I went to Rory’s house for dinner. I couldn’t decide what to wear, so I wore my combat pants. I was nervous. And who could blame me? I had never deliberately had sex with a man who had a willy the size of a little finger before.
“Calm down,” he said airily. “Everything’s going to be okay.”
“I like your apartment,” I said. It was filled with overstuffed couches and armchairs and antiques. It had a fireplace. There was quite a bit of chintz, but I didn’t think that much about it, because most English people who live in Chelsea have chintz.
“Oh yes,” he said. “It’s terribly . . . cozy, isn’t it?”
Then we drank champagne. American men almost never drink champagne because they think it’s kind of a sissy drink. Then we put on music and danced madly. American men almost never dance. And then it hit me.
Ohmigod, I wanted to scream. You’re gay!
Of course. The champagne, the dancing, the chintz . . . the only men who were like that in New York were . . . gay.
I turned down the music. “Listen,” I said. “There’s something important I have to talk to you about.”
“Yes?” he said.
“You may not be aware of this . . . in fact, chances are that you’ve probably been wondering yourself why it is that you don’t like sex with women . . . but honestly, I think you’re gay,” I said. “And I think you should admit it. I mean, wouldn’t you be much happier if you were out of the closet?”
“I have considered that very possibility,” he said slowly. “And I have come to the conclusion . . . that I am not gay.”
“Gay,” I said.
“Not gay,” he said.
“Look here. You don’t like sex,” I said. “With women. You don’t like sex with women. Hello? What does that tell you? Of course, I don’t mind at all. You seem like a very nice man, and—”
He said, “I’m not gay.” And then, “I know you’re going to kiss me.”
“I’m not going to kiss you,” I said.
“You are going to kiss me,” he said. “It’s only a matter of time.”
Three days later, we got out of bed.
BABY’S PUDDINGS
I went to see Sophie in Notting Hill. Sophie was getting married and was stuffing her wedding invitations in envelopes. “I’m with a man in Chelsea,” I said. “I’ve been with him for five days. We take baths together and sing.”
She sighed. “It’s always like that with Englishmen in the beginning. How is he in bed?”
“Great,” I said.
“Well, they can be great at the beginning. That’s what they do to woo you. But then they just stop caring. One of my girlfriends says her husband goes in, out, in, out, and then he comes.”
“We’ll see,” I said.
“Maybe you’ll get lucky,” she said. “But in general, men in London are not a good bet. I’m only getting married because I’ve known my fiancé for ten years. But other than that, the men want to get married and career women don’t. It’s a much better deal for the man than it is for the woman.”
Sophie made us vodka tonics. “Englishmen just don’t do anything. They’re lazy. They make absolutely no effort. The woman has to do everything. And she has to pay for half of everything. The house, the car, the food. . . . All the man wants to do is hang around.”
“Do they, uh, watch Kung Fu videos?”
“Oh God no. They’re not that stupid. But they do want you to make them baby’s puddings all the time.”
“Baby’s puddings? You mean . . . baby food?”
”No. You know. Dessert. Apple crisp.”
Oh.
I went back to his house. “Do you want me to make you baby’s puddings?” I asked.
“Oh Minky,” he said. “What’s a baby’s pudding?”
“You know. Apple crisp,” I said.
“Well, yes, actually. I like apple crisp. Do you want to make me apple crisp?”
“No,” I said.
“Okay, well, how about an egg?”
We spent two weeks together. We rode around London on his Vespa and tried to go to bed early every night, but then we’d lie there from one to four in the morning, talking. He told stories about how he’d been caned at Eton and how he once tried to stuff his nanny in the toy closet.
“I’m confused,” he said. “I have all these ‘L’ words swirling around in my head. ‘U-S-T’ and ‘O-V-E.’”
I wanted to say, Well, hurry up and make up your mind, but I wasn’t in New York.
“Do you want to meet my friends?” he asked.
His friends were Mary and Harold Winters, and they lived in a big house in the country. It was, I suppose, the sort of life that every single woman who’s spent too many nights alone in a tiny apartment in New York City dreams of your own house with space, dogs, children, a Mercedes, and a jolly, adorable teddy-bear husband. When we walked in, two tow-headed children were helping Mary shell peas in the kitchen. “I’m so pleased you could come,” Mary said. “You’ve arrived at just the right time. We’re having a moment of calm.”
All hell broke loose after that.
The rest of the children (there were four of them altogether) came galloping in, screaming. The dog pooped on the carpet. The nanny cut her finger and had to go to the clinic.
“Do you mind giving Lucretia her bath?” Mary asked.
“Which one is that?” I asked. All the children had names like Tyrolean and Philomena, and it was hard to tell which one was which.
“The little one,” she said. “With the dirty face.”
“Sure,” I said. “I’m great with kids.”
This was a lie.
“Come along, then,” I said to the little creature, who was staring at me balefully.
“Be sure to wash her hair. And put conditioner in it,” Mary said.
Somehow I got the child to take my hand and follow me up the stairs and into the bathroom. She took off her clothes willingly enough, but then the trouble began.
“Don’t touch hair,” she screamed.
“I’m going to touch your hair,” I said. “Hair. Nice clean hair. Shampoo. Don’t you want pretty clean hair?”
“Who are you?” she asked, rather sensibly, as she was naked in front of a complete stranger.
“I’m your mommy’s friend.”
“How come I never saw you before?”
“Because I was never here before.”
“I don’t like you,” she said.
“I don’t like you either. But I still have to wash your hair.”
“No!”
“Now listen, you little rug-rat,” I said threateningly. “I’m going to wash your hair and that’s it. Get it?”
I squirted the shampoo on her head, and she immediately started screaming and thrashing about like I was murdering her.
In the middle of this fracas, Rory walked in.
“Isn’t this fun?” he said. “Aren’t you having a lovely time?”
“Lovely,” I said.
“Hello, there, tiddlewinks,” he said, waving to the child.
The creature screamed louder.
“Right ho. I’ll see you downstairs, then.”
“Rory,” I said. “Do you think maybe you could give me a hand?”
“Sorry,” he said. “Bathing children is women’s work. I’m going downstairs to open a bottle of champagne. He-man in the kitchen and all that.”
“You know, I really admire you,” Mary said after dinner, when we were washing the dishes. “You’re so smart. Choosing to have a career. And not being pressured to get married. That takes guts, you know?”
“Oh Mary,” I said. She was one of those lovely Englishwomen of whom the Brits are so proud, with a beautiful oval face, clear fair skin, and blue eyes. “Where I come from, what you have is an achievement. A husband, this house, and four . . . adorable . . . children. That’s what every woman wants.”
“You’re very kind. But you’re lying,” she said.
“But your children. . . .
”
“Of course I love my husband and children,” she said. “But half the time I feel like I’m invisible. If something happened to me, I wonder if they would even miss me. I know they’d miss what I do for them. But would they actually miss me?”
“I’m sure they would,” I said.
“I’m not,” she said. “You know, it’s all a big fantasy. I wanted to be a painter. But I had the big white fantasy—that dream you have about your wedding day. And then it comes true. And then, almost immediately afterward, you have the black fantasy. No one ever tells you about that one.”
“The black fantasy?”
“I thought I was the only one who had it,” she said, wiping her hands on a dish towel. “But then I talked to a few other married women. And they had it too. You have this vision of yourself, all in black. Still young, wearing a big black hat, and a chic black dress. And you’re walking behind your husband’s casket.”
“Oh dear.”
“Oh yes,” she said. “You have a fantasy that your husband has died. You still have your children and you’re still young, but you’re . . . free.”
“I see,” I said.
Rory and Harold came into the kitchen. “Can we help?” they asked.
“It’s finished,” Mary said pleasantly.
Rory and I took the train back to London. The next morning, I had to leave.
It was time to go back to New York.
“Now listen, Minky,” he said. “Are we going to be adults about this, or are we going to have tears?”
“What do you think?” I said.
“Good-bye, Minky,” he said.
“Good-bye,” I said.
“I love you,” he said. “Go on. You’d better go now.”
The petals from the cherry blossoms had fallen off the trees and onto the sidewalks. I walked over them, crunching them into the cement.
Oh God, I thought. Now what am I going to do?
Grasshopper says: Be sensible.
What I did, of course, was get into a cab and go to the airport.
But what did I really want?
I got on the plane and sat down in my seat. I took my shoes off. I opened a magazine.
A man sat down next to me. He was tall and dark-haired and slim, and he was wearing Prada trousers. He had all his hair, and an intelligent, interesting face. He opened a magazine. Forbes.
Now that’s my type, I thought.
God, I was so fickle. I’d left Rory only two hours ago, and already I was thinking about another man.
What was it I wanted?
The story.
I wanted the story. I wanted the big, great, inspiring story about an unmarried career woman who goes to London on assignment and meets the man of her dreams and marries him. She gets the big ring and the big house and the adorable children, and she lives happily ever after. But stories are not reality, no matter how much we might wish them so.
And that’s not so bad.
Somewhere over Newfoundland, about two hours from JFK, the man next to me finally spoke.
“Excuse me,” he said. “Sorry for asking, but you look somewhat familiar. Do you mind my asking what it is you do?”
“I’m a writer,” I said.
“Ah yes,” he said. “I do know who you are. You’re that famous single woman who writes about single women and, er . . .”
“Sex,” I said.
“That’s right,” he said. He opened another magazine. He seemed kind of shy.
“Excuse me,” I said. “But you look kind of familiar. Do you mind my asking what it is you do?”
“Oh,” he said. “I’m a businessman.”
“I knew that.”
“You did? How?”
“Your choice of reading material,” I said.
Well, we did get to talking after that. And we discovered that we had practically the same birthday and had grown up in towns with exactly the same name—Glastonbury—although his Glastonbury was in England, and mine was in Connecticut.
“Well,” he said, “it’s not enough on which to base a relationship, but it’s a good beginning. Would you like to have dinner tonight?”
We did have dinner that night. And eventually, one thing did lead to another. And now all I can say is that my friends are very happy for me, and my mother has been bugging me nonstop about flower arrangements.
But that, of course, is another story.
Four Blondes Page 27