Equilibrium

by Lorrie Thomson

  Sailing on natural opiates, she hurried across the hall and unceremoniously slid off her wedding band, tossed it inside her jewelry box, and closed the lid. She selected a brand-new white T-shirt, one of the few staples she replenished every year, and a well-worked-in pair of jeans. The stonewashed denim hugged in all the right places. For shoes, she decided upon her favorite sandals with the half-inch heels. She was going for the understated look, unaware, approaching innocence, as much as a thirty-five-year-old mother of two could fake naïveté.

  Yet, she must have convinced herself, because by the time she went down to the kitchen, her hands were really shaking, and she paused at the counter to steady herself. She dragged over the step stool so she could reach the above-cabinet wine rack and chose the cabernet sauvignon, remembering how on that long-ago fateful day she’d given her virginity to Jack she’d downed a shot of peppermint schnapps.

  She was raising her hand to knock on Aidan’s partly open door when he called out from the far end of the apartment. “In the kitchen!” She pulled the door shut behind her, and it locked with a soft click. In the unlikely event her kids needed her tonight, she’d hear them knock.

  Aidan stood at the sink, washing his hands. “I’m just about ready for you guys.” He gazed past her.

  “Um. Guess I should’ve let you know. Darcy and Troy aren’t coming. Homework,” she offered as a quick alternative to a long drawn-out explanation. “But I brought wine.” She held out the bottle, wishing she’d thought to pick up a gift bag on the way home, something to make the offer less like a regifting.

  He wiped his hands on a paper towel. “Great, thanks. Would you like me to open it now?”

  “Sure, why not?” she said, and Aidan fished in a drawer for an opener.

  She glanced away and hoped she appeared nonchalant, rather than a woman badly in need of a drink.

  Aidan’s butcher-block coffee table took up most of the back room; his four overstuffed beige floor cushions outlined its perimeter. A hot plate perched at the center of the table atop a metal trivet, holding a heavy-looking iron stockpot. Plates of raw food surrounded the pot of gently boiling bouillon. The largest plate displayed chunks of creamy tofu, sliced shittake mushrooms, Chinese cabbage, and semitransparent leeks. Thin strips of steak lay across the smaller plate, like sunbathers stretching across a dock. Wide udon noodles roped inside a mismatched khaki bowl.

  Only one meal called for this specific selection of raw ingredients. “Shabu-shabu,” she said, and accepted a nice and full glass of wine from Aidan.

  “You make swish-swish?” he asked, translating from Japanese to English.

  “I don’t make it, but I love it. I haven’t eaten Japanese in years.” On the rare occasions when they all went out to eat, they’d venture as far as Nashua, where they’d watch Asian chefs with sharp knives chop at a maddening pace, magically turning performance art into the most wonderful meals.

  “I thought shabu would be fun for your kids. Dinner entertainment,” he said, laying to rest the question of whether he had had an ulterior motive. Unlike her, Aidan’s motives were pure.

  He set out two sets of chopsticks and filled small red-lacquered dishes with dipping selections—duck sauce, sweet and sour, and her absolute favorite, ponzu, a citrus-seasoned soy. “Is anything missing?” Then, just as she was about to settle on a cushion, “A toast, to my first dinner guest!” Aidan said. “Not counting takeout pizza with Finn.”

  Filling a home with the personal sights, sounds, and smells of food christened a home like nothing else. “To new beginnings,” she said, embellishing his toast.

  They tapped glasses, then sipped. Aidan’s smile took over his face. The rich wine flowed downward and kissed Laura’s throat.

  She started with the meat—clamping a strip between her chopsticks and inhaling the savory beef broth as she swished the red meat back and forth.

  Beside her, Aidan slipped his chopsticks into the pot and swished his tofu, mirroring her movements. The ropes of muscles in his arm flexed. Her face tingled, and she chased the first tender morsel of meat with a healthy mouthful of wine.

  Aidan chewed his tofu, and his tongue licked at the excess sauce on his bottom lip. “I’ve forgotten how much I like this.” He grinned like a boy, content with small treasures.

  “Me too. Delicious.” She nodded, flushed from the food, the wine, her racing thoughts. She wouldn’t let her mind wander from small treasures to small pleasures—even after the unchaste translation, a dirty little rhyming game. Instead, she drank more wine, filled her plate with every vegetable, and churned them through the broth, a woman on a mission toward a new beginning Aidan hadn’t intended.

  He passed her the noodles, regarded her carefully. “You remind me of Suzanne.”

  She dabbed at her mouth with a napkin and dug into the noodles with her chopsticks, waiting for an elaboration.

  “One of my many sisters,” he said.

  Maybe she should’ve eaten before dinner, gorged on crackers straight out of the box so she’d appear lacking any discernible appetite, like the Southern belles in Gone with the Wind. She imagined his sister Suzanne, an immense girl with beautiful dark eyes.

  He laughed. “I swear it’s a compliment. Suze is this tiny thing, so she shocks guys when she eats them under the table. Used to drink guys under the table, too, but she doesn’t do that anymore,” he said, letting her know his sister Caroline of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named fame wasn’t the only member of Aidan’s family with past issues. He leaned forward. “So does Darcy really have homework or is she avoiding me?”

  She swallowed her mouthful of noodles, pulled her legs out from under the table, and kneeled on the cushion. “Darcy’s avoiding you, but she’ll come around,” she said, interjecting confidence into her voice.

  “And Troy?” Aidan asked. “I thought my bike buddy would show up.”

  “Troy got started on homework late. He had a doctor’s appointment in the Boston area this afternoon.” She stood up with her empty wineglass and took his, even though it was still half full. “I’ll get us more wine.”

  She poured the wine and noticed a gray Bose sound system lurking covertly on the narrow shelf above the sink. A neighboring shelf housed a stack of CDs.

  “Boston? Is something wrong?” he asked.

  She should’ve kept her mouth shut. Sharing every detail of her personal life wasn’t part of the plan. But the facts certainly spoke for themselves, a personal ad only a fool would answer: widowed white female, devoted mother of two teenagers predisposed to a serious mental illness, seeks companionship with attractive normal man. Any reasonably sane man would run for the hills, camp out, and live as a hermit until the end of his days, rather than pursue a meaningful relationship with her.

  This could work to her advantage. She really liked Aidan and what she sought was a win-win situation. A relationship with her, the type necessitating actually garnering approval from each other’s family and friends, could turn disastrous. All in one night, she could show and tell him exactly how much, or how little, she had to offer.

  “I brought Troy to speak with Jack’s old doctor, a psychiatrist who specializes in bipolar disorder,” she said.

  “That’s what Jack had—bipolar?” Aidan scrambled up from his cushion and started across the room, a split-second response to a slight quaver in her voice.

  “Exactly.” She passed Aidan his wine and took a double sip of hers. “After Troy’s outburst at dinner a couple of weeks ago, he was up all night, extremely agitated, and fretting over Jack memories. And”—her gaze dashed to the dinner table, and then back to Aidan—“because of Jack, the kids are predisposed to bipolar, but I needn’t have worried. Troy is fine.”

  “How’s he doing otherwise?” Aidan asked, all at once too close.

  She wasn’t the type of woman to start sobbing in front of a new friend. Dissolving into tears wouldn’t convey an accurate portrayal, so she measured her words for stability. “Troy is absolutely fantastic.” Thank G
od, he’s not Jack.

  “And you,” he said, not giving her any space. “How are you doing?”

  An innocent enough question, if it came from anyone other than Aidan. But she couldn’t dismiss his unwavering voice, his steady gaze, or the way his feet pointed toward her, as if nothing else existed in the universe other than his awaiting her answer. Most people threw out a question and mentally moved on to the next subject before you’d even formulated a response.

  Aidan wasn’t one of those people, so Laura gave him what approximated the truth. “I’m managing,” she said, grateful the right verb had come to her. She hadn’t said whether she was managing well or not, so she hadn’t lied. You wouldn’t know the truth if it bit you on the ass. Where had that expression come from? Crass, but she liked it.

  Aidan stood perfectly still, as though waiting for a more detailed response to his inquiry into her state of mind.

  An abrupt subject change seemed in order.

  “Can I put on some music?” She replaced what must’ve been a troubled look on her face with a small smile and shuffled through Aidan’s stack of CDs. Midway through, she discovered a classic Van Morrison recording that broadened her smile. “Do you mind?”

  “Go right ahead.”

  She read down the list of song titles, remembering the soulful rock, the folksy lyrics. Very many years ago, she’d owned a cassette of the recording, but the tape had gone missing, lost in transit when she and Jack had moved from their last apartment. Jack had never liked Van Morrison. He took her listening to the singer-songwriter as a form of emotional adultery, as if she’d cheated on him with another artist.

  Sliding in the beloved music allowed a pause of blissful anticipation.

  She leaned against the counter so the steady beat of “And It Stoned Me” pounded through her. She didn’t remember all the words, but the gist of the tune flooded back—taking joy from a simple day, complete with rain and sun, friends and—oh, yeah—liquid spirits.

  “You picked one of my all-time favorites,” Aidan said. When the song came around to the chorus for the second time, he caught Laura’s gaze and joined in with the vocals. His voice flowed effortlessly, at once masculine and tender. Aidan sang for his audience of one, but his expression told Laura he’d chosen her from millions.

  He combed his fingers through his hair, chuckling at himself, and she laughed with him. “Couldn’t resist,” he said.

  He race-walked to the table, turned off the hot plate, then jogged up to Laura and raised his wineglass to suggest another toast. “To singing,” he said. “Which I kind of, sort of, accidentally on purpose gave up about five months ago.” Well, that explained the performance. Kind of, sort of.

  They clinked glasses for a second time, and Aidan stared off into space. Energy buzzed around him. She tried naming the expression on his face, identifying layers of emotions: glee at getting back his sultry voice and a hint of regret at whatever had taken it in the first place. Her knee-jerk reaction pointed at Kitty. The time frame fit.

  Laura took the brief lull between songs as an imperative to drink up because she knew what song was coming next, and the perfect opportunity it provided.

  Tap, tap, tap. “Moondance” began with gentle percussion notes, four sets of three beats, rake on drum. A softer secondary swish followed the first resolute note, as though her heartbeat were knocking through the speakers.

  She ran her fingers down the back of Aidan’s hand until her palm lay flush against his knuckles and her fingers curled over his fingertips. He could’ve construed her hand on his arm as overboard friendliness, neighborly even, and she didn’t want to leave any doubt in his mind. “Dance?” she asked.

  He squinted at her.

  “The song,” she said, wondering about her next move, if this one fell flat.

  He nodded, as if she’d spoken a full sentence, and glanced at their entwined hands.

  “Here.” She lifted Aidan’s hand, arranged his warm fingers at the crook of her waist, and swayed against his palm before she lost her nerve. Stepping closer, he rested his free hand on her shoulder, the way kids slow-danced in middle school after a lecture on maintaining personal space. In time with the music, she swayed nearer, until she’d danced him up against the kitchen counter.

  Maintaining eye contact was the hardest part—the way he saw her, really saw her, looking past the charade of her body. She couldn’t stand it for another second, and she ran her fingertip along his jawline. No way he could mistake this gesture, a bold foray into personal space.

  Still, just in case he didn’t want this, didn’t want her, she moved slowly and waited until his gaze fell across her lips.

  “Laura,” he said, and her name on his breath softened her. “You continually surprise me.” His fingers smoothed the surface of her shoulder and journeyed to her waist, mapping her body with his hand. “Is this like a date?” he asked.

  “Like,” she said.

  “Then I’d better kiss the girl.” The faintest touch of Aidan’s smiling lips opened her mouth. In time with Van Morrison’s end of song vocal trill, his candied tongue tumbled into her mouth, sharing wine and citrus, ginger and honey. For this performance, he pulled her closer, letting her know he was hers.

  “Crazy Love” played, and she smiled at the coincidence because she couldn’t deny how nuts this looked, if anyone were looking from the outside. From the inside of her body, everything felt just right—his mouth an all-encompassing caress that warmed her down to her jeans. Hands in his hair, she deepened the kiss, and he pressed himself against her.

  By the time “Caravan” sang of turning up the volume, they were both pretty loud, breath coming out in fits and starts, his hot mouth on her neck, and her hand playing truth or dare at the hem of his T-shirt. There. Her fingers traveled the expanse of skin over his nicely delineated stomach muscles, even silkier than she’d imagined.

  She wanted more.

  Now. She pulled away slightly and took him by the hand for the second time that night, and for the second time, he gave her that look, all quizzical and concerned. “We should go up to the loft.” She hoped, prayed, he wouldn’t ask her to expand on the notion.

  He leaned his forehead against hers, then spoke all hushed, “You don’t have to. You don’t.”

  Ah, a man with four sisters, conscious in the way a woman had the right to say no up until the last possible moment. “Yes, but you see, I want to.” Then, risking more than when she’d dared touching his stomach, “Unless, of course, you don’t want to.”

  He nuzzled into her hair. “Oh, yeah, I want,” he said, and turned the dimmer switch, lowering the loft-side ceiling light before following her up the ladder.

  She climbed the ten steps to the platform and discovered her hands were shaking again, her body throwing up a signal of caution she had no intention of answering. She skirted a week’s worth of Aidan’s discarded clothing—scrubs, jeans, cotton socks—and lay sideways on his unmade bed.

  He came to her and held her hands until the erratic energy ceased. When she was ready to start over, he went across the room and slid the closet door open, revealing a dumbbell and a stack of weights. He dropped to his knees and foraged through a built-in drawer.

  Should she take off her clothes? Not exactly romantic, but no more ridiculous than their awkward removal by an impatient partner.

  Years ago, fearing a gradual shedding would highlight her inexperience, she’d disrobed for Jack all at once. She’d stepped out of her button-fly Levi’s and onto the threadbare Oriental in his hardback-scented office, like a butterfly emerging from a chrysalis. In subsequent visits, she’d relaxed and found the slow removal of clothing more gratifying, even when shirts tangled and pants bunched. Then, in recent years, they’d both taken to coming to bed naked whenever Jack’s mood swung upward. For her, to get it over with, and for Jack, to avoid burdensome preliminary activities, like kissing and touching. Like looking at each other.

  Jack could never win when it came to their argume
nts over his meds, so he chose to wage a horizontal war, using her body as his battlefield of choice.

  “Laura?”

  Aidan, this beautiful man, the essence of pure goodness in action, was calling to her from no more than four feet away. Get the hell out of my head, Jack. I deserve this.

  Aidan held up a box of Trojans, not purchased for her, of course, but at least it was unopened. “Do you, are you … ?” He rubbed at the back of his neck, suddenly shy.

  She hadn’t planned this far ahead. “No, nothing,” she said. Then, unable to filter her thoughts, “I’ve never been with anyone but Jack.”

  He opened the glossy box, ripped off a single packet, and then laid it on the pillow next to her. “You’re practically a virgin,” he said, and sure enough, his approving gaze made her new again, a woman without a past. He took off his shirt before lying next to her on his side and waited patiently for her signal to move forward, a very deliberate reserve, judging by the urgency his body was evidencing. “Come Running” played, the music drifting up to surround them, and in the instinctual dance of man and woman, they moved together.

  A Renaissance man, she decided, losing track of time but not her habit of naming, controlling her experiences the way Adam and Eve held dominion over the Garden of Eden. Skilled in the art of appreciation, Aidan savored with all his five senses—visually exploring, inhaling her skin, touching, tasting, listening for her responses. The room spun, and she held on, digging her nails into the tender flesh of his shoulder blades.

  Kneeling, he tore open the gleaming red packet.

  “I can do it,” she said. When she took her sweet time unrolling the condom onto him, he closed his eyes. His lips pursed.

  Lover. She tried out the term as he lowered himself onto her. Then, in a split-second decision, urged her up so they were both sitting. In an equal position, she opened up and let him inside her. Oh, God. She’d forgotten how good it felt, how it could feel. Should. How it should feel.