“I’m up,” she said. “Come in.”
“Did you hear that?”
“Just the end. What did she say?” Terry asked, sitting up again.
“About what you’d expect, she was so sorry; she didn’t think the baby would look so much like Ben; she didn’t think it was a big deal. She was really going to try to pawn her off as my kid.”
“Desperation makes people do bad things,” Terry said.
“She said Ben finally told his wife, and that she’s pissed, but now he can acknowledge the baby. She won’t be fatherless.”
“Oh, that’s good,” Terry said. “I know you were worried about that.”
“I know. I’m weird,” he said. “Can you get up? We can hit some open houses if you’re up to it.”
“Do I smell coffee?” she said, surprised.
“You do, but I have no idea what it will taste like,” he said.
He left so she could get ready in private, and while she dressed, he paced in the living room, thinking how close he came to losing everything that was important to him because of a lie.
The bedroom door opened and she came out dressed up for the luncheon at Jason’s apartment.
“You look beautiful,” he said, going to her.
“Did everything just get one hundred percent easier for us?” she asked, putting her arms around him.
“It did,” he said. “It’s just us now. No custody worries. Just one baby.”
“Just one wife,” Terry said.
“Shall we fill our travel mugs and go to a few open houses? There’s one right at the end of our street where it dead-ends on Lincoln Drive. I’ve had my eye on that house since I moved up here.”
“Which one is it?” Terry asked.
“It’s the stone one,” he said, holding her coat.
“They’re all stone, Alex” Terry replied.
“You’ll see.”
Bundled up again, they took their coffee mugs out to the car and settled in for a drive to the end of the street.
“Oh, I like that,” she said, when he pulled in front of a wide lawn, the house set far off the road. “Look at that yard.”
“It’s on over an acre,” Alex said, sweeping his arm across the yard. “All fenced, backs up to parklands.”
“Hiding places for homeless people,” she said.
“We’ll put motion detector lights up,” he replied.
“It’ll be like a strobe light out there,” she said, shocking Alex, who laughed so hard he hit his knee with his hand.
“Well it’s true,” she said.
When he calmed down, he put his arm around her shoulder and they walked up to the front door together. “Look at this porch,” Terry said. “It’s the perfect space for a little child to play.”
The realtor greeted them and led the way through a maze of rooms.
“This kitchen is amazing,” Terry said. “Most old houses have such dingy, small kitchens.”
A huge, professional stove with an enormous hood was the focal point of the space, and seeing it, Terry giggled; she never used more than one burner on her small stove.
“This house was built for a family who had a staff,” the realtor said. “The big kitchen at the back of the house was for a cook and her assistants. There’s a smaller kitchen on the third floor for the staff to use.”
“We won’t have a staff though, so we really don’t need a second kitchen,” Terry said.
“In the basement, there’s a professional laundry that the current owners turned into their art studio.”
“That won’t get any use from us, either,” Terry said laughing.
“I always wanted to learn to make pots and tiles,” Alex said, clarifying the use of the studio.
“That’s right! We’ll have to buy a potter’s wheel,” Terry said.
“It sounds a little nerdy,” he said, embarrassed. “I like to paint, too. Earle said he’ll give me lessons.”
“That’s wonderful,” Terry said. “I’m so impressed. You are so interesting!”
“Ha! That’s a laugh, but I’m so happy you think I’m interesting. Jennifer made fun of me when she found out I took a pottery class in college,” he said.
“Screw her,” Terry said. “She’s history.”
“Let’s look at the property,” he said, leading her in back to an in-ground pool, currently covered, and a barn.
They stood in the yard listening to birdsong, feathered diehards who’d weathered the Pennsylvania winter. Distant traffic, just enough to remind them it was still the city, the train coming up the hill to Allen’s Lane, and the squeak of brakes of the K bus speeding down Mount Pleasant.
“Do you feel it?” Alex whispered. “This is our house, Terry. What do you think?”
“Do you want a big place like this?” she asked, looking back at it looming over their shoulders. “I can’t even imagine trying to keep it clean. I thought we’d get a second bedroom and maybe another bathroom. This house has six bedrooms.”
“We’ll get a cleaning lady. I want it,” he said, smiling. “We already have servants’ quarters.”
“Ha! That’s true,” she replied.
“Let’s make an offer.”
“Okay,” she said. “At least it’s in our neighborhood.”
After they toured the rest of the place, they walked out to the car hand in hand. “Do we even need to look at any more houses?” Alex asked. “If you’re okay with this one, I want to make an offer on it today.”
“Whatever you want, Alex,” Terry said. “I can’t believe how easy it was to find a home. I thought we’d be looking for a year.”
“Like you said this morning, everything just got easier for us.”
***
Chapter 20
April 1
Traffic on Christian Street in South Philadelphia was usually a car or two an hour, but on this Saturday, it was bumper to bumper, the sounds of engines idling, the occasional horn blowing, radios blaring, laughter or the opposite, impatient drivers needing to be on their way and a little vituperative language unleashing.
“There must be a detour,” Tina Halevy said in her thick accent, standing in the window.
Arvin squinted at her, his head up four inches off the pillow. “Don’t stand in the window naked, please,” he said, his head plopping back down. “That’s probably what all the racket is about.”
“Ha! I doubt it,” she said, coming back to bed.
Watching with one eye open, Arvin liked her body, loved her body, even though she was so different from what he thought he liked in the past, the preconceived notion of the Playboy model his father and older brothers idolized.
The perfect woman’s body for the old, unenlightened Arvin was Terry Kovac’s voluptuous earth mother, with big breasts and a butt to match. But Arvin didn’t like the rest of it, below the waist; it scared him, its many nooks and crannies, there were too many surprises. In his father’s Hustler magazines, photos of shaved girls in living color, it looked like an operation. He’d never touched Terry or any other girl there.
“How’d you ever get through a gynecology rotation?” Tina asked, appalled. “We’re never going to last if you don’t take an interest in me down there.”
Tina’s body was flat and firm, her skin pale, pale blond hair, and she wore a padded bra because her breasts were youthful, high bumps on her chest. Hers was an athlete’s body, and she disciplined it by running miles every morning, rain or shine. Except on days that traffic detoured down their street.
“Come here,” he said, his voice gravely, a sure sign he was ready for sex. “Show me what I need to know about you.”
“Ah! You’re ready for a lesson, is that right?” she said, crawling next to him.
“Let me see you,” he said, pointing at it.
Facing him, she sat up, and opened her legs, framing her genitals with her hands. “See? It’s not that mysterious.”
Reaching over, he gently poked her with a finger, and her lips separated for him
. “It’s like magic,” he said. “Open sesame.”
Laughing, she shook her head. “No, it’s not. I’m responding to you. Things tend to move a little bit when that happens.”
“You’re wet,” he said, going a little further. “May I? Or do I have to pass a test first?”
“You’re doing well,” she murmured. “Don’t stop, please.”
He sat up, interested, and explored a little longer, getting it just right, she tensed up and to his delight, had an orgasm. “Wow, look at that thing go,” he said getting right down there to watch.
“Don’t waste it, Arvin,” Tina moaned. “You should get inside as soon as possible.”
Doing as she asked, he pushed his penis against her, watching the head enter her, her lips surrounding him, almost sucking on him, and before he knew it, he was over the top, moving inside of her, hammering up against her with his hips, losing all his inhibitions, just like it was supposed to be.
They held on to each other when he was finished, the need to get away from it, to forget about it, to move forward wasn’t his goal like it was with all the other women. For the first time, he wasn’t thinking about himself.
“Are you satisfied?” he asked, his eyes closed, running his fingers along her arm.
“Completely,” she sighed. “Are you?”
“Totally,” he said. “I’m sorry it’s taken me so long to do it for you.”
“The timing was just right. You know I love you, don’t you Arvin?”
“I know it, and I love you, Tina,” he said, flabbergasted. “Wow, I said I love you.”
“What does that mean to you?” she asked.
“It means it’s just you and me, from here on out.”
“No other women, correct? You know I won’t stand for that,” she said, serious.
“Nope. No other women. I don’t even want to think of another woman. You are all I want. I think we should get married,” he said. “My father had more than one wife because our country allowed it with no restrictions. He’ll probably have a fit if I get married, but I only want you.”
“You don’t want to marry me,” she said. “And my father would definitely have a fit.”
“Because I’m a Muslim?”
“Yes, and because I’m a Jew. We can live together, though. They’d never find out.”
“No, I don’t think so. You’d better find a way to marry me, Tina. I’m in the mood to get married, to have a big, expensive wedding so I can get some gifts from all these people I’ve had to buy gifts for. And I want to have a family. We should be married for that.”
“Like Terry and Alex?” she asked, smiling down at him.
“Exactly. Find the courage to tell your mother and she can go to bat for you with your father.”
“We might have to fly to Israel,” she said. “Do a little damage control once I tell her. But this is only if you insist.”
“I insist,” Arvin said. “In the meantime, we go ring shopping.”
“Really?” she asked, laughing. “You know I don’t care about that sort of thing.”
“It’s the American way. Then we can have a big party and show it off to all of our friends.”
“You must move into my apartment,” she said, grimacing. “It’s time to let your youth go, Arvin. This place even smells bad.”
“Aww, I love this place,” he said, looking around the bedroom with his hands under his head. “But I’ll do it if it will make you happy. And your house is nicer than this.”
“There is no comparison,” she said, laughing.
Playfully smacking him on the hip, she got out of bed and started to straighten the sheets.
“Get up. I’m hungry and we can get brunch until two at Georgie’s on the River.” A smart woman, Tina knew how to get Arvin to do most of the things she wanted him to do, just by manipulating him a bit.
“Yum. Georgie’s is my favorite place to eat in the entire town! How’d you know that?” he asked, springing out of bed.
“Just a lucky guess,” she said, kissing his cheek.
***
Moving day snuck up on them so quickly, they were doing last minute packing while waiting for the movers to arrive. Terry in the kitchen, flicking errant tears off her cheek from time to time, having put the last cooking implement in a box, stretched tape over the opening, neatly cutting the end with scissors. With a marker, she listed the contents of the box in her neat lawyer’s print. Purposely keeping her back to the window, she knew if she looked out over the yard to Rick’s house, she’d start crying in earnest. The possibility that he was going to move in with Jason above the bookshop made moving slightly easier, but only slightly.
Coming up the stairs from Earle’s apartment, Alex had spent the last half hour reassuring Earle that the new owners of Terry’s apartment were lovely people, both medical residents in the hospital in East Falls, and colleagues of Benny’s.
Terry and Alex would just be a few blocks away, at the end of Mount Pleasant Avenue in a 1920’s stone house with many bedrooms and bathrooms, and a big old barn. Terry already promised to have Earle over to do a painting of the garden.
“What will we do with all of those rooms?” Terry asked. “We have furniture for two of them. Not even.”
“Oh I think we will fill them up. Your father hinted that if he and Anna move in together they’ll have a house full of stuff to get rid of.”
“I’m not a big fan…Don’t tell.”
“I won’t. But you might regret it some day. Just keep an open mind,” Alex said, looking around. “The movers will be here in half an hour. They said they’ve never had such a small move.”
“Did you tell them to go…”
“Relax, Terry. They weren’t trying to be insulting,” Alex said, hugging her, then looking down at her belly. “You have a cantaloupe under your sweatshirt.”
“He grew overnight,” she said, looking down at her belly, “If this keeps up I won’t be able to button my jeans soon.”
“Four months! Time is flying by.”
“Oh Alex!” she cried, holding her hands over her belly. “He moved!” Snapping her fingers, she grabbed his hand and put it where she could feel life. “Can you feel it?”
“Yes!” he said, dropping to his knees to pull the waistband of her yoga pants over her belly. With both hands free, he placed them over her and felt the fluttering, like butterflies from within, putting his ear to her skin in case he could hear. “That’s amazing! I’ll go to your next doctor appointment with you. I want to hear his heartbeat.”
“Did we conceive him here in the apartment? Or in that hotel?” Terry asked.
“Why’s that important?” he asked, standing back up again, laughing. “You sure know how to break a mood.”
“Because if we made him here, it’s just one more reason to feel sad about leaving,” she said.
Looking around the apartment, Alex also felt a little pang of regret as he walked into the living room and looked out over the treetops. “I’m really sorry to leave here. I’ll miss the sound of the train, the bus at the stop, I’ll miss the people walking up the hill to catch the last bus of the night.
“Remember the fight we heard on New Year’s Night? The guy chasing his girlfriend up the hill. ‘But baby! I loves ya!’”
She moved over next to him and threaded her arm through his. “Yes, I remember that. It was funny. I’ll miss seeing the lights from Alden Park Manor at night,” she said. “I’ll miss living next to Mrs. Dell, hearing Rick play the piano in the morning. I’ll miss the high school track team running up the hill, and the line up of people at Mrs. Cougar Tarot Card Reading on Friday night. This has been a really great place to live.”
“Our new house is close to the train,” Alex said. “And you can see quite a view of the park from the third floor of that house, too.”
He reached down and placed his hand over her belly again. “This little guy will grow up in the grand house. It’ll be a great family house, you wait and see.”
<
br /> Turning to each other, they kissed, Terry holding his face in her hands. “God, I love you so much,” she said.
“I love you, too, Terry. Wow, I mean I really love you.”
The sound of a diesel truck engine got their attention and they looked out to see the huge moving van blocking west bound traffic.
“Here we go,” he said, his arm around her shoulder. “No turning back.”
“Nope,” she said, smiling. “I never look back.”
The next chapter of her life was about to begin.
The End
I hope you loved Bittersweets – Terry and Alex as much as I love writing about them. They’ll be back! Watch for stand alone novellas Bittersweets - Brenda and Larry, Arvin and Tina, Harry and Anna, and Rick and Jason.
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Bittersweets_Terry and Alex Page 19