That's Not a Thing

by Jacqueline Friedland

  And then, without any sort of prelude, he’s all over me. His hands are in my hair, and he’s pushing me up against the wall as his mouth descends on mine. I didn’t even have a chance to turn on a lamp or anything. I kiss him back, enjoying the feel of his warm tongue, the faint taste of mint lingering. I know that having Wesley in the apartment has done something to Aaron, made him more aggressive, almost feral, like he can’t possess me hard enough. It’s like he’s intoxicated by me when he starts in like this, and I can’t deny that I dig it.

  He rips his mouth from mine to step back and lift my blouse over my head. I comply, eager to get back to him. When he pushes me back against the wall again, I bump the bookcase beside me, knocking several books to the floor with a loud thud. I laugh for one second, and then I remember Wesley in the room across the hall, and I freeze.

  Aaron feels me stiffen and pulls back, the mild ambient light from the city night casting him in a soft blue glow.

  “What? What is it?” He’s whispering, which somehow feels exactly appropriate in the moment.

  “Wesley.”

  Aaron glances toward the closed door and then looks back at me.

  “He’s right across the hall,” I explain. “We’re making a racket. It’s just weird if he hears.”

  “Don’t worry. The door is closed, and he’s sleeping. It’s fine,” he says, lowering his face back toward mine.

  I turn away, and Aaron sighs loudly. “Look,” he says, “the guy could be living with us for months, or longer. We can’t put a moratorium on sex for that whole time.”

  As with so many other details, I hadn’t really thought this part through before Wes moved in. It’s true he could be living with us for a long time and spending an increasing amount of time in the apartment or in bed. I guess Aaron has a point.

  “Fine, but can we just make an effort to be a little quiet? At least on his first night?”

  “You got it,” Aaron says, as he rushes my mouth again, now fiddling with the button of my jeans. He pushes my pants toward the floor, and I step out of them without breaking our kiss.

  Then he’s steering me toward our bed, his hands exploring my body as we go. As the backs of my legs connect with our white down duvet, he pulls away again, this time lifting off his own shirt and tossing it to the floor, then getting to work on his pants. It’s too dark to see all the details, but I can still make out the shape of him, and I am arrested, as usual, by the utter perfection of his physique—the width of his shoulders, the angle at which his sides dive toward a V at his waist.

  I pull him down on top of me, anxious to feel his warm skin against mine so he can make me forget that my dying ex-fiancé is just across the hall, make me forget that I have any feelings of conflict, that I am anything less than 100 percent loyal to this beautiful man above me.

  Aaron climbs on top of me and rearranges us so that my head is on a pillow. And then he is jamming into me with such force that I again wonder whether he is trying to mark me, to prove that I belong to him. The headboard begins banging against the wall. I try to move down on the bed a little to limit this unmistakable sound of sex, which I imagine is reverberating through the entire apartment and perhaps beyond. But Aaron holds me in place, possibly oblivious to my efforts in his current haze or, more probably, totally on purpose, so that Wesley can hear us, so that he knows, in no uncertain terms, that I belong to Aaron, not him. By the sound of it, Aaron is currently fucking my brains out, and, speaking as a participant in the action, I wish I could say that were true, that my brains weren’t working overtime inside my head, that I could stop thinking for even a moment, stop focusing on Wesley.

  I feel the urge to push Aaron off me, mortified that Wesley could be listening to this, but, in spite of everything, I am also enjoying the feel of Aaron pounding into me. I can feel myself building toward something, and I don’t actually want to stop. Even when my head is not in the game, Aaron’s efforts seem to overwhelm my body. When I finally find my release, I fight the urge to cry out in pleasure, biting down on Aaron’s shoulder instead. That seems to put him over the edge and he, too, reaches his climax, releasing a deep guttural moan —a growl really—that’s significantly louder than any of the sex noises he usually makes. If I had any question about Aaron’s intention of trying to be heard, the volume of his battle cry has just provided a definitive answer. This sex was as much about putting on a show for Wesley as it would have been if he’d been sitting in the room, watching us.

  While I’m totally mortified, I’m also kind of touched that Aaron feels so possessive of me, that I matter enough to make him this jealous.

  “Well, I think you definitely made your point there.” I push at him gently so I can roll out from under him.

  “What point? That we should do that again and make a baby?” He flips onto his back and pulls me toward him so that my head is resting on his chest.

  “Yeah, no.” I stop, wondering if I should just let it go. He is housing Wesley only out of his love for me. If this loud, exhibitionist banging session was what he needed to feel a little more comfortable with the arrangement, then maybe I should just cut him some slack. It’s possible that my judgment is being clouded by a post-orgasmic fog, but I don’t want to fight with him.

  “I will be very happy to make a baby with you,” I tell him as I snuggle a little closer and settle in for sleep, “in, like, two to ten years.”

  He kisses the top of my head and then reaches to pull the covers over us. It occurs to me that there’s a good chance that Wesley will be dead before we ever have a child. I don’t know what’s harder for me to picture: a world with my child in it, or a world without Wes.

  Chapter Nineteen

  June 2017

  I’m using Aaron’s car to drive out to New Jersey, navigating my way through the modest Sunday traffic on the Jersey Turnpike, when I get a call from Lana.

  “Hey,” I say, as I press the button on the steering wheel to answer. “Hello?” I say it a second time and then a third as I wait for the phone to establish its connection to the hands-free speaker.

  “Guess what?” Lana finally says, excitement in her voice.

  “What?” I play along as I flip on my turn signal and move right to exit the highway.

  “Spencer called and asked me to dinner.” Spencer is Aaron’s physician friend, the one I asked Aaron to bring to Mother’s Day at my parents’ because I didn’t have the energy to convince Lana that her plans to taunt Reese were naive or ill-advised or shortsighted or all of the above.

  “Oh. Wow. Are you going?”

  “I don’t think so,” she says, “even though he is super cute. It was just good that Reese heard the message Spencer left me when I accidentally played my voicemails on speakerphone.” I imagine her making air quotes around the word accidentally.

  “What’d he say?” I ask, worried that Lana is making life too complicated for herself. Not that I am one to speak. Glass houses and all.

  “Just that it was great meeting me, that maybe we could grab dinner sometime. The usual stuff.”

  “No, not Spencer, Reese. What did Reese say when he heard the message?” The June sunshine is blazing unforgivingly against the asphalt, and I rummage through my purse with one hand, double-checking for my sunglasses. Coming up empty, I lower the sun visor, but it provides little improvement, so I snap it back into place again.

  “Before or after he started hyperventilating?” Lana asks, laughing. “No, he was totally pissed, wanting to know if that’s why he wasn’t invited to Mother’s Day this year, because I wanted to hang out with Aaron’s doctor friend.”

  “Spencer happens to be a pretty great guy. You might want to give it some thought. I mean, he’s sort of aggressive about moving up the food chain at work, from what Aaron tells me, but you can’t fault a guy for being motivated, and he’s super smart—like, wizard, mastermind smart.”

  “And super cute,” Lana adds.

  “Super cute,” I agree.

  “But he’s
not Reese,” she says, exhaling wistfully into the phone. “And I think this might have been the kick in the ass he needed. I told you it was a good idea to boot him from Mother’s Day.”

  “If you say so,” I tease.

  “So, fill me in on the latest in the apartment. Is it getting any less bizarre?” I can hear her inner journalist angling for the scoop.

  “Nope. Not less weird at all,” I quip. “Luckily, it’s rare that all three of us are there at the same time. Wesley’s been spending most of his time at the restaurant, at least during the hours when Aaron and I aren’t at work. I think he’s going to have to slow down soon, though. I feel like he’s deteriorated in even just the three weeks he’s been with us.”

  “Does Noble know about any of this?” she asks, mentioning my brother, but I barely speak to him these days. He and Shara just had their sixth child in ten years, and he doesn’t have much time for chitchat with all those little ones running around.

  “No, and please don’t tell him.” My tone is firm. “The last thing I need is a lecture from him. It was bad enough when I had to tell my parents. They only let up on their tirade after I explained what kind of shape Wesley’s in already—the canes, the wheelchair.”

  “It’s so sad,” Lana says, stating the obvious. “What about a nurse or something? Are you getting someone to help look after him?”

  “He’s not quite there yet, or at least he says he’s not. He interviewed a few people because Aaron convinced him that he should decide who he likes while he’s still coming from a position of relative strength.”

  “So, he and Aaron get along okay?”

  “Ugh,” I groan. “They’re having this weird bromance. I’ll get home from work and find them watching sports or going out for meals together when Aaron’s not on call. It’s like living in a hallucinatory state.”

  “I’ll bet,” she responds. “Well, listen, call me when you finish at the synagogue. I need to hear every last detail.”

  “I’ll bet,” I repeat back to her.

  After parking next to my mom’s silver Toyota Camry in the front lot, I make my way past the groups of parents congregating outside, waiting to retrieve their children from Sunday school. I find my mother and Mary, the catering lady, in Mary’s office, engrossed in a deep discussion. They are speaking in hushed tones, but, from the few words I catch, I gather that someone in Mary’s life is battling cancer and my mom is offering some of her copious advice on the topic.

  “Honey!” My mom beams. “Isn’t this exciting?” Like Lana, she tends to get fired up about wedding planning. She’s also still overcompensating, trying to make everything different, more upbeat, than my first, disastrous engagement experience. Initially, she was walking on eggshells, like she thought any similarity to the last time might break me, but now, ever since she found out Wesley has reentered my life, it’s like she’s taking wedding steroids, sprinting hard and fast toward the finish line before I let Aaron get away.

  “Hi.” I look at Mary as I say it and then step farther into the carpeted office to give my mom a quick kiss on the cheek.

  As I sit down in the burgundy armchair beside my mother, she dives right in. “We were thinking of finalizing the menu choices, and then we’ll talk linens.”

  “I’m happy to weigh in on the menu, but you guys pick the linens. That is so not my thing.” A large arrangement of calla lilies is situated on the corner of Mary’s crowded desk, probably left over from some event last night. Their syrupy scent fills the office, and I wonder if I’m the only one who’s bothered by it.

  “Okay, food first,” Mary says, her almond-shaped eyes brightening with enthusiasm as she opens a manila folder on her desk and looks down at the papers inside. “I took the liberty of making suggestions. You tell me what changes you want to make. For the cocktail hour, I was thinking we’d have eight stations around the room and then several types of passed hors d’oeuvres.”

  She rattles off the different food choices she is envisioning: a carving board, sushi, a fajita station, Peking duck wraps. It all sounds very similar to what I’ve seen at friends’ receptions over the past few years, but much more elaborate than I was expecting for this second attempted wedding of mine. I don’t have the wherewithal to argue about it, though. If it’s what my mother wants, she can have it, just so long as I end up married to Aaron when everything is said and done.

  Mary works her way through the entire affair, including the types of rolls in the bread basket at the sit-down dinner. “After you and Aaron cut the cake, we will also bring out a dessert sampler for each person at their seat. Everything is mini, so it’s adorable, a real crowd-pleaser. A little chocolate lava cake, tiny apple streusel, and pint-size donut sticks served in shot glasses with a chocolate dipping-sauce base.”

  The donut stick shooters actually do sound kind of cute. As I wonder whether a donut stick is the same thing as a churro, I make a note to tell Wesley about them later. Oh my God, Wesley.

  “Are we supposed to invite Wesley to the wedding now?” In my sudden panic, I blurt out the question to my mother before I’ve had a chance to think it through.

  My mom recoils like I’ve smacked her, her tortoise-shell glasses slipping an inch lower on her nose.

  I answer my own question before she has a chance to respond. “Of course we do.” I release a frustrated breath. “I mean, he and Aaron have complete man crushes on each other, and he’s living with us. It doesn’t seem like there’s any choice to be made.”

  “But after the way he left you . . .” my mother says.

  Mary’s dark eyes dart between us, trying to determine what we’re discussing, perhaps assessing whether she should intervene. She probably sees many arguments between brides and their mothers. I imagine that, as a wedding planner, she must have some hardcore dispute-resolution tactics in her arsenal.

  “I still haven’t digested the fact that he’s living with you,” my mom continues. “But it’s your wedding, your decision. Just please”—she holds up her manicured hands in surrender—“remember that it’s your day. You do what is best for you. You owe that man nothing.”

  Mary furrows her brow and looks at me questioningly. When I don’t explain, she turns to my mom.

  “Her ex,” my mom nearly whispers, as if Wesley might be outside the room, listening in.

  When the meeting finally ends, after we’ve discussed table linens, and china patterns, and the bride and groom’s grand entrance, and the father-daughter dance, and the anticipated toasts, and the cutting of the cake, I am wiped out. In addition to my ambivalence about each of these party-planning issues, I find it very difficult to decide in June what I will want to do when the wedding actually rolls around in December. I’m remembering all over again why I left the planning to my mother the last time around.

  I climb back into Aaron’s SUV and follow behind my mom’s car until we get to Bibb and Butter, our favorite salad place in town. After we each order our usual Cobb salads—mine without the bacon, hers with extra avocado—we settle into a booth in the crowded restaurant.

  Before she starts on her salad, my mother removes a small green notebook from her purse. “Okay,” she says, all business as she opens the notebook and flips pages until she gets to a clean sheet. “Now that we’ve finished the meeting with Mary, the next task is the dress. Let’s lay out where we’re going first.”

  “Mommm.” I find myself drawing out the word, whining like a child. “You’re like a drill sergeant. I don’t want it to be like last time. It’s supposed to be easier, smaller. I feel like it’s spiraling out of control all over again. Eight appetizer stations during the cocktail hour? Really?”

  “Look, honey.” My mom pinches her thin lips together for a moment, in a way that tells me she can’t be swayed from her position. “Just because there will be fewer guests does not mean that we will be throwing a slapdash party. The food will be ample; the decor will be elegant. As you like to say, that is just how I roll.” She raises her eyebrows, challengi
ng me, as she removes the plastic top from her salad container.

  When I don’t respond, she continues.

  “You are my only daughter.” Her tone is softer. “I just . . . all I want is to see my baby happy. I want that for both of us.” Her voice cracks as she finishes, and I immediately feel contrite.

  “Jeez, Mom, you don’t have to get so emotional about it.” I reach out for her hand across the table and find her skin cool against my own. “If you really feel so strongly, fine, whatever you want, okay? I can put up with a carving station and a little Peking duck.”

  “Okay,” she says, squeezing my hand for a second before we release each other. Her eyes are all watery, like she’s fighting back tears. It seems like she wants to say more, but she just lifts her paper napkin from the table and wipes at her eyes instead.

  If Aaron were here, he would know just what to say to defuse this situation, to cheer her up and make this no big deal.

  “Let’s call Aaron and fill him in. He should be finished with the gym by now, and I’m sure he’ll be thrilled to hear about the exorbitant amounts of food,” I joke.

  I dial Aaron on speaker and place the phone on the table between us. When the call goes straight to voice-mail, I feel a thud of disappointment, followed by a nagging jealousy. He’s probably busy doing something with Wesley yet again—taking him out for a meal, hanging in Gramercy Park. With a sudden lightness, I realize that it’s Wesley I’m jealous of, for getting Aaron’s attention, and not vice versa.

  WHEN I FINALLY walk back into the apartment with two bags of groceries and a pile of mail in my hands, it’s nearly 7:00 p.m. and I am ready for a lazy night in sweatpants. I don’t know how many dresses I tried on as my mother and I argued over bustles and veils and trains. If we keep it up, we may soon be blacklisted at all the wedding dress boutiques in Jersey. Here’s hoping.