“What is that smell?” Delia says, eyes closing, inhaling deeply.
“That, is hope,” I say.
“Ellie, close your ears,” Nathan’s dad, Mike, says to his wife. She feigns placing her hands over the sides of her head. “That is the best brisket I have ever tasted.” On his other side, his mother, a woman whose name I don’t know since she insists that I call her Mawmaw like the rest of the family, smacks his arm playfully. He winces. “Sorry, Mom, of course, not as good as yours.” Ellie smacks his other arm. “Nate, want to help with the dishes before these women kill me? You too, Josh. We’ll let you lovely ladies relax.” Mike stands up, grabs an armload of dishes, and Nathan follows suit obligingly. Josh, Nathan’s brother-in-law, kisses Jeannie, Nathan’s sister, on the forehead and also heads for the kitchen. Ellie motions for us to all follow her to the living room while the guys work on clearing the table. When we are out of earshot and comfortably settled on the couches, Ellie turns to me.
“He’s right, you know, it’s much better than mine.”
“Mine too.” Mawmaw sighs. “Sort of like my mother used to make. And tender enough for even me to chew!” She grins, clacking her clearly fake teeth together joyfully.
“I’m never going to have a version,” Jeannie says dramatically. “Alternating between Jewish holidays here and at Josh’s, there’s no need for me to bother to learn to cook.”
I pause, not sure how to broach this. “Josh’s family is Jewish?” Joshua Rodriguez is, by his own admission, a melting pot, with a Mexican father and a mother who is part African American, part Native American, and part Cuban. I assumed that he had converted when he married Jeannie.
Jeannie laughs. “Yep! There is actually a large Jewish population in Mexico City, where Josh’s dad was raised, people who were trying to immigrate to the States and got rerouted for visa problems. And his mom was adopted by a Jewish family as an infant. Isn’t it awesome? I got all the shock value of bringing home a mixed-race guy, but still got to marry a Jew!”
Ellie smacks her daughter with a throw pillow, and Mawmaw mutters in Yiddish under her breath. Ellie turns to me. “We aren’t that kind of family, and frankly, we have always liked Josh a little bit more than our daughter.” Jeannie smacks her mother back with the pillow, and Mawmaw shrugs her shoulders and says, “Meshugge,” which I think means “These women are nuts.”
I love these people. I knew I liked Nate’s parents and Mawmaw in D.C. Jeannie and Josh had a conflicting engagement, so they weren’t there. But having spent this lovely evening with them, I think I am falling almost as in love with them as I am with Nate. They are funny and smart and they all like each other so much, not just family love, which is obviously there, but genuine liking. Sometimes when you go to someone else’s house for a family event, you feel on the outside, you don’t know any of the stories, you don’t understand the private jokes, but these people have taken such care to tell the whole story for my benefit, to let me into the inner circle, to draw me out and find out about my life and my family. And the nervousness I usually feel in these situations, the desire to withdraw and just observe, all of that fell away the moment I got here, and I have been more present than I have ever been in such a new situation. I’m oddly proud of myself.
“Jeannie,” I say. “You can learn to cook this stuff and then offer to bring it with you like I did!”
“Well, my mother-in-law would no more let me bring food to her house than she would let me harbor a fugitive in her guest room.” She pauses, and looks at me meaningfully. “And clearly, you’re going to be schlepping food in here from now on!”
I can feel my face flushing, both embarrassed and thrilled at the implication.
Ellie smiles at me and pats my hand. “At least we hope so.”
“He’ll never get married,” Mawmaw says to no one in particular.
“MAWMAW!” Ellie says.
“What? He’s forty-seven years old. He’s a vagabond. If he was going to get married he would have done it by now.” She has the righteous indignation of the elderly, the people who have lived long enough to speak their minds and share their opinions, tactful or not. And despite the fact that there is a twinge of sadness to hear the implication of her thought, I somehow want to bail her out.
“Mawmaw, I’ve already been married once, and I’m in no rush to do it again. And Nathan and I have only known each other about a month. A great month, but still a very short time. I don’t think either of us are thinking much past next week, and I think that is appropriate at this stage.”
Ellie smiles at me, grateful for my diffusing the situation. “Well, next year, if the two of you aren’t together, you can come here and Nate can go with Jeannie to Josh’s family!”
We all laugh, and settle in as the men return from the kitchen, sleeves rolled up, to see what is so funny.
“Well, it’s official,” Nate says, pulling up to my condo.
“What’s that?”
“My family likes you more than they like me.”
“What can I say? I make a damn good brisket.”
“So you do.” He leans over and kisses me. “Any chance of coming upstairs?”
“I’d love you to, really, but Nadia is home, and I do have work in the morning.”
He sighs. “Okay, then. I’m editing tomorrow, may get caught up, but if I don’t talk to you tomorrow, I’ll call day after, we’ll make plans for the weekend?”
“Of course. And Nate . . .”
“Yeah?”
“Thank you for inviting me to your Seder. I had a really wonderful time.”
“You’re welcome. Thanks for coming.” He leans over again and we kiss deeply. Then I get out of his car and head upstairs.
Nadia isn’t home, and I knew she wouldn’t be. The lie hangs on me. I know that I’m going to have to deal with the physical part of my relationship with Nathan soon, his disappointment tonight was tangible, and I’m pretty sure his patience and good intentions about letting me set the pace are beginning to wear thin. I may lose him if I’m not careful, and I hate the part of myself that wonders if it might not be easier to lose him than to sleep with him.
I turn on my laptop and check my e-mail.
Mel—
Happy Passover! Went to a Seder tonight at a friend’s house, I miss our Seders with Grandma and Grandpa. Everything else seems weird and fake. Wish I could have been with you.
Hope yours was fab!
G
Gilly—
Sorry your Seder was lacking. I also went to a friend’s house, it was actually really lovely. Of course, they let me bring the brisket. ☺
Miss you.
Mel
I haven’t really told Gilly about Nathan. She knows about the meeting, the whole museum thing, and that we were supposed to get together once we were home. But I don’t yet have the words to tell her about how the relationship is progressing. She’ll ask first thing how the sex is, and lord knows if I’m not ready to deal with myself on that issue, I’m sure not ready to deal with her.
I open the fridge, and see the container of brisket I brought home with me. I slide the lid off and grab a piece with my fingers. Salty and sweet and meaty. I wrap my hand around the container and lift it out. I settle into the couch to watch Keith Olbermann, and by the time he gets to number three on his countdown, the brisket is gone.
PEANUT BUTTER
When I was a little girl my mom would make us peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for lunch at least three times a week, crusts cut off, sliced twice on the bias for triangles for me, and into long fingers for Gilly. I eventually moved from smooth peanut butter and grape jelly to chunky peanut butter and strawberry preserves to fresh natural peanut butter with homemade damson plum jam or peach coriander confiture. The snack bar at college used to sell PB&J sandwiches for a dollar, with literally an inch-thick layer of peanut butter and a smear of jelly that tasted more of sweet than of fruit, and I’d often eat two of them in a day, a quick snack between classes.
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I ring the bell, and wait. Heart in my throat. I hear footsteps within, and soon the door opens. Nathan is wearing a pair of baggy sweatpants, and a T-shirt so old it seems to be made mostly of holes with some fabric holding them together. His hair is rumpled, and there is salt-and-pepper stubble on his cheeks.
And yet, while any rational person would be pissed off to be woken at six thirty in the morning by an unexpected, uninvited guest, Nathan’s face breaks into a wide grin. “Well, this is a lovely surprise!” He steps aside to let me in.
“I made muffins,” I say, handing him the basket of still-warm peanut butter muffins with dried cherries. “My famous Mea Culpa Muffins.”
“Well, I’m not sure what you are mea culpa-ing about, but I never say no to muffins.” He puts an arm around my shoulders and squeezes.
“There’s more . . .”
Nathan looks around to see if I am carrying something else.
“Not more food, more, um, something I have to say.”
He gestures to the couch, and we sit.
“This is all probably going to come out wrong, so you are going to have to forgive me, but I’ve been up half the night, and I woke my friend Carey at like two in the morning, and I feel like if I don’t say this, then I’m a coward and a liar and I’ll never be able to really be with you.”
Nathan nods, and doesn’t interrupt.
I take a picture out of my purse and hand it to him.
“That was me three and a half years ago. I weighed 290 pounds, give or take. I know I told you that I lost a bunch of weight, but what I lost was a whole person. A whole person about the same size I am now. I carried her around for my entire adult life, and she didn’t go easily. I have never, and I mean never in my whole life, dated anyone as a normal-size person. Ever. I was a fat teenager, not as big as that, but not small. I was not much smaller than that when I met my ex-husband. And whatever size I am, I’m always going to be a fat girl. It’s like being an alcoholic. It doesn’t matter if you can’t see the fat, it is still here on the inside. Losing that much weight is good for your heart and liver and kidneys. It’s good for your muscles and joints. But you don’t ever look the same when it is gone.”
I take a deep breath. I stop looking at my hands and look into Nathan’s face. I think about everything Carey said to me in the wee hours this morning when I woke and couldn’t get back to sleep for all the self-loathing I was mired in. And I follow her instructions completely.
“Nathan, I like you very much, and I’m very attracted to you. But underneath these clothes is a body I have put through hell, and it has all the battle scars. My skin is loose, from being stretched to hell all those years, I have more stretch marks than I have regular skin, and my boobs are attempting to introduce themselves to my knees. I wanted to sleep with you the other night. Hell, I wanted to sleep with you in D.C. I probably would have made love to you on the dance floor at your cousin’s bar mitzvah, except I’m so afraid that once you see my body as it is now, you won’t want me. I keep pushing you away because I like you so much, and because I’m so scared that you will be turned off by me.”
Nathan stands up, kisses the top of my head, and says, “Stay here for one minute.”
He walks away, and I’m shaking. Literally trembling. I can’t believe I got it all out. I can’t believe I actually said the words. And frankly, I can’t believe he hasn’t asked me to leave. Because even as I was saying it, the speech I practiced over and over while I baked the muffins in the middle of the night, recited like a mantra in the car on the way here, I never realized in the rehearsal how it would sound here in his apartment. How belittling it was to this kind man to assume he would be repulsed. How little faith I showed him. I’m tempted to run away, but then I hear a noise.
“Turn around,” he says behind me. And I do. And he is standing there, totally naked. My breath stops.
He points at a large, pebbly-looking scar on his upper shoulder. “Motorcycle accident when I was in college.” He points at his abdomen, a slight paunch. “Too many beers and not enough sit-ups.” He points and describes over his whole body. “My pubic hair is going gray, which makes me feel like a grandfather. My balls have dropped, and I’m daily afraid that they will eventually plop into the toilet water. I have acne on my back, and hair on my butt. I also have hair growing out of my nose and ears at an alarming rate, but not nearly as alarming as the rate with which it is leaving my head. My eyelids are getting saggy, and the bags underneath them make me look like Droopy Dawg the second I get tired. My neck has begun to wrinkle and I’m sure a wattle is imminent. I have bad knees from long hours kneeling with a camera. I get breakouts of eczema in the winter, nasty scaly patches on my arms and lower legs. My left big toenail has some sort of fungus that I can’t get rid of, which totally grosses me out. I sweat for at least thirty minutes after I get out of a hot shower, to the point that I can’t get dressed until it stops. I have an irate colon, intolerable flatulence if I eat the wrong food, and when I drink coffee, my breath could kill at forty paces.”
He walks across the room, leans over and takes my hand and pulls me off the couch. He kisses me.
“We aren’t twenty, lovely Melanie. I’m so glad you did the work you did, because it means that you will be healthy and around a good long time, and I want to know you for a good long time. If I was looking for some sort of physical specimen of perfection, I’d be one of those Viagra Triangle guys trying to find some lithe thing to have on my arm. But I like that you have lived and I have lived and we have bodies that have gotten us through. And whenever you are ready to make love, I will be ready, because whatever you are, that is what I am attracted to, and anything you see as a flaw, I see as proof of how exceptional and strong you are.”
I let my arms slide around his waist, feeling his skin beneath my hands, and then lean back. Because when I looked at the naked length of him in front of me, in the harsh early-morning light, I didn’t see any of the flaws he was pointing out, I only saw a man I am very attracted to, and every place on the body he described in such negative terms was simply a place I wanted to place a hand, to kiss, to caress, to know.
“Take me to bed?” I ask.
And then Nathan Gershowitz does something that no man has ever done, or frankly, been able to do. He leans down, and in one swift move, scoops me up in his arms and carries me into his bedroom. And the minute I feel myself lifted into the air, all my fears fly away.
It has been a little crazy since our early-morning confessional the other day. We have spent every night together at his apartment, talking and making love and sleeping and getting to know each other and making love some more. Nathan is a kind and attentive lover, nothing excites him more than my excitement, and I feel like I have made up for my long months of celibacy in just these few days.
Tonight, we had Kai and Phil over to his place for dinner. An easy and fun foursome we made. I roasted a gorgeous chicken, and served it with a light carrot salad in a red wine and thyme vinaigrette, and a wild rice pilaf with pistachios and currants and fresh mint. Kai and Phil brought a gorgeous Gâteau de semoule for dessert, sort of a crème caramel with semolina. We ate heartily, laughed deeply, and played a rousing tournament of Rummikub for a penny a point. I won three dollars and seventy-four cents.
“Look at them. They’re in love,” Kai whispers, an arm easy about my waist. We look over at Nate and Phil, who are watching rugby clips, of all things, on Nate’s laptop.
“Well, who could blame them, adorable as they are.”
“You seem happy, Bitty. Are you happy?”
“I am.” And it feels true.
“Good. He seems like a good one.”
“So he does.”
“And if he turns out to not be a good one, I’m totally going all Mrs. Lovett on his ass and we can sell the Nate pies in the store.”
I laugh at the gruesome Sweeney Todd reference. “We will do no such thing. He’d be very high in fat and cholesterol.”
“What are you
hens cackling about over there?” Phil calls over.
“We’re talking about whether we should meet up with our younger, more attentive boyfriends later, since the two of you seem so intent on whatever that crap is,” Kai calls back.
“That’s my cue,” Phil says, and wanders over. Nate follows dutifully behind and we make our good nights, with a plan to do it at their place next week.
We barely get the leftovers into his fridge before falling into each other’s arms. Nathan strips my sweater off and drops it on the floor, pushing me against the refrigerator and kissing down the length of my body. He pulls my skirt up, and pulls my panties down, burying his face between my legs, his tongue insistent, his hands gripping my ass and pulling me toward him. I claw at his shoulders, dizzy, and come in a flood, knees buckling. Nathan catches me in my swoon, guiding me gently to the floor, cradling me in his arms. I look up at him, and he is smiling down at me.
I smile back. “I love when you look at me like that,” I say.
“Like what?”
“With affectionate pride of ownership.”
“You think I look at you like I own you?” He looks puzzled.
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