by Reiss, CD
However, I could be really, really mad at Jonathan. I got into the car and wondered what had happened in the last few weeks I’d been gone. Was he angry about that? Was this retaliation? No. He wasn’t spiteful. He needed to dominate me in order to gain a sense of control. That worked in the bedroom, and when we were far from each other, it was my pleasure to submit to him remotely. I wrote his name on my body. Bruised myself where he told me to. Brought myself to the edge of orgasm while he watched, and held it between my legs for hours and days, waiting for permission to release it.
Maybe it wasn’t enough.
Maybe he needed more and I’d been too absent to fulfill him.
Was he getting back the control he hadn’t been able to express without me around? Fine. He could do all that with my blessing, but not at our daughter’s expense.
By the time he came out of the house with a silver hand-carry cooler, I was gripping the stuffed pig so hard, the fabric on the most well-loved places was stretching so thin, the foam was visible. When he got in across from me and Lil closed the door, I loosened my fingers. No reason to torture the toy.
“Jonathan,” I said, using my most steady and serene voice to prepare to calmly lay into him. We had a twenty-minute drive and I was going to spend it on a lesson in adulthood.
“Goddess,” he said, unsnapping the box. “I made you a ham and a turkey and a ham and turkey. Which one do you want?”
“We didn’t have time.”
“We had time.” He unwrapped a sandwich from a white paper towel. One slice of bread flopped down to reveal an uninspiring assembly of beige meat and a yellow cheese square. My husband wasn’t a cook, and I knew that sandwich was as tasteless as it looked.
Yet my stomach wasn’t taking any prisoners. It jolted and grumbled, bypassing my brain to send my arm a direct signal to grab the sandwich, which Jonathan pulled back like a playground bully.
“Hands in your lap,” he said.
“Are you serious?”
“Hands. In. Your. Lap.”
I dropped them to my thighs and extended both middle fingers. “Like this?”
“We’ll find a use for those later.” He put the sandwich forward. “Open up.”
“You’re the one who said he was hungry.”
“I meant open your mouth. I didn’t mean speak.”
Between his commanding voice and the hunger I could no longer ignore, I did what I was told and opened my mouth so Jonathan could feed me a sandwich. He did it gently, giving me no more than I could take and no less than what I needed. I swallowed and opened my mouth again, relaxing my upturned fingers without meaning to as he gave me another bite.
“Good girl,” he said, and I knew he was reacting to me eating, not the fact that I’d stopped flipping him off.
After I swallowed, I said, “I thought you were hungry.”
“I’ll eat when you’re done. Open.”
He fed me another bite, then put water between my hands. I held the bottle, but instead of drinking it, I opened my mouth to accept the last bite.
“The recital starts in twenty-eight minutes.” he said, digging for another sandwich as I washed down the first one. “We’ll be there in seven.”
“With traffic on the 10?”
“There won’t be any traffic on the 10.”
“It’s like you’re new here,” I scoffed.
“Schools got out last week.”
Just then, Lil merged us onto the 10 freeway, which was as clear as the Los Angeles sky after two days of rain.
The week between the end of the school year and the start of summer camps saw a marked decrease in traffic, but I hadn’t been around to know when school got out, since it changed every year. So I’d miscalculated. Fine.
“I’d love to spend the extra twenty-one minutes sucking your cock, but we should be early.”
He laughed. “We should.”
“And you need to eat.”
“I’ll get to it.” He unwrapped another sandwich.
“You’ll get to it? You almost missed your daughter’s recital because you were hungry and now you’ll get to it?”
“I didn’t almost miss anything.”
“Jonathan.” I took the whole sandwich, and he let me. “Do you know how important this is? She’s going to remember all the times we didn’t show up.”
“She’s not even in kindergarten.”
“Yes, but kids don’t forget. Trust me. When my father wasn’t there, I knew it. I’m not going to do that to her.”
He sighed.
“What?” I demanded before taking a third of the sandwich in a single bite. My stomach had stopped growling, but the sugar and protein hadn’t reached my blood yet.
“You know he loved you.”
“So?” I said around the food.
“And you knew he supported you. You told me that the first week we met.”
“He missed things. So what if I don’t want to?”
“You knew that if you kept touring, you’d miss things. We agreed it was important to model that a woman has a job to do besides mothering. We also agreed the recital was important and you had to come home. You came home. You’re here and you’re beating yourself up about it.”
He was right. Kind of. Mostly. I didn’t know, because I was suddenly so tired I could barely lift my arm to eat the rest of the sandwich. He took it and came to sit on my side, putting his arm around me so I could lean against his chest for six more minutes.
* * *
I woke in the back seat, perched atop a hill overlooking the Hollywood Hills.
“Good morning, goddess.” Jonathan smiled at me.
My mouth tasted like LA River runoff. He handed me a fresh bottle of water.
“What time is it? Did we miss it?”
Out the window, Barnsdall Art Park was crowded with sunbathers picnicking on the grass in front of Hollyhock House.
“No.” He kissed my forehead. “But we have to go now.”
“Okay.”
By some kind of telepathy, Lil knew it was time to open the door. I grabbed the bag of tights, slid out, and walked, chugging the water at the same time. The theater—which had been designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, along with the rest of the park—was up concrete stairs and over to the left. In my mind, I was already there.
“Are you forgetting something?” Jonathan said from behind me.
“Pokey!” I cried, turning back to run to the car. Instead, I caught the flying pig he tossed. “Thank you.”
“Let’s go watch our daughter dance.” He put his arm around my shoulder and held me close as we walked to the theater.
Chapter 8
JONATHAN
Monica’s spirits rose as we walked toward the backstage entrance, and the drawstring on her wrist reminded me that before the Sandwich Project, I’d had plans.
The rear loading dock was a mess of sparkly facepaint and children caught underfoot.
“Mr. and Mrs. Drazen!” a woman in her forties called, a smile on her made-up face, waving a bejeweled hand in our direction while the other hand held a brush near the upturned face of a girl of about nine. Susan had blacker-than-black hair that poufed on top and went iron-straight down her back. “You have the tights?”
“There are three sizes in there.” Monica handed over the bag. “Whichever ones don’t fit her, give to another girl who has a run or whatever.”
“Great!” Susan went back to the girl, brushing bursts of pink on her cheeks.
“How’s she doing?” Monica asked, craning her neck to see backstage.
“Oh, fine. Excited.”
“Can I go back? Let her know I’m here?”
“Do this.” She puckered at her dancer before answering Monica. “The little ones are getting a last run-through in.” She painted lipstick on her young client. “So cute.” She rolled her eyes with the adorableness of it all. “Wait ‘til you see.”
“But—”
“Thanks, Susan,” I said, taking my wife’s arm before s
he could talk her way into disrupting the school’s flow.
We walked around the building to where the line of ticketholders had shortened to just a few.
“I could have gotten back there,” Monica said.
“That’s the problem.”
We caught the back of the line into the theater, and she relaxed into me. We weren’t late. We wouldn’t miss a thing. As a matter of fact, we’d have to sit through forty minutes of perfectly competent intermediate dance before our daughter even appeared.
I could do a lot in forty minutes.
“Can we even sit?” Monica asked, craning her neck to look over the packed, three-hundred-seat proscenium theater. Chatter filled the air, and if—based on the number of available spaces—I had to make a guess at the exact number of family and friends in the audience, I’d call it about 283.
“The last row is empty,” I said.
Forty minutes in a dark theater, with enough background noise to hide her heavy breathing and no one behind or on either side.
I could work with that.
“But it’s so far.” Her brown eyes were deep wells of sadness. I had a cure for that.
“She’ll know we were here,” I whispered in her ear. “But she’ll never know your legs were spread over the armrests so I could reach between them.”
Her expression went from disappointed to intrigued.
“Pick a number,” I said. “How many times do you want to come in the first half hour?”
Her eyelids fluttered and her lips parted. She clutched Pokey between her breasts. I felt the heat rising to the surface of her skin in a blush along her neckline that I knew went to the center of her chest.
The house lights flashed, and I took her arm to lead her to the empty back row.
Ding-ding-dingaling.
Martha.
—Are you guys close? I
saved seats for you in front—
“Shit.”
“Yay!” Monica squeaked, reading over my shoulder, so I gave up and texted back.
—Coming—
The text was a lie. No one was coming any time soon.
Chapter 9
MONICA
Martha half-stood and waved her arm like a pink-haired, foam-fingered-fan in the ninth inning. She was one of four Cruz sisters, each with different brightly-colored hair and all with the same love of children.
“Thank God you made it,” Martha said, taking a bag and a jacket off the two seats next to her. “And with Pokey. She’s all about Pokey being in the audience.”
“She’s a demanding brat,” I said with a smile.
“I don’t know where she gets it,” my husband grumbled.
“Pushovers never get far in life.” I tucked Pokey in my lap and crossed my legs to show him how much I’d rather be in the front row for my daughter than in the back with my legs open for him.
The lights went down and the show began.
I knew how boring these things were. Even when I did them, I knew. My mother denied it, but I only believed her until I sat in the audience for a friend and my attention went all over the place, seeking stimulation to replace the slow tempos, the careful or overenthusiastic dancing, the lighting that never changed. I clapped with enthusiasm between age and skill groups, because it was hard to get up there and do a thing, but my mind wandered.
The dressing room wasn’t a memory from less than an hour before. It was a physical presence the size of a baseball thrown with enough spin to blur the laces. It surged and rested with the timing of my heart, and the rest of my body undulated with its rhythm. The veins in my wrist pulsed against the drawstring Jonathan had pulled from my waistband.
Had he planned to tie me down with it?
Collar me?
Hobble me and command me to walk to him?
Or would he make me choose, then do what he wanted anyway?
His hand didn’t drift to my lap or reach for mine. He didn’t spread out so our knees touched or lean in my direction to press his shoulder against me. Nothing, and it was on purpose.
Denial was part of the game. Leaving me with nothing to focus my desire on left me with my imagination.
What position he’d tie me into.
Which parts of my body he’d use.
How hard I’d have to beg for it.
Tomorrow, I’d tell him what an asshole he was.
But our daughter was up next, and by some biological magic, the ache between my legs subsided and all my attention went to the adorable little girls on the stage. Gabby saw us right away and waved. I held up Pokey and moved her arm in a return wave.
Was this boring?
No. The moments of perfect synchronicity and the delightful fuckups were equally precious. The way Gabby performed for an audience of one—Pokey, who never judged her or critiqued. Pokey never asked for improvement, and her approval was guaranteed.
When it was over and they curtsied, she looked right at me and blew a kiss, then her father, changing the thrown kiss to a wave that was more of a chubby fist that opened and closed.
The teens came out next, and I smiled through it, seeing my daughter’s future in their competence. She may never become a prima ballerina, but she’d succeed at whatever she was willing to sacrifice for, and I’d be there to show her it was all worth it.
When they were done, the rest of the school’s dancers ran out to take a bow, with the little ones in front, bouncing like excitable kittens, waving to their special people. Gabby held her hands out for Pokey, and I made the pig wave for her.
Jonathan finally took my hand and pulled me up with the rest of the audience for a standing ovation.
* * *
Martha’s shift was over, so she took her car home while we had Lil drive us. Jonathan sat next to me while Gabby sleep-drooled on his shoulder, Pokey dangling from her fingertips.
“Why do you think she needed Pokey there?” I asked.
“She’s three.”
“I mean, what need does a stuffed toy fulfill for her?”
“You want to hire her a therapist already?”
“No,” I objected. “It’s just… I don’t know.”
“Why aren’t we enough?”
When I ran my fingers through my hair, the silver tips of the drawstring brushed against my forehead. He’d wrapped it there—connecting my immediate past to my immediate future—and I trusted him to do it.
“That,” I said, “but maybe more. Are we not safe? Does she not feel secure with us? Is she afraid of what we’ll say? Or what we think? Because when I was home with her, we were working on the steps. Trying to learn them without looking at the girl next to her. Maybe I came off as critical.”
“Monica.”
“Maybe I scared her.”
“You didn’t.”
“I just thought she’d be more confident if she memorized the steps, but I don’t know what’s appropriate. What can a three-year-old remember?”
He took my hand and turned his head toward me as far as he could without disrupting Gabby’s nap. “She practices in front of Pokey. She wanted continuity.”
“How can you be sure?”
“I know our daughter.”
He did. He was home with her—even with a full-time staff of caretakers, he was present for the day to day I missed by pushing myself to tour as much as possible before the wave of popularity crested.
“I don’t think I do,” I said.
“You spent hours helping her memorize that dance.”
“Well, a lot of good it did. She had to look at Maribel Yi for third position.”
“Ther pishon’s super hard, Mommy,” he said it in Gabby’s pidgin, with a twinkle in his green eyes and a little smile as he draped his free arm around me.
The car stopped at our house and waited as the gate slid open. Gabby picked up her head. One side of her face was pink with a darker crease across her cheek where she’d leaned on her father’s collar. She rubbed her eye clear with one hand and reached for me with the other. I t
ook her in my arms and got out of the car.
“Hey, punkin,” Lil said.
“Lilly-Lilly, silly-silly-Lilly,” Gabby sang her own little tune for the big woman, who she probably saw more often than she saw me.
They exchanged a high-five, and Gabby wiggled free, dropping to her feet so she could run ahead of both of us.
Chapter 10
JONATHAN
We had Tamara Cruz—Gabby’s night nurse—come late so that after dinner and TV time, Monica could take care of bath time, story time, and bedtime. All the oldest Cruz sister had to do was sit in the adjoining room in case our daughter woke up. The job hadn’t been necessary for a while, but I couldn’t split up such a good team.
When it was dark and quiet, I brought my wife to the bedroom and closed the door. She was about to speak, but I put my fingers to her lips, and she kissed them to tell me she didn’t mind being silenced.
“Stay still,” I said, slipping her jacket down her shoulders. “Hands at your sides. No fidgeting.”
From behind her, I pulled the twist out of her hair, letting it cascade down her back. Gathering it and sliding it over her shoulder to expose her neck, I laid my lips on her skin.
“Take off your shirt.”
Quietly, she unbuttoned the front and let it slide off her arms.
“You looked upset earlier,” I said.
“It’s been a long day.”
“When Gabby had a song for Lil.”
Her sigh was so slight, a man who didn’t know her as well as I did might have missed it. “She doesn’t have a song for me.”
I ran a fingertip over her shoulder blade. “Your name doesn’t rhyme with silly.”
She let out a little laugh and turned to me. I kissed her gently.
“My name doesn’t rhyme with anything.”
“It rhymes with harmonica.” From behind, I undid her bra. “Japonica.”