The woman did not sound like Margot and, frankly, this kind of mind-fuckery is not Margot’s style. And although the voice is tantalizingly familiar, he can’t imagine any of his ex-wives pulling such a stunt, either. He has had no contact with any of them, not really, for years, although Lucy and Sarah wrote notes after his mother died. His mother had liked both of them quite a bit; she had no use for Gretchen whatsoever. On the eve of his wedding to Sarah, a suitably low-key affair for a third-timer but a wedding nonetheless, his mother had two glasses of wine at the so-called rehearsal dinner and blurted out: “I like all of Gerry’s odd-numbered wives.” Everyone had laughed uproariously at his mother’s wit, but Gerry recognized the confession as a moment of alcohol-fueled candor.
Then there was his colleague at Hopkins, Shannon Little, who at one point tried to claim she had inspired Aubrey—he wonders if she is newly emboldened by #MeToo to assert this nonsense again. It’s true that it was very, very bad form for Gerry to have sex with a colleague, but Lucy had practically thrown him into Shannon’s arms. Being accused of faithlessness when one is faithful quickly becomes tiresome; it’s only natural to feel that one might as well commit the crime of which one is constantly being accused. And Lucy’s paranoia about Gerry and other women was particularly wounding to him, which she knew. He had set out to be as different from his father as possible. When the day came that he succumbed to another woman—a woman who was actively pursuing him—he practically wept as he bent her over his desk and sodomized her.
Shannon Little. He tries Googling her, but the name is too common. More than one hundred profiles on LinkedIn alone and so many personae—a doctor, a salon owner, a vet.
A common name and an apt one, too—not because she was small in physical stature, but because the thing between them had been inconsequential, or should have been. She seemed determined to seduce him, if only to have something to write about. He gave in and had sex with her because he was tired of being berated by Lucy for the affairs he wasn’t having. Funny, how Lucy’s jealousy metastasized, mutated. She was so determined not to be envious of Gerry’s professional success—publishing his first novel to respectful reviews, winning an obscure but cash-laden prize—that she became crazed with jealousy of other women. Talk about delusions, or would they be hallucinations? At any rate, Lucy saw evidence of Gerry’s philandering everywhere. Except in the place where it was happening.
Shannon Little would be in her late fifties now. They had screwed—really, that was the best word for it; the sex was mechanical and emotionless—only once. Shannon, ironically, was the one woman Lucy never suspected, probably because she didn’t hold her in high esteem. Lucy’s paranoia centered on better writers. She was terrified that Gerry would outpace her professionally, but she was too proud to allow that conscious thought into her mind. So she created these phantom affairs, disrupted his writing time to hurl accusations at him. And that, more than anything, was the reason they broke up. That and the prize money that made it possible.
To be fair, the success of his first book changed him. Success always changes people, just not in the way others think. When someone enjoys success—although it’s Gerry’s belief that no one truly enjoys it—the fear among friends and family and lovers is that they will be left behind, that success is a luxury ocean liner and they are put off with a brisk “All ashore who’s going ashore.” Gerry, having achieved a modest success at a relatively young age, simply wanted to make sure that he kept moving forward. His second and third books were slight misfires, unfavorably compared to his first, but that bothered him not at all. The important thing was, they were different, they showed he wasn’t going to be mining his own slender life for material. Gerry planned to be a literary distance runner. The first thing he had to distance himself from was that first book, so popular and pleasant.
He never admitted to the stupid dalliance with Shannon Little, but he recognized it as the proof that he had checked out of his marriage. Whatever Gerry was, he was not a cheater. That was Gerald Andersen Sr.’s territory. He just became a bad enough husband that Lucy didn’t fight him when he asked for a divorce, and then he moved to New York, where he was generally treated like shit by the cooler, hipper writers of the moment. Best thing he could have possibly done. Best thing they could have possibly done. Fifteen years later, when Dream Girl ticked all the boxes and achieved that rare literary grand slam of prestige, sales, film rights, and zeitgeist, Shannon Little came out of nowhere to publish—self-publish, in truth, although she managed to disguise that fact for a while—her “rebuttal.” But it was so crass, so poorly written, that nothing came of it. Not even Lucy seemed to notice. If she did, she didn’t bother to contact Gerry.
Plus, Shannon’s publication date was September 11, 2001, which didn’t help.
Victoria comes in with his lunch, the mail, and his letter opener, the Acme School Furniture Bakelite dagger that Lucy gave him. I’m an orphan, Gerry thinks for the first time. He has lived without his father for so long that his status did not occur to him when his mother died. He is an orphan. He has no siblings, no heirs. No enemies, not really. Shouldn’t he have a longer list of potential enemies; can you have lived a life of consequence if you don’t have people who really, really hate you?
If the call happened—OF COURSE THE CALL HAPPENED—it was some sad person’s idea of a joke, a variation on asking if one’s refrigerator was running or if a store had Prince Albert in a can. Gerry spends as little time as possible on social media, but even he has heard there was an Italian man who specialized in death hoaxes and fake accounts targeting literary figures; he went so far as to manufacture an interview with Gerry at one point. It’s plausible to believe that there’s someone who lives to make prank phone calls to well-known authors, pretending to be their main characters.
Still, as he slices through his mail, he wishes that his Fait Avenue correspondent would write again, if only to confirm that the letter had existed. No letter, no entry on the caller ID log—there must be a logical explanation, one that doesn’t go to his own state of mind.
Or lack thereof.
1986
“MY FATHER DRANK VANILLA when he was desperate. It was awful.”
Gerry had heard this story before. So had Luke. Tara had shared tales about her father’s alcoholism their freshman year at Princeton, in that fit of hyperconfiding that happens in college dorms, when one finally realizes that everyone has secrets. Even then, Gerry had been careful with his. But they were the three amigos, the ones who joked that their eating club should be called Descendants of Shitty Fathers.
But why was Tara telling this story again, here at this new club, Dante’s? They were only twenty-eight, after all. Weren’t they too young to be repeating themselves?
Weren’t they too old to be in this bar? Gerry hadn’t left his marriage and moved to New York to sit in clubs and shout over the music. He was a serious writer and nothing felt more serious than living off his savings in an illegal sublet on the Upper West Side. Thiru had gotten him a modest advance for his second novel, but the jackpot of the Hartwell Prize, even halved by his divorce from Lucy, made it possible for him to live without teaching for the first time. Tara and Luke were living similar lives, although their parents subsidized their ambitions.
It was nice, spending time with Tara and Luke again, but Gerry wasn’t sure they brought out the best in one another. Tara was drinking too much and dating an abusive jerk. Luke, always on the prowl, seemed determined to make the worst choices. And Gerry—well, Gerry had no criticism for himself other than his loyalty, which led him to meet his college friends in these loud, frenetic places and then sourly contemplate their lives.
“Do you worry,” he asked Tara now, “that you might share your father’s legacy?”
“What an offensive question,” she said. “How would you feel if I asked you the same thing?”
“There’s a genetic factor to alcoholism,” he said. “Surely you know that.”
“There is not,” Tara said. “You’re full of shit.”
Luke laughed.