Second Best Fantasy

by Angela Kelly

  “Okay, Mom, yes, I love you too. Goodbye.”

  She didn’t look up or tease me, and I was grateful for that.

  I was glad and proud to have two parents still married to each other for nearly 45 years. I put the phone back in its cradle and went to unload the three CDs that had been played to death since the night before.

  “I don’t mind, you know. Those are three kick-ass women you’ve got there. But I know you were awake longer than me, and too many repeats of “You and Me Against the World” is probably equal to Chinese water torture.”

  I chose a different Janis Joplin, an old Marianne Faithfull, and, against my better judgment, for fear of Janine seeing right through me, Joan Armatrading. I played Joan first, equally hoping Janine both would and wouldn't see the transparency of playing “Whatever’s For Us, For Us.”

  18

  To my surprise and delight, she arose and slow-danced with me in my living room and sang along effortlessly. My overwhelming feelings nearly brought tears to my eyes, and before the song was over, I released myself from her, feigning a need to urinate. Behind the closed door of my bathroom, I gathered my bearings and talked to myself in the mirror. I offered too much of a glimpse into the personal, private side of me, and chastised myself for not being smarter and stronger this late in life.

  Composed, I returned to Janine, who was (again to my heart’s joy) sitting on the floor stroking Sebastian, my cat and the only man in my life besides relatives or co-workers. Sebastian didn’t often embrace strangers, and I found it an undeniable sign that he had buddied up so quickly. I put my terror away and sat down beside them.

  “So, are you a Slimfast and yogurt woman or an eggs, toast, and sausage woman?”

  “What do you think?”

  “I’d put my money on the cholesterol of champions.”

  “Well, you’d be right. How did you sleep? I know it’s not always easy being the pillow.”

  “With these cows?” I said, cupping my breasts. “I slept better than I probably have in months.”

  “I know what you mean,” she said. A look of intense thoughtfulness crept across her face. Unlike me, she was the kind of woman to choose her words carefully before she spoke.

  “I think somehow that I know you, or, at least, how you are and how you might be feeling. I hope you don’t think I’m crazy for saying that. But, well, I’m not really sure what it is I want to say. I feel you may already have feelings for me, and I don’t think that’s weird or anything, because, well…” she trailed off.

  I panicked. Thirty-two and still wearing my heart on my sleeve. I guessed some people really never learn. I was afraid she would disappear, and I didn’t know which was worse: to be falling so quickly for someone I hardly knew or realizing that I thought that part of me was dead when it was obviously still very much alive. It had been so long since I had made this mistake.

  I hadn’t thought about a woman in terms of how she might 19

  fit into the rest of my life since I was in my early twenties. And now, without warning, I was in community college in New Jersey all over again. I swore after that particularly beautiful and enamoring devil that I was destined and determined to be alone.

  While I was berating myself and planning the next bottle of Scotch for later that afternoon, Janine surprised me in a way I had not been since my best friend took me to a strip club for my 25th birthday.

  “Did you ever read Helen Keller?”

  I retraced eons of honors English and literature classes. I had it, and tried desperately not to screw it up, “Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. ” I couldn’t remember the rest.

  “The fearful are caught as often as the bold. ” She knew the quote as if it were her phone number.

  “I guess what I’m trying to say is, something about last night was reminiscent of more innocent times for me too. I haven’t felt this way for a long time. I don’t know which one of us is the bold or the fearful. Maybe each of us is a little bit of both.

  Being involved with me isn’t easy.”

  She hesitated for a moment and added, “I have references.” She smiled and it lit up my whole apartment. For the first time in a very long while, I was speechless.

  There was so much I wanted to say and to ask, but I couldn’t bring myself to ruin a perfect moment with my morose outlook. Always a big believer in “things that seem too good to be true usually are,” I put my reservations on the shelf, at least temporarily.

  She’d just given me an opportunity to pull full steam ahead, and I planned to embrace it, for however long this fantasy would last. I refrained from telling her being involved with me wasn’t easy either. I had a handful of witnesses that would gladly testify to that.

  * * * *

  We orchestrated breakfast together as if we were an old 20

  married couple. I couldn’t remember the last time I had shared a meal with a woman besides drunken diner escapades during the interval between heavy drinking and the promise of sex. She knew her way around a kitchen, which somewhat surprised me. I took her for a fast food junkie, and I was impressed when she chose to add fresh cilantro to our omelets. I was glad she was a coffee drinker, I honestly believe there is something mentally unbalanced in people who don’t require caffeine to kick start their day.

  Cooking is a long time passion of mine, and it was nice to share breakfast with someone who didn’t drown her eggs in ketchup or pour a ton of salt on everything. We ate mostly in silence, but the list of questions I wanted to ask was growing.

  “Are you bi, Janine?” Perhaps not the best choice for question number one, but it was nagging at me.

  “Well, I guess you would say that. I’ve only had sexual encounters with women; my relationships have all been with men. I’m one of those ‘refuse to define myself by society’s standards’ kinds of people. Although, I believe I’ve only had sex with women and not relationships simply because I haven’t found the right woman. Maybe you’re the right woman.”

  She said this so casually I couldn’t decide if I was irritated or thrilled. I’d been a biology experiment before, and hated it. I decided she was just being honest. We’d spent one night together. How could I expect her to see me as anything other than an opportunity, a chance at fleeting happiness?

  “I won’t ask you the same question,” she said. “I can tell the difference between a real lesbian and all of the rest.”

  I could tell the shields had been raised back up on both sides. Breakfast over; the day half gone, neither one of us was about to bring up the topic of only an hour ago that was already a distant memory. I would remember what she had said about us for years to come, and about my own reminiscent feeling the night before and the simple pleasure of being alone with a woman who said “fuck” a dozen times during a concert yet quoted Helen Keller in private company.

  In time, I would feel as if the words she had said to me 21

  earlier that day were the only truly honest words she’d ever spoken to me.

  * * * *

  Embarking on a relationship with any artist, regardless of the trade, is shaky ground at best. Should I have declared, “Well, if you’re fucking guys, I really don’t think this is going to work out?” I wouldn’t have said that because it wasn’t true. We certainly couldn’t be considered “serious” after one night, but I did want to be with her. If she had told me that not only did she do men, she strictly did men with three heads, I still would have welcomed her into my bed.

  New territory carries with it an air of recklessness. If I were going to pursue this, I would have to do it based on instinct.

  Instinct told me that, in time, other sexual relationships would dissolve, for both of us. If they didn’t, well, I figured I’d cross that bridge when I got there. I’d had my share over the years. I enjoyed last night’s romp, but didn’t consider it sex, more like aided masturbation. And, although I already felt a sexual intimacy with Janine, my priorities were elsewhere. Nestling on the couch w
ith her, touching her and reading over her shoulder, these were the things I wanted to recapture first and foremost.

  As the great Jim Morrison once said, “I have plenty of people to fuck but no one to talk to.”

  “So, what do you think you might want to do today, my sweet?” She asked like an eighteenth century maiden. As she did, I noticed her eyes darted to the living room in the general area where the eight ball remained untouched.

  “Well, I suppose we could let it snow and go out to explore the world.”

  Why not? I gathered we’d do some bar hopping and cruise the parks, like any other coked up New York couple on a Sunday afternoon.

  To my surprise, she said, “Do you fish?”

  Did I fish? I had a wealth of B.A.S.S. (Bass Angler’s Sportsman’s Society) T-shirts I hadn’t had an occasion to wear 22

  for at least a couple of years.

  “But it’s two o’clock in the afternoon. Any fisherman with half a brain will tell you there is no such thing as fishing except very early in the morning or after the sun goes down.”

  She looked surprised at my seriousness.

  “Just a thought, I didn’t know you were some die-hard fisherman. I just thought it might be, you know, fun. I haven’t been fishing since I was a kid.”

  I tried to imagine her as a kid and thought how adorable and dangerous she must have been. I thought maybe I had hurt her feelings, so I said, “It would be fun. I was just stating one of my many die-hard serious fisherman facts. I know… many.”

  She smiled. What I was really thinking is that no matter what she had suggested for the remains of the day I would have followed her anywhere just then.

  “What would you like to do? You are the host, after all.

  Fishing was just the first thing that popped into my head. I think I have a craving for seafood.”

  The perfect date popped into my head.

  “Feel like taking a drive?” I asked.

  “Where to?”

  I wanted to share more with her. She had already glimpsed my soul less than twenty-four hours ago simply by reading a book I owned and choosing CDs from the wall as if she’d known me for an eternity. I wanted to do something that would at least leave a lasting impression, and perhaps instill within her a desire to see me again when she returned from LA.

  “I am a New Yorker by trade, but I will always be a Jersey girl at heart.”

  She started to sing the Tom Waits song Springsteen had made famous, but I stopped her mid note with a kiss so filled with feeling it had no business being on the lips of a woman I had just met. Throwing caution to the wind always had been a recurring understatement throughout my life.

  “There’s just one thing,” she said. “What should I wear?”

  Sleeping attire was one matter, easily resolved, but Janine and I were by no means the same height or build.

  23

  “Can’t we just stop by your place? I can navigate my way into my old stomping grounds from any of the bridges.”

  She hesitated. Oh, Christ, I thought. She thinks I’ll stalk her. She doesn’t want me to know where she lives!

  “It’s just that a lot of the time on the weekends there’s so much traffic, I don’t live far from the Promenade, romanticists everywhere on a Sunday afternoon.”

  You’re looking at one, I thought to myself. I’d had many strolls along the streets of the Heights with fantasies of everlasting love in my younger days. It was also an old favorite haunt to write, to be inspired. But, the traffic was a bitch. I hoped her reason was true, and she wasn’t just covering up what I feared.

  Reading my mind, she said, “We can play ‘your place or mine’ when I get back from LA.”

  The words hit me like a slap on the face. I didn’t want to think about her leaving, and didn’t care to ask how long she would be gone. I was sure it would be weeks, if not months.

  I fought off the cracking in my voice and said, “Well, I guess we’ll be going shopping first, before I make an attempt at showing you how much like those damn romantics I can be.”

  We showered separately and dressed quickly, I guiltily in clean clothes, her in her garb from the night before. We did a few lines and took the rest with us. It was good; she must have dealt with the kid in the record store before. Or maybe she just had a lucky score. Or maybe I didn’t partake often enough to know what qualified as “good.”

  Apparently, she did, because as I doubted my own faith in my ability to drive anytime soon, she said, “This is pretty low grade stuff, but I like it. Doesn’t get you all strung out, keeps you nice and mellow.” She giggled a little on the word ‘mellow’. At least I knew she was high and we were on the same ride.

  We floated around the village until we wound up in a retro thrift shop, as if built there that very morning for her shopping needs. To my surprise, she picked out a few very non-outrageous pairs of jeans and a couple of tie-dyes. We were in and out with her in clean digs within minutes.

  Just as well, I wanted to be underway before the New 24

  Jersey residents returning from their weekend summer escapades in the Big Apple choked the New Jersey turnpike like a helpless animal until it barely breathed. For a minute, I lost my sense of direction, and couldn’t figure out where my parking garage was. Of course, given my state of mind, this struck me as hilarious and it was all I could do to refrain from doubling over in hysterics. Janine laughed along with me without knowing why, and then told me a story about the first time she’d ever dropped acid and actually boarded the wrong plane in an airport.

  She’d been late to arrive at the gate and the door to the tunnel was already locked. She frantically flagged down an airline person, who unlocked the door and ushered her inside without ever checking her boarding pass. It wasn’t a full flight, so she just took the first seat she found that wasn’t too near anyone else. The whole flight she was mesmerized by the cover of a book another passenger was reading. The plane ride seemed shorter than she had expected but she had no real concept of time. She was in Phoenix, Arizona for nearly three hours before she realized it wasn’t her travel destination. She had a good laugh, checked into a hotel room, ordered a bottle of champagne from room service, drew a bath, and waited to come down. “That was probably the best time I’ve ever had with myself!”

  We laughed like stupid stoned people do, and after a while she added, “I don’t often like to be alone.”

  She turned to me then and kissed me in the middle of the street. “So, are you taking me somewhere you take all your girlfriends?”

  I’d taken a few women where we were going, but none that counted.

  “Hey, look! This is my garage. I guess they didn’t really move it in the middle of the night after all.”

  We giggled all the way to my car. Once inside my Toyota, we sat with the engine running and the radio on and made out for a while. I felt a bliss I thought I vaguely recognized from high school. As I drove through the tunnel, she had one hand on my knee and sang along to Rod Stewart singing, “Tonight’s the Night”

  on a classic rock station. There was that irony creeping in again.

  25

  * * * *

  I showed off a little on the turnpike, weaving needlessly in and out of traffic. I felt normal, but knew better, so decided to do the speed limit and try not to draw attention to myself.

  “Good idea,” said Janine. I couldn’t fathom how it was possible for a woman I’d just met to read my mind like that. I actually started to think about what I was going to think about, so that nothing incriminating slipped in. I wished desperately I had the same ability. I would have paid dearly to know what she was thinking as I exited the Garden State Parkway at Keyport. For all I knew Janine might have known Jersey like the back of her hand, she could’ve had some guido boyfriend with an IROC-Z

  down in Asbury Park when she was younger. I hoped it wasn’t true, that she had never strolled the boardwalk at Seaside Heights holding hands, or stood by shyly as a lover won huge teddy bears for
her. I wanted to be the one with whom she did things for the first time. There’s nothing more thrilling in a relationship than being a “first.” It reminds us how much of ourselves we are willing to give, long after we’ve decided there isn’t anyone worth giving to.

  I navigated southern Jersey easily; I’d been doing it all my life. When you’re from there, you’re entire youth and much or your teen years are absorbed by the draw of the Atlantic Ocean.

  Families take week long trips down the shore when you’re little, and when you get older you go to the same place to smoke pot with your friends. When you’re small, you go on all the rides, later you spend money by the hundreds trying to win a “free” TV, or a Judas Priest mirror, or a carton of cigarettes. The boardwalks of the Jersey shoreline echo with a bygone time that will never die as long as people live there. The shaping of many a teenager’s life has taken place contemplating sex, drugs, cars, ambition, girlfriends, boyfriends, nearly anything, over a soda and a tray of clams on the half-shell. This magnificent country of ours should have more Jersey shores.

  * * * *

  26

  I pulled along the side of the road past the restaurant, they didn’t really have a parking lot. I glanced over at Janine, who was happily looking around like a puppy seeing new and interesting scenery.

  “You said you had a craving for seafood. I’ve brought you to some of the best seafood you can get on the East coast. I would have brought it to you, but that would have entailed leaving you.”

  She smiled and said, “Should we indulge before dinner?”

  She patted her jean pocket where the remainder of the coke was stashed.

  “Why not?” I replied.

  In truth it didn’t matter to me. I enjoyed my high and didn’t mind another. This is both the beauty and ugliness of cocaine.

  It’s a short high, so you come down cool instead of crashing. Yet, because it’s so short, you get a short high again and again until suddenly there isn’t any more, and then all you want is to go out and score more. Not a financially sound drug of choice if you asked me. But this coke was free, for me anyway, and, I felt that Janine could afford it otherwise she wouldn’t have it. When it was gone it was gone, I had hours planned that would long outlive the depletion of the amphetamine supply. I preferred it that way. Although I wanted Janine, whether she was clean and sober or falling down wasted, her reactions to me could only be validated if she were on the straight and narrow. If every woman that loved me when they were on something suddenly decided to drop by and see me on the same day, I’d have to get a bigger apartment to accommodate them all.