On Turpentine Lane(56)

“I will.”

“When?”

“As soon as I get to my studio.”

“I thought you have a place to paint in Tracy’s mansion.”

“There you go again. It’s not a mansion. Yes, I do. But I meant my studio on Gainsborough. You know I kept that, of course? And Tracy doesn’t necessarily have to hear me raise my voice with your mother. Our last conversation was adversarial. I just want to say that if the shoe was on the other foot, and your mother had found her soul mate I’d be genuinely happy for her.”

“You’d be relieved! You left her and found potency and passion, so why shouldn’t she?”

“Faith,” he said. “We have a lot to work on, you and I.”

I said again, “Call Mom. All she wants to tell you is that the police are occupying my basement and I’m having sex.”

“He’s a good man, this Nick? A good partner? A mensch? Because you want to pick someone with whom you could have an amicable divorce.”

“Now there’s a goal.”

“I do love you,” he whispered. “Tracy’s two girls . . . well, they remind me every day of what a reasonable child you were.”

“Nice to hear,” I said. Trouble in paradise, I thought.





35





Codes of Conduct


NICK AND I considered taking the offensive and informing Human Resources that a new day had dawned. We’d quote the sentence in the ECD sexual harassment manual prohibiting romantic relationships between a manager and employee—so clearly not the case between equals.

But HR was staffed by gossips; word would get around, codes of conduct might be baselessly cited, and we’d have Reggie’s smirking to contend with. So we stuck with our usual office collegiality, which required us to be our own two-person acting troupe, fund-raising in tandem without touching, still driving to work in separate cars, teasing each other within Reggie’s earshot about imaginary social lives.

We found this endlessly amusing, which gave the most routine, gray, subfreezing days some added color. We did eat lunch together more often, our brown bags packed that morning, side by side in various states of undress, at our speckled Formica counter. Sometimes our sandwiches and snacks matched; sometimes our knees touched under the cafeteria table. Did anyone notice? Let them.

And then came the trustees’ retreat in the Berkshires. The whole Development team, minus me, packed up for the last weekend in January. I drew the short straw for the stated reason that my specialty was long-distance epistolary fund-raising, but everyone knew the real reason was to save the school money. Reggie and Nick could share a room at the conference center, whereas female me would, theoretically, need a single.

Back on campus, assigned to hold down the Development fort as if that carried the most prestige, I was in close touch with Nick. He’d text or call between meetings and after hours. If roommate Reggie was present, Nick would say, “Um, can’t talk,” or “Not a good time,” and I’d say, “Got it. Reggie’s there.”

“Exactly.”

Due to the frequency of these cryptic “can’t talks,” followed by Nick’s too-long disappearances, allegedly to fill their ice bucket or find a newspaper, Reggie grew suspicious. Finally, Reggie asked, “Okay, dude. Who is she?”

What followed was reported to me by Nick upon his return, over my welcome-home lamb stew and mashed potatoes. He’d told Reggie the truth for this reason: our playacting was one thing, but lying when asked a very direct question struck him as unnecessary, cheap, even disloyal to me. He did not want to dissemble about what now constituted “us.” So when Reggie asked, “Who is she?” Nick said, “I think you can guess.”

“Did he?”

“Sort of.”

When I pressed him, Nick said, “I swear it was in a kind of awe, and . . . and . . . definitely a thumbs-up—‘Not Frankel?’?”

“And you said . . .”

“?‘Of course it’s Frankel!’?”

“Then . . . ?”

“He’s such an asshole! Okay—he asked who made the first move and . . . how is she?”

“How am I what?”

“In the sack.”

“No!”

“Yes! So I said, ‘You know, Reg, even between us guys, that’s a pretty throwback question, and you realize it constitutes sexual harassment because you’re my manager.’ Of course, that didn’t shut him up. I believe the next question was ‘Are you going to sell one of the cars. If so, which one? Any chance the VW Golf?’?”

First I laughed, then asked the recurrent rhetorical question, “How the hell did he get to be head of a department?”

“QB1. Have you forgotten that?”

Impossible to forget. Reggie’s office was a shrine to his varsity glory days, a whole console table devoted to trophies and framed photos. His Everton diploma, double matted in the school colors, hung above it, and in a clear Lucite box, Windexed at the first sign of a fingerprint, the sacred pigskin that scored some career-making touchdown.

“Now what?” I asked. “Now that he knows about us?”

“I told him I didn’t want to hear about this at work. No leering. No stupid jokes. We were professionals. At least you and I are.”