Cord wanted the night to be flawless. He’d selected ten kinds of cheese, his last remaining vice. Not only had he ordered a pasta maker and rolling pin from Amazon Prime Now but he’dused them,reveling in his flour-coated hands, turning the wooden handle to create lovely strands of fettuccine, which he’d strung from wire hangers around the living room to dry. There was a bag of salad. Warm baguettes from Levain. And the pièce de résistance, a flourless chocolate torte it had taken Cord three times to get right. Three times! He had actually made two failed tortes (one a sinkhole, one burned) before triumphing withnuméro trois.
By the time the torte, now cooling elegantly on a platter, was served, Cord imagined he’d be betrothed, cozied up on the faux Herman Miller divan. After years of mean and unattractive lovers, a wedding in his mom’s Savannah backyard. He could see himself in his mind’s eye: his still-full head of sandy brown hair, his toned six-foot-two physique, just a hint of sexy “I was at the beach and forgot to shave” stubble. His eyes pale blue, like Charlotte’s. He looked a lot like her, in fact, but younger, taller, and macho. With a man’s haircut. And stubble.
Cord looked out the kitchen window of his apartment on West Eighty-sixth and Riverside. He’d probably never stood here in the afternoon; the light on the trees was sort of sad and pale.
His father had told him to be strong, to be a man. Cord wished he could ask his father about the lonely voice. Had Winston heard it, too? If nothing else, Cord’s father had shown by example what could happen if you let your demons take you down.
Cord put his shoulders back. He walked to the sink and poured the champagne down the drain, all of it. He inhaled the smell, which made him feel both ill and desperate for oblivion.
Day 534.
En route to the shower, Cord paused in his dining room. He’d set the table with care: silver salt and pepper shakers, brand-new Williams-Sonoma place settings, a tablecloth and pressed napkins. And one elegant rose.
The shower was too hot and too hard, but if you wanted prewar, you had to roll with the punches. As Cord lathered up, he allowed himself to picture the backyard of his mother’s townhome, lined with azalea bushes. They could erect a pergola for the ceremony, hire some Savannah caterer. Cord pictured himself in a linen Cucinelli suit, holding a mini crab cake. But try as he might, he couldn’t insert Charlotte into the scene. She’d be crying in her golf cart, more likely, or pulling a Blanche DuBois at her makeup table, topping off her glass of crap Chardonnay. Cord put his mother out of his mind. This was his life, maybe his last chance. He’d handle his mother in due time. She’d still love him if she knew him, wouldn’t she?
“What matters,” his AA sponsor had told him, “is that you love yourself. Do you hear me?” Cord had nodded, scoffing inwardly at yet another AA platitude. Love yourself? What did that even mean?
—
CORD SHAVED, USING THEhorsehair soap brush his older sister, Lee, had sent from Los Angeles for his thirty-sixth birthday. (Poor Lee. She tried to act successful, but they all knew she was struggling, even doing that tampon commercial and the Walmart Summer Shoes flyer. She’d always had excellent toes.)
As he surveyed his closet with a towel around his waist, Cord’s chocolate Labrador, Franklin, plodded into the bedroom. “Hi, you,” said Cord, scratching behind the dog’s ears. And then, as he was about to reach for an ice-blue shirt (to match his eyes), Cord heard an awful heaving sound. Alarmed, he turned to see dear Franklin vomiting on Cord’s Louis Vuitton sneakers. “What are you doing?” he asked, panicking. “What are you doing, Franklin? What are you doing?”
Cord ran to find a dish towel, realizing in moments that his dog had eaten every last handmade noodle. And in the kitchen, all that remained of the “Marry Me?” torte were a few wet crumbs. Cord’s buzzer rang, and Giovanni’s rich voice came over the intercom. “You gave me a key!” Giovanni sang. “I’m letting myself in!”
As he surveyed the wreckage of his careful plans, Cord jammed his fists into his eyes, breathing in deeply. From the bedroom, his beloved dog continued to retch.
Giovanni burst into the apartment, a bottle of Italian lemonade in one hand, a lit cigarette in the other. “Thank God it’s Friday!” he cried, but then he halted. Bewilderment transformed his young and lovely face. “Honey?” he said.
Cord swiped the tears from his eyes. Giovanni came close, wrapped Cord in his arms, and rested his head against Cord’s chest. Franklin slunk into the kitchen and collapsed at their feet. “What is it?” said Giovanni. “Honey, what is it?”
“It’s…” said Cord. How could he possibly express all the feelings crashing around inside him? His knowledge that he would be abandoned, coupled with the fierce desire to hang on to love…his sense that something was wrong and that he had to fix it, but had no idea what it even was? His yearning to be drunk and how much he missed his mother and the way Giovanni’s smile changed the color of everything, brightening his days as if a heavy curtain had finally been lifted…
“What?” said Giovanni.
“It’s that I love you,” whispered Cord.
REGAN SLOWED HER WALMARTshopping cart and allowed herself to touch a bag of rat poison. What drink would mask the taste of a RatX pellet? A strong cinnamon latte from Starbucks? She imagined the first sip, the strychnine convulsions beginning…But no: She’d already run that scenario. As appealing as it was, rat poison wasn’t going to play out. And Regan was in for the long game.
After her Walmart errands, Regan headed to her favorite spot, Monet’s Playhouse at the Oglethorpe Mall. When she had begun painting pottery, Regan had pretended she was waiting for a friend, or creating a gift for a child’s birthday. She’d even dragged her daughters along a few times, enduring their fidgety annoyance to get her fix. But she was beyond the subterfuge now. Kendall, the Monet’s Playhouse manager, knew and accepted Regan, who perhaps kept them afloat.
“Oh, hey, Mrs. Willingham,” said Kendall, as Regan perused the ceramic figurines.
“Good morning, Kendall,” said Regan.
“You doing good?” said Kendall.
Regan nodded, smiling, not correcting Kendall’s grammar. She picked up a large white dinosaur bank. She could paint it turquoise, or green.
“There’s a monkey bank, too,” said Kendall. “And one there with two cats snuggled up.”
Regan nodded. She knew about the monkey bank: she had three of them in her secret pottery cupboard at home. She had four dinosaurs, too, and countess salt and pepper shakers, plates, platters, and ceramic wine goblets. Clearly, her Monet’s Playhouse purchases were not items she’d actually use. But sitting inside the cheerful studio made her calm. In Monet’s Playhouse, Regan could ignore the desperate sense that her life was a car that had hit a wall, crumpled, and remained still and broken, no air bags deploying, no metaphorical ambulance en route. No: Her life had sailed over the guardrail into the air, then landed in an ocean of dread and ennui, sinking slowly, its inhabitant (Regan) running out of time, gasping, her metaphorical seatbelt (a symbol for marriage if ever there was one) jammed and holding her tight against her seat, ensuring her flailing, watery demise.
Regan listened to Kendall’s boy-band playlist as she squeezed paint onto a clean palette. She selected brushes of various sizes.
Regan had thought she’d be an artist once. Sometimes, when she opened her secret pottery cupboard, sitting cross-legged on the floor and admiring her glossy creations, she felt as if perhaps shewasan artist. Sure, she’d jettisoned her schooling to hold on to Matt, to make a generous, lush life that was the opposite of her penny-pinching childhood. But Regan went to the mall every few days and painted, feeling as if she were under a happy spell, making something from generic molds, something that hadn’t existed before and wouldn’t exist without her careful, constant work. And wasn’t that the point of art? (And, come to think of it, motherhood? Life itself?)
When Regan had finished painting the dinosaur bank, she gave it to Kendall for firing and set down her credit card.
