@Expectations Page 15

  “And you helped me get the guts to dump Faye. Anyway, Faye found out about Kismine when she and I were meeting in Vegas and…”

  You were meeting Kismine in Vegas? “Oop,” Zan says. This place is not good for me. “Somebody’s here RL. I’ve got to go.”

  She disconnects. Disturbed, Jenny waits until the display tells her that Harrald’s logged off for the day before she reconnects. He’s a data entry clerk, she knows, and his internet access ends promptly at five. Only a few more hours and Reverdy will be along and in the meantime, there is the business of Lark. Zan does not expect to run into Mireya which is like running headlong into a buzzsaw, nor does she expect Mireya to call her a slut for loving Reverdy.

  My God, she thinks, does she think I’m like Velvet? Kismine? I am nothing like Velvet or Kismine. She types @shutup so she won’t have to listen to Mireya any more. Still, the two exchanges have shaken her, and when Reverdy finally logs on she flies into the Dak Bungalow and starts talking before they even hug. “Oh,” she says, “I’m so glad you’re here!”

  Tom homes in on her distress as surely as if he’s been tracking her state of mind. “Maybe you’d better tell me,” he says. “I know you’re upset, and you know you can tell me anything.”

  Uncertainty makes her inarticulate. MOOmarried, she thinks, is that all I can hope for? She wants to ask; she’s afraid to ask. “I wish,” she says. “I just wish.”

  He hugs, rubbing his chin in her hair; even sitting at her keyboard thousands of miles away she feels the outline of his jaw, the loving pressure. “Life is wishing,” Reverdy says.

  Afraid to go on because she’s afraid of what she’ll hear she asks, “Have you seen Lark?”

  “Not today. But I think it’s OK. Last night he said he’d bought some time. But that’s enough about Lark,” he says. The words come up like grace notes aimed at her heart. “I really only want to know about you.”

  She can’t stop herself, she says, “I just wonder when we’re going to meet.”

  He temporizes. “If we need to, we’ll meet when we need to.”

  “What if I need it now?”

  Reverdy doesn’t answer. “Would meeting keep us from being perfect?”

  “Oh, Rev!”

  “Now, if you’ll let me touch you here…”

  Needs it, needs him, needs not to be here right now because the implications make her tremble; she loves Tom so much and he will only come part of the way. Stay and she’ll start to cry; instead she says, “I love you, Tom, but I can’t be here right now.” She won’t type: I’ll come back when you’re ready to commit. Right now she’s so confused she can’t be sure she’ll ever come back.

  @nineteen

  REVERDY

  Context, Reverdy thinks as Zan disconnects. Everything is context. He loves her, she’ll be back. In a world you make up as you go along, you always get what you want.

  On StElene, you are what you type. The hitch is, that in the realm of performative utterance, words define you and they also limit you. Reverdy can’t be any better than the text he writes. It is a puzzle. He wants to flow out of the box and into his lover’s bedroom RL but as long as he keeps her at a distance, their love is safe. No accidents, no surprises, just a miracle of control. He can no longer identify the parts of himself he has invented here, and which are real. Nor can he know how much of the real truth remains. Is Reverdy a pencil sketch faintly perceived by others or does his lover, for instance, really know him to the soul? Is what he presents here on StElene the real truth of Tom Dearden or only something he made up?

  In this ideal life on a plane far above the daily exigencies, he’s cast himself as ideal lover: articulate, witty, a hero perhaps …

  This is also Tom Dearden, typing with a cigarette clenched between his teeth and ashes dribbling into the keyboard. God, he thinks, what part am I really writing for myself? Doomed hero? Not sure. Committed lover? Jury’s still out. Reckless, he thinks. Laughing, rakehell, because at heart at bottom, inside and in spite of the outer, physical shell that people in the drab polar landscape he inhabits RL will see if they care enough to look, what he types is who Tom Dearden really is. He thinks.

  Reverdy is not what he seems. What does it mean?

  When Zan pressed him, he responded with a question. “What do you want it to mean?” It may be that he doesn’t know himself.

  But if there is a snake in every Eden and the snake is us, there will always be some part of earthbound Tom Dearden that needs to keep shooting itself in the foot.

  page Mireya Do you really think I care that you are fucking that thug?

  page Azeath You only think Mireya loves you. She’s using you to get me back.

  page StOnge Tell the others. I’m on to your game.

  For reasons he doesn’t necessarily understand, all the elements: his scheme to expose Suntum and pirate StElene, the public push-and-shove with Mireya and her pigheaded, most righteous Azeath—his plan to post his completed history—suggest that Tom Dearden a.k.a. Reverdy isn’t just flirting with disaster. He’s coming on to it. And he’s coming on strong.

  twenty/@twenty

  JENNY/ZAN

  The minute I typed @exit I was sorry. I wanted to go back. I need Reverdy, but Charlie’s here! He walks in with an armful of presents and apologies for being gone overnight. What was it this time, the duty, or a visiting bigwig from the State Department with round-the-clock meetings, or just some party at the club? He’s gone so much now that I forget. Correction. I look forward to it because I can put the kids to bed early and log on. I can play all night if I want to, or I could. But now I see Charlie’s sweet face and I know this has to change, I love him and he’s right here! Standing this close, while Tom is locked away from me, safe inside the box.

  OK, I just decided to leave him there. It’s time to quit StElene.

  Am I trying to detox? Unclear. If it isn’t an addiction, I’m showing signs. I’ve been hanging online half the night, living on StElene even when Reverdy’s not around. I read the posts on endless, stupid mailing lists or look for friends and in the absence of friends I find new players to talk to, anything to fill the void until Charlie comes home. I port into the grand ballroom laughing like a schoolgirl at a party, hugging here, waving there, you bet I’m wasting time. I’m short on sleep and testy with my patients. And if Martha looks at me with growing—not concern, exactly, but with that professional eye … I crash in front of the TV and sleep until it’s time to put the kids to bed; I nap between patients and sometimes I drift off while they’re talking, coming to only when I hear that ominous silence that lets you know your client’s waiting. Most useful phrase at this point? “And what do you think?” I’ve been short-shrifting my life!

  I’m done obsessing over it. Take today. He’d promised we’d meet, we were supposed to make up for everything we failed to say and do to each other last time. He came on weird, evasive. What kept him, anyway? What does he do when we’re apart?

  Being on StElene is getting to be like working a second job—too many friends counting on me, too much gossip to deflect, Reverdy’s political posts, supporting letters he wants me to post. Last week StElene was down overnight, all connections refused. If I couldn’t be there, nobody could. Not Mireya, not Azeath, not Reverdy or his enemies the Directors. In a way, it was a relief.

  So it’s time to quit. Turn my back and walk away. Except, of course, from Lark. Unlike Tom, who doesn’t trust me enough to tell me how to reach him off StElene, Lark and I are in touch RL. When he’s feeling stronger, we’re going to talk on the phone. Quitting’s easy, I know. Just go to the end of Reverdy’s dock in front of the GrandHotel and jump.

  How can I not? Charlie’s standing here with that big Charlie grin; it should be easy to forget the hotel, all that happening in the night. “I missed you so much.” We hug, later we make love; he thinks it’s great sex but I am squirming with guilt. How can this nice guy still love me when the best part of my life goes on in a place he doesn’t know about?
Where I’m unfaithful with a man I’ve never met? I’m no better than Harrald or Velvet. But I am.

  Ridiculous, I think, burying my nose in the sweet Charlie smell that made me fall in love with him in the first place. I don’t need all that. This is Charlie, that I’ve promised to spend my life with. And we’re going to spend it here. Safe with Charlie, I tell myself, This. This is what matters. This is real. I’ll end it tonight. And in spite of my best intentions I groan.

  Charlie tightens his arms. “What’s the matter?”

  StElene is only a trap. A beautiful, seductive trap. Grief overturns me. I just won’t go back.

  Charlie touches my face. “You’re crying! What is it?”

  “Nothing, I just.”

  “This isn’t about wanting a baby, is it? I mean if it is, we could…”

  For a minute, I can’t take his meaning. That hurt has gotten old. It’s so old that I have a hard time remembering who that person was. And I am crying for real. Sobbing, I roll closer. “Charlie, it’s nothing, I just!”

  But I am gasping with fresh knowledge.

  Over. StElene was a temporary aberration, now I’m over it. Zan and the man she loves best have no future in this world and in that one, the more I see Tom, no, Reverdy, the more I want to see him and the harder it gets to be anywhere else. Our marriage isn’t suffering. I feel Charlie moving under my hands and I feel sorry for him. And extremely powerful. Yet. But it will, I think, and as Charlie and I embrace I begin the countdown until I can connect. Which I will do later, flushed and still shaky from making thunderous love RL. And I will do it because of what I now know.

  I can’t leave StElene without saying goodbye.

  ZAN

  Fine, she thinks resolutely as Charlie slips away from her, submerging in sleep. It’s over. I just won’t do this any more. But she has to tell Reverdy goodbye. She can’t just quit StElene without telling them; Lark will worry. Tom could die. She’ll just log on one last time and explain. She’ll just leave Reverdy a goodbye note—she can slip in without paging him, and if he happens to see she’s logged on and wants to join … well. Look, she has to tell Lark. They’ll definitely stay in touch RL—phone, visit, whatever it takes to help him get strong enough to keep going. She is, after all, a therapist. She needs to plan with Lark, send farewell posts to Jazzy and Harrald, oh, and drop in on Articular; she can’t just vanish from her friends’ lives without explaining. She slips out of bed, leaving Charlie behind. If she wants to kick the habit, it has to be a clean break.

  She has people to see, things to say, so much to do.

  Shaking, she types: stelene.moo.mud.org 8888. By the time she connects she is in tears. And without being able to stop herself she types page Reverdy I’ve come to say goodbye

  And in seconds, Reverdy is in her beautiful, beautiful room, rushing to his grieving lover in the serenity of Zan’s Tower.

  “I thought you’d never come back!”

  “Oh, my dear!” She begins to cry.

  “My God, my darling, what is it?”

  “Nothing.” She is weeping in both worlds. “I just.”

  “Is it Charlie? Is it something about the baby? Love, tell me what’s the matter? I love you so much!”

  She wants to tell Rev and she can’t tell him; Zan, who can say anything to her lover on StElene, who has said anything, can’t find any way to tell Reverdy, no, Tom Dearden, she can’t tell Tom Dearden that she’ll never see him again, it would break their hearts. She can’t find the right words for goodbye. At least not yet. “It’s Lark,” she says. “I’m worried to death about Lark.”

  “Don’t be, we’ll take care of him. He’s safe here. The three of us, together.”

  “Here?” She can’t stop crying. “For God’s sake, Rev. Which here?”

  He knows what she means. In their long, loving talks about everything, Zan and Reverdy have sawed back and forth over distinctions. They measure the differences between this ideal world they have created and the world outside the box; it is more real to them than the sheer ugliness, the constraints and crude exigencies of the physical world. They talk about how little that world matters, the one they can’t control.

  “Here, of course,” he says. “The only here that matters. Our here. We love each other in eternity, Zan. We can take care of Lark here.”

  “How, if we can’t help him in real life?”

  Then Reverdy says the most beautiful thing. “We give each other the strength!”

  “The strength?”

  “Everything. Through love.”

  “But.” She begins the old argument. “What if it isn’t real?”

  “You know it is. We’ve found a way into each other’s souls. I know you better than anybody I’ve ever known, Jenny Wilder, and I love you better than anybody I could ever love.”

  “Oh, Reverdy. Oh, Tom!” She is crying again. “Oh! I came to tell you I…”

  “Shhshh. Don’t. Don’t say anything. I know what you’re going through, both here and RL. I know how hard it is for you. Don’t you think we’re both being torn apart? It’s hard for me too.”

  “Being apart?”

  “Being together!” Reverdy tries to smile. “Wanting so much. And being apart and wanting you more. And more.” He hesitates. “But maybe wanting is the best part of us? Sparks flying upward.”

  The tears stop. “And everything that rises?”

  Reverdy completes the loving formula. As if they are making a pact. “Will converge. We’ll all be together some day, I promise.”

  It takes her breath. “You promise?”

  “I do.” In a few words Reverdy sketches a beautiful island where he and Zan can be together forever—happy forever, generous in their ideal love. “I’m working on it now.”

  She needs to break the news but it’s getting harder; her will falters and fails. “With a place for Lark?”

  “Yes.” He seals it. “With a place for Lark.”

  “If only,” Zan says. “If only! And you and Lark and I will…”

  “We’ll all be together in a great new place some day, I promise.”

  “A new place?”

  “I promise. If you promise to stay with me.”

  “Oh, God. Oh, Reverdy. How could I not!” And, comprehending the impossibility, Zan is ripped from top to bottom by grief; then she’s in her lover’s arms, he who sees straight into her heart, sobbing because of course she can never leave him and Reverdy, Reverdy is saying all the right things, no of course she can’t leave him not ever, he’d die and she says she would die and he says once again for both their sakes that they aren’t hurting anybody.

  She sobs, “If only we could be together RL.”

  “But we are my darling, we are.”

  But are they really?

  She doesn’t care! In a few graceful phrases she and Reverdy slip into the dance, so unlike what people in the physical world perceive as “real,” that their love incandesces, more powerful, more moving than anything Charlie can do to her in physical life because this kind of love knows no limits. Free of all constraints, it expands in the mind, blindingly bright. Thoughts planted in the imagination blossom in explosions of light and this best of all possible loves shimmers precisely because it is incomplete and all the best parts are just ahead. As they make love Zan loses all sense of time passing until she hears Charlie’s kids stirring downstairs. He’ll be getting up! It’s time to leave.

  The goodbyes are hard to say, but they are sweet. Shuddering, Zan hugs her lover, shaken by how close she came to losing him. Then she sits for a moment in front of the blank screen with the tears running down. It’s several minutes before Jenny starts downstairs to dress and make breakfast; it’s time to take care of them because in her part of the world, at least, it’s dawn.

  twenty-one

  JENNY

  It’s breakfast time. Coffee brewed, orange juice poured, crumbs on the table, newspaper folded, everything in our yellow kitchen just the way it ought to be with the one exception.r />
  We are in the kitchen, or Charlie is. I’m somewhere else. The most important part of me is lost somewhere between the night on StElene and here. I hurt all over, I came this close to losing Reverdy! I logged off too late to crawl back into bed. I can hardly bear to begin another day. I am hung up on the problem: I can’t bear to leave but I know I shouldn’t stay, I’m spread so thin that I yip when Charlie speaks to me. “What, Charlie? What!”

  “I said, your eyes look like two cigarette holes burned in a sheet. Is there something you want to tell me?”

  I love him too much to say. “Nothing, Charlie. I don’t know.”

  “Honey, what is it?” He strokes my arm. He doesn’t want to worry me, he says, but he’s been getting anonymous phone calls, some strange woman, doesn’t give her name, she keeps trying to tell him something in this harsh voice … I go stiff in his arms. “Babe?”

  “Just tired. So. Somebody phoned and they said. What?”

  “She was trying to tell me … Agh. I don’t know what the hell she was trying to tell me. It was ugly, I don’t need that.”

  Mireya? If it is Mireya, he couldn’t begin to understand what she’s trying to tell him. Unless. What if it’s somebody calling about me and Rick. Did I accidentally let Rick get too close? “Some local crackpot?”

  “Whoever this woman is, she’s crazy. The voice is halfway between obscene phone caller and Nazi schoolteacher, as soon as I find out it’s her, I hang up.”

  “What makes you think it’s a her?”

  I feel his knuckles in my hair. “Jenny, is something going on that I should know about?”

  This brings me back to earth so fast that my neck snaps. “Nothing!” Does he know? What if he knows?

  “Honey, you’re strung so tight that I can’t reach you.”

  Has Mireya come offline and messed up my life? “If it’s the calls, forget about the calls.”

  “You know it isn’t the calls, Jen. What’s going on with you?”

  What gave me away? I dissemble. “Bad day at work, I guess.”