The Love Book

by Nina Solomon

  She was still dutifully completing the exercises in The Love Book, but was having serious doubts that the results would be even remotely newsworthy. That week’s chapter was “Space Clearing.” It was supposed to make room for new love, but felt more like Emily-purging. Negative emotions were attached to every item in her closet like antitheft security tags. Guilt, to a misshapen sheer black dress with silk bows on the sleeves she’d worn without the slip for an illicit night with Nick when she should have been with Charles and Zach in the Catskills. Inadequacy, to the voluminous floral tunic she’d worn for Zach’s bris when her mother told her she’d weighed less after giving birth than before. Self-doubt, to an embroidered top that Duncan said looked like something a granny would wear. Defeat, to a pair of jeans she’d had since high school that she tried on occasionally, hoping someday to be able to zip.

  A few days later, after her third trip to Housing Works and returning to a now empty closet, Duncan called, and her banishment from his enchanted kingdom ended. The world was on its axis again.

  “I shouldn’t have called,” he’d said, sighing. She could picture him pacing around his living room with his headset.

  “Is something wrong?” she asked.

  “I don’t want to burden you with my troubles.”

  “You’re not. You could never.” And she’d meant it. Being allowed into Duncan’s inner circle felt like a privilege, even if it sometimes entailed mundane tasks like picking up dry-cleaning, proofing galleys, or waiting for the cable guy.

  “It’s the book party,” he said. “Why can’t anything be easy?”

  His next book was coming out in a few months. It had a Valentine’s Day release date.

  “What’s the problem?” she asked.

  “Tom’s apartment isn’t big enough. Plus, they just recovered the furniture and pickled the floors. They don’t want another disaster like when Fran Lebowitz came in with a nail in her heel and pitted the hardwood floors.”

  “Isn’t there anyone else who could host the party?”

  “Lara offered, but it’s really not ideal. The critic for the New York Times walking up five flights for some smoked fish?”

  Hearing Lara’s name sent an electric jolt through her body. “Couldn’t you have it at your apartment?”

  He laughed. “I guess Lara’s will have to do.”

  “I suppose I could host it,” Emily said impulsively.

  “You mean it?”

  She nodded, trying to convince herself. The only thing she was certain of was that she didn’t want Lara to do it.

  “I love throwing parties,” she had said. “It’ll be fun.”

  “Thanks for stepping up to the plate. One thing, though . . .”

  “What’s that?”

  “No kids, this is business,” he said before hanging up.

  Emily understood, but would Zach?

  Then she remembered that Charles was still sleeping in Zach’s room. But February was a long way off.

  * * *

  Charles walked into the kitchen wearing new blue flannel pajamas with fold marks and slippers.

  “Have you seen the real estate section?” he asked, shuffling through the pile of yesterday’s paper.

  “It’s on the dining room table.”

  “I’ll take Zach to school today.”

  “That would be great,” she said, pouring the now milky batter into the pan.

  It had been exactly two weeks since Charles showed up in her lobby. One more day, he’d say every morning, and she’d relent. It was a slippery slope, and getting more slippery by the day. Zach was different with Charles around—bubbly, smiling, eager to help. It was as if the sun had come out suddenly after a long dark winter.

  Duncan called while she was doing the dishes. Charles was on her computer. He’d already adjusted her chair. When she sat at her desk she felt like Goldilocks in Papa Bear’s chair.

  “I’m calling to invite you to Liam’s book party,” he said. “It’s at seven.”

  “Tonight?” she replied quietly. She didn’t let on that Charles was there; it might send the wrong message, especially after the way Duncan had reacted to a late-night text from Christophe. Midnight blowjob? he’d asked. Emily had laughed it off. But still, what purpose would it have served to tell him, especially at this stage of their relationship when things could be so easily misinterpreted—like a basket of exotic fruit, or a harmless flirtation in Washington.

  “Tonight at seven,” he said. “There will be lots of people you should meet.”

  What was it about those words that she found so seductive? Zach didn’t have school tomorrow (another Jewish holiday) and she’d promised they could go to Dallas BBQ for dinner, he was treating, and then to Puss in Boots. Networking and meeting agents and editors was part of her job. How many of Zach’s games had Charles missed because of work? They could still have dinner, and Charles could take him to the movie. She knew if she didn’t go, Duncan would invite someone else.

  Zach zoomed into the kitchen, grabbed a plate of Nutella crêpes, and zoomed out.

  “Hey, don’t you want to sit down?” she called after him.

  “No time. I don’t want to be late for school.”

  Clearly he wouldn’t mind if she went out tonight.

  * * *

  Zach wore his “dress-up” shirt, a black collared shirt with a zipper that he’d worn to each of his camp dances last summer, evidenced by the photographs on the camp website. At Dallas BBQ he asked the hostess to seat them in the upper tier by the railing. He liked to look out over the rest of the diners. He’d chosen Monday because Sundays were crowded with extended families dressed up after church or celebrating birthdays. It was five fifteen. Just in time for the Early Bird Special.

  “What are you having, Mom?”

  “Chicken, probably. How about you?”

  “Chicken. It comes with soup and cornbread, and French fries, baked potato, or yellow rice. Which do you want?”

  “A baked potato.”

  “I’m having fries. Daddy always gets rice.”

  Zach placed their orders. When the waiter asked if they’d like anything to drink, he said, “Just water. But can we have those little umbrellas?”

  “What a special treat,” Emily said. “We haven’t gone out in a long time.”

  “Remember, it’s on me.”

  “I’m so lucky to have such a wonderful son.”

  He pretended it was no big deal.

  “You sure it’s okay with you if Daddy takes you to the movies?”

  “It’s just a movie, Mom.”

  Soon their soups arrived. “Isn’t this a good deal?” he asked. “Nine ninety-nine for two half chickens.”

  “You sure can’t beat that.”

  He tasted his soup. “Pretty good. But I like the chicken soup at Gabriella’s better.”

  “I think it’s delicious,” she said.

  “Mom?”

  “Yes, sweetie?”

  “You know Sasha?”

  “Of course, what about her?”

  “I think I like her.”

  “You’ve always liked her.”

  “No, I mean like her.”

  Zach had known Sasha since preschool. He used to say he liked her rhinestone headband. When they had playdates, neither of them would utter a word the entire time. Occasionally they’d nod or shake their heads in response to questions like, Do you want to make rainbow cookies? or, How about we go to the Children’s Museum to see the Dr. Seuss exhibit?

  One night when Emily was tucking him in, Zach asked her to tell him the story again about how Charles had proposed at the Whispering Wall in Grand Central, about how he’d blindfolded her and led her down the stairs, and the oyster dinner later with all of their friends.

  “What did he whisper?” he’d asked.

  “He said I was made in heaven for him and that he wanted to spend the rest of his life with me.”

  “And then what?”

  “Then we went to the Oyster
Bar.”

  “Did you find a pearl?”

  “Yes. Four years later, when you were born.”

  Afterward, he was quiet. The glow-in-the-dark constellations on his loft were fading. He played with her pavé diamond wedding band, something he did when he was fighting sleep and about to nod off. Then he asked, “What if Sasha loses it?”

  “Loses what?”

  “Her headband.”

  “Don’t worry,” she told him, “she can always get another one.”

  “But it won’t be the same one.”

  “Zach,” she’d said, kissing him on the forehead and tucking him in, “headbands are replaceable. What you’re feeling right now, you can never lose.”

  Emily was relieved he hadn’t asked her to retell that story now. She knew what it felt like to lose something she thought she’d have forever.

  Their dinners arrived and Zach asked for extra barbecue sauce. “Can I bring you anything else? Something to drink?” the waiter asked.

  “No, we’re good.”

  “Actually, I’ll have a Diet Coke, please,” Emily said.

  “Regular or Texas size?”

  “Regular.”

  Zach put his hands in his lap. He opened his wallet and counted his bills. His face fell. “You don’t need a soda.”

  “Don’t worry, Zach, I’ll pay for it.”

  He threw his napkin on the table and pushed out his chair. “Why do you have to ruin everything?”

  On the subway platform, she played with the little paper umbrella Zach had left on the table. Why couldn’t she have been satisfied with water?

  * * *

  The book party was on the top floor of a brownstone in Brooklyn Heights and was so jammed it took Emily fifteen minutes to cross the room to get a glass of wine. And when she returned, Duncan barely acknowledged her. As they were leaving the party, an attractive redhead kissed Duncan’s cheek and said, “Hey, sexy, your roots are showing.” Duncan had laughed it off jovially, a little too jovially, then said, “Ah, you know how it is, Jasmine, summers in Biarritz, winters in the BVI. Still working on your little novel?”

  * * *

  Zach was already asleep by the time she got home. She would have gotten back earlier, but Duncan persuaded her to come up for one of his forty-five-minute “quickies.” Charles was in the living room reading.

  “Have fun?” he asked, looking up from the Economist. From anyone else it would have been an innocent question. From Charles it sounded like an attack.

  “How was Puss in Boots?” she responded.

  “We went to The Rum Diary instead.”

  “The Hunter S. Thompson movie? Charles, that’s an R-rated movie. He’s only ten.”

  “He loved it.”

  “But he wanted to see Puss in Boots. Just because you didn’t want to see it doesn’t mean you can take him to an inappropriate movie.”

  “He’d still be watching Winnie-the-Pooh if you had your way.”

  “Next time, can we discuss something like this?”

  “Why, Emily? So you can veto me? At least I was with him.”

  “That’s not fair.”

  “Whatever you did must have been very important to have disappointed your son.”

  “Zach didn’t mind.”

  “If that’s what you want to believe,” he said.

  “Look who’s talking? You cancel on him all the time.”

  “For the record, Emily, we didn’t actually see The Rum Diary. He’s my son too. You’re not the only one who wants to protect him.”

  At her desk, she readjusted the ergonomic chair to fit her body contours. The fat naked man from across the courtyard was staring at her. She pulled down the shade so hard it flapped right back up to the top. Tomorrow she’d pick up her birth control.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  AISLE SIX

  CATHY FED MRS. BEASLEY then heated up a Lean Cuisine. It was only four thirty. Dinners were starting to get earlier and earlier and she feared that she was slipping into spinster syndrome. Season one of Downton Abbey was already in the DVD player. She looked out the window. A red Mini Cooper pulled into Lawrence’s driveway and a blonde got out. Cathy’s ex-fiancé Rob called again and left a message. This time he was crafty, using his mother’s hip operation as an excuse, and she almost fell for it. But instead of taking the bait, she did something more proactive and called Sean. She wasn’t sure if he was her soul mate or not, but did her last memory of sex have to be the sight of Rob’s paunch and black dress socks? Maybe Beatrice was right: what was the harm in taking those dogs for a walk? Willing to risk listeriosis, she put the Lean Cuisine back in the freezer and drove to Rite Aid.

  It had been awhile since she’d had sex, and just the thought of it felt like she was about to parachute into enemy territory. Luckily, she knew where she was going, which aisle the feminine products were in, so she didn’t have to ask. And phew! Instead of the leering manager who always looked her up and down like a lollipop, a mousy woman in a red uniform was hunched at the register.

  With the aisle to herself, Cathy began discreetly filling her basket with the essentials—sprays, douches, probiotics, deodorizing powder, and depilatories—with the purpose of making her more feminine by stripping her of all evidence of her natural physical state. We wouldn’t want to offend Romeo’s sensibilities with the taste of a real woman.

  She pretended to be looking for antiperspirant when two twenty-somethings joined her in aisle six.

  “Nah, Astroglide’s too viscous,” a tall brunette with an artfully messy chignon said as she scanned the shelves. “Tried this? It heats up.”

  “My gyno gave me a sample but it made me feel like I was microwaving a Hot Pocket in my hooha.”

  “How about these?” the brunette asked, holding up a box of horse-pill-sized gel capsules. “These will keep you wet and ready for up to four days.” Cathy had seen the product on an episode of The Dr. Oz Show, and anything Dr. Oz recommended was the modern-day equivalent of what the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval had been to her mother, with the exception of neti pots, which frankly seemed unsanitary.

  The second woman waved it off. “I’m sticking with extra-virgin olive oil. Plus, if Justin is lucky he gets his daily dose of omega-3s.”

  After they finally walked away, Cathy debated buying the gel capsules. If she prorated it, she could almost rationalize the cost. She’d just have to make the effort to get her money’s worth. The Love Book was twisting her arm through her pocketbook now.

  When she brought her basket to the register, mouse woman was gone. The manager smirked as he slowly scanned each item, even calling for a price check on the Liquibeads.

  * * *

  When she pulled into her driveway, the red Mini Cooper was gone. Lawrence, wearing his stupid tasseled loafers, was on the roof adjusting his satellite dish and trying to disengage some wisteria that was smothering the antenna. Hopefully he’d disappear before Sean showed up in his big red truck to put out her latest conflagration.

  Her newly purchased potions on the vanity, Cathy drew a bath and “lit” a flameless candle. Once submerged, she closed her eyes, but no matter how many affirmations she did, she was unable to erase from her mind the image of her father and his home care nurse in her mother’s sewing room. The huge pink posterior, the bobbing head, and Mr. Soul Mate-to-be’s blue robe!

  The annoying whir of Lawrence’s bushwhacker further distracted her from finding inner peace. Poor wisteria! Why can’t men have any decency? Typical Lawrence; he’d sacrifice beauty for television reception.

  Mrs. Beasley nudged the door open and, after dipping her paw into the water and shaking it off, pretended she could still fit on the narrow windowsill, and began making birdcalls.

  “Mrs. Beasley, you haven’t caught anything in your sixteen-plus years on this planet, what makes you think you will today?”

  Something pinged against the screen. Too early for acorns. A neighborhood kid with a sling shot? Cyrano?

  Then an
other ping and another. Beetles!

  Mrs. Beasley batted the screen. Sadly, she had already been declawed when Cathy adopted her from Bideawee and couldn’t even catch a dead potato bug.

  The feminine cleanser had a pleasantly clean fragrance with hints of something unmistakably familiar to any young American girl. Essence de Barbie Doll, that irresistibly alluring and unattainable ideal of femininity. No wonder this stuff flew off the shelves!

  All depilatorized, powdered, and sanitized, her pH balanced, her pheromones neutralized, she inserted the amber-colored Liquibead into what looked like a miniature rocket-propelled grenade and, with the target in sight, cocked the weapon and pulled the trigger. But somehow the gizmo malfunctioned and instead of the Liquibead going where it was supposed to, it shot out and ricocheted off the medicine cabinet.

  She adjusted the prorated cost then reloaded. Channeling Dirty Harry, she squeezed off another shot. This time, the projectile hit Mrs. Beasley who, still engaged in a game of beetle badminton, barely flinched. She vowed to cut her losses if the next one also went AWOL, when Mrs. Beasley started gagging. A trickle of amber liquid dripped down the side of her mouth.

  God was punishing her for even contemplating having sex!

  “Mrs. Beasley!” she shouted, dropping the applicator and the third precious Liquibead, which rolled behind the radiator.

  Trying to open the cat’s mouth like the vet did was easier said than done. Mrs. Beasley hissed and squirmed away, backing up until the screen bowed from the weight of her hindquarters. A little more gagging and frantic scrambling and the screen fell completely off. Mrs. Beasley was now half in and half out the window, more out. Cathy froze. Should she let the cat find her own equilibrium or grab her by the tail, possibly frightening her, or worse, causing her to plunge from the second-floor window to certain death? She prayed for divine guidance from all sources, God, the universe, and St. Gertrude of Nivelles, the patron saint of cats, before making her decision. But Mrs. Beasley was gone!

  As fast as a firefighter, Cathy pulled on her magenta Love Stinks skunk scrubs and climbed out onto the roof. The pitch was steep and the tar shingles were sticky. So much for her spa pedicure. Every so often a furry tail was visible snaking along the rain gutter.