Sex as a Second Language

by Alisa Kwitney

  k at made her way down Columbus Avenue under a bright October sky, not at all sure where she was headed. As she crossed the street to get away from the noise of a jackhammer, the construction worker stopped drilling to admire a very young girl. Despite the bite of autumn in the air, the girl was wearing a tube-top blouse that revealed the tanned, plumpish curve of her stomach. Why did her parents allow her to go out like that?

  “Yeah, baby,” said the construction worker as the girl clumped by on platform sneakers, clumsy with self-consciousness. “You shake that thing.”

  What thing? The girl barely had breasts yet. Kat turned to scowl at him, and the man gave a mocking tip of his hardhat. “Cheer up, lady, you’d be pretty if you smiled.”

  “And you’d be smart if you shut up.” On the other side of the avenue, Kat paused outside a liquor store. Rummaging in her handbag for her cell phone, she noticed the elaborate Halloween window display of frolicking skeletons and cobwebbed bottles of red Transylvanian wine. As a child, Kat had loved this time of year, when school was just beginning and relationships hadn’t been sorted out yet. Funny how that vague feeling of excitement persisted, long after there was any reason for it.

  What I need, Kat thought as she speed-dialed Zandra’s cell phone number, is some emotional support. “Hey, Zan,” she said, “any chance of your meeting me for some lunch?”

  “I wish I could, Kat, but I’ve got other plans today.” Zandra’s voice was nearly vibrating with excitement.

  “Ah, the return of semi-famous man?” Passing the drugstore window, Kat caught a glimpse of her reflection in the mirror. The makeup Josie had applied appeared garish in daylight. “When are you two getting together?”

  “I’m still waiting for him to call and confirm.”

  “So what’s the problem? Come out with me and bring your cell phone.” Kat pulled a tissue out of her purse and wiped off some of the blusher.

  “I’d better not. His schedule’s pretty tight, so he’s not sure when he has a window to see me.”

  “Hang on a moment. You mean, you’re just supposed to sit there and wait for his summons?”

  “You’re making it sound as if he’s doing it on purpose, Kat. This is a business trip, and he has commitments.”

  “Zandra, are you trying to tell me he can’t make a definite appointment for food and sex? There isn’t a man alive who can’t make time for food and sex. Either he’s running a power trip or he’s hedging his bets.”

  “No, Kat, he’s trying to juggle work and his personal life. And I’m not just sitting around waiting for the phone to ring, I’m working.” Zandra was a freelance documentary filmmaker, a career made possible by a sizable trust fund. “You know, just because you feel let down by men doesn’t mean that all men are going to let you down.”

  Kat took a breath. “You’re right. Sorry, Zan, I just wish you’d meet a man who treats you the way you deserve.”

  “And I keep telling you, I have! Now what’s going on?”

  Kat crumpled the tissue and chucked it into a garbage can. “You mean, other than the fact that I’ve just discovered that I’ve passed my sell-by date? What I want to know is, why can thirty still be young and flirtatious and rife with possibility while forty’s a quick slide off a steep cliff?”

  “You didn’t make an audition?”

  “I lost out on my role, the role of Helen Jessup.”

  “I thought soaps were supposed to be good for actresses in their forties.”

  “Only if they stick around to defend their territory.” On Kat’s left, a handsome young man walked past wearing a baby in a sling across his chest. “Oh, and it turns out that Logan is in town, shooting a few scenes. A fact he didn’t care to mention to me or his only son.”

  Zandra inhaled sharply. “Oh, Kat, that’s awful. What can you do to make yourself feel better?”

  “Hire a hit man?” From the opposite direction, Kat saw another, older man with thinning red hair talking animatedly to his young daughter. Typical. When you were upset about getting older, every woman you passed looked like Lolita. When you were dealing with father issues, every third man you saw seemed to be doting on an infant. “Or maybe I’ll just go home and barricade myself inside my apartment for a month.”

  “How about some retail therapy? You could buy some fall clothes.”

  “First of all, I can’t afford it. Second of all, there’s nothing that even tempts me.” Kat stopped in front of a boutique and stared at a sweater dress that looked exactly like something she’d worn twenty years earlier. “How can I cling to an illusion of personal progress when they’re showing fuchsia ankle boots again? Doesn’t anyone remember that we decided these were ugly back in eighty-eight?”

  Zandra laughed. “We’ve changed our minds. Now they’re playful.”

  “I’m too old for playful. I need flattering.”

  “Well, why not go buy yourself a lipstick?” Zandra’s concept of economizing was splurging on smaller, less expensive items.

  “I guess I could, except what’s the point? Every other actress my age has had her eyebrows lifted up to her hairline. I don’t even think it’s attractive and I’m beginning to wonder if that’s why I’m not getting any work.”

  In the background, Kat heard the sound of Zandra’s doorbell. “Shit, Kat, that’s him. Listen, how about I call you back later? We can talk this evening, okay?”

  Before she could reply, Zandra had hung up. Kat checked her watch—almost twelve. She thought about calling her mother, but suddenly she felt drained of all energy. Maybe I should just find someplace to sit and eat. Kat inspected the menu in front of a small French cafe and considered a salade niçoise. But with my luck, Logan will walk by with some new girlfriend just as I’ve stuffed my mouth full of tuna.

  It was just so fucking unfair. Nearly ten years after having Logan’s child, her career had fizzled out, while Logan’s star was on the rise, his commercial viability enhanced rather than reduced by the attractive crinkling of crow’s feet around his blue eyes and the touch of gray in his hair.

  And it didn’t stop there. The self-serving bastard was able to just ditch his old family, secure in the knowledge he could meet a new woman, start a new family, and, if the woman or kid proved unsatisfying, well then, hey, he could just start over again.

  She’d known all this before, but it hadn’t bothered her quite so much, because she’d assumed that she would at least have the opportunity to channel her raw emotions into acting, which would lead to more and better job offers, which might conceivably lead to her meeting a new man who was smarter, kinder, and more reciprocal about oral sex.

  It hadn’t seemed likely, but it had seemed possible. Now Kat realized just how much she had depreciated in value over the course of her marriage. She had thought she was just taking some time out from her career to focus on Dashiell, but she’d really been aging in dog years.

  Blinded by emotion, Kat walked straight into somebody’s chest.

  She made a sound halfway between “oh” and “oof” and the man she’d bumped into steadied her with two hands. “I’m so sorry, I wasn’t paying attention.”

  “No, no, it’s my fault.” It was only after the man spoke that Kat realized who he was. Out of the context of her classroom, she hadn’t recognized her new Icelandic student. Christ, he was big. “Magnus? Aren’t you supposed to be in school?” In the daylight, she could see that his thick, shaggy blond hair was shot through with liberal amounts of silver.

  Magnus looked uncomfortable. “I had…a work call.” He hesitated. “And there was some news about my wife getting married.”

  Well, that was more information that she’d expected. “You mean, your ex-wife? If you two are divorced, she’s your ex-wife.”

  Magnus looked even more uncomfortable. “Of course. My ex-wife.”

  Kat wondered if the Scandinavians were like the Germans and the Japanese, who hated getting caught in errors. “Listen, it’s okay to make mistakes. That’s how you learn.”


  “Yes,” said Magnus, with a rueful smile. “You learn not to get married.”

  Kat smiled back. When you got past the deliberate way of speaking and the faint, lilting accent, the man had a sense of humor. “If it makes you feel better, I’m in the same boat.”

  Magnus frowned at her. “Excuse me?”

  “I mean, I’m in a similar situation.” Magnus continued to look puzzled, so Kat added, “I also got some news about my ex-husband. My almost ex.” And that was more information than Kat had intended to be giving.

  “Do you want—” Magnus broke off as Kat started saying “Well, I guess I’d better—” at the same time. He gestured that she should finish her sentence.

  “No, really, what were you going to say?” As Kat waited for Magnus to speak, an elderly couple walked around them, peering with unabashed curiosity into their faces. Kat wondered what they thought they were seeing: a disagreement? a flirtation?

  Magnus nodded, thanking her for letting him go first. “I was going to ask if you’d like to have lunch with me.”

  “Oh, that’s very kind of you, but I don’t think I can.”

  A deep line appeared between his fair eyebrows. “You don’t think you can? Or you don’t think you should?”

  Kat hoped he paid this much attention to her in class. “A little of both, I guess.”

  “Is it against the rules?”

  Kat shook her head. “No, not really, but it’s not customary for the teachers and students to meet outside of classes.”

  “But it’s not against the rules, correct?”

  Kat tried to think of a way to reject him more firmly without hurting his feelings. She was reminded of her son, who also had trouble picking up social cues. And then she thought, Why am I making such a big deal about this? She’d had lunch with students before, usually right after they took the final exam.

  “Well, all right,” she said, at the same moment that he said, “I understand.” They both laughed. Kat remembered something she was always aware of inside the classroom: Some cultures have longer conversational breaks than others. New Yorkers tended to overlap sentences, which meant that someone like Magnus probably had to struggle to get a word in edgewise.

  “All right,” she said to Magnus, “let’s get something to eat. But just to make things perfectly clear, in America, a lunch between a man and a woman is not considered a romantic date.”

  Magnus nodded as they began to walk toward the French cafe. “I see. It is the same in Iceland. Unless, of course, the woman slaps the man with a herring.”

  Kat stopped in front of the restaurant and stared up at him. “You’re joking.”

  Magnus gave her a sideways glance as he held the door open. “Actually, yes.”

  Kat wasn’t certain whether Magnus was telling her indirectly that she was being too pedantic, or whether in some subdued, sardonic, extremely Scandinavian manner, he might be flirting with her.

  Oh, crap, what if he’s taking the wrong message from my agreeing to eat with him? Kat decided to order a hamburger with onions, just in case.

  chapter eight

  h ow the hell did she manage to eat so neatly? The tiny cafe served an enormous portion of meat that kept slipping out of its bun, and Magnus’s fingers were covered in ketchup. Katherine, on the other hand, was managing to take such delicate bites that it was a pleasure to watch her.

  “So,” she said, picking up a French fry, “what do you do?”

  “What do I do?” For a moment, Magnus thought she was asking him how he was coping with his divorce.

  “What kind of work? By the way, in America, that’s not considered a personal question. In fact, it’s one of the first questions you’ll probably get asked by people you meet.”

  Which was why he’d rehearsed his cover story until it sounded natural. “I’m a chemical oceanographer. I’ve been working on a climate record for the seas around Iceland.”

  “Ah.” Katherine took a sip of her Coke. “But you don’t do it anymore?”

  Magnus swallowed a bite of hamburger, along with a residual sense of unease at lying. He had always believed that one should be as honest as possible with people, and it had come as a surprise to him to discover that not everyone felt that way. “I’m on leave,” he said, surprised to hear how plausible it sounded. “As soon as my English is good enough, I start teaching at Columbia.” At some point, of course, he was going to have to tell Katherine the truth, or some version of it. He would have felt a hell of a lot more comfortable just coming right out and telling her that the Agency was interested in making contact with her father, but Fred had been adamant. Make the human connection first, then hit her with the sales pitch.

  “That should be an interesting change. Assuming you want to teach.” Magnus wondered what Fred would make of the fact that she was the one driving the conversation. Take control. Get her talking about herself again. “What about you? Did you always teach?”

  “I just started in the spring. I used to be an actress.”

  “But not anymore?”

  “There aren’t a lot of roles for women my age.” Katherine picked her burger up, looked at it, then put it down again. “I think I’m full.”

  “Why not?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Why are there no roles for women your age?” It seemed to Magnus that forty was the age at which everything got complicated, and complicated was interesting.

  “I don’t know. Desperate Housewives is a huge hit, and all the magazines say forty is hot right now. But that’s just one show, and unless you’re on it, there isn’t much to choose from.”

  “But don’t the studios like to copy successful formulas?”

  “Sure they do. And then, when the copycat gets lousy ratings, they decide that forty isn’t so hot anymore.” Katherine pushed her plate away. “I could probably get a commercial playing a frowning mother or a happy Viagra wife, but that’s about it.”

  “But there are a lot of roles for men your age?”

  “Yes. There are.” Katherine gave him a look that said, Don’t be fatuous.

  So much for that topic. Shit. Could he ask her something about her son? No, she hadn’t mentioned him yet. What about fathers? Was there any way to work the conversation around to fathers?

  The silence was stretching on too long. “Well,” Katherine said, “this was nice.” She turned and caught the eye of their waiter, holding up two fingers to signal that they needed two checks. “I think maybe the whole class should go out and eat together sometime. It’s good to practice conversational skills like this.”

  “This is my problem with women,” Magnus blurted out. “I never know what to talk about.”

  Katherine glanced over her shoulder, clearly hoping to see their waiter return. “What do you mean? You’re doing just fine.”

  As uncomfortable as lying had been, this level of honesty was worse. “I do fine for five minutes. After that, I don’t know what to say. When I met my wife—my ex-wife—she did all the talking. She was very…” Magnus hesitated, not wanting to sound too articulate.

  “Outgoing? Friendly? Extroverted?”

  “Yes,” Magnus agreed. “In the beginning, that’s how she was.”

  “And afterward?”

  Magnus tried to think of how a non-native English speaker would describe his volatile, needy, narcissistic wife. “Her moods went up and down a lot.”

  “That’s the problem with dating. You’re on your best behavior and so is the other person, and by the time you see their worst behavior, you’re already committed. If I ever get involved again, I’d want to know what the other person’s faults are from the beginning.”

  “Well, as for me, I’m boring.”

  Katherine laughed as if he’d made a joke. “So is it just women you don’t know how to talk to? What would you talk to a man about?”

  The question took Magnus by surprise. “I don’t know,” he said slowly. “I suppose…you know, now that I think about it, men don’t sit and
talk. They do things.”

  “Okay, so what do men do?”

  “Sports. Rock climbing. You talk about which climb you’re going to do, and what equipment you need.”

  “My son likes to rock climb. Indoors. There’s an atrium with a climbing wall just a few blocks from here.”

  “Do you climb?”

  “Not since I was ten. And back then, it was trees.” The elderly waiter arrived with their check.

  Was it a coincidence that she’d been ten when she’d last seen her father? Magnus leaned forward, getting ketchup on his sleeve. “Why didn’t you climb with your son?”

  “I don’t know. I just never thought about it.” Katherine looked at the bill, scowling slightly. He liked watching her changing expressions. A lot of women in New York seemed to have curiously immobile faces. “I asked him to bring separate checks.”

  “Let me pay.” Magnus reached for the check and she snatched it away.

  “No, absolutely not.”

  “Please, I want to.”

  “Thank you, Magnus, but no.” Katherine took a pen out of her handbag. “Let me just figure out what we each owe.”

  “But—”

  “Do you have any singles? I think fourteen should cover your share.”

  Magnus handed her a twenty. “You know, it’s not that hard, climbing an indoor wall.” This was exactly the kind of bonding activity that agents were supposed to do with potential sources.

  “I’ll get you change.” Katherine stood up and took her jacket off the back of her chair.

  “If it’s close by, and you have a little time, why don’t we go take a climb? I could belay you.”

  This finally got Katherine’s attention. “You could what?”

  “Belay you. With the ropes.” He mimed letting a rope out. This was perfect, he thought. She doesn’t have any hobbies of her own; I’ll loan her one of mine.

  “No, really, thank you for the invitation, but I’m not in any shape to climb a wall today.”

  Magnus instinctively glanced down at her body. No, don’t do that, she’ll think you’re ogling her breasts. “You look like you’re in great shape.” Ach, that had come out sounding kind of sleazy.