“Why are you here?” I asked.
“In New York or in your apartment?”
“Either one,” I said, smoothing the dress over my thighs.
“I’ll answer both. I’m here for two reasons. One, because my friend hanged himself in our motel room.” He pulled off his sweatshirt, standing hairs on end with static. “And, how should I say, it forced me to look at my life. I decided I had to come here to find someone I know, prove something to her.”
“I’m sorry about your friend,” I said, looking into my drink.
He sipped. “And I’m here in your apartment because I wanted to talk to you, like this, and you’ve been avoiding me. My turn.”
“Shoot.”
“Do you know you’re one of the unhappiest girls I’ve ever known?”
I stood to refill my drink, to hide my face. My hands shook as I poured Kahlúa over ice. My eyes blurry.
* * *
—
His hands on my hips, lips on my neck, one hand pushing away my hair. I stood like a statue, my drink in my hands, eyes wide open, rigid. Hot breath on cool back. I closed my eyes, let my head roll back to lay on his shoulder. I turned my face to his mouth.
I moved to face him. He held handfuls of gold, we stumbled without going anywhere, the record ended. I clung to his belt loops, then wrapped my hand around the back of his neck, bit his lower lip. We swayed like marathon dancers.
I pulled off his T-shirt. Kissed the meat of his arm. We fell onto the couch, and I was covered, smothered, the world gone dark. His back was wide, unmeasurable by my hands.
My eyes closed, visions flickered: the surf, a scorpion, Kelly’s hand around vodka bottle, his eyes the day of the suicide train, a man hanging, a palm leaf.
We revolved, lay side by side, his hand held my breast through the gold, rubbed nipple with thumb. Hardness in his jeans against my belly. He was long enough to show above his waistband, and I swiped the pearl off the tip, licked my finger. His hand climbed my inner thigh, then cupped me.
I gathered my skirt, pulling up gold, pushing down panties, and we looked into each other’s eyes. Our eyes were close in the shadows, wet, dilated. The crackle of condom wrapper. I waited, watched.
He rolled on top, put just the head in, and paused. I could feel his heartbeat down there. That alone was almost too much. Suddenly he was in to the hilt. He barely had to move. Closer to the end, I wanted more. Imagined him with the power to be where he was and in my mouth at the same time, like a unicorn.
* * *
—
Later, in my bed, I took the head in my mouth and held the rest with my hand, blood thumping under my thumb. I was on my knees at a right angle to his body, his hand between my legs. His hand kept trying, but lapsing, forgetting. His breath hard, bottom lip pushed out.
The halter of my dress pulled down to waist, the skirt of it pulled up, to make a big gold belt.
A crescendo of bad words and a throat full of buttermilk.
We lay there, flung like the dead onto the bed. The room was dark, but he was darker. Inside his silhouette, fireflies bumped and glowed.
* * *
—
I slipped out of his stout arms the next morning. Wrapped fur coat around dress, pulled on cowboy boots. At the bodega, I bought eggs, bacon, bread, coffee, cream.
In the apartment, Kelly was stretching his arms above his head, his face marked by sheets. Semihard in blue jeans. He pulled on his sweatshirt and swaggered over, took my face in his hands and kissed me hard.
“I got breakfast,” I said, looking down, blushing.
“I’m going for a quick jog.”
“In what? Jeans and work boots?”
He smacked his hands together and grinned like a lunatic. “You better believe it. Wake this body up.”
I watched him out my window. He jogged in place waiting for the Driggs traffic to clear, then took off in the pink morning light. I yelled not to get lost, and he waved, put his hood up like a boxer. I laughed, shook my head.
I fried the bacon, planning to cook eggs in its fat. I whisked cream into the eggs. Lay bread under the broiler but waited to turn it on. I set out plates, sang along with Francoise Hardy.
He was glistening and beaming when he stomped in, and he inhaled deeply. Said it was the most beautiful perfume in the world. I smiled as he kissed my neck.
“Breakfast in an evening gown,” he said, breaking bacon from under the paper towel. “That’s why I like you, Lee.”
I wanted to say: “That’s a good enough reason, I guess,” but my mouth was dry.
I pushed eggs onto plates with a spatula, pulled out toast, divided bacon. He was sitting at the table, napkin tucked into his shirt, pouring sugar into his coffee.
“Hey,” he said after a few minutes, words muffled by a bite of toast. “Can I ask you a personal question?”
I licked strawberry jam off the knife, laughed. “That’s funny.”
“What?” His eyes widened.
“Well, I think I can handle a question considering I had your—”
He held up a finger. “I see where you’re going. Point taken,” he said. “Do you and Yves, I mean, you two don’t seem to have that much in common.”
I looked at him. “That’s not a question.”
“How serious are you guys?”
“Oh, come on,” I said, getting up for coffee. “That’s a boring conversation.”
“Really. I want to know.”
“I mean, I’m going to marry the guy.” I held the pot over his cup. “Do you want more?”
The longer he looked at me, the pinker his cheeks turned. I poured him coffee even though he hadn’t answered. I didn’t want to be looked at anymore. He wasn’t exactly single: if anything, this woman sounded more precious to him than Yves would ever be to me. And yet here I was, feeling like the sinner.
“I have to clean,” I said, slumping in a chair.
“Lee,” he said in a new voice. “I didn’t mean—”
I shook my head.
“Can I help you—”
“No. I want to do it alone.”
He put on his jacket slowly, came and kissed me where I sat. I let him but didn’t get up.
* * *
—
After I vacuumed up ash and cherry stems and peanuts, I poured a scotch and ran a bath. I was sore, and lowered myself into the hot water carefully. My dress lay on the kitchen floor. A puddle of gold.
They forgot to teach us in school that the responsible thing, eventually, was to let go of dreams. They let us believe it was noble to pursue the impossible. They left us to discover compromise on our own. Compromise was the golden password, I was learning, to adulthood.
Yves was compromising. No way I satisfied all his requirements. But he was getting older and finally knew in his heart that he was mortal, and I was exciting to keep around. I once waited uptown for a taxi, smoking a cigarette. The orange-and-white-haired doorman, in red uniform, told me a secret after we watched a woman exit a limousine with a cat’s crate: he lived in Bay Ridge and had owned an ocelot for seven years.
“It’s illegal, you know,” he’d said, and I’d never forgotten the pride in his tone.
And it would be a luxurious arrangement for me. Already, a loft was forming in my mind: an aquarium of piranhas, a mink quilt, a Philips flat-screen TV. I could get that powder-blue daybed I’d always bragged about, recline all day, eating bonbons and watching soap operas. When Yves came home from work, I’d give him a blowjob before he could put his briefcase down.
I wasn’t entirely sure how we’d entertain ourselves until we died. Maybe he could start being strict with money, and I would be forced to become duplicitous. I could become a textbook alcoholic and do things like stash whiskey in the laundry hamper. I could cheat extravagantly and charge rooms at the St. Regis to his card. I could show up at his friend’s office in a lace teddy under a raincoat. We could become swingers. We could become obsessed with Tibet. I could get plastic surg
ery to look like a panther.
I drew the line at parenting and fund-raising.
* * *
—
On my days off, I paged through bridal magazines. All the girls looked like cheap princesses. What I really wanted, I told Yves, while I reclined on the couch sipping wine one night, was an elegant rave. He laughed, half listening, half watching CNN.
“No, really,” I said. “Some warehouse we can trash, good drugs, an insane DJ, roses and gardenias scattered all over the cement floor.”
“My dear, you can have whatever you want.”
“And I want to invite as many people as possible, to get as many gifts as I can.”
I decided to register at Neiman Marcus so I could eventually exchange china and silver for clothes and shoes.
“And our honeymoon?” Yves asked.
“A suite at the Carlyle here in the city. For a week. Room-service cheeseburgers, cartoons, martinis. And dirty sex in a gold-framed mirror.”
On the day I’d planned on accepting Yves’s proposal, I asked him to take me for a walk in Central Park under a chilly pink sun. But I couldn’t get my courage together until we had walked all the way down to the seaport. I chattered, holding his hand then taking mine away, then grabbing his again. Finally, I stopped under a wooden mermaid. The sidewalk iridescent with scales, and stinking. Stuck my gum under a public phone. Breathed deeply, then spoke.
We’d then spent that afternoon at a seaport pub, showing my ring, which Yves had been keeping in his eyeglass case, to barflies. The windows, tall as doors, were open to the cold sun. The wooden bar gleamed from years of oily palms. Yves didn’t say “This is the beginning, love,” or “It will be good, you’ll see,” and I silently thanked him. We sat on stools, under ceiling fans, and bantered with the bartender. After a couple beers, a bottle of Freixenet was plunked down. The bartender indicated three men on the other side of the bar as he unwrapped foil. It was a sweet thing to be toasted by strangers, even with bad champagne.
* * *
—
Yves said we had to clean up my finances since being married would legally join mine with his, and he couldn’t risk being audited. When his accountant, out of alarm, I think, faxed my credit report, Yves poured a straight scotch and unbuttoned his shirt. He put on bifocals and sat at the kitchen table for a while before speaking. I flitted about in the background, waiting to be addressed.
Finally he cleared his throat, took off his glasses. “Come on in and have a seat, Lee,” he said, patting the chair next to him.
“What’s up?” I said cheerfully.
“More than anything else, I’m just interested, not upset, just interested in how you racked up these numbers.”
“Well, let’s see,” I said in my most casual, professional voice, pulling the pages to me. “Uh, that Discover card, that whole balance, was a trip to St. Barth’s, from a while ago. I got the card because I didn’t have any money. And I never paid it off, so I guess it’s been earning, uh, interest ever since.”
“And overlimit fees, late fees, and finance charges.”
“Right,” I said slowly. “All of that. But it was an awesome trip. And I really needed to get away.”
He smiled tightly at me.
“Uh, that there was totally not my fault. I had a motorcycle accident in Massachusetts, and I didn’t have any health insurance, so…whatever. They charged me for everything. The ambulance, the doctor, all that stuff they’re not supposed to charge you for.”
Abruptly, he took the document back. “I think it’s better, maybe, if I just take care of this. I think it’s better if we don’t go through all seven pages of vacations and accidents.”
“It’s up to you, babe. I can explain everything.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of, to be honest.”
* * *
—
We walked through SoHo differently, as if we belonged to each other. We went to Raoul’s, and I watched him watch me across the bar. I winked and blew a kiss. Even lying in bed, reading, a parasol of intimacy opened. We were varnished with promises like a sugar-glazed cake. These new circumstances felt tenuous, but perhaps real life was tenuous and I was just learning that I had to learn to be comfortable. All the unlikely dreams had been released, like a cage of doves.
But when I didn’t meditate hard enough, Kelly showed up in my mind and burst like a cowboy through saloon doors, his silhouette looming. The setting sun broke around his huge arms and between his legs, beams shooting from the edges of his torso. With one hand he spun his gun, broke a bottle with the other.
* * *
—
Then, one dark, cold morning, Yves and I had a mishap. I sat on the edge of the bed, glared at periwinkle and black clouds. Determined to be adult, I tried to make light of it instead of punishing him with silence. I might have said something like: “Maybe you better look into Viagra or something, honey, because we have a lot of mornings in our future.” And I might have pinched his cheek.
Later, he was straightening his cuffs as I zippered teal kitten-heeled boots up my legs, and I reminded him to give me money before he left for the day. As the cash changed hands, he smiled, kissed my cheek, and asked if I wouldn’t mind collecting my receipts from now on.
“The accountant,” Yves explained, rubbing a lint brush on his slacks. “He’s compulsive, Lee.”
* * *
—
That day, I lit a smoke at the bar as the lunch crowd thinned, nodded as people put on coats and picked teeth and left. My mouth wouldn’t smile. In the ladies’ room, I pawed though the empty gram bags in my purse until I found a plump one. Josh uncorked bottles and thrust them into ice. The street turned blue and the restaurant gold.
When Kelly appeared through the glass door, I straightened up, slipped my ring into my pocket. He wore a black ski jacket with blond fur-lined hood. I’d arranged both of our shifts so we hadn’t seen each other since he’d left my apartment, and although he’d called my phone, I never picked up.
He approached warily, hands in pockets. “What’s up, Lee.”
“Do you want to go on a field trip?”
At first he declined. But a look must have passed over my face, sad or desperate or both, because he suddenly agreed to meet the next morning.
Pearly sun and cold air passed through the glass of the train’s window. I looked at Kelly, body barely jiggling, head tipped against seat, crow’s-feet carved even in sleep. His mouth closed, hands laced in lap.
The train was almost empty. Backyards blurred through trees. Above-ground pools, tarps sagging with rainwater and orange leaves. Dogs asleep in yellow grass. A flagstone porch crowded with paper bags of bottles and cans. In strip malls, people loaded cars in slow motion; the train moved fast enough to slow down the world. Here and there, a junkyard. A big lot crammed with school buses. Cars in line waiting for us to pass, waiting for the red-and-white-striped gates to spring up. They were waiting to get on with their lives. But of course, here in suburbia, I had that old suspicion no one was doing anything important. They might as well move slowly and wait in lines because their endeavors were cheap, provincial, scattered.
“It’s my mother’s birthday,” I said when he woke up.
“How old is she?” he asked blearily.
“She’s dead,” I said, pawing through my bag for lipstick.
* * *
—
In the cab, passing horses in fields, cornflowers, Kelly patted me clumsily. His hand dwarfed my knee. He said we should stay in separate rooms.
“What?” I said, confused.
“I just think it’s a good idea.”
He put his hair in a ponytail as I watched him, and he made a show of craning to look at the landscape.
“Beautiful out here,” he said.
The house’s whitewashed brick glowed in the dark afternoon. The rosiness showed through the paint as if the house were blushing. The yard was clotted with leaves, and the air smelled of decay and sky and bur
ning wood. We’d come from a place with only industrial smells to one so heavy with fragrance: the world here took on meaning by virtue of the air’s weight.
By the door, the bush had pushed out one late rose. Kelly seemed both pleased and shy to have arrived. (Modesty had been a theme at Penn Station; I awkwardly bought his train ticket, he fetched me coffee.) Walking up the path, Kelly carried both bags, leaves crackling underfoot. We were like old-fashioned newlyweds. The way he gestured for me to enter first was tender and quiet.
I didn’t want to invade the house too quickly, so I resisted turning on lights. It was urgent we move slowly and carefully, as though someone were sleeping in the bedroom.
The house was shadowy, the air dense with days elapsed. Dead bees on windowsills. I opened windows, and shadows seemed to stir as air moved through the rooms now.
The mantelpiece was white. Above it hung an oval mirror splotched with what looked like black frost. The hollow of the hearth pungent with ash.
Propped on the mantel, leaning against the wall, was a painting I’d done when I was little. The dancer wore a tutu, a tiara that looked like cupcake icing instead of diamonds, red corsages at breast and wrist. White arms reaching to the sky. Crimson smudge of mouth.
My mom used to look at it all the time, scanning the ballerina’s face, her tutu, the electric-blue folds of stage curtain.
“I just love it,” she’d say. “I don’t know why, but I do. I just love it.”
And here was Kelly, looking at it as if he might know the ballerina from somewhere and was trying to recall her name.
* * *
—
I was sitting in an armchair, looking at the floor, when Kelly asked which room he should take. I showed him to what had been my room. The rough-hewn bed was painted yellow. A bedside bureau crudely painted white. I turned on the blue milk-glass lamp, spotlighting a dish that held an earring back, a safety pin, a cherry pit. The bed was naked.
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