Post-its, and paper clips and dropped them in as well. She moved through the room like a madwoman, tossing in old magazines, a dusty embroidered pillow, a remote control that paired with no discernable device, a ziplock baggie full of old batteries, and a small ship in a bottle that could have been worth a fortune but most likely was not. She didn’t care. Before anyone could catch her in the act, she stomped the bag down to the basement, let herself into the alley, and buried it in the neighbor’s trash can.
ELEVEN
Georgiana
After the conference in D.C., Georgiana sent Brady one text. It said, “I know you are married.” She then turned off her phone and spent three days in bed, not sleeping but not quite awake, hurting and broken. On Monday morning, unable to hide any longer, she woke up at seven, showered and dressed, and packed her lunch for work. When she walked out of her apartment building, Brady was standing by the stoop holding two paper cups of coffee. She accepted one, barely able to look at his face for the pain it caused. They walked to the Promenade and sat on a bench to talk. It was clear and warm, and runners zoomed past them, nannies with strollers fed their small charges croissants out of wax-paper bags. Down the bluff, beyond the piers, the ferries chugged along the river, and a big orange barge sounded a mournful horn, as though complaining about all this life carrying on when Georgiana’s heart was broken.
She felt hollowed out, her temples throbbing, her stomach tight, and she held the coffee in her lap. She couldn’t imagine finding the strength to lift the cup to her lips.
“I’m so sorry, George,” Brady started. “I thought you knew. And then by the time I realized you didn’t I had no idea how to tell you. It felt too late.”
“How would I have known? You never said anything.”
“I know, I know. But I thought everyone at work knew. Amina used to work here. She was a project manager, and then a few years ago she got a job at the Gates Foundation in Seattle and had to take it. The plan was that I would try to get hired there too, or find another job and move, but I didn’t want to. I love New York. I love my job. So we’ve just left it this way. I live here, she lives in Seattle, some weekends she comes here, some weekends I go there.”
“So your malaria conference in Seattle was a trip to see her?”
“Well, no, I had the conference, but I stayed with her.”
“And everyone at work knows about her. That’s why nobody knows about us.”
“I’m so sorry, Georgiana. I can’t explain why I lied to you. I just didn’t want it to end.”
“Do you love her?”
“I do. But I love you too.” Brady was looking at her intently, his fingers white as he gripped the edge of the bench. Georgiana shook her head and stood, walking alone down Columbia Heights to the office. She stumbled up the mansion stairs, through the great hall, past the grant team, and into her tiny maid’s room, where she turned on her computer and spent the next several hours staring at a leaf stuck to the window.
She didn’t get up from her desk all day, not even risking a trip to the kitchen or bathroom, where she might see him in the hall. The next day was Tuesday, and instead of playing tennis with Brady in the park she left early, changing into her running clothes and heading down to the Navy Yard, through the never-ending construction of Dumbo, drowning out her thoughts as music pounded through her earbuds. She couldn’t sleep, she was literally sick with despair, so she ran in the mornings before work, grinding out five miles before seven, then another three or four in the evenings, until she felt shin splints starting and a tightness developing in her hips.
Lena had been traveling with her boss all week, but on Friday night she came over with two bottles of wine and a pizza from Fascati’s. They sat on her roof deck and watched the sun set over Staten Island, and Lena put her head on her shoulder.
“I’m so sorry, Georgiana. He’s a fuckboy.”
“The thing is, I can’t make myself believe he is. I was so sure he fell in love with me.”
“But he lied to you. That whole time he was hiding this huge thing. Have you seen him?”
“I saw him across the hall a few times today but just put my head down. I can’t look at him. Not because I’m so angry, but because I still want him so much. It’s humiliating. How could I be so pathetic?”
“You’re not pathetic, Georgiana. You’re heartbroken.”
* * *
—
Of course, Amina had been there all along if Georgiana had just known where to look for her. In the tiny maid’s room, Georgiana was surrounded by back issues of the company newsletter, years and years of stories about TB screenings in Solomon Islands, reproductive health in Haiti, an oral cholera vaccine program in the Democratic Republic of Congo. As Georgiana pored over the archive, she saw Amina’s photo again and again, her name in the tiny captions. Amina teaching in a classroom, pointing at a colorful anatomy drawing. Amina with a clipboard, crouched over a cooler, counting doses of medication alongside a man in a khaki vest. Had Georgiana known about Amina on some level? Had Brady been fooling her, or had she been fooling herself?
The next Tuesday after work Brady caught up to her as she was walking home on Hicks Street. “Can we talk?”
Georgiana felt the blood rush to her face and a painful ache that shot from her throat to her groin. She nodded and took him back to her apartment. As soon as the door closed they began to kiss. She met his lips hungrily with her own, tears streamed down her face, but she didn’t stop. She cried and kissed him and pulled off her shirt and her bra and her pants. He kissed her neck and her stomach and lay her across the bed and went down on her. She was overwhelmed by him, by getting to touch him when she was so sure she never would again. He entered her and she kissed him again, and then they finished and lay spent and silent in her bed as the sun set. They ate cheese and crackers for dinner like invalids and slept curled together in a knot, and Georgiana felt it was the first time she had truly rested in a week.
Soon it was as though nothing had changed, but something had. In a strange way there was a new intensity and seriousness between them. They stopped playing tennis together—it felt like a waste of time when they could be alone—and instead they spent hours and hours in bed. Brady was tender with her, combing her hair from her eyes, sometimes looking at her like he was afraid she was going to melt away beneath him. It was impossible to know how it might end. Would Brady leave Amina? Would Georgiana spend her entire youth desperately in love with a man whose heart resided thousands of miles away? They never spoke of it. When they were together Georgiana was too afraid of breaking the spell and watching him vanish like smoke.