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Authors: Rebecca Makkai
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five.”
“This kid’s an asshole.” He was talking about the Cubs. “But then, your wife makes everyone look like shit, right? Tell me something: The Victoria’s Secret catalogue gets to your house, you even bother to look? Or is it like, hey, I got better stuff upstairs?”
Doug was glad there seemed no obligation to answer. Leland had met Zee only once or twice, and he hadn’t looked at her with any more interest than most men did. Doug knew what he was really saying, what everyone was really saying when they commented on her beauty: They weren’t sure how she’d ended up with Doug. He wasn’t shorter than her, or bad looking. He’d always gotten plenty of girls. It was more what people presumed about women as intense as Zee, about what they were after and what they could get. Women like Zee did not pick nice guys with average golf games who occasionally forgot to brush their teeth. They picked jackass publishing executives with famous ex-wives and ski houses.
“And can we get the bullpen up?” Leland said.
Partly to keep him from talking about baseball when Doug knew relatively little about the Cubs, and partly because this was why he’d called Leland in the first place, Doug told him about the files in the attic. He told him too about the past month of unsuccessful fishing. In the days after he tried the attic door himself, Doug tried wheedling a key out of Sofia, who apparently didn’t have one, and out of Bruce, who’d laughed and said, “You want Gracie to kill me? I been up there once , to trap a squirrel. Look, I don’t even open the crisper drawer without her say-so. You know? This is called marital peace.”
“Do you have a key?” Doug had asked, and Bruce had clapped him on the back.
“It’s not really my house, right? And—Doug, my friend—it’s definitely not yours.” Bruce turned to go, then came back. “Hey. Don’t let me hear you bothering Gracie with this. She’s had enough stress with the landscapers.”
And before all that he’d asked Zee—as she lay there with her head on his lap, in those lovely, sleepy minutes after she came down and fucked him on the TV room couch—if her mother might ever let him explore the attic and basement for colony artifacts. She’d given him the look the question deserved. “ I ’ve hardly been in that attic,” she said. “And I can tell you exactly what’s in the basement, and right now it’s supplies for Armageddon.”
Leland had turned on his bar stool so his back was to the TV. “Marianne Moore ,” he said finally. “Christ. I know you’re gay for Parfitt and all, but do you realize what someone could do with unpublished Moore documents? Jesus God, I’m drooling here. Fuck. I mean, if she stayed there, it’d be late in life. She never went anywhere without her mother while the mother was alive. So this isn’t early shit. This isn’t juvenilia . This is, like. Fuck .” He slid his empty glass to the bartender. “I mean, just a draft. A photo!”
It was sublimely gratifying to see Leland’s reaction, after Miriam’s calm pessimism. “I know. It’s gotta be something . Otherwise why the evasion, you know? That’s what I’m saying.”
“So you gotta get it out of there.”
“Sure. I know. It’s keeping me awake.”
“You tell Zee?”
Doug shook his head. With each day he knew he was less likely to. He wasn’t sure if she would laugh and tell him he needed real source material, not old phone bills, or if she’d storm the attic herself and take over the whole enterprise, but something in his bones rebelled against what should have been spousal transparency.Maybe the secret of the Friends books had indeed been a tiny wedge.
“So you’re going to help me.”
“I’m—okay, what, we’re breaking in? I wear a ski mask?”
“You pretend to be a photographer.”
Leland laughed and shook his head. “No, no, this is sounding like a sitcom.”
“Listen: Any Moore documents, any correspondence, you can
“This kid’s an asshole.” He was talking about the Cubs. “But then, your wife makes everyone look like shit, right? Tell me something: The Victoria’s Secret catalogue gets to your house, you even bother to look? Or is it like, hey, I got better stuff upstairs?”
Doug was glad there seemed no obligation to answer. Leland had met Zee only once or twice, and he hadn’t looked at her with any more interest than most men did. Doug knew what he was really saying, what everyone was really saying when they commented on her beauty: They weren’t sure how she’d ended up with Doug. He wasn’t shorter than her, or bad looking. He’d always gotten plenty of girls. It was more what people presumed about women as intense as Zee, about what they were after and what they could get. Women like Zee did not pick nice guys with average golf games who occasionally forgot to brush their teeth. They picked jackass publishing executives with famous ex-wives and ski houses.
“And can we get the bullpen up?” Leland said.
Partly to keep him from talking about baseball when Doug knew relatively little about the Cubs, and partly because this was why he’d called Leland in the first place, Doug told him about the files in the attic. He told him too about the past month of unsuccessful fishing. In the days after he tried the attic door himself, Doug tried wheedling a key out of Sofia, who apparently didn’t have one, and out of Bruce, who’d laughed and said, “You want Gracie to kill me? I been up there once , to trap a squirrel. Look, I don’t even open the crisper drawer without her say-so. You know? This is called marital peace.”
“Do you have a key?” Doug had asked, and Bruce had clapped him on the back.
“It’s not really my house, right? And—Doug, my friend—it’s definitely not yours.” Bruce turned to go, then came back. “Hey. Don’t let me hear you bothering Gracie with this. She’s had enough stress with the landscapers.”
And before all that he’d asked Zee—as she lay there with her head on his lap, in those lovely, sleepy minutes after she came down and fucked him on the TV room couch—if her mother might ever let him explore the attic and basement for colony artifacts. She’d given him the look the question deserved. “ I ’ve hardly been in that attic,” she said. “And I can tell you exactly what’s in the basement, and right now it’s supplies for Armageddon.”
Leland had turned on his bar stool so his back was to the TV. “Marianne Moore ,” he said finally. “Christ. I know you’re gay for Parfitt and all, but do you realize what someone could do with unpublished Moore documents? Jesus God, I’m drooling here. Fuck. I mean, if she stayed there, it’d be late in life. She never went anywhere without her mother while the mother was alive. So this isn’t early shit. This isn’t juvenilia . This is, like. Fuck .” He slid his empty glass to the bartender. “I mean, just a draft. A photo!”
It was sublimely gratifying to see Leland’s reaction, after Miriam’s calm pessimism. “I know. It’s gotta be something . Otherwise why the evasion, you know? That’s what I’m saying.”
“So you gotta get it out of there.”
“Sure. I know. It’s keeping me awake.”
“You tell Zee?”
Doug shook his head. With each day he knew he was less likely to. He wasn’t sure if she would laugh and tell him he needed real source material, not old phone bills, or if she’d storm the attic herself and take over the whole enterprise, but something in his bones rebelled against what should have been spousal transparency.Maybe the secret of the Friends books had indeed been a tiny wedge.
“So you’re going to help me.”
“I’m—okay, what, we’re breaking in? I wear a ski mask?”
“You pretend to be a photographer.”
Leland laughed and shook his head. “No, no, this is sounding like a sitcom.”
“Listen: Any Moore documents, any correspondence, you can
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