The Not-So-Perfect Man

by Valerie Frankel

  He said, “You look good,” smiling at her.

  She said, “Come in.”

  Sam stepped into the apartment. He grabbed Frieda and started kissing her, pulling her close. At this point in their reunion ritual, the physical contact would make her swoon and melt against him. Wordlessly, they’d head for the bedroom. In short order, any confusion about Sam would be replaced by magic, passion, a certainty that he was hers, that she would endure any test to spend one more hour with him. But tonight, with his arms around her and his lips on her neck, she was too mad to let herself go.

  He could feel it. She was stiff as a plank. “I’m sorry I’m late. I got a call from an agent. A real agent, unlike the loser I have now.”

  “In California?” she asked.

  He paused. “In New York.”

  “On a Sunday night.”

  “You think I’m lying?” he asked.

  “My relationship with you is defined by waiting,” she snapped.

  He backed off. Dropped her out of his arms like a load of dirty laundry. “I’m not going to rush an ICM agent off the phone,” he said.

  “You missed Justin,” she said.

  “I can spend the day with him tomorrow.”

  “He has camp tomorrow,” she said, exasperated.

  Silence. Big, glacial Maine-sized silence. All the while, Sam stared at Frieda questioningly. She sighed with disgust. Gritted her teeth. She could not take the black hole of silence. She had to fill it, or be sucked in by it.

  “You have never bought me a present,” she said.

  He squinted at her. “What are you talking about?”

  “I don’t think you understand what it means to be in a committed relationship.”

  Sam resisted the challenge, and walked past her into the kitchen. She followed. He poured himself a glass of water from the sink and sat down at the table. She sat down, too, the chair farthest away from him. He drank. Put the glass down on the table. Picked it up. Drank. Put it down. Action to bide time during one of his Catholic New England lapses of mental synaptical spark. A Jewish guy from New York would have blurted out ten different defenses by now, told her he loved her twenty times, run out and come back with flowers, dropped to one knee to beg for forgiveness and understanding. But not Sam. He had to think. Frieda simmered in wait, every passing second bringing her closer to boiling.

  Finally, he said, “I know what commitment means.”

  She waited an ice age for that? “Everything about our relationship is on your terms,” she said. “When we see each other. When we talk. You’re just living your life, and seeing me when I fit into your schedule. How can I believe that what we have is real? That we have more than sex? You have to do more for me. If you can’t, or won’t, why should I bother?”

  The expression on his face was heartbreaking. She wondered if anyone he cared about had ever spoken to him with such animosity. The opposite of kindness and affection, the two things they’d promised always to give each other.

  He took a while to respond, of course. Then he said, “I don’t do enough for you? I put my hands all over your body. I worship you. I clean your apartment, I play with Justin, I listen to every word you say.”

  “You like doing those things,” she said.

  “You want me to do things I don’t like?”

  Now she was confused. “Of course not.”

  Sam pushed his chair back. It scraped on the floor. He folded his arms across his chest defensively. “Why do you think I stop loving you when I’m out of town?” he asked. “Why does your insecurity throw my commitment into question?”

  She said, “I don’t feel it. You say the words, but they don’t sound sincere. Like you’re just saying your lines.”

  “Our relationship is not a performance,” he said.

  “You just aren’t convincing,” she said.

  “What about you?” he asked. “All you send my way is doubt. You’ve got it twisted around, Frieda. I’m committed to you. You’re the one who’s holding back. And now I know why.”

  “What do you—”

  “You’ve been holding back since the very beginning,” he said. “Do you realize that the first thing you asked when I walked in here is why I don’t buy you gifts?” he said. “I don’t like being broke. I hate it. I want to make money, to stop having to travel so much. I’m working as hard as I can for all that. But you don’t care about what I’m trying to do. You only complain about what I don’t do.”

  He was getting angry, defensive. But then she thought about it: Had she ever asked him about his work? Or had she only resented his job because it took him away from her?

  She tried to sound supportive. “I want you to make it.”

  “You want a man who’s already made it,” said Sam. “Someone who can buy you gifts and stay in New York. A man who’ll run when you snap your fingers. Someone you can corral or contain.”

  “That’s an overstatement,” she said. “I don’t want to put you or anyone in a box.”

  “I imagine you don’t,” he said. “You’ve already buried your husband in one.”

  Frieda’s jaw dropped. Had she heard correctly?

  “Get out,” she said, tears forming.

  He softened instantly, and came toward her. “That was awful. I shouldn’t have said that. I didn’t even think it, but the words came out. I’m sorry, Frieda,” he said.

  She’d wanted him to speak without thinking. Look what it got her. She said, “You should go.”

  “Do you really want me to leave?” he asked.

  Frieda was too rattled to answer. Her emotions were a tumble. He’d said it clearly: He felt like she was trying to trap him, which would be the equivalent of death. Obviously, Sam was intimidated by the demands of a single widowed mother. He wasn’t up for it. He was too young, inexperienced. Ilene had been right all along.

  Resolved, Frieda led Sam back into the living room. As they walked, he said, “You worry that all we have is sex. I don’t believe that. You know it’s more. I grab you upon sight because sex with you is the greatest thing I’ve ever known. And I want the greatest thing ever as often as possible. I know you do, too. You can’t want to give that up.”

  He was scrambling. His eyes were scanning her face, searching in a panic for the softening he was used to. Frieda showed him nothing. In his uncertainty, she felt a surge of power. She was older, wiser, and she suddenly had the perspective to see what she needed for herself and Justin.

  Sam stood in the doorway. For once, he was waiting for her to speak.

  She said, “You’re right.”

  “I am?”

  “I have been holding back since the beginning.” She hadn’t wanted to see the end, from the beginning or at any point along the way, but here it was. “I can’t see us going forward.”

  His eyes turned from brown to black. “That’s it?” he said.

  She nodded.

  “I wish I’d been wrong,” he said before kissing her on the forehead and leaving. She quietly squeezed the door shut.

  Three Months Later

  Chapter 31

  Thursday, September 11

  11:45 P.M.

  “This is it,” said David Isen as he ushered Frieda into his apartment. They were returning to his place on their first official date-date. It had started in a cozy booth at Le Bernardin. Then orchestra seats at The Producers. And finally, the back seat of a taxi to his place. David paid for everything, had planned it all, and arrived at the restaurant with flowers. That was six hours ago. The roses (red) had long since lost their perk. Frieda had lost hers, too. She was sleepy from the wine at dinner and tired of carrying around two dozen roses all night (she had to cram the bouquet under her theater seat). Frieda wanted to go home. But David insisted she come up for one last drink.

  “These need water immediately, if not sooner,” she said.

  He pointed toward the back. “Kitchen, that way.”

  She wandered through the loftlike living room, with its wheat-col
ored couch, soft wool carpeting, glass coffee table, low-hung and acceptably framed abstracts on the sand-colored walls. His bookshelves were well stocked. She walked down a long hallway past a cavernous home office crammed with computer equipment. The bedroom was to the left.

  She finally found the kitchen. The table-for-six, eat-in room had enough counter space to fillet an antelope. And cabinets! It took her a full five minutes of opening and closing doors to find a vase that could handle long stems. The vase itself was crystal, the prisms of light making tiny rainbows. A wedding gift, she figured.

  David’s West Village apartment was bigger than her brownstone floor-through, she estimated. Had to cost a fortune. He appeared in the doorway of the kitchen, smiling as the sounds of Ella Fitzgerald floated down the hall.

  Frieda filled the vase with water and said, “Nice place you got here.”

  “It was a rush purchase. I bought it not long after Georgia and I split up,” he said. “I like it, but I’m not married to it. I’d move. Out of borough. I’m not a Manhattan snob.”

  She took that in. As usual, he was pushing. She’d held him off for a few months, since the breakup with Sam. She had to get over that before she could consider dating again, she’d said. They continued to see each other a few times a week as friends. David took her out to restaurants. He had a sophisticated palate and Frieda enjoyed dining with him. He always ordered wine. Never Scotch. And he never got drunk. She didn’t think they’d ever killed a whole bottle between them. After dinner, he would put her in a taxi and accept a chaste kiss on the cheek. He’d say, “If you want to use me to get over Sam, I’m available.”

  That job was slow going. She lost hours of sleep thinking about Sam, things they’d done, things she’d said. She almost called him a million times. Within days of the breakup, she’d reconsidered everything she’d thought. Had her reservations been real or imagined? How could she turn her back on the greatest passion she’d ever known? Had she Learned Nothing from Gregg’s Death? Certifiable bliss was to be clung to at all costs, even if what came with it wasn’t the perfect fit.

  Ilene, meanwhile, told Frieda that passion didn’t last. It was scientific fact. “Once the lust goes, you’re left with a guy who disappears for weeks at a time and has no money,” said Ilene.

  Frieda countered with, “But it was love at first sight. You of all people should understand.”

  Ilene said cryptically, “Love at first sight may not mean love everlasting.”

  That day, Frieda had received a direct-mail package from Sam’s theater company. He’d put her name and address on the mailing list when they’d first hooked up, nearly a year ago. No Sudden Movements Players were returning “triumphantly!” to City Center in October to present a fully staged revival of Guys and Dolls. On the cover of the brochure was a picture of Sam, smirking in Damon Runyon regalia: wide-brimmed hat, sharkskin suit with wide lapels. The picture was fetching. He looked funny and handsome and happy, and she wished she were still in a relationship with a man whose face was on the cover of a vivid four-color direct-mail package.

  Inside, she read that he was starring as Nathan Detroit. An asterisk next to his name. She read the footnote at the bottom: Sam Hill was represented by International Creative Management. Well, he’d gotten a good agent. Frieda was happy for him. His improved status only meant that he’d have to travel more, she figured. And what if he became a big success? Why would he want to have anything to do with her? Her destiny had been set when she’d become a mother, become a widow. His life was just unfolding. Frieda realized that letting him go, however much she’d been regretting it, was the right thing for him. She folded the brochure into smaller and smaller squares, and then threw it away. She picked up the phone and called David. She agreed to go on a real date with him, and she would possibly sleep with him, since she was very vulnerable right now.

  David had jumped at the chance, and wanted to take her out tonight. God, he was easy. Frieda put on a new dress from Banana Republic and took the subway to Le Bernardin (no clue how he’d gotten a reservation on such short notice). The roses. The Producers (no clue how he’d gotten tickets on such short notice).

  Arranging the roses, she looked across the kitchen counter at David. “Justin seemed to like it that I was going to see you tonight,” she said. Actually, he’d been whiny about her leaving.

  “You’re great with Stephanie,” he said. “I didn’t mention this at dinner, but Georgia has been offered a job at a consulting firm in New York. Something she set up at the Javits convention in June. If all the pieces fall where they’re supposed to, Stephanie might be back in New York in a couple of weeks.”

  “How will you get her into a school?” asked Frieda, all too aware of the competition to secure coveted slots in New York’s private schools.

  David said, “I’m good with short notice.”

  “I noticed,” said Frieda.

  “In theory,” he said, “if we got married, she could go to Justin’s school on their sibling policy.”

  “Theoretically,” said Frieda. “Wouldn’t that be a story in New York magazine, the lengths people go to for a spot in a private school?”

  “Or we could get married for real,” he said. David came toward her. She braced herself. He was going to kiss her now. She’d already decided to have sex with him. It’d been a while for Frieda, over four months since the last time she and Sam were together. Frieda didn’t expect to feel the same explosive chemistry with David. But how bad could it be? He had an excellent body. As soon as they got down to business, she’d forget about her nerves and think only of nerve endings. Maybe she’d forget about Sam.

  David was one step away. She turned toward him. He reached out. And took her hands. He held them in his own. Kissed her knuckles. Little pecks. He said, “We could make a family, the four of us. The kids get along so well.”

  This was not the time to talk about family or the kids or private school. Or marriage. Frieda said, “You haven’t shown me the bedroom yet.”

  “We need to talk for another minute,” he said.

  “Enough talking, David,” said Frieda. “We talk and talk and talk. I’m ready to stop talking.”

  He said, “I’m nervous.”

  She flashed back to the first date with Sam. No dinner, no expensive wine, no show, hardly any conversation. Just Scotch in his dumpy apartment. It’d taken him mere minutes to get her naked. He had much more confidence than David.

  He searched her face. He wanted to know that it was okay to be nervous. That it would go well. Frieda said, “It’s okay to be nervous, David. It will go well.”

  “I want it to,” he said.

  “Why wouldn’t it?” she asked impatiently. He continued to clutch her hands. They were getting slippery. Fatigue was settling into her shoulders. If he didn’t act like a man and make a move in the next three minutes, she was out of there.

  He said, “I haven’t been with anyone since Georgia left.”

  She’d said the same thing to Sam about his being her first since Gregg. Sam had been patient. Frieda found David’s need for reassurance tiresome, a turnoff. Sam hadn’t been turned off by her insecurity.

  Frieda said, “It’s just sex, David.” Sex had been her sun and moon with Sam.

  David smiled. “You’re right. We have so much more than sex.”

  She said, “Maybe we have sex, too.”

  He led her to the bedroom. Besides the tasteful platform bed and black chenille coverlet, the room was sparsely decorated with a night table, swan-necked chrome lamp, and built-in bookshelves. David excused himself to the bathroom. She half expected him to emerge in something a little more comfortable.

  While he was gone, she scanned the bookshelves. No novels in sight. He came out of the bathroom exactly as he’d gone in, except she could smell the Listerine on his breath from across the room.

  She said, “What’s with the war books?”

  He said, “They fascinate me.”

  “What do you get ou
t of them?” she asked.

  “Stories. A history of the world,” he said. “History really does repeat itself.”

  She nodded. He sat on the edge of the bed and she joined him. He kissed her on the lips, and it was okay.

  She sat up to take off her shirt. Once it was over her head, she turned to check David’s reaction. She looked hard at his eager face. After just a second, his features started to blur. An overlay rest upon them and Frieda realized with a jolt: David was Not Sam. He would always be Not Sam.

  David pulled her down and rolled on top of her to begin his groping in earnest.

  Frieda closed her eyes. She was able to respond to David’s attentions. But the idea that history repeated itself kept intruding into her thoughts.

  Chapter 32

  Friday, September 12

  4:30 P.M.

  “Feet in the stirrups,” said Dr. Regina Habibi. Ilene had been coming to Regina, a raven-haired Pakistani, at the St. Luke’s-Roosevelt gynecology department for twenty-plus years. Together, they’d shared many intimate moments. Regina had been Pap smearing Frieda and Betty since adolescence. She’d delivered Justin. Attended Gregg’s funeral.

  Ilene put her feet in the metal stirrups, and slid down to the end of the table. “I know I should have come sooner,” she said. “Don’t give me any shit about that, please.” This was Ilene’s first appointment since taking her EPT test. “I’m still not sure I want to have it.”

  Regina ignored her. The nurse acted as if she hadn’t heard a word, adjusting the light properly, preparing to give Ilene’s crotch the third degree.

  Ten minutes of poking and probing later, Regina snapped off her gloves and asked the nurse for another pair. The doc said, “Have you been drinking alcohol? Smoking cigarettes? Taking recreational or prescription drugs?”

  “No,” said Ilene. “I’m not stupid. Just in denial.”