“No, don’t worry,” Harold said, picking up his menu. “I’m just yelling at my son, but I can do that after we order.” The waiter had given him a commiserating smile, and he had smiled back, thrilled to have been claimed as another’s in public, to finally be a member of the tribe of sons and daughters. Later, Harold had resumed his rant, and he had pretended to be upset, but really, he had been happy the entire night, contentment saturating his every cell, smiling so much that Harold had finally asked him if he was drunk.
But now Harold too has started to ask him questions. “This is a terrific place,” he said when he was in town the previous month for the birthday dinner he’d commanded Willem not to throw for him and which Willem had done anyway. Harold had stopped by the apartment the next day, and as he always did, rambled about it admiringly, saying the same things he always did: “This is a terrific place”; “It’s so clean in here”; “Malcolm did such a good job”; and, lately, “It’s massive, though, Jude. Don’t you get lonely in here by yourself?”
“No, Harold,” he said. “I like being alone.”
Harold had grunted. “Willem seems happy,” he said. “Robin seems like a nice girl.”
“She is,” he said, making Harold a cup of tea. “And I think he is happy.”
“Jude, don’t you want that for yourself?” Harold asked.
He sighed. “No, Harold, I’m fine.”
“Well, what about me and Julia?” asked Harold. “We’d like to see you with someone.”
“You know I want to make you and Julia happy,” he said, trying to keep his voice level. “But I’m afraid I’m not going to be able to help you on this front. Here.” He gave Harold his tea.
Sometimes he wonders whether this very idea of loneliness is something he would feel at all had he not been awakened to the fact that he should be feeling lonely, that there is something strange and unacceptable about the life he has. Always, there are people asking him if he misses what it had never occurred to him to want, never occurred to him he might have: Harold and Malcolm, of course, but also Richard, whose girlfriend, a fellow artist named India, has all but moved in with him, and people he sees less frequently as well—Citizen and Elijah and Phaedra and even Kerrigan, his old colleague from Judge Sullivan’s chambers, who had looked him up a few months ago when he was in town with his husband. Some of them ask him with pity, and some ask him with suspicion: the first group feels sorry for him because they assume his singlehood is not his decision but a state imposed upon him; and the second group feels a kind of hostility for him, because they think that singlehood is his decision, a defiant violation of a fundamental law of adulthood.
Either way, being single at forty is different from being single at thirty, and with every year it becomes less understandable, less enviable, and more pathetic, more inappropriate. For the past five years, he has attended every partners’ dinner alone, and a year ago, when he became an equity partner, he attended the partners’ annual retreat alone as well. The week before the retreat, Lucien had come into his office one Friday night and sat down to review the week’s business, as he often did. They talked about the retreat, which was going to be in Anguilla, and which the two of them genuinely dreaded, unlike the other partners, who pretended to dread it but actually (he and Lucien agreed) were looking forward to it.
“Is Meredith coming?” he asked.
“She is.” There was a silence, and he knew what was coming next. “Are you bringing anyone?”
“No,” he said.
Another silence, in which Lucien stared at the ceiling. “You’ve never brought anyone to one of these events, have you?” asked Lucien, his voice carefully casual.
“No,” he said, and then, when Lucien didn’t say anything, “Are you trying to tell me something, Lucien?”
“No, of course not,” Lucien said, looking back at him. “This isn’t the sort of firm where we keep track of those kinds of things, Jude, you know that.”
He had felt a flush of anger and embarrassment. “Except it clearly is. If the management committee is saying something, Lucien, you have to tell me.”
“Jude,” said Lucien. “We’re not. You know how much everyone here respects you. I just think—and this is not the firm talking, just me—that I’d like to see you settled down with someone.”
“Okay, Lucien, thanks,” he’d said, wearily. “I’ll take that under advisement.”