He pulled her into him and then bent down to kiss her neck. They stumbled their way to the bed, kissing, and fell down onto the mattress. They both laughed. When his hands went up under her shirt, touching bare skin, she pushed him away.
“We can’t do this with your parents right upstairs!” she whispered.
“Sure we can.” Malcolm lifted her shirt, bent down to kiss her stomach.
She let this distract her for a moment but then shook her head. “Malcolm?” She ran her hands through his hair, trying to divert his attention from her navel. “Are you staying in this room?”
“Mm-hm.”
“Where am I going to sleep?”
He lifted his head up then to look at her. “In here. With me.”
“In here?” She tried to ignore the way his fingertips felt against her skin. “What did you tell your parents about us?” He pulled her shirt all the way over her head and threw it over his shoulder.
“I told them you were my girlfriend.” He squinted at her, leaned in to kiss her.
“Malcolm!”
“What did you want me to tell them?” Malcolm put on an innocent expression. “I guess I could have told my mom that we’re friends who fuck, but girlfriend just seemed easier.”
“Or you could have said we’re friends.”
“Yeah, but then they’d expect you to stay in a separate room. Is it such a stretch to act like you’re my girlfriend for a few days?”
She tried to give the impression she was thinking very hard about this prospect. It was difficult to appear angry when she wasn’t wearing a shirt. “So what does acting like your girlfriend entail?”
“You know … holding my hand, laughing at my jokes, sleeping with me sometimes.”
“I could probably handle that.” She reached for his sweater and pulled it over his head. He wore a button-down shirt underneath. She started at the top button and worked her way down, revealing what she hoped was the final tier of his clothing: a T-shirt. “And what does the Boyfriend do?”
Malcolm let her unbutton the shirt, made no attempt to help her push it off his shoulders or take his arms out of the sleeves. He answered immediately: “Gazes at you fondly, tells you you’re beautiful, makes you breakfast, bakes you cookies. Makes you furniture, fixes up your house. Fulfills you emotionally, intellectually, sexually. That kind of thing.”
Joanna studied Malcolm’s face. He was looking back at her, his expression unreadable. “Okay,” she said. “I can’t argue with that. If all I have to do is laugh at your jokes every once in a while. I guess you have an okay sense of humor.”
“Good. I’m glad we’ve got that settled.”
Absurdly, they shook hands. Shaking hands led to kissing, which led to other articles of clothing falling to the floor.
“We can’t just do this with your parents making flan upstairs,” she whispered. “They’re expecting us to join them for dessert in a minute!”
“We can make them wait. They wouldn’t mind. They know we haven’t seen each other in a while.”
“So they’d be fine with us getting it on down here while they sit and wait for us at the table.”
“Yeah. They’re cool. They’d probably enjoy it.”
“Ugh!” Joanna pushed him off of her. “Okay. Let’s go back upstairs.”
Malcolm laughed and pulled her on top of him. “I was only joking. Come here.”
“Let’s just wait until later tonight!” she said when her mouth was unoccupied. She spoke in syncopated breaths. “After your parents go to sleep …”
“They go to sleep very late,” he said. “So there’s no use waiting. We can be very quick and quiet.”
“Tonight!” she whispered, in her best seductive voice. “We won’t have to be quiet—or quick.”
Malcolm stopped caressing her. “Okay,” he said. “Let’s compromise. Quick and quiet right now—then a slow and soulful round at midnight or so.” He unbuttoned her jeans, pushed them down over her hips. He reached back to pluck them off her legs and returned to her, running a hand down her stomach, then between her legs. She gasped as quietly as she could manage, then let herself sink back into the mattress.
“Five minutes,” he said into her ear. “That’s all I would need to guarantee your complete satisfaction.”
“Five minutes, huh? This a skill you picked up from reading Maxim during our time apart?”
“Mm, no.” He was on top of her now, pressing himself against her. “Just a few things I’ve learned over the last couple months. About you.”
Sure enough, after just a few minutes, Malcolm was smirking down at her. He reached up and brushed back wayward strands of hair from her face. “Wow,” he said. “You must have really missed me.”
Joanna frowned and tried to squirm out from under him, but his weight was pinning her to the bed. “Why do you have to go and ruin it?” She turned her face away from him.
“No, no.” He dotted her neck with light kisses. “I like it when you … demonstrate your enthusiasm.”
She couldn’t look at him.
“Look,” he was saying. He twisted around to show her his back, pink from the pressure of her hands. His back was mottled with crescent-shaped indentations where her nails had dug into his skin—some drawing pinpricks of blood.
She reached up to feel the ridges, surprised. “Sorry,” she said. He wasn’t supposed to know that every time she was with him she needed more of him, had to stop herself from smashing her mouth onto his, digging her fingernails into his skin deeper and deeper until she broke him open. It was like her first months in Portland, when she could walk and walk all night and into the next day and still not know the streets, each crack in the sidewalk, every leaf and thorn and weed. She wanted to take off her shoes and feel the wet cement on the soles of her feet. Claw up a giant elm with her bare hands, scraping her face along the bark, higher and higher, sending raindrops glittering to the ground, until she collapsed on a branch thick with dark green moss and live there, tearing tender young ferns from the tree with her teeth and chewing them for nourishment.
“We should get dressed,” she said to Malcolm. She offered him a tight smile and patted his thigh.
“Hey,” he said. Joanna sat up and began rooting around for her clothes. The bed cover had gone askew, pillows and clothes lay scattered on the floor. She found her underwear and bra, slipped into them quickly. His jeans were crumpled up on the floor. She tossed them in his direction.
“You don’t have to do that, you know,” he said.
“Do what?” she occupied herself in straightening the room, pulling the covers tight over the bed.
Malcolm watched her the way a teacher observes a rowdy classroom—waiting for her to calm down on her own. She sat next to him. “Do what?” she asked again.
“You don’t have to act like that.”
They sat side by side on the edge of the bed, their bare arms touching. She hadn’t noticed the hairs on his arm before, dark against his pale skin. Without thinking she began smoothing them down with her fingertips. “Listen,” she said at last. “I just don’t want things to get confusing. The whole point of this—”
She was interrupted by his mother calling them up for dessert.
When they went back upstairs, she felt exposed, as if she had grass stains on her back, leaves in her hair. “There you are,” his mother said absentmindedly. Malcolm opened and closed all the drawers, looking for spoons. To make herself feel useful, Joanna took charge of the coffee.
As they sat at the table eating still-warm flan out of mismatched teacups, his parents began telling a story about Malcolm as a child. Joanna listened, nodded, and laughed at appropriate junctures in the conversation. She tried to catch Malcolm’s eye, but he was entranced by his parents’ tandem storytelling. They talked through dessert, spinning the tale of Young Malcolm, who had prepared breakfast in bed for them every morning on their anniversary. Early attempts had involved sludge-like instant coffee cooked in the microwave. Then as a twe
lve-year-old he’d successfully recreated a full English breakfast, complete with baked beans and a grilled tomato half.
Joanna couldn’t remember seeing him quite like this before. He was happy, his eyes gleaming. He didn’t return her gaze but seemed to sense her looking at him, and put his hand on her thigh. She leaned into him.
“Oh, young love!” his mom trilled out. Joanna’s face flushed with heat. Maxine was laughing. Malcolm tightened his grip on her thigh. How long could she stand this—sitting here, pouring cup after cup of coffee, all this talking? When Stephen brought out a deck of cards she almost groaned out loud. She didn’t know what had come over her. When Malcolm squeezed her thigh, she could swear she felt every bone in his hand, even the lines in his palm, through the fabric of her jeans. They couldn’t go on like this. It was good she had come here—she obviously didn’t have him out of her system. Getting him out of her system needed to be her top priority.
His father dealt some cards and she picked up her hand, began organizing by suit.
Finally, finally, his parents retired to bed. “Come on,” she said, leading Malcolm downstairs by the hand. They went into his room and shut the door behind them.
“I don’t think my parents are asleep yet.”
She pushed him on the bed. “I don’t care.” She climbed on him and once again began the task of peeling away the layers of his clothing. “We had a deal, remember?”
He flipped her over and ran his fingers through her hair, cupping the back of her head with his hand before kissing her. “A promise is a promise,” he said.
The next morning Joanna woke up with Malcolm’s arms wrapped around her. It was early. She had grown so used to falling asleep to the sound of rain, waking up in thick gray mist. The sun streaming through the window had nudged her awake after just a few hours of sleep. The lake sparkled in the snow-covered mountains. Blue tea in a Dutch teacup.
She eased out of his embrace and propped herself on an elbow to observe him while he slept. He looked so worried, his eyes closed tightly, as if his subconscious had taken on the task of unraveling a complicated math problem.
Malcolm’s eyes opened. He squinted up at her. “Hey,” he said in a creaky voice.
“Hey.” Joanna smiled, leaned down and kissed him on the forehead. “Good morning.”
She reached for him under the blankets, leaned in to kiss his neck. He was warm from sleep and sun. So many days and miles from work, and he still smelled like sawdust.
“You’re wearing me out,” he said, closing his eyes and smiling.
“That’s the point,” she said.
When they went upstairs they found they had the place to themselves—his parents had gone skiing. Malcolm and Joanna went into town, walked up and down the sidewalks, breathing in the thin mountain air. By that time the sky had filled up with clouds. Adapting to her role as his “girlfriend,” she took Malcolm’s hand in hers; they swung their arms as they walked, like children. They stopped in a coffee shop in a wooden-shingled strip mall, ordered oversized coffee drinks and stale pastries. When they came out into the parking lot, hand in hand, it was snowing. She turned to him and kissed him on the lips, right in front of everybody.
She’d done it impulsively, because she had never kissed him in public before and never would get the chance again. She grabbed him by the pockets of his coat, pulled him closer. She kissed him again, harder this time, until she ran out of breath. She bit his lip so forcefully she tasted blood, hot and metallic.
He let go of her, startled. “What’s gotten into you?” he said.
She looked at him, his hand held up to his mouth. For some reason this image made her laugh. “You, you, you!” she cried. “And I have to get you out!” She laughed crazily, ran across the parking lot, and spun around, still laughing. She looked back at him through the static of snow. He was just standing there, his hands in his pockets.
When they got back, his parents were sitting in front of the fireplace, sipping red wine from large glasses. Their hair was wet. They huddled under a thick quilt, working on a crossword puzzle. “You two should try out the hot tub before dinner,” his mother said. “It’s the perfect temperature. Did you pack a suit, Joanna?”
“Oh yes.” She always packed a suit—one useful piece of advice handed down from her mother. She was more surprised that Malcolm even owned swim trunks. “We look like aliens,” she said to him as they walked outside, towels wrapped around their waists. They sank into the hot water. It was almost dark. “Wow, this is the life,” she said. She held out her hand to catch a lone snowflake making a lazy descent into the tub. She couldn’t catch it; it landed in the water and melted on contact.
They sat for a moment in silence. More flakes started to fall, whirling over them, sticking in their hair. “You’re so lucky, you know?” she said. “I can’t believe you grew up like this.”
“I can assure you I didn’t spend my youth drinking wine and hot-tubbing with my parents.”
“I know, I know.” The funny thing is that she could hardly imagine Malcolm growing up anywhere else—she pictured the three of them here, in this house, Mom and Dad doing crossword puzzles by the fire, little Malcolm in the room with the sailboat pictures and the navy bedspread. She looked out, into the forest. It was too dark to see the lake now, just trees and snow. “I mean … this is nice. I’m glad I came.”
“Me too.” He turned his face upward and closed his eyes.
“I don’t know what I would have done if I’d had to stay with my mom this whole time. I probably would have killed her at some point.”
“So that’s why you came here? To avoid a homicide charge?”
“No. Not the only reason.” She laughed. It came out strained, like a bark. “I had this crazy thought, when I was down in Reno, that I’d have to return one day. That in a few years I’d be living in that townhouse, spoon-feeding my mother canned soup. Laura is married, having a baby; she wouldn’t be able to do it. So it would have to be me.” She looked over at Malcolm. He was watching her, waiting for her to continue. “Anyway, I’m being ridiculous. But I had to get out of there.” Joanna tilted her head back up to the sky. The snowflakes had already begun to thin out. One or two hard, white flakes drifted down. She lifted up her hand to catch one, but the breeze carried them away before they could land on her palm. “And I wanted to see you,” she said. “I did.”
“I wanted to see you, too.” He was frowning. He reached over for her hand and pulled her weightless body to him.
On New Year’s Eve, their last night together, Malcolm and his parents introduced her to “The Dictionary Game.” This Martin family tradition involved a gigantic dictionary, scraps of paper, and an elaborate scoring system. Joanna caught on quickly, racking up points by scribbling down plausible-sounding definitions for archaic words. At ten minutes before midnight, Stephen poured them glasses of champagne. When the clock struck twelve they made a big deal over it, toasting and drinking and kissing.
But just five minutes into the new year, they sat hunched over the dictionary and scraps of paper again. By this point “penalties” had been added to the scoring system, and Joanna found herself knee-deep in a drinking game with Malcolm and his parents. Stephen emptied two bottles of champagne into their glasses. Then they switched to oversized shots of bourbon, measured out in juice glasses.
“You will sphacelate for this, Joanna!” Maxine cried, downing the last of her glass in one valiant chug. Joanna had won the game with the old medical term “sphacelate”: to get gangrene, rot, and die. Malcolm and Stephen followed Maxine’s lead, drinking in defeat.
“Thank you, thank you!” Joanna said, standing up and raising an empty glass into the air.
“Speech!” Stephen yelled.
Joanna laughed and dropped back in her seat. The room was spinning, which made whatever she was laughing at even funnier. She loved it here. She belonged here; she didn’t want to go home. She should stay here pretending to be his girlfriend forever.
Years from now, Malcolm would have a wife, a kid. They would be the ones sitting around scribbling on scraps of paper on New Year’s Eve with Maxine and Stephen. And what about her? She looked around the table, at her hosts’ faces, their eyes happy and half-closed. There would be no place for Malcolm’s dear old best friend at the table. No dark-haired, big-eyed kid calling her “Aunt Joanna” and begging for her Dictionary Game strategy.
A shiver ran through her. She had to stop thinking like this, like she had glimpsed into the future and couldn’t find herself there. Like she was just a ghost.
Maxine and Stephen stumbled downstairs to bed. Malcolm put his arm around Joanna’s shoulders. “Tired?”
She nodded and closed her eyes. They went down to the sailboat room. The air was cold and still. She shivered, quickly stripped off her clothes, and jumped under the sheets. “Come in here,” she said.
Malcolm walked over to her and sat down on the bed on top of the covers. He looked down at her and patted her hair. “It’s late,” he said.
“Come on.” She began yanking at the covers, trying to get them out from under him. Somehow she’d pull him under, wrap herself around him. “It’s so cold in here without you,” she said. This struck her as very funny. She tried to stop herself from giggling and then gave in.
Malcolm stood up, stepped away from the bed, and returned with one of his T-shirts and a pair of her underwear. “Here,” he said. “Put these on.”
“Aw.” Joanna gave him an exaggerated frown. “Then will you come to bed?”
“You’re drunk,” he said, but he took off his jeans, pulled off his sweater, and climbed in next to her.
“So?” she said. She pressed herself against him, ran her hands up and down his torso.
“Joanna—”
“Come on,” she said. “We need to do this. One last time.”
He shooed her away, laughing, until he fell off the bed and landed on the floor, taking half of the blankets with him.
Broken Homes & Gardens Page 19