So she told herself that maybe the cause for all the drama in the relationship, right from the start, lay in Morty’s long dry spell, his inexperience at the necessary give-and-take of love. Maybe it would take time to work out the kinks.
When it became clear to her that Soren was living with them, not just visiting, Tommy proposed to Morty that she transfer her bed and belongings downstairs, that they move the television into a corner of the living room—or even upstairs—and make the den her bedroom. At first, Morty balked. He pointed out that she wouldn’t have any true privacy downstairs, certainly not when they were entertaining.
“Actually,” she said, “upstairs is where I have no true privacy.” She gave Morty a look that warned him not to pursue the debate.
The walls of the house were solid—stalwart brick facing out to the wind, well-plastered lath and horsehair enclosing the oldest rooms within—but not solid enough to withstand Soren’s voice when he was piqued or angry or, to Tommy’s particular dismay, at the height of sexual arousal. He had once fancied himself an actor, and no one could deny that he had the knack for both emoting and projecting.
When she met him—on the day he pulled Morty from the car like a bride—he claimed to be twenty-eight years old. But something in the set of his less-than-joyful expressions made Tommy suspect he was ten years older. Even so, he was still a much younger man than Morty, and if his charm and wit were too often outflanked by his temper, Tommy could see that Morty forgave a great deal in exchange for his lover’s youth.
Morty also used Soren’s youth as justification for all the parties they began to host. Within six months of the invasion, Tommy had overheard two testy exchanges in which Soren tried to convince Morty to move back into the city—at least rent a studio as an “escape hatch.” In this ongoing skirmish, Morty would not retreat.
“You want the city, commute,” Morty told Soren. “Or bring the city here. In moderation.”
“That’s a tall order, honey. The city doesn’t come in moderation. It’s why God invented the suburbs. For moderate folks.”
All at once, nearly every weekend Morty wasn’t traveling, there was a dinner party. Most of the guests came out from the city, most of them men, many even younger than Soren. Before the first of these gatherings, a sit-down dinner for sixteen, Morty spoke to Tommy over lunch—a meal Soren rarely shared with them, sometimes because he was still in bed, sometimes because he was fasting to “maintain his figure.” (He also spent long days in the city every week or two, claiming that he was still going to open calls. Tommy, however unkindly, didn’t believe him.)
“I think Soren envisions some kind of salon,” Morty said. He made a weak attempt at laughter.
Tommy pictured a scene from Sense and Sensibility: gentlemen callers, cards on silver trays, vigilant matrons in bonnets and bustles.
“People dropping by when they feel like it? Or just during posted hours?” she said sardonically.
“Sometimes I think he forgets that I work for a living.”
Or that Morty appeared to be supporting him.
“Parties,” said Morty. He said it the way he might have said surgeries.
“So much for the life of the introvert. Which you implied made you happy.”
“Yes. So much for that.” Morty’s smile was, as too often now, an apology. “But, Tommy, you won’t be lifting a finger. You’ll be a guest—no, a host. Of course a host! I found a caterer in town here that all the right people seem to worship. Why not spread the wealth around? What am I saving all this money for? And doesn’t our dining table have two more leaves? Where are they?”
At least he made Soren climb into the medieval crawl space beneath the house to retrieve them. They were wrapped in dusty tarpaulins and coated with grime. It was a miracle they hadn’t warped. Eagerly, Soren volunteered to oil them, along with the table and chairs.
Tommy wasn’t about to protest, even if she was filled with dread—and resentment—at the thought of putting on feasts for Soren and, as she envisioned it, some entourage of aspiring fashion models. She might not have to cook, but she would have to make sure the house was presentable.
She attended the first two parties as if she were a live-in guest. To behave like a host seemed absurd, most of all because she hadn’t been a part of deciding whom to invite. She showed the caterer around the kitchen, and then she had little choice but to join the true guests on the terrace. Two of them were old friends of Morty’s, both authors she had known for years, so she relaxed. It was fine after all. But then, at dinner, she was seated between two extremely young men—barely men—who knew Soren through the acting studio he attended (or had, until he met Morty). There was one other woman at the table—the wife of one of the authors—but when it became clear that most of the guests were drinking with androgen-fueled abandon, Tommy tried to retreat to the kitchen.
The kitchen was filled to capacity. Tommy apologized and turned around.
To slink away to her room seemed churlish and immature (and pointless, since her room now adjoined the living room). She stuck it out until just before midnight, when a joint began to circulate. (Would cigars have been better or worse?) Two hours later, in bed but unable to sleep, she heard the last guests depart.
After that, she often chose the “party days” as a chance to spend a night in Brooklyn with her father and Dani. She stayed in her teenage bedroom, where nothing had changed: same curtains and quilt, same gooseneck lamp, same stuffed animals slumped like drunks in their dusty chair. If she were to open the desk drawers, she knew she would find her English papers from high school and college—and, dutifully saved by her mother, all the letters Tommy had written home from Vermont.
Dad still picked at his guitar, quietly, absentmindedly, and he liked to play rummy and cribbage. If they attempted Scrabble, he would fall asleep halfway through the game, waiting for his turn. When Tommy asked about his friends, the ones who used to come over on weekends to share their songs, he told her that most of them had left the city long ago. “Your mom and I were the diehards,” he said. “We were so proud of our tenacity. Now look.”
“Hey, I would have hated the suburbs,” she said. “I was proud of you, too.”
He said nothing. He was lonely, plain and simple.
And where did she live now? In the suburbs.