“I’m not scared. I simply can’t make the game and be recovering from having an amputation at the same time,” Sam said imperiously. “I don’t have time for surgery and physical therapy and getting a prosthetic that fits. It’s winter in Massachusetts, Marx. It’s hard enough for me to get around as it is.”
Marx and Sam didn’t speak the rest of the way home.
“And I’d appreciate if you didn’t mention any of this to Sadie,” Sam said when the cab arrived at Kennedy Street.
Marx nodded. He got out first, so he could help Sam out of the cab.
* * *
—
Marx went to Zoe’s apartment that night and he relayed what had happened with Sam. Zoe was sitting in the living room, cross-legged on an ikat-patterned cushion and playing the pan flute, which she was currently learning. Her Titian hair fell past her breasts and she wore only underwear. Zoe always kept the heat turned up in her apartment so that she could wear as little clothing as possible. She liked feeling the vibrations of her instruments, she said. She liked feeling the vibrations of the earth underneath her and the air around her. There was a secret music, she claimed, that she could only hear when there was nothing between her and the universe. （By “nothing,” she meant “clothing.”） Zoe joked—or maybe it wasn’t a joke—that her first sexual experience had been with her cello. Before she’d become a composer, she’d been a child cello prodigy, and she’d loved nothing so much as going outside, stripping, and playing by herself. Her mother had once discovered her this way behind their house and had made Zoe see a therapist. （The therapist determined that Zoe had the healthiest body image of any teenage girl he’d ever met.） At this point in their relationship, Marx was so accustomed to Zoe’s naked body that it didn’t even feel sexual anymore. They still had frequent and playful sex, but Zoe’s nudity was not an invitation to it.
“The solution is completely obvious,” Zoe said. “You have to convince Sam and Sadie to go to California with us. The winter won’t be a problem in California. Everyone drives out there, so Sam won’t have to walk as much, and his recovery will be easier.”
“I’m not sure I’m going to California yet,” Marx said.
“Oh, you are,” Zoe said. “I know it. Marx, look at you. You were meant for California. Unfair is between games, and Sam needs time off, so it’s the perfect time to move your office to California, which you’ve told me for years is what you want to do. Sam will have plenty of time to have the surgery and recover, while you and Sadie set up the office and start hiring.” Zoe clapped her hands together. “Done.”
“Sadie might not want to go,” Marx said. “Dov is here.”
Zoe rolled her eyes. “Marx, Sadie is dying to have an excuse to leave Dov.”
“She loves Dov,” Marx said.
“She hates Dov. He will never get divorced. We all know this,” Zoe said.
Marx laughed at Zoe’s certainty—he had known Sadie for three years, half as long as he’d known Sam, and he still found her to be a mystery. “So how do I convince Sam?” Marx asked.
“Marx, my love, you are so innocent. You don’t have to convince anyone. You tell Sadie that Sam needs to go to California—his foot is rotting; he needs to have the surgery and he won’t do it in Massachusetts. You tell Sam that Sadie needs to go—she needs to find a way to break with Dov. Those two are thick as thieves; they’ll do anything for each other.”
Marx kissed Zoe on the lips. She tasted like cinnamon tea and mandarin oranges, and he wanted to have sex with her, but he could tell she was still in the middle of work. “You’re being very Lady Macbeth tonight. Are you saying all these things because you want me to go to California with you?”
“Well, yes, partially. But it’s also the absolute correct course of action,” Zoe said.
* * *
—
It went almost exactly as Zoe said it would. He went to Sadie first and, ignoring Sam’s prohibition against it, conveyed the information about Sam’s disturbingly decrepit foot. Sadie said that she had not seen herself in California, but she readily agreed that it made sense for Sam and for the company. It was evident to her—as it would have been to anyone close to Sam—that something needed to be done about Sam’s health, and all of that would be easier for him in California. “To tell you the truth,” Sadie said, “I’m a little tired of winter myself.”
When Marx went to Sam, he diverged from Zoe’s advice. He began with the argument about the state-of-the-art office they could build in L.A., and the inspiring L.A. gaming scene, and he did not mention anything about Sadie. Sam had told Marx about Both Sides—Marx loved the idea, but then, no one truly cared about Marx’s opinion of what they should do next. However, Both Sides, and its ambitious scale, fed perfectly into Marx’s argument. They would require a larger office to accommodate the staff they would need to make it. Sam still wasn’t convinced. “It’ll take time to move and to hire decent people and to set up the office,” Sam argued.
“Sadie and I can do that,” Marx said. “And that would leave you time to have the surgery, no?”
Sam shook his head. “Sadie’s willing to do this? She’s willing to leave Dov?”
“She is,” Marx said. “I think she wants to even, but she doesn’t know how. It might help her if she had a reason to go.”
“I’ll do it,” he said. “For Sadie.”
Zoe was not the only one who had observed that all was not right between Sadie and Dov.
In addition to the divorce that never happened, Sadie sometimes showed up to the office with light bruising on her face and limbs, rope burns, small scratches; on one occasion, a sprained wrist. A series of minor injuries, nothing that serious or even noticeable, but enough so that Marx had once seen fit to ask her what the story was.
Marx and Sadie had gone to Austin by themselves to meet with the Opus team. The weather in Austin was murderously hot, so when they got back to their hotel, the two of them had changed into swimsuits and gone to the pool. Marx couldn’t help but notice the number of bruises on Sadie’s legs and arms, and later that night when they were sitting in the hotel bar, he, very gently, asked her about them. They were having hard, grown-up drinks—an old-fashioned for Marx and a whiskey sour for Sadie. It was kind of a joke, a play on being sad, middle-aged adults on a business trip. Marx lightly touched the welt on her wrist. “Are you okay?” he asked.
Sadie had laughed in that low breathy way she had when she was embarrassed. She covered the wrist with her other hand. Marx thought she wasn’t going to tell him anything, but then she did.
“It’s a game we like to play,” she said.
“A game?” Marx said.
“Some bondage stuff,” she said. “He never takes it too far. He always has my consent.”
“Do you like it?” he asked.
Sadie considered the question. She took another swig of her drink. “Sometimes.” She smiled her crooked smile, and there was an apologetic look in her eyes, as if she knew she had betrayed Dov by admitting that she only sometimes enjoyed sex with him. “But he’s great. I mean, he’s been really great for me,” she said. “And for all of us, too.”