“Okay, then.”
“It’s not okay,” she says, and glares at the window with a look of determination that I used to see in the mirror a long time ago.
When the silence becomes unbearable, I say, “Where are we going tomorrow?”
“Does it matter?”
She’s staring even more fiercely at herself in the glass, or maybe only I can see her reflection from this angle. I feel myself wanting to comfort her—almost against my will—and so I say, “The Mark Twain button was the best present I have ever received from a student.” When she doesn’t answer, the wine and I stand and retire to my bedroom.
After I get ready for bed, I decide to crack my windows so I can hear the city.
The noise—traffic, wind, the bustling of a few million strangers—seems endless, and yet also ephemeral as my own heartbeat.
When I was a teenager, I dreamed of living in New York City. I fancied myself banging out a novel in some tiny one-room apartment in whichever of the five boroughs was the hip place for fiction writers to live at the time. Finding my own modern-day version of Max Perkins to edit my work, with whom I’d have three-martini lunches, talking endlessly about literature in general and the upward trajectory of my career with great specificity.
That dream was once so real I could touch it, if I only stretched out my arms far enough.
But I never reached with any effort, never even got a single short story into some semblance of a final draft form that I could submit with confidence, I think, as I lie in a king-size bed surrounded by furniture that I could never afford.
“I’ve been kidnapped by a former student,” I say. Then, in spite of myself, I smile.
I drift off into a deeper sleep than I have known for months.
“Mr. Vernon, wake up. You have visitors,” I hear. When I open my eyes, Portia is pulling back the curtains, letting in the early-morning sunlight with all its blinding intensity. She’s barefoot, in a white and extremely fluffy bathrobe that reveals a small V of her chest.
I jump when I see three men in red monkey suits staring at me from the end of the bed, each with a portable table in front of him.
“What’s going on?” I say, pulling the covers up to my chin.
“I didn’t know what type of breakfast you took when you were visiting New York City, so I ordered you three kinds,” Portia says, a look of utter delight on her face, gesturing with her hand like Vanna White. “Would you like the healthy breakfast?”
The first monkey suit lifts a silver half globe. “Steel-cut oatmeal, assorted berries, brown sugar, pineapple juice infused with wheat grass, a bran muffin, and green tea.”
“A moderately unhealthy breakfast . . . ,” Portia says.
The middle monkey suit lifts his silver lid. “Egg-white omelet with asparagus, turkey sausage, rye toast, grapefruit juice, and decaf coffee.”
“Or death by breakfast,” Portia says.
The third monkey suit lifts his silver half globe. “Eggs sunny side up, Angus steak cooked medium rare, fried potatoes, freshly squeezed orange juice, coffee, cream, sugar.”
“Death by breakfast,” I say. “Definitely death by breakfast.”
“Very predictable, Mr. Vernon,” Portia says, and then nods at the men. The first and second wheel their tables out of the bedroom as the third monkey suit places a fancy silver tray across my lap. It has legs, so it doesn’t touch my thighs, but it’s heavy enough that I feel the mattress sink where the four feet have been placed.
Without making eye contact, the monkey suit sets my personal table with silverware, a china plate full of wonderful-smelling food, a first-rate steak knife I think about stealing, and even a crystal vase with freshly cut roses. He pours my cup of coffee and then says, “Is everything to your satisfaction?”
“This is a dream, right?”
“Sir, we are very much conscious and here,” he says. “May I do anything else for you, or shall I take my leave?”
“Is he real?” I ask Portia.
“Thank you very much,” Portia says to the man. “That’s all for now.”
“Very well, Ms. Kane.” He bows and takes his exit.
I cut into my steak, watch the juices pool across the plate, and say, “I have to admit, I like this part, Ms. Kane,” before I fork a cube of meat into my mouth.
I close my eyes and savor it. This is the best steak I have ever eaten in my entire life—it explodes with bold, juicy flavor.
Portia sits down next to me on the bed as if we were a married couple. “Including the breakfast I already ate without you, Mr. Sleepyhead, and adding in the generous tip for all three men, we just spent seven hundred dollars of Ken’s money.”
I slice into my steak again. “This steak alone is worth seven hundred dollars.”
“I hope you enjoy it,” she says. “You need to fuel up, because we’ll be doing a lot of walking today.”
I focus on my food. It feels like I haven’t eaten in days. I’ve missed food.
The roses in the vase smell wonderful too, and the satisfied look on Portia Kane’s face is also a thing of beauty, I must confess. I begin to worry about disappointing her again when she fails to do what she’s set out to do.
These temporary satisfactions—travel, gourmet food, even the praise of a former student—are novelties, no match for the eternal tides of my mind, which can wear down rock given enough time. Portia’s tricks are like the sand castles of children whose parents are smart enough to leave the beach before their efforts are inevitably destroyed and erased.