This excerpt is the second chapter of The Rites of Man. In Chapter 1, Sherry McManus, 44, a New York photographer of musicians in concert, is starting an affair with Thomas G. Paine, 43, a formerly best-selling novelist who’s been in a dry spell. As that chapter closes, Sherry comes home from Tom’s beach house to her cat, Max, and finds a voicemail confirming her dinner date with Anouk Saint-Clair, who has flown over from Paris to sing at Carnegie Hall. It’s July 1996.
Chapter 2
They ordered Manhattans when they arrived at the steakhouse on Saturday night. Anouk was in an ebullient mood. She’d received a standing ovation for her rendition of the songs of Ella Fitzgerald, and when the drinks arrived, she raised her glass.
“Here’s to your city,” she said. “It’s fan-tas-tique! I love it—the energy, the people, the creativity.” With that, she broke into a trill: “New York, New York…”
Sherry laughed as diners turned their heads to see who was singing.
“Yeah,” she said. “It’s dirty and gritty and noisy. What’s not to love?”
“You’re proving my point, darling,” Anouk said. “Don’t you see? That’s what New Yorkers share with Parisians. A sense of irony.”
“Paris,” Sherry said. “It’s been so long.”
“You should come over. But I understand you’ve been busy. So, tell me, darling—who is this new man in your life?”
Sherry lowered her voice.
“Nobody knows, so please be discreet. He’s a writer. Tom Paine.”
“Really? Thomas G. Paine? I’m impressed,” Anouk said. “Didn’t he win the National Book Award? But I haven’t seen his name recently.”
“Tom has writer’s block. That’s kind of how we met. He’s been living out at his beach house on the island, trying to start a new novel. I went out to the Hamptons with Lou for a barbecue on the Fourth, and Tom was there. We just connected. When I was leaving, he slipped me his phone number.”
“And you called him.”
“Not right away,” Sherry said. “But when I got back to the city, I took a fresh look at his first novel. Maybe you remember it. Common Sense.”
“That’s his trademark, isn’t it, taking the works of Thomas Paine the revolutionary and writing a novel under the same title.”
“He seems to have made it work. Anyhow, you probably never read the original, but it’s effectively a call to arms. Tom Paine called on the American colonists to rise up and fight for independence from Britain. He published Common Sense in January 1776. Six months later, America declared independence.”
“Really, darling?” Anouk said. “What a powerful book.”
“It was a pamphlet at the time, but yeah, it was powerful. So when my Tom wrote his Common Sense, he added a subtitle, Independence Revisited. The theme was that things were off track in America and we needed to do something about it as a matter of common sense. He wrote it during the Reagan presidency, when a lot of people felt the same way.”
“I never read it,” Anouk said, “but I do remember that it made quite a splash.”
“I’d forgotten what a great read it is. You get swept up in the love story between Nick and Kate, but it’s really about young people challenging the United States to get back to its founding values. I haven’t finished rereading it yet—I’m making it last.”
Sherry reached into her bag and drew out the novel, its cover emblazoned with an American flag. She flipped to the epigraph page.
“It’s right here, from the original Common Sense. ‘The cause of America is in great measure the cause of all mankind.’ Which is still true today, by the way.”
“So you put down the book, rushed back to Long Island, and fell into bed.”
“No,” Sherry said. “When I called, he was leaving for the city.”
“Okay,” Anouk said. “He rushed straight to your place and you fell into bed.”
“He couldn’t. Tom’s still officially married. Some weekends he spends with his wife.”
“Are you serious?”
“It’s actually not a problem,” Sherry said. “They split up a year ago, and they haven’t had sex in ages. They sleep in separate bedrooms.”
“How do you know?”
“He told me.”
Anouk raised an eyebrow.
“Okay, okay,” Sherry said. “I know—he specializes in fiction. Doesn’t matter. First, I like him. Second, I believe him. And third, at least I’m safe this time, if you see what I mean.”
“I’m not sure I do. Safe from what?”
“Come on. You know my track record. Do I have to spell it out? With Tom, there’s a built-in barrier against expectations. I won’t get carried away.”
“I’m not sure that’s the way love works,” Anouk said.
“Who said anything about love?”
The food arrived: thick T-bones, the kind you couldn’t find in Paris. It was Anouk’s favorite New York dinner, as long as it came with a decent bottle of Bordeaux.
“I need to hear more,” Anouk said. “After you called, when did you see him?”
“It was Monday. I took the train out to the shore. We sat around on the deck and talked politics. You know, would Clinton be re-elected, that sort of thing.”
“Very romantic.”
“I guess you had to be there. I told Tom how much I was enjoying rediscovering Common Sense, and he got out his second novel, The American Crisis—the one about the Weathermen, in which Nick and Kate rob a bank and go into hiding. I’d already read it, of course, but that was a long time ago, so he read me an excerpt.”
Sherry dropped her voice a couple of tones and recited from memory, mimicking Tom: “‘These are the times that try men’s souls.’ Nick scrawled the phrase on the cellar wall. He was bitter. They hadn’t meant to kill anyone.”
“At least he’s got a sense of humor,” Anouk said.
“It gets better. I can hear him reading to me. Something like: ‘They were freedom fighters, robbing the rich to help the oppressed. And now he and Kate were stuck here, in Brooklyn, underground. Literally. It was so unfair.’”
“Is his voice really that deep?” Anouk asked.
“Mainly when he’s aroused…”
“Oh my god. So he read to you and he took you to bed.”
“Uh-huh. All afternoon.”
“No wonder you like him.”
“Darling, give me a break,” Sherry said. “Tom’s creative and funny and tender…”
“And great in bed. I get it. But all afternoon? What about your second date?”
“That was Thursday. We slept a couple of hours. The rest of the time…”
“Stop—I can’t take it,” Anouk said. “But what do you do when you’re not having sex?”
“We tell each other stories. You know, true stories. It’s kind of a game we play.”
“And?”
“It’s hard to describe. It’s like, we’re in bed, and we’re already turned on, and instead of making love, we tell stories.”
“Really? And that’s what you like about him?”
“It’s edgy,” Sherry said. “I feel a rush just talking about it. It’s like foreplay. We get high on each other.”
“Well, he must be a powerful guy if he can make you high telling stories. And he dreamed this up?”
“No, it was my idea. I’ve actually played this game before, but with Tom being a writer, it’s more interesting. Wordplay before sex play, if you see what I mean.”
“I see only too well,” Anouk said. “But you’ve known him for what? Ten days?”
“It’s only a fling,” Sherry said. “And Tom’s great. You’d really like him.”
“Maybe.”
“Although I do feel a little conflicted about the wife.”
“Don’t,” Anouk said. “If there’s a problem, it’s between her and Tom. It’s not your problem.”
“That’s so French.”
“Just be careful, darling. Enjoy it while it lasts. But stay focused.”
“That’s my specialty,” Sherry said, raising an imaginary camera.
As she clicked the shutter, her mental lens saw Tom—out on the deck in his faded cut-offs, tall, tanned, and infinitely desirable. But he wasn’t at the beach house now, she knew, and when she tried to picture him with his wife, the image blurred.
Three miles downtown, Jessica Franklin was serving boeuf bourguignon as Tom filled crystal glasses with the expensive bottle of 1989 Nuits-Saint-Georges Premier Cru they’d been saving.
At forty-three, Jessica was in her prime: cropped dark curly hair with a dramatic streak of gray, the plunging V of her Donna Karan dress revealing more than a hint of breast.
With them at their West Village townhouse were Steve Lifshitz and Marilyn Mulligan, their closest friends—close enough to know that Tom had moved out, and that writer’s block had something to do with it.
As Tom handed the glasses around the vintage oak table, Jessica took her seat, confident that the conversation opener she’d been saving couldn’t fail to make an impression.
“Tom says he’s started a new novel.”
“Far out,” Steve said with a genial nod to his friend.
“Tommy, that’s fantastic,” Marilyn said. “Tell us about it.”
“Not much to tell,” Tom said. “I’m just playing around with ideas.”
“It’s a big secret,” Jessica said. “He refuses to discuss it. I’m not even sure it’s true.”
Tom shot his wife a glance. This was just like Jessica, to mock him in front of their friends. As if that would teach him a lesson for not meeting her expectations.
“Come on, man—give us a clue,” Steve said, swirling his glass. He worked as a Wall Street lawyer and had acquired a taste for fine wine.
“Guys—I’m not ready to talk about the book,” Tom said. “I don’t know where it’s going.”
Marilyn raised her glass with the encouraging smile she’d perfected as a Montessori preschool teacher and mother of three.
“Still, getting started is a real accomplishment,” she said. “A toast to Tom.”
Tom couldn’t savor the moment. He sensed what was coming.
“Yes, here’s to my husband,” Jessica said. “Thomas G. Paine, writer-in-residence at the beach, who hasn’t published a word in seven years.”
Tom’s eyes flashed a warning, but Jessica was on a roll, her resentment overpowering any pretense of keeping up appearances.
“Who’s still playing around with ideas after a whole year out on the island. It makes a woman wonder what he’s really been doing out there.”
“Just getting some air, Jess,” Tom said.
“Air, schmair. You’re supposed to be working. And what have we seen for it? Nothing.”
Steve and Marilyn exchanged a glance. It was often tense when they crossed from the East Village to see their friends, but tonight the atmosphere was toxic.
“The bourguignon’s fabulous, Jess,” Marilyn said. “Is this the Julia Child version? I tried it once and it took two days. How do you find the time?”
“I simplified,” Jessica said. “I had to. I’ve been tied down at the paper. We’re working on a special issue.”
Marilyn’s face lit up.
“Tell all,” she said. “What’s it about?”
Jessica wrote about art at the Village Voice. She always knew which obscure New York painter or sculptor would be the next big name. Just by choosing which artist to cover, she could make a career or break one. Marilyn liked to be first to know, but Jessica wasn’t talking.
Instead, she slipped a morsel of beef to the large poodle waiting patiently by her side. With his curly salt-and-pepper fur and jaunty bandana, he was a perfect match for Jessica.
“Hey,” Tom said. “Don’t feed Che at the table.”
“Don’t give me orders,” Jessica said coolly. “You lost that right when you moved out of our bedroom.”
“Only because you prefer to sleep with the poodle.”
“Guys,” Steve said. “Take it easy. This should be a celebration. Right, Tom?”
“Excuse me.” Tom pushed his chair back from the table and slouched into the study, which now doubled as his bedroom. He closed the door, went to the phone, and dialed a number. No answer.
“Sherry, it’s me,” he said when the answering machine clicked on. “Can we meet up tomorrow? I need to see you. Don’t call me back, right? Jessica’s on the warpath. I’ll phone you in the morning.”
Tom quietly replaced the receiver in its cradle and returned to the dinner party, where Steve was holding forth about the Yankees. Marilyn was a Mets fan. That always made for lively repartee. At least they were no longer talking about his novel.
The blinking light of the answering machine caught Sherry’s eye when she came in from the steakhouse. It was late—she and Anouk had closed the place. She admired her friend’s stamina. A concert singer who could perform at Carnegie Hall, knock back a couple of Manhattans and half a bottle of Bordeaux, and still be fresh the next day. Anouk was heading to Tanglewood in the morning.
“Now who could that be?” Sherry asked as Max jumped onto the couch. To be honest, she’d been hoping for a message. She sat down to create a lap and pushed the button.
Yes, it was Tom.
But as his words spilled into the room, their urgency surprised her. And did he have to mention his wife? The last thing Sherry wanted was Tom’s marriage invading their courtship.