How to Talk to a Widower

by Jonathan Tropper

  19

  THE PUBES IN THE WASTEBASKET HAD BEEN THE first clue.

  Hailey stood naked in her bathroom that morning, poised to step into the shower, when a ball of fur in the wastebasket caught her eye. She let out a small, startled cry, thinking it was a mouse, but even as she did, she saw that the mound of hair, resting in the basket on some discarded soap packaging, was not moving. She peered down into the wastebasket, still half asleep, trying to comprehend what she was seeing. At first she thought it was a Furby, one of those toy creatures that had been all the rage a few Christmases ago. Maybe Russ’s had broken and he’d thrown it out. She crouched down to get a better look, and only then did she see that the strange pile was actually a mound of pubic hair. More specifically, it was Jim’s pubic hair. It made for a perplexing picture, Jim standing naked over the wastebasket, shaving his pubic region. She stared at the dark, kinky mass, which, she now observed, had reddish highlights. She’d been married to Jim for almost ten years, and had never noticed that his pubic hair had red highlights. Was this a spousal failing on her part? Did other wives notice things like that? She stood back up, frowning slightly. Why was Jim, after all this time, suddenly shaving his pubic hair? The options played out before her like a standardized test.

  A. He had too much and it irritated him.

  B. He had somehow contracted crabs or lice.

  C. He wanted his penis to seem bigger.

  D. None of the above.

  She felt a knot forming in her stomach. Since she was fairly certain that A was not the correct answer—Jim was not a terribly hirsute person—and since B, C, and D all seemed to point to the same highly troubling scenario, she stepped out of the bathroom to grab her cordless and call her friend Sally.

  “Oh God!” Sally said, panting on her StairMaster.

  “What do you mean, oh God?”

  “He’s having an affair.”

  “I don’t think so,” Hailey said.

  “Is Jim small down there?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “I’ll apologize later,” Sally said. “You didn’t call me for polite conversation.”

  “No,” Hailey said, after a moment. “He’s pretty normal sized.”

  “So why does a happily married man suddenly feel the need to look bigger?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Well, either he’s doing porno, and I think we can rule that out, or he’s looking to impress someone, and, honey, he doesn’t need to impress you anymore. Oprah did this whole thing on cheating spouses, and a conspicuous change in grooming habits is definitely a red flag.”

  Hailey frowned into the phone. There was no reasoning with Sally once Oprah had been invoked. “There could be a million other reasons.”

  “That’s true,” Sally said, her voice clenched from her exertions. “But, Hailey?”

  “What?”

  Sally paused. “Nothing.”

  “What?” Hailey demanded. Over the phone she could hear the stair machine stop as Sally stepped off, breathing heavily.

  “I don’t know,” Sally said. “It’s just that he’s done it before.”

  “Oh, for Christ’s sake, that was before we were even married.”

  “I’m just saying.”

  “Well, don’t,” Hailey said hotly, her eyes filling with tears. “That was an isolated incident, an old girlfriend he hadn’t quite gotten over, and we worked through it. We’ve been married for almost ten years, and I think he deserves the benefit of the doubt.”

  “He’s probably counting on it.”

  “You are being such a bitch!” Hailey shouted at her.

  Sally sighed. “Listen, honey, if you were looking for someone to just reassure you that everything was fine, you should have called Laney, and she would have talked you down. But you called me, and you know that’s not my thing. But I’m not the person you should be calling, either. So why don’t you ask yourself why you didn’t just call Jim to ask him?”

  So Hailey had called Jim and Jim told her that he’d been suffering from some bad jock itch, and that was that. Except that he’d never mentioned it before. And Jim always complained about the slightest ailment, a hangnail, a pulled muscle, allergies. And there were no fungus creams or powders lying around their cluttered bathroom. She sat down on the toilet seat cover, the cordless clutched in her fist like a weapon, and that’s where she remained all morning, naked and shivering, staring at the brown hairs in the wastebasket for a very long time.

  All this Hailey reported to me after the first time we had sex, an event which came off much better than advertised, what with her self-consciousness about her thirty-six-year-old body and my not inconsiderable performance anxiety. I was supposed to be the young stallion, after all, fit and virile and ready to fuck her sideways into tomorrow. That was exactly the kind of pressure that could play with your head if you let it, that could lead to the “it-happens-to-everyone-sometimes/not-to-me-it-doesn’t” conversation.

  We’d been dating intensely for over a month by then, and it had already taken on a life of its own: long, confessional phone calls fading into whispers as the hour grew late, roses and flowers and cute e-mails at work, making out for hours at a time in her car before she drove home. On days that we’d be going out, Hailey drove to work instead of taking the Metro-North, ostensibly because she didn’t want to take the train so late, but the car, parked at the fire hydrant in front of my building, became the perfect venue for our extended good nights, so much more comfortable than groping at each other in my stairwell, which was poorly insulated and smelled of feet and spoiled milk. I couldn’t recall the last time I’d spent so much time just kissing someone. It always seemed to me that any kissing that didn’t advance to naked foreplay after the first ten minutes simply grew stale from lack of direction. But Hailey and I could go at it for hours, until our lips were swollen and chapped, tongues numb, jaws locked, and afterwards I’d climb back up to my apartment to ice my aching balls, with the taste of her delightfully lodged in the back of my parched throat, her scent inhaled so powerfully that it penetrated my brain behind my eyes in lavender cloudbursts. It seemed juvenile, really, a man my age barely getting to second base, but there was something undeniably exciting about it too. And while we knew that sex was inevitable, was the driving force behind the whole process, the fact that I was dating a single mother made me feel particularly responsible about introducing sex into the relationship before I knew I was committed. Also, she was a beautiful woman who’d been with the kind of men who routinely score beautiful women and, frankly, I was scared I wouldn’t measure up.

  But innate horniness will always prevail, and soon enough we ended up naked and sweaty in my bed, venting a month’s worth of pent-up desire in a wild, unprecedented session that left no sexual stone unturned. When it was finally over, we lay motionless and panting beside each other on my wrecked sheets as the sweat cooled and dried on our skin, like two wounded soldiers left behind on the battlefield. “Oh my God,” Hailey gasped softly, her eyes wide and incredulous in the dim light of my darkened bedroom.

  “Who knew?” I agreed.

  “Well, I had my suspicions,” she said, turning her head to lick the sweat off my neck. I reached over for her and she rolled easily into me, throwing her thigh over mine, her head resting on my chest. “We fit perfectly,” she said, and as I kissed her scalp, I felt the tears inexplicably come to my eyes. I knew from having been on the other end that crying after sex can send a bad message, so I closed my eyes and hoped Hailey wouldn’t look up. She seemed to know, but instead of questioning me, she pressed her lips against my chest, her fingers splayed out over the line of hair bisecting my stomach. After a minute she said, “You okay?”

  “I’m just a little more in love than I thought,” I said, surprising us both. First tears, now love. I could practically feel the testosterone evaporating through my pores.

  She nodded, and kissed my chest again in a way that made me shake. “Don’t let it freak you out.”
r />   “I won’t if you don’t.”

  She looked up at me and grinned. “After what Jim put me through, it would take a lot to freak me out.”

  “You want to tell me about it?”

  She slid up to rest her head in the crook of my neck. “Our story begins with the pubes in the wastebasket,” she intoned softly, like Alistair Cooke.

  “As such stories so often do,” I said, and she shoved me playfully, and we both laughed. And it was good.

  20

  WHEN DOGS MEET, THEY SNIFF EACH OTHER’S ASSES. When women meet, they check each other out to determine who is prettier. When men meet, the paramount question is who would kick whose ass in a fight, and when Jim came by to check me out shortly after I moved in with Hailey, that wasn’t really an issue up for debate. Jim was big, the kind of big that made me feel small and off balance. Somehow, in describing him, Hailey had failed to mention the sheer bulk of him, the superhero chin, the thick, corded neck of a Greco-Roman wrestler, the imposing, bearish frame, and large sausage fingers that closed over mine like a clamp when we shook hands. Thick raised veins snaked up his forearm like rural back roads on a map, all converging on the Wal-Mart of his bulging bicep. My first instinct was to match might with might, but to do that you have to actually have some might of your own, so instead I let my hand fall limp, taking the high road, refusing to be engaged in Jim’s macho bullshit, but then I thought I might be coming off like a wuss, so I tried to consolidate my hand in such a way that, while not squeezing back, it would still feel solid and unyielding to Jim’s force. Basically, I fucked up the handshake. It would never be mentioned, but I knew it, and Jim knew it, and that was all that mattered. I would soon learn that the unsaid things were all that mattered in dealing with your wife’s ex-husband.

  “How are you doing?” Jim said, nodding smugly as he looked me up and down, mostly down. I can wipe the floor with you, you little prick.

  “Pretty good,” I said. You might have won the handshake, but I’m sleeping with your ex-wife. Do the math, big guy.

  “So, you all moved in?” To my goddamn house?

  “Pretty much.” You snooze, you lose.

  “Well, maybe now you can fix it up a little.” You look like you wouldn’t know a power tool if I shoved one up your scrawny ass.

  “I’m not really the handy type.” Maybe if you paid your child support every once in a while, Hailey would be able to afford some basic repairs. Fucking deadbeat.

  “Must be some adjustment, having to live with a kid like this.” My kid, motherfucker. So you just watch yourself.

  “Oh, I don’t mind.” A small price to pay for sleeping with your ex-wife. Did I mention that I’m sleeping with your ex-wife? I am. Frequently. Repeatedly. Constantly. Everything else is just what I do when I’m not having sex with her.

  “He’s a great kid.” Stay the fuck away from him.

  “I know.” No thanks to you, you pube-shaving freak.

  “So, I hear you’re a writer?” Fag. “What sorts of stuff?”

  “Magazine writing, mostly.” Like you even read.

  “Oh.” Broke fag.

  We stared across the gulf at each other, smiling like macho idiots. If we had antlers they’d be locked; if we were in high school, he would be tripping me in the cafeteria and stepping on my head.

  Two long-haired girls in tight, low-riding jeans and bared midriffs walk past us, and Jim momentarily cranes his neck to watch them from behind as they walk toward the back of the bar. The place is crowded, but Jim has managed to snag a table off to one side, taking the seat up against the wall so that he can watch the passing parade of ass while we talk. I’d offered on the phone to come see him in his office, but he was already finished for the day, and told me to meet him here at Clover, which I’m sensing now is a regular after-work hangout of his. I don’t know if he thought it would make for a friendlier meeting, or he just likes to look at the college girls who seem to make up about eighty percent of the bar’s clientele, but I figured a little lubrication could only help, which is why I got here early and laid down a primary coat of two Jack and Cokes at the bar before he showed up. And now here I am, floating on my minor buzz and sharing a pitcher with Jim, who ogles the girls while drumming his fingers on the table to Gwen Stefani on the jukebox. I haven’t seen Jim in some time, and I’m at that early, sharp stage of drunkenness, where all of your senses are heightened and you see everything in high definition, so I find myself doing a quick visual reconnaissance. He’s dressed in khakis and a short-sleeve polo shirt that strains equally against his large biceps and his impressive gut, which kind of cancel each other out. His hair, once dark and thick, is starting to gray on the sides and show more forehead, and the flesh under his eyes is gray and puckered like an orange peel. His once ruddy complexion has become soft and doughy, the incipient jowls just beginning to soften his square, superhero jaw. Still, he manages to look healthy and handsome, like a retired football player just beginning to go to pot.

  Jim looks away from the girls and sizes me up thoughtfully, a salesman mentally choosing the right pitch. “You and I have never really hit it off,” he says.

  “I guess not.”

  “And if you think about it, there was really only one reason for that.”

  Because you’re a colossal asshole? “How do you figure?”

  Jim nods and takes a sip of his beer. “Hailey,” he says. “It was a sticky situation. She was your wife and my ex. I don’t doubt that she gave you an earful about me, and you would have been biased before you ever met me.”

  “If it makes you feel any better,” I say, “I probably wouldn’t have liked you very much anyway.”

  Jim studies my face, trying to calibrate his own level of antagonism against mine, and then chuckles lightly. “Nice.” Little shit.

  This is what inevitably happens when Jim and I are forced to approximate cordiality. Jim hates me because he takes it personally that Hailey loved me, even though that happened after they were through, and I take it personally that Jim cheated on Hailey, even though it happened long before I was in the picture. The chronology should nullify or at least temper our instinctive hostility, but we have penises, Jim and I, and so rationality is not really an option. These are the roles we’ve been assigned, and it’s not clear why we’re powerless to change this dynamic, but what is clear is that Jim is dying to hit me. In a perfect world, Jim would stand up, hurl the table between us out of the way, and reach for my throat. He is bigger and stronger than me, and has no doubt been in more fights, but I’m fearless and quick as greased lightning, and I’ll dodge his clumsy swings, will dart in and out, sticking the jab repeatedly as the crowd gathers, will bloody him slowly, with great precision, until his eyes start to close and his gums drip with blood, until he’s dazed to the point that I can step in, arms up, shoulders rolling in a natural boxer’s rhythm, to land the uppercut that will lay him out for good. Then I’ll apologize to the pretty bartender, who will look at me with newfound respect and hand me a towel filled with ice, and I’ll sit on the stool, calmly icing my bloody knuckles while they prop Jim up and slap his face until he regains consciousness. “How many fingers am I holding up?” the off-duty paramedic will ask him. “Thursday,” Jim will say, his eyes rolling up into his head. But this is not a perfect world, and if you need any further proof you’ll find exhibits A and B conveniently located right here at this sticky table varnished with generations of spilt beer, so Jim and I are forced to internalize our natural antagonism, to sit on our hands while the juggernaut of our aggression spins furiously inside of us, stirring things up that have nowhere to go.

  “Russ sleep at your place last night?” he says resignedly.

  “Yeah.”

  “I figured as much.” He downs a shot of whiskey and chases it with some beer. “I could dead-bolt that kid into his room, and he’d still find a way to get out of the house.” He seems more amused than sad about this fact, so I just keep quiet. “He tell you about Boca?”


  “He mentioned it,” I say, sipping at my beer.

  “He’s not too happy about it.”

  “No, he’s not.”

  Jim nods his head somberly. “Angie’s brother’s got a hurricane shutter business down there. After what happened in New Orleans, they can’t expand fast enough.”

  “What do you know about hurricane shutters?”

  He shrugs. “How hard can it be?”

  He’s probably right. Jim is used to making his living off the misfortune of others. He’s an ambulance chaser, a bottom-feeder whose legal practice consists primarily of processing personal injury claims for Radford’s large immigrant population. He has carved out a niche for himself over the years by passing his cards to the multitude of day laborers that enter New Radford each day: nannies, cleaning ladies, landscapers, and contractors. He has contacts in all the local emergency rooms, and will usually show up with Lucia, his on-call translator, while the patients are still in triage. He works on contingency, settles with the insurance companies, and on those rare occasions that the case seems headed for court, he dishes to more qualified lawyers for a percentage. Jim doesn’t do court. In the ecosystem of the legal community, Jim Klein is pond scum. Cashing in on potential misfortune instead of actual misfortune will actually be a step up for him.

  “I think it will be pretty hard for Russ,” I say.

  “Frankly, I think in the long run it will be good for him.”

  A pretty girl in short shorts and a tank top, with great legs and impossibly luminous skin, smiles apologetically as she squeezes past our table and we both turn to watch her move away from us. Then Jim turns back to me, catches me looking, winks, and says, “Man, you could eat that ass with a spoon.” But I will not let him draw me into any ass-banter. Okay, I looked too, I’ll admit it, and yes, she did have an exceptional ass, truly first-rate, but unlike Jim, I’m not married and I’m actually within the outer limits of the girl’s age range, which means I’m supposed to notice her, but if I respond to Jim, who is actually licking his lips, I’ll be a dirty old man by association, so instead I say, “You think, after all the change Russ has been through this past year, that moving him to a new town, a new school, away from everyone he’s ever known, will be good for him?”