“No, he didn’t tell me,” Lola said stiffly.
“You two have only just gotten to know each other, so naturally, he hasn’t had time yet to tell you everything. But he was in The Nutcracker as a boy. He played the young prince. It was, and still is, a terribly chic thing to do. Ballet has always been a part of our lives. But you’ll learn that soon enough.”
“I can’t wait,” Lola said, forcing herself to smile.
The bells signaling the end of intermission began to chime, and Enid stood up. “Come along, dear,” she said. “We don’t want to miss the second act.” Holding out her arm, she motioned for Lola to take it, and when she did, Enid leaned heavily on her, shuffling slowly toward the door to the theater and keeping up a relentless prattle. “I’m so happy you love the classic arts,” she said. “The winter season of the ballet only lasts until the end of February, but then there’s the Metropolitan Opera. And of course, there are always wonderful little piano concertos and even poetry readings. So one never need be deprived of culture. And now that you’re living with Philip, it’s so easy. You’re right next door. You can ac-company me to everything.”
Back at One Fifth, Philip was shaving for the second time that day. As he scraped the side of his cheek, he paused, holding up his razor. Something was missing. Noise, he thought. There was no noise. For the first time in months.
He went back to shaving. Splashing his face with water, he felt guilty about sneaking around behind Lola’s back. Then he was irritated. He had every right to do as he pleased — after all, he wasn’t married to the girl.
He was only trying to help her by providing her with a roof over her head until she could figure out her situation.
Passing through the living room on his way out, he noticed that Lola had carelessly left her magazines strewn on the couch. He picked up Brides, then Modern Bride and Elegant Bride. This was too much. He would need to have a talk with her — one of these days — and make it clear where he stood in the relationship. He wasn’t going to be backed into making promises he couldn’t keep. And making his point, he took the magazines into the kitchen, where he pushed them down the incinerator chute, even though this was against the building’s rules.
Then he took the elevator down to the ninth floor.
“Well, there. Look at you,” Schiffer Diamond said, opening her door.
“Look at you,” Philip replied.
She was dressed casually in jeans and a blue-and-white-striped French sailor’s shirt, and she was barefoot. She still had that ability of making simple pieces of clothing look elegant, Philip noted, and unconsciously comparing her to Lola, found Lola lacking.
Schiffer put her hands on either side of his head and kissed him. “It’s been too long, Oakland,” she said.
“I know,” he said, stepping in and looking around. “Wow,” he remarked.
“The apartment is exactly the same.”
“I haven’t done a thing to it. Haven’t had time.”
Philip went into the living room and sat down. He felt wonderfully at home, and strangely young, as if time hadn’t passed at all. He picked up a photograph taken of the two of them in Aspen in the winter of 1991. “I can’t believe you still have this,” he said.
“The place is a time capsule. God, we were kids,” she said, coming over to examine the photograph. “But we looked good together.”
Philip agreed, struck by how happy they seemed. He hadn’t felt that way in a long time. “Jesus,” he said, replacing the photograph. “What happened?”
“We got old, schoolboy,” she said, going into the kitchen. She was, as promised, making him dinner.
“Speak for yourself,” he called back. “I’m not old.”
She popped her head out the door. “Yes, you are. And it’s about time you realized it.”
“What about you?” he said. He joined her in the kitchen, where she was placing cut-up pieces of lemon and onion into the cavity of a chicken. He perched on the top of the stepstool where he’d sat many times before, drinking red wine and watching her prepare her famous roast chicken. She made other things as well, like chili and potato salad and, in the summer, steamed clams and lobsters, but her roast chicken was, to his mind, legendary. The very first Sunday they’d spent together, years and years ago, she’d insisted on cooking a chicken in the tiny oven in the kitchenette of her hotel room. When he teased her about it, pointing out that knowing how to cook wasn’t very women’s lib–ish, she’d replied, “Even a fool ought to know how to feed himself.”
Now, putting the chicken in the oven, she said, “I’ve never lied about my age. The difference between us is that I’m not afraid of getting older.”
“I’m not afraid, either,” he said.
“Of course you are.”
“Why? Because I’m with Lola?”
“It’s not just that,” she said. She went into the living room and put a log in the fireplace. She lit a long match and let it burn for a moment.
“It’s everything, Philip. Your whole demeanor.”
“Maybe I wouldn’t be like this if I had a hit TV show,” he replied teasingly.
“Then why don’t you do something about it? Why don’t you go back to writing books? You haven’t had a book out in six years.”
He sighed. “Writer’s block.”
“Bullshit,” she said, lighting the fire. “You’re scared, schoolboy. You used to be different. Now you’re reduced to writing these silly movies. Bridesmaids Revisited? What is that?”
“I’ve got the screenplay about Bloody Mary. It’s going well,” he said defensively.
“It’s a soap, Philip. Another escape for you. It doesn’t have anything to do with real life.”
“What’s wrong with escapism?”
She shook her head. “You’ve lived in the same apartment your entire life. You haven’t moved an inch. And yet somehow you’ve managed to keep running away.”
“I’m here, aren’t I?” he said, echoing her line to him from the other day.
“You’re here because you need a release from Lola. You need to pretend you have someplace else to go in case it doesn’t work out. Which it won’t. And then where will you be?”
“Is that what you really think?” he asked. “That I’m here to get away from Lola?”
“I don’t know.”
“I’m not,” he said.
She walked past him and hit him playfully on the head. “Then why are you here?”
He grabbed her wrist, but she pulled away. “Don’t bore me with that speech about how you can be in love with someone but can’t be with them,” she said.
“Well, it’s true.”
“It’s utter crap,” she replied. “It’s for the weak and uninspired. What’s happened to your passion, Oakland?”
He rolled his eyes. She always had that way of stirring him up, of making him feel potent and inadequate at the same time. But wasn’t that what one wanted from a relationship? “It’s not going to work,” he said.
“Your penis?” she asked jokingly, going into the kitchen to check on the chicken.
“Us,” he said, standing in the door. “We’ll try it again, and it won’t work. Again.”
“So?” she said, opening the oven. She was as hesitant about it as he was, he thought.