Naked

by Megan Hart

  “Try this.”

  I did. We both checked what I’d captured. This time, he gave me a thumbs-up. “See the difference?”

  “Yep. Thanks.”

  He looked again. “I want to see this one when you’re done tweaking it, all right? This one is good.”

  I beamed. “Thanks. That means a lot, coming from you.”

  He didn’t have much false modesty, that Scott Church, but he also knew how to take a compliment graciously. “Keep going.”

  We worked for another hour or so. Clothes came off. I could tell a few of the models were shy at first, as were some of the photographers, but here’s a funny thing about being naked—at first it feels awkward, but after a while it’s all just skin, the same as we all have.

  By the end of the workshop I’d taken over two hundred pictures and thought half a dozen were good enough to show off. Maybe more once I got them home and worked on them with Photoshop. It had been a great day.

  Church hugged every woman as we left, planted wet kisses on our cheeks. Shook all the men’s hands. He’d spent a good portion of the time critiquing and praising, not just teaching, and now as we all left he shouted out, “Damn, I forgot to mention this. I’m having a gallery show at the Mulberry Street Gallery in Lancaster next month. Come on out and see me. I’ll probably have some shots from today in there.”

  I met up with Alex at the table where I was grabbing a last cola for the road and he was still shrugging into his coat. His hair had been mussed by another woman’s fingers, and while I’d taken a few photos of her doing it, now the pin of jealousy pricked me into smoothing it.

  He grinned. “That was fun. I can’t wait to see the pictures.”

  “And nary an erection in any of them,” I said wryly as we headed for my car, among the shouted goodbyes from the other workshop participants.

  He laughed and slung an arm around my shoulders. “It was too cold in there for a woody.”

  “Huh. You weren’t hot pressed up against all those other bodies?” I fixed him with a steely glare only half feigned as I opened my trunk to put in our gear.

  Alex pressed me against the side of the car, his hands on my hips, his mouth seeking mine. “Nope.”

  “Hmm.” I shifted my knee between his legs. “What about now? I feel something…”

  He chuckled into my ear and pushed his crotch against my belly. “That’s all because of you. Did you know how fucking sexy you looked with that camera?”

  “Baby, we all had cameras.”

  “I was only paying attention to you.”

  I laughed, though a little breathlessly. “Uh-huh.”

  He pulled back to look into my eyes. “You’re different when you have that camera, Olivia.”

  “Different, how?”

  He shook his head, searching for words. “I can’t explain it. But you’re…bigger.”

  The day had passed while we were inside, and the metal behind my back was chilly, but I didn’t move. I hooked my fingers in his belt loops and pulled his hips harder against mine. “I’m already pretty big.”

  “That’s not what I meant.” His hands skated up my sides to rest just below my breasts. “I mean…it’s impressive, what you can do. You make art. Fuck, that’s sexy. That’s all.”

  “Me and everyone with a camera.”

  He wasn’t letting me demure. “Not everyone. Anyone can take a picture. But what you do is different. Don’t you fucking tell me no.” He cut in when I opened my mouth again. “Just take the compliment.”

  “Thank you.”

  We kissed for a few minutes, then a few more. The door of the warehouse opened, reminding us that though everyone else had left the parking lot, we weren’t alone. Alex’s erection nudged my belly, and my panties had gone hot and damp, my nipples tight.

  “We should get going,” I breathed into his mouth.

  “Yeah.”

  We didn’t move. The wind came up and blew his hair into his eyes. I brushed it away.

  “I meant what I said,” I told him suddenly. “About being greedy for you. Wanting you all to myself.”

  Alex twirled one of my locks around his finger and kept me pinned to the car. “Good.”

  “I love you.” I thought it would come out stronger, with more purpose. Instead the words caught, snagged, tore a little at my throat so they jigged and jagged.

  He heard them, though. “I love you, too, Olivia.”

  I couldn’t fault him for stumbling on the sentiment when my own words had been spoken so roughly. I just held him tight, squeezing, my eyes closed as I pressed my face to his chest. He smelled good and felt good, and just then in that moment I knew without a doubt, without fear, that I was going to love him forever.

  He stroked my hair. “Whatcha thinking?”

  I tipped my head back to look at his face. “I’m thinking…I want you to meet my mother.”

  Chapter

  14

  He blinked, then laughed. “Okay.”

  “She lives only about twenty minutes from here.”

  He nodded slowly and stepped back to let me move. “Okay. Sure. If you want.”

  I took a deep breath. Gave him a smile. “Yes. I want her to meet you.”

  “How come you didn’t mention this before?” he asked once we got in the car and I pulled out of the lot.

  I kept my gaze on the roads, not as familiar with them as I should be, and not wanting to get lost. “I didn’t think we’d be stopping by. I wasn’t sure how long the workshop would go, and it’s Shabbat, anyway.”

  He made a scared noise. “Is your mother going to have a problem with me?”

  “Probably.”

  “Fuck,” he said, sounding a little stunned. “Really?”

  “My mother has a lot of problems with a lot of things she can’t change,” I told him. My hands gripped the steering wheel too hard, and I had to force my fingers loose. “Don’t worry about it.”

  He was quiet for a minute. “Well, she won’t be the first mother to hate me, anyway. I kind of have that effect on mothers.”

  I snorted soft laughter as I navigated the streets of my mom’s neighborhood. We passed the synagogue she went to. The small, unremarkable home that housed the mikvah, the ritual bathhouse. We were almost to my mother’s house, and I was thinking I should drive on by. Not stop.

  “How could anyone ever hate you, Alex?”

  “It’s a talent.”

  “Not one you’ve ever shown me.”

  “You’re blinded by love.”

  With no traffic ahead or behind us, I slowed the car, just a couple minutes from the house. “My mother won’t hate you. She might not approve of you as a choice for me, but she won’t hate you for being you.”

  He was quiet for another minute, speaking only as we pulled into my mom’s driveway. “That’s good to know.”

  I turned off the ignition and looked at him. “We don’t have to stay long. I just want her to meet you. I want you to meet her. It’s sort of the thing you do, right? Once you’re serious with someone?”

  His teeth flashed as he grinned. “So, you’re serious about me, huh?”

  “Yep.”

  He looked toward the house, where the porch light beamed. “I think we’ve been spotted. Too late to make our escape.”

  I peered through the windshield to see the curtains in the front room twitch apart. “No going back now. Think of this as a rite of passage. Meeting the crazy family.”

  He looked out the window, my hand tight in his, as the front door opened. “Nobody’s family is crazier than mine.”

  “Olivia? Is that you?”

  “It’s me, Mom.” I crossed the grass and went up onto the porch so she could hug me. It was the same embrace she’d always given me, but I wondered if it would ever stop feeling different.

  “Livvaleh, what on earth are you doing here?” My mother used the pet name as if she’d always called me that, though she’d only started a few years ago.

  I hated it. “I was t
aking a workshop close to here and figured since I was so close…”

  “Come in. Come in.” My mom gave Alex an up-and-down look as she stood aside to let us pass. “And introduce me to your friend.”

  “Mom, this is Alex Kennedy.”

  I’d forgotten to tell him she wouldn’t shake his hand, so he held it out. Only for a couple seconds, though, not long enough to be awkward. My mother’s husband, Chaim, came out from the kitchen with his white shirt untucked, his belly pushing out the front of it and the fringes of his tzitzit hanging below it. He pumped Alex’s hand and avoided mine.

  “Olivia’s brought a friend to meet us, Chaim.” My mother’s smile could’ve lit up Broadway. “You’re hungry, right? Come in. We just finished Havdalah. I’ve got brisket, some challah…”

  Growing up, my mom’s favorite dinner had been takeout from McDonald’s. Now she’d become a regular Batya Crockerstein. She’d told me once that cooking the foods of her childhood reminded her where she came from. Apparently only the cooking did, not the eating, because Chaim’s belly had been half as big the last time I’d seen him, while my mom remained her tiny, birdlike self.

  “We just stopped by…”

  “Nonsense,” Chaim said in his big, booming voice. “You’ll stay, eat. Tell us everything about what you’ve been up to.”

  Maybe he didn’t mean to make me feel guilty about not calling as often as I knew I should, but I thought he did. Everything that had happened between my mother and me had been my fault, according to him. Honor thy mother and father, and all that stuff. That he wasn’t my father didn’t seem to matter.

  “I could eat.” Alex sniffed the air. “Smells great, Mrs….”

  He shot me a look and I filled in for him. “Kaplan.”

  My mother beamed and bustled through the living room into the kitchen, gesturing at us to follow. “Come on! Come inside!”

  They had company, a family I didn’t know. A young couple, the woman with her hair covered by a knit snood and in clothes that showed not a bare inch of extra skin. The man in a white shirt and black trousers like Chaim’s, his beard full and dark and his sideburns curling. A baby slept in a stroller, while a toddler of indiscriminate age played with some blocks on the floor.

  “Tovi, Reuben, this is my daughter, Olivia. And her friend, Alex.”

  Reuben’s eyes widened. Was it my clothes, the tight-fitting black T-shirt with a white skull, eyes in the shape of hearts outlined with rhinestones? Or was it the color of my skin, my hair? It could have been the way Alex slipped his hand in mine possessively, neither of us with wedding rings on our fingers.

  “Nice to meet you,” Tovi said clearly, shaming her husband into nodding a greeting.

  “Sit, sit.” My mother bustled around the table, laying out plates and silverware for us.

  We didn’t eat in silence. I didn’t know the people they talked about, but my mother made sure to bring me into the conversation as often as she could. Alex, too. It was interesting to see him behave himself, reign in his flirting, keep the language clean and respectful. I almost expected him to tug his forelock.

  He was doing it for me, and the thought sent warm fuzzies all through me. It made it easier for me to behave, so as not to embarrass him with family drama. And I was glad, too, to have a meal with my mother that didn’t end in cold silence or shouting. It was nice to feel like part of her family again.

  “So, tell me about the boy,” my mother said as I helped her clear the table. Their guests had gone and Alex had excused himself to use the bathroom, while Chaim parked himself in front of the small TV in the living room with the remote. “How long have you been together?”

  If I didn’t pay attention to her thick stockings, long skirt, long sleeves or the wig covering her hair, I could pretend nothing had changed when she spoke like that. It was the same way she’d always talked to me when I got home from a date in high school, eager to hear how it had gone. She sounded the way my mom always had, and I wanted to reply the way I would’ve back then. Too much had happened, though. It made me cautious.

  “I met him in December,” I told her.

  My mom opened one of the two dishwashers under the counter and settled a plate inside it. “Use this one, it’s fleishig. The other one’s milchig.”

  One for meat, one for dairy, the same as her dishes and silverware and pots and pans. The mother I’d had growing up would’ve scoffed at the excess, but now I could tell she was proud to be so frum, so observant. Like making sure no molecule of meat and dairy mixed, not even by accident, not even in the freaking dishwasher, was going to send her straight to heaven.

  “December,” she said after a pause.

  I could see her counting the months that had passed with this person in my life before she’d known. Once, I would have been on the phone with her after the first time Alex kissed me. Now months had passed without us speaking at all, and the man I’d brought to meet her was more than just a friend.

  “Well,” she said when I said nothing. “He seems very nice.”

  Alex appeared in the kitchen doorway. “Can I help with anything?”

  My mom turned, startled at this male intrusion into the purely feminine domain. “Oh…thank you, Alex. But now, you go on ahead and make yourself at home in the living room.”

  Subject him to awkward conversation with Chaim, who was nice, but who wouldn’t have a clue how to deal with this goyishe boychik? Not something I’d do to someone I loved. I wiped my hands on a dish towel and stepped toward Alex.

  “Actually, Mom, we have to get going. It’s kind of a long drive back, and it’s late.”

  She turned. “Ah. You have to get up early tomorrow? Church?”

  I sighed. “No, Mom. Just work.”

  Expressions flitted across her face, over her mouth pasted into its tight, fake smile. She wasn’t happy I was leaving so soon, but she couldn’t hide her satisfaction at knowing I wasn’t going to church in the morning. For all she knew I could be going to Mass three other times the rest of the week. I could’ve told her I’d stopped going altogether, put her mind at ease, but there were topics we hadn’t agreed not to talk about, and simply never did.

  “I guess if you have to go, you have to go.” She headed for the platter of brisket on the kitchen island. “Let me send you with some leftovers.”

  “No, Mom, really—”

  She stopped me with a look. “Please. It’s only me and Chaim here. We can’t eat all of this. Even if I freeze it, there’s enough for ten people. That Tovi eats no more than a bird, and her Rueben’s not much better.”

  Alex patted his stomach. “I did my share, Mrs. Kaplan. I hope that was okay.”

  She looked surprised as she laughed. “Oh, yes. Of course. You did fine, Alex. Just fine. So you’ll want to take some of this along, yes?”

  “Yes,” he said, though I was getting ready to protest. “I’d love some.”

  “Fine.” I tossed up my hands. “I’m outvoted.”

  My mother dropped me a wink that was so much like her old self, her before self, that my throat constricted. “Yes, you are.”

  She caught me in the yard as Alex put the packages of food, all wrapped neatly in so many layers of foil I could’ve received signals from space, in the trunk. “He’s nice, Livvaleh.”

  I glanced over at him as he rearranged the stuff so it could all fit. “He is nice, Mom.”

  “He’s not Jewish,” she said wistfully, then held up her hands before I could reply. “I know, I know.”

  I frowned and hugged my arms over my stomach. “You know, it’s not like I tried being Catholic to hurt you.”

  “I know that.”

  I didn’t point out that by choosing her faith I’d be alienating my dad. “It’s unreasonable for you to expect me to date only Jewish men. And sort of unrealistic.”

  “Unrealistic? Why on earth?”

  I took her hand. Our linked fingers made tiger stripes. Light, dark, light, dark. “Mom. C’mon.”

  “I�
��ve always told you it’s not the color of your skin that matters, it’s what’s inside.”

  I let go of her hand. “As long as inside I’m the same as you, right?”

  “I just want the best for you, Olivia. The way I always have. You’re my daughter.” My mother reached for me again, but didn’t touch. “No matter what’s inside.”

  “Yeah, well, I’m not so sure what’s inside, either, okay?”

  “So then it’s all right for me to be hopeful,” my mother said. “Not unreasonable. Or unrealistic.”

  I looked toward her house, the light spilling from the windows, hearing faint sounds from the television inside. “You have to stop trying to fit me into your life.”

  She frowned. “I will always try to fit you into my life.”

  This had not always been true, and we both knew it, but I figured she’d spoken without fully thinking of what she’d said. “At least accept my part in it, then, instead of trying to make it something it’s not.”

  “Which is what?” My mother’s so small she only reaches my chin, but she looked so fierce I stepped back.

  “I don’t know,” I answered finally, as Alex slammed the trunk closed.

  She melted, sagging. “Won’t this ever get any better between us?”

  “I don’t know that, either, Mom. I’m sorry.”

  She sighed and shook her head. “I can’t help how I feel, Olivia. I think what you did was wrong—”

  “Goodbye.”

  She stopped me with a hand on my arm. “I can’t condone it. But you’re my daughter and I love you. Isn’t that enough?”

  I wanted to tell her it was, that all the things she’d said and done had washed away in time’s river. I couldn’t. I put my hand on hers, hugged her close, then stepped back to let her go.

  If it’s hard for a parent to let go of a child who’s grown up and gone distant, it can’t be any easier for the child. It wasn’t easier for me. I missed my mom, a lot. I knew that things between us would never be the same. I couldn’t pretend, as she tried to, that the damage hadn’t been done, that the words hadn’t been meant or that they hadn’t cut as deep.