You Don't Love Me Yet by Jonathan Lethem Page A

more of Falmouth.”
    “Is something wrong with Falmouth?”
    “Perhaps after you greet your compatriots you’d be willing to follow me.”
    “Maybe we better go now.”
    Denise and Bedwin continued toward the stage, while Lucinda followed Harvey. Behind the elevator was hidden the loft’s tiny kitchen and bathroom, and above, connected by a short spiral stair, nestled an elevated sleeping platform, with a ceiling so low Lucinda had to stoop. The melancholy living space was a mole’s burrow, suggestive of Harvey’s secret armpit-sniffer’s despondency. “Will you remove your shoes, please?” said Harvey at the top of the stair. Lucinda crushed the backs of her sneakers with her toes, squeezing them off without untying the laces.
    The scene had an air of private ritual. Falmouth knelt on Jules Harvey’s futon, his knees surrounded by a heaped disarray of headphones and portable tape and disk players. Two shopping bags of additional equipment slumped unpromisingly on the floor. A gun nested in the cushions. Lucinda recalled something about a starter’s pistol. She hoped it wasn’t as real as it looked. The small shelf beside Jules Harvey’s bed contained candles and two neat stacks of glossy magazines, possibly pornographic. The two interns sat coolly sharing a joint on a love seat in the corner. Their unspeaking presence seemed almost malevolent now, Falmouth’s fantasy of a world decorated with servile girls gone sour.
    Headphones clung crookedly to Falmouth’s dome. Sweat trickling on his jaw, he stabbed buttons on a scuffed silver Walkman, then rolled his eyes and thrust the rig aside.
    “Where have you been?” he said to Lucinda.
    “I took a shower. What’s wrong?”
    “It’s no good,” he said. “Jules invited too many people and they didn’t bring anything to listen to and when they all come upstairs they’re going to destroy everything. We don’t have enough tape players. Half of these don’t work at all. We can’t let them in, it’s too many. Did you see?”
    “I saw,” said Lucinda. “It’s half of Silver Lake.”
    “This happens,” said Jules Harvey. “An invitation becomes exponential, something gets in the air. Suddenly it’s the party everyone has to be at on a given night, the party of the season. We couldn’t have foreseen how your list and mine would catalyze. People are afraid not to be at an event like this. Many others will eventually lie and claim they were.”
    “It wasn’t meant to be a party,” said Falmouth. “That’s the problem. You threw a party.”
    “I’m sorry,” said Jules Harvey. Steel flashed behind his usual gray tone of haplessness. “It’s what I do.” Lucinda understood that Harvey really was indomitable, the human equivalent of a cartoon turtle who appeared to plod ineffectually, yet when you tried to outrun him, turned up seated calmly on a log a few feet ahead of you, smoking a cigar and annotating a racing form with a stub of pencil.
    Falmouth gestured for his interns, who didn’t budge. “We’ll be selective,” he said. “I won’t let them up without headphones.”
    “I’d prefer not to disappoint so many people,” said Jules Harvey.
    “What do you suggest, then?” said Falmouth.
    “Let’s have them up. We can feed and entertain them for a while. Get them on your side, Falmouth, then you can propose something. Here.” Harvey reached across Falmouth’s knees and plucked the pistol from the cushions. “One of you children handle this.”
    One of the interns nodded and stubbed out the joint, took the pistol from Harvey.
    “It makes a very loud noise, so be careful. When you’ve got their attention, try to explain.”
    The intern nodded, and she and her companion moved to the spiral stair. Lucinda saw that some mysterious but unmistakable transfer had occurred. These were Jules Harvey’s interns now.
    When they were gone, Lucinda said, “I ought to go down and, uh, greet my compatriots.”
    Harvey spread his hands.