“Turn around?”
“I’m about to beg on my knees and I don’t want you to see it. I want you to think of me as a strong, virile, confident man.”
I laughed, and he continued to look at me blankly.
“Oh my God, you’re serious,” I said, as I laughed and resigned myself to turning around.
I looked out onto the main street in the distance. I watched cars stop at red lights and cyclists speed by them. I saw a couple walking down the street with a baby stroller. Soon, I heard the jingle of a door opening and I started to turn around.
“Wait!” I heard Ben say. “Don’t move yet,” and so I didn’t.
Two minutes later, the door jingled again and Ben came around in front of me. In his hands were two cups of gelato, both a light brown with brightly colored spoons sticking out of them.
“How did you do that?” I asked, taking one of them from him.
Ben smiled. “I have my ways.”
“Seriously,” I said.
“Seriously? I bribed her.”
“You bribed her?” I asked, shocked. I had never known anyone to bribe someone before.
“Well, I said, ‘If you can give me two cups of whatever flavor you have left, I’ll give you twenty bucks extra.’ So if that’s a bribe, then yes, I bribed her.”
“Yeah, I’d say that’s a bribe.”
“Somewhat corrupt,” he said to me. “I hope you can forgive me.”
I stared at him for a moment. “Forgive you? Are you kidding? No one has ever bribed anyone for me before!” I said.
Ben laughed. “Now you’re just making fun of me.”
“No,” I said. “I’m entirely serious. I think it’s hugely flattering.”
“Oh,” he said, smiling. He laughed. “Awesome.” Then he took a bite of his gelato and immediately grimaced. “It’s coffee,” he said, as he ran to the trash can on the sidewalk and spit it out.
“You don’t like coffee?”
“Coffee is like doctors’ visits and NPR to me,” he said.
I took his cup from his hand and held it in the palm of mine while I ate from the other. “More for me, then,” I said.
We got back in his car, and neither one of us knew quite what to do next.
“The day doesn’t have to end,” I said. “Does it?”
“I’m glad you said that,” Ben responded. “Where to next?”
“Well, I don’t know,” I said. “I’m not really hungry . . . ”
“What if we go back to your place?” he suggested. “I promise I won’t get handsy.”
I let it sit in the air for a minute. “What’s wrong with handsy?” I teased him. He didn’t even say anything; he just threw the car in reverse and started speeding down the street.
When we got back to my apartment, Ben took my keys out of his pocket. We walked up the stairs to my door, but halfway up the stairs, Ben realized he’d forgotten something. He quickly ran back down to his car and put money in the parking meter. Then, he flashed back up the stairs to meet me and unlocked my door. Once inside, he gingerly placed the keys on my table by the door.
“They’re right here when you need them,” he said. “Is that a good place to remember them?”
“That’s fine. Do you want anything to drink?”
“Oh, sure. What do you have?”
“Water. I should have said, ‘Do you want any water?’ ”
Ben laughed and sat on the couch. I grabbed two glasses and went to the refrigerator to fill them, which is when I saw the big bottle of champagne sitting there, ice cold and left over from New Year’s Eve.
“I have champagne!” I said and grabbed it out of the fridge. I walked to the living room and held it up in front of Ben. “Bubbly?”
He laughed. “Yeah! Let’s break open the bubbly.”
We ran to the kitchen and got wineglasses. I attempted to open the bottle and failed, so Ben stepped in and popped it open. The champagne sprayed all over our faces, but neither one of us much cared. He poured our glasses, and we sat down on the couch.
It was awkward for a minute. We were stuck in silence. I drank from my glass for a bit too long, staring at the golden bubbles. Why was it awkward now? I wondered. I wasn’t sure. I stood up for a minute and felt the whoosh of the alcohol to my head.
“I’ll be right back,” I said. “I’m just going to go . . . ” What? What was I going to go do? I wasn’t sure.
Ben grabbed my hand and looked at me. He stared into my eyes. His eyes looked to be pleading with me. Just like that, I threw myself onto his lap, straddling his waist. I kissed him. My arms wandered down onto his shoulders. His hands grabbed my hips. I could feel them through my jeans. He pulled me tight as he kissed me, his arms running up my back and into my hair. It felt like he was desperate to kiss me. As we moved our heads and hands in sync, my body started to ache where it wasn’t being touched.
“I like you,” he said to me, breathlessly.
I laughed. “I can see that,” I said.
“No,” he said, pulling his face away from mine for a moment, looking at me like I was important. “I like you.”
Boys had told me they liked me before. They had said it in eighth grade and in high school. They had said it drunk at parties. One had said it in a college cafeteria. Some of them looked down at the ground when they mumbled it. Some of them stuttered. Each time I had told them I liked them back. And I realized now that each time I had been lying.
No man had ever made me feel this admired before, nor had I admired someone back this much before. What had Ben done in the past few hours to make me care so much? I didn’t know. All I knew was that when he said that to me, I knew that he meant it. And when I heard it come out of his mouth, it felt like I’d been waiting to hear it my entire life.
“I like you too,” I said. I kissed him again and he grabbed me. He put his hands around my waist and he moved me toward him, closing what little gap there was between us. He kissed my ears and jawline, sending goose bumps up the back of my neck, for what felt like hours. I finally had to stand up. There was a cramp in my hip.
When I looked at the clock, it was after 8:00 p.m.
“Wow,” I said. “This is . . . that was . . . a long time.”
“Are you hungry?” he asked me.
“Yeah.” I nodded, realizing that I was hungry. “Are you?”
“Yeah. What should we do? Go out? Cook here? Order in?”
“Well, pizza is out. We had that last night.” We hadn’t eaten it together, but I knew the way I said it implied that we had. I liked hearing myself say it. I liked that I sounded like his girlfriend at that moment—which made me feel a little insane. I was ready to get monogrammed towels for us and I barely knew him.
“Right. So my vote is order Chinese or cook here, depending on what you have.” He gestured toward the kitchen. “Can I look?”
I stood up and showed him the way. “Be my guest!”
We walked into the kitchen and stood in front of the refrigerator. He stood behind me, his arms around my torso, his face in my neck. I showed him what I had, and it was sparse, although had either of us been a decent cook, I’m sure we could have come up with something.
“Well, that settles it,” he said. “Where’s the Chinese food menu?”
I laughed and fished it out of the drawer. He looked at the menu for only a minute. “How about we split the kung pao chicken, a bowl of wonton soup, beef chow mein, and white rice?”
“Make it brown rice and you’re on,” I said.
“Because this is a first date, I’m going to say okay, but all subsequent dates, absolutely not. Brown rice tastes like cardboard and I simply cannot meet you halfway on that in the future.”
I nodded. “I understand. We could get two different orders of rice.”
“Maybe when the romance is gone we can do that, but not tonight.” He turned in to the phone. “Yes, hi. I’d like to get an order of kung pao chicken, an order of beef chow mein, and wonton soup.” He paused for
a moment. “No. We’d like brown rice, please.” He stuck out his tongue at me, and then he gave my address, his telephone number, and hung up.
When the food came, we ate it. Ana called a few more times to try to find me. Ben made me laugh over and over; he made me cackle and hiss. He made my abdomen hurt. We kissed and we teased each other; we wrestled with the remote. When it got late enough that it was do-or-die time, I spared us both any awkward misinterpretations and said, “I want you to spend the night but I’m not going to have sex with you.”
“How do you know I want to have sex with you? Maybe I just want to be friends,” he said. “Ever consider that?” I didn’t need to respond. “Fine. So I do want to have sex with you, but I’ll keep my hands to myself.”
Before meeting him in my bedroom, I thought carefully and consciously of what to wear to bed. We weren’t going to have sex, so lingerie or sleeping naked was clearly out of the question. And yet, it wasn’t an asexual activity. I still wanted to be sexy. I settled on a pair of very small boxer shorts and a tank top. I checked myself out in the mirror before I left the bathroom, and I had to admit, I looked accidentally sexy when it was anything but an accident.
I walked into my room to find him already under my covers. His shirt was off but the blanket was covering him. I crawled in next to him and put my head on his chest. He bent his head down to kiss me and then turned to see where the light switch was.
“Oh,” I said. “Check this out.” I clapped loudly twice and the lights went out. “I got it as a party favor years ago.” I never used the Clapper anymore. I’d honestly almost forgotten that I’d plugged it in. Ben was floored.
“You are the coolest person in the world. Just hands down. The coolest,” he said.
It was pitch dark as our eyes slowly adjusted, and then there was a buzz and small flash of light. It was my phone.
“He’s STILL THERE?” Ana had texted.
I turned off my phone.
“Ana, I presume,” Ben said, and I confirmed. “She must be wondering who the hell I am.”
“She’ll know soon enough,” I said. He put his finger under my chin and lifted my head toward his. I kissed him. Then I kissed him again. I kissed him harder. Within seconds our hands, arms, and pieces of clothing went flying. His skin felt warm and soft, but his body felt sturdy.
“Oh!” I said. “The parking meter. Did you put enough money in? What if you get a ticket?”
He pulled me back to him. “I’ll take the ticket,” he said. “I don’t want to stop touching you.”
As we rolled around each other, I somehow kept to my word. I did not sleep with him that night. I wanted to. It was difficult not to. Both of our bodies pleaded with me to change my mind, but I didn’t. I’m not sure how I didn’t. But I didn’t.
I don’t remember when I fell asleep, but I do remember Ben whispering, “I’m not sure if you’re still awake, but . . . thank you, Elsie. This is the first time I’ve been too excited to go to sleep since I was a kid.”
I tried to keep my eyes shut, but my mouth couldn’t help but smile wide when I heard him.
“I can see you smiling,” he whispered, half laughing. I didn’t open my eyes, teasing him.
“Okay,” he said, pulling me closer to him. “Two can play at that game.”
When he left for work the next morning, I saw him take the ticket off his windshield and laugh.
JUNE
The building is cold. The air is crisp and almost sharp. I wonder if they keep it so cold because there are dead bodies here. Then I remember that Ben’s body must be here. My husband is now a dead body. I used to find dead things repulsive and now my husband is one of them.
Ana and I are called into the office of Mr. Richard Pavlik. He is a tall, thin man with a face that’s generic except for the fact that it has a huge mustache across it. He looks to be about sixty.
It’s stuffy in Mr. Pavlik’s office. I have to imagine that people are here during the worst times of their lives, so why Mr. Pavlik can’t just take the extra step and make it comfortable, I’ll never know. Even these chairs are terrible. They’re low to the ground and oddly sunken in. My center of gravity is basically at my knees.
I try to sit forward in the chair and listen to him drone on and on about the trivial parts of my husband’s death, but my back starts to hurt and I sit back in the chair. As I do, I worry the angle is unbecoming of a lady. It looks careless and comfortable, which I am not. I am neither of those things. I sit back up, rest my hands on my knees, and grin and bear it. That is pretty much my plan for the rest of my life.
“Mr. Pavlik, with all due respect,” I interrupt him. “Ben did not want to be cremated. He wanted to be buried.”
“Oh,” he says, looking down at the pages in front of him. “Mrs. Ross indicated a cremation.”
“I’m Mrs. Ross,” I say.
“I’m sorry, I meant the senior Mrs. Ross.” He scrunches his face slightly. “Anyway, Elsie,” he says. I can’t help but feel rejected slightly. I am not Mrs. Ross to him and he does not know my maiden name, so he’s jumped right to first names. “In this case, Mrs. Ross is the next of kin.”
“No, Richard,” I say sternly. If he can take away my last name, I can take away his. “I am the next of kin. I am Ben’s wife.”
“I don’t mean to argue otherwise, Elsie. I simply have no record of that.”
“So you’re saying that because I don’t have a marriage certificate yet, I am not next of kin?”
Richard Pavlik shakes his head. “In situations like this, where there is a question of who is the next of kin, I have to go by official documents. I don’t have anyone else close to Ben who can confirm that you two were married, and when I looked into marital records, there was no evidence of it. I hope you understand I’m in a difficult spot.”
Ana sits forward in her chair and moves her hand into a fist on Richard’s desk.
“I hope you understand that Elsie just got married and lost her husband within the same ten days, and instead of being on her honeymoon on some far-off private beach she’s sitting here with you implying to her grieving face that she’s not married at all.”
“I’m sorry, Ms. . . . ” Richard is uncomfortable and doesn’t remember Ana’s last name.
“Romano,” she says, angrily.
“Ms. Romano. I really don’t mean to make this uncomfortable or unpleasant for anyone. I am so sorry for your loss. All I ask is that you have a conversation with Mrs. Ross about this, because legally, I have to take my orders from her. Again, I am truly sorry for your loss.”
“Let’s just move on. I’ll talk to Susan about the cremation later. What else do I need to go over today?” I say.
“Well, Elsie. Everything hinges on what is to be done with the body.”
Don’t call it the body, you asshole. That’s my husband. That’s the body that held me when I cried, the body that grabbed my left hand as it drove us to the movies. That’s the body that made me feel alive, made me feel crazy, made me cry and shake with joy. It’s lifeless now, but that doesn’t mean I’ve given up on it.
“Fine, Richard. I’ll talk to Susan and call you this afternoon.”
Richard gathers up the papers on his desk and stands to see us out. He grabs his card and hands it to me. When I don’t take it, he offers it to Ana, and she takes it gracefully, tucking it into her back pocket.
“Thank you so much for your time,” he says as he opens the door for us.
“Fu—” I start to say to him as I am walking out the door. I plan on slamming it when I’m done. But Ana interrupts me and squeezes my hand gently to let me know I need to cool it. She takes over.
“Thank you, Richard. We will be in touch soon. In the meantime, please get back on the phone with the marital records people and sort this out,” she says.
She shuts the door behind her and smiles at me. The circumstances aren’t funny, but it is kind of funny that I almost told that man to fuck off. For a moment, I think we might both actuall
y laugh—something I haven’t done in days. But the moment passes and I don’t have it in me to push the air out and smile.
“Are we going to talk to Susan?” Ana says as we are heading to the car.
“Yeah,” I say. “I guess we are.” At least this makes me feel like I have a purpose, however small. I have to protect Ben’s wishes. I have to protect the body that did so much to protect me.
JANUARY
At work the next day, my thoughts oscillated between focusing on tasks at hand and daydreaming. I had to promise Ana I’d drive over to her place after work to explain my absence, and I kept replaying in my head how I was going to describe him. It was always her talking to me about men and me listening. Now that I knew it would be me talking and her listening, I almost felt like I needed to practice.
I was physically present but mentally absent when Mr. Callahan cornered me. “Elsie?” he said, as he approached the counter.
Mr. Callahan was almost ninety years old. He wore polyester trousers every day in either gray or khaki. He wore a button-up shirt in some sort of plaid pattern with a cream-colored Members Only jacket to cover it.
Mr. Callahan kept tissues in his pants pockets. He kept ChapStick in his jacket pocket, and he always said “Bless you” whenever anyone within a fifty-foot radius sneezed. He came to the library almost every day, coming and going, sometimes multiple times a day. Some days, he would read magazines and newspapers in the back room until lunchtime, when he would check out a book to take home to his wife. Other days, he would come in the late afternoon to return a book and pick up a black-and-white movie on VHS or maybe some sort of opera I had never heard of on CD.
He was a man of culture, a man of great kindness and personality. He was a man devoted to his wife, a wife we at the library never met but heard everything about. He was also very old, and I sometimes feared he was on his last legs.
“Yes, Mr. Callahan?” I turned to face him and rested my elbows on the cold counter.
“What is this?” Mr. Callahan slid a bookmark in front of me. It was one of our digital library bookmarks. We had put them all over the library a week earlier to try to call attention to the digital materials we had. There was a big debate in the library about starting this initiative. We didn’t have much say, to tell the truth, as we were guided by the Los Angeles Public Library system, but still, some people thought we should be doing more, some people thought we should be preserving the past. I have to say I was leaning toward preserving the past. I loved holding books in my hands. I loved smelling their pages.
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