She is crying by now as she holds the cool glass to her cheek.
"Look, Anna, I know you want to get back at me. I know I disappointed you. I know all is fair in love and war. I've heard every crappy expression. But this is impossible. And you have to stop."
"Oh, Rusty," she says, sobbing. "Rusty, I did everything the right way. I was so good. I wish you understood. I tried so hard to make this not happen."
I want to think. But the dimension of this is unimaginable. And I can feel my arms and hands shaking in fury.
"Does he know? About us?"
"Of course not. And he never will. Never. Rusty, I know this is crazy and difficult, but you know, I have to try, I really have to try. I don't know if I can handle this or you can handle this, but I have to try, I know I have to try."
I rear back in the chair. I am continuing to experience difficulty catching my breath.
"Do you know how often I've longed for you and stopped?" I ask her. "Made myself stop? And now, what? I'm supposed to watch you parade around my house? This is sick. How could you do this to me? To him? For God's sake."
"Rusty, you don't want me."
"Don't tell me what I want." I remain angry enough to slap her. "I know how this adds up, Anna. Don't preach sincerity to me. You're tightening the screws in the shittiest way imaginable. So what's my choice? Get rid of Barbara now, right now. Is that it? Get rid of her or you'll literally destroy my home?"
"Rusty, no. It's not about you. It's about him. That's the whole point of what I'm trying to tell you. It's about him. Rusty, Rusty-" Then she stops. "Rusty, I never felt like this about"-she stumbles-"about anyone. I mean, maybe I should be a case study in some psychiatric journal. Because I'm not sure if this would have happened without it. Without us. But it's different, Rusty. It really is. Rusty, please let us be."
"Go fuck yourself. You're crazy, Anna. You don't know what you want. Or who you want. Psychiatric journal is right."
I throw money on the table and hear her muffled outcry behind me as I bang out of the hotel, striding in outrage down the street. I seethe in the oldest, most elemental way. I go several blocks. Then stop suddenly.
Because one thing is clear. No matter how angry I am, I must do something. I must. There is no clear path. I will think and think and nothing will be right. But I must do something. And the mystery of that seems as large a thought as God.
What will I do?
CHAPTER 17
Nat, September 2, 2008
How I see it is that we're all pretty much cruising along, like a bunch of people on the highway. Everybody's in his space and headed to his own destination, listening to the music they like, or different radio stations, or talking on the phone, and otherwise just trying to stay out of one another's way. And then every once in a while, you're ready to stop and welcome a passenger. And who knows why?
I'm still not sure when I got so into Anna. I thought she was cool as soon as I met her after she went to work for my dad, but I was with Kat then, and once we broke up, my mom got completely in the way by asking once or twice if Anna really was too old for me, which pretty much iced the whole thing. And then one day this summer, I was at work and saw Anna's name on this post about her apartment, and I thought, Yeah, go check this out. And sitting out on her balcony, I couldn't quite believe how totally freaking cool she was, brainy and beautiful and funny and tuned in. Not that it was mutual at first. I hung myself way out there. And she said no. Sweet and kind and all of that. But, no.
So now it's about a month later, I'm at work and I'm still a mess over Anna. I'm less of a mess, because I just couldn't stay as much of a mess as I was the first two weeks. When it goes bad, I have this thing where I just can't hit reset. I go down and stay down. I rewind. And replay. And cry. Totally unboy. I'd get up from my desk at the court and go into a stall in the john and cry about four times a day. Then I began to ration myself. One cry in the morning and one in the afternoon. Then once at work. And once at home. Somehow, it was worse than my breakups with Paloma and Kat. And I knew I'd built this whole thing up inside my head to be the Perfect Relationship only because it didn't happen. It's a platonic ideal. I am completely in love, even though I know it's more with the idea of love than anything else. But maybe that is worse. Real or not. Hope is an amazing thing. Hope is maybe the most essential thing in life. You go on with hope. And without it, you are flattened.
That's still the mood today when I walk into the supreme court hearing room to deliver a brief that the law clerk on the case, Max Handley, forgot to take up to the courtroom. And there she is. For a month I have imagined a couple times a day that I am seeing her on the street, but that's only a blink, before I realize, No, too bad, no. But this time, even from the rear, even though she's changed her hair, even though I catch no sight of her face, I know it's Anna. She's sitting at the appellant's table, writing notes as fast as she can while one of the older partners from her firm is giving an oral argument that frankly has left every justice cold. This guy, the partner, is going to get flushed, maybe even before he leaves the courtroom. And when I see her, I stop so fast that half the figures on the bench, eager for distraction, stare at me. I am so fucking up!
So I crawl up to Justice Guinari and hand off the brief. I am trying to figure out how I'm going to be able to walk out now without repeating the same stupid performance. Eyes forward, shoulders straight. But of course, I'm too broken up and hungry for her not to peek. And then, when I turn, I see, thank God-I see, thank God, there is a God, something I have always believed-her eyes are fixed on me. The partner is still droning. But Anna has stopped writing. She is not doing anything but watching me. She is not blinking. She cannot turn away. And I know everything-it's in that look. She's been as burned as me. And she is giving up. Whatever it was that made her say no, she can't say it anymore. She's giving up. She's giving in. To love. It's the movies! It's the movies from the forties! It's kismet. Fate. Dharma.
I stumble out of the courtroom and go back to my desk to use my cell phone. I leave a voice mail and tell her after work I am going straight to her apartment and that I'm going to sit there all night if I have to, until she tells me what she wants face-to-face.
And that is what I do.
When she gets home, I am sitting on the single step outside the old greystone. I really would have sat there the rest of the night, but in fact I've been there only fifteen minutes. And she sits next to me, she puts her arm on mine, she puts her head on my shoulder, and we cry, we both cry, and then we go inside. And it's just this simple. Take it from a former grad student in philosophy. This is what every human longs to say: It's the happiest moment of my life.
CHAPTER 18
Tommy, October 31, 2008
McGrath Hall had been the police headquarters since 1921. The redstone heap might have passed for a medieval fortress, with stone arches over the massive planked oaken doors and notched battlements on the roof.
Brand, who was still on trial, had sent a message across the street from the courtroom asking if Tommy could meet him outside the County Building at twelve thirty, and the Mercedes had slid to the curb and taken off again so quickly that it looked like a getaway. Brand zagged through the lunch-hour traffic as if he were hopped up. Tommy got a call from the FBI, and he and Brand had gone past the security gate and parked behind the Hall before he was free again to talk to his chief deputy.
"So what are we doing here?" he asked.
"I don't know," said Brand. "Not for sure. But the day Rusty called in Barbara's death, the Nearing coppers took all the bottles in Barbara's medicine cabinet and swept them into a plastic bag, instead of doing an inventory there. So I had Rory ship every vial over here on Wednesday to see if Dickerman could turn anything from them."