The Smash-Up Page 19

  He takes a deep breath. “I know it’s a big deal. Of course it’s a big—”

  “Alex will be an adult, she’ll be a mother herself, and this guy will still be sitting on the court. He’ll be making decisions that affect her body. Like she won’t already have a whole world telling her that her body isn’t her own.”

  “I understand that, Zo.”

  A beat. And then Zo’s voice, flat. “I don’t think you do, Ethan. I frankly don’t think you can.”

  Whoosh. She’s out of the bedroom, back with the witches who have colonized his home, his life, his whole crazy upside-down world.

  #America2018, Act 1

  The woman on the television screen begins with her eyes closed. She stands, chin raised, solemnly swears to tell the truth. The woman wears a simple navy suit. Her straight blond hair is curled at the edges, suggesting she’s had a stylist apply a heating iron this morning. She’s put mascara on, too, but it’s hard to see her lashes through her glasses, which keep catching the light. When she sits, her posture is straight. The woman’s movements are subtle, precise. She’d like a little caffeine, if that’s all right.

  What’s important about the woman is none of these things—the tilt of her head, the suit, the hair, the mascara, the polite way she makes her request—but still: these things will be discussed, dissected, disparaged, denigrated, and she knows it.

  The woman on the screen says please and thank you. She doesn’t remember every detail about the night she’s here to talk about, the event that happened decades ago, the thing she says the Supreme Court nominee did to her. She’s clear about this: she can’t remember every detail, but she does remember the most important part. She remembers what, and she remembers who. This is what she tells the unsmiling men in suits, the ones who are fanned out in a semicircle before her. Many of these men are not on her side, and she knows it. But still: she wants to be helpful, doesn’t want to be difficult.

  No, she no longer recalls how she got to the party. Yes, she’s sorry about that lapse in memory.

  She knows how the hippocampus works, this woman. She knows not only what she remembers, but also how, specifically, it became encoded into memory. She knows why she went to therapy, why all these decades later she needs two doors in her home, a second escape route, just in case.

  Hers is a quiet street, a quiet life.

  At moments her voice quivers, but she does not cry. No, that’s wrong: she does cry. She cries when the people asking questions are kind to her.

  She takes tiny sips of her soda. She laughs at other people’s jokes. She removes her glasses, slides them on top of her head. She sets them down on the table, lets them rest at her side, then puts them on again. She never wanted to be here. But she’s accommodating. Now that she is here, she does her best.

  * * *

  —

  In Ethan’s pocket, his phone vibrates. He pulls out the device, as noiselessly as he can. It’s a text from Randy: Just checking in, E.

  Then: Remember Evie’s reading is 2morrow. I mapped it all out. The Humphrey’s about 40 minutes from you.

  And then: Play reading starts at 2. Over by 4, I’d guess? Not open to the public so wait outside. Run into her. Work the lawsuit into conversation. Tell her you don’t recommend going forward with it. Talk to her as a friend.

  Get there early, just in case.

  Then: E?

  Ethan returns the phone to his pocket.

  * * *

  —

  Through the woman’s testimony, the witches form a kind of still life in the cramped TV area. They are motionless, transfixed. Their eyes don’t stray from the screen.

  A couple of them cry, but they do so noiselessly. Ethan watches as Meat Cleaver’s shoulders shake, tiny shudders that in a different circumstance might seem like laughter. He waits for a sob to escape her throat. It doesn’t come. Jackie reaches over and places a hand on Meat Cleaver’s arm. A single quick gesture, then all is still.

  In front of him, Elastic Waist folds her hands together, then brings them to her lips, a kind of prayer. She closes her eyes. Breathes.

  * * *

  —

  Is Ethan actually considering doing what Randy wants him to? Is he going to drive to the Humphrey, pretend to run into the movie star Evie Emerling, and then, in an otherwise benign conversation, let it slip that Randy has information that could ruin her, so she’d best watch out?

  That’s not the guy he is. Not who he wants to be. He’s a quiet guy, a good guy, the more-or-less silent partner who stays on the sidelines. He’s always been the matter to Randy’s energy: constrained, grounded. Maybe even a little dull. He really, really doesn’t want Evie to see him as a villain.

  But he’s also the guy who needs those Bränd checks.

  He left Bränd too soon, he sees this now. He should have gone to Hollywood with Randy, should have stayed in the business, should have kept rising. He would have, too, would have done it in a heartbeat, if it hadn’t been for Zo. She hadn’t forced him to stay in New York, it was nothing like that. He could go or not go, up to him. She just wasn’t going to go with him.

  He’d made the choice on his own.

  Ethan had thought, at the time, that he’d earned enough money. Had figured that the cash he’d gotten from selling his shares to Randy would be, more or less, all the money he’d need in this world, or at least it was enough to get started. Surely he could live on it for a long time—at least until he’d launched his writing career. But there was so much he hadn’t understood at the time. He hadn’t understood how quickly the years would pass, and how easy it would be to produce nothing at all. He hadn’t understood how much money a person truly needs. He hadn’t realized how skewed the world would become: the way millionaires would explode into billionaires, the way the gap between the Corburys and Starkfields would grow ever wider, a divide that would become impossible to cross.

  No, of course he doesn’t want to do this thing that Randy’s asking. Not at all.

  But if he doesn’t: what then?

  * * *

  —

  In the middle of the woman’s testimony, Maddy shuffles downstairs, wearing a plaid wool flannel shirt over torn leggings. Ethan recognizes the shirt as his own: an L.L.Bean classic that Zo had bought for him their first winter here, back when they imagined that life in the Berkshires would be like a magazine portrait of the homesteading life: chopping wood, building sheds, raising goats and chickens, all that rustic stuff that they don’t do even a little bit, never did, even once.

  Ethan glances at Zo, unsure if his wife would recognize the shirt. Her eyes don’t stray from the television screen.

  Maddy steps over the women, strolls barefoot into the kitchen.

  Another text from Randy: I’m counting on you, E.

  * * *

  —

  The doorbell. A delivery truck. Four boxes—Crate & Barrel, West Elm, Pottery Barn, Overstock. Collectively, the boxes contain a new comforter, a duvet cover, seven throw pillows, twelve new curtain panels, a Belgian linen sheet set, four faux-fur blankets, plus some sort of enormous macramé wall hanging. Ethan digs through the boxes, finds their packing slips, tallies the cost of the items.

  He carries the boxes straight to his car.

  When he returns to the living room, the woman on-screen has been replaced by a man. The C-SPAN logo is in the corner. “Our lines are open,” the man is saying. “Give us a call to tell us what your reaction is to the hearing so far.”

  Some sort of break then. A rest before the nominee himself appears.

  Ethan wades through the sea of witches. He looks at no one, just goes into the kitchen. Maddy is at the table, bowl of cereal next to her as she plays Candy Crush. He doesn’t interact with her, tries not to even look at her. He just makes himself some toast and eats it alone, standing
at the counter and staring out at the backyard.

  With his back to the TV, to the women watching the TV, Ethan listens to the man take his first call.

  He waits for all of this to be over, so he can figure out his next move in peace.

  * * *

  —

  The ones who don’t know how to act, don’t know what to say. The ones who prefer to stay out of certain conversations, let women talk to women. The ones who know that their opinions are suspect, that their words could come back to haunt them, that whatever is happening—whatever is tilting the world off its axis—their safest bet is to keep their heads down and wait it out.

  At some point, they might have to make a choice, their choice might be do-or-die, but for the moment it’s best not to draw too much attention. Best to stay out of all this mess. Stay quiet, respectable, respected. Wait this one out as long as possible.

  Maybe everything, soon, will return to normal.

  #AMERICA2018: An intermission

  Maddy’s phone dings and blips, drawing glares from the witches. On television, the man from C-SPAN takes more calls.

  “When I was fourteen,” says Barbara, a caller from Tacoma, “I was attacked.”

  She’s just a voice coming through a phone line, and she’s saying this live, to the man taking calls, and also to the whole world. Ethan turns around in time to see the man’s face shift, his mouth close. He’s wearing a dark suit, a crisp white shirt, a red tie. Could be a senator himself, this guy. He’s got a trustworthy face, serious but not unkind.

  “I was walking home from a violin lesson,” continues Barbara from Tacoma. “There were two of them.” She tells her story: it was the suburbs, almost dinnertime. There was a patch of woods. Decades later, she still has panic attacks.

  And then the twist: The woman they’ve just watched, says Barbara, is clearly lying. Barbara doesn’t believe one word of that testimony. The witches boo. Meat Cleaver’s face screws up into something grotesque, and this time she does sob aloud.

  There are other calls: Martha from Bar Harbor, Marie from Orlando, Brienna from Scranton, Amy from Taos, Olivia from Chicago, Betty Anne from Salt Lake City, Vicky from Morristown. Also Chuck from Shaker Heights, Isaac from Bakersfield, Bob from Cedar Falls.

  Thought I was over this.

  Who puts a wet bathing suit on under their clothes?

  Happened all the time

  Circus

  Frame-up job

  Happened twice

  She has nothing to gain…everything to lose

  You feel worthless, you feel like you’ll never get over it

  Had to bite and kick.

  So why hasn’t her attorney marched into a police station and filed charges

  He had not broken any bones, so they said nothing could be done

  He’s the perfect sacrificial lamb

  My boyfriend’s daddy

  A terrible thing, you never forget it

  Remember every little detail

  Still feel like I’m trapped there

  Bloop. Whoosh. Ding. Maddy keeps her eyes on the candy colors of her screen. She isn’t taking hints, doesn’t notice the way Zo keeps turning her head, narrowing her eyes, annoyed. Or maybe Maddy is being belligerent, maybe she thinks Zo is overreacting. Either way, by the time Audrey from Corpus Christi calls in, I was twelve…brother’s best friend…drugged…Zo has had it. She whips around. “Maddy, can you stop?”

  Maddy glances up. “Stop….what?”

  “Your phone. Whatever that noise is. Stop. Now.”

  You get asked all these questions, and you just want it to be over. The man on the screen stares stoically at the camera. He couldn’t possibly have expected this break to go the way it has, he couldn’t have been prepared for any of this.

  Maddy glances at Ethan, then back at Zo.

  “And when you’ve finished eating,” Zo continues, “perhaps you can, for once, put your fucking bowl in the fucking dishwasher instead of leaving it for someone else to deal with?”

  Maddy thinks for a minute. “Yeah,” she says. She draws out the word for several seconds. Yeeeeaaah. She gestures toward the women sprawled out on the floor. “Thanks, I appreciate the advice. Since your life is so under control.”

  There is a long moment of stillness, and in that silence, anything can happen, Zo could go in any direction, and Ethan holds his breath, and Kevin from Newport News, Virginia, is saying it must come down to the burden of proof, but then before anyone can force the moment to its crisis, the cameras are clicking and the man taking calls is no longer on the screen, and something new is beginning.

  #America2018, Act 2

  The man on the screen scowls, sniffs, snarls, sneers. The man on the screen is flushed and sweaty. The man on the screen leans forward, eyes hard. He wrinkles his nose, purses his lips, raises his voice, avoids answering yes or no questions with either a yes or a no.

  The man on the screen is outraged, thinks this whole thing is an outrage. The proof is in his yelling: reasonable people yell about outrageous things. He uses terms like last-minute smears, character assassination, orchestrated political hit, national disgrace, what goes around comes around. His brows sink into a deep, angry V.

  The man on the screen talks about Eagle Scouts, Five-Star basketball camp, busting his butt, football practice, volunteering at the soup kitchen, lifting weights, going to see Roger Clemens pitch at Fenway. He says going to church is like brushing his teeth: automatic, barely worth noting. Sure, occasionally he’s had a few too many, but he insists, spitting, that he remembers everything, every time. You can see broken capillaries through his skin.

  Where the woman was careful with her words, keeping them close to her chest, the man on-screen spews his own words everywhere, like a firehose. He is like one of those snakes that spits venom, or maybe more like a lizard that shoots poison from its eyes. When asked about whether he would support an FBI investigation into the woman’s claims, he responds, “I’m innocent. I’m innocent of these charges.” When asked about his drinking, he hollers, indignant, “I got into Yale Law School. That’s the number-one law school in the country.”

  He breathes fire, this man. He doesn’t care where it catches. He’s willing to burn it all down if that’s what he has to do.

  * * *

  —

  The ones who remind you of where they went to school. The ones who hold up their pedigree like a shield, all those stickers on the rear window, names of universities splashed across their broad chests, best time of my life. The ones who have never questioned whether everything they have is deserved, they worked hard, don’t you get that? Harder than you: the proof of this is in their success, and if you point out the circularity of this logic, you will feel their wrath.

  The ones who are beyond question, beyond reproach. And don’t you dare suggest otherwise, don’t you dare try to overturn this, the natural order of things.

  Don’t you fucking dare.

  * * *

  —

  What is happening?

  Is this real life?

  Are you watching this?

  The witches ask these questions of one another, as if they’re not all sitting right here, side by side, watching the whole thing unfold in real time.

  But it’s not just them. Ethan knows this, because by now he’s scrolling online, looking at photographs from everywhere in the nation: A photograph snapped on a commercial flight, New York to San Fran: every seat-back screen on the plane showing the testimony. A scene in a pub, day drinkers on barstools, but the scene looks constructed, artificial, more re-presentation than representation; instead of slouchy, red-nosed drunks yapping and spilling out of their seats, these patrons are upright, rigid, deadly serious. Every single one of them is a woman.

&nbs
p; There are images from nursing homes and college classrooms, the New York Stock Exchange and the New York City subway. Conference rooms and waiting rooms, delis and diners, bars and buses, gyms and cubicles from sea to shining sea. The whole nation has stopped, it seems. Everyone holds their collective breath. Whatever is happening, whatever this thing is, it’s big, and there can be no compromise.

  It will tip one way. Or it will tip another. And whatever happens then, who the hell knows.

  * * *

  —

  Ethan’s phone rings while the fire-breathing man sputters. A 617 number. Looks familiar, though Ethan can’t place it. “Hello?” A couple of witches turn to glare. Ethan moves through them, toward the bedroom, holding the phone to his ear.

  “Hi, Mr. Frome,” the voice says. “My name is Ananya, and I’m calling from Boston Children’s Hospital, department of pediatric neurology.”

  It takes Ethan a moment to make the connection.

  Ananya explains that they’ve had two cancellations, which means there are two available appointments in the next couple of days. “We got your many, many messages, and given your family’s circumstances, we wanted to offer you these openings before turning to our wait list.”

  “Oh!” Ethan says. “Yeah. Okay, great. Hang on one sec, lemme grab my wife.”

  He pokes his head into the living room and tries to catch her eye. Sixty-five women, the man on the screen is saying, who knew me more than thirty-five years ago, signed a letter to support me.

  “Zo.”

  Zo keeps her eyes on the television. “Shh.”

  “Zo, it’s Boston Children’s.”