Chapter 58 Jake

CHAPTER 58 JAKE

2013

Cabo

My husband, Danny, is one of those do-gooders; a recovering alcoholic who believes in the karmic energy of the world and the obligation all of us have to try, as best we can, to keep our ledgers balanced. How we came to fall in love is another story for another day, but being with Danny meant my days in the closet were over, and now that I was on the other side—well, good-fucking-riddance to all that lying. Being closeted can make you angry. Without even knowing why, you’re acting like humanity is rotten at the core because how could a world denying love be any good at all? And forget about empathy; that’s just something people discuss on afternoon talk shows.

We went to Cabo for our honeymoon. In the middle of that week, we were sitting side by side on lounge chairs; he was sipping an herbal tea and me a black coffee with cream. The crazy thing about that day is that I was already thinking about Sidney Collins, which was never a welcome or pleasant thought. But anytime a restaurant or coffee shop had a particular type of pourer—porcelain white with silver accents—for their cream, I thought of that years-ago interview with Sidney at the Blue Star.

I was dreading having to tell Danny what I’d done. But I knew I needed to.

The New York Times was folded under my arm, and I leaned back and cracked it open in front of me, one of those small joys I’d come to notice and appreciate thanks to Danny. Right there, right in the middle of the Arts section, was the headline T HE V ERY L AST C OMING TO B ROADWAY —F INALLY . Each day I didn’t tell Danny was a day I’d have to explain why I’d taken so long. Our honeymoon was at least pretty damn early on the timeline of ’til death do us part.

I read the accompanying article and learned that The Very Last would be debuting on Broadway the following year, seven years after the original book had published, and after many delays because no director was willing to compromise on their vision for what The Core would look like. Creating the illusion of lowlands and rowboats in a postapocalyptic New York City was, apparently, always more expensive than even the shrewdest pencil pushers could budget. But, according to the article, they’d finally found a producer willing to foot the bill, and it was estimated that it would be the most expensive Broadway play in history. Nobody had yet been attached, but the ever-elusive Cate Kay was said to have—from her cave in the wild or shed atop a mountain or outpost in the stars—given her blessing to the stage adaptation.

I read the article twice. Then a third time. Finally, I folded the paper in half, then again, and laid it on my lap. My legs were extended in front of me and crossed at the ankles. Danny was to my right looking at his phone. I’d taught him well: the day couldn’t begin until the crossword puzzle was done. He sensed my attention and looked up, asking, “We ready to rumble?”

“Almost,” I said. “Just one small thing first—if you have a minute?”

He tossed his phone onto the chair and said, “All the minutes for you, whatcha got?” His hair was buzzed short all the way around because he was insecure about his hairline, and he had this tic of running his hand over his head like he was making sure it was all still there, which he was doing just then.

“I know this probably isn’t the perfect time to tell you this,” I said. “But it’s come up twice for me today and you know how you’re always saying ‘the power of now’?”

“I mean, yes,” he chimed in, “but technically that’s the title of a book, not my own personal saying.”

The man didn’t even want to plagiarize during an interpersonal conversation, that’s the level of integrity I was dealing with, and realizing that did not make me feel better about what I was about to say. I reached over and took a sip of my coffee.

“All right, so,” I said, exhaling sharply on “so” as a way of indicating I was going to dive into the deep end on this.

“I did this thing a few years back. I wasn’t in a good place back then, which isn’t an excuse, but I’m just telling you for context. And I said yes to this offer that came my way, to do something that wasn’t illegal—nothing like that—but certainly wasn’t what you might consider moral . It kinda haunts me still and, well, I wanted you to know, I guess because we’re…” I paused for the briefest of moments.

“Married,” he jumped in before I could finish.

“Married is what I was going to say.” I gave him a look like Patience, please. This micro interaction distracted me, but only for a second, from the much bigger thing I was trying to say.

“Thank you for sharing,” he said slowly. “But that was incredibly vague. Let’s pretend this is an elevator pitch, or the caption on a photo, and your job is to convey as much information as possible in as few words as possible.”

I really did love him.

“Okay,” I said, then I did a couple rapid rounds of breathing like I was a weightlifter preparing for a world record attempt.

“Seven years ago, a woman named Sidney Collins called and asked me to make one semi-threatening phone call that I believe was to the actual Cate Kay, then this Sidney Collins paid me a bunch of money to never publish anything else about Cate Kay. The whole thing was—yeah, suspicious.”

After a long moment, he leaned back and batted his hands at the air like something terrible was attacking him. (He had been a theater major at the University of Virginia.)

I said, “That bad?,” which was of course rhetorical. I knew it was that bad , otherwise it wouldn’t have haunted me this whole time.

“Jake, what the fuck? What in the actual fuck?”

“Please, and I say this earnestly, be more eloquent than that so I can know what you’re really thinking and if I need to do something about this?”

He looked deeply into his tea, took a sip, then met my eyes and raised his eyebrows as he inhaled. Later that night, we’d do the dirty work of how this would affect our relationship, but right then he wanted action—from me.

“What did you say to her, to Cate Kay?”

The man was detail oriented. These weren’t memories I necessarily wanted to plumb, but the only way out was through.

“I told her I knew that her anonymity was because she was involved in a death in her hometown,” I said. “Those were the exact words—‘death in your hometown.’?”

“And was that true?”

“I mean, she hung up the phone,” I said. “Clearly something about it was real.”

He cocked his head, which is what he did when I tried to sell him some bullshit.

“I don’t know if it was true,” I said. “Part of the deal was signing an NDA, walking away from the story.”

“Call this Sidney Collins and tell her to make it right, or else you’ll break your NDA and go public.”

“Impossible.”

“Call her.” He glanced at my iPhone, which was on the table next to my coffee. “Call her and tell her if she doesn’t make it right, you’ll write a story about the whole thing. And after you do that, we’re going to write a letter to Cate Kay apologizing.”

“And if this powerful lawyer threatens to sue me?”

He dramatically pressed his hands into his legs and went to stand up, but I reached over and touched his arm, gently pushing him back down.

“Okay,” I said. “Okay. Just give me a minute.”

It was late morning in New York. Sidney Collins answered on the first ring.