Lunar Park

18. spago

A Spago had appeared off Main Street last April, almost twenty years to the day after the original had opened above Sunset Boulevard in L.A., and where I first took Blair in the cream-colored 450 SL after an Elvis Costello concert at the Greek Theatre, and at a window table overlooking the city I told her that I’d been accepted by Camden and that I was leaving for New Hampshire at the end of August and she fell silent for the rest of dinner. (Blair, a girl from Laurel Canyon, had actually quoted Fleetwood Mac’s “Landslide” on her senior page in the Buckley yearbook, which made me silently cringe at the time, but now, twenty years later, the couplet she chose moved me to tears.) When Jayne and I entered the restaurant it was already half-empty. We were seated at a window table and our waiter had shiny hair and was midway through reciting the specials when he recognized Jayne, at which point his drone became falsely chipper, his timidity activated by her presence. I noticed this. Jayne did not, because she was staring at me sadly, and her expression didn’t change when I ordered a Stoli and grapefruit juice. She accepted this and ordered a glass of the house Viognier. We touched hands across the table. Her eyes wandered away and out the window; it was cold and Main Street’s storefronts were darkened and a traffic light swung above an empty intersection, flashing a yellow light. We were both less stern. We’d become simplified, anchored, nothing was shifting or panicked here between the two of us, and we wanted to be tender with each other.

“First the man takes a drink, then the drink takes a drink, and then the drink takes the man,” she was murmuring.

I smiled apologetically. Ordering a cocktail had been so natural an act that I hadn’t even thought about it. It had been involuntary. “I’m sorry . . .”

“Why are you having a drink?” she asked.

“It’ll be my reward vodka?”

“How did I know you’d say something shitty like that?” But there was no rancor in her voice, and we were still holding hands in the dimness of the restaurant.

“Do you really want to be here this week?” Jayne asked.

It was as if the intensity of the heartfelt plea—on my knees, with my head bowed—in Dr. Faheida’s office had vanished from memory. But then I thought, During that impassioned speech, were you thinking only of yourself? “What do you mean? Where else would I want to be?”

“Well, I thought maybe you’d want to take a week off.” She shrugged. “Marta will be there. And Rosa.”

“Jayne—”

“Or you could come to Toronto with me.”

“Hey,” I said, leaning forward. “You know that would definitely not work out.”

“You’re right, you’re right.” She shook her head. “That was a dumb idea.”

“It wasn’t a dumb idea.”

“I just thought maybe you’d like to go someplace. Have a vacation.”

“I’ve got nowhere else to go.” I was doing my Richard Gere in An Officer and a Gentleman impersonation. “I’ve got nowhere else to go . . .”

She laughed lightly, and it didn’t seem faked, and we squeezed hands again.

Then I decided to tell her. “Well, I’m up for this Harrison Ford thing and they might want to meet this week.” I paused. “In L.A.”

“I think that’s great,” Jayne said.

Though I wasn’t surprised by her enthusiasm, I said, “Really?”

“Yeah. You should definitely think about it.”

“It would only be for a day or two,” I said.

“Good. I hope you do it.”

Suddenly I asked, “Why do you stay with me?”

“Because . . .” She sighed. “Because . . . I get you, I guess.”

“Yet all I do is disappoint you,” I muttered guiltily. “All I do is disappoint everybody.”

“You have potential.” She stopped. The unspecific comment was transformed into something else by her tenderness. “There was a time when you made me laugh and you were . . . kind . . .” She paused again. “And I believe that will happen again.” She lowered her head and didn’t look up for a long time.

“You’re acting like this is the end of the world,” I said softly.

The waiter came with our drinks. He pretended to recognize Jayne only now and grinned widely at her. She acknowledged this and offered a sad smile. He warned us that the kitchen would be closing soon, but this didn’t really register. I noticed people slipping away from the bar. There was a whirlpool in the center of the dining room. After Jayne sipped her wine she let go of my hand and asked, “Why didn’t we work on this more?” Pause. “I mean in the beginning . . .” Another pause. “Before we broke up.”

“I don’t know.” It was the only answer I could come up with. “We were too young?” I guessed. “Could that have been it?”

“You never trusted my feelings,” she murmured to herself. “I don’t think you ever really believed I liked you.”

“That’s not true at all,” I said. “I did. I did know that. I just . . . wasn’t ready.”

“And you are now? After one particularly volatile session?”

“On the volatility scale I would say that was only about a seven.”

And then after we both tried to smile, I said, “Maybe you never really understood me.” I said this in the same soft voice I had been using since we entered the restaurant. “You say that you did. But maybe you didn’t. Not really.” I thought about this. “Maybe not enough to resolve anything? But that was probably my fault. I was just this . . . hidden person and—”

“Who made it so impossible to resolve anything.” She finished the sentence.

“I want to now. I want to make things work out . . . and . . .” My foot found hers beneath the table. And then I had a flash: Jayne standing alone over a grave in a charred field at dusk, and this image forced me to admit, “You’re right about something.”

“What?”

“I am afraid of being alone.”

You stumble into a nightmare—you grasp for salvation.

“I’m afraid of losing you . . . and Robby . . . and Sarah . . .”

If something is written, can it be unwritten?

I tensed when I said, “Don’t go,” even though this wasn’t meant literally.

“I’ll only be gone a week.”

I thought about the week that had just passed. “That’s a long time.”

“ ‘There’s always summer,’ ” she said wistfully, a famous line from a movie she had made—the elusive love interest who strands the fiancé at the altar.

“Don’t go,” I said again.

She was unfolding a napkin. She was quietly crying.

“What?” I reached for her. I felt the corners of my mouth sag.

“That’s the first time you’ve ever said that to me.”

This would be the last dinner I ever had with Jayne.