Forever is the Worst Long Time: A Novel Read online

  “Do you have plans tonight?” she asked.

  I did, in fact. Nessa had set me up on a blind date with her college roommate, a supposedly lovely woman who lived in the city but was considering moving back to the Midwest. I had a built-in excuse to say no to Lou, but instead of using it, I again allowed impulse to guide me. “Nothing firm,” I said.

  “Great! There’s a Korean barbecue on the Lower East Side that’s fantastic.” She rattled off the address. “Seven okay?”

  If we met at seven, I would definitely have to cancel my date. Nessa would not be pleased. “Perfect,” I said.

  It’s only dinner, I told myself. And sure enough, when I saw Lou skipping down Rivington Street smiling at me, everything seemed normal—though for a split second I expected Rob to be with her. Well, he could have been; his loss, I thought with so much vitriol that I surprised myself.

  “Hey, you,” I said, pushing Rob from my mind as I hugged Lou. “You look great.”

  She stepped back to look at me. “So do you, Jim.”

  Stray snips of hair from my barber visit pricked the back of my neck, and I touched my collar self-consciously. “Not really, but thanks.”

  “Oh, stop it, you know you do. Shall we sit by the window?” she asked as we stepped into the restaurant. It was not yet truly warm, but the promise of heat hung in the air. I nodded.

  “Sorry again about lunch,” said Lou as the hostess seated us. “But thank you for being so flexible.”

  “No worries. Actually, let me rephrase: I’m happy to make the change.”

  “Come again?”

  “One of the things I’ve learned as a semicorporate scribe is that when you use a phrase like ‘no rush’ or ‘no problem,’ all people hear or read is ‘rush’ or ‘problem.’”

  She made a disgusted face. “Don’t you dare use that rule in your fiction.”

  I laughed, instantly at ease; she had that effect on me. “That’s simple enough, because using it would require writing fiction.”

  “And you’re not?”

  I shrugged.

  “Maybe you’re doing it Hemingway-style!” she said, and pointed her menu at my chest. “Gathering up rich life experiences before you write about them.”

  “Yes, rich experiences,” I droned. “Saving lives by securing funding for executive education. Foraging for sustenance at Kroger. Macheteing through the overgrown jungle of my backyard.”

  “Oh, Jim. You’re not actually unhappy, are you?”

  That was the thing: I wasn’t. On the whole, I was actually quite content. But we humans aren’t too good at stasis, are we? No—we like to throw a wrench into something the minute it starts running smoothly. We throw ourselves over the ledge reaching for the big, shiny object, when the smaller, duller version would do just fine.

  “No, I guess I’m not,” I told her. “Though at this point in life, I’m fairly certain meaning is more important than happiness.”

  “Aren’t they one and the same?”

  “Maybe. But more importantly, what about you? How the heck are you holding up?”

  She gave me a crooked smile, and for a second I wondered if she was going to cry. Then she waved down the waiter. “Let’s get drinks before we get into that.”

  We ordered, but instead of talking about the separation, Lou told me about a series of poems she was writing—a nautilus in verse, she described it. In return, I told her about the pitch I had prepared for the agents I would be meeting at the conference. She shot the pitch down, then promptly helped me rebuild it. By the time we had finished the meal, I was no longer deflated but instead brimming with possibility, which is one of the very best feelings there is to have. It had been a good idea to have dinner after all, I decided as the waiter handed me the check.

  Lou let me buy dinner on the condition that she would buy me a drink at the bar just down the street. I agreed, ignoring the nagging little voice in my head saying that drinks were a far worse idea than lunch. What would Rob say if he saw you? I thought. Yet it was such a languorous, lovely evening, and Lou seemed so casual about the whole thing that I again assured myself that it was no big deal.

  At the bar, Lou immediately launched into a series of questions: Had I seen Kathryn around Ann Arbor? (Yes.) With her new baby? (No.) Did it bother me? (A little, I admitted.) What was my long-term career plan? (What was a long-term career? I said laughingly.) And who was my dream publisher? (Any of them, I said, dead serious.)

  We were drinking champagne—I don’t remember why, maybe because Lou loved it, and I loved making her happy. “Lou,” I said, watching bubbles rise from the bottom of the flute, “are we going to talk about that other thing?”

  Her expression was fierce as she addressed me. “And what’s that, Jim? That I pushed Rob away?”

  “Who pushed who?” I asked, direct in the way it’s easiest to be after several drinks.

  She raised a fist. “Life with Rob included: Love,” she said, flicking out her pointer finger. “Stability.” Another finger came out, and another. “Affection and adoration—which, by the way, are not the same thing as love. So being there wasn’t his thing,” she said, wiggling her pinky. “He was gone a lot. But was it worth it to destroy the whole thing because of that?” she said, mimicking an explosion.

  “He was the one who moved forward with the divorce,” I said.

  “But I left him. And when I did, I knew that a permanent separation was a possibility.”

  “So why did you do it?”

  We were again seated at a window. I watched a group of teen boys in baggy jeans stroll past, and an elderly woman wheel a wire cart filled with laundry. A small child tugged a weary middle-aged man down the street. “I have a tendency to rush ahead,” said Lou. “To preempt the end, like it’ll somehow make it hurt less. I think that’s why I barely called my mom.”

  “You really felt it would end with Rob, though?”

  Her smile was tight. “It seemed inevitable to me. I couldn’t help him get unstuck, and he wouldn’t make me a priority. I didn’t want to wait around to see just how much he was willing to hurt me before he decided to call it off himself.”

  My head was awash in champagne. “Can I ask you something?”

  “Anything.”

  “Did you only say that to me at the book party because you thought Rob was cheating?”

  “He was cheating.” Her cheeks flushed. “I don’t know if they were sleeping together before we split up, but it sure as hell was an emotional affair.”

  “How can you be certain?” I asked, like I hadn’t overheard the way Rob was speaking to Andrea Jones at Wisnewski’s house.

  Lou drained her glass and looked away. “This is awful to admit, but I went through his email. I had to know what I was dealing with. And he left his computer wide open one night, almost like he wanted me to find out. I don’t know if he loves her, but she loves him; that’s for sure.” Now she turned to me, her eyes flashing. “God, I’d met her half a dozen times before this all started and always thought she was a nonentity! Why would Rob go for the buttoned-up corporate type? When lo and behold, I should have known all along that he would want someone who’s the exact opposite of me.”

  My heart was pounding. Why was she telling me this? Was it a confession—or a preemptive absolution? “That’s almost impossible to understand,” I said at last. “But how is that any different from you saying you wish you had married someone like me?”

  “That was different,” she said, “because I adore you for you, Jim—not for who you’re not. And I get the feeling you would never hurt me.”

  “No,” I said quietly. “Even if I wanted to, I don’t think I could.”

  Neither of us spoke another word to each other—not after the bill had been paid, or when we went out onto the street, or when I hailed a cab and we both climbed into it. Adrenaline shot through my veins as we crossed the Manhattan Bridge and headed through Brooklyn. I had to remind myself to breathe, and just about ran out of air when Lou slid
across the leather seat halfway through the ride, so our arms and thighs were pressed against each other. You wouldn’t hurt her, but you’ll crush your own best friend? I thought, even as another part of me argued, You haven’t done anything yet. And you don’t have to. Drop her off and go back to your hotel. Let it go.

  “Is this really a good idea?” I finally said as she unlocked the door to her apartment. But instead of answering, her lips were on mine, and she tasted like lip gloss and champagne and ten years of longing.

  I once read that the only thing that separates humans from other primates is less body hair and the ability to write. Chimpanzees, it seems, are frighteningly skilled at deceiving their fellow animal, and many a gorilla has fought for his family. Even monkeys show compassion when there is no clear reward. But when it comes to mating, we’re all animals, our impulses swiftly shutting down the rational regions of our brains. And so on that evening, the logical notions that should have sent me in an ethical direction were replaced with animal instincts—and yes, a handful of stupid human justifications.

  I had waited so long, I told myself as Lou’s hair fell around my face like a veil, shrouding us from the rest of the world. It was just one night, and I would never have this chance again.

  Rob never, ever had to know.

  TWELVE

  I awoke disoriented, unsure of where I was or even whose body was beside me; after all, the last person I had actually slept with, in the literal sense of the phrase, was Kathryn. (None of the few women I had dated since had been interested enough to stick around to see if I snored.)

  Then I looked beside me, where Lou was still blissfully unconscious, and the previous evening came rushing back. Part of me wanted to die on the spot. Another part had hit pause on my internal panic button while taking note of the fact that Lou’s eyelids were not lavender or pale pink, as I had once imagined, but ivory with blue marbling. As I stared her, she began to rouse.

  “Love is an atrocity,” she said, her voice raspy.

  “Good morning to you, too.”

  She pulled the sheet over her face. After a moment, she lowered it, looked at me, and whispered, “What have we done, Jim?”

  “Would you like me to debrief you?” I was flooded with dread and guilt and even horror, but I was kind of hoping that Lou would reassure me that it was all going to be fine.

  “Rob can never know about this. God!” she said, nearly shouting. “I cannot believe I’m even hearing myself say that. Screw Rob.”

  “I agree about him not finding out, but can we maybe not talk about him for a while?” I said feebly.

  She yanked the sheet back over her head. “I need time to process.”

  “Is that your way of saying take a hike?” (I will admit, as awful as I felt, even saying this hypothetically split my heart in half.)

  Even then, she couldn’t help but be kind. “No, no, I didn’t mean that at all,” she said, sitting up. “Let me make you a cup of coffee.”

  “You don’t have to,” I said, but she was already padding across the apartment. She was wearing the plain white t-shirt I had been wearing under my button-down the night before, and a lump formed in my throat. Though I had only just begun to wrap my mind around what we had done, at a base level I understood that Lou and I had crossed a threshold, and our relationship would never again have the lightness it had before we slept together.

  Button-down, I thought suddenly. Clothes. Conference . . . crap.

  “What time is it?” I said to Lou. My phone had died, and I had not brought a charger.

  “Noon.”

  “You’re kidding, right?”

  “Of course I am. It’s almost nine.”

  “I have to go. I’ve already missed check-in for my conference, and I’ll be lucky if I make my first agent meeting. Is it hard to get a cab from here?”

  “Next to impossible. I’ll call a car service for you.”

  The driver honked before I had taken a second sip of my coffee. I looked at Lou, who was sitting cross-legged on the counter with a mug of coffee in her hands.

  “Go,” she said. “It’s okay.”

  I was reaching for the doorknob when I turned and looked back at her. “Lou? What do we do?”

  She was still in my t-shirt, and she looked so, well, perfect sitting there that I wanted to ditch the conference, and maybe my job and all other aspects of life that did not center around her.

  “Can I answer that later?” she said with a sad smile.

  I let go of the doorknob and ran to her. Then I kissed her once, twice, and again for good measure and left before I could change my mind. Bad enough that I had just ruined everything. Worse was that I was tempted to do it again immediately.

  To this day, I remember next to nothing about the writing conference, though suffice it to say I did not come away from it with a literary agent or renewed hope in my so-called fiction career. And what did I care? Writing a book was ridiculously insignificant in light of what had just transpired.

  “How are you feeling?” I asked Lou that afternoon. We had met just outside my hotel and had wandered a few blocks over to Central Park. As we escaped the shadow of dull high-rises for a canopy of trees, I kept glancing around nervously. It was unlikely that we would see Rob, given that he was chained to his desk until long after sunset. This did nothing to quell my paranoia.

  Lou didn’t seem so poised herself. “I don’t know, maybe we should go somewhere,” she said as we began down a paved path.

  “Like a museum?” I said.

  “Like Key West. Or maybe Vermont. We could rent a car and go away for the next couple of days.”

  I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t thrilled that she had just admitted she wasn’t through with me. “Is that not the literal interpretation of running away from it all?” I asked. Again I thought of the night before, which had been amazing. Everything I had ever imagined, really—except the guilt. The guilt I had not fully considered. Certainly I had not anticipated that it would feel like a thousand pounds of sadness on my heart.

  “I guess it is,” she confessed. “But running away seems slightly more palatable than reality right now.”

  We sat on a low stone wall on the park’s south side, watching children chase each other in the afternoon sunlight. “So you feel pretty awful, too?” I asked.

  “Like the worst person ever. Well,” she said, managing a small smile, “maybe the second worst.”

  “You’re telling me. But seriously, why did we do it?”

  She pursed her lips. “That was stupid of us. Really, really stupid. But I’ve had what you might call feelings for you for a long time.”

  I stared at her. “You have?”

  “Come on, Jim. You didn’t think I became attracted to you in two hours’ time.”

  “I suppose not.”

  “And I knew you had feelings for me, too.”

  My ears grew hot. Of course she had known. But had Rob? He couldn’t have. Or maybe he did, and he had simply trusted me. Now my whole face was burning.

  “Until last night, I never in a million years thought I would actually act on those feelings,” she said. “It was like something crazy came over me.”

  “So I was an itch that you scratched? A mental lapse?”

  She touched my arm lightly. “If we were both single and we had just met, I would want to be with you.”

  This was not a direct answer to my question, but I felt slightly less defeated. “We were good together, weren’t we?” she added.

  I could still feel her soft lips on mine, the way she fit into my arms just so. Guilt or no guilt, it had been thrilling to act on something that I had wanted for so long.

  Yet there had been something familiar about being with her, too—and not because we had known each other for a decade. To be honest, Lou had reminded me of Kathryn. I tried to push this thought out of my head. To admit that it had been even a little like anything I had experienced before seemed akin to declaring it a mistake.

  “We
were amazing,” I told Lou. “But now that we’ve opened Pandora’s box, what do we do with that?”

  “We go back to your hotel, Jim,” she said.

  I had barely closed the door to my room when Lou fell against me. The motions were the same as those of the night before: mouth upon mouth, my hands in her hair, hers tugging at my shirt to close the nonexistent gap between us. But this time our kiss was more bitter than sweet.

  We did a tortured sort of tango across the room and ended up on the bed. Instead of continuing to kiss, though, we lay side by side on our backs. Her hand found mine, which made me think of a story I recently read in the paper about an elderly man who had passed away in his sleep. When his wife awoke to find him, she stayed where she was. According to the report, her heart gave out within an hour; their daughter discovered them later that day, hand in hand, heads turned toward each other.

  The back of my throat tightened, and there was a familiar tingle behind my eyes. But I refused to let myself cry, because to do so would be to end up weeping beside Lou, and that was not how I wanted to leave her.

  I don’t know how long we remained that way; it must have been awhile. “Do you think this will be enough?” I finally asked.

  “It will have to be,” she said softly. “What we’ve done is terrible, but we can’t tell Rob—that would be even more selfish than us having slept together. I don’t know.” She sighed deeply. “Maybe it’s out of our systems now. Maybe you’ll go back to Michigan and find a life partner and I can . . . figure out how to navigate the world as a young soon-to-be divorcée.”

  “Do you even believe in life partners?” I asked. It seemed to me that the previous night had diminished, if not completely obliterated, the odds of my finding a woman to spend the rest of my life with. And even if I did, would I be able to recognize her before it was too late?

  “Sure I do,” said Lou. “Swans mate for life. So do eagles.”

  “Even the bees in the trees do it,” I sang.