Kate Braverman

Cocktail Hour

Bernie Roth is not going to get his twen­ty-year ser­vice plaque in the lob­by. The hos­pi­tal he found­ed has been pur­chased by Westec Medical Division. Bernie Roth is mere­ly the for­mer fig­ure­head of an ad hoc insur­rec­tion that has no mean­ing in the realm of lit­i­ga­tion. The project coör­di­na­tor makes it clear that his pres­ence is unnec­es­sary, in fact, it’s intolerable.

He leaves the merg­er meet­ing three days ear­ly. Bernie Roth takes a mid­night flight, and his green-tint­ed con­tact lens­es sting as he dri­ves from the air­port direct­ly home. The house is perched on a cliff of pur­ple suc­cu­lents above the ocean that is, today, a dark blue like cer­tain fab­rics in which you see the grain and stitches.

Chloe designed their house with an archi­tect from Milan. It’s a two-sto­ry Mediterranean vil­la with arch­es, bal­conies, a tur­ret, orange tiles on the roof, and grace­ful win­dows of lead­ed glass that face inte­ri­or court­yards enclosed by bougainvil­lea draped walls. And it’s not paint­ed pink, Chloe has metic­u­lous­ly explained. It’s a salmon ter­ra cotta.

Chloe’s car is in the dri­ve­way. It’s a week­day and she should be out. He notices her car with sur­prise and relief, real­iz­ing that if she hadn’t been home, he would have called her and asked her to return immediately.

He finds Chloe in the bed­room, stand­ing inside her clos­et, appar­ent­ly arrang­ing cloth­ing. She is wear­ing a silk kimono imprint­ed with red peonies, her blond hair is tied back in a pony­tail and she seems star­tled to see him. She actu­al­ly touch­es two fin­gers to her throat in a ges­ture of sur­prise when she looks up, and her mouth is momen­tar­i­ly wide. He starts to embrace her but, for some rea­son, stops, and lays down on the bed instead.

“You’re three days ear­ly,” Chloe says. There’s some­thing accusato­ry in her tone.

“I was invit­ed to leave,” Bernie explains, prone. “I’m not get­ting my plaque.”

“Why not?” Chloe asks. She glances at him, briefly, then con­tin­ues mov­ing cloth­ing through the one hun­dred twen­ty square feet of her cedar closet.

Spring-clean­ing is inap­pro­pri­ate, he decides. Insulting and dis­mis­sive. Bernie wants a scotch and he wants her to lay down with him, in that order, now.

“Their focus groups don’t like plaques. It reminds the con­sumer of death. Their lob­bies are strict­ly ferns with cen­tral grav­el foun­tains. They’re iden­ti­cal, like McDonald’s.” He clos­es his eyes.

Bernie waits for Chloe to offer him con­so­la­tion. A drink and a quick ten­nis game, per­haps. It’s still ear­ly. They could have lunch, walk on the beach. Then he could tell her his joke. Westec Medical Division. WMD. See, there are weapons of mass destruc­tion, after all. They’re just not in Baghdad. They’re in La Jolla.

Bernie Roth is aware of an agi­tat­ing inter­fer­ence in the room. He must remove his con­tacts. His vision is blurred and scratchy, as if his eyes are being clawed. “What are you doing?” he asks.

“I’m pack­ing, Bernie. I’m not get­ting my plaque, either. I intend­ed to be gone before you got back.” Chloe resumes her clos­et activ­i­ties. He sees now, the select­ed dress­es and suits and skirts hang­ing in one area, an assem­bly of shoes and purs­es already on the bed­room floor below the French win­dows lead­ing to the mahogany bed­room ter­race. Her entire set of lug­gage is in the cor­ner, gar­ment bags, cos­met­ic cas­es and assort­ed car­ry ons. The suit­cas­es are open and most of them are near­ly filled.

“Where are you going?” Bernie sits up. Is this an unsched­uled Book Club relat­ed jour­ney? A prize-win­ning poet must be fetched at an air­port and prop­er­ly enter­tained? Is there a prob­lem with the chil­dren? Maybe he needs a scotch and a cup of coffee.

“ I’m just going, Bernie. That’s the point. Not where.” Chloe paus­es. “I’m leav­ing you. This. Us. La Jolla. I’m through.”

“You’re leav­ing me? As in a sep­a­ra­tion? A divorce?” Bernie stares at her. “Now?”

“Affirmative. Sorry about the sched­ul­ing. But it’s always some­thing. The siege of fes­tiv­i­ties. Christmas. Birthdays. Valentine’s Day. Our anniver­sary. Departures tend to be awk­ward.” Chloe looks direct­ly at him. “Can you give me an hour or so to wrap it up here?”

“Wrap it up here? What is this? A movie set? You’re divorc­ing me and you want me to leave our bed­room now?” Bernie repeats.

He exam­ines the bed­room as if he’s nev­er quite seen it before. Their bed has four oak posts sup­port­ing a yel­low bro­cade canopy. The walls are an ochre intend­ed to sug­gest aged stuc­co. Ochre, not yel­low. A stone kiva fire­place is dead cen­ter across from the bed. Navajo rugs lay over glazed orange Spanish tiles. The ceil­ing is a sequence of Douglas fir beams some­how pro­cured from a derelict church in New Mexico. Bernie assumes her dec­o­ra­tor hires ban­dits. An elab­o­rate cop­per and glass chan­de­lier with a his­to­ry involv­ing Gold Rush opera the­aters and saloons hangs sus­pend­ed from the mid­dle of the beams. Chloe insist­ed it was nec­es­sary, despite the earth­quake haz­ard. It was essen­tial for what did she call it? The hybrid Pueblo Revival style?

“I have a list and this is con­fus­ing. Yes. Why don’t you make your­self a drink? I’ll join you down­stairs in a bit, OK?” It’s not a question.

“Isn’t this sud­den? I’ve been pre­oc­cu­pied with the merg­er, but—” he begins.

“Actually, it’s a coin­ci­dence. It doesn’t real­ly have to do with you,” Chloe says, over her shoul­der. She extracts a pair of fire-engine red high-heeled shoes. She holds them in her hands, as if deter­min­ing their pos­si­ble flam­ma­bil­i­ty. Or is she weigh­ing them? Is she tak­ing a spe­cial flight? Are there bag­gage lim­i­ta­tions? Is she going on safari?

“We’ve been mar­ried twen­ty-four years. I must have some involve­ment.” Bernie enter­tains the notion that this is a ghast­ly prac­ti­cal joke, or the con­se­quence of an anom­alous mis­com­mu­ni­ca­tion. A faulty com­put­er trans­mit­ting a gar­bled fax designed for some­one else entire­ly, perhaps.

Chloe is with­in her fortress of clos­et, on her knees, non­cha­lant­ly eval­u­at­ing pock­et­books and shoes with both hands. She does have a list, he notices that now, and a pen where she checks off and cross­es out items. She’s also lis­ten­ing to music. Bob Dylan live, he decides. It’s her favorite, the Rolling Thunder tour. Or the oth­er one she plays inces­sant­ly, Blood on the Tracks. They made a pact when Irving and Natalie went to col­lege. She would not play Bob Dylan in his pres­ence. In return, he would not sub­ject her to John Coltrane or Monk. No Dizzy Gillespie or Charlie Parker, either. Chloe deems his music agi­tat­ing. In fact, his entire jazz col­lec­tion is, by agree­ment, kept in his study, as if they were vials of pathogens. Or slides of chil­dren with pre-op facial deformities.

Bernie stares at her back for an arrest­ed moment, in which time simul­ta­ne­ous­ly elon­gates and com­press­es. Then he push­es him­self up from the embroi­dered damask pil­lows with their intim­i­dat­ing wavy rims of thick silk rib­bons requir­ing han­dling so spe­cial­ized he fears them, stands unsteadi­ly, and walks down stairs to the kitchen. He pours scotch into a water glass.

Outside is a tiled court­yard with a mar­ble stat­ue of what he assumes is a woman ren­dered in an abstract man­ner embed­ded in the cen­ter of a round shal­low pool with a foun­tain. Flowers that resem­ble lotus­es but aren’t drift slow­ly across the sur­face like small aban­doned boats. He real­izes the petals form a fur­ther lay­er of mosa­ic. So this is how his wife makes stone breathe. Then he reads the Sunday New York Times front page twice. The script is gluti­nous, inde­ci­pher­able. He pours anoth­er scotch and dials Sam Goldberg’s pri­vate emer­gency cell line.

“The WMD nego­ti­a­tions? You’re still there?” Sam doesn’t wait for a response. “I’m at lunch with a client, Bernie. Can I get back to you?”

“Chloe says she’s divorc­ing me,” Bernie begins.

“I’m rep­re­sent­ing her, yes.” Sam sounds equi­table, even expansive.

“You’re my best friend,” Bernie reminds him.

“I love you both. She came to me first. I’ll call you back.” The phone goes still in his hand, which feels sud­den­ly numb. He remem­bers that his hos­pi­tal is now sim­ply part of two hun­dred fifty small med­ical facil­i­ties owned by a cor­po­ra­tion based in Baltimore. He is mere­ly one of 12,500 doc­tors they choose to employ.

Bernie climbs the wood­en stairs to their bed­room. Chloe is plac­ing shoes in an enor­mous card­board box. “Imelda Marcos had few­er shoes,” he notes. He’s won­dered about her shoe accu­mu­la­tion, the pumps and stilet­tos and plat­forms, how odd for a woman who habit­u­al­ly wears san­dals or is bare­foot. “ Won’t you need a porter or two?”

“My job is over. The chauf­feur­ing. The sched­ul­ing. Tennis lessons and match­es. Music class­es. Not to men­tion the soc­cer prac­tices and inter­minable play­offs. The surf­board trans­porta­tion logis­tics. Piano recitals. Ballet pro­duc­tions. The play dates,” Chloe paus­es. She reach­es for some­thing in a draw­er on the far side of the clos­et. She with­draws a pack­age of cig­a­rettes. She lights one and faces him.

“Listen. It begins in preschool. These kids don’t play. They have audi­tions. If they pass, if they get a call back, a sort of nan­ny-chap­er­oned courtship ensues. It’s loath­some.” She expels smoke. “Later, it’s worse.”

He hasn’t seen her with a cig­a­rette since Ion and Gnat first went to nurs­ery school. The fumes are infil­trat­ing the room, fur­ther irri­tat­ing his con­tacts. Bob Dylan is whin­ing off key and out of time, con­t­a­m­i­nat­ing the air, now on an audi­to­ry lev­el. It should be labeled a posthu­mous rather than live per­for­mance, he decides. He shuts off the switch.

“I didn’t know you still smoked,” Bernie said. “Or that you hat­ed the children’s activities.”

“Soccer did me in. Soccer, for Christ’s sake. How does soc­cer fig­ure? When did that make your short list? How many pro­fes­sion­al soc­cer stars has La Jolla pro­duced? It’s just crap.” Chloe is vehement.

“We accept­ed divi­sion of labor as a viable ves­ti­gial tra­di­tion. But you could have refused,” Bernie counters.

“You can’t say no to soc­cer. It’s the new mea­sure of moth­er­hood. It’s the fuck­ing gold stan­dard. I sat in park­ing lots between chauf­feur­ing, feel­ing like Shiva with her arms ampu­tat­ed.” Chloe fin­ish­es her cig­a­rette. She uses a yel­low shoe with a red flower at the toe for an ashtray.

“Let’s have a drink down­stairs,” Bernie sug­gests. His voice is rea­son­able. He is able to pro­duce this effect by pre­tend­ing he is some­one else entire­ly, a concierge or a wait­er. “I’m fin­ish­ing the Laphroaig.”

Chloe con­sults her watch. It’s the Piaget he gave her when their son entered col­lege. His wife shrugs, the kimono sleeves drift briefly from her sides like twin crane skim­ming an inlet, hunt­ing. “One drink,” she assents.

They sit in the kitchen. He con­sid­ers the Westec buy-out. For two decades, he entered the hos­pi­tal each morn­ing and paused in a ges­ture of respect near walls engraved with the names of doc­tors who had achieved their twen­ty, twen­ty-five and thir­ty year sta­tus. Next year, he would have had his own twen­ty-year ser­vice plaque installed. Chloe has already arranged the cater­ing. He would be per­ma­nent­ly mount­ed beside Milstein and Kim, McKenzie, Fuentes and Weintraub. They were there when Northern San Diego Children’s Clinic was built, the land­scap­ing just put in, the first bougainvil­lea and hibis­cus bush­es grow­ing against still dusty cin­der blocks. Chloe plant­ed pink and white camel­lias the next year. Then wis­te­ria and roses.

Bernie real­izes the kitchen floor is actu­al­ly a com­po­si­tion of hand-paint­ed tiles, pur­ple and blue iris­es and vio­lets. The stems and leaves are a raised green enam­el sug­gest­ing chan­nels and veins. So this is how she pre­pares their meals, bare­foot, stand­ing on a ver­sion of cool gar­den. He finds cheese and fruit in the refrig­er­a­tor and bagels in the cab­i­net. A chi­na plat­ter with ornate sil­ver han­dles he vivid­ly recalls pack­ing in plas­tic wrap and haul­ing in a spe­cial crate on a plane sits between them. Where were they return­ing from? Portugal? Prague? Chloe averts her eyes.

“I love California Lent. It comes the spring you’re fif­teen and lasts the rest of your life.” She looks tired.

“Just gain a few pounds and let’s stay mar­ried.” Bernie spreads cream cheese on a bagel. It’s stale. Chloe smokes anoth­er cigarette.

“I’m leav­ing a few pounds ear­ly. I’m one of the last orig­i­nal wives. Do you real­ize that?” Chloe asks. “I’m forty-six. Let’s just skip menopause and the oblig­a­tory tro­phy wife syn­drome. We did our jobs. Now the task is finished.”

“ We had a deal. We agreed to be post­mod­ern,” Bernie points out. “No empires with his­tor­i­cal­ly dis­as­trous ends. No mis­tress­es with unnec­es­sary dan­ger­ous com­pli­ca­tions. No tax fraud. No start-ups or IPO’s. Just us, with plau­si­ble defend­able borders.”

“We did that. You built the clin­ic. I did this.” Chloe indi­cates the for­mal din­ing room with her fin­gers, and by exten­sion, he sur­mis­es, the entire house and grounds, court­yards, swim­ming pool and ten­nis court, gaze­bos and rose gardens.

“You saw it as a job?” Bernie is amazed. “It was a per­for­mance art piece. Remember when Book

Club dis­cov­ered one-man shows? Spalding Gray. Reno. Sandra Bernhard. Laurie Anderson. We went with the Weintraubs on open­ing night, remember?”

Bernie Roth thinks for a moment. Then he says, “No.”

“It was the hos­pi­tal ben­e­fit that year. A bit arty for you. We went back stage. Elaine had Laurie Anderson’s entire tour pro­file. We real­ized we were earn­ing more than she was. We had our own mul­ti­mil­lion dol­lar a year per­for­mance art pieces. We just had small­er venues and a lim­it­ed audi­ence. Elaine Weintraub, the orig­i­nal wife. Before the cur­rent ver­sion. The ex-TV late night weath­er girl? The anorex­ic red­head with the room tem­per­a­ture IQ? Jesus. Elaine Weintraub was my best friend. You don’t even remem­ber her.” Chloe fin­ish­es her scotch.

“Our mar­riage was an art piece, a per­for­mance?” Bernie is incredulous.

“The four piece chore­og­ra­phy. The music lessons. Sports and tutors. Surfing and swim meets. The theme birth­day par­ty extrav­a­gan­zas. Christ. Not to men­tion the gar­den­ers I bailed out of jail. The maids with alco­holic boyfriends. Their secret abor­tions. The relent­less com­pli­ca­tions. The emer­gency loans. It was 24/7 for twen­ty years. And I’m not get­ting a plaque either.” Chloe stares at the table. Bernie pours more scotch.

Outside is sun­light that sur­pris­es him with its nuances, its flu­id avenues of yel­lows that are not sol­id at all, but ten­ta­tive and in curi­ous tran­si­tion. Streaks like gold threads waver across the sur­face of the foun­tain, a fil­i­gree emboss­ing the koi. Bernie thinks of brass bells and abrupt­ly sens­es a clash in the air. So this is the sound of a day being sliced in half.

“I walk through this house and it’s like being trapped in a post­card,” Chloe indi­cates the liv­ing room table, a square of inlaid mahogany com­plete­ly cov­ered with framed pho­tographs. She picks them up, one by one. “Agra. Bali. Rome. Luxor. Maui. Everyone hold­ing hands and smil­ing. It’s a lam­i­nat­ed ver­sion of reality.”

“But this was our life,” Bernie real­izes. He stands near her. “ You want­ed Thanksgiving in a Beirut back alley? Easter in a Turkish ten­e­ment? That wasn’t our expe­ri­ence. What’s encased in glass is, in point of fact, the truth.”

“Really?” Chloe sounds bit­ter and com­bat­ive. She is still wear­ing the kimono with the extrav­a­gant sleeves that seem to sug­gest inten­tion. But she has put on pink lip­stick and dia­mond ear­rings. She has brushed her hair. Perhaps she sprayed her wrists with per­fume. Then her skin would be a dis­til­la­tion of all things flo­ral and vanil­la. “This isn’t truth,” Chloe said. “It’s an adver­tise­ment for consumption.”

For a moment, Bernie thinks she is allud­ing to tuber­cu­lo­sis. TB is rebound­ing glob­al­ly. Half of Europe tests pos­i­tive. Studies sug­gest near­ly forty per­cent of New York City col­lege stu­dents have indi­ca­tions of expo­sure. Malaria is also mak­ing a spec­tac­u­lar come back. Polio is a pos­si­bil­i­ty, too. Its crossover poten­tial is seri­ous­ly under­rat­ed. A major influen­za epi­dem­ic is inevitable, actu­al­ly sta­tis­ti­cal­ly over­due. Of course, small pox could be the defin­ing epi­dem­ic of the mil­len­ni­um. Then he real­izes his wife is not talk­ing about infec­tions. He holds a sil­ver framed pho­to­graph select­ed at ran­dom. “You don’t appear to be suf­fer­ing in Tahiti,” Bernie observes.

“I didn’t suf­fer. I just wasn’t engaged. It was like fill­ing stamps in a geog­ra­phy game. More accu­mu­la­tion. Just like the grotesque children’s activ­i­ties.” Chloe seems to be con­sid­er­ing anoth­er drink.

“Grotesque?” Bernie repeats.

“Piano. Cello. Guitar. Ballet. Gymnastics. Basketball. Karate. Theater arts. Choral group. Ceramics. Mime. What kid has that pletho­ra of apti­tudes?” Chloe demands.

He is appar­ent­ly meant to say some­thing. “I have no idea,” he admits.

“They don’t have affini­ties or long­ings. Every stray spasm of tem­po­rary enthu­si­asm gets an imme­di­ate new uni­form. They lack affec­tion and dis­ci­pline. Activities are anoth­er form of con­sump­tion. Now a video. Now a vio­lin. Now Chinese. Now a chain­saw.” Chloe sighs.

Bernie con­sid­ers the pos­si­bil­i­ty that he may pass out. He bare­ly slept at the nego­ti­a­tions, which were not medi­a­tions, but rather the inor­di­nate­ly slow unrav­el­ing of a fait accom­pli. His hotel room was curi­ous­ly uncom­fort­able, the sheets and tow­els abra­sive­ly starched, the walls a delib­er­ate­ly mut­ed blue rem­i­nis­cent of an inter­minable depres­sion. The sense of tran­sience in car­pet and uphol­stery stains dis­turbed him. There were lin­ger­ing odors he couldn’t iden­ti­fy. Perhaps it was per­fume, insect repel­lant, spilled wine, sun­tan lotion and some­thing intan­gi­ble that leaked from a stranger writ­ing a post­card. He had insom­nia for the first time since he was an intern and night­mares about his father.

“What are you going to tell Ion and Gnat?” Bernie tries.

“I’ve tak­en care of that.” Chloe almost smiles. There is strain around her mouth. It’s as close to a sneer as she can per­mit her­self. Her genet­ic code doesn’t allow her to fur­ther dis­tort her face.

“You’ve talked to them?” Bernie is ten­ta­tive and afraid. He needs to estab­lish coor­di­nates. He must assem­ble reli­able data. “Ion and Gnat. How chic we thought their nick­names were. How mil­len­ni­al. Naturally I’ve spo­ken with them.” Chloe stares at him. “Natalie used to tell me what a great moth­er I was. I had my stan­dard line. I’d say—”

“I’m com­pen­sat­ed. I’ve got my CEO salary, year­ly incen­tive bonus­es, stock options and pen­sion plan,” Bernie sup­plies. “Of course I remember.”

“I wasn’t kid­ding,” Chloe states.

After a moment, in which he feels dazed and inco­her­ent, and thinks odd­ly and wild­ly of hum­ming­birds and lizards, and how pat­terns on rep­tiles resem­ble cer­tain com­mon skin dis­or­ders, he asks, “What did the chil­dren say?”

“They’re a mono­lith of nar­cis­sism and indif­fer­ence. They want assur­ances there’s no hos­til­i­ty and the finances are secure. If sep­a­rate doesn’t intrude on their scant psy­cho­log­i­cal resources, it’s fine. They require known quan­ti­ties. If it arrives from two loca­tions, that’s irrel­e­vant. Just so we don’t neces­si­tate their engagement.”

“Is that it?” Bernie sens­es there is con­sid­er­ably more. He best skill has always been diagnostic.

“Not quite. They both have mes­sages for you,” Chloe paus­es. She takes a breath. “And this is the last act of trans­la­tion I’m going to engage in. After this, you’ll have to gath­er and dis­till your own information.”

“Shoot.” Bernie is dizzy. He doesn’t want to flinch. “Ion quit the ten­nis team.” Chloe actu­al­ly laughs. “He won the Desert Classic as a sopho­more. He’s ranked num­ber three in California, for Christ’s sake. He has a full schol­ar­ship.” Bernie real­izes he is yelling.

“He knows we can afford it, with­out his play­ing. He hates ten­nis. Thinks it’s deca­dent, impe­ri­al­is­tic and ret­ro­grade. He quit last year. I’ve been pay­ing his tuition. Quietly. Part of my job. The chore­og­ra­phy, medi­a­tion and sched­ul­ing aspect.”

“What about his major?” Bernie insists.

“He hasn’t been pre-med since fresh­man midterms.” Chloe avoids his eyes.

“What is his major, pre­cise­ly?” Bernie is more alert. He under­stands rage is a form of fuel.

“Urban Design. It’s like mod­ern his­to­ry but with com­mu­ni­ty projects.”

“Community projects?” Bernie puts his glass down. “Like Houses for Habitats?” He has a vague recog­ni­tion of this orga­ni­za­tion. Perhaps he’s seen it list­ed on intern resumes.

“He’s spe­cial­iz­ing in ath­let­ics for the hand­i­capped. Creating play­grounds with wheel­chair ramps in bar­rios. Also, he isn’t Ion any­more. He’s Grivin,” Chloe informs him. “He plays drums in a band. He says it’s a good drummer’s name.”

“Grivin?” Bernie repeats. “An ana­gram of his wretched birth name. Irving. I should nev­er have agreed to that.” Chloe lights anoth­er cig­a­rette. She shakes her head from side to side. “But you were hav­ing that affair with the nurse. And I was on the verge of sui­cide. Guess I just lost that one in the sun.”

There is a pause dur­ing which Bernie con­sid­ers the del­i­ca­cy of the res­pi­ra­to­ry sys­tem and the neces­si­ty to gath­er fil­a­ments of air into his body, and keep his lungs oxy­genat­ed. “What about Gnat? What about Natalie?”

“No pre-med there, either. Sorry. She’s in Women’s Studies.” Chloe exam­ines her hands. Her fin­ger­nails are translu­cent with pearl white sliv­ers at their tips. Or per­haps they are arcs of sil­ver, per­ma­nent­ly engraved by some new cos­met­ic process.

“And? Come on. I feel it, Chloe. I’m down. Kick me hard.” The scotch is mak­ing him nau­seous. He decides to make a pot of cof­fee and take a Dexedrine.

“She’s call­ing her­self Nat and liv­ing with a woman,” Chloe reveals.

“She’s a les­bian?” Bernie tries to con­cen­trate on Gnat, on Natalie. She was an excel­lent camper. When they raft­ed the Grand Canyon, it was Gnat who helped him erect the tents, iden­ti­fy the cor­rect poles and how to posi­tion them. Her nat­ur­al abil­i­ty to rec­og­nize con­stel­la­tions was excep­tion­al. She rarely tan­gled a fish­ing line. Was this unusu­al? Was her spa­tial apti­tude an indi­ca­tion of abnor­mal­i­ty? Had he failed to diag­no­sis a mon­u­men­tal malfunction?

“Fifty-six per­cent of her enter­ing class list­ed their ori­en­ta­tion as bisex­u­al.” Chloe fin­ish­es exam­in­ing her fin­ger­nails. Then she drinks her third scotch. “I sug­gest we adopt a neu­tral position.”

Events are accel­er­at­ing in a fran­tic pro­gres­sion, each rev­e­la­tion is increas­ing­ly sur­re­al. Day is assum­ing hal­lu­ci­na­to­ry pro­por­tions. He con­cludes that his present con­di­tion resem­bles severe jet­lag com­bined with sixth round chemother­a­py. And there is, of course, the mat­ter of the lug­gage. The suit­cas­es packed in the bed­room. She must have arranged for some­one to car­ry them down the stairs and load them into her car.

“Do you care about that?” Bernie man­ages. “Our daugh­ter is gay.”

“Why would I care?” Chloe seems surprised.

“What will hap­pen to the Christmas dec­o­ra­tions?” Bernie asks. He con­sid­ers their hol­i­day rit­u­al. Chloe and Gnat select­ed new orna­ments for their per­ma­nent tree lega­cy, one for each fam­i­ly mem­ber, one each year. The two hun­dred yearold bro­cade angels with twelve-carat gold threads around their wings from Belgium. The ging­ham elves with pewter crowns. The sil­ver maple leaves. The glass snowflakes, each with intri­cate indi­vid­ual facets and panels.

“Nat will take them no mat­ter what. If she goes butch. If she opts for arti­fi­cial insem­i­na­tion. She’ll take the orna­ments. And she knew you’d ask that.” Chloe is lean­ing against the wall, her eyes par­tial­ly closed.

Bernie pours cof­fee. He removes a bot­tle of amphet­a­mines from his suit jack­et pock­et. He takes three tablets and offers the bot­tle to Chloe. She moves toward it with such unex­pect­ed rapid­i­ty, he can’t deter­mine how many pills she extracts. Bernie watch­es her hands, fol­low­ing her fin­gers to where they ter­mi­nate in glazed nails translu­cent like the under­sides of cer­tain trop­i­cal seashells.

“Remember the glass snowflakes?” Bernie asks.

“From Tibet? With tri­an­gu­lar amber pan­els like medieval cathe­dral win­dows?” Chloe recalls. “I thought they’d look good as ear­rings. I imag­ined them on a young wife on a pyre. Of course, that wouldn’t work for me anymore.”

“That’s what you were think­ing? In front of the god­damned pedi­greed twen­ty-two foot Colorado blue spruce? Ritual incin­er­a­tion?” Bernie places his hands over his eyes. There are numer­ous anec­do­tal­ly report­ed cas­es of sud­den stress induced blind­ness. He puts on his sunglasses.

Chloe pours her­self a cup of black cof­fee. Her move­ments are slow, list­less, stalled. The room is a series of sea swells.

He real­izes they are float­ing like the petals of the flow­ers that are not lotus­es just above the koi.

“And you’re putting the fuck­ing suit­cas­es in your car and dri­ving away?” Bernie is incensed. “Sam Goldberg is your lawyer?”

“He can rep­re­sent both of us. Or I’ll take Leonard and you can have Sam,” Chloe offers. She drinks a sec­ond cup of coffee.

“Leonard is my golf part­ner,” Bernie says.

“We know where all the bod­ies are buried. It’s a ceme­tery. There’s enough to go around. When in doubt, just keep it, Bernie.” She stud­ies the inte­ri­or of her porce­lain cup.

Then Chloe goes upstairs. She returns, slow­ly and method­i­cal­ly, with suit­cas­es. He’s sur­prised by her mus­cu­lar arms. She knows instinc­tive­ly how to bal­ance her tor­so, shift her weight, and bend her knees. She is bare­ly sweat­ing. She has replaced the kimono with a short beige linen dress with spaghet­ti straps that accen­tu­ate her tanned shoul­ders. Twenty years of yoga and ten­nis. Then the bags of gro­ceries when the maids dis­ap­peared, were picked up by immi­gra­tion, or beat­en up by boyfriends. In between, they had babies and abor­tions. They vis­it­ed rel­a­tives in their home vil­lages and often didn’t return for months. Then the gar­den­ers van­ished. Chloe spent days in the gar­den with a shov­el. Yes, she could eas­i­ly load the bag­gage into her car. Even the inex­plic­a­ble card­board box of shoes. And that is the next step. Bernie con­sid­ers the heavy carved oak front door that leads to the cir­cu­lar cob­ble­stone driveway.

“What about the jew­el­ry?” Bernie inquires. He always gave her a neck­lace on her birth­day. Rubies in Katmandu. Pearls in Shanghai. Silver and turquoise in Santa Fe. Gold in Greece. He can remem­ber each sep­a­rate com­po­si­tion of stones and the rooms above plazas and rivers and lagoons where he unwrapped his offer­ing and fas­tened the clasp around her throat. Sometimes there were cathe­dral bells and foghorns, drums from car­ni­vals and parades, waves and sea birds

“I took the dia­monds. I left you the rest. They’re in my safe. The key is on my pil­low.” Chloe pours anoth­er cup of black coffee.

“Why leave me any?” Bernie wonders.

“You may need them for bar­ter­ing pur­pos­es lat­er. Sometimes a strand of Colombian emer­alds real­ly hits the spot.” Chloe lights anoth­er cig­a­rette. This is not the behav­ior of a novice. This is no small stray ges­ture of recidi­vism. Does her yoga instruc­tor know? Her aro­ma ther­a­pist? Book Club and the hos­pi­tal board? And what does she mean by barter. That’s a curi­ous concept.

“Wait a minute. Look. This is for your birth­day. I got it ear­ly.” Bernie is excit­ed. It’s the amphet­a­mines, cut­ting through his fatigue, his heavy and unnat­ur­al dis­ori­en­ta­tion. Airports are ter­mi­nals of con­ta­gion. A max­i­mum expo­sure sit­u­a­tion. He might be incu­bat­ing a malev­o­lent viral muta­tion. Still, he is clar­i­fy­ing his thinking.

“I can’t wait.” Chloe gazes at her watch. Bernie walks into his study, the only room Chloe per­mit­ted him to dec­o­rate, and returns with a small wood­en box. “Here,” he said. He feels wild­ly triumphant.

“I’m not inter­est­ed,” Chloe informs him.

Her voice has more ener­gy now. The amphet­a­mines. Perhaps they should take two more. Bernie pro­duces the bot­tle. Chloe allows her fin­gers to reach into the pills. She stands near him while he opens the box. A sin­gle gray­ish stone.

“I’m going to have it set,” Bernie explains. “It’s an agate from the beach in Chile. From Isla Negra where Neruda lived. I went there. I skipped Rio. Didn’t you won­der why I went to a riv­er par­a­site con­fer­ence in Brazil? I need­ed an excuse. I changed planes for Chile at the air­port. Then I drove. I walked beach­es for miles. I found it for you. I pulled it out of the water.” Bernie holds the peb­ble in his palm between them. His hands are shak­ing. “Now you can tell me what the stones know.”

“Bernie, you’re a love­ly man.” Chloe touch­es his cheek. “You’ve made it a won­der­ful job.”

“I want to know what the stones know,” Bernie says. “That was your god­damned dissertation.Your per­son­al grail.You were going to decode Neruda’s stones and explain them to me.”

“That’s pre­his­to­ry, Bernie. You’d need an arche­ol­o­gist to dig back that far. A pale­on­tol­o­gist.” Chloe turns away from the agate. It looks lone­ly and ashen. It knows it is an orphan.

“What about the house? The fur­ni­ture? The paint­ings? The sculp­ture? Each sofa a dis­til­la­tion of your per­son­al evo­lu­tion? That’s what you said,” Bernie remembers.

“I tried to amuse myself. Forget it. The house is too big for you,” Chloe deter­mines. “The kids are nev­er com­ing back.”

“They’re nev­er com­ing back?” Bernie finds him­self repeat­ing. The after­noon is a kind of three-dimen­sion­al mantra.

Phrases are recit­ed, but they are like howls peo­ple make on roller coast­ers, ludi­crous vows and con­fes­sions. Words came from their mouths, but they are sacra­ments in reverse, stain­ing the air. They are curses.

“Not for more than a day here and there. Now there won’t be the plague of hol­i­days to entice them.” Chloe glances around the down­stairs rooms, detached and cal­cu­lat­ing. “Unload it. The mar­ket is good now.”

“Chloe,” Bernie takes a breath. “I love you.”

“It’s been ter­rif­ic, real­ly. This is my ter­mi­nal per­for­mance of prophe­cy on com­mand. My final act of analy­sis and emer­gency emo­tion­al coun­sel. OK. I’m gaz­ing into my crys­tal ball for the last time. It’s the god­dess of real estate. She says sell.”

“Chloe. Let’s talk this out. There’s more to say. I can say more.” Bernie tastes the amphet­a­mines now, an unmis­tak­able metal­lic sting between his lips. It’s spread­ing through his body; micro­scop­ic steel chips, hard-wiring his mus­cles, his reflex­es and agili­ty. She can load the suit­cas­es into her car. But he out­weighs her by sev­en­ty pounds, and he is wear­ing leather shoes. One must not dis­count the ele­ment of sur­prise. Chloe can do head and shoul­der stands, she has mas­tered all the strength and flex­i­bil­i­ty pos­tures, but she has nev­er been in a street fight.

“OK.” Chloe is sud­den­ly unex­pect­ed­ly agree­able. “One final note. That stric­ture I gave you about only wear­ing black and gray Armani?”

“Yes?” Bernie clos­es his eyes.

“I remove it. You should do jeans for a while, T‑shirts. Downscale. Lose the Porsche.” Chloe takes a sil­ver san­daled step toward the front door.

“You don’t love me?” Bernie is con­fused and chaot­ic and finds the com­bi­na­tion not entire­ly unpleas­ant. His trep­i­da­tion has been replaced by an errat­ic tur­bu­lent ener­gy. He is block­ing the door, with its thick carved oak pan­els and intri­cate squares of stained glass implant­ed in the cen­ter and along the edges. Her dec­o­ra­tor no doubt loot­ed that from a church, too. And he is not going to let her walk out to the driveway.

“Love you? I’m all dried up in that depart­ment. One mar­riage, two chil­dren, and the full litur­gy of soc­cer. The one hun­dred unique orna­ments I was des­ig­nat­ed cura­tor for. The secret acts of medi­a­tion. Messenger ser­vices. Currency exchange. Frankly, spe­cif­ic love isn’t even on my radar screen.” Chloe seems resigned.

“What do you want? I can give it to you.” Bernie is desperate.

“Solitude. Drift. I’ll trav­el. Maybe pen a mediocre verse here or there. It requires a cli­mate you can’t pro­vide. You can’t sur­vive the alti­tude I’m look­ing for, believe me,” Chloe says. “And no more ques­tion and answer quizzes. No more mul­ti­ple-choice tests. No more essays.”

“Will you take this?” He extends the agate. “You said swal­lows and con­stel­la­tions of stars were inside. The mys­ter­ies of oceans. Metamorphosis and mythol­o­gy. Take it.”

“No more home­work. School’s out, Bernie. School’s out for­ev­er.” Chloe sings the phrase, twice.

He thinks it might be an Aerosmith song. Or, per­haps and worse, Alice Cooper.

Once he set­tles the suit­case prob­lem, he’s going to play Coltrane on the house speak­ers at full vol­ume. Dizzy and Monk. Parker and Miles. It’s going to be jazz week. Jazz month.

Bernie stands direct­ly in front of his wife. Her suit­cas­es are near the door. She is hold­ing her car keys. Still, Bernie is begin­ning to get his bear­ings. There is a machin­ery in the periph­ery. He is start­ing to hear it hum and pump. There are mech­a­nisms. Barter? Deduction is a gift. It becomes a skill expe­ri­ence pol­ish­es into a tool. The most fierce­ly reck­less intu­itions often prove accu­rate. And he can see the schemat­ics now. There are blue­prints and dia­grams and there is noth­ing sub­tle about them.

“You don’t vis­it the hos­pi­tal any­more,” Bernie notes. “You used to come for lunch. We had our spe­cial noon appointment.”

“I couldn’t stand all the doors open­ing to those dis­creet pas­tel alcoves. The rooms where women who still have eggs sit. Women with babies in their wombs. I could hear them devis­ing names for infants. They do it alpha­bet­i­cal­ly. Amy. Beatrice. Clarissa. Devra. Erica. Francine. Gabrielle.” Chloe glares at him.

“That’s a lie,” Bernie says, shocked. He wants to slap her across the face.

“Back away,” Chloe orders. Her voice is high and thin. It wavers, hangs in the air and los­es its sense of direc­tion and pur­pose. He con­sid­ers fire­works, how they explode, tat­too­ing the sky with a pas­sion­ate con­vic­tion that quick­ly dis­si­pates. Then she says, “Do you want the police here?”

Bernie Roth envi­sions the La Jolla police; two or three fresh­ly paint­ed vehi­cles parked in the cir­cu­lar cob­ble­stone dri­ve­way, each offi­cer tanned and uncer­tain. He imag­ines them stand­ing in the mar­ble entrance­way below the oasis of state­ly six­ty-foot palm trees. The fronds cast unusu­al­ly ver­ti­cal shad­ows like arrows and darts. From cer­tain angles, the house looks like Malta. He’d once sug­gest­ed mount­ing an antique can­non in the tur­ret. And domes­tic com­plaints are a gray area. He is, after all, the senior doc­tor at the hos­pi­tal. Alternatively, he imag­ines chas­ing her car, posi­tion­ing him­self at the end of the dri­ve­way, his back against the wrought iron gate, his arms spread wide. She might impale him.

What are his options, pre­cise­ly? He can shut off the mas­ter switch on his com­put­er, of course, lock­ing the garage and gates. Chloe refused to learn how to manip­u­late the sys­tems. She said she wasn’t intel­li­gent enough for such smart appli­ances. He often wor­ried what she would do in an emer­gency pow­er fail­ure. Or he could call Ron Klein. Ron is run­ning the psy­chi­atric unit now. A wife with a menopausal psy­chot­ic break requir­ing hos­pi­tal­iza­tion. It hap­pens all the time. Ron owes him a few favors. But favors are a lim­it­ed resource and he needs to ration them.

“I’m deliri­ous,” Bernie real­izes. “ I need to take something.”

The green in his wife’s eyes inten­si­fies. It is like observ­ing a riv­er com­ing out of a mist. Or emer­alds just pro­fes­sion­al­ly cleaned by son­ic wave devices in a jew­el­ry store.

“ You’re going to open the cook­ie jar?” Chloe asks. “But you’re under sus­pi­cion. You swore no more until Christmas.”

“That’s nine months away. Isn’t that unnec­es­sar­i­ly puni­tive and arbi­trary?” Bernie wan­ders into his study.

This is the only area of the house he has been allot­ted. He designed it him­self in one week­end. He didn’t need a dec­o­ra­tor. He ordered over the Internet. The walls are mahogany and the book­shelves con­tain his med­ical library, com­put­er files and jazz discs. The lamps are sol­id brass. The sofa is brown leather like oak leaves in mid-October. The floor is red maple. Chloe dis­par­aged his aes­thet­ics and dis­missed his study as aggres­sive­ly mas­cu­line. But she is fol­low­ing him now.

Bernie Roth has always pos­sessed the capac­i­ty for strate­gic action. It might be time to retire now, after all. Empty nest syn­drome demands atten­tion. Menopause is prob­lem­at­ic. They can build some­thing new, on a beach in Costa Rica or Mexico, per­haps. Grivin can help with the con­struc­tion. Maybe he can get extra cred­it course points. And Nat. She can bring her girl­friend. They’re prob­a­bly both good with hammers.

Bernie walks direct­ly to the wall safe and unlocks it. The safe con­tains one blue can­vas duf­fle all-pur­pose sports bag wedged against the met­al. It fills the entire safe and Bernie has to yank it out. Chloe watch­es him unzip the bag. Bernie extracts a hand­ful of glass vials. He removes a box of syringes.

The agate from Isla Negra is in his pock­et. Later, Chloe will tell him about Neruda, the poet she was enthralled with when they first met. When she recit­ed stan­zas about vol­ca­noes and pop­pies, he didn’t hear the words pre­cise­ly, but rather fol­lowed the nar­ra­tive through her mouth and eyes. It was med­ical school and he was stu­pe­fied with exhaus­tion. He heard the phras­es she offered as a music that was visu­al. It was a sequence of facial expres­sions, a tapes­try of geome­tries com­posed from flesh. Trajectories formed on her lips, which were rivers and bays with bridges, and exit­ed through her eyes, which were green wells and por­tals that could fore­tell the future.

Tell me what the stones know, he will com­mand lat­er. I want to be ini­ti­at­ed into the lan­guage of agates. Show me how they form bod­ies like infants and feed them­selves from stars. And Chloe will com­ply. She will find the capac­i­ty for jazz. It’s sim­ple. Saxophones mean spread your legs. Later, she’ll laugh at his WMD joke. Her throat will emit sounds that look like strings of rubies and sap­phires. She will fall down on her knees and explain every­thing. She will invent and impro­vise. He’ll help her remem­ber why she has a mouth.

“The usu­al?” Bernie asks, glass vials in his hand. He pre­pares a mix­ture that is two parts mor­phine, one part cocaine. He prefers the reverse. He taps the air bub­bles out of the two syringes. “We’ll cel­e­brate the birth of God ear­ly this year. Take a few weeks off. Reassess our position.”

Chloe appar­ent­ly agrees. She has removed her beige dress with the thin shoul­der straps. She isn’t wear­ing under­wear. She curls on her side on the leather sofa like a fawn at dusk. Bernie Roth reach­es for his wife. She extends her right arm, the one with the good veins. He injects her first. Then he injects himself.