How It Ended: New and Collected Stories - By Jay McInerney Page 0,159

realizing how badly she had misjudged both Mr. Knightley and her own heart, when the phone rang, startling her. She was hardly less startled by the identity of the caller.

“A.G.?”

“Sorry to call so late. But I know you've always been a night owl.”

“If you're looking for my niece, she's gone off to sleep over at a friend's house.”

“No, actually I was looking for you. Wanna get a drink?”

“Now? Tonight?” Her watch said 1:45.

“We're not getting any younger.”

“Don't you have a big day tomorrow?”

“That's probably exactly why I want to drop by.”

She paused. She knew, of course, that she was going to say yes, but it irritated her that she was so pleased at the prospect of his coming over. Naturally, he was drunk and probably high. She'd been the recipient of many such late-night phone calls back in the day. She couldn't help feeling an illicit satisfaction in the fact that she was, after all these years, getting another, and on this of all nights. He was probably just feeling sentimental in his cups, but whatever his motivation, she had unfinished business with A. G. Jackson, and this might well be her last chance to close the account.

He was flushed, and his speech, always slower and more elided than that of his northern peers, was just a little slurrier than usual. But for all the nights they'd partied till dawn, she'd never really seen him lose control of his faculties.

He hugged her just a little longer and harder than he might have in a public encounter. “Hey, little darlin'. I can't tell you how glad I am to see you.” She pointed him toward the living room couch. He set up camp on the couch and proceeded to lay out a pile of coke on the coffee table. “You don't mind, do you? I just need to settle my nerves.”

“Oh, that should definitely do the trick,” she said. “You're so mellow on coke.”

“Well, you know. Old habits die hard.”

Though it had been years since she'd done blow herself, it seemed perfectly normal to watch him chopping lines, since that's what they'd always done. Being transported back a decade wasn't such a bad thing for a girl. Plus, she was morbidly fascinated with his recklessness on the eve of his wedding. She couldn't help wondering just how far he would push it.

“Is that how you'd describe me?‘An old habit’?”

“I'd describe you as an old … a close friend.” He laid out four identical lines with his Soho House membership card. He always prided himself on this little skill.

She sat down beside him and accepted the rolled-up twenty. Always the gentleman, letting her go first. She felt a thrill of recognition as he held her hair back while she leaned over the table. And then the other familiar thrill, the chilly tingle in her sinuses that turned warm as it spread out toward the follicles of her scalp.

“Feels like old times,” he said.

“Not exactly,” she said.

“I can't believe it's been … God, how long has it been?”

“Seven years.”

“No way.”

“Yup.”

“Well, it's not like we haven't seen each other around town.”

“No, though you probably would have preferred me to just disappear into thin air.”

“Oh, come on, darlin'. Don't be ridiculous. I'm always happy to see you.” He leaned over and snorted his two lines.

“You weren't so happy to see me today at the beach.”

“Well, not my best moment.”

“So you admit you were hitting on my niece.”

“It's a reflex. What can I say? She's a very pretty girl.”

“I understand that. What I don't understand is tomorrow.”

“Yeah, well. I'm not so sure I do, either.”

“Don't you think you'd better figure it out?”

“I hardly think there's time for that,” he said.

“Are you in love with her?”

“I suppose so. I'm not sure.”

“Have you ever been in love?”

He nodded his head and looked off through the bay window, out across the invisible ocean, his eyes turning glassy. She realized with a start that he was on the verge of tears. When she slid across the couch and embraced him, he virtually collapsed in her arms. “Once,” he said.

At Harvard, A.G. had fallen in love with Eve Garrigue, who was a class ahead of him and who, by the time they met, had already published several poems in The Paris Review. He was aware of her legend—brainy, beautiful and hard-drinking—even before he arrived on campus, and he already knew her family, from New Orleans, in the way that all southerners know one another. A.G. had discarded his virginity at fifteen