You Think It, I'll Say It(58)
“When the tape was released about grabbing women by the pussy and all these men suddenly said, ‘As a father of girls, I object’—was that how you felt? Like, I’m cool with him saying terrible things about Mexican people and Muslims, but this is too much?”
“I was never cool with Trump’s racism.”
“Are you a Republican?” Her accusatory tone, her clear antipathy—he’s simultaneously eager to move himself out of their line of fire and struck by a detached awareness of how different she’s become. He was initially lulled, misled, by her relatively unchanged appearance, but perhaps she’s hardly the same person at all. Because it’s not just that the Bishop version of Sylvia wouldn’t have directed this sort of hostility at him; it’s that he doesn’t believe such hostility existed in her.
“I’ve supported people in both parties,” he says. “I take it you’re a straight-ticket voter?”
“I guess it shouldn’t surprise me,” she says, and she seems less angry than pensive. “If you’re not in the one percent, you must be close. So why wouldn’t you be conservative? If not you, who?”
Is Sylvia McLellan now a social justice warrior? That seems a bit preposterous, in her cocktail dress and her dominatrix shoes, staying in what’s probably a four-hundred-dollar-a-night hotel.
Evenly, he says, “I’d describe myself as an independent. I kind of liked Bernie.”
She raises her eyebrows again, and says, “Maybe that shouldn’t surprise me, either.”
Mercifully, this is when the waitress appears to take their order. He asks for roasted chicken, and she orders braised beef, and when the waitress leaves, he says, “I know I’ll have entrée envy, but another thing about getting older is, I seriously think I get meat hangovers. With red meat, at least. But I salute you.”
And at first, he believes he’s successfully diverted her. They move on to talking about various diets, then about their respective exercise routines (he plays tennis a few times a week, while she tries to hike and ski but usually just works out on an elliptical machine in her basement), and she evinces interest in his Fitbit, which he removes and hands to her. Then they discuss where they’ve traveled over the years. But just after the waitress has cleared their plates, then taken an order for a cappuccino from him and another martini for her, Sylvia says, “I’ll tell you why I really called you. You know, in the spirit of honesty you showed.”
There’s something both rehearsed-seeming and sarcastic in her tone, something not reassuring. But as she continues speaking, she sounds more sincere. “My husband was laid off almost a year ago. Even with Nelson out of work, we’re okay—we can pay our mortgage. But we’re careful about money in a way we never had to be before. We don’t go out for nice dinners anymore, we stop and think before we sign the kids up for activities, even as we’re trying to shield them from the situation, and who knows if that’s a good idea? Grace is too young, but maybe it’d be better if we told the twins. Anyway, Nelson now tries to convince me it’s acceptable to give a ten-dollar Target gift card as a birthday present to their classmates, and it’s definitely not—you’re better off giving some shitty toy where at least the other parents don’t know the price. But I digress.” Sylvia sips from her glass. “Given that Nelson isn’t working, you might think he’d use his time to, like, make healthy family dinners, or exercise, or clean the garage. You know, life gives you lemons. Instead, he spends every day wearing this hideous pair of black track pants with two orange stripes down the side and playing online video games. Maybe I should be grateful he’s not looking at porn, or maybe he is looking at porn and telling me he’s playing video games—at some point, I don’t know if there’s much of a difference.”
“I’m sorry to hear all that,” Clay says.
“We’re about to get to the part that has to do with you,” she says. “If you’re wondering.”
Again, this does not reassure him.
“When we were at Bishop, I had a huge crush on you,” she says. “Which I assume you knew.”
In fact, he is stunned. He says, “On me?”
She laughs and then, perhaps in a parody of a southern belle, tilts her face up and bats her eyelashes. She says, “On little old me?”
But this really isn’t what he was expecting. He was imagining she was about to ask for some sort of job referral for her husband, or for an investment in a business they’re starting. And never at Bishop, not once, did it occur to him that she was interested in him in that way.
In her normal voice, she says, “Of course I liked you. Think about it. You were this good-looking, confident guy, you were nice to me, and we were around each other a lot.” She’s managing to make these remarks feel less like a compliment than a confession, possibly a reprimand. “Sometimes after we had those evening meetings with Dean Boede, I’d go back to my room and lie on my bed and cry because I loved you so much. I wanted to touch you so badly, and I wanted you to touch me, and there was nothing I could do to make it happen. It was like flirting was a language I didn’t speak. Plus, you had your whole harem of girls. Not just Meredith but Jenny, too, right? And I knew I wasn’t in the same league with either of them, I knew that liking you was liking above my station. But here you were, this eighteen-year-old lacrosse player, and your hands and your forearms were so beautiful I almost couldn’t stand it. When I think of Bishop, I probably should think about my well-rounded education or my time rowing on the river, but mostly I just remember feeling desperate with longing.” Although she’s now smiling, he has the impression that the smile is not for him but for her own younger self. And it’s still unclear what her ultimate point is, so he waits, saying nothing.