The Douglas Kennedy Collection #1

by Douglas Kennedy

  Once Toby had dropped off to sleep, I extricated myself from his pleasurable grip (he had his arms bound tightly around me) and checked again on Jeff. Still conked out, oblivious to everything. During our lovemaking, I’d had the occasional dreadful thought that I’d find Jeff sitting up in his cot, staring at all this wild physical activity being acted out in front of him. And though I would rationalize to myself that his six-month-old brain certainly wouldn’t register what was going on before him, even the thought that I had considered sleeping with another man in front of my son . . .

  I backed off from the crib, returned to bed, and actually clasped the pillow over my ears to block out that angry, reproving voice that was telling me, in no uncertain terms, just what an immoral monster I’d been. Just as the rational, Bad-Girl side of my brain was shouting back, Drop the guilt trip. Toby’s right: guilt is for Carmelites. Anyway, why beat yourself up over the fuck of your life?

  That’s what still had me reeling—the sheer amazing out-of-body experience that making love with Toby had been. The way he was able to unlock . . .

  I got up and walked into the living room. I grabbed my cigarettes and lit one, then stormed over to a kitchen cabinet where I kept the one bottle of liquor we had in the house—a fifth of Jim Beam bourbon. I found a glass. I poured a slug. I threw it down. It numbed the back of my throat but did nothing to dampen down my anxiety. So I resorted to diversionary tactics—and washed all our dinner dishes, all the pots and pans Toby had used. Then I noticed that the kitchen floor was pretty damn dirty, so I got out a bucket and mop and scrubbed the linoleum. After that, I found a sponge and a bottle of Mr. Clean, and I tackled all the kitchen surfaces, not to mention the bathroom. While negotiating a particularly bad ring of gunk in the bathtub, I thought, So this is how you celebrate the best sex you’ve ever had . . . Are you pathetic or what?

  Guilty. Guilty as charged.

  After finishing the bathroom, a wave of exhaustion hit me. I put away the cleaning supplies, flopped on the sofa, lit up yet another cigarette, and wished to God I could calm down. But the guilt was all-pervasive and uncontrollable, like a fever that kept spiking and wouldn’t respond to any medicine.

  He has to go in the morning. He has to pack up his backpack and hit the road before sunrise. Then I have to wash the sheets—twice, at least—and thorough-clean the bedroom to make certain that any evidence of his whereabouts has been scrubbed and vacuumed away. Then I will try to forget all this has happened. I will file it away in that box marked “Off Limits” and wipe it from my memory . . .

  Like fuck you will.

  I slammed my fist down on the coffee table, trying to end this inane debate. I glanced at my watch. Five-fifteen. Tomorrow was nearly here—and the day would be one long exercise in self-reproach. One more cigarette and I would try to get an hour or so of sleep . . . before Jeff sprang into action.

  But as I was lighting my fourth cigarette of this guilt-ridden all-nighter, the bedroom door opened. Toby staggered out, completely naked, looking scarcely awake. He squinted at me, as if it was hard to discern me in his half-asleep state.

  “Don’t tell me you’re feeling guilty,” he said, walking over to where the bottle of bourbon had been left on a countertop.

  “What makes you think that?”

  “Oh please,” he said, pouring some bourbon into a glass. “Rattling around here like Banquo’s ghost, doing dishes, cleaning house . . . it was all pretty damn audible in the bedroom. And it also woke me up.”

  He brought the glass of bourbon over and sat next to me on the sofa.

  “Sorry,” I said.

  “Don’t be sorry about anything,” he said, stroking my face. “Especially about the sex. Because sex is just sex—and fucking is good for the psyche. A way to shake your fist against convention, entrapment, death.”

  “Yeah, you’re right,” I said.

  “You sound deeply unconvinced.”

  “No, I’m fine.”

  “Then why can’t you sleep right now?”

  “Because . . . this is all new territory for me.”

  “Don’t tell me you’re worried about ‘betraying’ your husband and all that conventional stuff.”

  “I’m trying not to be.”

  “It’s a little late for that now, isn’t it? If you didn’t want to fuck me, you shouldn’t have fucked me.”

  “That’s not the point,” I said quietly.

  “Then what is the point? Let’s follow the Socratic argument here. You wanted to fuck me, even though you were also worried about feeling guilty. But you decided that the fuck was worth the guilt, even though you knew you’d be feeling guilty afterward. In other words, you engaged in a pleasurable activity, knowing full well that you’d hate yourself for doing it—which is kind of skewed, masochistic logic, isn’t it?”

  I hung my head. He said, “Oh, for Christ’s sake, don’t act like a schoolgirl who’s been chastised . . .”

  “Well, aren’t you chastising me?”

  “No, what I’m doing is trying to snap you out of this guilt jag. It’s pointless and it’s self-defeating.”

  “It’s easy for you to say that—you’re not married.”

  “It all comes down to perception: how you want to interpret an event, the way you want to color it, to turn it into a commentary on yourself . . . or simply see it for nothing more than what it is.”

  “Maybe you’re one of those lucky types who don’t have a guilty conscience.”

  “And maybe you’re the sort of person who always has to beat herself up, and can’t just live in the moment.”

  I hung my head again. Nobody likes hearing the truth about themselves.

  “‘The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven.’ Know it?”

  “Yeah.”

  He touched my chin with his finger, gently raising my head up again.

  “Milton had a point, didn’t he?” he asked.

  I nodded.

  “Well, stop making a hell of things, eh?”

  I said nothing. He kissed me lightly on the lips, then asked, “Is that your idea of hell?”

  I said nothing. He kissed me again.

  “Still feeling hellish?”

  “Stop it,” I said quietly, but I still accepted his next kiss.

  “Look, if you want me to go . . .” he said and he kissed me again, “just say the word and I’m gone.”

  Another kiss. This time I reached up and pulled him toward me.

  “Don’t go yet,” I said.

  We made love on the sofa—slowly, gently, with no rush to finish, no sense of time beyond this time, this place, this precise extraordinary moment. When we finished I held him tight—not wanting to let him go. I felt myself choke back a sob—and worked hard to control it. But he heard it.

  “Not more guilt?” he asked.

  No—the sad, terrible realization that I was falling hard for this guy . . . and that I would have to let him go.

  “Please stay a few more days,” I said.

  “I’d like that,” he said. “I’d like that a lot.”

  “Good.”

  Eventually dawn’s early light found the gaps in the blinds and sent eerie autumnal rays across the room. In the bedroom I could hear Jeff stirring. Toby went off to have a bath. I dealt with my son’s assorted needs—and after changing and feeding him, placed him in his playpen as I made coffee. Toby emerged from the bathroom. We sat at the table and said nothing, possibly because we were both so damn tired after a night without sleep, but also because we really didn’t need to say anything right now.

  I finished my coffee. I showered and got dressed. When I came back into the living room, Toby was crouched down by the playpen, making funny faces for my son’s benefit. Jeff giggled wildly—and all I could think was: Why isn’t this man my husband? With that thought came a split-second reverie of a life with Toby . . . the fantastic conversations, the fantastic sex, the mutual respect, the sense of shared destiny . . .


  Now you really are acting like a lovesick teenager. The guy is the original free spirit. Here Today, Gone Tomorrow. You’re a fuck to him, another notch in the belt, and nothing more.

  But then he lifted Jeff up and buried his head in his stomach and made all sorts of funny noises, causing my son to howl with laughter—and I immediately wanted to have a kid with him.

  Oh, lady, are you some idiot.

  He put Jeff back in the playpen, then came over and kissed me gently on the lips.

  “You look lovely,” he said.

  “No, I look wrecked.”

  “You really do love giving yourself a bad time.”

  I kissed him back and said, “Stick around and maybe I’ll lose the habit.”

  He returned the kiss.

  “Invitation accepted.”

  “So what are you going to do today?” I asked.

  “First order of business is to go back to bed.”

  “Lucky you.”

  “When you get back from work, you can grab a nap.”

  I cupped his backside in one of my hands and pulled him toward me.

  “Only if you’ll grab it with me.”

  “You’re on,” he said.

  There was one final long kiss before I glanced at my watch and said, “I really have to go.”

  “Then go,” he said. “And don’t spend the day thinking that everyone knows you’ve got some big guilty secret.”

  That fear had been one of a stream of paranoid thoughts that had run through my head all night: as soon as I showed my face around Pelham this morning, everyone would know. It would be written all over me.

  Just act as if nothing has happened—because, as far as everyone is concerned, nothing has happened . . . unless you indicate otherwise.

  So when I brought Jeff over to Babs’s house, I just smiled my regular smile and tried to act nonchalant when she said, “Looks like you haven’t slept all night, hon.”

  “Jeff had bad colic . . .”

  “Real curse, that one. When Betty was six months old, she kept me awake for two straight weeks with her damn colic. Felt like I was about to go gaga by the end of it all.”

  “Well, that’s just about how I feel now—and I’ve only had a day of it.”

  “He keep your visitor up last night?”

  “Uh, no . . .”

  “Must be a pretty sound sleeper, then.”

  Was she giving me a telling look—or, worse yet, was I blushing or acting suspicious?

  “Never heard him stir.”

  “Guy must sleep like the dead. You gonna want him at the same time today?”

  “Want who?” I asked, sounding jumpy.

  “Your baby boy, of course. Who’d you think I was talking about?”

  “Sorry, sorry. Sleep deprivation kind of makes me scatty.”

  “Listen, you want a nap this afternoon, I can keep him on till four or five.”

  I liked the sound of that. It would give me a couple of hours alone with Toby.

  “You sure it wouldn’t be an inconvenience?”

  “Your little boy is never an inconvenience. And you really look like you could use some time alone in bed.”

  By which you mean . . . ?

  “Well, thanks, Babs,” I said. “I’m really grateful.”

  “You take as long as you like in bed, okay?” And she gave me a little wink.

  As I walked over to Miss Pelham’s, I kept trying to analyze that damn wink, wondering what the hell it meant, had she read me like an open book, or put two and two together to make four . . . or whether she was just pulling my chain, seeing if she could get some sort of rise out of me. But why would Babs do that, unless she had definite suspicions . . .

  I stopped into Miller’s Grocery for my Boston Globe and cigarettes.

  “You’re looking tired today,” Jesse Miller said to me.

  “Bad night with the baby.”

  “Uh-huh,” she said, handing me my paper and smokes. “When’s the doctor back?”

  “Any day now, I hope.”

  Uh-huh. Was that just one of Jesse’s usual uncommunicative grunts . . . or was that a who-you-trying-to-kid uh-huh? And why did she ask about Dan’s return in the same damn breath?

  When I reached the library an hour later, Estelle said, “Well, everyone’s speculating whether you’re up to anything.”

  “Jesus-fucking-Christ . . .” I said, hoping I sounded sufficiently outraged.

  “Hey, it’s just the usual malicious small-town speculation. Everyone privately realizes that nothing’s going on. You’d have to be insane to do something like that in a place as all-knowing and miserable as Pelham. People just want something to talk about—and the fact that you’ve got a good-looking college friend staying with you while the Doc is out of town, well, it gives everyone a chance to think about something other than their petty problems for an hour or so.”

  I didn’t mention Estelle’s observation to Toby when I got home. Maybe that had something to do with the fact that, as soon as I was in the door—and he saw that I was baby-less—he pulled me straight into bed. I didn’t put up a struggle, but I was just a little conscious that we were making love directly above Dan’s office. Knowing that the bed creaked loudly, I insisted that we pull the mattress onto the floor. Toby didn’t like this interruption, especially as we were half undressed and all over each other when self-preservation and common sense took over. Then again, if I really had any common sense and self-preservation, I wouldn’t be trying to pull a mattress to the floor while my lover cupped his hands over my breasts and kissed the nape of my neck.

  “Give me a hand here,” I giggled.

  “This is more fun,” he said.

  “And more work for me.”

  “You’re being paranoid about the bed.”

  “You heard it creak last night.”

  “No . . . I was otherwise engaged.”

  “Very funny.”

  He buried his face against the side of my neck.

  “C’mon, just one big tug,” I said, feeling myself get wetter.

  “All right, all right,” he said—and grabbed hold of the side of the mattress, hoisting it down with one ferocious pull. I fell on top of it. He followed—and I pulled him straight inside me, desperate to hold on to him, terrified that we’d make too much noise, trying to lose sight of everything beyond this room, wondering if we could be heard downstairs, not caring a damn whether we could be heard downstairs, wanting him to get up and leave town as soon as we were finished, wanting to keep him here for as long as possible, wondering if this was what love was, telling myself I was playing an insane game, never wanting this moment to end.

  Afterward, we clung to each other and said nothing for a very long time. He ran his finger slowly down my face, and finally broke the silence.

  “It’s shitty luck, isn’t it?” he said.

  “What is?”

  “You being married.”

  I put my finger on his lips. And said, “Let’s not talk about that. This is too nice, too—”

  But he cut me off.

  “And when your husband comes back tomorrow or the next day, how are you going to file this little affair away? Une petite aventure, as the French tend to call it; un rêve that will seem even more like a dream with the passage of time?”

  “Toby, please don’t spoil . . .”

  “Spoil what? The illusion that this is something more than it is?”

  I suddenly felt very worried about the direction this conversation was taking.

  “This can only be what it is,” I said.

  “‘And I have always relied on the kindness of strangers,’” he said, putting on a Southern accent. I felt as if I had been slapped across the face.

  “That was a nasty thing to say.”

  “Sorry.”

  “No, you’re not.”

  “You’re right, I’m not sorry. I’m angry. Angry that you’re trapping yourself in such a dead-end marriage, in such a dead-end town. Angry that
you can’t run off with me . . .”

  “You want me to run off with you?”

  “Damn right I do.”

  “Oh, Toby . . .” I said, putting my arms around him again.

  “Don’t ‘Oh, Toby’ me. The fact is, you’re not going to run off with me because you couldn’t turn your back on—”

  “What can’t I turn my back on?” I said. “My ‘bourgeois comfort’? My ‘domestic subservience’? My ‘need to uphold traditional American values’? I’d walk out of this town, this marriage, for you right now . . . if it wasn’t for my son.”

  “He shouldn’t be an excuse.”

  “Jeffrey is not an excuse. You know nothing about parenthood. No matter how tied down your kids make you feel, you’d still scratch out the eyes of anyone who would dare try to take them away from you. I never understood this until I became a mom . . .”

  “A mom,” he said, the sarcasm showing. “Is that how you see yourself—Mommy?”

  “You’re being cruel.”

  “Only because I want to snap you out of your complacency . . .”

  “I am not fucking complacent.”

  “If you stay here, you will be. Whereas I can offer you . . .”

  “I know what you can offer me. Romance, passion, adventure—all that big, heady stuff. Don’t you think I want that? Don’t you think I want to escape all this? But to do that, I would have to leave my son. And I cannot—will not—ever do that.”

  “Then you will always be caught up in this bullshit scene. The doctor’s little wife.”

  I stiffened. “You don’t know that.”

  “People don’t change that much,” he said.

  “Are you always such a fucking absolutist?”

  “Hey, why so testy? Don’t tell me I struck a nerve.”

  I stood up and started reaching for my clothes.

  “Are you always such an asshole?”

  “Are you always so damn touchy when confronted with the truth?”

  “You don’t speak the truth; you speak crap and act as if it’s the truth.”

  “Individual perception is everything.”

  “Yeah, you’re right,” I said, pulling on my jeans. “And do you know what I perceive right now? The fact that I’ve made a terrible mistake.”