“I like tough,” he says. “Please,” he says. “Let’s try this again.”
Just because I am sixty-four and a woman, people think I should be happy to be with anyone. But I would rather be alone than be with a bastard like the glass guy, may he rest in peace, or a blowhard who insulted my daughter.
A FUNNY THING happens. Mom loses an earring at the museum. Mom didn’t even know she lost it, but a few weeks after the party, a docent at the museum calls and says, I think I have your mother’s earring. She describes the earring—emeralds, opals, jade, and diamonds, cut to look like grapes and leaves. I ask her how did she ever figure out it was Mom’s? The docent says, “Did you know your mom used to speak at the high school for Survivor Day? She used to talk about her father the jeweler, and I remembered that his name was Bernheim, and the earring backing says Bernheim.”
“What a strange thing for you to remember!” I say.
“I used to love when your mom would come in to speak. It really left an impression,” she says.
I drive to the museum after Pilates class, and I can’t find the docent anywhere, so I wander around the museum for a spell. I come across a class of older elementary schoolers, maybe fifth graders, and an older man—by which I mean my age—is teaching them how to make block prints. He’s teaching them to carve simple designs into wood, and to dip the wood in ink-filled trays, and to go over the papers with rollers. It’s very messy and I do not generally care for messy things. The man doesn’t wear gloves, which seems like lunacy, and his hands are covered in ink. He has green eyes, a rust-colored beard, and no hair on his head. He is exquisitely patient. The man looks up at me and says, “Can I help you?”
“No,” I say, “I’m meeting someone, but I couldn’t find her. I like watching you work.”
He shrugs. “Stay if you like.”
So I sit in the back and honestly it’s very peaceful, watching the man make the ink prints with the children. The ink has a pleasant medicinal smell. I enjoy the rhythmic swish of the blocks in the trays. But the thing I like most is the low hum of the children concentrating on a task. It was one my favorite things when I used to be an educator.
When the kids leave, the man says, “Do you want to try?”
I say, “I’m wearing white. I shouldn’t.”
He says, “Some other time.”
He washes his hands in the sink, but they still don’t come clean. And that’s when I remember who he is. He is Andrew with the dirty fingernails. He’s an artist! Had he said he was an artist? I couldn’t even tell you, I was so distracted by those nails. But now I know the dirt is ink, the whole thing feels different.
“Andrew,” I say.
“Rachel,” he says.
“I didn’t recognize you.”
“I recognized you immediately.”
“You thought of my picture and added ten years,” I joke.
“That wasn’t kind of me,” he says.
“Ah, it’s fine. I’m thick-skinned,” I say. “By the way, it’s not that I’m vain. It’s, well, it’s embarrassing to admit, but I honestly forgot how old the picture was. You know, 2004 doesn’t seem that long ago in certain ways.”
“Really, I was awful. I’d gone on quite a few dates that went nowhere and I’m afraid I took it out on you,” he says. “I know what you mean, though. Once your children are grown, you lose track of time a bit. Do you have any children? I don’t think you said.”
“One,” I say. “A daughter. Aviva.”
“Aviva,” he says. “That’s a beautiful name,” he says. “Tell me something about Aviva.”
II
Wherever You Go, There You Are
Jane
ONE
In the middle of a particularly brutal political season, I began to have dreams about Aviva Grossman, Florida’s answer to Monica Lewinsky. Unless you lived in Florida at the turn of the century, you probably won’t remember her. The story briefly made national headlines because Aviva Grossman had foolishly kept an anonymous blog, where she detailed some of the “highlights” of the affair. She never mentioned him by name—but everyone knew! It was speculated that Aviva wouldn’t have kept a blog if she hadn’t wanted everyone to know, but I don’t think so. I think she was young and dumb, and I also think people didn’t truly understand the Internet back then, if indeed they can be said to understand it now. So, okay, Aviva Grossman. As a twenty-year-old intern, Aviva had an affair with Aaron Levin, a congressman from Miami. He was not her “immediate supervisor,” to quote the squishy statement he made during the press conference. “At no time was I the woman’s immediate supervisor,” Congressman Levin said, “and so, while I am deeply sorry for the pain I caused my loved ones, particularly my wife and sons, I assure you that no laws were broken.” The woman! He could not even bring himself to say Aviva Grossman’s name. The details of the affair, which were as tawdry and clichéd and human as you would expect, were on every local news channel and newspaper for months. One station even had a recurring segment called Avivawatch, as if she were a hurricane or an orca that had mysteriously beached itself. Fifteen years later, Levin’s still in Congress; Aviva Grossman, whose résumé included a dual degree in political science and Spanish literature from the University of Miami, a tenaciously googleable blog, and of course that infamous stint as an intern, couldn’t get a job. They didn’t put a scarlet letter on her chest, but they didn’t need to. That’s what the Internet is for.
In my dream, though, Aviva Grossman had managed to get past all of that. In my dream, she was in her forties and she had smart, short hair, and she was wearing a neutral pantsuit and a turquoise statement necklace, and she was running for national political office, though my dream wasn’t clear which one. It felt like Congress to me, but maybe that’s too poetically just. But it’s my dream, so let’s call it Congress. In any case, she was at a press conference when a journalist asked her about the affair. At first, Aviva gave a politician’s response—“It was a long time ago and I’m sorry for any pain I caused”—and she sounded not unlike Congressman Levin. The journalist persisted. “Well,” Aviva said, “being the age I am now and being in the position I am now, I can tell you with absolute certainty, I would never sleep with one of my campaign interns. But looking back and thinking about my part in it, my conduct, the only thing I can say . . . the only thing I can say about it is, I was very romantic and I was very young.”
TWO