The River at Night(3)

I leaned into the heavy doors of our charming but drafty 1920s brick building. Yanked skirt into place, tucked wind-whipped hair behind ears, jabbed at the going-up button. Five floors later the doors sucked open on the fancy new marble-floored lobby, which had felt empty since we let our receptionist go. An antiquated concept, receptionists, we’d been advised at our last come-to-Jesus meeting. Nobody wanders in from the street, after all, and those with appointments know to expect their visitors at the agreed-upon time. With our numbers so low overall, it was time to cut the wheat from the chaff, or whatever expression was used to send this lovely and kind—if a bit scattered—single mother of twin girls packing. But in the end I didn’t have much to say, considering my position as a graphic designer at Chef’s Illustrated had been cut in half just months before, my benefits shredded, and my corner office lost to our new Web developer, a toothy, twenty-five-year-old MIT grad named Sarah.

I tossed my purse on my desk, picked up the phone, and dialed.

“Pia Zanderlee,” she answered breathlessly.

“You okay?” I tapped my machine awake and inhaled the smell of hot German spice cookies and b?che de No?l. We’d been testing Christmas recipes from around the world the past few weeks. “You sound like you’re running.”

“I’m trying to make this eleven o’clock flight to Chicago.”

I heard muffled airport sounds in the background: kids crying, flight announcements, snippets of conversation amid the bustle of travel; sounds from lives I imagined were immeasurably more exciting than my own. “Should I call you back?”

“No, just . . . what’s up?”

“Well, I got that list and . . . what’s ‘wicking’?”

“It’s fabric that pulls sweat away from your skin, so you don’t get cold and get hypothermia.”

I googled wicking. An athletic young woman jogged across the screen. Animated steam flowed out of her shirt and shorts. “What about coming with me to REI sometime, help me pick out some of this stuff?”

“I don’t know, Win, maybe. I’ve got a pretty full schedule till we head out.”

But you live one town away, I thought. What’s the big deal? Help me navigate this terrifying list you sent. “You traveling a lot these days?”

“Just this one trip for work. I’m back Thursday.” I heard her drop the phone, then pick it up. “Everything okay, Win?”

“Yeah, great, just . . . you know, wanted to be ready for the trip.” I cleared my throat. “So . . . will there be bears, do you think?”

Pia laughed. I pictured her: tall and graceful as she stood in line for her flight, chestnut hair shining under bright airport lights. Confidence emanating from her; an utter lack of self--consciousness making heads turn. People mused, How do I know her? From television? The movies? Somewhere . . . “We’re gonna be fine, Win. Bears don’t care about us. You leave them alone, they leave you alone.”

“What are water shoes?”

“Can I call you when I land?”

“Sure,” I said, knowing she would forget. A few taps on my keyboard brought up shoes, amphibious.

“Go to REI. You’ll be cool. I’ll see you in a few weeks.” She hung up.

Loneliness occupied the air around me, even buzzing as it was with chatter, with activity, with sounds and smells. I thought it would be fun, I mentally said to the dial tone, to go to REI together. To laugh about amphibious shoes. To hang out and catch up before we go on the trip. You know, like friends do.

? ? ?

Alissa, one of an endless parade of college-age interns we cycled through Chef’s, joined me at my desk. She wore a sad black dress inexplicably off the shoulder, an odd choice for such a cold morning, her pale flesh sprayed with freckles. I tugged at my turtleneck, trying to remember the last time I’d even made a stab at such a casually sexy look.

“So,” I said as I pulled up the May issue, “what brings you to graphic design? Are you a closet fine artist?”

Her eyes were bright blue but oddly sparkless. “No. I can’t draw at all.”

“But you want to be a pixel pusher? A Photoshop queen like me?”

“I guess,” she said. “I couldn’t think of anything else to do.” She crossed pasty white hands in her lap and stared at my screen.

Wow, I thought, if you’re this uninspired by life at your age, you’ll be a corpse by the time you’re thirty. But I held back from sharing how I mastered graphic design in the dark ages with T squares and X-Acto knives. I’d learned through experience that kids don’t think it’s cute or even interesting—who can blame them?—that you happen to be a dinosaur. It frankly scores you no points at all.

I also spared the poor girl my history as a fine arts major at the Massachusetts College of Art, where I met my now ex-husband, Richard Allen, a printmaking student I used to make love to in empty classrooms redolent of oil paint and turpentine. I didn’t disclose to Alissa that we knew our union was forever, that we swore to be artists no matter what it took, and that we were going to change the world.

Instead, I pulled out some “before” and “after” proofs. “My job is to make the food look even better than it is—better than Suzanne can make it look, even with all her lenses and filters. See? I toned down the red in the red velvet cake here, got the frosting to glisten, sexed up the greens in the arugula, painted some dewdrops on the tomatoes . . .”