Dierbeck - The autobiography of Jenny X

THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF JENNY X

THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY
OF JENNY X

Lisa Dierbeck

Mischief + Mayhem
in association with

OR Books
New York

2010 Lisa Dierbeck

Published by Mischief + Mayhem
In association with OR Books, New York.

Visit our websites at OR Books: www.orbooks.com and
Mischief+Mayhem www.MischiefandMayhemBooks.com

First printing 2010.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher, except brief passages for review purposes.

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data:
A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress

British Library Cataloging in Publication Data:
A catalog record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN Paperback 978-1-935928-20-1
ISBN E-book 978-1-935928-19-5

Typeset by Wordstop

Printed by BookMobile, USA

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For my mother, Janet Dierbeck

Nadia, are you cheating on me? Dan asked on a Saturday night. Wearing only his wristwatch and his underwear, he perched on the edge of the sofa in their hotel suite. He spoke dispassionately, as if wondering whether Nadia had borrowed his umbrella without asking him.

What are you talking about? Nadia plucked at the sash of her robe. In one hand, she clasped a compact, decorated with inlaid mother-of-pearl and onyx. She stared down at the black and white design framing her reflection. Her face was flushed. Inside the small mirror, her mouth had formed an o.

You heard what I said. I asked you a question. Are you seeing someone else?

Listening to his voice, one would never guess that he might be angry or upset. This was a useful skill for delivering bad news to the dying, Nadia supposed. Dan had learned his neutral, uninflected tone in medical school.

Of course not. She clicked the compact closed.

Sure about that, Nadia? Or do you need some time to think about it? He was leaning down, clipping his toenails, his feet planted firmly on the June issue of American Oncology. The sound of his stainless steel nail clippers rose in volume, an irregular snip-snapsnap snip, loud and grating. All other noises, she noticed, were gradually disappearing.

Nadia slipped a fingernail between the teeth of her comb. She ran the ball of her index finger along the thin strips of plastic, playing them like strings on a harp. She discerned the faint hum of a musical chord.

You stood me up, Dan said. We waited for you for hours. You didnt bother to call me. You never offered an explanation. You just expected me to put up with your vanishing.

Do we have to go over it and over it? said Nadia, though theyd never spoken about what had happened. That was weeks ago. She heard irritability in her voice, self-righteous in her claim to fidelity.

I was worried about you. I still am.

Nadia considered this, anxiously. Her palms were damp, as theyd been last Sunday afternoon, when shed tried to help her son with his eighth-grade chemistry take-home exam. The correct answer came to her but she couldnt speak. For some reason, she couldnt articulate the simple, necessary statement, Im sorry. Shed been dumb enough to think that that evening had been quietly forgotten. Instead, it seemed, Dan had been studying Nadia, for two months now, like a difficult math equation.

She squeezed a tube of makeup and began to daub drops of glittering white liquid in the hollows of her eyes. Radiance, it said, in gold letters, on the side of the tube. The cream promised to eliminate wrinkles and dark circles. One segment of Nadias mind gave attentive study to her cosmetics application. The rest of her thoughts fled, in alarm, to Christopher Benedict, the senators son. He lived in a six-by-nine foot cement cell in Triton, New York, just two hours away from the Canadian border. There were three categories of federal penitentiary, Nadia had learned. Christophers was supermax. Though this sounded to Nadia like a brand of feminine protection, it meant that he was confined behind bars twenty-three hours a day, with the highest degree of security and the largest number of guards, in solitary confinement.

Dan reached over to the bedside table and opened a bottle of mineral water. With infuriating poise, he poured himself a glassful. You frightened us. I almost called the police.

What about the hours you keep? You fall asleep on the couch in your office and dont get home till dawn.

The only times Ive done that, said Dan, gravely, Have been medical emergencies. Medical, in Dans mouth, sounded like The Virgin Mother. It was, for Dan, a holy word.

Youve got a double standard, said Nadia. Do you know how many times I wake up in the middle of the night wondering where you are?

I work in a hospital. What the hell is your excuse? Even hell sounded respectful when it came from Dan. Shed often thought that nothing was real to him except for cancer cells. Dan could probably tolerate a straying wife. What threw him into a rage was the mulishness of other oncologists who resisted his innovations, and other physicians incompetence. If she were to say, now, Yes, Ive had an extramarital affair, hed probably just take out his laboratory notebook and start taking notes. But Nadia was more complicated than that. Shed deceived him so thoroughly hed never forgive her for it. It was imperative that he never find out.

Im waiting, Nadia. Are you going to tell me?

Nadia tossed her comb down on the vanity. Its all so simple for you, isnt it? You talk to me like youre the head of everything, running your department. You want to reduce error and improve efficiency, do you? Well, this is a marriage, not a hospital, and Im not one of your brown-nosing lab assistants. She stopped. Her comb had ricocheted off the wall, landing in a tray of mints, displacing one. The piece of candy had collided against the ashtray before coming to rest beside a matchbox. It was embossed with the words: The Parallel Club * Berlin * London * Moscow * Munich * New York * Paris * Rome.

You make it difficult at this point, said Dan.

Nadia blinked. Her eyes stung. She reached out for the curtains. Her hands became enmeshed in layers of sheer fabric before she was able to make contact with the window. It got stuck when she pushed it open. She shoved. It wouldnt budge. She brought her forehead close, resting against the cool glass pane. The sidewalk lay smooth and flat below.

Across the street from their hotel, the grounds of the Carnegie Mansion were abloom with roseslit up by lights, kept behind iron gates. Nadia heard a clarinet playing and the clatter of dishes being cleared away. Theyd missed the cocktail hour. The Auction for Mercy was about to begin in the ground-floor ballroom. Theyd have to attend; it was expected of them. Dan never would never break down, lose his head, crumble. A driven, competitive man, hed excelled in three careers at once, as a research scientist, an oncologist and a surgeon. Dan kept calm under pressure. It was this trait of levelheaded rationality which had drawn Nadia to him. Dan, people said, was the kind of rocklike man one ought to stand next to in a fire. That was just what Nadia had done when shed been in trouble once. Shed singled him out for his kindness, his reliability and his sense of perspective. And then shed pursued Dan tirelessly. But there was something else in him, withdrawn and passive. Nadia had become attuned to it. Now, as she watched him adjust his shirt cuffs, just so, he seemed indifferent.