How to Talk to a Widower

by Jonathan Tropper

  Still, Laney has those ridiculously sexy lips, like two tapered pillows glossed to a slick sheen, and since I’m not going to sleep with her, I don’t see the harm in letting the corner of my mouth accidentally graze them as I kiss her cheek. “Thanks for everything, Laney.”

  “I’m always here, Doug, for anything you need,” she says meaningfully, looking into my eyes before she goes. “You know that, right?”

  “I do.”

  Her smile is a naked confirmation that something is happening between us, that it’s there for the taking. And I feel the smallest pang of regret as I watch her get into her car, can still feel the soft fullness of those lips on mine. I don’t know why she’s offering herself up to this possibility, could be that her marriage is lousy, could be that she’s lonely, or bored, or that Dave is as dull in bed as he is out of it, but whatever the reason, I think the wisest course is to maintain the status quo. Because, ultimately, I would just have to break it off and she’d feel used and I’d feel bad, and while I don’t know exactly how it would all play out, I’m pretty sure it would mean the end of Tuesday nights with Laney Potter. And in the final analysis, I think I would miss her meatloaf more than anything else.

  Still, I’m bummed when she’s gone. I want to touch someone, to kiss and lick and suck on them and hear them writhe and surge beneath me. I want to taste the tart sweetness of a woman’s mouth, want to be naked and sweating and tangled up in the hot wetness of Laney Potter’s heaving thighs.

  “I’m horny,” I complain to Claire over the phone. We talk every day.

  “And you feel guilty about it.”

  “I guess.”

  “Don’t.”

  “Okay. I’m glad we had this talk.”

  “I’m serious, Doug. It’s perfectly natural. Everybody fucks.”

  “It seems kind of soon.”

  “To get married, maybe. To date, possibly. But to get laid? That’s purely physiological. It’s no different than taking a dump.”

  “Somehow, I’ve never connected the two.”

  “It’s exactly the same thing. Something building up inside of you that needs release.”

  “It just doesn’t seem right.”

  “Get over yourself, little brother. If some horny hausfrau is willing to make booty calls, then pick up the damn phone and get busy. You spent the better part of your life wishing you had a number to call for something like that. Well, now you do.”

  “It can’t end well.”

  “It hasn’t even started and you’re already worried about the ending,” Claire says exasperatedly. “Look at it this way. The first few times you have sex, it’s going to suck. You’re like a born-again virgin, carrying all this emotional baggage. You’ll have trouble keeping it up, or you’ll come too soon, or not at all, and you’ll get all depressed afterwards. So you might as well get all that shit over with now, so that it’s out of your system by the time you meet someone real.”

  “Thanks for the confidence booster.”

  Claire laughs. “It’s what I do.”

  I sigh. “She’s a married woman.”

  Claire sighs right back at me, mimicking my resigned tone. “You live in New Radford, little brother. That’s pretty much the only kind you’ll find there.”

  Claire is my twin sister and the voice inside my head, whether I like it or not. She was the first person I called when Hailey died. Well, that’s not exactly true. I called my mother first, sort of. It was the middle of the night and the airline had just called to tell me about the crash, and I didn’t even remember dialing the phone.

  “Hello?” my mother said, her voice still thick and syrupy with slumber. “Hello?” I could hear the darkness in her bedroom, the heavy silence I had just shattered. “Who is this?”

  I couldn’t speak. To speak would be to grant entry to the angry mob of my reality now protesting at my embassy gates. “Hello?” she said one more time, and then she said, “Creep,” and hung up on me.

  Hailey was dead and my mother thought I was a creep. It’s the little things you know you’ll always remember.

  Somewhere, in a field or a forest, the wreckage was still smoking, with luggage and body parts and charred, twisted sections of fuselage scattered all around. And somewhere, in the midst of that carnage, lay my Hailey, the same woman I had kissed good-bye only a few hours ago, the same cascading mane of blond hair, the same long legs she used to wrap around me, the same wide, knowing eyes, button nose, and thin sensuous lips I could never get enough of, they were all there, in some random place, as inanimate as the crushed and burned debris all around her. It just didn’t seem possible. I understood it to be true, but I wasn’t getting it.

  The guy in the mirror looked like he might be getting it; his face was pale and drawn, and there was something pulsating behind his eyes, some glimmer of horror that had not yet radiated out to twist his expression. But I felt nothing. I ran a quick test on the guy in the mirror. I smiled at him. He flashed back the lopsided smile of the mentally deranged. Then I made us look horrified, and then sad, like I was practicing for some Method acting class, where a bunch of skinny dweebs sit around applauding each other’s exaggerated expressions while some never-been Gloria Swanson type offers meaningless critiques between puffs on her cigarillo. Hailey was dead, and I was fucking around in the mirror. I’d always felt unworthy of her love, and if I ever needed validation of my unworthiness there it was, staring me right in the face.

  “Hailey is dead,” I said aloud, my voice filling the room like an audible fart at a dinner party. Normal people reacted violently to calls like this, didn’t they? They screamed anguished denials and fell to the floor sobbing, or pounded the wall in a blood-red haze until they could no longer tell if the cracking sounds were coming from the dented wall or their broken fists. But all I could do was stand beside the bed, rubbing my neck and wondering what the hell to do. I supposed I was in shock, and that was, at least, a little bit comforting, because Hailey didn’t deserve this pathetic excuse for a reaction.

  My first instinct was to call someone. My first instinct was to call Hailey. I dialed her cell phone, not sure what I was hoping for. Her voice mail picked up instantly. Hi, this is Hailey. Please leave me a message and I’ll call you back as soon as I can. Thanks, bye. She’d recorded the outgoing message in the kitchen one night, and in the background, faintly, I could hear Russ and me laughing at the television. I heard the message so many times over the last few years that I had long ago stopped actually hearing it. But now I heard her calm, confident voice, her distracted tone as she hurriedly recorded the message, the faded background noise of her family laughing. She couldn’t be gone. She was right there on the phone, sounding every bit like herself. The dead didn’t have voice mail. The phone beeped and I realized that it was now recording me. “Hey, babe,” I said stupidly, but I couldn’t get any more words out, so I hung up.

  A terrible, selfish thought entered my mind unbidden, and then another and soon they were coming in droves, one after another, like when you hold the door for one old lady, and fifteen more people decide to walk through and you get stuck there on door duty when all you meant to do was accommodate one old lady.

  How I will handle this?

  Where will I live?

  Will anyone ever love me again?

  I pictured Hailey naked, coming through the bathroom doorway, smiling lustily at me as she walked over to the bed. Would there ever be another naked woman smiling at me like that? And even right then, at that terrible moment, I knew there would be other naked women, and I felt ashamed for knowing it. But still, would any of them look at me like she used to?

  Also—and this was the worst one, not for the weak stomachs—I felt an undeniable twinge of relief at the knowledge that she would never have the chance to fall out of love with me, that she would love me forever. I felt like a bigger asshole than I’d ever been, and that was saying something.

  Hailey is dead. I tried to comprehend it. She’s not coming back. I will never
see her again. None of it meant anything to me. They were just words, nothing more than unproven hypotheses. What was I supposed to do now? Hailey is dead. Hailey is dead. Hailey is dead. It seemed important that I grasp this concept in its entirety, so that I could function, do whatever needed to be done.

  What needed to be done? I had no fucking idea, but I was highly aware of Russ, in his room down the hall. He was sleeping now, but he would wake up to a nightmare and never sleep the same again. He would never breathe, smile, eat, cry, think, cough, walk, blink, piss, or laugh the same way again, and he didn’t even know it, and that seemed particularly cruel and unfair. I already suspected that I would have a harder time facing his grief than my own. I wanted to leave before he stirred, run away and never have to see his eyes fill with the horrible knowledge of his changed life.

  What needed to be done?

  Keep moving. Call someone. Someone would know what to do.

  I picked up the phone again.

  “Hello,” grunted Stephen, Claire’s husband.

  “Can I talk to Claire?”

  “Doug?” he said drowsily. “Christ! Do you know what time it is?”

  “It’s one forty-three. I need to talk to Claire.”

  “She’s sleeping,” he said firmly. Stephen had never liked me all that much. I’d made an impassioned plea to Claire not to marry him, spontaneously articulating a long, detailed list of all the reasons why he was wrong for her, and he’d taken offense, particularly because I had the admittedly bad sense to incorporate this diatribe into my toast at their wedding reception. In my defense, I was young and there was an open bar.

  “It can’t wait.”

  “Is everything okay?”

  Hailey is dead. “I just need Claire.”

  There was a brief, muffled rustling and then Claire came on the phone, sounding all hoarse and confused. “Doug, what the fuck?” Claire’s potty mouth was always legendary, and even now, married to one of the wealthiest scions in Connecticut, she clung to it like a precious keepsake from her childhood.

  “Hailey’s plane went down. She’s dead.” Finally, I’d said it, and something cold and hard clicked into place.

  “What?”

  “Hailey’s dead. Her plane crashed.”

  “Oh, Jesus. Are you sure?”

  “Yeah. The airline called.”

  “They know for a fact she was on the plane?”

  “She was on it.”

  “Oh, shit,” she said, starting to cry, and I wanted to tell her not to, but I still hadn’t cried and I figured somebody should, so Claire cried for me and I listened to her do it.

  “I’m coming over,” she said.

  “It’s okay. You don’t have to.”

  “Shut the fuck up. I’ll be there in an hour.”

  “Okay.”

  “Should I call Mom and Dad?”

  “No.”

  “Stupid-assed question. Sorry.” Her breathing grew more labored over the phone as she moved around her room throwing on clothes, telling Stephen to just shut the fuck up. “Where’s Russ?”

  “Sleeping,” I said. “Claire.”

  “Yeah.”

  “I don’t know what to do.”

  “Just breathe. In and out. In and out.”

  “I’m thinking some pretty sick shit.”

  “You’re in shock. Okay, I’m in my car.”

  Moments later, there was a loud, protracted crashing sound.

  “Motherfucker!”

  “What was that?”

  “I just backed through the garage door.”

  “Jesus. You okay?”

  “I’m fine,” she said. “The whole damn door came down. I’ll just drive over it.”

  “Drive carefully.”

  “Whatever. Listen—” But she forgot that she was on her cordless and not her cell phone, and as soon as she turned out of her driveway she was out of range and the line went dead.

  7

  THURSDAY AFTERNOON. LANEY’S ENDLESS HUG. SHE generally comes only on Tuesdays, but she tells me she was in the neighborhood.

  “You live in the neighborhood,” I point out stupidly.

  “Exactly,” she says, blushing, and it’s two p.m. and I’ve already put away a few preliminary shots of Jack Daniel’s, and she’s wearing this tight sleeveless blouse and her cleavage is like a warm, inviting smile so I’m not going to quibble. Her breath is hot on my ear, her fingers spread out like a web across the back of my neck, burrowing into my hair, and my face is pressed against the lightly freckled skin of her shoulder. Something’s happened with our legs, some trick of positioning, and they’ve become intertwined even as we stand there, so that I can feel the heat from her crotch through my jeans, and I’m sure she can feel the incipient commotion in my pants as well.

  This is wrong, I think.

  There is no God, I think.

  Hailey, I think.

  And then, There is no Hailey.

  And that’s when I pull back and kiss Laney smack-dab on those plump, berry-colored lips, grabbing fistfuls of her red hair just behind her neck, and her mouth has anticipated me, is already open, her tongue snaking easily over mine and through my teeth. The kiss goes on forever. It’s many kisses, actually, packaged together like cereal at the price club, a continuous stream of clashing tongues and crushing lips, because if we stop there will be time to think, and no good will come from thinking. No good will come from screwing Laney, either, I know, but when did that ever stop anyone? After Tuesday’s close call, Laney came dressed for the kill today, skin tight and low cut in a short skirt, her long Coppertone legs waxed and buffed to a low sheen, and she had me at “Hello.”

  Hands start flying furiously, like Hong Kong choreography, pressing, cupping, stroking, and squeezing at targets under our clothing. Her fingertips run swiftly up and down my back, sliding under my T-shirt to tear at my skin, and mine slide up under her skirt to clutch at the curve of her naked ass. Doesn’t anyone wear underwear anymore? Because I do and, frankly, it’s about to become a problem. But she unfastens my belt buckle one-handed, her fingers encircling me tightly as my pants and boxers fall around my knees. She tries to mount me right there, backing me up against the fridge, fruit-shaped magnets and outdated calendars falling at our feet. But when has that ever really worked? Laney is my height in her heels, and we just can’t find the right angle. I see her eyes dart over to the kitchen table, but I have to eat off that table. The truth is that while I like sex as much as the next guy who hasn’t gotten laid in a year, I’ve learned that, contrary to what you see in the movies, floors bruise and rugs burn, and there’s just no substitute for a good bed. Going up to my and Hailey’s bedroom is out of the question, so I take Laney down to the guest room off the basement, where she shimmies out of her clothing and spreads her long, toned body invitingly across the comforter, gazing doe-eyed at me, her mouth open like a nested chick waiting for its mother’s beak. “Hurry,” she says, her voice thick with sex as I get momentarily stuck in my T-shirt. It’s the only word either of us will say for the duration.

  And it’s beyond strange, to be kissing these lips that aren’t Hailey’s, to be tracing the alien landscape of these unfamiliar breasts, first with my fingers and then my tongue, to be hearing someone else’s most private sounds, to be adjusting to the innate rhythm of someone else’s rocking hips. I don’t know what she likes, and I have no reason to look into her eyes, which must be why I’m avoiding them. Laney is voluptuous, and I mean that in a good way, not the way people will sometimes use it as a euphemism. But still, she’s bigger than Hailey in every way, and at first there’s something intimidating about her melon-sized breasts, her broad, powerful shoulders, her wider hips. When, after a while, she rolls over to straddle me, I actually experience a passing instant of claustrophobic panic as she lowers her body onto mine. But regardless of the peripherals, the hardware remains the same, and as soon as I slide into her, everything clicks into place. She keeps her open mouth locked on mine the whole time, her to
ngue darting in and out continuously as she moans to the beat of our rocking bodies, biting down on my lower lip so hard that I can briefly taste my own blood before she licks it away.

  And I try not to think of Hailey, I really do, I try to lose myself in the unmitigated exuberance of Laney’s undulations, in how alive and uncomplicated she is in her lust, but even as she cries out loudly, I find myself floating above us, dispassionately observing it all, and trust me, the last thing you want to do is watch yourself having sex. I don’t care how attractive you are, you’ll still feel like an idiot when you see that stupid expression on your face, eyelids at half-mast, jaw set determinedly, urgently humping away like the fate of the civilized world hangs in the balance. Women close their eyes during sex, not to picture Brad Pitt, but just because they don’t want to see your stupid-looking mug. The Brad Pitt thing is just a bonus.

  When I was sixteen, Claire decided that my virginity was holding me back, so she convinced her friend Nora Barton to sleep with me. Nora was skinny and flat-chested, but willing to do me for “shits and giggles,” which made her a perfect ten in my book. We did it in my bedroom, while she was supposedly sleeping over to study with Claire, and for the entire time, all six or seven minutes of it, I remember thinking, So this is sex, I’m having sex, over and over again, and wishing that I could stop thinking for just one minute and lose myself in the sensation of it all. And then it was over, and Nora tiptoed back to Claire’s room so they could laugh themselves to sleep talking about me, and a half hour later I was sitting in bed mournfully handling my resurgent erection, wondering why I hadn’t felt anything.