by Melissa Ford
I pick up a few ingredients for a tofu sesame stir-fry and call Laura on my walk home. She doesn’t pick up on the ambivalence in my question about guests, the way I give her one too many outs and tells me that she’s “thrilled” that I’m bringing my “beau,” and she’s just “ecstatic” that I’ve finally “moved on.” She tells me that she can’t wait for me to meet her new boyfriend as well, a “brilliant” man who quotes Shakespeare to her and takes her “picnicking indoors.” I’m not even sure what that means, so I thank her and try to keep my voice breezy. I call back Gael and tell him to pick me up on Saturday at seven. It’s a date.
I make dinner and eat it on the sofa in front of the television, checking my email at the same time. I know it would be too soon to receive something from Erika, that the postmaster didn’t heave himself around the counter and walk the few blocks to her office to hand-deliver it that morning. I just wish that I had thought to ask her if I could email the proposal. My good ideas always come too late.
The buzzer startles me out of the zen state I have entered, watching Cat Cora do bizarre things to ostrich meat on Iron Chef. First, I hit the entry button and second, I realize that I have no clue who I’ve just let into the building. It could be my brother, finally bored with waiting for someone to exit the building so he can make a surprise entrance. Or it could be a rapist who is going to wait in the stairwell until I come down the steps in the morning, forgoing every other woman who lives in the building. Not that I have a self-important, pessimistic imagination.
Someone knocks at the door, and I peer out the tiny peephole. Gael’s face looms like a reflection in a carnival mirror. He is staring at a spot on my hallway ceiling.
I actually mouth the word “Shit,” to myself, as if I’m trapped inside a romantic comedy movie. This has never happened to me before, the unexpected guest who is not kin—fictive or otherwise. My apartment is a mess. I left this morning without time to wash the dishes that are piled up in the sink. My bed is unmade and covered with my clean laundry that still needs folding. I am eating ice cream straight from the carton in front of the television.
“Rachel?” he asks. He knows I’m inside. I mean, I’ve buzzed him in. Unless I can pretend that it wasn’t me. It was someone else. The rapist, for instance, from the earlier worry who is lying in wait in my apartment, kind enough to buzz someone into the building but not wanting the company while he waits for me to come home.
“Give me a second,” I yell out, throwing the lid on the ice cream and stuffing it back in the freezer. I scoop up the clothes and toss them in the laundry basket and dump the basket and its contents into the dry shower, snapping the curtain shut. I kick a pair of shoes under the bed and give the blanket a shake. There is no time to fix everything wrong with the sink.
I throw open the door, and we both stand there for a moment, not saying anything. I am trying to catch my breath from running around the apartment, not wanting him to see just how out-of-shape I am that I can get winded by a 30-second clean-up spree. He has a look on his face as if he doesn’t quite know how he has ended up standing inside my hallway.
He pulls out a cookbook from behind his back. It is a thick volume, part of the “Cuisines of” series. This is Cuisines of Spain, and it looks a little dog-eared and paella-splattered. “I was at a bookstore today. A second-time bookstore? And I found this in the cookbook section,” he admits. I step aside so he can enter my still-messy apartment.
“What were you doing in the cookbook section?” I ask.
“It was next door to the Spanish section,” he said. “I thought of you.”
His honesty is like swallowing a chunk of jalapeno. I busy myself by flipping through the table of contents. He hasn’t removed the sticker from the bookstore. He paid eight dollars for the gift.
Is it a gift?
“Do you want to sit down?” I ask. Even though it is quite clear from the way he surveys my bed to the way he stares at the remote control as if he is waiting for me to turn off the television that sitting is the position farthest from his mind. Do you want to lie down? Do you want to recline? Do you want to loll about in my bed making small talk and then ravage me?
It takes me until this point to realize that this is a booty call.
I have never been the recipient of a booty call. There are no booty calls when you’re married, and I haven’t dated anyone since in order to have a booty call. I don’t know whether to feel offended or honored. On one hand, it feels a bit humiliating to have someone show up at your apartment for the sole purpose of having sex. On the other hand, it has been so long since anyone has found me remotely sexy that I’m not going to allow a little meat-market emotions stand in the way of enjoying this.
I help him out by turning off the television and sitting down on the edge of my bed. I stare up at him with what I hope is a come-hither look. He sits down next to me like an overgrown school boy—a guilty one at that—and leans casually back on his elbows, as if it is simply understood that we’re only sitting here because it is the only surface in the apartment. He ignores my leaning tower of kitchen equipment in the sink, and I ignore the way his shoe is now touching my socked foot.
“What were you doing before I came?” he asks.
“Watching television. Eating ice cream.”
“Where is the ice cream now?”
“Back in my freezer,” I tell him.
“Is that what you were doing while you made me wait in the hallway? Putting the ice cream away?”
“Something like that,” I admit.
I really don’t need any foreplay this time. He could just hurry it along and start, but he is taking his time, running his fingers through my knotty hair. I was so busy worrying about how the apartment looked that I forgot about how I look. My hair is back in a messy ponytail, I’m wearing jeans that have a stain of paint from this morning above the knee. I touch my own hair self-consciously, stopping his hand from working through a particularly large knot.
“I didn’t realize that I was going to see anyone tonight,” I admit.
“I think you look beautiful,” he tells me. “I like it when women are undone. Natural.”
He finally kisses me, a kiss that falls somewhere between the hungry ones that came pre-paella, and the thoughtful ones that came post-crèma catalana. He pushes me back lightly, and I land on a lump in the bed, my pajamas that I tucked under the blanket. He takes a condom out of his pocket and puts it on the bed above my head. I crane back to look at it. It begs for acknowledgment.
“You always come prepared,” I tell him. “Like a boy scout.”
“I don’t know what that means,” he says.
“It’s just a saying.”
“We had a scout organization in Madrid,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper. I realize that he has been slowly getting quieter, as if his voice were on a dimmer switch. “Federación de Asociaciones de Scouts de España. But I didn’t belong.”
“Why?” I whisper.
“Because I thought it looked stupid,” he tells me with an almost silent laugh.
He finally picks up the pace, removing my top while simultaneously tugging out my ponytail holder. Sliding off my jeans until I am underneath him, bra and panties against his sweater and pants. I help him off with his clothes, but I’m at an odd angle, where I can only get each article of clothing started, and he needs to finish it off. He rubs my inner thighs, his fingers brushing underneath the elastic from my panties. I slide them off for him, undo my own bra, toss both articles of clothing out of my sight range onto the floor.
He hovers over me for a moment, working the condom on. It is like that plateau on the ride, where the train car has been ticking upward, ever so slowly, and now we are in that moment right before the plunge. He stares at me, and for the smallest moment, I think that he’s not going to do it. He’s going to roll off of me and unsheathe his uncircumcised penis, pack up his toys, go home. I tilt my head to the side, as if I am inviting whatever question is ricocheting arou
nd in his head. Are you sure we should be doing this? Are you sure you’re not too neurotic? Should I have bought you that cookbook or just left it back at the used bookstore, my own secret consideration?
And then we are hurtling down down down.
I drag Arianna along to a tasting at a new chocolate bar opening up in Gramercy Park. I tried to bring Ethan too, but he insisted that there was spilled coffee to photograph somewhere in the city. Since I don’t know when the offers and opportunities are going to run dry, when being a Bloscar winner is going to lose its shininess, I grab any of the offers that don’t involve tofu hotdogs, gluten-free crackers, or anything remotely reeking of healthfulness. Hence how we have ended up at a table surrounded by chocolate pot de crème, truffles, and a slice of black forest cake.
“This one,” Arianna whispers, as if writing this review is a top-secret mission, “is better than sex.” She holds out the final bite of a chocolate stuffed with hazelnut nougat.
It is good, but it isn’t better than sex. Perhaps better than some sex, but not better than sex with an attractive Spaniard after several years of a dry spell.
“Do you really think that anything but good sex is better than sex?” I ask, feeling badly for entering this line of questioning since I have had sex recently, and Arianna has been celibate for years.
“Sure. Back rubs. Back rubs can be better than sex,” she says, reaching over for a scoop from the dish of chocolate ice cream with cayenne pepper. She fans her mouth and takes a sip of water.
“Back rubs cannot be better than sex,” I scoff, knowing this is mean, since she went to a spa last week. I had sex, my best friend went to a spa. This is like dangling candy in front of a toddler, and I feel terrible—either from the last truffle I ate or from the fact that I seemingly cannot stop myself from rubbing my recent good sex luck in my best friend’s face. “You don’t orgasm from a back rub unless you’re paying extra for a ‘Happy Ending,’ which means you’re at a very different type of ‘spa,’ and then . . . well . . . you’re essentially having sex.”
“I mean a back rub given by the guy, not a massage at a spa,” Arianna corrects. The owner stops by the table to see how we’re doing, nervously pressing his hands together as if he’s praying for some good press. I nod my head, my mouth full of cake, and he steps away from the table, disappearing into a back room. I wonder if he’s checking his computer to see if I’ve already magically posted the review in the same way that I’ve been checking incessantly for Erika’s message, despite the fact that she may not even have the proposal in hand yet.
“I’ve orgasmed from a massage,” Arianna continues. She examines a white chocolate-covered slice of kiwi and sets it back down on the plate. “I mean, the guy was that good, that with just his hands on my back, and my hands nowhere near my nether regions, I was able to have an orgasm. Like a wet dream. Except I was awake.”
I stare at her, my mouth partially open, possibly revealing the masticated crumbs from a forkful of torte. There are two ways this could possible go. Either Arianna is my sexual hero, able to achieve orgasms in a single bound, or Arianna has had such a dry spell that hands on her back are close enough to her vulva to cause tremors to occur. For my own ego’s sake, I decide to go with the latter.
“You only did that because you haven’t had sex in years,” I tell her.
“How do you know that I haven’t had sex in years?” she asks coolly.
The vase of chrysanthemums from a few weeks ago. The need for me to immediately return her favorite purse after my date. That’s when I know for certain what I’ve been overlooking this whole time, what has been niggling me from time to time when I consider how good and kind and patient Arianna is, my personal Mother Theresa. Arianna is not a saint. Arianna can listen to my whining about Gael and my incessant chatter about my divorce because Arianna has been getting laid.
“Who? Who is it?”
“I’m not telling,” she says. She doesn’t look coy and happy. She looks clammy and over-sugared. I move the truffle plate away from her. “Not yet.”
“Why? I thought we told each other everything. I’m your sister-by-choice.”
Something in that phrasing makes her look even paler, as if she feels terrible for holding out on me when I’ve shared everything with her, and then I get this sinking feeling, this absolute certainty in my sinking feeling.
“Do I know this person?” I ask quietly.
“Rach, I don’t want to do this. I’m not ready to talk about him. I’m not ready to have us all go out and double date and have you pick him apart.”
“So it’s not Gael?” I question, finally releasing my breath.
“No, it’s not Gael! What the hell is wrong with you?” she admonishes. A couple at the table next to us stare for a second. “I would never have sex with your boyfriend.”
My boyfriend!
“Then I don’t understand why you haven’t told me about him,” I finally say.
“Because it’s new, and I don’t know where it’s going, and I don’t want to think about it too much. To overthink it. Not everyone is like you, Rach. I don’t feel better after discussing the situation; I get more anxious. You get something out of blogging about it and picking it apart and considering it from all angles. I just get hives. I promise. I’ll tell you when I’m ready.”
“Fair enough,” I say, pushing the truffle plate back towards her. “Is there any chance you’ll bring him to my birthday party?”
I chew on the word boyfriend for a moment. I sort of have a boyfriend. I used to have a husband, and I was someone’s wife for years. And now I’m a girlfriend. It’s like being at a party and grabbing the wrong coat off the bed at the end of the night. It looks like your own, but doesn’t quite fit. But since your own coat has exited the festivities, worn out the door by another friend of the host’s, this is the mantle you’ll need to wear home.
I’m just relieved to learn that we’re on equal footing—two single women having sex, compatriots of a sort. It’s hard when you’re in the same circumstances as your best friend, but your progress differs. If we were dieting together, I wouldn’t be able to crow about losing pants sizes, and if we were both actresses, I wouldn’t want her to call me to talk about all of the parts she was getting. I know it makes me incredibly small, but I’m just relieved that we’re both having sex.
“Not a chance,” she says firmly. “Can we change the topic?”
“So, no picking apart Gael showing up at my apartment last night? Or my date with him tomorrow for Laura’s party?”
“Let’s scoot away from the topic of sex lest I have an orgasm over this mousse.”
“Which would just prove that it’s not the man’s prowess but your own insane abilities to find release even with desserts.”
Arianna pretends that she hasn’t heard me. Eats the last of her pot de crème. Makes me wonder how I can ask her for lessons.
Gael buzzes up from downstairs right on time on Saturday night. I have been picking at a blog entry for over an hour, shifting the photographs around like I’m feng shui-ing the post. I hit publish and check my make-up one final time in the tiny mirror outside my bathroom, where the light is better.
I have put the cookbook he gave me on my bookshelf with the pages facing outward, though I hope he doesn’t notice. At first, I had the binding facing outward, and then I couldn’t concentrate. Either I was staring at the computer and wondering what Adam was thinking as he read my blog (because I could see that my sneaky, blog-lurking ex-husband was still reading) or I was staring at the bookshelf and thinking about Gael’s thoughtfulness. I turned the book so that the ingredients-stained pages face outward. I don’t even want to think about what I’m looking at—is it juices from tripe or chocolate from churros?
This time, I let him come upstairs and wait for the second announcement of his presence, a light knock to the door. I open it and smile grimly at him, as if we’re on our way to the funeral of someone neither of us likes very much.
“I can’t tell,” he admits, giving me a quick kiss on the lips. “Are we happy we’re going?”
“You know what,” I tell him honestly, “we’re enduring.”
“Enduring. That doesn’t sound good.”
“No, it’s fine. You know, it isn’t as good as being excited to go, but not everything in life needs to be crèma catalana and confetti. Sometimes, you endure things just because you need to do it and then you can toast yourself on the other side.”
“Wonderful,” Gael says, rubbing his hands together. “A party and then drinking.”
And then lots of sex, I finish silently in my head. I clear my throat and try to smile at him. “Should we go and do this and get it over with?”
I’m not sure why I’ve gone from being a little nostalgic when I got the invitation to practically dreading the cab ride over to her apartment. Laura is pretty much a fun person, and I have so few girlfriends left by this point in my life. It isn’t like college, where people are pouring out of the woodwork. When you’re an adult, you make your friends at work or in your neighborhood or through your children.
Being at home has cut off the work avenue, New York is just not conducive to knowing your neighbors, and being childless leaves the last door closed. I’m not sure where someone goes to make friends once they’ve left their workplace. It isn’t as if the shul is holding a friendship schmooze and booze. The Jews are much more interested, it seems, in making sure you are married and on the road to getting knocked up than they are ensuring that you have someone to call at two o’clock in the morning when you are having nightmares about your divorce.
We take a cab over to her building, making small talk along the way. Gael points out a place where he once photographed a couple for their wedding, moments before their ring bearer vomited on the bride’s gown. We both agree that the hotdogs are particularly good from one street vendor when we pass the empty space where his cart stood hours earlier during the day. As I’ve said before, it is easy to be with Gael. He is uncomplicated, he doesn’t take himself too seriously. I feel my stomach unclench at some point during the cab ride. Laura is going to be very impressed with my beau.