by Maria Semple
Violet undid one button on her shirt, then the other. Luckily, she was wearing one of her new bras, a lacy confection that smooshed her breasts together to yield a fulsome, almost cartoonish cleavage. “Take that fucking thing off,” he said. “Hurry it up.”
“I have a question,” said a young mother. “Tess fusses when I’m at my computer doing e-mail.”
“What’s your question?” Sharon said.
“I feel bad. I mean, I need to check my e-mail — and I never do it for more than fifteen minutes — but Tess hates it. And I want her to be happy.”
“Wanting your child to be happy is a misguided goal,” said Sharon. “The goal shouldn’t be to raise a constantly happy child. The goal should be to raise a child who is capable of dealing with reality. Reality is boring. Reality is frustrating. Reality isn’t about getting everything you want the second you want it. Even a one year old is capable of handling these things.”
Violet was back in the living room with Teddy.
HE undressed with frenetic purpose, as if stripping in the snow before jumping into a hot tub. It allowed Violet to match his lack of shame with her own. Naked, supine on the velvety couch, she felt giddy nonchalance. She was Manet’s Olympia, sumptuous, alert, being attended to by a dark figure. More shocking than the tableau was the trust she felt in the supplicant standing before her with the big erection.
“I can’t believe how hard I am right now,” he said, stroking himself. “Jesus, you have great tits.” He reached down and cupped one of her breasts, her soft white skin super-sensitive to his every hangnail and cracked cuticle. Teddy sidestepped between the couch and the coffee table until he stood squarely before her, then dropped to his knees. Violet pushed the table away with her heels.
“Thanks,” he said. “I didn’t know if it was a million-dollar antique or something.”
It was a Donald Judd and it cost fifteen grand, but Teddy didn’t need to know that. He sucked her breast. His hands moved to her legs. He pushed them apart, wide. Violet smiled-winced at the pleasure-pain of her ligaments stretching. Teddy sat back on his heels and examined her. “Your pussy is more gorgeous than anything on the internet. You just ruined jerking off to porn forever.”
“I think that makes me happy.”
“You little minx,” he said. He gave her inner thigh a sweet kiss.
“That’s me all right. A little minx.”
He rammed his face between her legs and worked his fingers, his tongue, even his teeth, it seemed, only coming up for air, face shiny, to exclaim, Fuck, or, Jesus.
For fun, Violet said, “Jesus, fuck me,” but Teddy didn’t get the reference.
OLIVER , a darling two year old, shook the water bottle full of hair rollers. Dot ran to look and tripped over a plastic bucket.
“Dot, I saw that,” said Sharon. She walked over and sat near Dot, who was about to cry, or maybe not. “You fell and hit your head.” Sharon picked up the bucket and showed it to Dot. “This bucket. You tripped on it.”
Dot took in Sharon’s words, then sprang up and ran to join Oliver.
“All Dot needed,” Sharon said to the parents, “was acknowledgment that someone saw what had happened to her. Parents think they need to fix every little painful thing that happens to a child. Children are born with an incredible capacity to get over things. They just need to know that someone saw it. It is evident to me that Violet is adhering to the RIE principles at home.”
“Thank you,” Violet said.
KNOWING that Teddy preferred going without, Violet was relieved when he dug through his pants and pulled out a condom. “Just happened to have one handy?” she teased.
“I never know who I’m going to run into. One time, I was coming out of the men’s room in Beverly Hills, and there was this hot lady just sitting there.”
“Oh yeah?”
“I totally could have fucked her.”
“You think?” Violet watched Teddy put on the condom. She had been married and faithful for so long that sex with a condom was a racy novelty.
She lay back and hung one leg over the back of the couch. Deep in a trance, Teddy positioned himself and thrust inside her. Once, twice. He brushed his hair out of his face and pushed himself up on his hands and looked down. He was transfixed by the rhythmic penetration. Like a stupid animal, his mouth hanging open, watching.
“Fuck,” he kept saying. “You’re so fucking hot.”
Now Violet knew: this was all she’d ever needed. Not the money, not the career, not the landmark aerie. The moment she recognized it, a panic filled her: it wasn’t enough. Teddy was on top of her, fucking her hard, grunting with each thrust. They were sticky with sweat. She breathed him in. It still wasn’t enough. Violet pulled his body close into hers and stuck her tongue in his mouth. It still wasn’t enough. She clawed her nails deep into his back. He reached for her hand, singled out her index finger, and pushed it toward his asshole.
“Do that,” he said. She stuck her finger in deep. “Like that,” Teddy whispered. “I like that.” She grabbed his hair with her free hand. “You fucking whore,” he whispered. Teddy’s cock was in her, his tongue in her mouth, her finger up his ass. There was nothing more she could do. This had to be enough. She closed her eyes.
Present Moment, Wonderful Moment.
That was a mantra the Vietnamese monk Thich Nhat Hanh had given at a teaching in France. Each time Teddy pulled out, Violet thought, Present Moment. Every thrust in, Wonderful Moment.
Present Moment, Wonderful Moment. She finally understood what the simple Buddhist had meant.
There was one problem: the future.
Violet opened her eyes. What would she do with all the moments that weren’t this present moment, this wonderful moment? There would be so many, too many to endure. She was forty-two. If she lived to eighty, there would be almost forty years of moments that wouldn’t be this wonderful. Violet closed her eyes. She had to stop thinking that way. Be present, she scolded herself. In. Out. In. Out. Present Moment, Wonderful Moment.
“Get on your hands and knees,” Teddy said. She did, and he pushed deep inside her. The force of it sent her face into the arm of the couch. Violet grabbed onto it for support. He reached under her and lifted her so they both stood on their knees. Their reflection in the sliding glass door was beautiful, haunting. Violet naked, hair cascading down. Behind her, Teddy, his dark arms entwined around her luminous skin, playing her like his upright bass, attuning himself to her subtleties. The overlay of dappled moonlight reflecting off the pool reminded Violet of that Gustav Klimt painting The Kiss. Once, in Vienna, it was on some rock tour, she couldn’t remember which, she had gone to see it three days in a row. There it was, in the reflection.
Suddenly, Teddy stopped. “Is that a tat?”
“A what?”
Teddy lifted her hair off her ear. “It is. Ha! It’s a fucking tattoo.”
“Oh yeah. Violets.”
“When did you get all tatted up?”
“In Amsterdam, one spring break.”
“You hung out in Amsterdam? With the hash and hookers?” He pulled out and turned her around.
“With the Anne Frank house.”
“The what?”
“Anne Frank House.”
“Who’s that?”
“The Jewish girl who hid from the Nazis in the attic and then died in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp.”
“Hey, nice thing to bring up while you’re getting fucked.”
“You’re the one who brought it up.”
“I just asked about your tattoo.” He kissed her neck.
“It seemed like the punk thing to do at the time.”
“Do you think I should get a tattoo?” He sat down on the couch to give it serious consideration.
“No.” She flopped on her back, her legs straddling him. “I think they’re pretty reductive.”
“Heh?”
“I can either fuck you or give you a vocabulary lesson. What’s it going to be?”
“Are you kidding?” she asked. “Look at you.”
“I need to come on you.” He ripped off his condom.
“Be my guest.” In his animal trance, that Violet felt so privileged to be part of, Teddy jerked off on her stomach.
RIE class was over. Violet was collecting her things when the Entourage director approached. “Hey, I saw on the class roster, you’re Violet Parry.”
“Yeah,” she said. Here it comes, Violet thought.
“I directed an Entourage once.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. So I’m sure we know lots of the same people. Are you working on anything now?”
“Nope,” Violet said. “I’m out of TV. You know, raising the kid.”
“Your husband’s David Parry?”
“Yeah.” No matter how successful she was, it always came around to David.
“Did you see Django’s T-shirt?”
“It’s cute.”
“Maybe we can have a playdate sometime,” he said. “Django is always talking about Dot.”
“Maybe.” Violet pulled out her cell phone to make busy, then saw it: a red message light. She practically yelped. “I’ll get your number next week. Dot! Hurry!”
“WE’RE one minute away!” alerted the assistant director.
Jeremy sat at the anchor desk, all alone under the bright lights. He was full-fledged handsome in his Zegna suit and tie. Faye finished powdering his nose, then checked his hair. Jim sat at the next desk and gabbed on his cell phone.
And like a big dummy with nothing to do, Sally stood at the snack table, free falling. She had exhausted her arsenal of threats and emotional stunts. Never before had her wiles failed her like this. No matter how bad things had gotten in the past, she always had one more trick up her sleeve. Not this time. It had left her in such a state of panic that last night she needed something to help her sleep. But when she searched her medicine cabinet for a sleeping pill, anti-anxiety drug, or antidepressant — things she’d been prescribed over the years by doctors but had never actually taken — Sally remembered all the bottles were empty. Years back, she had dumped the contents of every one into her cupped hands and threatened to swallow them in front of Kurt. His reaction? He barely looked up from the TV. “Go ahead, take them. You don’t have nearly enough there to kill yourself. They might make you more tolerable.” In a frustrated rage, Sally had flushed them down the toilet.
So today, she came armed with her old standby, the single business card in her jacket pocket. She ran the edge of it between the flesh of her thumb and fingernail as she tried to catch Jim’s eye. Coming to her boyfriend’s first day of work with the purpose of hitting on his coworker: it wasn’t Sally’s proudest moment. But Jeremy had given her no choice.
“Twenty seconds!”
Maryam and her bosses settled onto their thrones in the control booth.
“Ten seconds!”
Jim, who hadn’t even seen Sally yet, clicked his cell phone shut. Like a quarterback, he held the phone behind his head with one hand, pointed forward with the other hand, then . . . spiraled it right at Sally! She snatched it out of the air like a bride’s bouquet and hugged it into her chest, suppressing a squeal of delight.
“Five, and four, and three,” the director announced.
One second before the light went on, Jim winked at Sally, then turned to the camera. “This week,” he said, “we have the pleasure of introducing our new feature, ‘Just the Stats.’ It’s brought to you courtesy of Jeremy White. And if you’ve never heard of Jeremy White, lucky you. You don’t have a gambling problem. Welcome, Jeremy.”
The red light on Jeremy’s camera came on. “Thank you, Jim,” he said.
Maryam flew onto the set. Since gambling was illegal, it was a humongous no-no to use words such as betting, point spread, or money on Match-Ups. Jim must have ad-libbed that part. Sally, who loved the bad boys, found it an auspicious start to their future together.
“With their rebound-to-turnover ratio,” Jeremy said, “I’d give Duke a big edge.”
Maryam stared daggers at Jim, who mocked her with a schoolmarm face, then winked at Sally. Maryam spun around and caught Sally mid-giggle. Sally quickly turned to watch Jeremy.
“My picks are Duke and Villanova,” he was saying. “Until next week, I’m Jeremy White and those are Just the Stats.”
Jim’s camera light came on and he turned to Jeremy. “I’m with you, Professor. The Duke D was impressive against the Wildcats.”
Jeremy responded by silently staring into his own camera.
“Yoo-hoo!” Jim gave Jeremy a wave. “Over here, Professor.”
An eternity passed as the studio hung on Jeremy’s silence.
“Hey.” Jim’s voice was tense. “You okay over there?”
“Jim, you know what they say,” Jeremy finally said. “Don’t get on the bus with Cinderella.”
“There you have it, boys and girls,” Jim said. “Jeremy White has spoken. Call your bookies before the line moves.”
“Cut!” boomed the director’s voice.
“Jim!” shrieked Maryam. “You can’t mention bookies!”
“Whoopsie daisy!” Jim cracked up.
“It’s not funny,” Maryam said.
“She thought it was hilarious.” Jim pointed at Sally. All eyes turned to her.
“I did not!” Sally shook Jim’s cell phone at him. She marched over to whack him, but tripped over Jeremy, who hadn’t budged from his chair. His face was twisted, his eyes fixed to the floor. “Jeremy,” Sally said, “the segment is over.” He was unresponsive. She jiggled his chair. “Get up.”
“I’m hearing something,” yelled a sound guy. “It started at the end of the last segment. I need everyone to be quiet.” The studio went silent and everybody stood still. “There it is,” said the sound guy.
First, Sally smelled it: a pungent odor.
Then she heard it: a strange gurgling sound . . .
Sally looked down. It was coming from Jeremy. A brown stain spread down the inside of his pant leg. He looked up at her, helpless.
In an interview about his secret to success, David said that you only needed to get lucky once; after that, you had to get really smart, really fast. Sally had gotten lucky by capturing the imagination of that visiting Russian choreographer. But she hadn’t followed David’s advice. It was a mistake she was still paying for.
Standing in the studio, Sally recognized that luck had once again presented itself. This time, she was going to get really smart, really fast.
“My bad!” she said to the crew as she touched her stomach. “I forgot to eat this morning.” With a big smile, she tossed her purse into Jeremy’s lap. “Let’s go get some breakfast, sweetheart.” She swiveled his chair and gave it a playful push toward his dressing room.
THE SUV that had been lurking for Violet’s parking space honked, and honked again. Violet didn’t care how long the bitch had been waiting, nor that Dot was crying because her shoe had fallen off, nor that it was boiling hot in the car with the windows rolled up. Teddy had finally called after thirty-six long hours. Violet replayed the message, to pillage it for meaning.
“Violet, Violet, Violet,” her lover said. “Poor little rich Violet. Where y’at, woman? I just set up for my nonpaying big-band gig at a totally lame AA Sober Picnic in the valley. We’re going on at eleven and playing for half an hour. There are like a thousand people here, and that rocks, but I had to haul my upright and amp across an entire soccer field to set up. These morons found the place farthest from the parking lot and decided, Hey, let’s put the stage here. That’s alcoholics for you. Maybe if David Parry managed me he could get some roadies written into my contract. But what am I saying? La la la la la la. I’m saying that I’m going to marry you. And you’re going to cook for me and I’ll golf in Pebble Beach and I’ll never have to suffer through these ridiculous gigs again. Holler back, baby.”
Violet shifted into drive and h
eaded up the hill.
SALLY stood at the teeny sink in Jeremy’s dressing room and scrubbed his underwear with warm water and a bar of soap.
Jeremy sat on the loveseat, a throw pillow covering his manhood. “I was fine when I was looking at the camera,” he said to the floor.
“This is nothing to be ashamed of, my love.” Sally rinsed and wrung out his underwear, then rifled through the drawers for a hair dryer. “Bingo!”
“I like looking at the camera,” Jeremy said. “It was when I had to look over at Jim —”
Sally turned on the hair dryer and aimed it at the undies. Jeremy sat frozen, as if in a shock-induced trance. She held the underwear to her cheek. They were dry enough. “Here you go,” she said. She glanced up and caught her reflection in the mirror.
Her face, tilted slightly downward and her arms outstretched, reminded her of the replica of Michelangelo’s Pietà in St. Martin’s church in Denver. As a child, Sally would stare at it during mass. She’d grow enraptured by the Virgin’s look of sorrow, cradling her dying son. After receiving communion, Sally would pass by the statue and try to stop in Mary’s direct line of vision. But the Virgin’s flat marble eyes made it impossible. Sally spent her whole life secretly cuddling the feeling that love such as Mary’s was her destiny.
Sally turned to Jeremy. He still wasn’t getting dressed. “Get up,” she clucked. “Turn around. I want to make sure all the poop is off.” Jeremy shuddered, then complied. There was a trace of brown on the inside of his right knee. She wetted a paper towel and scrubbed it. “As good as new,” she said. “I think it’s best if we bring the suit to the dry cleaners ourselves. She stuffed the offending Zegna into a plastic shopping bag.” Jeremy stepped into his khakis. Sally removed his blazer from the hook and helped him into it. She felt the pocket. The ring box was still there.
She led Jeremy to the parking lot. Words weren’t necessary. From this point on, no matter how rich or famous Jeremy became, Sally would be the only one who knew that he had diarrhea on camera and she had saved him from career-ending public humiliation. He knew that she knew. It never had to be spoken of again.
Sally drove them straight to the Ivy. The maître d’ had seen Jeremy on TV this morning. With great fanfare, he led them to a table, on the patio this time, where they dined on crab legs and mimosas. Over dessert of flourless chocolate cake — the tarte tatin wasn’t as great as everyone had made it out to be — Jeremy proposed.