Just This Once

by Judith Arnold

  “You are a nice boy,” she finally said. “Not only do you take care of your widowed mother, but you take care of tenants who are getting ripped off by their landlords. You do the kind of work that makes the world a better place. And your girlfriend is a social worker—also the kind of work that makes the world a better place. And what do I do? Come up with ideas for a TV show about women who seduce their daughters’ boyfriends and guys suffering from ’roid rage, and suburban sluts, and card counters who’ve been permanently banned from the Atlantic City casinos. Nothing important. Nothing with redeeming value. Crass commercial shit.”

  “Suburban sluts?”

  “One of our more successful shows.”

  “But you’re making different shows now,” he reminded her. “Shows about how older people navigate the shoals of love.”

  “‘Navigate the shoals of love,’” Loretta echoed. “That’s so poetic. Can we use that phrase in the show?”

  “If you want.”

  “See? You’re poetic, too. A devoted son, a champion of the oppressed, and a poet.”

  “What is this, your sales pitch for your parents? Don’t worry. I’ll win them over.”

  Loretta was certain he would. As he steered through the neighborhoods of her hometown, through newer and older subdivisions, past split-levels, ranches, Cape Cod houses and mock colonials, all of them set on tree-shaded third-acre plots marked by mature hedges of yews, forsythia, and lilacs, Loretta imagined him wowing her parents to the point where they’d ban the mere mention of Nicky’s tartar-scraping bachelor buddy at family gatherings.

  “That’s it,” she said, pointing to the raised ranch sitting on a curving stretch of Eton Lane. The developers of the subdivision she’d grown up in had given all the streets pompous British school names—Eton Lane, Harrow Drive, Oxford Road, Cambridge Circle—as if that would impart class to the neighborhood. But there was a limit to how classy any house with aluminum siding could be, even if it sat on Rugby Avenue.

  Her parents’ house was one of the larger models, with a two-car garage and a front porch trimmed with a wrought-iron railing which Loretta thought of as overwrought-iron, its painted white vertical bars adorned with rococo curlicues and vining leaves. The window boxes were filled with brightly colored fake flowers. This year her mother had chosen ersatz daffodils the same garish yellow as the walls in Josh’s mother’s kitchen. The planters flanking the front porch contained real flowers, at least—pink and white impatiens, the petals spilling over the lips of urn-shaped pots that looked like tacky reproductions of relics from ancient Rome. The double-width driveway held Nicky’s Explorer and Al’s Expedition—both Ford models. She hoped Josh wouldn’t take this to mean that her brothers were Nazi sympathizers.

  She directed him to park alongside the curb. “I didn’t bring anything,” he said belatedly. “I should have brought a bottle of wine or something.”

  “You brought me,” Loretta reminded him. Her father would probably consider her well aged, too. Fast approaching the vinegar stage. She shoved open the door and climbed out. “And I brought my mother’s cruise liner tote,” she added, reaching into the back seat for the canvas bag her mother had sent her home with on her birthday. Josh locked the car and joined her on the sidewalk. “We may as well go straight around to the back—everyone’s going to be out there. They won’t hear the doorbell.”

  They walked up the driveway, circumventing her brothers’ hulking vehicles, and passed through a break in the forsythia hedge that grew flush with the front façade of the house. As soon as they’d reached the other side, Josh folded his hand around Loretta’s. A nice touch, she thought, sending him a grin as they strolled around to the back yard.

  Everyone was there: Nicky in his inverted sailor hat and baggy shorts, Al with his manicured mustache, Kathy in a sleeveless sundress, Cindy in a matching shorts and shirt outfit in vivid lime green, Trevor and Alyssa and the twins flopping around in a free-standing wading pool on the grass beyond the deck which extended off the back of the house. Loretta’s father presided over the gas grill, an apron inscribed “Don’t Forget to Floss” tied around his thickening middle, and her mother fussed with the color-coordinated paper plates, plastic utensils and nylon tablecloth covering the picnic table, which stood beneath a red-and-white striped umbrella on the deck. And—oh, God—Loretta’s grandmother was ensconced in a woven-plastic chair occupying a corner of the deck. No one had warned her Nona would be here.

  As soon as Loretta said, “Hi!” everyone froze in a tableau, even the kids in the pool. They all gaped at her, at Josh, at their clasped hands.

  Then, in unison, it seemed, they exhaled and came back to life. “Loretta!” her mother shrieked a bit too enthusiastically. She set down a cup filled with red plastic forks and swooped toward them, her arms outstretched, as Loretta ushered Josh up the steps to the deck. Fortunately, her mother’s kamikaze approach didn’t intimidate him. He let her gather his hand in hers and didn’t flinch as she exclaimed, “I’m so glad you came! This is such a special occasion, Loretta bringing a boyfriend!” So special even Nona had made an appearance, dressed as usual in basic black without looking the least bit stylish: black blouse, black skirt, black canvas sneakers and dyed black hair pulled severely back from her face, her dour expression and gloomy attire combining to suck some of the sunshine out of the afternoon. Loretta tried to recall ever seeing Nona in a color other than black. Even at her brothers’ weddings, Nona had dressed for a funeral. “It’s practical,” Nona always said. “It doesn’t show stains.”

  Josh handled the introductions with aplomb, shaking hands, nodding, repeating names, nodding again as Cindy explained painstakingly how to tell Jennifer and Lauren apart. “They’re actually not identical,” Cindy informed him. “They’re fraternal, but they look so much alike that people take them for identical. You’ll notice that Jennifer’s hair is a shade lighter than Lauren’s—can you see that? Well, no, you can’t right now because their hair is wet from the pool, but trust me. It’s lighter. Lauren’s voice is higher-pitched than Jennifer’s, too. Lauren usually does everything five minutes ahead of Jennifer, which makes sense since Lauren was born five minutes ahead of Jennifer.”

  Josh endured this lecture with a tolerant smile. “Does that mean that if Lauren kicks me, Jennifer will kick me five minutes later?”

  Cindy bristled with indignation. “My twins don’t kick.”

  “So, what are you drinking, Josh?” Loretta’s father asked. “What can I get you?”

  “Have you got any beer?”

  “Have I got any beer?” Her father eyed Nicky. “He wants to know if I’ve got any beer.”

  Loretta thought this would be a good time to leave, but no such luck. Her father hauled Josh away, bellowing rhetorical questions about beer, and Nicky dragged her to the edge of the deck, where Kathy leaned against the railing, keeping an eye on the children in the pool. “This is him?” he asked. “This is the guy you think is better than a dentist?”

  “He is better than a dentist,” Loretta said.

  “He looks different than on TV.”

  “He looks better,” Kathy piped up. “He’s taller.”

  “He’s definitely taller than Mel Gibson,” Loretta said, gazing around at the familiar yard, the familiar trees, the familiar people. “How come no one asked me if I wanted a beer?”

  “If you want to make a nice impression on your guy, don’t drink beer,” Kathy advised. “It’s not ladylike.” Kathy, Loretta observed, was drinking lemonade.

  “Josh has already seen me drinking beer,” Loretta told her. “It’s too late. The damage is done.”

  “Loretta, cara,” Nona called from her chair. “How serious is this? This man, is he gonna marry you?”

  “Marry me?” Loretta blurted out, then lowered her voice, embarrassed that Josh might have heard. She moved closer to her grandmother and clasped her hand. “I don’t know, Nona. We only just met.”

  “So, you’
re still open to a date with Marty?” Nicky asked.

  “I’ve never been open to a date with Marty.” She turned her back on Nicky. “How are you, Nona?”

  “How am I? Your mother said it’s serious with this man.”

  “I don’t know how serious it is,” Loretta hedged. ‘We like each other.”

  “And he’s not Catholic?”

  Loretta resisted the urge to wrest her hand from her grandmother’s. Nona must have sensed this, because she tightened her grip. “We’re not serious enough to worry about religion,” Loretta said.

  “Then why am I here? Your mother said this was serious.”

  “Tell her she should go out with my friend Marty, Nona,” Nicky coached her.

  “This Marty—he’s Catholic?”

  “As Catholic as the Pope.”

  Loretta decided it was time for a beer. “I’ll be back,” she promised Nona, then set out on a quest for one. Before she got far, she spotted her father leading Josh out of the house through the sliding doors. Josh was carrying two open bottles of beer. Budweiser, not Sam Adams, but his having thought to bring her a drink, especially after his mother had been so inhospitable, made her wonder whether she might just want to marry him, after all.

  Sipping his own beer, Josh patiently listened to her father describe the wonders of the new drills he’d purchased for his office. “I bought three of them, one for me and one for each of my boys,” he said. “We’ve got three chairs in our practice, three rooms. Did I tell you about the new drills, Nona?” he shouted past Josh. “Three air abrasion systems. I’ll tell you, these Mach-5 babies are like nothing you’ve ever seen before—or felt before in your mouth. Drilling with them is like driving a Porsche, only you don’t have to worry about a cop pulling you over. Did Loretta tell you Nicky, Al and I are all in a practice together?”

  “No, she didn’t mention that. It must be nice, working as a family.”

  “We’ve got room for a fourth chair, you know. I had hoped maybe—who knows?—Loretta might go into dentistry. I’m a liberated man, I know women become dentists, capisce? But no, she majored in something useless. What did you major in, Loretta?”

  “English.”

  “Like I said, something useless.” He shot Josh a conspiratorial glance. “So I figured, what the hell, maybe she’ll bring home a dentist and say she’s marrying him, and we’ll take him into the practice. Why not? All in the family.”

  “I see.”

  “Dad,” Loretta broke in, “Josh has a friend in New York City—actually, a woman who was injured and needs some dental work. She has no dental insurance. She’s in her seventies. What do you think?”

  “Has she got Medicare? Medicaid? You know what, sweetie, have her call Florence. Florence is my office manager,” he told Josh. “A wonderful girl, she’s practically family herself, been with me since before Nicky started college. I love it that she’s named after a city in Italy, right? She’ll figure it out. She knows all those insurance things, Medicare, Medicaid. This friend of yours, can she come out here? Can she get herself to Plainview?”

  “She’s got a broken leg, so she isn’t too mobile,” Josh answered.

  “No problem. We’ll work something out. Have her call Florence.”

  “That’s very kind of you,” Josh said. He casually arched his arm around Loretta’s shoulders, a jolting reminder that he was supposed to be her boyfriend. She tried not to react visibly to his unexpected gesture, or the warmth of his hand against her bare upper arm. When she glanced over her shoulder she noticed Nona’s scowl. She supposed this wouldn’t be a good time to mention the bar mitzvah photos she’d viewed at Josh’s mother’s house.

  The air filled with the sizzle and scent of roasting meat as her father forked onto the grill enough sausages and Delmonico steaks to feed a bloodthirsty Becky Blake Show audience. Her mother shuttled in and out of the house carrying platters filled with garlic bread, green salad, tortellini salad and sliced tomatoes and arranging them on the table. “No pigs’ feet,” Josh whispered, bending close to Loretta’s ear and grazing her temple with his mouth. She felt heat where his lips had touched her, and more heat flooding her face when she noticed Nicky’s intense observation.

  She cleared her throat.

  “Am I overdoing it?” he murmured.

  Not just that, but you’re enjoying yourself too much, she almost said.

  This little make-believe kiss meant even less than last week’s kiss did. Melanie hadn’t sailed off to the Bahamas with a dashing drug runner in the past few days. She was still in the picture. And Loretta was still happy to be single. Josh was just adding these affectionate flourishes for show.

  Still, he was enjoying himself too much. So, for that matter, was she. She edged away, abruptly determined to help her mother unload her tray of condiments: ketchup, steak sauce, salt and pepper, napkins in a specially weighted outdoor napkin holder. Cindy and Kathy rounded up the kids and wrapped them in oversize towels. Al and Nicky pitched in by getting themselves fresh drinks.

  “You like grilled steak?” Loretta’s father asked Josh. “Because I sure like grilling it.”

  “It looks delicious,” Josh said politely.

  Trevor reached the deck and raced across it, weaving among the adults and splattering water from the pool in his wake. Loretta noticed a large splash staining the denim on Josh’s shin. “Hey, slow down, Terror,” Loretta scolded her nephew. “You’re getting Josh wet.”

  “It’s okay,” Josh assured her.

  “Leave him alone—he’s a good boy,” Nona added, reaching for a napkin and wiping water from her skirt.

  Ignoring them, Trevor piled a plate with tomato slices and careered back to the stairs and down to the lawn. “You can guess why I call him Terror,” Loretta murmured.

  “Obnoxious little SOB, isn’t he,” Josh whispered back, smiling so no one besides her would realize what he’d said.

  Loretta laughed, which helped to overcome the tickling heat of his breath against her ear. “If you like tomatoes, you’d better grab some fast. He’ll eat them all.”

  “He can have them. I’m holding out for a steak.”

  Lauren piled her plate high with garlic bread and tortellini five minutes before Jennifer did, and they joined Trevor on the grass. On the deck, adults found seats where they could—a chair here, a railing there. Without discussion, Loretta’s family left the two-seat glider for her and Josh to share.

  He wasn’t fat; he could have left her more space on the cushions. But he encroached on her half of the glider, his hip pressed to hers. While he sawed at his steak with the inadequate plastic cutlery, he genially fielded questions from her parents, brothers and sisters-in-law about his work, about his high school years in Huntington, about how he’d felt appearing on the Becky Blake Show. “It’s a silly show, you’ll forgive my saying,” Loretta’s mother opined. “People screaming at each other over nonsense. Tattoos! Infidelity!”

  “It’s disgusting,” Nona added.

  “The show is undergoing a change,” Loretta told her, not bothering to add that even if the show on Solly and his lady friends came out well, she still might find herself no longer working for the silly, disgusting show by the end of the year. Her family was worried enough about her marital status. If she got laid off, they’d probably hog-tie her and drag her to church to marry someone—dentist or not, as long as he could support her. Someone from Long Island, so she wouldn’t live in the city anymore.

  Hell, they might just cheer if she lost her job.

  Josh’s knee rested against hers. The denim fabric of his jeans was worn as soft as flannel. She was glad he’d worn long pants rather than shorts; if his bare knee had touched hers, she probably would have jumped out of her skin.

  It was all a performance, she reminded herself. An Oscar-worthy performance. She was awed by his congeniality, his willingness to answer her parents’ nosy questions about his education and his father’s death—“a hea
rt attack, aaiiee, Josh, such a tragedy, so is a bad heart something that runs in your family?”—and to laugh at her brothers’ stupid remarks—“This patient of mine, she says she broke her bicuspid on a piece of peanut brickle. I say, ‘It’s peanut brittle, not peanut brickle, what country are you from?’ and she says, ‘The Bronx!’” He ate two small steaks, praised her mother’s tortellini, indulged in a second beer under heavy pressure from her father and winced but didn’t yelp when first Lauren and then Jennifer stomped on his foot in their eagerness to grab cookies from the dessert plate her mother brought to the table. The light began to fade, the voices grew louder, Cindy checked her watch and decided it was time to light the citronella candles, and the children ran in circles on the lawn, chasing each other, making themselves dizzy, screeching and convincing Loretta she wasn’t ready to become a mother yet, unless she could be guaranteed her child wouldn’t behave like her nieces and nephew.

  “Should I make espresso?” her mother asked. “If I make it, who’s having? Josh, you’ll have some, right?”

  Josh looped his arm around Loretta and whispered, “Is she going to make it with lemon peel?”

  She remembered the café they’d gone to after “Three Dead Corpses.” The espresso was the only part of their blind date not mapped out by the TV show. That and his kiss, and her subsequent realization that yeah, Donna was right, she could truly enjoy having sex with Josh—if only he weren’t already claimed. If only Melanie didn’t exist.

  “She doesn’t make decaffeinated,” Loretta whispered back, bowing her head toward his, enjoying the intimacy. “She doesn’t believe in it. Her espresso is really strong. It’ll put hair on your chest.”

  “My chest is hairy enough. I’ll skip,” he murmured, leaving her to wonder how hairy was hairy enough. She didn’t like a lot of body hair on a man, but a little could be quite attractive. He had a great build, but what if he had hairy shoulders? A hairy back?

  Not that it mattered. She was only curious.