Having a goddamn panic attack, she realized. “Oh God,” she moaned, fighting off the anxiety that was making her head too light to hold down even as it made her legs too heavy to lift. “This is ridiculous. What am I going to do?”
Jess felt her eyes fill with tears and brushed them angrily aside. “I can’t believe I’m crying in the middle of goddamn Michigan Avenue,” she berated herself. “I can’t believe I’m
talking to myself
in the middle of goddamn Michigan Avenue!” Unlike the drug pushers and crazies along California Avenue, the well-heeled shoppers along Michigan Avenue were much more likely to notice, although no more likely to do anything about it.
She forced her feet toward a nearby bus stop, leaned against its side. Even through her jacket, it felt cold against her skin. She wouldn’t give in to this, she thought angrily. She would not let these stupid attacks get the better of her.
Think pleasant thoughts, she told herself. Think about getting a massage; think about a holiday in Hawaii; think about your baby nieces. She imagined their soft heads nestled against her cold cheeks, realized she was supposed to be at her sister’s house for dinner at six o’clock.
How could she go to her sister’s for dinner? What if she were still in the throes of an anxiety attack? What if she had another one in front of everybody? Did she really want to inflict her neuroses on those she loved most?
What’s family for? Maureen would undoubtedly ask.
Jess felt the bile rise in her throat. God, was she going to throw up? Throw up in the middle of goddamn Michigan Avenue? She counted to ten, then twenty, swallowing rapidly, once, twice, three times, before the feeling finally disappeared. “Take deep breaths,” Don used to tell her, so she did, filling her lungs with air, trying to keep from doubling over with the pain.
Nobody noticed her suffering. Pedestrians continued to file past, one even asked her the time. Not so different from California Avenue after all, she thought as a bus pulled to a halt in front of her and opened its doors, several people disembarking, pushing past her as if she weren’t there.
The driver waited several seconds for her to step in, shrugged his shoulders when she didn’t, closed the doors, and drove on. Jess felt the warm gust of dirty air from the bus’s exhaust against her face as the bus departed. It filled her eyes and nostrils. She found it oddly soothing.
Soon, her breathing started to normalize. She felt the color returning to her cheeks, the paralysis beginning to lift. “You’re okay now,” she told herself, pushing one leg in front of the other, stepping gingerly off the curb, as if stepping into a too hot bath. “You’re okay now. It’s over.”
The car came out of nowhere.
It happened so fast, was so unexpected, that, even as it was happening, Jess had the strange feeling it was happening to someone else. She was somewhere outside her body, watching the events alongside the half dozen spectators who quickly gathered at the scene. Jess felt a rush of air beside her, saw her body spinning like a top, took fleeting note of the white Chrysler as it disappeared around the corner. Only then did she return to the body kneeling on the side of the road. Only then did she feel the stinging at her knees and palms. Only then did she hear the voices.
“Are you all right?”
“My God, I thought you were a goner for sure.”
“He came this close! Missed you by not more than two inches!”
“I’m fine,” someone said, and Jess recognized the voice as her own. “I guess I wasn’t paying attention.” She wondered momentarily why she was accepting responsibility for something that was clearly not her fault. She’d almost been run down by a maniac in a white Chrysler who’d sped by and hadn’t even bothered to stop; she’d bruised her hands
and scraped her legs when she hit the pavement; her tweed jacket was streaked with grime; her panty hose were shredded at the knees. And she was feeling guilty about causing a scene. “I must have been daydreaming,” she apologized, rising shakily to her feet. “But it’s okay now. I’ll be fine.”
“I’ll be fine,” she repeated, limping toward the opposite corner and hailing a passing taxi, crawling inside. “I’ll be fine.”
J
ess pulled her red Mustang into the driveway of her sister’s large, white, woodframe house on Sheraton Road in Evanston at precisely three minutes before six o’clock. “You’ll be fine,” she told herself, turning off the ignition and gathering up the shopping bag containing wine and gifts from the seat beside her. “Stay calm, stay cool, don’t let Barry draw you into any silly arguments,” she continued, sliding out of the car and walking up the front walk to the large glass-paneled door. “Everything will be fine.”
The door opened just as her hand reached for the bell.
“Jess,” Barry said, his voice blowing down the tree-lined street like a gust of wind. Leaves swirled at her feet. “Right on time, as always.”
“How are you, Barry?” Jess stepped into the large cream-colored marble foyer.
“Never better,” came the instant reply. Barry always said “never better.” “How about you?”
“I’m fine.” She took a deep breath, thrust the bottle of wine in his direction. “It’s from Chile. The man in the liquor store said it came highly recommended.”
Barry examined the label closely, clearly skeptical. “Well, thank you, although I hope you won’t mind if we save it for another time. I already have some expensive French on ice. Here, let me help you off with your coat.” He discarded the wine on the small antique table to the left of the front door and started awkwardly pulling at her sleeve.
“It’s okay, Barry. I think I can manage on my own.”
“Well, at least let me hang it up for you.”
Jess decided against playing tug-of-war with Barry for her coat. “Is Maureen upstairs?”
“She’s putting the twins to bed.” He hung her coat in the closet and led her toward the predominantly rose-and-white-colored living room, accented by strong blocks of black: a black concert grand piano that took up much of the front part of the room, although nobody played; a black marble fireplace, in which a fire already roared.
“I’ll go upstairs and say hello. I bought them something.” Jess indicated the Marshall Field’s shopping bag in her hand.
“They’ll be awake again in a few hours. You’ll give it to them then.”
“Jess, is that you?” Maureen called from upstairs.
“Coming right up,” Jess answered, her body gravitating toward the center hall.
“Don’t you dare,” Maureen called back. “I’ve just got everybody settled. Stay and talk to Barry, I’ll be down in two minutes.”
“She’ll be down in two minutes,” Barry parroted. “So, what do you say? Think you can spend two minutes talking to your brother-in-law?”
Jess smiled and sat down in one of two white wing chairs across from Barry, who perched on the edge of the rose-colored sofa, as if ready to hang on her every word. Ready to pounce, more likely, Jess thought, wondering why she and Barry had never been able to connect. What was it about the man that rubbed her the wrong way? she wondered, conscious of his clear blue eyes recording her every gesture. He wasn’t ugly. He wasn’t stupid. He wasn’t overtly unpleasant.
Why could she only think of him in the negative? Surely there was more to the man than what he wasn’t.
She had tried to like him. When he’d married her sister some six years ago, Jess had assumed she would like anyone who made her sister happy. She’d been wrong.
Maybe it was the sneaky way he tried to mask his receding hairline by combing his thinning hair from one side of his head to the other that bothered her. Or the fact that his nails were better manicured than her own, that he boasted of flossing his teeth after every meal. Maybe it was his habit of always wearing a shirt and tie, even under a casual cardigan sweater, like tonight.
More likely it was the thinly veiled chauvinism of his remarks, she decided, his casually dismissive ways, the fact that he could never admit he was wrong. Or maybe it was the fact that he had taken a bright young graduate of the Harvard Business School and turned her into Total Woman, someone who was so busy decorating their house and producing babies that she had no time to think about
resuming her once promising career. What would their mother have thought?
“You look nice,” Barry told her. “That’s a lovely sweater. You should wear blue more often.”
“It’s green.”
“Green? No, it’s blue.”
Were they really arguing about the color of her sweater? “Can we settle for turquoise?” she asked.
Barry looked skeptical, shook his head. “It’s blue,” he pronounced, looking toward the fire. Barry always lit a perfect fire.
Jess took a deep breath. “So, Barry, how’s business?”
He tossed aside her inquiry with a wave of his hand. “You don’t really want to hear about my business.”
“I don’t?”
“Do you?”
“Barry, I asked you a simple question. If it’s going to get too complicated, then …”
“Business is great. Terrific. Couldn’t be better.”
“Good.”
“Not good.” He laughed. “Great. Terrific. Couldn’t be better.”
“Couldn’t be better,” Jess repeated, looking toward the stairs. What was keeping her sister?
“Actually,” Barry was saying, “I had quite a spectacular day today.”
“And what made it so spectacular?” Jess asked.
“I stole a very important client away from my former partner.” Barry chuckled. “The son of a bitch never saw it coming.”
“I thought you two were friends.”
“So did he.” The chuckle became a laugh. “Guy thinks he can screw me and get away with it.” He tapped his finger against the side of his head. “I never forget. I get even.”
“You get even,” Jess repeated.
“Hey, I didn’t do anything illegal.” He winked. “By the way, some information about a new type of individual retirement account crossed my desk this afternoon. It’s something I think you should take a look at. If you’d like, I could send the information on to you.”
“Sure,” Jess said. “That’d be great.”
“I think I’ll mention it to your dad as well.”
They both checked their watches. What was keeping her father? He knew how much she worried whenever he was late.
“How was
your
day?” Barry asked, managing to look as if he cared.
“Could have been better,” Jess replied sardonically, using Barry’s words, not really surprised when he failed to notice. I lost a case I was desperate to win, I had an anxiety attack in the middle of Michigan Avenue, and I was almost killed by a hit-and-run driver, but, hey, a woman said she liked my suit, so the day wasn’t a total loss, she continued silently.
“I don’t know how you stand it,” Barry was saying.
“Stand what?”
“Day after day of dealing with scum,” he said succinctly.
“I’m the one who gets to put the scum in jail,” she told him.
“When you win.”
“When I win,” she agreed sadly.
“I’ve got to hand it to you, Jess,” he said, jumping to his
feet. “I never thought you’d stick it out this long. What can I get you to drink?” He said the two sentences as if one naturally flowed from the other.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, would you like some wine or something more substantial?”
“Why wouldn’t you think I’d stick it out?” Jess asked, genuinely bewildered by his earlier remark.
He shook his head. “I don’t know. I guess I thought that you’d have opted for something more lucrative by now. I mean, with your grades, you could have gone anywhere you wanted.”
“I did.”
Jess saw the confusion settle behind Barry’s eyes. Clearly, her career choices were beyond his comprehension. “So, what can I get you to drink?” he asked again.
“A Coke would be great.”
There was a moment’s silence. “We stopped buying soft drinks,” he said. “We figure if we don’t keep soft drinks in the house, then Tyler won’t be tempted. Besides, you’re the only one who ever drinks them.”
It was Jess’s turn to look confused.
There was a sudden cascade of footsteps down the stairs and through the hallway. Jess saw an explosion of dark hair, enormous blue eyes, and small hands waving frantically in the air. In the next instant, her three-year old nephew was across the pink-and-white carpet and in her arms. “Did you buy me a present?” he said instead of hello.
“Don’t I always?” Jess reached beside her into the Marshall Field’s bag, trying to avoid the realization that her nephew was wearing a shirt and tie, similar to his father.
“Just a minute.” Barry’s voice was swift, stern. “We don’t get any presents until we’ve said our proper hellos. Hello, Auntie Jess,” he coached.
Tyler said nothing. Ignoring the boy’s father, Jess pulled a model airplane out of the bag and deposited it in her nephew’s waiting hands.
“Wow!” Tyler dropped off her lap onto the floor, studying the toy plane from all angles, whirling it through the air.
“What do we say?” Barry said, trying again, his voice tight. “Don’t we say thank-you, Auntie Jess?”
“It’s okay, Barry,” Jess told him. “He can thank me later.”
Barry looked as if the collar under his silk tie had suddenly shrunk two sizes. “I don’t appreciate your attempts to undermine my authority,” he pronounced.
“My attempts to what?” Jess asked. Surely, she must have misunderstood.
“You heard me. And don’t give me that innocent look. You know damn well what I’m talking about.”
Tyler ran happily between his father and his aunt, dipping his new plane between their hips and the floor, oblivious to the tension in the room.
Neither Barry nor Jess moved. Both stood in their respective positions, Barry by the sofa, Jess by her chair, as if waiting for something to happen, someone to interrupt.
“Isn’t the doorbell supposed to ring now or something?” Jess asked, grateful when she saw Barry’s jaw relax into a close approximation of a smile. If there was going to be an argument, and there was always an argument when she and Barry got together, it would not be her fault. She had promised herself that on the thirty-minute drive to the upper-class suburb from her apartment.
“Oh good,” Maureen said, suddenly appearing in the doorway. “You two are getting along.”