Magic Hour, Susan Isaacs [life changing books txt] 📗

know what your last name was. I didn’t know that until later, when you showed me your police ID. But all that didn’t matter. I knew you were right. This was a miracle—and it was happening to me. So I just let go. I gave everything I had. Why hold back? It never occurred to me that you wouldn’t understand completely, approve of me, rejoice in what we were doing, because we had this magic.

You understood that.

“But five years after the fact, I was just some woman who felt you up in a bar, who couldn’t wait to get you home.

Then you asked me when was the last time I saw Sy. I wasn’t going to say, Oh, yesterday afternoon, in his bed. Because I didn’t want you to know I was still easy, that I’d dropped my drawers less then twenty-four hours before, for a man who was living with another woman: Lindsay Keefe, a world-famous beauty. You’d think that all I could possibly be was a quickie; I knew you’d assume that I had about as much value to Sy as I had to you, to any man: zero.

“I guess I wanted retroactive chastity. I wanted your respect. I wanted you to appreciate that my openness with you was exceptional, that you brought it out, that I wasn’t a bimbo who’d do it for anybody. I never was like that. Well, maybe I’m not being totally honest. I don’t know how many men I’ve been with: thirty, forty, maybe more.” I remember telling the shrink at South Oaks that the women I’d had were into triple digits, but I didn’t know whether it was two hundred or five hundred. Summers in the 306 / SUSAN ISAACS

seventies and most of the eighties, I’d fucked my way from Hampton Bays to Montauk. Bonnie said: “You knew I was easy, promiscuous, whatever. You knew I had a past. But I thought: I have another chance now. Maybe he can come to understand that what happened between us was unique.”

At last, she turned back. She was so tired; her face was puffy with fatigue. I thought: She’s old and now she looks it. Lynne is so young.

“You know,” Bonnie went on, “you never asked me what I did. The morning you came to question me and it came out that I was working with Sy, I was so glad. Because I wanted you to be impressed. I wanted you to think, Gee, she’s a screenwriter. She’s not a slut; she’s an interesting woman. A good woman. She has worth.” Bonnie stood tall and straight. “I wanted to be a woman you would be able to love. And that’s why I lied to you.”

A sharp breeze billowed the shade. It banged it against the windowsill. Bonnie jumped as if it had been the crack of a gun. I stood up and told her: “I know I’ve contributed to your unhappiness. I’m sorry.”

She moved away from the window, until she was standing near the wood cube of a nightstand with its lamp, just inches from me. “How about this?” she proposed. “Instead of apologizing, why don’t you just act with a little more decency?

Stop talking about my fucking and screwing and getting laid as if I’m the Whore of Bridgehampton and you’re a dumb, pig red-neck in line for a gang bang. I’m a human being, and I’m in terrible trouble. If you’re going to help me, why not be generous? Do it with a little kindness.”

“All right,” I said. The breeze was changing to a chilly late-August wind. I felt cold. “Sorry.”

“Thank you.”

Bonnie had goose bumps on her arms and legs. I MAGIC HOUR / 307

went into my bedroom to get a sweater and some stuff for her. Moose trotted beside me. I tried to put a pair of socks in her mouth so she could bring them in to Bonnie, like a retriever. It would be funny. But Moose didn’t get it; she let the socks drop out of her mouth and threw me an injured look, like I’d been leading her on to think she was getting a Big Mac.

When I turned out the light to leave, I noticed the red light flashing on the answering machine. Two messages. Loud ones: I lowered the volume. One was Germy, saying he had a good source for Yankee tickets. They were on the road, playing Detroit, but did I want to go when they got back?

And Lynne: “Hi. I love you and I’m thinking about you.

Honey, I know how busy you are, but could you call for just a second? I have to tell my mother if we want breast of chicken stuffed with wild rice or roast beef for the reception.

You’ll say it’s up to me, but please, I want you to feel a part of this.”

I called Headquarters and got Carbone. No trace of Bonnie yet, he reported. I haven’t found her either, I said. But I’d checked her house and it didn’t look as though she’d left in a hurry or taken stuff with her. My guess was she’d gone out for the evening and would be back later. Meanwhile, I had my list of her friends and acquaintances and was going house to house, checking them all out. So far, no luck. I asked if Robby had gone home, and Carbone said no, he was still in the office, reading over the files.

I went back inside and gave Bonnie a set of sweats and some socks. Women usually look adorable when they put on your clothes, with the sleeves all floppy, but she just looked normal in mine; they fit. She tucked the socks into the elastic of the pants. I said: “There were a couple of calls on my answering machine. Did they come in when I was over at your house?”

308 / SUSAN ISAACS

She reached for the sneakers I’d brought from her house.

“One did.”

“Were you able to hear it?” She nodded. I recalled Lynne’s