First Friday in July
“When was this?” Heat vapors wavered above the yellow sand, “Monday night,” as the smell of marijuana, “the day before he went away,” and a faint reggae rhythm drifted by. “When was your last period?” Topless women were sprawled on colorful towels, “A few weeks ago,” and groups of men wearing thongs lounged in beach chairs. A few children by the shore, “So you’re probably ovulating,” were playing before the breaking waves. Two women were swimming beyond the breakers while a surfer drifted past the sandbar while waiting for another ride. “Why didn’t you get the morning after pill?” Stephanie and Karen were in their bikini bottoms while sitting cross-legged on a white sheet. “I didn’t have the money but I’m pretty sure that I took care of it in time. ” The afternoon sky was cloudless. “What do you mean, ‘took care of it?’” The hazy blue line above the horizon, “I took a bunch of birth control pills the next morning,” was broken by the silhouettes of two motionless oil tankers, “and I told Alan not to worry about it.” Karen was livid, “that isn’t like you at all,” after learning that Stephanie had been let go from the temp agency last week for missing too many days, “what were you,” and was spending all of her time with a married man who drank like a fish, “What are you thinking?” She merely shrugged, “you shouldn’t worry about it either,” and was reluctant to convey the growing host of doubts she had about Alan, “although at times it seems like things are happening way too fast,” wary of Karen’s rush to judgment, “but we came out here to relax,” and afraid of her anger, “Okay?”
The box fan in her kitchen window drowned out the Stereolab CD playing in the living room. Alan signed the company check for three thousand dollars, “I know someone who may be looking for a personal assistant,” and handed it to Stephanie, “but you can’t sleep with him,” while sitting at the table in his underwear. She took the check, “ha-ha,” and glanced at the amount before folding it in half. They had just finished a bottle of Macon Villages. “I’m just joking,” he rolled the pen between his palms, “besides, he’s gay,” and grinned. Elaine and Olivia were in Martha’s Vineyard for the month, “come on, don’t pout,” and he was flying out the following afternoon to join them, “you aren’t very sexy when you sulk,” for two weeks of family vacation. Stephanie was wearing the semi-transparent pink camisole he’d just given her. She opened the utensil drawer and slipped the check into it before asking, “Are you hungry?” Melting ice filled the tall water glass on the Formica counter. He leaned back in the chair, “I’m starving,” and crossed his arms over his stomach. She turned to him, “I’d cook you something but it’s too hot.” Two wine glasses were on the kitchen table beside the empty wine bottle with a sketch of a chateau on its beige label. “You know that I’m going to miss you.” She stepped toward him, “thanks for the money,” placed her hands on his shoulders, “can you call your friend before you go so I can get an interview,” and kissed him on the forehead, “as soon as possible.” He eyed her mouth, “Why won’t you let me buy you an air conditioner?” She considered his question, “Maybe a small one for the bedroom?” Alan reached for her, “What’s the matter?” She straddled him in the chair, “How could you think that I would have sex with just anyone?” “I was just joking,” he pressed his face between her breasts. She bit his earlobe before whispering, “I’m not a whore.”
Karen’s thick cork-soled sandals were holding down two corners of the sheet, “When were you on the pill?” Stephanie’s blue beach bag, “last fall,” and a nearly empty plastic water bottle held down the other ends. “And he came inside you?” A pack of yellow American Spirits and a small green disposable lighter were on the sheet between them. She nodded, “twice.” Karen shook her head in disbelief, “twice.” Stephanie brushed a lock of hair away from her mouth, “the condom broke.” A plane pulling a broad banner for a car insurance company flew past them. “I don’t want to talk about it.” Karen took a cigarette from the pack, “What,” and placed it between her lips, “were you both drunk?” Stephanie shook her head while saying, “he’ll pay for the abortion,” then added, “but I really don’t think I’m pregnant,” with conviction. Karen lit the cigarette, “you don’t know that yet.” A large white seagull landed nearby and began picking at a brown paper bag. The smoke from her cigarette drifted along with the breeze. Stephanie uncrossed her legs, “if I am pregnant he’ll pay for it,” sank her heels into the hot sand and placed her hands on her knees. “Two condoms broke?” A black girl in a bright pink one-piece was digging a hole in the sand with a small orange shovel. “No,” Stephanie shook her head, “he came twice.” Karen cleared her throat before asking, “How did that happen?” The girl’s father stood beside her in cut-off jeans and a sleeveless T-shirt. “Weren’t you going to quit smoking?” “Yeah well,” Karen clenched her jaw, “please don’t try and change the subject.” Stephanie said, “he’ll pay for it,” before looking away. The blond lifeguard continued twirling his silver whistle. “It’s really too bad that he can’t have the abortion for you as well.” Stephanie turned to Karen, “he’s getting me an interview at his friend’s law firm.” “Oh yeah,” Karen made no effort to hide her skepticism, “And when is this going to happen?” A long wave rolled against the shore. “Pretty soon I guess.” Karen tapped the ash off her cigarette, “Is this firm under Alan’s desk?” “No,” Stephanie shook her head, “it’s at the World Trade Center,” and smiled before asking, “Have you found a new gallery yet?” “No…” Karen’s eyes narrowed, “Why do you need a job if he is paying your rent?” Stephanie leaned back and took her bikini top out of the beach bag, “because I don’t want him to support me,” that covered her breasts as she tied it on, “I’m going for a swim,” then stood up, “see you later,” and walked across the warm stretch of sand before the shore.
Alan and Stephanie sat across from each other at her favorite Thai restaurant. “My father was always very cautious with money and I’m not saying that there is anything wrong with that, but at times it was a real hindrance, especially when it came to some of the more ambitious projects we would bid on.” The remnants of their dinner, barbequed pork and a cold duck salad, lay on the green plates. “So you don’t worry about the costs at all?” “Not in the initial stages,” Alan refilled his beer glass, “ultimately it comes into play but that’s why engineers exist.” “Do you use the same engineer for every project?” He shook his head, “it depends on the project,” then drank from his glass, “our senior engineer was very close to my father and to his way of doing things,” and wiped his mouth with a paper napkin, “but we rarely see eye to eye anymore.” Stephanie was trying not to be distracted by the large color television behind his head, “Why wasn’t your father able to turn the company around the way that you have?” There was silent footage from a congressman’s news conference and a black and white still of his missing intern. “My father was too loyal to a few individuals who always insisted on doing things the same way and my main objective has always been to have a solid working relationship with the client and to really explore what their needs are. The greater an understanding I have for what they want increases the project’s potential and its chances for success.” A dog commercial followed. “It’s the client that always comes first,” Alan rested his elbows on the table, “and I’d really like to work with a younger team of engineers… who have fresh, open ideas as opposed to a few of my father’s old cronies who are set in the past.” She looked away from the television, “my friend Karen has a reproduction of the “Tower of Babel” in her kitchen.” He blinked twice, “Have you seen the original?” “No,” Stephanie shook her head, “have you?” He nodded, “it’s in Vienna.” “Karen lives in Greenpoint,” she poked her fork into a piece of duck, “she’s a really good painter.” He nodded, “Where did she go to school?” She placed the duck in her mouth, “Pratt,” and began to chew, “like a decade or so ago.” Alan caught the waitresses’ eye, “they really aren’t known for their painting program,” and held up the emp
ty beer bottle. Stephanie nodded, “she’s pretty frustrated right now.” “Why is that?” There were scenes from a car accident behind his head and an eyewitness who used both of her hands to describe the crash. “Karen just lost her gallery.” The pretty waitress appeared with another bottle of beer and took the empty away. “Because she wasn’t selling?” She nodded, “I really like her work,” and watched him refill his glass, “That blue painting in my living room?” He nodded, “That one of the ocean?” She smiled, “Karen painted that.”
Sunlight glistened on the water as Stephanie waded in between the waist-high breakers. She dove beneath a towering wave and swam a few yards beneath the surface. She felt invigorated by the cool water while floating on her back with her arms outstretched, legs together and eyes wide open. She was nearly weightless beneath the blue sky as the ocean swayed beneath her. A plane flying out of JFK crossed the sky as her long auburn hair fanned out around her head in the dark blue water.
Exclusions Apply—Part 2
The cushion sagged beneath James as he sat down beside her, “Did you just get your hair cut?” The copy of his short story that he gave her two weeks ago, before they parted with an awkward kiss at the top of the Chambers Street station, was lying atop the October issue of French Vogue. “Yesterday,” Janet ran her left hand through her bobbed hair, “do you like it?” Steam coursed through the radiator beneath the window. “Yeah a lot,” he took a sip of champagne, “it’s very sexy.” The green bottle with the yellow label was beaded with condensation. She held the stem of her glass with her left index finger and thumb, “it was such a pretty day,” then took a sip before adding, “I so love autumn.” He stopped himself from mentioning how the afternoon and evening had dragged at the bookstore, “I prefer winter,” knowing that it would bore her, “it’s more austere,” although he could always attribute his impatience to wanting to be with her. She listened to the sound of the wind in the trees outside the window, “winter is too dark for me,” as pages of newspaper sailed down the street, “the cold doesn’t bother me that much,” then gestured with her right hand, “but the lack of sunlight drives me absolutely mad.” Regarding the multitude of bubbles gradually climbing his glass, “What about summer?” “The absolute worst,” Janet was wearing a snug low-cut gray cashmere sweater, “unless I’m away… but this city is simply insufferable then,” that accentuated her narrow cleavage, “I’d have to say that spring is my favorite season,” a pleated thigh-high black skirt, “but this is a close second,” silver fishnets and high heels, “Are you hungry?” He shook his head, “no,” and tried to think of something meaningful to say, “not really.” She raised her eyebrows, “And what does that mean?” He had inhaled a medium rare cheeseburger, “I had a late lunch,” while hunched over a box of books in the cluttered office, “around four.” “Well, if you change your mind,” rocking her right leg back and forth over her left knee, “I could order us something or we could—” He leaned over and kissed her on the mouth. “That’s much better.” Last Friday night, after sitting through the first act of the play, they took a cab back to her place and went straight to bed. She caressed his cheek with the palm of her right hand and kissed him. “We could just sit here and drink champagne.” She had been as generous as he was eager to please, and they had lingered within the intricacies of their pleasure. “That’s not what you,” Janet placed her hand on his thigh, “really want to do.” Her glossy lipstick left a powdery taste of violets on his mouth. “Maybe not.” The conversations between couplings were a multiple exchange of carefully selected memories. “Well,” she whispered in his ear, “you should always say what you mean.” They finally fell asleep a few hours before dawn. James looked closely at her eyes, “And you?” She woke up alone in the mid-morning to the faint sound of the shower. Fluttering her lashes, “And me what?” Then joined him in the tiled stall where they soaped, scrubbed and rinsed each other off. James left for work an hour later.
Janet’s detailed character sketch began to emerge at his desk the following morning. The afternoons at the bookstore were more tedious than usual because of Kerry’s concession speech. James spent most of the nights that week lying in bed with the phone pressed to his ear, listening to nostalgic descriptions from her past, that he would rework in the morning on his laptop. On Thursday night he brought a pint of bourbon home and left a thoughtful message on her answering machine before cracking the seal. After finishing the pint he went down to the bar on the corner and described the affair he was having with a woman that he’d met at The Strand a few weeks ago. The bartender and a few of his acquaintances hunched over pints of tap beer exchanged skeptical glances. Beneath the din of The Buzzcocks’ “Why Can’t I Touch It?” he boasted of the great sex they’d had last Friday night. After he had rattled off a detailed inventory of the contents in her West Village apartment, the bartender—a gum chewing self-taught painter in her late twenties—asked if she owned it. He exclaimed that the apartment was just a small part of her divorce settlement. The bartender wanted to know what she did for a living. James claimed that she didn’t need to work, that her second husband was some big shot CEO and still took very good care of her, to keep up appearances, James presumed, because he had recently left her for his secretary. When James returned from work on Friday night he discovered a perfumed letter in his mail box that contained a brief passage from Baudelaire (written with a fountain pen on handmade paper) and a black and white photograph of Janet when she was his age and living in Paris. He sat at his desk and assessed her youthful beauty beneath the lamp. He tacked the picture to the wall above his desk and spent the rest of the night reading Richard Howard’s translation of Les Fleurs du Mal. He spent Saturday morning lying in bed and imagining her Parisian world—as a painter’s assistant during the three years she lived there—of studios and galleries, dancing till dawn in new wave discotheques, drinking in Left Bank bars, and the array of lovers she had in addition to the German sculptor she was briefly married to. After masturbating, he showered and then shaved in the foggy mirror above the sink. The sidewalks had been swept by the wind and the blue sky was cloudless. He caught himself staring at the digital clock on the cash register an hour after he got to work. An unending line of customers who claimed that they were all going to move to Canada filled the long afternoon. He had to wait for twenty minutes on the frigid subway platform with his hands jammed in his pockets. The Gerber daisies had been purchased at the deli by the subway station and were shoved beneath his right arm as he walked up her block. He pressed the bell with his right index finger and then waited for her to buzz him in.
James gently mocked her tone, “Do you really say what you mean?” She nodded with conviction, “always.” “I don’t know if I believe you.” Janet gave him a wounded look, “oh is that so…” while refilling their glasses. James cleared his throat, “tell me more about the director of that play we saw last week.” She placed the bottle on the coaster, “Who Cindy?” He nodded, “the one you introduced me to.” The hem of her skirt rose as she re-crossed her legs, “it’s funny that you should mention Cindy,” exposing the little black bow on her shimmering garter belt, “because she called this afternoon,” and an inch of bare thigh. “It must be my precognitive powers kicking in again.” Janet weighed all the time she had invested in compromised company to dull her loneliness, “or the champagne,” and how often it transformed her expectations into pain, “it’s gone straight to your head.” “And?” Janet’s hand returned to his thigh, “Cindy called to see how I was doing,” and she squeezed it reassuringly, “and to tell me that she misses me,” then paused briefly to gauge his response, “she also wanted to know if I liked the play.” James laughed maliciously and Janet smiled with relief. “Wasn’t she jealous,” he sipped his champagne, “seeing us together?” Janet frowned, “I think she was confused.” “What else did she say?” She conceded his question with a nod, “Cindy was afraid that the play might have offended me.” James exclaimed, “so, it was about us.” Janet rol
led her eyes, “uh-huh,” before taking a sip, “she said that she wanted to come by sometime soon so we could talk,” and her lie was complimented by a faint blush. “When, tonight?” “Sometime soon,” she looked closely at his eyes, “Cindy is a deeply unhappy person.”
Janet was reminded of seeing Cindy again for the first time… a tall brunette in a knee-length black leather jacket who stepped toward her as she stood in front of the fountain by the Met on a drizzling March afternoon. They recognized each other from their online photographs and readily acknowledged that neither looked as good in pictures as they did in person. While climbing the marble steps leading to the museum entrance they talked about the miserable weather and shared subway horror stories while waiting to check their coats. After a brief tour of the modern wing—the Klee’s on the mezzanine were Cindy’s favorites—they spent a few hours in the café. Cindy tactfully described the deteriorating relationship she was in before claiming that it was almost over. Cindy confessed that she was still living with her boyfriend while secretly searching for a studio. Janet was tempted to offer her place as a temporary share that afternoon but waited until the following week, while they were having lunch at Pastis, before making her offer. Cindy moved in the first Wednesday in April and it took Janet just a few days to realize that she had made a serious mistake. She made no effort to find her own place and Janet was afraid that her stay was becoming indefinite. Any mention of the apartment search or finding a job was met with a scowl and hours of sullen silence. When Janet showered her with affection, Cindy confessed that she was really depressed, equated her life with nothing and tearfully apologized for being so worthless. Janet gently suggested that she should see her therapist and was promptly mocked for having one. By their second week together Janet had retreated to the couch and discovered that sleeping there was almost impossible. Janet spent days hovering around the bedroom door as Cindy lay in bed with Esther watching television. On the night Cindy sullenly announced that she had decided to have lunch with Andrew, Janet snuck in the bathroom with the phone and made an appointment with the locksmith.
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