by Marr, Maggie
I pause. Tara is irritable. I don’t know what I’ve done or said or failed to do. She may not want me to come with her to walk Jango, but I’m a good guy and I’m not ditching her in a parking garage after dark to walk her dog alone.
“I’ll come too. I want the fresh air.”
We exit onto the sidewalk and turn the corner to the park. We walk in silence. Joggers run by and other dog walkers pass us on the path. Tara lets Jango sniff and walk and sniff and walk.
“Did you have a good time today?” I finally ask, pretty certain at this point Tara is angry.
“I . . . I . . . don’t like lying,” she finally says. She stops and turns to me, lifting her gaze to meet my eyes. “What happened to me taught me that there’s no place for lying in my life.” She stares at me, almost daring me to confront what I’m pretending not to know or understand.
And she’s right. I’m completely pretending that I don’t get what she’s saying, because I can’t cop to Wonderfuck. Not to Tara. Not to Rachel. Not to anyone. Wonderfuck is me, and he was created for my sanity.
“Look.” She shifts and crosses her arms over her chest. “I know you know that woman. The blonde with the brown eyes?”
I raise an eyebrow.
“I saw the two of you coming out of the bathroom.”
“Spying?”
“Needed to pee, actually. Plus, she spoke to me later. Told me I must be enjoying myself.”
Heat floods my face. Shit. Shit. Shit.
“Look, we each have different rules we live by, but that woman is married and after what happened to me I can’t . . . I can’t be around a person who doesn’t think marriage is important.”
“Marriage is important. I do know her. But I never knew she was married. She wanted something from me today that I can’t give her.”
Tara’s processing what I’ve said. All of my words are true . . . technically. Please don’t ask any questions . . . If Tara asks the obvious question, I don’t know how I can sidestep without actually telling her a lie. A bold-faced lie.
And for some reason, it’s important to me not to lie to Tara.
“It’s really none of my business.” With a small tug of Jango’s leash, she turns and leads the way back to our building.
It isn’t Tara’s business, but part of me wants my business to be Tara’s business. I can picture a woman like Tara being part of my life, and that is fucking terrifying.
Chapter 13
This is our third time together.”
“It is.”
Natasha’s happier than the first time we met. More confident. Less likely to take the bullshit that was being served to her on a daily basis. She can orgasm, and she’s not frigid. She burns with a bright intensity when she comes, and now she knows that she can.
“Can I ask you a question?”
“You can ask me as many questions as you want.” I roll toward her. She’s exquisite. Her body is lush and full and the sexual glow that emanates from within her has grown brighter and brighter with each moment we’re together. I bask in this glow. My heart aches less because of her joy. She’s stronger, and won’t be as willing to accept scraps of affection from a man.
“Can men change?”
“Their underwear?” I ask, making a joke out of a tough question.
Natasha doesn’t smile at my response. She rolls away from me, onto her back. She stares at the ceiling. Her full round breasts peek from beneath the sheet. The urge to lean forward and pull one taut nipple into my mouth flows through me. My cock is hard.
“That’s what I thought.” She breathes out. She turns her head to me. “He wants to try again.”
I nod. This often happens. When a man loses a woman and discovers she’s actually doing better without him . . . well, that’s when he wants her back. We’re like that. The bottom line has improved, we made a bad deal, a mistake, and now we want what we’ve lost.
Or do we?
That’s the kicker. Do we want what we’ve lost, or do we simply want what we can’t have?
“If he wants that because he just wants what he can’t have, then he’ll start being an asshole again. Revert back to the shit that broke your heart. Now, if it’s because he realizes what he lost and he’s changed?” I sigh. “Well, you let me know when you meet a man that’s changed.”
I tell it like it is from my vantage point, but only if a woman asks. Natasha asked.
“So in your opinion . . .”
“We don’t change.”
She nods. I’m merely confirming what she suspected, but hoped wasn’t true.
“Our edges get smoothed and we get better at empathizing because, well, that muscle barely exists for us until we’ve gotten our heart busted a couple of times. But no, it’s been my experience that if a guy is an asshole and the relationship doesn’t work the first time, then it won’t work the second or the third.”
Natasha closes her eyes. She takes a deep breath and covers her face with her hands. Oh shit. Here come the tears. I’m prepared. I’ve wiped away gallons. I scoot forward, knowing she’ll need to be held. The tears, the emotional baggage, this is part of my vocation, my redemption, my penance.
A sound comes from her mouth, soft at first. I lean in closer and put one hand on her belly. I’m ready to give her whatever she needs to get through this pain. Her belly twitches. Here come the wails, the crying—but instead, I hear a laugh. Not one, not two, but many.
Starting small and building from her belly, all the way up until her gorgeous body is shaking. Her laughter is deep and her breasts tremble with her joy. The sheet falls away from her. I smile and laugh in response, because when someone is laughing, you can’t help but laugh too. She pulls her hands from her face and sweeps her fingertips beneath her eyes, wiping away tears, a smile still on her lips.
“Oh thank God.” Her laughter subsides. “I really didn’t want to take that asshole back.”
Now I laugh. I really laugh. Because this is the best-case scenario for 99.9 percent of the women who come to me because a man cheated.
Don’t take the bastard back.
He had his shot. He failed. Don’t give him the opportunity to fail again. Just my thoughts on the subject.
She turns to me and presses a kiss to my lips. “Thank you.”
One of the torn-up bits in my chest that used to be a heart responds with warmth.
“You . . . being with you . . . I couldn’t have gotten through all this without our time together.”
I say nothing. Natasha would’ve gotten through this. Most definitely could’ve gotten through this. All you women can, and do. You’re strong. Much stronger than you realize. Stronger than any man you’ll ever meet. The well of strength that Natasha has tapped into, that maybe she thinks I’ve given her? That strength was always there. Maybe I guided her to it, helped her, because I reflected back to her the beauty, the strength, the courage that was already present by fucking the living shit out of her. This desire, her sexuality, allows her to tap into this river of strength that she’d either forgotten or didn’t even know existed deep inside of her.
Natasha doesn’t say anything more. I can tell our time together is nearly finished. Her hand slides down my belly and grasps my cock, which is hard and thick and pulsing with the need to fuck her one final time. Because this is what happens when I’m with a woman. We go from her needing me, to me needing her. I can only be with a woman a few times, because after Susie, I can’t need a woman like I needed her ever again.
* * *
“Richard, will Susie be able to join us for lunch today?” I stop. I was in the midst of pushing in Mom’s dining room chair. “Maybe we should go out to meet her?”
“I . . . uh . . . I don’t think today,” I say. I walk to the chair beside Mom. Her caregiver had a doctor’s appointment today, and big sis had a docket of cases, and since I run my own company, well, I’m the guy who gets to pinch-hit in these scenarios. I pull a to-go box from a bag. I stopped on my way over and picked up Mom’
s favorite salad from La Scala. I always hope that foods that she loves, favorite smells, familiar sounds, some of it will jog her brain and bring her back to me, at least for an afternoon.
“I love it when Susie has lunch with me. You know, she was over here just last week. We had salads then too.”
And no such luck. My fiancée has been dead for over five years, so while Susie probably did stop by for lunch on occasion with Mom, she certainly didn’t stop here last week.
I pour the salad from the to-go box onto Mom’s plate and set it before her.
“It’s La Scala chopped salad, Mom, you love this salad.”
“I do?”
I nod as I pour my salad onto my plate, then put both containers in the bag and take it into the kitchen. Mom is Mom, no matter what piece of time she exists in. Who knows? Einstein said the passage of time in a linear fashion was a construct of the brain. Maybe Mom is right about Susie.
I sit down. I’m thankful she can still feed herself. That she can still bathe herself. That she remembers all kinds of things and how to do them. Because we don’t know how long those abilities will last.
“Richard.” Mom reaches out and clasps my hand. She has a serious look on her face, as though there is something very important she must tell me. I’m conflicted in these moments. Some specialists say not to tell the patient that they’re confused, let them go, let them believe their own reality. Other doctors tell you to gently redirect them. I’m torn because Richard was my father, and there was a special intimacy between Mom and Dad. When Mom confuses me with Dad, I feel like I’m eavesdropping on my mother’s most private and innermost thoughts. Things she would’ve only said to her husband.
“Mo—”
“No, Richard, please listen, this is important. I need to share this with you.” Her face is serious, so instead of correcting her, I simply nod and wait for whatever words my mother needs to say to my father.
“Susie was here, and Richard, I need you to speak to Jake.”
My heart drops from my chest. My belly tightens.
“I . . . I don’t know how to say this, but Susie seems to think . . . she’s concerned about”—Mother closes her eyes and presses her lips into a tight line—“She’s concerned about fidelity within their relationship.”
My breath is shallow. A cold clammy sweat crawls across my skin. My mouth drops open. What do I say, how do I say—
“I know that this could be a particularly difficult topic considering our own marriage, but perhaps you could share with him how you overcame your challenges to monogamy.”
“Mom, it’s me.” I hear my own voice. It’s loud and abrasive and I can’t stop myself.
Mom’s eyes snap out of her haze for an instant. “Jakey,” she says, and her hand clasps mine. “You brought me La Scala? For lunch? Oh, Jakey, thank you, that’s my favorite! Could I get a sparkling water too?”
My mother. My gorgeous, beautiful mother is here and lucid. I don’t get up for a moment. I simply stare into those beautiful blue eyes that recognize me as she eats. I don’t need her to say anything to me, I simply bask in the knowledge that she’s present, that she’s here with me. That I’m not my dead father and for this instant, however brief it may be, Mom is with me, here in this moment, eating La Scala salad.
“My sparkling water?” she asks with a smile.
I kneel beside her and give her a hug, because I don’t know how long Mom’s lucidity will last.
“I love you, Mom.” I kiss her cheek.
“I love you too, honey,” she says as though her life is normal. She touches her fingertip to my forehead and slides a wisp of hair back. A movement from my childhood. “Want me to get the water?” She starts to rise.
“No, no, no.” I rush into the kitchen and get the bottle of Pellegrino and two glasses filled with ice. I return to the dining room.
“Mom, I’m so excited to have lunch with you. Man, Lily is amazing. Did you know that she can read now and—”
I set the bottle and the glass in front of my mother and she tilts her face up to me.
She’s gone.
Her smile remains, but the sharpness, the focus, the consciousness in her eyes has been replaced with a fogged-over look.
“Richard, I wondered where you went.”
My heart hurts. I pour the Pellegrino. I sit in the chair beside Mom and I surrender to the heartbreak that is this horrid disease.
* * *
“Did Mom ever mention her and Susie talking . . . before she died?”
My sister removes her judicial robe and hangs it on a coatrack. I’m in her chambers downtown, a week after my lunch with Mom. We’re meant to go together to see Mom and have dinner.
“I think Susie used to go see Mom a couple times a month.” Rachel pauses, and in that pause is discomfort. “She’d bring over lunch. Sometimes they’d go shop. I mean, she knew Mom almost as long as you knew Mom.”
Susie’s family lives in our neighborhood. We were neighbors, and our parents were friends. Our engagement seemed like the perfect union of two families that had known each other for decades.
“They were a natural fit, Susie and Mom.” My sister does a good job of nearly hiding any tinge of jealousy in her words. Where Mom was all Waterford crystal and etiquette, my sister was all feminism and Wellesley. They hadn’t been a natural mother-daughter pair. There was love between them, but little understanding.
Susie was cut from Mom’s cloth.
A textile designer with a penchant for interior decorating, Susie was the modern-day version of Mom. They spent hours looking through catalogues together for just the right shade of green, while my sister would rather pay someone to pick out her clothes.
“Why?” Rachel lifts her purse.
“Mom had some lucidity last week and she mentioned—” I stop here. Rachel knows everything because she always did, even when we were kids. Even if she didn’t always discuss the details of what she knew, she did know it all. “Mom mentioned that Susie had concerns during our engagement.”
Color drains from Rachel’s face. She turns toward her office door. Fleeing? My sister is trying to flee a confrontation.
“Rachel?”
“What can I say, Jake? It was a long time ago. We all had concerns.”
The muscles in my face tighten.
“No one doubted that you loved Susie. I don’t even think Susie doubted that you loved her, it’s just that”—Rachel glances away—“her problems made us think that it wasn’t the right time for marriage.”
Problems.
“So yeah, I do remember that Susie went and talked to Mom. Tried to get her advice, and then I think Mom talked to Dad.” Rachel narrows her eyes. “Did Dad talk to you?”
I shake my head.
We both stare into space. We know. We both know what that means. Susie talked to Mom, and Dad never had time to talk to me.
Would it have mattered?
I don’t know. I guess I won’t ever know.
Chapter 14
The near-miss with Kendall spooks me. I shove my Wonderfuck phone into the top drawer of my nightstand. For over a week, I don’t check new messages or texts or calls. This is the beauty of no commitment, no names. I don’t owe anyone any explanations.
But I have an itch.
An itch I want to scratch. I sit down on my bed and slowly open the drawer. I flip open my phone and—
Knock. Knock. Knock.
Flip the phone closed, set the phone in the drawer, close the drawer, and head through the apartment to the front door.
“I come bearing gifts.”
Tara stands in my hallway with Jango by her side. She carries some sort of cookware and a bottle of wine, with a bag of groceries slung over her shoulder. I lean against the doorframe and cross my arms over my chest. This isn’t a good idea. It’s a very bad idea.
“For who?” One corner of my lip quirks upward.
“For you.”
I angle my body to let her in. I want her in my place, I
simply don’t trust myself with her here. She squeezes by me and her body skims mine. Yes, much too dangerous with the two of us alone in my apartment. She goes straight for the kitchen, where she starts the oven and slides the pot in. Then she sets her bag on the counter.
“I thought about inviting you to my place, but you have the better view.” She nods toward my balcony, where the sun sets in a pink and orange sky.
I do have the better view. It’s one I try not to look at very often, but it is better.
She hands me the bottle of wine. “Please?”
I get a wine key while Tara commandeers my kitchen and chatters about her day, her life, and her career. “I never got a chance to thank you properly. Plus, I’ve been cooped up working on a new story for nearly two weeks, so I absolutely needed to get out tonight.”
The cork pops. “Out is coming to my house? Across the hall?” I pour two glasses of wine.
She turns to me and gives me her wide-faced smile that could drop me to my knees. “Out, for me, is anywhere not in my house. At this point, out is the park with Jango.”
Jango perks up her ears from the spot on my couch that she’s claimed as her own. “Besides you’ve been busy, too. Or so it seems. I haven’t seen you since we babysat Lily.”
She puts a skillet on the top of the stove, pours in a bit of olive oil, and tosses in some garlic. The scent fills the kitchen and my stomach growls, but my mind wanders back to when I would come home and find Susie in my kitchen. Oftentimes nearly naked, perhaps just wearing one of my work shirts, and cooking dinner. Some of my favorite memories. I’d nuzzle her and we’d have dinner and then sex.
Always the sex.
“What’s the new story you’re working on?” I don’t want to think about Susie.
“It’s kind of a secret. It’s about a guy. With a very unique job.”
“This is L.A. There are thousands of people with unique jobs.”
Tara takes a wooden spoon and crushes the garlic. She takes a long sip of her wine. “True that. But this one? This one might be the strangest. If it’s true. Still trying to figure it out. Could be total hype.”