“Why?”
“Because you sold the apartment, silly.”
“Months ago, yes. Besides, what about your place? Don’t you still have that studio in Chelsea?”
“The tenant, the subletter, is refusing to leave. Can you believe it?”
Yes, he can. He also can believe that there is no tenant, that Margot no longer has her studio apartment in Chelsea, that she was, in fact, the subletter.
“Surely you have some legal standing?”
“Thiru thinks it will be okay when the lease is up—that’s what I get for doing things according to Hoyle.”
The quaint old saying, something that has no meaning in today’s world, reminds Gerry of why he was charmed by Margot once upon a time. Ditzy as she can be, she is clever and well-read; he never had to explain his references. It had not been a mistake to take up with her. His only mistake was thinking that he would have any more luck than his predecessors when it came time to leave her. Clearly, foisting her off on Thiru isn’t working, not yet. Thiru is much smarter about women than Gerry. Despite or maybe because of having logged one more marriage.
“Margot, I’m going to have to tell you a hard truth. I cannot provide for you and, furthermore, I am under no obligation to provide for you. What we had was lovely. But it’s over. It’s been over for quite some time, as we both know. I thought you understood that when I came down to Baltimore and put my apartment on the market six months ago.”
“I assumed you would be moving back.”
“So did I.” He still does, just not for a year or two. New York is a much better place to grow old than Baltimore, he is sure of that now. Oh why had he sold the apartment up there? He is never going to be able to buy anything as nice as he had. New York seems determined to shed itself of everything but billionaires and those old-timers who had the good luck to buy and hold property when it was cheap.
“What am I supposed to do? Where am I supposed to go?”
He has the strangest feeling of déjà vu or, as dreamy Dr. Bevington described it, a sequencing error. He realizes that she’s basically playing the final scene of Gone with the Wind. She swept in here like Scarlett visiting Rhett in jail, and now she’s jumped to the end of the story. He can’t say he doesn’t give a damn; he’s not that cold.
But he doesn’t give a damn.
“Margot, I’m sure there’s someone who can help you. Right now, I’m not that person. Obviously, I’m not in the position to help anyone.”
Her eyes narrow. “You always were a selfish bastard. Everyone thinks you’re so good. You think you’re good. But you’re a terrible person, Gerry. Nothing’s worse than a bad person who thinks he’s good.”
“I’m sorry you feel that way, but then—all the better that we cease contact.”
“I know things about you. Things you wouldn’t want me to tell people.” Her voice is rising. There’s no doubt that Victoria, at work in his office downstairs, can hear the tone, if not the actual words. “You think your secrets won’t catch up with you, but some have. I could make life very difficult for you, Gerry.”
This threat of exposure, the penny-ante blackmail essence of it all—hollow as it is, Gerry is enraged, which is probably what Margot is counting on. Gerry has always had a horror of being talked about. He has been lucky to have the kind of career in which his biography is of little interest, despite the three marriages. He never lied about himself, but he downplayed the more extreme aspects. Only child of a salesman and a housewife, parents divorced when he was young, father remarried and had a second family. No one needed to know that the two families had overlapped for almost ten years. He’s lucky that no one ever tried to find Gerald Andersen Sr. when he was alive. Gerald Senior would have been happy to talk, talk, talk to anyone who expressed interest.
“If you have stories to tell, Margot, tell them. Better yet, write them down for that memoir you’re always threatening to write. Oh, wait, that’s the one thing you can’t do, create. You’ve had to settle for fucking the men who can.”
He knows his words are cruel, that he has used his intimate knowledge of Margot to locate her single greatest insecurity and press hard on it. Still, he is not prepared when she slaps him and then, for good measure, scrapes her fingernails across his cheek, drawing blood.
He yelps, more in shock than pain. No one has ever touched him in this way, no one. And he has never longed to put his hands on a woman, but he does now. He pushes her, hard, and when she comes back at him, he instinctively reaches for the heretofore useless walker by his bed and deploys it as a combination shield–jousting pole. Some ludicrous part of his mind triumphantly dredges up a fact: Jousting is the official sport of Maryland! Not lacrosse, as many people assume, but jousting.