Sex as a Second Language

by Alisa Kwitney

  “Interesting combination. When did your parents divorce?”

  “My mother left him when I was ten.” Kat took Magnus’s empty plate and stacked it in the sink. “But to be honest, I never really saw my dad all that much.” In response to Magnus’s questioning look, she said, “he traveled a lot on business.”

  “Wait, you cooked. Let me do the dishes.”

  “You can dry.” Kat handed him a towel, then tried not to feel self-conscious as he stood right next to her, not two feet away from where they’d been making out last night. What happened to the man who hadn’t wanted to get within ten feet of her in the classroom? That was the problem with sex. It made men more comfortable and women more insecure.

  “Did your father make an effort to see you after you and your mother moved out?”

  Kat shook her head. “Out of sight, out of mind. I believe he had what’s called a narcissistic personality disorder. Which was probably an asset in his line of work.”

  “And what was that? Actor?”

  Kat raised her eyebrows. “Very funny. No, as a matter of fact, my father was a spy.”

  Magnus did not seem as shocked by this news as she would have expected. “Who did he work for?”

  Kat resisted the urge to correct his grammar. “The CIA. And that’s really about all I know. I don’t know where he went or what his official title was. I don’t know whether he was any good at what he did or how much he earned.”

  “Aren’t you at all curious about him?”

  Kat handed Magnus the last plate to dry. “Not really. When I was growing up, I missed the idea of a father, but I can’t say I really missed him as a person. I don’t even have very clear memories of him.”

  “Because he wasn’t around much?”

  “I suppose.” Kat dried her hands, then squirted some moisturizer on her palms. “I don’t think he was a terribly involved parent even when he was around. Anyway, I really didn’t think about my father much. Until last week, when he sent me a letter saying he wanted to meet me. I waited for him at a restaurant on Wednesday, but he never showed. Whoa, watch it.” Kat rescued the plate, which had looked as if it were about to slip out of Magnus’s hands. “I think we’ve had enough wildness in this kitchen already, don’t you?” Too late, Kat realized she’d just ventured into a no-fly zone. “That didn’t come out quite the way I’d intended.”

  And then, because Kat had never been the type to tiptoe around a problem, she said, “Look, I think we need to talk. I’m more than a little confused here. Are we pretending that last night never happened? It’s a little difficult when there’s still casserole splatter on the wall.” Kat went over the spot with a wet rag.

  Magnus looked abjectly miserable. “Of course, we can’t pretend that nothing happened.” He paused, for a long time. A very long time. Kat maintained a stony silence. No way was she going to rescue him.

  Finally, Magnus managed to get out, “I just wanted to say that I’m sorry.”

  “Oh, I see.” Kat began to put the dried dishes away in the cupboard. “Sorry for what, precisely?” The plates clattered as she stacked them with too much force.

  “Sorry things went so far and then just stopped.”

  Kat stood still for a moment, keeping her back to Magnus. “I see. Which part made you sorry?”

  “Excuse me?”

  She closed the cupboard door, which instantly sprang open. That paint really needed to be stripped down. “What part made you sorry, the going so far, or the stopping?”

  Magnus coughed. “Well, I’d have to say…the stopping.”

  Kat spun around. “May I ask you a personal question, Magnus?”

  He nodded.

  “Why are you celibate?” Kat reached out, touching his arm. “Is it…do you have a medical condition, something communicable?”

  “No. No, I don’t have herpes or HIV, nothing like that.”

  “Then what is it?”

  “I didn’t want to get too close to anyone right after the divorce.”

  Touched by Magnus’s honesty, Kat resisted the urge to physically reach out to him. “Your wife must have really hurt you.”

  “I think I probably hurt her, too. I just didn’t realize I was doing it.”

  “How did you hurt her?”

  Magnus ran one hand through his hair. “I think…I think she wanted me to lose control with her, and that’s not something I do very easily. And there was something, I don’t know, a little childish about Guthrun. So maybe I didn’t pay enough attention to what she wanted.” He paused. “Kat?” He took a step closer to her. “I don’t want to pretend that nothing happened last night.”

  “You don’t?”

  Magnus took another step, closing the distance between them. “And I don’t think you do, either.”

  Kat tried to swallow. The air between them felt electrically charged. “Not really, no.”

  “But I don’t want you to get hurt.” Magnus gave her a wry smile. “I don’t want me to get hurt. So let’s just take this very slowly and get to know each other.”

  Kat stared up at him. “Talking about emotions, wanting to take things slow…what are you, a saint?”

  There was a pained look in Magnus’s blue eyes. “Far from it.”

  This is my reward for putting up with Logan, Kat thought. The universe has sent me a good man who probably beats himself up over nothing, to make up for my time with a creep who found excuses for all his self-serving behavior.

  “Hey,” she said, wanting to chase the shadows from Magnus’s face, “I think that’s enough heavy talk for one morning, don’t you? Why don’t you tell me what your plans are for today?” Shit, that sounded like she was angling for him to spend the day with her, when she couldn’t. Besides, she didn’t want to sound needy. “I’m supposed to go out with my mother and Dashiell.” Kat turned to wipe down the surface of the stove.

  “What are you doing tonight?”

  “Actually, I don’t have anything definite.” That sounded offhand, didn’t it? “My dad did leave a note rescheduling for tonight, but I wasn’t intending to go.”

  “I think you should go.”

  Startled by the intensity of his voice, Kat glanced up. “To be honest, I’m far more concerned with what’s going on with Dashiell’s father that I am with my own. Poor Dash. I’ve managed to provide him with an exact replica of my own fuckedup childhood.”

  In the harsh morning light, Kat could see the lines of concern in Magnus’s face. “If you feel that way, you really should go meet him.”

  Kat paused. “I don’t know.” She did not add, I’d rather have dinner with you.

  “I could watch Dash for you.”

  “Thanks, but I’m really not feeling like spending my fortieth birthday with the man.”

  “It might give you a better understanding of things. What time are you supposed to be there?”

  “Six.”

  “So go for five minutes. Just show up and leave if you want to. You don’t have to be polite to him. Go see him and yell at him if you want to. Throw food in his face. Blame him for screwing you up and making you choose a loser like Logan for a husband.” Magnus touched her arm. “But don’t avoid him.”

  Kat laughed, shaking her head. “Tell me, is this what you generally do? Go around to women’s houses, trying to fix what’s broken?”

  “Is that what you think I’m doing?” To Kat’s surprise, Magnus took her hand in both of his. “Listen, Katherine, there’s something I need to tell you.”

  Before he could say more, the back door swung open. “Surprise,” said Lia and Dashiell in unison, before launching into a chorus of “Happy Birthday.”

  I really need to talk to my mother about remembering to knock, thought Kat, giving Magnus an apologetic glance before throwing open her arms to her mother and son.

  chapter twenty-five

  b y six-thirty, Kat decided that she would never set foot inside a Turkish restaurant again. Which was a shame, because her little corner of the
Upper West Side didn’t really have much in the way of good ethnic places. But after being stood up for the second time in a row, Kat didn’t think she ever wanted to see a plate of shepherd’s salad again for as long as she lived.

  This time, she hadn’t ordered anything, which meant that the waitstaff weren’t exactly dying to see her again, either. Oh, well. Stepping out of the Arabian Night atmosphere of Fez, Kat took a deep breath, which was visible on the exhale. The temperature had dropped sharply in the short time she’d been waiting for her father to show, which meant that the balmy, colorful, early days of autumn were giving way to the bleak, brown finish of the season. Shivering, she pulled her thin sweater around her, wishing she hadn’t worn a dress.

  “Hello.”

  Kat turned, instantly tense, then relaxed when she saw that it was just a homeless man, shabby but mild-looking. Glancing at her watch, Kat started to walk home.

  “Pardon me, but may I ask you something?”

  The homeless man had peeled himself away from the wall beside the supermarket, and Katherine increased her pace.

  “Please, just one quick question?” The man was dressed in a scruffy suit jacket, an ancient poacher’s cap, and jeans that hung off his skinny frame. In the artificial light of streetlamps and store signs, he looked like a gaunt-faced visitor from the great Depression.

  Kat stopped. “All right, go ahead and ask. But I have to tell you, I can give you directions to a synagogue where they’ll give you something to eat and a place to sleep, but I am not buying you a meal or handing you money.”

  The homeless man smiled, clearly amused. “Oh, I’m not asking for help,” he said.

  Oh, terrific, another Jesus freak. “You’re not going to save me, either,” she said.

  The man smiled more broadly, revealing gaps in his teeth. “I wasn’t sure at first,” he said, “but when you frown like that, you look just like your mother.”

  “You seem to have a lot of people interested in you these days,” said Ken Miner, dipping a hunk of pita bread into his soup.

  “You mean the press? They’re really interested in my ex-husband.” Kat watched her father eat with horrified fascination. He appeared to be sucking his soup through the holes in his bridgework.

  “Are you so sure they’re all press? The last time we were supposed to meet, I saw a tall man with white-blond hair following you.” Kat tried not to stare at her father’s unshaven face. She wasn’t sure whether his appearance was a disguise, or whether he had actually fallen so far down on his luck that he couldn’t afford to get new dentures.

  “That’s Magnus. He’s renting a room in my place, so you’ll probably see him around a fair amount.”

  Ken took a sip of his beer. “What do you know about this man?”

  “That he’s not a spy,” said Kat, growing impatient. She wasn’t here to pander to her father’s paranoid fantasies. “Look, there wasn’t anyone following me tonight, was there?”

  “No.”

  “Then why weren’t you here on time?” It was a perfectly legitimate question, yet Kat felt rude to be asking it. Something in Ken Miner’s mild, diffident manner did not invite angry confrontation.

  “Sorry about that. You thought I wasn’t coming, didn’t you?”

  “What else could I think?” Again, she sounded like a bitch to her own ears. Which was justified, true, but still strangely uncomfortable.

  “This may be hard for you to believe, but there’ve been times when being five minutes late has saved my life. I find it’s never a good idea to let people know exactly where you’re going to be at a given time.”

  “Don’t you think that’s a little extreme?”

  “Excuse me.” Ken Miner lifted his napkin to conceal his mouth as he worked to dislodge something that had gotten stuck between his teeth. “You think I’m a crazy old coot, and you’re probably right. But tell me, how many people did you tell about me? Besides your mother, I mean. Two? Three?”

  Kat flushed, remembering her father’s written admonition to talk to no one about him. “Two, I guess.” Three if she included Dashiell.

  “That’s better than I expected. When I say don’t tell anyone about something, I figure the person automatically tells four other people.”

  A safe assumption, Kat thought, remembering all the times friends had confided in her, revealing other friends’ secrets. “Maybe it’s better not to tell people not to say anything.”

  “Absolutely. But the need to share information is a powerful one. Terrific soup, by the way.”

  “Glad you like it.”

  “Well, to tell you the truth, it’s pretty mediocre. But I like seeing you.” Ken Miner leaned back, removing his tweed cap and smoothing down his sparse white hair. “It’s not often I have such lovely company over dinner.” His brown eyes twinkled in his ravaged face. Dear God, thought Kat, my father looks like the Crypt Keeper. “You really have grown into a beautiful woman, Katherine.”

  “You should have used that line on my twenty-first birthday, not my fortieth.”

  Ken raised his eyebrows. “Of course, October fifteenth. It’s your birthday today, isn’t it?

  “Today is October sixteenth, actually.”

  Ken shook his head. “I’m a dead loss as a father, no question. But you are beautiful, probably more so than when you were younger. You have more character in your face now. You looked a bit bland back then.”

  “How would you know?”

  Ken smiled, unperturbed by her rancor. “I’ve followed your career. You’re very talented.”

  Kat felt an absurd rush of pleasure at hearing her father say this. “Thank you. It’s nice to hear that.”

  “Doesn’t anyone else tell you that you have talent?”

  “Not lately. I haven’t been doing much.”

  “You’ve been raising a child. That’s a lot.”

  The mention of parenting brought Kat back to reality. “Yes. Your grandson, Dashiell. Who’s going to turn ten next month.”

  “Good Lord, is he really? Tell me what he’s like.”

  Kat stared at her father. “I don’t understand you. You act like you’ve just come out of prison or something, and you’re trying your best to make up for lost time. But no one kept you from getting in touch years ago, when Dash was born. No one stopped you from contacting me when I turned ten. So what’s changed? Why are you suddenly so interested in getting to know me?” Ken opened his mouth to respond, but Kat kept going. “Are you dying? Is that it? Were you hoping I’d give you absolution?” She narrowed her eyes. “Or did you want money?”

  Ken Miner shook his head. “No, I’m not dying. And I don’t want any money from you. It’s just that I have reason to believe that I have become a problem for the Agency. For years, I lived as quietly as I could, trying to keep off their radar, and then, one day, they came looking for me.” Ken patted his inside shirt pocket and took out a pack of cigarettes.

  “You can’t smoke in here, Dad.” The word “dad” just slipped out, startling her.

  “You can’t? Ah, of course not.” Ken’s hands trembled on the table, like nervous animals. “Anyway, I wasn’t walking away from much—just a little one-room apartment, my usual routine playing chess in the park—but all of a sudden, I had nothing but time on my hands. Time to reflect back on my life.”

  Kat found herself resisting the urge to put her hand over her father’s, to calm its tremors. “And what did you realize?”

  Ken put his shaking hands around his beer mug and took a sip. “That my one huge regret was not being a better father to you. I don’t have any easy explanations for why I acted the way I did. I did write you, at first. But I was never much good at relating to children, and the more time we spent apart, the less I knew about you.” He paused, making a movement with his mouth that made him appear even older than he was. “It felt false. Being your father felt like just another fake identity.”

  “It wasn’t about you,” Kat said, suddenly remembering why she was so angry at this
man. “It wasn’t about your feelings. When you have children, sometimes you fake it if you have to. But you make sure you’re there for them.”

  “You’re right. You have more wisdom at forty than I have at seventy-five. But when I was your age, I felt like I was being honest with myself. I’d watch other men get sentimental about their children, their wives, their pets, and I’d feel contemptuous, because they were following a script that someone had handed them. You’re supposed to love your wife, and so they did, up until the moment they fell for someone else.”

  Ken paused, and for a moment, Kat saw him as he must have been in his youth: lean, clever, deceptively soft-spoken. “And then, of course, they got eaten up with guilt, which made them easier to manipulate.”

  “And how about you? Did you ever feel guilty?”

  “Not really. Regretful, perhaps. Except that I couldn’t have done things any differently than I did. I would like to do something different now.”

  Kat found that this stark honesty appealed to her as nothing else could have. “I’ll think about it.” Pausing, she added, “Do you want anything else to eat?”

  He shook his head. “No, no, thank you.”

  Kat asked for the check. When it came, her father took out his wallet, which looked as though it had been gnawed on by wolves.

  “No, it’s all right, let me.”

  “It’s not right, Katsala, I should be taking care of you.”

  The sound of her mother’s nickname for her coming from her father’s lips caught Kat by surprise. “You look as though you don’t have much right now,” she said, then wondered if she’d insulted him.

  “Oh, I just hate shopping for clothes,” Ken said, winking.

  And washing them, thought Kat. She paid for their dinners. “Listen,” she said, “if you really want to meet Dashiell, come by after school on Tuesday.”

  Her father’s face lit up with surprise and pleasure. “I would like that,” he said softly. “Thank you.”

  “Well, it would be nice for him to finally meet his grandfather.”

  They stepped out onto Broadway, and Ken instantly lit up a Camel. The smoke smelled vaguely familiar, like something remembered from early childhood. “How is your mother these days?”