by Laurie Graff
“Oh. Are your parents still in Atlanta?”
“I don’t have much to do with my parents,” Edward said, pulling back from me. “I don’t like them much,” he said, as I watched him break away and retreat.
It felt as if I had just been cut because Edward’s comment slayed me. There are reasons, sometimes good ones why someone would choose not to be around their family. But certainly by this point in life there needed to be a real understanding of that wheel. It not only informed who we were, but how we would spin off into other relationships, especially intimate ones. In my travels I had learned that when a man I was dating shared information like that, like that, there’d always been something fishy at the bottom of the pond.
“Oh,” I said, taking it all in. Wanting to make Edward comfortable enough to talk to me without him feeling pressured. In what I hoped was a gentle voice I asked, “Did something happen?”
“No.”
Perhaps if I told him about my family he’d relax? After all, my father had run away to join the circus and become a clown. Whatever went on with his family, that piece of info could surely help to put him at ease.
“Let’s drop it,” he said, on the stern side. “There’s no reason now to discuss families.” Then seeing the look on my face, Edward hugged me. “Come on....” he said, cajoling. “It’s just a few weeks. We just met.”
“Okay,” I said, my body now feeling somewhat stiffer next to his. Perhaps he had what he considered a shocking story, and only shared if he came to trust someone. I would give him the benefit of the doubt. I had to. I wanted this to go further.
“How are you getting home?” asked Edward, having other ideas. “Would you like me to treat you to a cab? I’m happy to do that. It’s getting late and I’ll worry about you.”
I could see the air gush out of me and zip through the Blue Bar as I watched it all collapse. What had just happened? Was the night now over? Was everything?
“I’m not ready to go,” said Edward, as if he had read my mind. He pointed to his unfinished drink. “I was simply thinking ahead. For you.”
I smiled while I looked at my watch. It was just a few minutes past ten. I didn’t want to go looking for a cash machine tonight and I had spent my money on the cab over, but I did have a MetroCard. If I left within the hour it would not be that late and I could just get the bus uptown. I loved that Edward felt concern for me and would treat me to a cab. But he had made such a fuss about independent women, equal partners and now all this stuff with family. I thought it best, tonight, to fend for myself.
“As long as you’re sure,” he said, when I thanked him but said it wasn’t necessary. “It’s not a problem for me.”
We found our way back to each other as we talked and talked. Edward could not understand how I could have made a creative choice that had kept my funds limited. His income was ten times mine. But he was drawn to the passion of my choice, as I was drawn to the steady motivation of his.
“But how do you live?” asked Edward, the creativity applied to my accounting lost on him.
“I live well, but I cut corners. Cooking instead of ordering in, half-price tickets instead of full, buses instead of cabs,” I said, the words suddenly serving as a cue to glance at my watch. I had to look twice. I couldn’t believe it was coming up on midnight. We had found our way back and lost track of the time.
I wasn’t going to ask Edward to walk me to an ATM. The thought of waiting for a bus at this hour when they came every thirty minutes was unappealing. I had an early audition, I had to walk Charlie and I suddenly felt very, very tired.
“What’s the matter, Karrie? Did something just happen?”
“Nothing.”
“Tell me. You can tell me,” he said. “Did I do something to upset you?”
“No. Not at all. I’m embarrassed to tell you.” And that, of course, had paved the way for telling.
“So...?” asked Edward, seductively, like I would ask to take him home.
I ran my finger up the side of his sleeve.
“You generously offered to treat me to a cab earlier and that made me feel very good. But I felt a little awkward to say yes, and... Well, I didn’t leave when I should have and now it’s late to wait for the bus, and I didn’t get to the bank earlier so I don’t actually have enough cash on me for a cab.” I was hoping he would interrupt me, I felt vulnerable and not in the good way. “So now I wonder if it’s not too late to take you up on your offer? I really did appreciate it before, Edward. It warmed my heart and I felt...nice. You know, taken care of.”
Edward looked at me for what seemed like an eternity before he spoke. And when he did he wasn’t speaking to me. It was as if I was receiving the words that belonged to other people, other women, other family members and other situations. But my words were the ones to set Edward off, and when his came out they stung.
“I like you, Karrie, but I don’t need another person in my life to take care of. It was manipulative of you to refuse me and say no and then say yes. Did you want me to fight you? Did you want me to beg you to take a cab? It felt coy, demanding and it reeked of Jappy.”
Edward got up, indicating with his hands that he would be back, and I sat there shocked while Edward walked away. I thought I should leave, but instead I waited. The troubled part had been revealed and I waited for Edward because I did not have the desire to go.
Why Edward, who liked me, had become hostile was something I didn’t know. Why I would want to stick around and find out was probably the bigger question. But having that desire was enough for me to see it through. I’d find out more in time. But here was a chance to think about me. So I stayed and I thought while I waited for Edward.
It was new for me to be called a JAP. I wasn’t a shiksa. I guess I had to be something, but I did not know any Jewish American Princesses whose fathers were clowns.
Had I been manipulative? I didn’t feel I was, but Edward had felt differently. I had thought he’d feel pleased I did not want to take advantage of him. But it created other feelings. Who did Edward have to take care of? Who made him feel obligated, manipulated and used? Would he ever tell me? Could he? Would he even call again? Just to say hi?
He returned. Sheepish and embarrassed as he walked to the table, Edward grabbed my hand to bring me into the lobby and out the door. If there was a high road leading out of the hotel it seemed we both hoped to take it.
“Look, I did not in any way mean to make you feel manipulated and for that I do apologize. I guess—”
Edward stopped and faced me. He made a motion with his thumb and forefinger that zipped up his lips. He twisted his fingers like he had turned a lock, and then he threw away the key.
“Finished,” he said, walking out to the deserted midtown street and hailing a cab. “Okay,” he said when it pulled up.
“Okay, then, Edward, ’night,” I said, walking away.
He pulled on my arm, pulling me back.
“It’s for you, get in,” he said, opening the door to put me in the cab.
“Huh?”
“Here,” said Edward, shoving a ten-dollar bill into my hand, guiding me into the backseat and closing the door.
Looking at each other through the opened window I mouthed the words thank you. His eyes were intent on mine, and his lips caught the last syllable in a quick kiss. I didn’t move, unwilling to do anything that might be perceived as coy.
It was midnight and the spell had been broken. I hardly felt like a princess, Jewish American or other. And regardless of Edward’s frog-prince potential, I felt I was leaving him less than enchanted. He stood waving as we drove away. It was midnight and I had to get home. I wanted to get there and fast, as I feared any minute my coach might turn back to a pumpkin.
Ten
Touch, the most intimate and up close of all the frogs’ sensory input, is transmitted directly into the senses.
It stopped. Time. Space. The room and the world. All that was left was his touch. Full. Elongated. Stretched out an
d suspended. Like a soft wave, rolling towards me, into me, and through. And when finally, it reached me, I gasped.
I had been sleeping. I had fallen asleep inside the curve of Edward. His muscular arms around, Edward behind. Me sewn inside, floating like a raft. Him holding on for dear life.
How long had we been sleeping? How long since we had made our bed and loved in it? An hour or two? Four, perhaps, five? We had rolled over and in, my head falling, my hair combing his chest. His hands reaching to reach down, between. Soft strokes, hot and warm, finding the middle, the middle of me in the middle of the night and then...there...the touch.
“Aghhh...”
To soar and be still.
I wanted to touch. Back. I tried to lift my hand, but a languid attempt kept it hidden.
“Shhhhh,” he whispered. “You deserve this pleasure, Karrie. Take,” he said and continued to give.
I did. But I did not just take. I relished, I responded, I swirled, I rode, I gave myself over. I flew.
We fell back to sleep.
In the morning I awoke first, surprised at what I felt when I felt Edward next to me. Surprised how much I wanted to give to him the same way I had taken before. He was not yet awake, but he was ready.
I kissed his lips and then brushed mine across his cheek, down his back and back on down, down, down and under. I took him, taking him in, and while I did I felt his hands on my head. Pulling me over him by my hair, setting me down, and setting us off. Like a top. Spinning, gaining momentum, swerving. Whirling into a quiet frenzy that peaked, topped and toppled over, giving way to a quiet collapse. An assortment of sparklers emblazoning the bed before they would subside.
“I think you’re my sexual soul mate,” Edward said when he spoke. I was lying next to him thinking about nothing, my skin still pulsating, enjoying the heat. “I have never felt anything like this before. This is amazing.”
“I know, neither have I,” I said, turning into Edward. “How did we get here? Let’s stay. I like it.” I waited. “I love this.”
“Me, too.”
“And...” I started.
Silence.
“And, you, Edward, I love being with you.”
“Good,” he said, but said no more. Until after more talk and more touch he said he had to get up and go to work.
“It’s Sunday. And it’s just...” I looked at the clock. The red neon numbers flipped from one to the next like enemies in a line up. “11:35. Let me cook breakfast,” I said, wishing we could stay in bed, shower, get the Times and read it across the table from each other at a cafe on Columbus over Bloody Marys, Eggs Benedict and scones.
“I know you like to have a date in the bag,” Edward stated.
He was leaving. His body out the door while his hands stayed behind, moving themselves up my back and over my chest. He kissed me twice and told me he’d call.
When I had gotten home from the Algonquin that night there was a conciliatory message from Edward waiting on my machine. It was clear he had not wanted the wrong turn we had taken to change the course of where we could be headed. And good or bad, neither had I.
“I can’t stop thinking about you,” said Edward on the phone, calling me from work. He continued to call every day. “Just the sound of your voice.” He lowered his. “God, it makes me crazy!”
“I know,” I said, or do confess I purred back into the phone like a kitten as I responded to Edward’s verbal strokes. “You get to me, too, Edward. You got me.”
“You got me...you have me... You,” he said when we were together. He said with breath into my ear as he leaned over, parting my legs, opening me while opening me up. “This is for me, right?”
“For you. Just for you. Only you.”
It was. It could not be for anyone but him because he had been the one to find it. Others had searched, but Edward knew just where to look.
“I can’t believe the actress likes me. Why me?” Edward told me he had asked his friend Lynn, a songwriter, as he pondered his good fortune.
“And why me?” I asked back, a talk we continued to have.
Over the empanadas, asking each other the same question. Trading admirations over tandoori chicken. Asking on the street, under the umbrella of a Sabrett hot-dog stand. Wondering again, as his foot slid out from his shoe, up my leg and under my dress, under a table of stuffed shells and whole shrimp. Still asking in my bed, high on each other and a bottle of wine.
“I haven’t heard from you, Karrie.” Millie’s voice sounded concerned on the answering machine when I played my messages the following day, after Edward had gone. “I know if something was wrong you’d call, but call me when you get this. I want to hear your voice. It’s Mommy.”
“I’m glad you have someone,” Millie said when we spoke.
“We have great chemistry,” I told my mother, and while it might have been too much information to give a mom, it was what I knew for sure I had.
“So it’s going well?” asked Jane, with whom I hadn’t spoken in weeks, certainly more than a month, not since the day in the clothing store.
“Yes.”
“No more sleepless nights?” she asked.
“Better,” I answered.
I wished I had talked to her the week before. The week before I would have given Jane a different answer, a happier one, because today when Jane had called I jumped. I picked up the phone, it ringing classic Edward time, and my heart dropped down to my toes when instead of his voice I heard hers.
“So the stalker hasn’t called for a few days,” said Fred at dinner that night when I told him I hadn’t heard from Edward. I looked at the table next to us and saw what appeared to be a real couple eating together, one that wouldn’t have to worry after they said goodbye whether or not there would be another hello.
“No.”
“Maybe he’s just busy. Maybe he’s working,” said Fred.
“He’s always working and he was always calling. No, something has shifted. Something’s not good.”
Edward had broken a date because he had to work, but he wouldn’t reschedule. His tone was brief, off-putting. He would not talk to me and he would not stay on the phone. All he would do was say he would call. I chose to take him at his word. His word turned into a week, without one. I could not call him now. Perhaps some other woman could, but I could not, and I didn’t know how to manage my feelings.
I sat still on a chair in the kitchen while, inside me, everything was in motion. The quiet eating me alive. I had to get out and I had to go. So I left the apartment and walked. I walked the streets until I found myself standing outside a neighborhood community center. There were tons of people standing outside. I walked down the steps to peek in, but when I went to open the door I practically shrieked when the hand of a goblin reached over my head and stopped me.
“Boo!” he said, scaring the bejesus out of me! “Happy Halloween! Wanna dance?”
I threw off my coat and my pointy black shoes. Shoes, whose heels were too high for walking, let alone dancing. I wanted to join in. Jubilant was the only word to describe it. I wove in and out of the crowd until someone picked up my hand to include me in a circle. Round and round we danced past faces of all ages. Faces masked by scary costumes, but bodies that were dancing happy.
The two of us became four, six, eight, as a woman grabbed my other hand and others grabbed hers. Our line was wild across the floor, shooting through the crowd, me barefoot and free. I was free-falling and it felt good. So good the feelings had replaced thinking, and I forgot about Edward.
The music halted and the dance ended, sending me home. Home to be haunted by another sleepless night, greeting morning with the familiar anxious feeling, hoping it would be put to rest when the phone rang. And this time when I answered it was.
“You didn’t call me all week,” said Edward, disarmingly putting me on the offensive.
“You canceled our date and wouldn’t reschedule and you told me you would call me, so I waited. I’m very literal, Edward.”
“Why did you wait? Why didn’t you call me? What if I never called you, then what?” He paused. “You never would have called me, would you? It would be over because you’re such a girl you just wouldn’t call.”
Later, when we were together we knew we’d lost more than an hour when we turned back the clock. And still later, when it turned dark too quickly, we dragged ourselves out of bed to get something to eat. After the lust, after the promises of more, and after things between us had changed and changed into something better. I could see Edward felt the unspoken test he had put me through had brought about the results he desired. So he asked if, now, I would call. Call him first. I did.
I did. And as the weeks rolled by, he did not.
“What time is it?” he mumbled into the phone, groggy. Still asleep when he answered.
“Six thirty,” I said, waiting until 6:30, until the first glimpse of light to call Edward, who had not called to wish me a happy Thanksgiving, and now, the following week, had not even called me back.
Edward, whose plans to see me would now be made closer to the last minute. And though in his last minute with me he would still allow his touch to linger, he was quickly out the door. Not available for more than a quick cup of coffee, traveling very, very light. Letting go of everything, unwilling to be weighted down, it becoming way too heavy for him to make a date in advance, let alone have to carry it around for any length of time in a bag.
“Stop that,” he had practically cried out at dinner when the salad we had decided to share had not been split in the kitchen, and I dished half of it onto his plate before putting the rest on mine.
“What did I do?” I asked, looking around the restaurant to see if anyone heard.
“Don’t ever serve me.” He grimaced. “It reminds me of my mother.”
“How?” I asked, a big clue to Edward landing in my lap. But he would not talk. He ate in silence, while I’m sure his stomach churned.
The only good times left were in bed. The communication potent only there, the language spoken in bed the one we both understood. It made it even more powerful, and ultimately more painful. In the light of day he shut down as quickly as the door that closed behind him, resistant to discuss what felt crippling, disinterested to make any acquaintance with my darker side while running as fast as he could from his.