Truth in Advertising Page 0,83

waiter comes by, wipes at my small spill, tops off our glasses without saying a word.

The beautiful couple nearby have been eating while also doing things with their iPhones. Now, the beautiful man says to the beautiful woman, “If you could be any animal, what would you be?”

The beautiful woman looks up from her phone and says, “I don’t know. Like, a deer, I guess?”

He nods. “That’s cool.”

He clearly wants her to ask him but she’s back to looking down at her iPhone.

He says, “You know what I’d be?”

“What?” she says, still looking at her phone.

“A plum.”

She looks up and stares at him, then nods and says, “Totally.”

They both go back to their phones.

Phoebe stares out the window and I yawn.

I say, “Do you ever think about dying?”

Phoebe says, “This is fun. I’m glad you called.”

I say, “Isn’t it funny that we all know that we’re going to die?”

Phoebe says, “Hilarious.”

The waiter brings a dessert, a crème brûlée. It’s a thing they do for people who eat there a lot. I go to take a bite but Phoebe knocks my spoon away and goes first.

I say, “Amy called me today.”

Phoebe says, “Your fiancée?”

“Former fiancée.”

“Why?”

“To tell me she’s getting married. To thank me for not marrying her.”

“Seriously?”

I nod and Phoebe tries, unsuccessfully, not to laugh.

She says, “I’m sorry. It’s just . . . you had a bad day, pumpkin.”

I say, “There was a moment . . .” But I stop.

Phoebe says, “What?”

“Nothing.”

“Tell me.”

“It’s stupid. It’s pathetic.”

“Tell me.”

“There was a moment when . . . I thought . . . this is stupid . . . when I thought she was calling to get back together. And there was this part of me that was actually a little excited about it. Not that I want to be with Amy. That’s not it. More just the idea that maybe I could . . . that I could get a second chance.”

“It’s not stupid. It’s a tiny bit sad and pathetic, but it’s not stupid.”

I think of her wedding photos. I take a spoonful of dessert.

Phoebe says, “Okay. If tomorrow were your last day to live, what would you want to do?”

“That’s easy. Work on a diaper account. You?”

Phoebe says, “C’mon. Last day on earth. You die at midnight. What would you do?”

I look to the beautiful people. No help there. The waiters. Nothing. The window. Nada. To Phoebe. “I don’t know.”

She reaches over, gently removes my hand from my face. I was touching my scar. I hadn’t realized.

She says, “You do that when you’re nervous.”

I’m embarrassed. I say, “What about you?”

Phoebe says, “I’m doing it. Hang out with my friends, my family. Wine would be involved. Possibly pot. And an eighteen-year-old Spanish bullfighter.”

She sips her wine and says, “‘I think that life would suddenly seem wonderful to us if we were threatened to die. Just think of all the projects, travels, love affairs, studies, it—our life—hides from us, made invisible by our laziness, which, certain of a future, delays them incessantly.’”

“Who said that?”

Phoebe says, “Frank.” She smiles. “Marcel Proust.”

I say, “How do you remember that?”

She says, “I printed it out, had it on my desk at work in Paris. I used to look at it all the time.”

“We’ll blow it up big, put it in the lobby. Except people would walk in, read it, and run screaming from the building.” I pause. “You still thinking about leaving?”

She nods.

I say, “That’s probably a good idea. I would if I wasn’t so insanely happy in my work. Any ideas about what you’re going to do?”

“No. Just thinking about it.”

A tidal wave of regret and fear sweeps over me. I have done it all wrong. I understand nothing. My stomach roils and my palms tingle and Phoebe is young and I imagine her life laid out before her. The real marriage this time. The one she wanted. With the right man. Fulfilling work, children, a home, me a distant memory. She’ll run into Ian in a restaurant/airport/Grand Central. They’ll talk, catch up. The older child will hold Phoebe’s hand, the little one on her hip. Pretty dresses. They’ll look like their mother. Ian will have left the agency years before, moved on, started his own design firm, gotten married in Massachusetts, spend August at his new place in Provincetown. Friends. Love. Joy. Fulfillment. And you, Phoebe? he’ll ask. Three children, she’ll say. A boy, the oldest, with his father, who we’re on our way to meet. He’s a former model turned yachtsman turned novelist. Just sold