Part 10 (1/2)

But why, I wanted to ask, do you care whether he's interested in you? Why, when you have me? ”I understand,” I said.

Her point made, she sat back, far older than I had ever seen her. ”Ach. This has been going on for years. I am merely unaccustomed to a third party bearing witness.”

”He has no right to upset you.”

”He does all the same.”

”He doesn't have to.”

She smiled. ”No? You would murder him for me, then?”

”I can keep him outside the next time he shows up.”

”That is good of you, but I am afraid I couldn't accept. Though the burden be terrible, I bear it freely.”

Her weariness didn't seem to square with the laughter I'd heard from the other room. I knew as well as anyone, though, that love makes hypocrites of us all.

In the next room, the maid began to vacuum.

”Let us talk of happier things.” Alma reached into her sweater pocket and took out a check. ”For you.”

”You paid me yesterday.”

”Yes. This is for your birthday, which I believe is almost upon us.”

If I'd mentioned my birthday to her, I'd done so months ago; for her to have borne it in mind so long moved me. I was about to thank her when I looked down at the check and saw that it was for five hundred dollars.

”Ms. Spielmann, please.”

”Please yourself, Mr. Geist.”

”I can't accept this.”

”Rubbish. You must find yourself a decent pair of shoes. A scholar cannot go around in rags.”

I did need new shoes, but not five hundred dollars' worth. Think of all the books that would buy, I pointed out.

”There are other things a man should have, Mr. Geist. You've plenty of books. Now, my tea, please. Let us attempt to restore order to the universe.”

12.

Despite Alma's blandishments, I still felt as though I had been relegated to second best in her eyes; added to the news about Father Fred, and the blow Yasmina had dealt me, it made for a triple whammy of disillusionment and rejection. Asking Drew to recruit people for a birthday party was, I suppose, a rather desperate attempt to reconst.i.tute my ego. Considering the short notice, he did an impressive job, managing to fill two booths of a local cantina with an a.s.sortment of friends I had neither seen nor spoken to since moving in with Alma: colleagues from the department, other graduate students, a couple of lawyers, a couple of consultants. Wisely, he had gone with an all-male cast. n.o.body asked how I was feeling. All they asked was if I wanted another Corona. Yes, I did.

Someone asked what happened when you turned thirty-one.

”It's the first year of your thirties.”

”Thirty is the first year of your thirties.”

”No, thirty is the last year of your twenties. It's like Y2K.”

A large chunk of the evening was devoted to resolving this question. I didn't have to talk very much, for which I was grateful. Because I kept quiet, I don't think anybody noticed how drunk I was until they made their excuses (work, wives, weeknight) and came over for a handshake and found themselves reeled in for a bear hug. Whoa, there. You all right? Yes, I was. In fact, I was ready for another.

By eleven-thirty only Drew remained.

”Yasmina's engaged,” I said.

He raised his eyebrows. ”Wowie.”

I drained my beer. ”Indeed.”

Outside he flagged a taxi.

”You know what,” I said. ”You go on. I'm going to take a walk.”

He knew better than to argue. He wished me happy birthday and left.

I staggered off across the Common, stumbling through the springtime mud and humming to myself, a dismal melody whose source I couldn't quite place. I hummed it again and then it came to me, Daciana, it was hers, some Gypsy song, one she liked to wake me up with, it put me in the mood for pierogi and suicide. Here's to you, comrade. Along Ma.s.s Ave, sodium lamps glowing orange gumdrops. The air smelled bleachy. Raw, excitable, I lurched, belching, toward Porter Square, ultimate destination unknown. I could keep going all the way to Davis Square. Why was every place around here a Square? City planner with a quadrilateral fetish. But they weren't square, these Squares. Harvard Square was a triangle. Porter Square a trapezoid. Inman Square an intersection. I pa.s.sed the building where I'd lived with Dorothy, Kelly, and Jessica, and I waved at their floor. I hoped they'd found a new roommate, a fourth to complete the square, what would her name be? Alison. Or-no. Myung. Her name would be Myung and she would be mmmpre-law, she'd be the loudest of all, her screams audible over a two-mile radius.

Outside a bar called the Thorn, a throng of people stood smoking. I was working my way through them when I felt a hand on my shoulder.

”Hey.”

I swiveled around loosely.

”Hey,” said the man again. His smile leaked smoke.

It was Eric.

Had I been in any other state, I would have kept walking, mortified to be caught out alone by him. As things stood, though, my mood was somewhat more expansive.

”Good evening,” I said, bowing deeply at the waist.

With him were two women, Boston Irish, blond and heavyset, their fingernails painted the same hair-raising purple. The only discernible difference between them was that one had a navel piercing and the other did not.

”Joe, right?”

I was embarra.s.sed by how gratified I felt to learn that he knew my name-gratified enough not to correct him. His acknowledgment ought to've meant nothing to me. Yet it did. ”Indeed. And you're Eric. And you lovely ladies are.”

”Lindsay.” ”Debbie.”

I hadn't caught which name went with which girl, so in my mind they became Navel and Non-Navel. I bowed to both. ”It is an honor and a privilege,” I said.

They laughed throatily. One of them offered me a smoke. I declined.