“I’m going to get you a glass of water,” I said. “And then I’ll help you get a cab. You should go home.”
But I didn’t help Ann. Too drunk myself. I got another drink and pursued the evening, forgetting all about her until the following day.
19
I had the kind of hangover that presented vision after vision alternating with void after void, and the visions presented the sort of stuff that makes one grateful—although worried—about the voids. I had this vague and painful recollection of Silvano weeping into his wine glass. I might have been sympathetic but was probably embarrassed, or maybe neither of these. I remembered catching my head a few times as it lolled around on my neck, pulling it back upright as if it might fall off. And I remembered that I’d arranged to have lunch with Silvano at one. Currently, it was eleven and I was flooded with waves of dread, which at least cut the waves of anxiety that seized me after every recall of the previous evening. I remembered Boris saying,
“There is the issue of divorce.”
Which seemed very odd because I’d never really accepted that I’d been married.
“How do you say divorce in Italian?” Boris had asked me. I looked over at Silvano and managed a silent burp.
“Piu vino,” I said.
“Piooveeenoh?” asked Boris.
“Si,” I replied.
Boris walked over to Silvano, pointed to me and stated his word. Silvano responded by returning with a bottle of wine and pouring me a glass. Next thing I knew, Boris and Silvano were having one of those conversations where people talk to each other, but are both looking at a third party. Silvano was smiling, nodding happily. Boris was pensive. He kept making these firm hand gestures as if his idea was something tangible that floated a foot in front of him and was something to be held. Somewhere in the course of this conversation I realized I had to sleep, no, I would be asleep in five minutes regardless of where I was. I passed out on Boris’s bed, fully clothed. People must have been going in and out of the bedroom to use the bathroom, but I had slept through that. I didn’t wake up until four A.M., when my raging thirst sent me running to the nearest faucet. I’d fallen back asleep, even with Boris’s snoring sawing magnificently through the air. He was still snoring now. I watched him—his eyelids fluttering, the corners of his mouth tightening—for a couple of painful moments of recall, before I finally got up from the bed. My eyes were itchy from makeup and my skin felt dry as paper.
Ann was asleep on the couch. I had hoped she’d be up making some greasy food. What I really needed was a fried egg and some toast.
“Ann,” I said, tugging her foot.
Ann opened her eyes and squinted at me. “You were right,” she said.
“What do you mean?”
“That was the worst party that Boris has ever thrown.” Then she rolled over so that her face was smashed into the back of the couch and went back to sleep.
In the fridge, I found a tray full of leftover hors d’oeuvres, tiny quiches, and other treats, all perfectly miniature, from the night before. I felt like a giant. I arranged some of these on a plate and went into the dining room. I sat down and had just finished my third quiche when I heard a noise coming from the coat closet. There was a scuttle, and then it stopped. I picked up a tiny spanakopita and was about to eat that, when I heard a scuttle again, the noise of something slamming against the wall, and an audible, “Ow.”
I got up and went to the closet. I waited a moment. Everything was quiet, then I opened the door.
It was the guy I’d interrupted in the bathroom. He didn’t seem to know where he was. He looked around the room with amazement, then back at me.
“Howdy,” he said. “I’m Travis.”
“I’m Katherine,” I responded.
“Where am I?” he said.
“Boris’s apartment.”
He scratched his head. “I could have sworn that I left last night, but I don’t guess that I did.”
“What were you doing in the closet?”
“Sleeping.” He laughed again. “Goddamn. I guess I thought I was leaving the party.”
“You have a hell of a bruise on your head.” It was right in the center of his forehead and was long and narrow, reddened and slightly swollen. “I have a theory. You were leaving the party, accidentally walked into the closet, and hit your head on the bar.”
“What bar?”
“The bar you hang things on.”
Travis walked back into the closet. “Bar’s about the right height.”
“I wonder if you knocked yourself out?”
“Who can say? Maybe I just gave up.”
I extended a gesture of welcome, inviting him out of the closet and into the living room. “Can I get you anything?” I said.
“Sure would appreciate some coffee.”
“Coffee it is.”
After I got him a cup of coffee and some ice for his head, we sat at the table. There was silence. I listened to him slurp at his coffee, heard the rattle of ice in the dishcloth. He was slowly achieving consciousness with the help of caffeine. I put my feet up on the chair next to me.
“This coffee’s real good,” he said.
I nodded. “Travis, where are you from?”
“Ralston Falls, Texas.”
“Where is that?”
“Outside of Dallas.”
“Near Fort Worth?”
“Hell no. It’s about a hundred and fifty miles outside of Dallas, to the west.”
“What are you doing in New York?”
Travis fancied himself a writer, which was his wording, not mine. He had finished his great tome, eight hundred pages of it, that he had spent the last two years of college and the last four years of every job imaginable, writing. Apparently, there was an editor in New York whom he knew from when he’d been a student in Austin. He’d worked at a liquor store and the editor came in every night and bought a pint of gin. At the time, this man was working for a university press, or something like that, but was now in New York with one of the larger houses. So when Travis finished his magnum opus, he’d gotten hold of this editor and the editor said sure, send the manuscript in to us and we’ll take a look at it.
So Travis did. He waited a couple of weeks and called. They hadn’t read it. He waited a couple of more weeks and called. They were really busy. He tried again. Eventually, all people that were in any way aware of the novel’s existence were out of town. They were out of town for weeks.
“I am in New York following my dream,” he said.
Apparently, when Travis showed up at the editor’s office, the man made a good show of trying to find the manuscript. For the whole two years that Travis had sold him his daily pint of gin, the editor had said, every day in the same way, “Don’t give up. Just keep writing. Perseverance is everything.”
“Damn good that perseverance is everything,” said Travis, “’cause perseverance is all I’ve got.”
The editor, not knowing how to handle this ghost from the past, agreed to meet Travis at a bar at six that evening, where he gave the young writer four glasses of bourbon and no answers.
“Maker’s Mark straight up, the only straight thing I got out of the guy,” said Travis, and he set the dish towel down on the table with an air of finality.
Then the two went out.
“I guess he felt so bad, he didn’t know how to get rid of me,” said Travis, “so he took me to this party. I went to get a drink, then I swear the guy was gone. He was just waiting for me to turn my back.”
There was a moment’s silence, where I looked at Travis with sympathy and he appreciated it.
“What are you going to do?” I said.
“Try and get my damned book back.”