Last year, Jonathan held his birthday party at his apartment in the Village instead of at a hotel. I brought Caroline whom I had been dating for three months. While still in the cloud of new love, we were past the high-wire jangling of the early days when any misstep could stop the flow. By this point, she knew me well enough that my every word was not a make-or-break test. We were also at the point where we didn’t worry about what the other one was doing during our frequent, separate business trips. I was even beginning to think she might be The One.
At the party, Caroline was clothed in her usual elegance—this time a dress of swirling reds, purples, and gold; in the latest style, of course. Her dark hair flowed down on either side of her face and framed her stunning blue eyes and smooth skin. Her speech was as impeccable as her looks. She spoke in a cultured voice with a British accent carefully retained from her childhood in London. She had everything I’d ever dreamed of.
We had been at the party for nearly an hour and were talking with another couple—Simon, I think, and his wife, Andrea—when it happened: The topic was the Hopper exhibit at the Whitney Museum. We had seen it, of course. In our first six weeks together, Caroline had made sure we attended every major museum exhibit, Broadway opening, and Lincoln Center event as soon as they opened. We had even seen the Guggenheim’s Expressionism exhibit the same day we had been to the Hopper opening, though I hadn’t wanted to.
“Let’s wait a week,” I had said. “They’re too different to see at the same time.”
“It’s not at the same time. We’re going to Hopper in the morning and Expressionism in the afternoon.”
“That’s still too close together. Hopper is so quiet, so peaceful on the surface. Expressionism is harsh and in your face. We won’t have time to recover from the Hopper before we go to the Guggenheim.”
“Sure we will.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Okay, then don’t go. You can stay here, but I’m going. Otherwise, it will be all booked up and I’ll have to wait for weeks to see it. By that time everyone in New York will have been to it. I’ll get someone else to go with me. Maybe Allison.”
In the end, I had given in. We went to the Hopper in the morning; I was almost overwhelmed by its sense of isolation and sadness. By the time we finished, we had to take a cab up to the Guggenheim to make our ticket time. I followed Caroline around the spiral floors and stood beside her as she looked at each painting, but I was not really there. Much as I love Expressionism, I could not engage with its visual violence after spending the morning lost in the haunting loneliness of Hopper. I did not know how anyone could—unless they only saw the surface of the paintings and did not feel their power. Unless they went to them not to see but to have seen.
I said nothing and let the excitement of being with Caroline blanket my doubts—–until Jonathan’s party when she went, with hardly a breath in between, from raving about Hopper to extolling Expressionism. Suddenly, all my concerns came howling back, and an air pocket hollowed out my stomach. My despair must have shown in my face because Andrea asked if I were all right. I mumbled something about my stomach and hurried to the bathroom. I washed my face and took a few deep breaths to hold up my sagging hope and went back to the party.
By this time, Caroline was telling Andrea about the new line of dresses at Bergdorf Goodman. She bought three, she said, including the one she was wearing. After Andrea had “oohed” and “ahhed” sufficiently, she and Caroline moved on to who the best designers were. After that, it was the new ballet at the Joffrey. The more they spoke, the more I realized that the dream I was hanging onto as if it were the truth was not.
I had been ignoring Caroline’s obsession with fashion and “the latest”. I had let it be okay that she didn’t share my faith or that she hadn’t talked to her parents in six months or that she never read books. I was even able to overlook how she brushed by that woman on Broadway struggling with her bags and made a face when I stopped to help her. I had let her surface blind me to her superficiality.
Yes, in many ways, she really was everything I’d dreamed of, but I was beginning to see that my dreams could not last without being grounded in substance. For the first time, I saw with a clarity beyond the clichés of my fantasy, and I let myself think the thought I had been pushing down for the past two weeks: She did not love what was important to me—family, books, other people. There was nothing for me below that beautiful surface, nothing of the substance and depth I needed. The life of our love could not be sustained beyond its first trimester.
There would be no more East 79th Street for me; no more Robert, the doorman; no more 976-4534. I would have to overwrite “our” places, like where we met and our favorite restaurant, with new experiences to block the memories. I would have to begin all over again.
“Are you okay?” Caroline asked as I raised my hand for a cab. I lied with a nod, but I knew we were finished except for the final acts that would rip our love from my life like a ruthless surgeon.