There was another woman. Tom had done everything he could to a.s.sure Hannah the woman was just a pen pal, and described what they had as that clever little word, a correspondence. But it was easy for Hannah to tell that her nemesis was no mere pal of the pen. She was more like a Playboy centerfold with stationery.
Tom met the woman six months ago, at a summer writing seminar in Prague. Hannah"s first warning sign came when she was relating the story to her best friend.
"He met her at some summer camp? What"d they do, sit around, toast marshmallows, and sing by the campfire?"
"It wasn"t a summer camp. It was a writing workshop."
"Oh," Nihan said, shaking out her cigarette match. "So they sat around, drank whiskey, and screwed."
As it happened, when Tom returned to Boston in September, he was somewhat aglow, but Hannah a.s.sumed that had something to do with renewed confidence and nutritious Czech food. True, he proceeded to commit to his work with inordinate enthusiasm-retreating from Hannah a bit in the process-but this seemed the natural consequence of a summer of encouragement. In fact, she thought she"d read something about that in the brochure. The brochure that had featured all kinds of attractive young writers, huddled in cl.u.s.ters of smiling excitement.
Back in college, when Tom was first courting her, Hannah used to tease him about his wavy brown locks and gold-rimmed spectacles.
"You"re too good-looking to be a poet." Five years later she"d learned better than to encourage him along those lines. But she did encourage his writing. So although he seemed distant, Hannah stood by her belief in the need for solitude and selfishness-of the good kind-when it came to one"s work. Nihan rolled her eyes.
"True intimacy embraces a certain distance," Hannah said.
"Sure," Nihan chuckled. "Whatever."
But Hannah let Tom have his s.p.a.ce and tried not to feel threatened. She reasoned that she would have every advantage over an opponent: She knew Tom, knew his weakness for World War II doc.u.mentaries, knew his secret dream of becoming a compet.i.tive Scrabble champion, knew he often laughed in his sleep. She understood that he considered himself to be "Capricorn, nonpracticing," and that he"d once set out to read the dictionary but had only gotten as far as D. When he was depressed he liked to go to the movies by himself, and when his back was giving him trouble, it sometimes helped if she walked on it for him. This nefarious newcomer would be no match for her-why, she lived with Tom (had the home-court advantage), and his would-be seductress didn"t even live in the same state.
But as soon as the leaves began to turn, her letters started to arrive. No, they couldn"t use e-mail like the rest of the world. Apparently the girl either had some quaint notion about the benefits of real paper and real penmanship or she was simply too dumb to know how to connect to a server. Before long, Hannah found herself resenting the postman and rethinking his holiday bonus of baked goods. And she would cringe at the heavy, eggsh.e.l.l-colored envelopes addressed with slanted loops of red ink-the felt-tipped marker of Satan"s minion, to be sure.
Hannah and Tom had a happy relationship built on five years of commitment and trust-qualities that were beginning to feel like small, cold pebbles compared with the heated rush of novelty. So when the New York postmark began showing up more and more frequently-sometimes twice in one week-Hannah started asking questions.
"What does she look like, anyway?" she said one Sat.u.r.day in October as she placed a stack of mail on the kitchen table. Tom glanced up from the paper just as the kettle began to hiss.
"Who?" he said, predictably.
"Girl." He and Hannah both knew who "girl" referred to; no use feigning ignorance. He turned a page and refolded the paper.
"Well, she"s blond," he said.
"Oh, she"s blond, is she?" Hannah said, as if blond were the Czech word for "f.e.l.l.a.t.i.o addict." Hannah was strawberry blond herself, with a dusting of freckles across her nose. "That figures," she muttered. "Go on," she said. "Continue."
"And she"s, well, I"d say she"s about your height." Five feet six inches of Hannah was standing in front of his chair. Tom scanned from her ankles to her eyebrows. "Yeah. Your height," he said. "If I had to guess."
Evidently, she was going to have to help him along.
"And b.r.e.a.s.t.s?" she said, crossing her arms.
"Yes. She has b.r.e.a.s.t.s."
"I knew it! So just what are these b.r.e.a.s.t.s of hers like?" Hannah"s b.r.e.a.s.t.s were a little on the small side, although perfectly shaped, well-rounded with pretty pink nipples.
"I wouldn"t know," Tom said. "I slept through the cla.s.s where everyone came topless."
Hannah stepped up and straddled his chair. "Don"t try to tell me you haven"t imagined what they"re like, mister," she said. She wagged her finger at him, in order to be herself and make fun of herself at the same time. "Even I"ve imagined what they"re like by now." Tom snapped at her finger with his teeth. "I mean it," she said. "Don"t make me hurt you."
"Please, hurt me!" he said. He pulled her into his lap. "Give the man a break," he said. "He doesn"t know what he"s doing. He isn"t all that sharp." He kissed her temple. "Besides, you know he"d pull the moon for you." He imagined Hannah knew full well he would, too. He also imagined Sydney"s b.r.e.a.s.t.s were magnificent: smooth and luscious.
Although Tom was somewhat charmed by Hannah"s unprecedented antics at first, before long he was curious to know what kind of justice could exist in a world that would allow him to be punished for s.e.x he didn"t even have. He was smart enough not to want points for resisting temptation, because he knew the need for resistance betrayed the presence of temptation, which for most women was as much a sin as mattress-gripping, pore-cleansing s.e.x that lifted the bedposts and rattled the fishbowl. But then again, Hannah wasn"t like most women.
The two met their senior year in college while she was working at the student union. Tom loved to watch her, her hair twisted up, dewy and serious as she steamed milk for other undergrads" cappuccinos. It didn"t take long for him to develop a serious caffeine habit. Soon they were an item.
They would go to the library together and stack their books by the big window in the quiet section. Tom knew the sign-language alphabet and liked to think he could invent intuitive hand signals for anything he didn"t have time to spell out. But every gesture he invented looked a lot like the hula wave, and he would only make Hannah crack up, and then they"d be asked to leave.
Hannah knew Tom would dump his pen pal if she asked him to, which was part of the reason she would never ask. She wasn"t the kind of person to issue mandates or start sentences with phrases like, "If you loved me." She wasn"t even sure how other women pulled that off. If you loved me, you wouldn"t ... write letters? Or, no letters to women? No letters to attractive women? Ah, yes: "You wouldn"t do something you knew upset me." But the thing that was upsetting was that in her mind, it was Tom"s choice. It wasn"t that she wanted to take all the spice out of his life. It was just that, as the conspicuous correspondence grew and grew, she couldn"t help feeling left out.
One night in mid-December, while they were having dinner at their favorite Thai restaurant and deciding what to do afterward, Hannah suggested they rent a skin flick just as the chicken with peanut sauce was arriving. Before Tom could answer, she started to cry. That was when he realized he was going to have to do something. When they got home that night, he handed over the stack of letters.
Hannah took them into the bedroom and closed the door. For the next two hours she roamed through the childhood embarra.s.sments, coffee-shop epiphanies, and myriad curiosities of a woman named Sydney. The young writer"s life seemed to consist mainly of repeated encounters with ridiculous situations wherein she was lacking adequate monies, workable transportation, appropriate clothing, or some absurd combination of all three. Apparently she had grown up in Boston and still had family in the area.
As Hannah had antic.i.p.ated, flirtation and innuendo were there, sneering at her all over the place. But in truth there was nothing that betrayed any untoward activities. At one point, Sydney even referred to something Tom had written about Hannah as "candid and tender." There was, however, one pa.s.sage that struck her as alarming: I must have been born defective, without the jealousy gene, because I never feel the possessive kind of love. Today I was at the museum, looking at one of those really beautiful nature paintings, where the loneliness seems almost holy. I felt a kind of solidarity with the other people who were admiring it alongside me. Then I imagined someone in the group running up and shielding it with his arms, how ridiculous that would be. Yet how common it is to encounter the feeling, "I love you because you"re mine." It stuns me, all the things we"re willing to forsake for security, which is only ever imaginary anyway.
Hannah emerged from the bedroom. She wanted to reward what she knew had been a magnanimous gesture by keeping her questions to a minimum.
Tom put his book facedown in his lap. "Still want to rent a skin flick?" he said.
She handed him the stack of letters, this one on top. "What are your thoughts on all this?"
"Isn"t it plain? I told you not to worry. She doesn"t even want a boyfriend. She talks of nothing but liberty. In fact, I get the feeling she might pitch for both teams."
"Oh, really?" Hannah said. "And just how does one get a feeling like that?"
So it was on this day, after Tom let her read the letters, that Hannah had resolved to find a gift with as much shimmering complexity as Sydney"s words. The clock was ticking, and she could think of nothing.
She spent all Sat.u.r.day morning brainstorming. There were only two days to go. She had succeeded in creating expectations of such superhuman heights that by the time Tom left to play basketball with some friends at 12:30, she felt quite unable to leave the house. It was all she could do to slap together some Christmas-cookie dough and stick it in the oven. Lying on her bed, staring at the ceiling, she decided to play an exercise DVD to get her heart beating again.
Halfway through, the doorbell buzzed. Although she wasn"t expecting anyone, she was grateful for an interruption just as the routine was reaching its absurd zenith. Maybe a neighbor needed to borrow a measuring cup. She opened the door, jogging in place, only to discover a beautiful woman standing in the hallway with a package in her hands. A disturbingly beautiful woman.
"h.e.l.lo," the woman said. "Are you Hannah?"
"I am," said Hannah, still jogging.
"I"m Sydney. I"m ... friends with Tom." Luckily, Hannah was cardiovascularly prepared for fight-or-flight. Sydney took a breath. "I hate to bother you like this, but I was back in town for the holidays, and I knew Tom"s birthday was Monday, and I ... well, to be honest, I didn"t make it to the post office in time. I keep forgetting that in Boston, things actually close."
Hannah stopped jogging. So this fresh-faced, long-legged thing was Sydney.
"I"m really sorry to bother you," Sydney said. "I just wanted to drop this off."
The package was wrapped in brown paper marked with a hurried address-in red ink, of course. Hannah put it on the counter and wiped her hands on the front of her yoga pants. She would greet her reckoning with as much dignity as she could muster, wearing spandex.
"Come on in," she said.
She offered Sydney a chair, but before she herself sat down, she ran to silence the DVD player, where a bald man was shouting something about inner thighs much too loudly for an occasion like this. When she returned, she found Sydney glancing about the apartment.
"Tom"s out for the afternoon," she said, deciding at the last minute to leave off the "I"m afraid" part.
"Yeah, no, I-"
"What"d you get him?" she asked, jerking her head toward the package. She couldn"t hold out any longer.
"Oh, it"s an Angry Salad CD. They"re this band." Sydney"s face opened up. "Actually, they"re amazing. Completely new. With really thoughtful lyrics. They have that edge-of-the-planet kind of feel."
Edge of the planet? Hannah wondered if Columbus had for some reason fallen out of fashion among the fresh young writing pack.
"You might like them," Sydney said.
Hannah found this highly unlikely, especially since she was considering throwing them into the trash as soon as Sydney"s pretty little ponytail was out the door.
Sydney leaned in closer. "I take it back. You"ll love them," she said. She touched Hannah"s forearm. "I give you my word."
Hannah smelled fire. The cookies! She ran to the stove and pulled on a zebra-striped oven mitt.
"This is embarra.s.sing," she said. She was going to have things to talk about in therapy for the next year and a half. The sugary green trees were seconds shy of ruination. "Care for a cookie?"
"Sure," Sydney said. She selected one of the least charred. "Thanks."
Hannah watched Sydney"s mouth as she chewed. She had full lips and almost imperceptible dimples.
"I usually need a little something to cancel out the exercise," Hannah said.
Sydney laughed and pressed her fingertips into some crumbs that had fallen on the table. "You make a mean cookie," she said, and for the next half hour, the two women talked with what could only be described as surprising ease, considering they were both in love with the same man.
"I should probably get going," Sydney said, brushing off the tops of her jeans and standing up. "Thanks for everything."
"My pleasure," said Hannah. Then, when she went to put the milk away, Sydney shocked her while her back was turned.
"I could tell from the things Tom said about you," Sydney said, while Hannah stared at orange juice and ca.s.serole and pickles. "I just knew you"d be lovely."
When Tom came home, at 4:15, Hannah was in the shower. He opened the bathroom door and steam spilled into the hallway.
"Hey there, Lulu," he said. "Mind if I join?"
"Feel free," Hannah said. He pulled off his T-shirt and stepped out of his shorts.
"A package came for you this afternoon," she said.
"Oh yeah?" he said, peeling off his socks.
"Yeah," Hannah said. And his underwear. "A birthday present."
He slid the shower curtain aside and admired a bouquet of foam sliding down her back. She stepped out from under the stream of water and kissed him on the cheek.
"It was dropped off in person," she said. "From Sydney," she added, and handed him the bar of soap.
Underneath it all, Hannah was a firm believer in letting people do what they want. Many of her friends, who had previously seemed perfectly sane, had in the past couple of years started talking an awful lot about bait-cutting and cow-buying. But to Hannah, it seemed that forcing things only led to the most Pyrrhic of victories: the captive sparrow, twitching in your hand, limp with defeat; or the pacing tiger, remaining out of dry duty, parched and angered by his own obligation. Ultimately she was only out for her own best interest: She wanted the pleasure of being with someone she knew freely, in his deepest heart, wanted to be with her. If Tom chose to run off with his little correspondent, so be it. Hannah just wanted to be sure that before he left, he knew her for the generous and clever creature she truly was.
That night, a thick, soft snow fell, m.u.f.fling the rooftops of the city with cashmere quiet. Hannah had a dream. It was summer; she was flying over the house she grew up in, in Maine. There was no roof; she could see into her childhood bedroom. Tom and Sydney were in it, dancing.
Sydney was kissing him, touching him. She kept pausing and looking up at Hannah.
This? Like this? Is this okay?
Hannah kept trying to communicate down to her: Yes-yes. Just like that.
Sydney put her lips against Tom"s neck. He closed his eyes. She slid her hand under his waistband. He was falling. Wait-stop. Where was Hannah? He couldn"t breathe; he was going to suffocate. "Hannah!" he cried.
It"s all right, Hannah said, concentrating. I see you. I love you.
Sydney was with Tom, and Hannah was in tune with Sydney. When she finally took hold of him, in a swift, firm grip, his head fell back as a wave of pleasure pa.s.sed through his body. And up in the sky, Hannah felt the pleasure, too.
The next morning, while Tom was in the shower, she went to the phone book and called Sydney. "I have an idea," she said.
"Let me see if I have this straight." Nihan was highly amused. "It doesn"t count as cheating if you"re in the same room, naked." Hannah hoped she knew what she was doing. "And what exactly is your role in this baccha.n.a.lian jamboree going to be?"
"I don"t know," Hannah said. "We didn"t write a script. I just told her to bring a couple of bottles of wine."
"And the young Thomas doesn"t know this is going to happen?"
"No."
"You"d better make that three bottles."
Hannah felt a jab of doubt. She was still uneasy about scheduling dates for Tom"s p.e.n.i.s without consulting him first. "Do you think he"ll mind?"
"Honey," Nihan said, draping an arm across her friend"s shoulders, "this has been every man"s fantasy since he learned to count to three. No. I don"t think he"ll mind."
Hannah and Sydney had found planning the logistics to be somewhat difficult. They discussed hiding Sydney in the closet with a gla.s.s of wine and the door cracked open so she"d get enough air. They joked around about using such lines as: "Okay, Tom, now you let us take care of everything," or "Just let us know if the blindfold is too tight." Hannah figured it wouldn"t be funny if she lost her nerve right when they all took off their clothes and said something like: "Just kidding!" There really was no getting out of it now. Well, maybe the joke would be on them: Tom would take the opportunity to announce he was gay, and she wouldn"t have to go through with it.
Monday, December 22, 2008. The day Thomas Groff turned twenty-six. The day he would remember on his deathbed.
Sydney was hiding in the bedroom, with the cake. She and Hannah had decided to surprise Tom by emerging together, with the lights down and the birthday candles lit. The bedroom was right off of the kitchen, so Hannah could slip in for "the cake" whenever. Depending on how much wine they"d had, the two of them might or might not quickly strip down to their underwear. They were waiting to decide that on the spur of the moment, feeling much too sober at present to make such an important decision. Besides, Tom was expected any minute. Before he arrived, they opened a spare bottle of Champagne so they could make a toast together.
"To surprises," Hannah said.
When Tom walked through the door she went to hug him, but his arms were behind his back. When she stepped away, he produced roses. Three. She thought, for one terrifying instant, that he"d divined her plan, but of course he hadn"t. He"d just gotten lucky.
"You"ve got it backwards, darling," she said, beaming. "Your birthday is when I give you the gifts, remember?"
"I know," he said, pa.s.sing the flowers from one hand to the other as he pulled out of his winter coat. "But the genius on the corner knows a sucker when he sees one."
She helped with the coat and was about to go looking for a vase for the flowers when he took everything out of her hands and put it all on the counter.
"Come here," he said, arms wide. He pulled her to his chest and held her. "You"re so good to me, baby," he said. "You"re the reason I"m glad I was born."
Hannah was grateful he couldn"t see her face. She was so giddy with excitement, so close to bursting with secret antic.i.p.ation, that she was sure her expression would have given her surprise away.