It was like a curse in a fairy tale. Gerry didn’t believe in fairy tales. He took the escort by the elbow and piloted her into the parking lot. Unfortunately, his decision to touch her, even if it was only an elbow, ended up committing him to far more intimate and intensive acts than he had planned. Ah well, he wasn’t married and if he noticed, when she plunged her hand inside his pants as they necked outside his hotel, that this “divorcée” wore a ring on the fourth finger of her left hand, what business was it of his?
“Who was that man?” she asked later in his bed, after he had tried and failed to fuck her into silence. “Back in the bookstore.”
“Some run-of-the-mill crazy.”
“Yeah, we see those a lot. I would have thought you were more likely to be a magnet for the female crazies. Those sex scenes in Dream Girl—they’re pretty hot.”
Were they? Gerry had intended them to be more comic than erotic. She was probably saying what she thought he wanted to hear.
“Gosh, I hope I’m not in your next book,” she added in a tone that implied she yearned for just that.
“Who knows,” he said, wondering what other novelists she had slept with, and if he would consider any of them more accomplished than himself. “Anyway, I have a very early wake-up call.”
“I’m the one taking you to the airport. Should I call you or nudge you?” To her credit, she gave the old joke a curlicue of self-aware irony.
“Call,” Gerry said.
April 1
VICTORIA IS IN AN ODD MOOD on April Fool’s Day, a day that Gerry has always loathed, finding practical jokes to be a particular kind of sadism. His father, of course, had loved them. His father’s sense of humor was so low that he had thought it funny to shake his four-year-old’s hand with one of those old-fashioned buzzers that administered a shock. To this day, Gerry isn’t much for hand-shaking. People think he’s a germaphobe, but he’s simply never gotten over the idea that something hard and electric might be pressed into his palm.
He attributes Victoria’s mood to the weather. March has gone out like a wet, cranky lion, the temperatures falling from last week ’s springlike interlude, rain squalls sweeping across the city every few hours. She isn’t unkind—if anything, she is more solicitous of him than usual, asking him twice if he’s sure that a turkey sandwich will suffice for lunch, if he’s happy with his tea. She does inquire at one point whether the detective from New York has followed up with him about Margot, but she appears to be making idle conversation.
Yet—her hands are shaking when she clears his tray and she is unusually pale. Probably love trouble. A neurasthenic type, he decides, the kind of girl—woman—who takes long, solitary walks at night, considers the Bront?s and their heroines to be role models. He remembers a young woman in that vein whom he and Lucy had known, who was given to floaty, ankle-length dresses and outrageous hats. What a revelation she had been when they had gotten to know her better.
When Victoria comes in to say goodbye, she says: “We should probably start talking about the next phase of your care. You won’t need a nurse forever. Do you think you could be comfortable without Aileen once you’re able to use a walker?”
It’s a day he has been yearning for, but now he’s terrified of this benchmark. To move on his own again, to reclaim his body will be glorious. But—to be here, alone, in this apartment, where there are still things that can’t be explained. To not have Aileen in his sight or within earshot. How will they ever be free of each other? To think that this is the person he will be yoked to for the rest of his life, not because of love or passion, but because of a terrible secret. If he were to call the detective—no, if he were to call a lawyer, explain the situation, and they could cut a deal—no, if he were to call Thiru—
His mind abandons all plans as preposterous. He can never confess without a horrible scandal. Imagine the first line of his New York Times obituary if this should come to light.
“Let’s see what my doctor says. I admit, I am nervous about being alone here at night. What if I were to fall again?”
“I guess you could wear one of those bracelets?”
I’ve fallen and I can’t get up. Gerry remembers being in his twenties when that television ad became famous. How he and Luke and Tara had laughed at the idea, at the poor production values. Why had it struck them as funny? Why had it struck them as improbable? He thinks of the Sphinx’s riddle, about the animal who starts the day on four legs, goes to two, ends up with three. Add a walker and one could argue it’s six.