Without Jenny

by Mark Gunther

  “It still feels like the beginning, Danny. I don’t know if I can be like that again.”

  “We’ve done pretty damn well, if you ask me,” Danny said. “And I love you no matter what you do.”

  He had put up with a lot. So Joy accepted. Then the presentation had come up for the same day, and she thought of course, this is the way things happen, work all day and then go out with your husband without any kind of a grief break. On the drive home she scouted a road she’d heard was good for riding up there, and got back to the city just in time for her hair appointment. She thought she looked real good when she picked up Jake at practice. Jake didn’t notice but most of the dads did.

  Joy found the dress she wanted in the back of her closet, a royal blue silk wrap with long sleeves, hemmed a little above the knee, closed with a belt and a couple of tiny snaps. Revealing, but womanly. The slinky fabric hugged her, smooth and soft against her skin. She chose a skimpy bra and panty set that she knew Danny would like when the dress came off later. What could she be tonight?

  Start somewhere else, Rabbi had said. She had been holding on with such force it had been impossible to imagine how things might look if released. What would Danny look like, then? He was different too, this Danny, the one she had created with her preoccupations. Would he recognize the woman she was now? Would she?

  Joy was sitting at her vanity when Danny came back from taking Jake to Max’s house for the night. He kissed the top of her head. She took his hand off her shoulder and kissed it.

  “We would have been leaving them home together by now.”

  “Fourteen years old, almost,” he said, “We’d be paying her.”

  “Not for taking care of Jake. She loved him.”

  “Altruism wouldn’t get her to the movies the way ten bucks an hour would. Should I wear a tie?”

  Joy thought if he did she could use it to strangle him for his pedantry, but then she remembered that she was trying to abandon the glory of her bereavement so she said, “Only if you want to. It’s your party, after all.”

  He vanished into the shower. Joy finished her makeup, put on the dress, decided not to wear pantyhose, and chose the highest heels she still could tolerate. He came up behind her, a towel wrapped around his waist.

  “Those shoes do fantastic things to your legs.”

  “You’d better like them. I can barely walk.”

  “You can wear something else.”

  “What, and spoil the full effect?” She spun a full circle, the skirt flying.

  “We’ll use the valet parking.”

  He dropped the towel and hugged her from behind, lightly thrusting, his hands sliding the thin silk over her skin, slowly pulling the dress apart. She could feel him stiffening against her back.

  “Okay, you like them.”

  “I like you,” he said.

  “Don’t we have a reservation?”

  “So we do.”

  She felt grateful. He really is an extraordinary man, she thought, caring, safe, kind. Mature. He loves me. We’re still here, together. He put on an Italian silk suit and a tie that matched her dress.

  She whistled. “Looking sharp, counselor.”

  He offered her his arm. “Thank you, Mrs. Rosenberg. Shall we go?”

  They entered through the revolving door and were escorted to a small table under a window where they sat side by side, with a view of all the hustle and bustle of the busy restaurant. The waiter brought them two glasses of champagne. She toasted her husband; his hand slid under the wrap. He moved it gently between her thighs, but she took his wrist and held his hand where it was.

  “Easy,” she said.

  He put his hand back on the table. Compromising, she relaxed and crossed her knee, letting the wrap fall open, exposing her leg to the hip.

  “Nice legs,” he said.

  “Aren’t you getting to be kind of old for this sort of thing?”

  “No! Besides, you’re still twenty-two to me. Every time I look at you I see the girl who was showing all that skin at the race.”

  “You could barely look at me.”

  He blushed. “It’s true. I almost blew it.”

  “You got over it fast enough. It was like two AM or something and I went inside and woke Lizzie up and told her I might have just met my husband.”

  “That’s sweet.” He kissed her. “Congrats on getting that job today.”

  “Yeah, they have a big budget and they’re going to use me for a lot of their media. I’ll get a lot of exposure. And I got another referral today through the same agency. I think I can work as much as I want to. Maybe as much as you, if I want to.”

  “I knew it,” Danny said. “I guess we’ll be eating in a lot of restaurants.”

  “I hope not, Danny. We need a normal home life. What’s Jake going to think?”

  “That normal is working hard and eating out,” Danny said. He was on a roll now. “He’s got money. Besides, I cook.”

  “Not very much,” Joy said. “Graduate school will probably use up his money.”

  “Weekends, I cook. And we’re paying for graduate school. The blood money is his.” He paused. “Are we having a fight?”

  “No, we’re not,” she said.

  “Good. So can you hire someone now?”

  She nodded. “I was thinking I should sub out the excess work instead of hiring. I worry about the next disaster.”

  “No more disasters,” he said fervently. “No more.”

  They drank to that too. Their salads came, and Joy pulled her napkin over her bare leg. They fed each other tastes.

  “It sucks that her being dead is normal,” he said.

  “The new normal. I can even try to look beautiful and it doesn’t feel like a lie.”

  He slid the napkin off her lap. “It’s no lie with legs like that.”

  “A little chunky in the thighs and butt, don’t you think? All that bicycling.”

  “I’ve never gone for those willowy white girls,” he said. “Hearty peasant stock for me. Drop the babies and pick the potatoes.”

  “That’s not the way to get to where you want to go tonight, Danny.” She smiled anyway, then pulled her dress closed as the waiter cleared the salads and refilled the wine glasses.

  He lifted a glass to her. “I get a little slack on my birthday, I hope. I remember a few other birthdays where you made me very, very happy.”

  I could be something like that at home tonight, something close to that, maybe. Maybe he’s even right to expect it.

  Their main courses arrived. They talked about the news, and the office, and what was up with their parents, and about Jake some more. Joy lifted her napkin this time. He dropped a slow hand, then flicked the wrap open. She let it stay that way.

  “I was remembering your vision,” Danny said. “I was angry at you for giving in to it, but it scared me. All I could do was hang on to what I knew. I get it now, I think—loosen that grip just a little and the world starts to fade away.”

  “Hah,” she said. “Welcome to the loony bin.”

  “No,” Danny said, “I opted out of that one.”

  “I’m sorry that was hard for you,” she said, “but you’re batting a thousand tonight.”

  She leaned over and kissed his cheek. “I have something for you.”

  Joy had wanted to get him something unique, like an engraved bracelet, but she knew he wouldn’t wear it, so then maybe something practical, but he said one night that he hoped his parents wouldn’t give him another sweater. So she called Elaine to tell her to not buy him a sweater. Maybe a nice portrait of her and Jake? But she couldn’t schedule that soon enough with their busy schedules, and if she was hiring a photographer it should be all of them and maybe the grandparents too. Then she thought she could get golf clubs or a new bike, but those were too much for a non-zero birthday. She reached into her purse and handed him a small velvet box.

  “You didn’t have to do this,” he protested. “The night is enough.”

  She
hoped it would be.

  He tore off the paper with a certain eagerness nonetheless, opened the box, and took out the watch. It was simple and dressy, with a small diamond embedded in the face.

  “Look at the back.”

  The engraving read, To Danny, my rock. Love forever, your Joy.

  “It’s beautiful, honey.” He took off his other watch and put it on. She knew his wrist size. “Let’s get out of here.”

  She took his arm. They left the restaurant and walked around the corner to the Embarcadero. Buffeted by the westerlies, they watched the twinkling light patterns play up and down the Bay Bridge cables, then circled back and picked up their car. Joy took her coat off, laying it on the back seat. When Danny sat down she caressed his thigh, leaving her hand there. Crossing right leg over left, she let the wrap open, revealing her thigh; he reached over and gently pulled the other half of the skirt toward him, baring both her legs to the hip. She let her legs fall open.

  “That’s a great view. I want more.”

  He pulled the away from the curb.

  “Gosh, you’re so demanding. I bought you a watch.”

  “You can return it if there’s a quid pro quo.”

  “There isn’t. Danny. Look all you want.”

  “I’m past looking now. ”

  He drove home with only one hand on the wheel. She liked what he did with his other hand, but she felt both urgent and broken. Always broken, she thought. Ignoring the danger, she unclipped her seatbelt as Danny parked in their driveway. He brought her to him and kissed her fiercely. His left hand roamed the front of her body. She felt a tug and her belt came loose. The snaps ticked and the dress fell open, baring her body to him. His hands were all over her. She gave him a squeeze in the place he wanted to be touched.

  He came around the car and opened her door. She left her dress dangling open for the short walk to the front door. As it closed behind him Danny reached out and pulled the dress off her shoulders. She turned, and looking straight at him, let it slide down her arms onto the floor. In her transparent lingerie and high heels, she led him up the stairs.

  The naked woman in the bathroom mirror was her. Seeking Gauguin, she saw Munch. She wanted to cuddle up with her pillow in her brushed cotton pajamas printed with little bicycles, soft, quiescent, Danny at a comfortable distance. But he was in their bed full of sweet kisses and soft smiles and cheeks made warm by champagne and wine. She joined him, for the sake of the woman she was sure wanted him, coiling around him, kissing, touching, hiding her breasts against his chest. His skin was hot, his muscles were tight, grabby. He was so much bigger than her.

  “Go slow, Danny,” her fear whispered.

  He didn’t. His hands scraped her skin. She suffocated in an avalanche of touch. Her body moved itself away from his hands, down, her mouth surrounding his hard pleasure, veins and ridges throbbing between her lips, heat on her tongue.

  His hips moved forward and her head moved back. He followed relentlessly. She tried to hold him still, but he was too strong and he was too big in her mouth and she was afraid and she flipped away from his heat and his smell and his eyes, onto her belly, face deep in her pillow, biting down hard, wishing he was a tree, a telephone pole, there to rip her to shreds. He became it, slamming into her again and again, his weight driving the breath out of her. He shoved his arm under her hips and dragged her to her knees. She had to use all her strength to survive his power: used, taken, owned, flooded. After, his strength gone, he dropped his sweaty weight fully onto her body and crushed her flat. Just Danny, once again.

  As soon as seemed practical she rolled him off her and headed to the bathroom. It still was Munch in the mirror. When she came out Danny was gone. She lay on their bed, the sheets sweaty and sticky. She felt sullied; she had lied to him. Familiar, ordinary, foreign sounds percolated from the kitchen, the top popping off the teapot, water filling it, the click of the switch; gentle bubbling as water boiled in the machine. Footsteps on the stairs. She levered herself upright and leaned against the headboard. He came in with the tea, still naked, his white-caked cock small and mild. He handed the tea to her wordlessly.

  “Happy birthday,” she said. What to say? “That was intense.”

  He looked at her. “Yes. Why do I feel like shit?”

  Dead Jenny was watching. Joy held on.

  “What are you talking about? Wasn’t I what you wanted?” She threw her legs open and put her hand there. “Oh Danny, oh, that was so good, oh, oh, more, more.”

  “Joy, yes, that’s real funny. Now stop it. We’re in trouble here.”

  He sat on the bed, put his arm around her, tried to pull her close. She pushed away. He followed her across the bed. She jumped off the bed and nearly ran across the room.

  For a brief moment, Joy burst into tears. “Goddammit, Danny; don’t touch me!” She took a step, but he didn’t move. She sat on the floor. “How could you do that?”

  “Do what? What you wanted?”

  “I asked you to go slow.”

  “And I didn’t. Usually you ask again. I thought you wanted that.”

  I wanted to feel something. It was confusing. She wrapped her arms around her knees and held on tightly. “You hurt me.”

  “You wanted me to.”

  “Yes.” The admission hurt as much as the act.

  “Crap,” Danny said. “Can we just stop this?”

  He picked up his boxers and put them on. He extended his hand. She took it and he pulled her up. She went to her dresser and put on the pajamas. Silently, they straightened up the bed. The tea was cold. He took the cups into the bathroom and dumped them out. He brushed his teeth, then she brushed hers. She washed her face and braided her hair and took her vitamins. They lay in their bed.

  “I’m so sorry,” he said, after a while.

  “Me too,” she said. He reached tentatively toward her, and she caught his hand—simply Danny’s hand again. She held it softly, warming next to her hip.

  Joy woke up early and got on the bike. She was sore. She banged a fist on the handlebar, missing Jenny, missing Danny, ready to vanish into the soothing intensity of three climbing intervals up the Marin Headlands.

  If Jenny was still alive, everything would be all right.

  Do we have to go over this again? said Dead Jenny.

  Y’know, said Joy, No. We’re done here.

  For a tiny suspended moment the landscape exhaled and Joy felt untethered; then the hill started to bite and she became only legs and breath. Power on, up the hill, watch the monitor, heart rate high and steady, twelve minutes up. Relax. Descend. Repeat. Relax. Descend. Repeat. Relax. Descend. Recover. Return.

  When she got home, she was relieved Danny was there. He was dressed in jeans and a T-shirt and his briefcase was open on the counter.

  “Good ride?” He poured her some coffee but kept the counter between them.

  “I did my work.” She paused. “Danny, I don’t know what to say.”

  He put some files away and closed the briefcase. She liked it when he clicked the latches and put it on the floor.

  “It got pretty ugly,” he said. “I’m sorry for my part. I haven’t wanted you like that since before she died, though. I guess that was good. Wanting you, I mean.”

  “At least you got a good fuck out if it.” He winced, and she held her hand up. “It went too far. You should have stopped. I should have stopped you. We both got hurt. Something still is broken. I don’t know how to fix it right now.”

  “Can last night just be over?”

  I hope so. She reached across the counter and squeezed his forearm. However many things he had been to her, he had never been selfish. The quiet felt good. She watched him over the rim of her coffee cup. The newspaper was spread out on the counter and he drank his coffee left-handed, his baby finger extended. Just like Danny always did.

  “Quite the adventure, eh?”

  He looked up and shook his head. “No shit. Who knew we were signing up for this!”

  “W
hen do we have to get Jake?”

  “At three. I was hoping to spend the day in bed, but we might kill each other.”

  “Yeah, better safe than sorry. Maybe we should clean out the basement.”

  “I don’t know, there’re a lot of pointy implements down there.”

  They decided to go to a museum.

  “Okay,” he said, “but what I said last night? I really mean it. No more of this.”

  “Jesus H. Fuck, Danny. Just can the holier-than-thou shit, okay?”

  He put his cup down emphatically. “Joy, I am not going to be the bad guy here. It was an equal opportunity fuck-up. Okay?”

  She wanted to punch him. “Okay.”

  “Okay,” he said, and when he smiled the smile she remembered from the coffeehouse that very first night, what she wanted was to spend the day with that boy. For most of the day, she did.

  30.

  THAT FOURTH SUMMER, Joy often was alone.

  She had known it was coming but it surprised her nonetheless. She kept buying food for a full house that ended up in the compost bucket. Jake was away on a six-week baseball tour. A lot of the time that she wasn’t working she spent on the bike. She told Lizzie the discipline was a lifesaver, to which Lizzie retorted that at least it was a time sink. Not that she offered Joy any real alternatives. Joy’s winery designs were all over the Bay Area, and she was providing close to full-time work to a couple of her graduate school classmates.

  Danny had a room in the Executive Stay Hotel and Suites in Stockton and slept there three or four nights a week. The new acquisition was not going so smoothly, he said, but she saw him reveling in an orgy of competence so much more predictable than his life with her. They wore their intimate distance comfortably—householding days, movie nights, and separate bedtimes created just enough present for it all to feel autonomous. Some weeks they didn’t talk at all. When he was home they still went to the shul most Saturdays, did things with Jake, saw the parents and some friends. In her grimmer moods Joy saw their life as stepping in the pre-painted footsteps of what families do, guiding them down an inevitable path of ever greater insensibility.