Bright, Precious Days (10 page)

The surface of the water was still and glassy as Matthew poled across the flat toward two feeding bonefish, their silvery tails breaking the surface and waggling as they worked, grazing the shallows for crabs and mollusks, sharing the flat with two white egrets that walked with a deliberate and fastidious gait, raising their feet out of the water between steps, periodically piercing the surface with their long beaks. They paused to watch the skiff as it glided closer, spreading their wings in unison and lifting off, spooking the two bonefish, which shot across a half-submerged sandbar and settled on the other side.

By the time Matthew poled over to the sandbar, the fish were working some fifty yards away, and he made a walking motion with his fingers. Russell slid off the bow into the water and waded slowly, carefully extracting each foot from the muck with as little noise and motion as possible as he stalked within casting distance, watching for the tails, which periodically cut the surface, finally unleashing his cast, throwing two false casts to get his line out, waiting for the slight resistance of his back cast before launching his rod forward and dropping his fly six feet in front of the cruising fish. It seemed to him that his line had landed hard but miraculously; they didn't spook, continuing to move toward the fly, two gray shadows against the gray-brown mud. When they were within a few feet of the fly, Russell twitched it once and then began to retrieve, pulling in line with his left hand and holding the rod close to the surface with his right, until one of the fish broke from its course in pursuit.

In his excitement he snatched the fly away just as the fish was grabbing for it, but he stopped his retrieve and then slowly resumed as it made a second run, and this time when he set the hook he felt a solid tug. It took the creature a moment to react, and time seemed to stand still, Russell hoping he'd set the hook, and then the fish was off, stripping fifty yards of line, Russell getting his hands free of the unspooling fly line just in time to prevent the leader from snapping, holding his rod tip up in the air as the drag of the reel screamed.

“Nice shot,” Matthew shouted from the skiff.

Ten minutes later, with the frantic silvery fish finally brought in and released, Russell said, “Could be Kip's right. Maybe this is better than sex.”

“Another reason to shun marriage—I don't ever want to think like that.”

“You know you love it,” Russell said.

“What, the fishing? Yeah, but it's my job. Doesn't always do to turn your passion into your work. It's a bit like marrying your mistress, innit?”

SHE MET CASEY AT JUSTINE'S,
a private club in the basement of a midtown hotel, a plush red sanctuary that at lunchtime was popular with ladies who spent a good deal of time and money just up the street at Bergdorf, while their mates coveyed up nearby at the Four Seasons and ‘21.' Casey lived in the East Sixties, and they alternated between uptown and downtown for their lunch dates. For once she was on time, chatting with some women at another table when Corrine arrived. The others all seemed to be wearing Chanel suits. Casey looked very fashion-forward, by contrast, sporting that luxe boho chic look—a below-the-knee burgundy skirt and a long, nubbly olive turtleneck cinched with a big brown belt.

“Sorry, traffic. Love your outfit.”

“It's Oscar. Very down-home for him—I know. Don't tell me you took a cab? Usually I have to listen to you tell me about how fast and convenient the subway is, and all I can think of is you'll get mugged or anthraxed or something.”

“I was on the Upper West Side, so it was the only option.”

“What were you doing there? Are you seeing your shrink again?”

As soon as she mentioned where she'd been, Corrine realized it was a bit of a giveaway.

“Well, yes. Just a one-off. Situation with the kids.”

“Should I pretend I'm not interested?”

“No, I was going to tell you. My beloved sister's been calling, trying to worm her way back into our lives.”

“Tell me everything.”

“I need to hit the buffet first. I'm starving.”

“The chef will be delighted, if he doesn't die of shock. The food's basically decorative. Very few of our members actually eat.”

After they settled back at the table with their plates, Casey said, “It's always amazed me that you have this white-trash sister.” She poked at the lozenge of chicken paillard on her plate. “As long as I can remember, she was a real problem. I mean, I grew up with you, I know your family, and you're one of the most elegant people on the planet. Maybe your mom screwed the milkman or the chimney sweep.”

“Don't say that. Hilary's the biological mother of my kids.”

“You'd better hope nurture trumps nature.”

“Thanks for sharing that.”

“If you want my advice, keep her out of your life and your kids', too.”

“Sooner or later they're going to want to get to know her.”

“I'm not entirely sure about that, but much later would be much better.”

“I can't stop worrying that eventually they might think of her as their mother.”

“You raised them to have better taste than that.” Casey took a sip of her iced tea and leaned forward in her conspiratorial pose. “Have you seen Washington?”

“Yes, with his
wife.
” Corrine did not approve of Casey's affair with Russell's best friend, which had been going on, intermittently, for years.

Casey waved at a fierce-looking blonde with protuberant cheekbones and sticklike arms a couple of tables away.

“Who's that?” Corrine asked.

Casey leaned forward. “That's Carol Ricard. Her husband just divorced her right before the escalator clause on the prenup kicked in.”

“That's sad,” Corrine said reflexively.

“Not really. Apparently, he's agreed to marry her again after the divorce.”

When she'd worked at Sotheby's and lived on Beekman Place, Corrine used to think of downtown as the province for all kinds of bohemian kinkiness, but lately she'd decided that Casey's coterie of uptown socialites was far more debauched and jaded.

“One time we saw her at ‘21,' pushing lettuce leaves around her plate, and Tom had a burger sent over to the table. It was hilarious. He made the waiter promise not to say where it came from, but the whole room was buzzing.”

Corrine looked over at the skeletal Mrs. Ricard with a certain fascination, not entirely disapproving. She was not immune to the dream of leaving behind the heavy cloak of flesh. And in fact, Carol Ricard was only marginally thinner than her dining companions—or Casey and Corrine, for that matter.

“She has to shave her arms and chest,” Casey said. “When your body approaches true starvation, it grows fur as a protective reaction to try to keep you warm.”

“That's gross.” Apparently it
was
possible to be too thin. Who knew? At least, Corrine thought, she'd never gotten to that point.

Casey lifted her by-no-means-chubby arm, decorated with several bands of gold and a Bulgari snake watch, and summoned a waiter who was hovering in the corner. “I'd like another iced tea,” she told him, “and my friend will have another cranberry and soda with lime.”

Corrine had been waiting for an opening. “I got a call from Luke today.”

“Is he here?”

She nodded, surprised that Casey didn't seem to be.

Casey clapped her hand on top of Corrine's and beamed. “So, will you see him? And more to the point, are you going to sleep with him?”

Corrine looked around, mortified, but no one was conspicuously eavesdropping.

“He invited me out to Sagaponack for the weekend.”

“This is huge,” Casey said, leaning forward. “What about the wife?”

“Ten thousand miles away.”

“Well, what are you waiting for?”

“I'm waiting for my conscience to have a stroke. I mean, why am I even contemplating this?”

“You're contemplating it because he's rich and handsome and he loves you.”

“How can you possibly know that? He clearly cares about me and he seems to want to sleep with me, which is, I must say, a big point in his favor. He's actually been sending me these very romantic e-mails.”

“He's crazy about you. Do you think it was a coincidence that you were at my table for his benefit? He asked me to invite you.”

“That was a setup?”

“He really wanted to see you,” Casey said, “and I suspect he wanted you to see
him
in his moment of glory. He must've heard that Tom bought a table, so he called me out of the blue and practically begged me to take you.”

“And you're just telling me now?”

“He swore me to secrecy, Corrine.”

“I'm your best friend.”

“And as my best friend, you should realize I have your best interests at heart.”

“What's that supposed to mean?”

“Only that I approve of you and Luke.”

“There is no me and Luke. We're both married.”

“I think Luke is over his marriage.”

“That's ridiculous. You saw that girl.”

“Yes, I did. And she looked a lot like you. What does that tell you?”

“That he has a type.”

“Are you having sex with Russell?”

“I can't remember. Last fall we had a brief renaissance, and then once in Saint Barth's.”

“I don't even
want
to sleep with Tom anymore; that's the sad part. I give him a blow job on his birthday and we call it good for another year.”

Corrine would never get used to her friend's sexual candor, but she was probably the perfect adviser in the present situation; certainly Corrine couldn't imagine confiding in anyone else. “What should I do? And what the hell would I say to Russell?”

“Tell him you're going out to Southampton with me for the weekend—a little time away from the family.”

“Why are you saying this?”

“Because I don't think you're really over him. And I don't think he's over you.”

Corrine refused Luke's offer of a ride—a small and perhaps absurd point of honor, given that she'd agreed to spend two days and nights alone with him—opting instead for the jitney. The principal bus service between New York City and the Hamptons used this obscure term for a public conveyance because the kind of people who could afford to live in both places either didn't ride buses or, if forced to, would never identify them as such. A neologism was called for. Even those with drivers and multiple German automobiles sometimes found it convenient, and there was little stigma attached to riding the bus by another name. Corrine, considering it more sensible and ecologically sound, would have insisted on this mode of transport even if the purpose of her journey had been beyond reproach. Casey, as it turned out, was going out to the island only for twenty-four hours on Saturday, and they would drive back together Sunday.

She took the kids to school that morning and watched them disappear inside with a rising sense of panic and dread, as if it were possible she might never see them again. She was about to venture beyond the pale—and what if she couldn't return? What if something terrible happened out there? On the walk back to the apartment, she resolved to call the whole thing off. The night before, after several glasses of Sancerre, she had been certain that seeing Luke was, if not the right thing, at least what she wanted, even craved. She just needed to get this out of her system. Her yearning was palpable, and she'd gone to bed reviewing and savoring the memories of the episodes of lovemaking that had constituted their brief romance. This morning all she could think about was everything she was putting at risk, without any compensatory prospect of reward except that of possessing him and being possessed one or two or three more times, of fulfilling a desire that continued to plague her, although it had almost gone dormant until she saw him again last fall.

She was slightly ashamed and baffled by this. She'd always had a healthy appreciation of sex, and never quite stopped enjoying it with Russell, but she'd never felt this kind of compulsive desire, unless perhaps back when they'd first started dating at Brown. Part of her had rationalized it retroactively; she and Luke had come together in the days after September 11, and such cataclysmic events were aphrodisiac, conducive to compulsive and reckless behavior. But the truth was, she was still drawn to him.

Stopping at the corner of Broadway and Reade, she hit number three on her autodial. “I can't do it,” she said when Casey picked up.

“You owe it to yourself to follow through. You need resolution. Otherwise, you're always going to wonder.”

“What kind of resolution can I possibly find? Even if we make mad, passionate love, he will have scratched that itch and then will probably remember he's got a younger, sexier blonde back home.”

“Never discount the value of mad passion. I'd give my left breast for a good night of it.”

“I know, that's the terrible thing. I really do want him.”

Thankfully, there were no familiar faces on the jitney when she boarded at 40th Street, the last stop before the tunnel to Long Island. In July or August, it would be jammed after running down the East Side, but today only five passengers were scattered down the aisle: an elderly couple, a weary middle-aged Hispanic woman, and a pretty young mother in a Barbour jacket and jodhpurs with her preschool daughter. Corrine had borrowed a galley of
The Savage Detectives
from Russell's pile in the bedroom, and now she opened it again, determined to distract herself.

When the bus turned off the expressway ninety minutes later, she gave up reading and looked out over the scrub pines alongside the road, crossing the Shinnecock Canal into Southampton, finally disembarking across the street from the post office in Bridgehampton. They'd agreed it would be risky for Luke to pick her up, so he'd commissioned his caretaker, Luis, who was waiting in a pickup. He apologized for the state of the truck, which was, in fact, perfectly tidy, and answered her questions by saying he was from Oaxaca and had been working for Mr. Luke for thirteen years.

It was a short, familiar drive down Sag Main. Russell liked to call it “Writers' Row,” annotating the landmarks for newcomers as he drove them from the jitney stop: the house where James Jones had spent the last years of his life, the now-boarded-up farm stand where they bought their corn and tomatoes, the old one-room schoolhouse, the general store, the house John Irving used to live in, and, across the street, the shambling old place that had been George Plimpton's for many years, then the one Kurt Vonnegut still lived in, from which he occasionally shuffled to the general store to buy a pack of Pall Malls—at a party he'd once told Corrine that smoking was the classy way to commit suicide—and down the road was Peter Matthiessen's. Russell loved being in the proximity of all this literary talent, which he felt almost compensated for the invasion of what he called the hedge funders behind the hedgerows, though by now the writers had mostly died or moved on. It's not so different, Corrine thought, from what's happening in TriBeCa.

The late-March fields were brown, the trees gray and naked. Intermittent gusts of wind stirred eddies of crisp leaves in the road. And here she was, pulling up to the white picket fence in front of Luke's house, a century-old three-story cottage with light blue shutters in the indigenous Shingle Style, one of the originals that had inspired hundreds of imitations in the surrounding fields. By the time she'd realized it was his, he'd been in the middle of his divorce from Sasha, who had apparently claimed exclusive use of it in the ensuing years.

He was waiting in the driveway, looking impatient and vaguely nautical in his white Irish fisherman's turtleneck. She'd almost forgotten the disconcerting, wandering eye. But she was happy, even excited, to see him. Luis, carrying Corrine's bag, asked which room she'd be staying in.

“I'll take that,” Luke told him.

He opened the door for her. Inside the entry hall, he dropped the bag and gripped her shoulder, firmly turning her, dipping down and kissing her. His kiss was both familiar and thrilling.

“Sorry,” he said, releasing her. “I just kind of needed to do that.”

She suddenly felt inordinately shy and awkward, glad that she'd come, though uncertain that she could follow through on the implicit promise of the weekend.