A House Among the Trees

Nick now rates an airline escort whenever he boards a flight. Deliberately businesslike, the attendant sees him directly down the Jetway into first class, where he settles in a window seat close to, but never at, the front. Ironically, this special treatment makes him feel more conspicuous than ever, so he does not remove his shades or cap till the last passenger’s on, then spends a few minutes pretending to be fascinated by the goings-on out the window, the hustling of baggage and forklifting of beverage-cart supplies. Invariably, however, someone will pass his row and stop to tell him they admire his work. In general, he doesn’t mind, but today he’s keen to give it a miss. He’s grateful for a seatmate with tastes too masculine to have seen so much as a trailer for poncy Taormina or tune his telly to the networks recycling British fare.

Nick turns down the offer of a mimosa from a flight attendant who sees he’s awake. He looks back out the window. In his seat pocket is a copy of the third book in Lear’s Inseparables trilogy, Remission. He set it aside in the penultimate chapter, the one where Greta dies after absorbing all the fallout of the optic wave. She lies in her berth in the abandoned schooner that’s served as a home for the three heroes and their dog since the first in a series of global and familial calamities, back in the initial book. Stinky and Boris are with her to the end, Moocho curled beside her.

Did Nick actually endure the cruel sorrows of this story when he was a teenager? This time around, he finds himself too sad to read further. Maybe he won’t. Who in the world—with a heart—would kill off the girl? Is he some antediluvian sexist to think this a moral crime? Wouldn’t you reasonably expect the girl to head off into the sunset with one of the boys who love her, requiring the sacrifice of the other, luckless lad? But Lear pulls the rug from under that reader. Maybe that’s the point. Maybe, in the end, the one who makes the ultimate sacrifice is the most powerful one. Is there a perversely feminist message here?

The attendant is back. “Tomato juice? Coconut water?” She knows who he is—he can tell from the daft glint in her eyes—but her job forbids her from fawning.

“I am perfectly satisfied, thank you,” he says, perhaps too curtly.

He should be relieved, not despondent. The last conversation with Merry, on his mobile in his hotel room last night, was a godsend. He’d had to drink two glasses of Malbec to dig up the courage to ring her.

“Beautiful man,” she said, “you have nothing to worry about. From me, that is.”

“It’s not as if I think you’ll be ringing the tabloids—”

“Don’t insult me!” she said, but she sounded playful. “I’m talking about emotions, not publicity. I seduced you, pure and simple.”

That wasn’t accurate, and both of them knew it, but why should he object?

“I’m rather proud of myself,” she added. “You’re a feather in my cap. An ostrich plume. Hot pink with a dusting of glitter.”

“Merry, you gave me a most unconventional night, which I needed rather badly.” He felt desperate to be chivalrous (as if!) without lying or leading her astray.

“Everything is just fine between us,” she said. “Though I still do hope we can strike a deal about the movie. If I blew that chance, I’ll never forgive myself.”

“You have my word. Or no, just yes, absolutely. I promise.”

“So I’ll see you again, Mr. Greene, and I vow discretion.”

“I am grateful.”

“Well, I shouldn’t say this, but me, too. I’ll say goodbye first, since that’s the way to do things here, isn’t it?”

“Merry.”

“No, let me have the last word. A perfectly cheerful goodbye.”

And, however awkwardly, that was that.

What, of Lear, has he carried away with him as he makes his way west to begin the work in earnest? The feeling of sitting in that cupboard, contemplating the shoes, the hems of the jackets, the orphaned shirts, is the one that seems most vivid to him now. So oddly codgerish, the clothing ranked above him; what did any of it have to do with the character he would play? Is the stodgier version of Lear, the one he glimpsed inside that house, a kind of shell the man grew as he aged through various indignities and sorrows—or is it the core of the man that was revealed, unsheathed, by all those same ordeals?

Nick doesn’t know the man he will play any better now than he did two weeks ago. Yet perhaps that leaves the way clearer; maybe the task at hand is one of invention more than translation. There is no escaping the fundamental loneliness of it, either.



Merry sobbed, but not entirely out of unhappiness, not even mostly, when she hung up her phone last night. Maybe she deserved the Oscar.

The sensation in her chest was both a seizing tightness and a blooming warmth, the feeling of having done something courageous, even if it wasn’t wise.

Linus, who seemed to be acclimating to her tsunamic emotions of late, merely glanced at her from his favorite spot on the couch. He pretended to be watching Julianne Moore lose her grip on reality. Why had Merry opted for such a distressing movie, a movie about a woman on an irreversibly downward spiral? She turned it off. Linus gave her a brief look of annoyance. He jumped down from the couch and settled on the floor at the opposite side of the room.

Was it her imagination, or had Linus grown a bit haughty? (She almost felt as if she’d been unfaithful to her dog. Now that was a desperate state in which to be.)

But tonight he is once again her devoted companion, curled up at Merry’s feet as she drafts a fantasy proposal for a special fund-raiser combining an early screening of the Mort Lear movie with the unveiling of those fabulous rogue drawings from the bank box. Tommy says she certainly has control over when and where they will have their debut viewing; where they will end up, she’s not so sure. It never hurts to prepare yourself for the best as well as the worst. But Merry is determined to mount an end run on Sol’s sudden alliance with Stu. She mustn’t alienate them, she must charm them. And wait until Enrico learns about the drawings. He is certainly the best man to doctor their minor afflictions; he’ll want them as badly as she does.

Meredith Galarza fucked Nicholas Greene. This improbable yet accurate statement has been running riot through her head the past four days, like one of those LED headlines urgently chasing its tail in the middle of Times Square.

It held no promise of a future—how beyond obvious was that!—but it was fun. No, it was rapturous, at least in memory…which is the place where it has come to permanent rest. There was a fumbling tenderness to it, a lot of muffled laughter amid the fireworks. Since she’s the girl, to say it spun no longings or attachment wouldn’t be true, not for her. All kneecaps, elbows, and a rack of ribs, Nick wasn’t the most comfortable lover—but he was passionate, and Christ almighty, was he ever diligent.

Merry feels both less and more lonely than she did before—and, of course, she longs to tell somebody other than Linus, who isn’t impressed enough. Or maybe Linus adores her so much that he sees her as perfectly worthy of Sexiest Man Alive Number 7, according to the most recent list in People. (Maybe she can work her way up that list? Just think: she won’t have to stoop to, as 7 might put it, boffing 8 or 9.)

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