As the train barreled uptown, I couldn't help but ask myself why she suddenly wanted to have me back in her life. After she avoided so many phone calls. After she explained that she needed time to herself. After she so callously redacted the history that we had shared so as to make years of mutual cathexis seem like a few weeks of innocent fun. These tactics of denial had been employed directly after the break, of course — those first few weeks when we were both attempting to reacquaint ourselves with the type of solitary life that is lonely, lethargic, and often accompanied by damp pillowcases and empty bottles of liquor, beer, wine — whatever is available. Over the past three months, however, she has become less resilient to the idea of the two of us having been in love at some point in the past, to the two of us being just friends now, to the two of us not being able to stop loving one another even if this means we are no longer in love, just lovers in the sense of being like family or friends or lost in some terra vague that seems to transcend both of these groups. It's acknowledged that something had once been there, and that it no longer is. We talk on the phone, we write each other emails, but we eschew the past unless it involves the sort of banality that one can share with a friend or a sibling: about the time we got pulled over in Roscommon, or the time we met John Scofield, or the time we both got sick after eating at one of those half-price Sushi places in the Village. So now it's an abridged history, a history in which I am ignorant of the birthmark that greets anyone who travels far enough up her right thigh, in which I have never seen or smelled or tasted that O'Keeffe flower in which she takes so much pride. Maybe we fucked — to her, that is. And not the author-with-inadequacy-issues or the author-stuck-with-an-inadequate-man type of fuck, which is ruthlessly passionate for all of the five or six consecutive hours it takes for the character with the cock, which needs to measured in meters, to finally launch his gallons onto Onan's tomb. No. This was just a fuck. Nothing epic or tender about it. Just a fuck. And that was it. Cock in cunt. Repeat as needed. Huff. Puff. Ejaculate. Sleep.
“You never remember to bring your umbrella,” she says when I approach her. She embraces me, tightly and quickly, and then backs away with haste. She never was one for physical platitudes, even when we shared a bed. “You look (caesura) good.” I squint. “No, really, you look…I don't know…happy.” She smiles, slowly, maybe coyly. “What's the secret?”
“A complete lack of exercise and sleep,” I respond. “And a lot of booze.”
“So you haven't changed at all, huh?”
We begin to walk south. “So how are you?” I ask.
“Well, I'm kind of tired because the air conditioner in the condo is broken. But, besides that, I had an interview earlier. I don't think it went well. The guy who I met with was such an asshole. He asked me what relevant experience I had. Relevant experience? Excuse me? I thought you were the one who contacted me because you thought I was qualified enough to fill the position. Yeah, position. It's never a job. It's always a position.” She exhausts. “These people are so fucking stupid.”
“What was the (caesura) position for?”
She flashes her teeth. “Administrative assistant.”
“That's about as vague as you can get.”
“You know, answering phones, responding to emails, assisting some rich asshole with his daily life.”
“So secretary.”
“Sure,” derisively, “if you’re stuck in the fifties.”
“What industry?”
“Publishing. I don't even know what they specialize in.”
“Was it an agency or a publishing house?”
“It was an agency. I don't know anyone they represent. No one good, I assume. I wanted to get a job with the people who handle Tom Robbins, but they aren't based in the City.” Something catches her eye. “Hey, the Frick is coming up, right?” I respond in the affirmative. “Remember the one portrait we liked so much, the one with the drag queen?”
“Ah, yes,” I nod; “Gainsborough's Mrs. Elliot.”
“Oh my God,” she swoons; “I though we were going to get kicked out we were laughing so hard. Have you been in there lately?”
“The Frick?”
“Yeah…to see if Coprolalia has…I guess marked his territory.”
“That's not exactly his style.”
I can't tell if the subsequent silence is awkward. It's not silence, of course, just a suspension of conversation. The cars continue to hiss past, kicking up rainwater and coagulated soot and pebbles that have arrived in this city from God knows where. Others out sauntering in the drizzle are speaking in a multitude of languages, as it is the tourist season. A lot of them are wearing garbage bags as a consequence of the rain. I've always believed Europeans to be more fashion conscious than us, but I guess that generalization only applies when the sun's out. Vendors listen to radios at full volume. One hums along with a Chopin etude; others are listening to that modern stuff from the East, which sound like tracks from a Bollywood film. A pauper asks the man in front of us for change, but requests nothing from either Connie or myself. He checks her out with his whole body as we pass. He does not simply follow her with his eyes; rather, he turns his entire body with that sexual deviant posture that a lot of bassists are known to exhibit. A helicopter can be heard overhead. A French bulldog mounts a Pomeranian, which arouses a series of shrieks and laughs. Connie seems oblivious.
“I also remember,” she begins, “You started calling me Gabrielle after that. You said I reminded you of…who was that? One of someone's models?”
“Renoir.”
“I still don't see the resemblance. It wasn't exactly flattering to compare the two of us, you know. She was kind of…I don't know…big-boned.”
“You two have similar faces.”
“She was his cousin, right?”
“The family nanny.”
She is quiet for a moment.
“So what have you been up to besides chasing this artist around?”
“That's about all I've had time for,” I respond. “As I've said, it's not exactly a part-time gig.”
“Jessica tells me you've been hanging around Tomas Bennington a lot.”
“Yeah.” I want to follow this up with something, but nothing comes to mind.
“What's he like?”
“I don't know. He's a pretty normal guy.” I pause. “Same with Aberdeen.”
“Who?”
“James Aberdeen. He's another artist.”
“Never heard of him.”
“He's best friends with Tomas. Actually, they're roommates.”
“I see.”
“I met Willis Faxo, too, if you know him.”
“Never heard of him, either.” She laughs. “You were always such a snob when it came to art.”
Another pause, suspension. She motions for me to cross the street with her. I follow obediently.
She's pensive; she has something important to tell me. This is not prescience; it is more of a syllogism (though the conditional proposition that validates the argument is here only implied). Prescience would at least kill the suspicion and the anticipation. Of course, prescience (perhaps even clairvoyance) would have allowed me the chance to save what we once had. I would have been able to remedy whatever it was that forced me out the door so many months ago. Because it wasn't distance. It's never distance. It's something that you've done, though they won't tell you the catalyst that ignited all of the doubt in the relationship — no, not the relationship; in you, the recipient of the rejection — the person riddled with a cancer so pervasive and repulsive that it subsumes you, steals your identity, becomes all that she can see when she looks at you.