rid and I are at the Riviera Theater, dancing our tiny brains out to the
dulcet tones of Iggy Pop. Ingrid and I are always happiest together when we are
dancing or fucking or anything else that involves physical activity and no talking.
Right now we are in heaven. We're way up front and Mr. Pop is whipping us all
into a compact ball of manic energy. I told Ing once that she dances like a German
and she didn't like it, but it's true: she dances seriously, like lives are hanging in
the balance, like precision dancing can save the starving children in India. It's
great. The Iggster is crooning " Calling Sister Midnight: well, I'm an idiot for you..."
and I know exactly how he feels. It's moments like this that I see the point of me
and Ingrid. We slash and burn our way through Lust for Life, China Doll, Funtime.
Ingrid and I have taken enough speed to launch a mission to Pluto, and I have
that weird high-pitched feeling and a deep conviction that I could do this, be
here, for the rest of my life and be perfectly content. Ingrid is sweating. Her white
T-shirt has glued itself to her body in an interesting and aesthetically pleasing
way and I consider peeling it off of her but refrain, because she's not wearing a
bra and I'll never hear the end of it. We dance, Iggy Pop sings, and sadly,
inevitably, after three encores, the concert finally ends. I feel great. As we file out
with our fellow elated and pumped-up concertgoers, I wonder what we should
do next, Ingrid takes off to go and stand in the long line for the ladies' room, and I
wait for her out on Broadway. I'm watching a yuppie in a BMW argue with a
valet-parking kid over an illegal space when this huge blond guy walks up to
me.
"Henry?" he asks. I wonder if I'm about to be served with a court summons or
something.
"Yeah?"
"Clare says hello." Who the hell is Clare?
"Sorry, wrong number." Ingrid walks up, looking once again like her usual
Bond Girl self. She sizes up this guy, who's a pretty fine specimen of guyhood. I
put my arm around her.
The guy smiles. "Sorry. You must have a double out there." My heart
contracts; something's going on that I don't get, a little of my future seeping into
now, but now is not the moment to investigate. He seems pleased about
something, and excuses himself, and walks away.
"What was that all about?" says Ingrid.
"I think he thought I was someone else." I shrug. Ingrid looks worried. Just
about everything about me seems to worry Ingrid, so I ignore it. "Hey, Ing, what
shall we do next?" I feel like leaping tall buildings in a single bound.
"My place?"
"Brilliant." We stop at Margie's Candies for ice cream, and soon we're in the
car chanting "I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream" and laughing
like deranged children. Later, in bed with Ingrid, I wonder who Clare is, but then
I figure there's probably no answer to that, so I forget about it.
Friday, February 18, 2005 (Henry is 41, Clare is 33)
Henry: I'm taking Charisse to the opera. It's Tristan und Isolde. The reason I am
here with Charisse and not Clare has to do with Clare's extreme aversion to
Wagner. I'm not a huge Wagnerite either, but we have season tickets and I'd just
as soon go as not. We were discussing this one evening at Charisse and Gomez's
place, and Charisse wistfully said that she'd never been to the opera. The upshot
of it all is that Charisse and I are getting out of a taxi in front of the Lyric Opera
House and Clare is at home minding Alba and playing Scrabble with Alicia,
who's visiting us this week.
I'm not really in the mood for this. When I stopped at their house to collect
Charisse, Gomez winked at me and said "Don't keep her out too late, son!" in his
best clueless-parent voice. I can't remember the last time Charisse and I did
anything by ourselves. I like Charisse, very much, but I don't have much of
anything to say to her.
I shepherd Charisse through the crowd. She moves slowly, taking in the
splendid lobby, marble and sweeping high galleries full of elegantly understated
rich people and students with faux fur and pierced noses. Charisse smiles at the
libretto vendors, two tuxedoed gents who stand at the entrance to the lobby
singing "Libretto! Libretto! Buy yourself a libretto!" in two-part harmony. No one
I know is here. Wagnerites are the Green Berets of opera fans; they're made of
sterner stuff, and they all know each other. There's a lot of air kissing going on as
Charisse and I walk upstairs to the mezzanine.
Clare and I have a private box; it's one of our indulgences. I pull back the
curtain and Charisse steps in and says, "Oh!" I take her coat and drape it over a
chair, and do the same with mine. We settle ourselves. Charisse crosses her
ankles and folds her small hands in her lap. Her black hair gleams in the low soft
light, and with her dark lipstick and dramatic eyes Charisse is like an exquisite,
wicked child, all dressed up, allowed to stay up late with the grown-ups. She sits
and drinks in the beauty of the Lyric, the ornate gold and green screen that
shields the stage, the ripples of cascading plaster that rim every arch and dome,
the excited murmur of the crowd. The lights go down and Charisse flashes me a
grin. The screen rises, and we are on a boat, and Isolde is singing. I lean back in
my chair and lose myself in the current of her voice.
Four hours, one love potion, and a standing ovation later, I turn to Charisse.
"Well, how did you like it?"
She smiles. "It was silly, wasn't it? But the singing made it not silly."
I hold out her coat and she feels around for the arm hole; finds it and shrugs
on the coat. "Silly? I guess. But I'm willing to pretend that Jane Egland is young
and beautiful instead of a three-hundred-pound cow because she has the voice of
Euterpe."
"Euterpe?"
"The muse of music." We join the stream of exiting, satiated listeners.
Downstairs we flow out into the cold. I march us up Wacker Drive a bit and
manage to snare a cab after only a few minutes. I'm about to give the cabbie
Charisse's address when she says, "Henry, let's go have coffee. I don't want to go
home yet." I tell the cabbie to take us to Don's Coffee Club, which is on Jarvis, at
the northern edge of the city. Charisse chats about the singing, which was
sublime; about the sets, which we both agree were not inspired; about the moral
difficulties of enjoying Wagner when you know he was an anti-Semitic asshole
whose biggest fan was Hitler. When we get to Don's, the joint is jumping; Don is
holding court in an orange Hawaiian shirt and I wave to him. We find a small
table in the back. Charisse orders cherry pie a la mode and coffee, and I order my
usual peanut butter and jelly sandwich and coffee. Perry Como is crooning from
the stereo and there's a haze of cigarette smoke drifting over the dinette sets and
garage sale paintings. Charisse leans her head on her hand and sighs.
"This is so great. I feel like sometimes I forget what it was like to be a
grown-up."
"You guys don't go out much?"
Charisse mushes her ice cream around with her fork, laughs. "Joe does this.
He says it tastes better if it's mushy. God, I'm picking up their bad habits instead
of them learning my good ones." She eats a bite of pie. "To answer your
question, we do go out, but it's almost always to political stuff. Gomez is
thinking about running for alderman."
I swallow my coffee the wrong way and start to cough. When I can talk again I
say, "You're joking. Isn't that going over to the dark side? Gomez is always
slamming the city administration."
Charisse gives me a wry look. "He's decided to change the system from
within. He's burned out on horrible child abuse cases. I think he's convinced
himself that he could actually improve things if he had some clout."
"Maybe he's right."
Charisse shakes her head. "I liked it better when we were young anarchist
revolutionaries. I'd rather blow things up than kiss ass."
I smile. "I never realized that you were more radical than Gomez."
"Oh, yeah. Actually, it's just that I'm not as patient as Gomez. I want action."
"Gomez is patient?"
"Oh, sure. I mean, look at the whole thing with Clare-" Charisse abruptly
stops, looks at me.
"What whole thing?" I realize as I ask the question that this is why we are
here, that Charisse has been waiting to talk about this. I wonder what she knows
that I don't know. I wonder if I want to know what Charisse knows. I don't think I
want to know anything.
Charisse looks away, and then back at me. She looks down at her coffee, puts
her hands around the cup. "Well, I thought you knew, but, like- Gomez is in love
with Clare."
"Yes." I'm not helping her out with this.
Charisse is tracing the grain of the table's veneer with her finger. "So.. .Clare
has been telling him to take a hike, and he thinks that if he just hangs in there
long enough, something will happen, and he'll end up with her."
"Something will happen...?"
"To you." Charisse meets my eyes.
I feel ill. "Excuse me" I say to her. I get up and make my way to the tiny
Marilyn Monroe-plastered bathroom. I splash my face with cold water. I lean
against the wall with my eyes closed. When it becomes obvious that I'm not
going anywhere I walk back into the cafe and sit down. "Sorry. You were
saying?"
Charisse looks scared and small. "Henry," she says quietly. "Tell me."
"Tell you what, Charisse?"
"Tell me you aren't going anywhere. Tell me Clare doesn't want Gomez. Tell
me everything's going to work out. Or tell me it's all shit, I don't know-just tell
me what happens!" Her voice shakes. She puts her hand on my arm, and I force
myself not to pull away.
"You'll be fine, Charisse. It'll be okay." She stares at me, not believing and
wanting to believe. I lean back in my chair. "He won't leave you."
She sighs. "And you?"
I am silent. Charisse stares at me, and then she bows her head. "Let's go
home," she says, fina