by Shelly Oria
* * *
When we step outside, we see Ron waiting for us. Zoë isn’t happy to see him, and her upper lip tightens. My favorite girls, he says, and hugs us both, a three-way, end-of-the-week hug. He smells like he’s already been home and taken a shower, and his scent calms me down. I cling to him and kiss his neck. For a few seconds, I feel hopeful, like maybe now we can double-click and delete, start the evening over. Zoë finds her way out of our hug and says, I’m not going home now. She sounds like a rebellious teenager. Daddy Ron says, Who said anything about going home? I thought we’d go out. Zoë says, Well I’m meeting someone. Then she quietly adds, A friend. She looks at me for help, but I look away, I look down. I see a cigarette butt on the concrete and wonder if it’s Zoë’s butt from before. Ron says, Zo, we said something about Saturday nights, remember?
Three weeks ago, we went out and saw a movie about a strikingly short ten-year-old boy who wants to make it to the NBA. He doesn’t, but by the end of the film he’s living on a farm, growing tomatoes and looking content. It was a bad movie that put us in a good mood. On the way home, I had my left hand in Zoë’s back pocket while Ron held my right one, and I felt like I do on steamy days when I step into the big refrigerator at the restaurant. An hour later, we were sitting on cushions in our living room, playing poker and drinking wine, and Ron started mimicking the short boy’s voice at thirteen, squeaky and whiny with basketball heartbreak. Zoë did the mother, opening every sentence with a dramatic “My child…” and I kept giving them more and more lines from the movie—I’m the one with the good memory. That night, before we fell asleep, Ron hugged his pillow and said, I think we should do this every week. I said: Great idea, and: Saturdays could work, they never give me this shift at the restaurant anyway. Zoë nodded a lot and looked stern.
Now Zoë says, Well, we haven’t done anything about it, so I sort of thought it was off. Ron is disappointed; he stares at nothing without blinking. He doesn’t want to pick a fight, though; he never does. Then he strokes my hair absentmindedly. Ron and I hardly ever have sex without Zoë anymore, and something in the way he strokes my hair explains why. Looks like it’s just the two of us then, he tells me, but he’s looking at Zoë.
* * *
After I slept with Ron the first time, on the floor of my old apartment in Hell’s Kitchen (not because it was sexy but because the mattress was too small and smelled of the people who used to own it), we talked about Identity. Ron’s family immigrated to the United States when he was in high school, after his father, an importer/exporter, couldn’t make good on a deal he’d made with the Israeli Air Force. Ron said, I’ve always felt Israeli in America, but if I went back today I’m sure I’d be the American in Israel. You never know, I said, maybe you should try. I can’t, he said, because of my dad. I didn’t know how to answer that, so I didn’t. Then he said, There’s something I need to tell you. It’s generally not what you want to hear when you can still feel the cold floor against your naked back, but I didn’t mind it too much; his tone suggested potential, not threat. He said, I have a girlfriend, but it’s not like that, we have an open relationship. I said, There’s something I need to tell you, too: I’ve been mostly into women for the longest time; you’re the first man I’ve been with in maybe five years. Really? I would never have thought that, he said. He stretched back until his head touched the book stand behind him; he looked at me like he was seeing something new, like he was disappointed in himself for having missed it before. I think you and Zoë might really like each other, he said; we should all go out sometime.
* * *
In my fantasy, our love is a visible thing. We don’t even have to be together for people to see it. When I’m with Zoë, when I’m with Ron, when the two of them are without me, maybe even when one of us is walking down some street alone, people can tell that what they are seeing is part of something else, that a piece is missing. And when the three of us are together, people get it; they smile at us and suddenly they think, Why not?
Maybe there’s something about our love they find inspiring. Maybe they look at us and forget what it is they are supposed to find strange. And maybe they, too, have more than one person they love, more than one person they call to trash Deli Guy who gave the wrong change again, more than one person whose morning breath they love waking up to.
* * *
But reality is often quite different. At a bar two blocks from the bookstore, Ron and I sit on barstools, looking something like a brother and sister who’ve just learned of a death in the family. I look at Ron’s beer and realize it will take some time for him to get happy at this rate. I push my White Russian in his direction, but I know he’ll say it’s too sweet. He makes a face. I don’t know how you drink this shit, he says. He’s cranky, and I want to say something that would change that, but I’m thinking: Stalking, problem, greedy; my words are all wrong. It’s not a friend, is it, he says, and there’s no question mark at the end of his words. I shake my head. I mean, we know all her friends, he says, if it was really a friend she’d say his name. I wait a few seconds before I say in Hebrew, Ron, we don’t know all of her friends.
* * *
Hebrew feels weird, like some secret code; Ron and I got used to speaking English between us because of Zoë, and gradually Hebrew started to feel like an intimate space we shouldn’t be sharing. Occasionally a word would slip, but mostly we honor this unspoken agreement. I miss Hebrew sometimes; other times I try to imagine how the words might sound if I didn’t understand their meaning, and I wish that I could listen to them from the outside and choose whether or not to get back in.
Ron learned at an early age how you can hide behind a new language, how you can wear a new identity so tight on your skin that you forget it’s only a costume. This is what he taught me: (1) To conquer a language that’s not your native tongue, you need to prioritize reading over sleeping. (2) Fighting your accent is not a good idea. Let it slide off when it feels ready, and until then embrace it, tell yourself it’s cute. (3) When you’re in a relationship, and two people share an understanding that the third one doesn’t, language is a tricky business.
* * *
At the bar on Prince Street, I see Ron’s hesitation as clearly as I see his eyes. He’s too tired to fight it, he answers in Hebrew. Az ma, ani stam idyot? he asks. I touch the soft spot on the back of his hand, just below his wristwatch. You’re not an idiot, I say, Ata lo idyot; you just need to believe in certain things to keep going, you know?
We drink quietly after that, my fingers still stroking his hand. I had a whole thing planned for tonight, he says suddenly, and we’re back to English; I wanted to go to the Ferris wheel on Coney Island. Can you do that at night? I ask, and Ron’s voice is shaky when he says, I don’t know, I haven’t checked. Or we could go hang out in Central Park, I say—it’s become a joke between the three of us because we’ve been meaning to do it for so long. Ron smiles, and I close my eyes and open my mouth to say, I think Zoë’s been stalking Keith Buckley, but the words sting the bottom of my throat and stay there. I’m not sure what scares me more—that I’ll say it and everything will change, that I’ll say it and nothing will. So I just keep stroking Ron’s hand, drawing small flowers and triangles with my finger.
* * *
When we walk home from the bar, the air is no longer crisp, and I try to think of the right word but I can’t find it. All the words are in Hebrew now, and none of them describe the air accurately. Ron hands a dollar bill to every person on the street who asks for money, and also to a few who don’t, because he believes in karma. I haven’t been to a peace rally in five months, he says, it’s the least I can do. I want to say that I don’t see the connection, but I know it will only upset him. How do you have so many singles? I ask. I broke a twenty when you went to the bathroom, Ron says, but his mind is somewhere else. I see a guy across the street from us, and for a second I think it’s Dreadlocks from the bookstore, but he disappears before I can be sure.
The apartment is
all lit, and I realize Zoë and I forgot to turn off the lights, but Ron shouts, Zo? Zoë?—and then one more time, Zoë. Now he’s doubly pissed off—that Zoë’s not here, that he let himself hope she was. He says, Jesus fucking Christ, are you girls physically incapable of turning the light off? Is it really so hard to remember? Or is it that you just don’t give a flying fuck that we’re throwing our money at Con Edison like they are some fucking charity organization? I say, Don’t take it out on me, Ron, it’s not fair. He says, You left the house together, didn’t you? I say, I’m not talking about the lights. Ron takes a deep breath, and for a second he looks taller and more buff than he is. I’m sorry, he says.
I go to the kitchen and put water in the pot. Ron, do you want some tea? I shout, because I think he’s in the bedroom. I’m right here, you don’t need to shout, he says, standing by the island that separates the kitchen from the living room.
* * *
At two a.m., we are sleepy in front of the television, fighting our eyes, two parents whose daughter is out clubbing on a school night. I say what we’ve both been thinking for some time: Ron, she might not be coming home tonight. Do you think we should call her? he asks. Her cell phone is in the bedroom, I say. Zoë often forgets to take her cell phone; when she remembers, it’s because I put it in her bag myself. Ron snorts and says, Of course. Well, do you want to go to sleep, then? he asks me. I guess we should, I say, but we keep sitting there for a few more minutes while Will and Grace are going to see a therapist together. Then Ron asks, Did she take her keys? And I say, I’m pretty sure she did. A few minutes later, I’m brushing my teeth and Ron is turning off all the lights.
The apartment is too quiet, our huge king-sized bed feels empty, and this is the word I think about: Ra’av. It means hunger, which is not what I’m feeling, and yet for a while it’s the only word I have. Ra’av is not something that makes falling asleep easy. Ron hugs me and then grabs my ass, a butt cheek in each hand. He’s hard now, and his thumb finds its favorite spot and starts to rub it, my thong a small sailboat with the help of his hand. Tiny waves are sending the promise of pleasure in a code my body reads well, but it feels wrong without Zoë; we have “rules,” and according to them if one of us is absent or uninterested the other two can always go ahead, but what happens in love is that reality will begin to set its own rules.
I stop him, and his entire body stiffens instantly. Then he says, We’ll have to figure something out, you know, if she’s not coming back. His voice is cold, distant. Of course she’s coming back, I say, and then I add, At some point. I always knew this would happen, Ron says, and I feel like he’s talking to somebody else, somebody I can’t see. Always, he says again, even before we met you. In a way, that’s why, you know, he says, and now he looks me straight in the eyes, and it reminds me of the look he had that day on the floor, after our first time. That’s why what? I ask, though I know the answer. I thought maybe this way, with you, we could give this thing a fair shot, he says, and then adds, You know, “monogamy.” I’ve never seen him looking so lost. She was more into women back then, he says. I run my finger up and down the bridge of his nose. I want him to look at me but he won’t, and for a second I think maybe I should go sleep in the living room, though I know it’s a childish thought. If he cries, I think, then I’ll hug him, and maybe a different conversation will start. But Ron doesn’t cry. He is a lost man with no tears. I turn away.
I’m almost asleep when I hear Ron whispering something, and at first I think I’m already dreaming. What? I whisper back, and he sighs and waits, but then whispers again. I don’t know how to be that guy, he says, I don’t know how to be the guy who’s okay with this. I think: Maybe you’re not, and I’m afraid to say it, but eventually I do. Maybe you’re not. I want to be, Ron says, and he sounds like he needs to clear his throat; I want to be the guy who makes both of you happy. I want to be the guy who helps you open your own restaurant, and I want to be the guy who looks at Zoë and sees only what’s important, who doesn’t care about the rest.
Ron, I say, I don’t want to open my own restaurant.
* * *
This is my metaphor for how people in Israel treat suicide bombings and bombings in general: the flu. Some bombings are like a mild flu that doesn’t even make you skip work. These are the bombings in a city other than your own, not too many casualties, nobody you know. Others are worse, the kind of flu that makes you vow you will from now on be grateful for your health every hour of every day. When the location is a café you used to frequent, or when some girl who went to school with you and moved up north in third grade loses an arm, it feels real. For a short while, death feels close.
Still, this is what you do: you call a friend who used to go to that café, a friend who knows that girl. You spend a few minutes talking about how horrible it is, how your idea of normal life is actually insane. You sigh, and your friend sighs as well, but at the end of that sigh there’s already a new thought. Then you say the word “so” like that: So … And you ask your friend about the guy she was supposed to go out with last night. Your friend jumps at the opportunity like you knew she would; the guy she went out with last night was a weirdo who wouldn’t stop talking about owls, but she fucked him anyway. Then, for thirty, thirty-five minutes, this is what you do: analyze. You analyze your friend’s taste for men with odd obsessions, or you analyze your own need to occasionally stare at the sun until you cry, or you analyze a mutual friend’s secret affair with a married man who once was your teacher.
You analyze, and slowly you notice how words like “tragedy” and “death” hold nothing more than their own sound. Tragedy, in that sense, becomes something like “chocolate” or “bicycle.”
* * *
When I wake up, Ron and I are on different sides of the bed, facing up, and Zoë is lying on top of us, facedown and arms stretched to her sides, like some kind of collapsed Jesus. I stay still and breathe deeply. I feel happy, though I want to feel other things. This is what I’m thinking: Central Park.
I gently raise Zoë’s arm and fold myself out of bed underneath it, then gently put her arm back on the mattress. I’m thinking: breakfast in bed. I’m thinking: something fancy. Ron and Zoë are always trying to get me to cook for them, and I always refuse, because who wants to bring their work home? But now I feel not only the wish but the need to cook; I want to chop, stir-fry, bake. I’m walking quietly out of the room, so as not to wake them, and I’m trying to remember what vegetables we have, whether or not we’re out of eggs. I’m almost touching the bedroom door when something registers with me, something I must have seen right when I opened my eyes, but chose not to. I turn around, though I already know the answer: Ron, on top of the sheet that’s supposed to be covering him, is wearing his blue Superman underwear. Last night, when I fell asleep, he was in his gray plaid boxers.
In an instant, I feel sick. The thought of the two of them having sex without me—no, next to me—and choosing not to wake me up, makes me feel as if I already made breakfast for three people and then ate it by myself. I run to the bathroom; I want to throw up all the pastries, the omelet, the coffee I never had. I make gagging sounds, and I no longer care about waking them up; I sound like an animal. But nothing comes out, and as far as I can tell, Ron and Zoë are still sound asleep.
Then there are two Mes.
Me No. 1 is the Israeli who was taught that being tough and being strong are the same thing. She was a soldier once, for two long years, so she believes she can survive anything. She says: You’re chasing after something that doesn’t exist. She says: You’ll be just fine on your own. This is what she believes I should do: pack my stuff. She’s thinking about the blue suitcase, about taking it out of the bedroom closet without knocking down Ron’s old speakers. She’s thinking about how much she could fit in the suitcase, how many back-and-forths it would take. She’s thinking about where she could go.
Me No. 2 is a woman who successfully impersonates an American. She is soft-spoken, and once a week she
gets lost in the city on purpose, then walks—no maps, no questions—until she finds her way home. She has a lot to prove. She says: This isn’t the end.
* * *
Sometimes, when the three of us are together, my body feels like marshmallow, calm and weightless. That Saturday three weeks ago is a good example, and I see it now: we are rolling off our cushions in laughter, holding our stomachs like footballs. I think, Who is this person? That me who isn’t Israeli and isn’t American, isn’t gay and isn’t straight—who is she?
For a while I just listen to the Sunday-morning quiet, interrupted every few seconds by Ron’s snoring. But all of a sudden I think: What if this isn’t the first time? I feel Ron hugging me from behind in the bathroom one morning, and I hear his voice: You’re totally dead to the world when you’re asleep, you know that? I start gagging again, and I can’t stop.
Zoë’s voice comes to me through the gagging sound, through the bathroom door: You okay, babe? Can I come in? I throw up now, finally, but I’m vomiting water and air, and I feel like I’m suffocating. I hold the door with my left hand to keep Zoë from coming in, because our bathroom doesn’t have a lock. As a result, I have to let go of my hair, and when I throw up again it gets splashed.