by Ruby Lang
“Maybe you can tell me what happened,” Petra said.
“I’d rather talk about you.”
“Okay,” Petra said carefully. She took a deep breath. “I think we might be seeing each other.”
She didn’t have to say who. Helen had already figured it out. Now that Petra had said it aloud for the first time, it seemed strange and exciting and still wrong. She wanted to take her confession and stuff it back into her mouth. She wanted to savor it quietly. She was seeing him. She had sex with a beautiful man. He was funny and smart and he had gorgeous shoulders and a delicious mouth, and he liked to touch her in wonderful ways.
“It’s fun,” Petra said.
“Fun?” Helen said. “Fun? We went through handwringing and a nearly lethal debate on ethics so you could have a few laughs and tickles?”
“That wasn’t the right word.”
“So try harder. What’s he like? I never got to meet him. Make me feel less miserable by telling me how pretty he is and what an amazing, generous kisser he is. Or maybe make fun of him so that I can laugh.”
Petra was quiet for a bit. “I ran into him last night,” she said.
Repeatedly. Pleasurably. With my naked body parts, she thought.
“Good.”
Petra squirmed.
“And we…talked. And I really like him.”
“I knew that.”
Petra had almost nothing else to say. She knew she was disappointing Helen with her reticence. She could have gone into details. She could have described kisses and positions. She really should have said something more.
But it was private. And he’d been the subject of that horrible argument and a part of her still wondered if she was doing the right thing, allowing herself to get involved with him.
“Sarah got to meet him, didn’t she?” Helen asked.
“Not exactly. She just saw him and he might have thanked her for helping with the patient we worked on at the bar opening.”
Another silence. “She asked you, and not me, to go to that opening, even though she knows I love Field.”
“I think she said you were busy.”
“I wasn’t. No, she just doesn’t want to be alone with me lately. Because of the thing I did. Because of Mike.”
“Are you sure you don’t want to talk about it?”
“I’m sure.” Helen’s voice was flat again.
“Hey,” Petra said. “I’m not disappointed in you or mad, or whatever. I was just surprised to hear it. And maybe now I’m worried about you.”
“I’m okay,” Helen said, softly.
After Petra hung up the phone, she wondered why she avoided Helen. She felt strange, as if she had to split her loyalty equally. But Sarah remained stubborn and unmoving, and would probably stick it out until Petra and Helen made some sort of concession.
Except that Petra didn’t have all the information. If anything, Sarah and Helen were keeping things from her.
Her friends were frustrating. She couldn’t talk to them. She desperately wanted to be able to talk to them.
Mostly, she hoped that Ian would call.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
“Knickers,” said Ian as soon as she picked up. “What if I call your underpants knickers? Like the Brits.”
She was lying in bed in a Curious George T-shirt. She had been trying to sleep for half an hour, at least. It was a relief to hear his voice.
“Nicker. Isn’t that the sound that a horse makes?”
“So that’s a no?”
She sighed. “I like horses. I was one of those girls who liked ponies. I read all of those Misty of Chicoteague books, and Black Beauty. I didn’t know how to ride. The desire for horses is some sort of symbol of sublimated sexuality, they say, because all you want is a big animal between your legs.”
“So knickers is a resounding yes? Because it’s sounding better and better to me.”
“I’m not sure.”
“You have a deeply ambivalent relationship with your undergarments.”
“Apparently, I have deeply ambivalent relationships with everyone,” she sighed.
“Not me, I hope.”
“Of course not,” Petra said a little too quickly.
He paused. “I guess stud-monkey is a fairly straightforward description of what I am to you,” he said lightly.
She tried to keep it easy, too. “It sounds like you’ve been talking to Kevin.”
“As a matter of fact, I have.”
He was walking. She could hear wind. “Are you outside?”
“Yes, in the rain. I can see my building. I’ll be in my lobby in a minute.”
She waited and the background noise cleared. In her mind, she followed him into the elevator and down the long hallway into his apartment.
“You’re good with kids. Kev really likes you,” she said.
“Good might be a stretch. Kevin seeks me out and I just sort of listen to him talk with my mouth hanging open in shock.”
“Same,” Petra said. “Although he does remind me a bit of myself when I was that age.”
She shifted on the mattress and closed her eyes.
He must have heard the creaking. “You must be tired. I’m sorry I called so late. I wanted to hear your voice. I wasn’t thinking.”
“No,” she said, “talk to me. I love talking in the dark.”
She could almost hear him smile. “I didn’t know that about you.”
“I guess we didn’t talk much. Last night.”
He swallowed and she almost laughed. She toyed with the hem of her T-shirt. “What are you doing?” she asked. She heard water running.
“I’m rinsing out the glasses. I bought new ones recently and now I have to make sure that they’re clean.”
“Your life is never-ending drudgery.”
“I wouldn’t say that,” he said. He seemed to move the phone closer to his mouth. “So, are you wearing knickers?”
She shivered. “I’ve got on plaid boxers and a T-shirt. I’ve had the shirt since I was a teenager.”
He absorbed that information in silence.
“I’m trying to imagine you as a teenager,” he said, finally. “So far, you’ve got curls, the brain of Kevin, and a very thin T-shirt.”
“Oh,” said Petra, “you wouldn’t have liked me.”
“How do you know?”
“You seem like you would have been, you know, popular. You were probably one of those effortless guys who ran track and sunk baskets and was smart in school but managed to stay humble. You probably made friends easily. I’ll bet the girls loved you.”
“I played football—or soccer as you call it,” he said. “But we moved around all over the world. I was always the foreign kid. My dad’s work took us to a few different continents. And then my mother died and I went away to college—”
“Where?”
“U San Francisco. My dad stayed abroad, and my mom’s family lives near the Oregon-California border. USF was close enough, but not too close. It was a bit of a culture shock after all that time in South America. I was more comfortable speaking and thinking in Spanish, at that point, so I started out feeling isolated. English was my mother’s language. I felt like a child—I was a child—whenever I spoke it. I trained myself to get used to it, especially when I got here. I watched a lot of movies.” He cleared his throat. “A lot of romantic comedies. A lot of them. Then when I moved here, well, I guess you already know that Portland is pretty white. But like you, I’ve got that ambiguously ethnic thing, and I worked to blend in. Maybe it worked too well. The guys in the kitchen say I have an American accent when I speak Spanish now.”
“Oh,” said Petra, again. She didn’t know what to say.
“I’m sorry. This is the unsexiest phone sex I’ve attempted,” Ian said. “I guess when you start off talking about horses and move on to race and dead mothers, you’re taking a risk.”
“Phone sex, is that what we’re doing?”
“You can decide,” he said easily.
<
br /> “You make it sound simple.”
“Everything is simple.”
• • •
The next few weeks were a whirl. When they got together, they pounced on each other. On evenings when Ian had too many disasters to oversee, he would text her late to see if she was awake. She always was. She would call him and they would settle down to talk while he got ready for bed. They kept different hours but they managed to find each other, nonetheless. Sometimes she met him at Stream and witnessed his deft, easy way with strangers and regulars. She watched how women, in particular, responded to him, and it made her gut clench. But he saved his huge, eye-crinkling, jagged-toothed smile for her and she knew that her answering smile was just as bright. When he came to her, he slid his palm over her back and used his height and head like an umbrella, shielding her from the raucous laughter of the room. She felt a pang about adjusting her schedule to fit his late nights but he woke far earlier than he usually did in the mornings to see her off to work. They stayed at his place most of the time. He had more space. His apartment was cleaner and newer.
Being with Ian was like being on break. She didn’t fret about her paperwork, even though she knew she should. She didn’t worry about the sad little balance in her checking account. She didn’t worry about her friends.
And that was part of the problem. She couldn’t afford to forget about her practice and the rift with Sarah and Helen. Ian was making noises about letting go of some of his responsibilities at Field and Stream while she needed to concentrate more on hers.
When she was alone and the waiting room was empty, she almost resented him. It was easy for him. He had money. He had people clamoring for his services. He hadn’t lost his friends and entered shaky ethical ground in order to date her. But that wasn’t his fault, was it?
At some point, Petra realized that she had also lost track of her mother. Which was a relief, actually, now that Petra thought about it.
She managed to forget, that is, until Lisa showed up in Petra’s waiting room, unannounced, with a blondish, graying gentleman in tow.
“Mom,” she said, not quite able to keep the trepidation from her voice. She looked at the man, who had to be Jim Morrison. Lisa was holding his arm and he was gazing at her placidly.
“We decided to drive up for the day to see you. We have some news!”
Petra tried to usher them into her office, but her mother inspected the outer room with concern. Shelly Kelly and Kevin sat there, waiting out their reactions.
“I have a couple of minutes. Why don’t we come in here for more privacy?” Petra said.
“Darling,” her mother said, looking around. “Shouldn’t you see to your patients?”
Lisa had never called Petra “darling” in her life.
“It’s fine,” Petra said. Lisa swept in. Petra had never seen her mother looking like this. She was wearing a boxy lemon-yellow suit. It made her look like a cough lozenge.
“This is Dr. Jim Morrison. Jim, this is Petra, my daughter, the allergist.”
Lisa waved toward Petra causing a ring on her right hand to sparkle. A gigantic, ugly, yellow diamond.
Her mother was getting married. Lisa had known the man for, like, a month—or at least, she’d only told Petra about Jim Morrison a short while ago. Then again, it hadn’t taken much for Petra to become moony over Ian.
“Are you sure it’s okay to keep people out there?” her mother repeated anxiously.
“They’re waiting out their reactions, Mom,” Petra said.
She tried to project an aura of calm and ruthless clinical acumen. She motioned them into chairs and sat behind her desk.
“It’s so nice to finally meet you, Petra,” Jim Morrison said. “Lisa is so proud of you.”
He was bulky, but not stout. His hair was thinning, but not entirely gone. He had very smooth skin and his eyes were gray and sharp. There was a bit of a challenge in them. She wondered what else Lisa had said about her.
“This may seem very sudden to you,” Lisa began.
Petra held up her palm. “You’re both adults, you know your own minds.”
Jim Morrison took in her upraised hand.
“Lisa Morrison has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it?” Jim asked mildly. He asked everything mildly. He probably joked with grocery store cashiers, talked about the weather, and ordered the assassination of high-ranking European diplomats without raising his tepid voice.
“We’re so happy,” Lisa said, clutching his other arm.
Petra lowered her hand.
“So, you’re taking his name? A woman who kept her first husband’s name, and refused to take her second husband’s even though he was the father of her other daughter?”
A nervous glance.
“We haven’t agreed on that part yet,” Lisa said.
“You could change it back to your maiden name. Since you’ll be getting the name-change papers with the marriage certificate and all,” Petra suggested.
“I’m sensing a bit of reluctance on your part for your mother to give herself over fully, Petra,” Jim said.
“She doesn’t have to give herself over fully,” Petra said tightly. “Besides, she’s the one who doesn’t want to take your name. I thought I was suggesting something diplomatic, you know, that didn’t favor the other two husbands.”
“Well, your mother and I have tabled the discussion on her reaction for another time,” Jim said. “This is new for all of us, after all. I want your mother to make a full commitment to me and I need you to make her feel supported in her decision to marry. Maybe your vote would make her feel validated and loved.”
Petra gritted her teeth. He made it sound like he was asking for the most reasonable thing in the world, when really, he was a complete stranger who had turned her mother into an equally strange person. A weird, yellow-garbed woman who called her “darling.”
“That’s a nice thought,” she said, trying to sound as placid and monotonous as he did. “Why don’t you change your name to Lale, then, as a reciprocal gesture? Maybe it would be a nice break for you, not having to suffer all those Doors jokes.”
“Petra!”
“Now, Lisa. Petra was sympathizing,” Jim Morrison said. “She didn’t actually make a joke, she just referred to the acclaimed rock group and how awkward my name has been for me. Although, to tell you the truth, I find it useful as an icebreaker. When people joke about me, that means that I can find a way to make them friendly.”
Like taming a feral cat, Petra thought.
“We wanted to take you out to lunch, Petra. To celebrate.”
Her mother was going to choke from the tension.
“I really have to examine Mrs. Kelly’s reactions. You know how it is with patients, Jim.”
“But this is a special occasion!” her mother said.
“You did show up unexpectedly,” Petra pointed out.
“Dinner, then?”
“I’m afraid I have plans,” Petra said pleasantly. “I’ll see what I can do to change them.”
Fat chance, she thought.
Petra ushered them out and brought Shelly Kelly in.
Shelly was fine, but that didn’t stop Petra from poring over her patient’s arms like they contained a secret code. She ate trail mix from her desk drawer rather than go outside to get lunch, on the chance that Lisa and Jim were nearby. She didn’t want to have them delay their lunch, make her eat a club sandwich, and listen to them coo over how happy they were.
She might have felt a pang over the fact that they had driven all this way to see her and tell her the news in person.
She also might have felt guilty for having neglected her mother—neglected her practice, neglected everything—because she had been mooning over Ian. And now Lisa was in the clutches of one of those soft-voiced, baby-skinned men who petted cats and ordered the destruction of the world on a whim. Or maybe he wasn’t evil, but her mother certainly wasn’t acting like herself.
Her phone call to Ellie went to voicemail.
If only her mother could have seen that.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
They were side by side in a u-shaped booth in an old diner. Ian had insisted that they leave the neighborhood for once, and he promised her a restaurant with black and white milkshakes and waitresses with beehive hairdos. It was comforting, eating hamburgers and being called hon by a woman in a pink uniform. It was especially comforting because Ian was massaging her shoulders as she sipped her drink..
“I don’t see how my sister can be so cavalier about this. He’s awful. She’s changing everything about herself. She was wearing a yellow suit, for god’s sake, and she had a weird urine-colored diamond on her finger, set in gold. It was like a buttercup drank too much Goldschlager and threw up all over her.”
“Yellow diamonds can be valuable,” Ian said into her tense shoulder.
He had good hands, with calluses on the fingers. Maybe he played guitar or piano. There was so little she knew about him, and yet so much.
Lisa and Jim had called again before dinnertime, but Petra repeated her excuses. Jim seemed happy to drive back to Astoria early. She could hear him in the background calling for Lisa, then practically revving the car engine. It was too early to have them meet Ian anyway. If she had it her way, Jim certainly would never meet Ian at all. How would she even introduce them: Mom, Stepdad-to-be, meet my former patient. We recently started screwing, but I’ve had the hots for him for months.
She supposed she could find a more tactful way of phrasing it, but she didn’t want Jim Morrison to detect even a whiff of guilt on her. She had to hide her weakness.
Not that he was the enemy.
“She has a history of making bad decisions, romantically,” Petra said. “This will be her third marriage.”
“She’s impulsive?”
“The opposite, really,” Petra said. “She’s careful and she doesn’t date. And then, it’s like a dam develops a hole and the water breaks through. She realizes she’s lonely, she finds someone, but then, she has doubts, she dithers and criticizes. Of course, the whole time, she’ll never stop with the questions and second-guessing until the marriage is trash. At least that’s how it was with Ellie’s dad. I guess I didn’t hear quite as much about it this time because she didn’t share the news as soon.”