The Not-So-Perfect Man

by Valerie Frankel

  “You’ve gained twenty pounds since your last appointment,” said Regina.

  “All in the last three months.”

  The nurse handed the doctor a tape measure. She stretched the tape down Ilene’s belly, from belly button to the top of her pubic bone. More palpating of the uterus (blessedly, external). “Do you know the date of your last period?” asked Regina.

  “No,” said Ilene. “I was only getting my period every six weeks anyway. Sometime in the spring? Late spring?”

  “You’re about four months pregnant,” said Regina. “We’ll need to do more tests to pin down a due date. And I’d advise you to slow down with the eating. You should have gained five pounds at this point. I want to do blood and urine testing. You’re over 35, so we should do an amnio next week. You need to start taking prenatal vitamins immediately.”

  “You’re being curt,” said Ilene, sitting up.

  “I’m cross with you,” said Regina. “You’ve been trying to get pregnant for six years, and then, when you finally do, you’re blasé and irresponsible. Don’t get up.”

  The nurse wheeled in a large machine with a computer monitor and keyboard. Regina turned it on and started punching keys and fiddling with the mouse. Ilene adjusted her gown, and moved back so her ass wasn’t hanging off the end of the table.

  “I didn’t come in for so long because I didn’t want to get a speech,” she said. A bald lie. Ilene could take speeches. She didn’t want to have to explain why Peter hadn’t come with her. Why she was still considering an abortion. Three months had gone by and no word from Peter. She didn’t know where he was, or what he was doing. He had no idea she was pregnant. And the thought of being a single mother was so repellent to Ilene that she couldn’t commit her mind to the pregnancy. On the other hand, she knew this was her last chance. If she didn’t have this baby now, she could forget motherhood, single or married, forever. And, of course, she had to consider the financial picture. On just her salary, could she afford childcare, diapers, baby furniture and gear, eventually school, camp, piano lessons?

  Ilene said, “If I had an abortion at this stage, would it hurt?”

  Regina said, “You’d be put under. Wouldn’t feel a thing.”

  “Hospital stay? Would insurance cover it?”

  “What does Peter think?” asked Regina. She picked up a plastic wand, put a condom on it, and smeared K-Y jelly on the condom.

  “You’re not putting that inside me,” said Ilene.

  “Brace yourself,” said Regina.

  The nurse pushed Ilene’s knees apart. She felt every inch of the plastic wand enter her. It was the most action she’d seen in months. Regina wiggled it around, hitting some spots.

  “I have to pee,” said Ilene.

  “We need a full bladder,” responded the doctor. The nurse turned down the overhead lights. “What do Frieda and Betty think?” asked Regina.

  Betty always called, every couple of days, to see how Ilene was feeling, but she didn’t press her on why Peter never answered the phone, or why Ilene still hadn’t told Frieda. Ilene rushed her off the phone, put off or canceled plans. She’d postponed the monthly dinner again and again. Whenever Frieda called, all she wanted to talk about was Sam and/or David. Ilene was grateful, actually, for Frieda’s self-absorption. Playing the role of advice giver was comfortable and familiar. The idea of turning to Frieda and Betty for help made her feel strange, out of control.

  If she decided to abort, Ilene had already scripted a weepy miscarriage account to relay to Betty. She’d swear her baby sister to secrecy. Betty would agree. She might not believe the miscarriage story, but she was trustworthy enough to keep her doubts to herself.

  Ilene said, “Frieda and Betty want what’s best for me.”

  The doctor continued to fiddle with the mouse. Mumbling meaningless numbers to the nurse, who spooled inky black squares of paper as they churned out of the printer.

  Regina said, “Heart beat normal, organ size normal, spine, skull measurements normal.”

  “You can see all that?” asked Ilene.

  “Want to take a look?” asked Regina.

  Ilene hesitated. She remembered looking at Justin’s sonogram pictures and being awed by them. But if she dared to peek at the images of the action in her own uterus, she wouldn’t see a fetus. She’d see a closing circle of options, like tightening the drawstring of a velvet pouch. If Peter were here for this, he’d be standing over the doctor’s shoulder, pointing at the screen, asking, “What’s that? What’s this?” Wanting to keep every printout. Framing them. Saying, “as long as it’s healthy,” but desperately wanting a baby girl to name Daisy. In their optimistic days, years ago, when they’d started trying, they’d talked about such things. Names, genders. Ilene could imagine Peter crying at this moment. Ilene would roll her eyes in mock disgust at her big, fat, sentimental husband. But Peter wasn’t fat. Not anymore. Nor was he with her anymore. She was alone on the table, alone in this moment, even with a fish swimming around inside her uterus.

  Ilene closed her eyes, not wanting to catch a glimpse of the monitor, and said, “Can you tell the sex?”

  Regina dug the wand a bit deeper, searching for a new angle. She said, “I can’t say with absolute certainty. Eighty percent sure.”

  “Go ahead,” said Ilene.

  Regina said, “It appears to be a girl.”

  Chapter 33

  Friday, September 12

  6:30 P.M.

  “It’s a girl,” said Jane. “She says she met you at the Financial Times media luncheon last week. Lisa something.”

  Peter was in a hurry, throwing folders and a pack of gum into his briefcase and slamming it shut. “I don’t have time to talk. Ask her what she wants.”

  Jane said, “She wants to schedule a lunch. I think she’d be happier with dinner.”

  Another one. Amazing how they came out of the woodwork when news of his separation traveled across the transom of finance journalism. Peter had barely said a word to anyone about his marital situation, but people in his office knew he couldn’t be reached at home, and that faxes and packages should be sent to his temporary address on Avenue A. Jane, Peter suspected, filled in the blanks. Random phone calls from young women started coming in.

  He had to admit he liked the attention. So much so that he sought it out. He never used to go to media events, cocktail parties, or award ceremonies. But these days, when the invitations hit his desk, he was quick to RSVP. Not that he’d do anything with these women. They wanted to use him. What was in it for him? Sex? He was nowhere near that point. One particularly frustrating aspect of the separation with Ilene was that their sex life at the end had been fantastic. Like when they first got married.

  Ready to go, Peter checked his desk one last time. Was he forgetting anything? His eyes fell on the empty space where the wedding photo used to be. Jane’s idea. She’d hidden the picture, removed the sad reminder. He picked up his briefcase and left his office.

  Before he could extricate himself completely from the world of work and get downtown to meet Betty for dinner, Jane said, “Where’s the fire?” With her small-boned hand, his secretary pointed at the chair next to her desk. He hesitated. He wasn’t up for a chat with Jane. But he sat as instructed. Since seeing her naked, he didn’t have the balls to refuse her anything. He’d trespassed on her in the most personal fashion. He owed her, big time, and part of his payment was to listen to whatever geyser of wisdom spouted from her lips.

  He said, “I’m already late.” Check the watch, look pointedly at the desk clock. Straighten the tie.

  “Another date with Betty?” she asked.

  “It’s not a date. We’ve having dinner and then going to a movie.”

  “Dinner and a movie,” said Jane. “And then back to her apartment to sleep on the couch?”

  “Only you would make assumptions. Betty’s my sister-in-law. That’s practically incest. You’ve got bonking on the brain. Much as I admire you and wish ardently that more w
omen were like you, in this one instance, you are wrong,” he said.

  “I don’t think you’re sleeping together,” said Jane. “I do think it’s strange that you choose to live in her tiny apartment. Wouldn’t you be more comfortable in a hotel?”

  Peter sighed. This was exactly what he’d wanted to avoid. “I don’t have an ulterior motive. I just like the company.”

  Jane nodded patiently, condescendingly. “Betty is, what? Thirty-two?”

  “I guess.”

  “How old was Ilene when you got married?”

  “I can see where you’re going with this,” he said. “Betty and I are friends. We have a lot in common. Can’t a man and a woman simply be friends?”

  While he protested, Jane opened her desk drawer. She pulled out a framed photograph. The wedding picture. He hasn’t seen it in months. “Look at this,” she said.

  He looked. Peter and Ilene, staring at each other, grinning goofily. In a love as roiling and deep as the ocean. The happiest he’d ever been. How had things gone so wrong? Ilene’s hair was darker then. Her skin pinker. She was glorious. He had an ill-fitting tux, a sheen of sweat, bed head. What had she seen in him?

  Jane said, “You can’t tell me that Betty today isn’t the spitting image of Ilene eleven years ago.”

  He handed back the picture and stood to go. “I’ll be in early tomorrow. We’ve got a staff meeting at nine. Before you leave, call the senior editors and remind them that lateness will not be tolerated. And I expect researched story ideas, not vague notions.”

  Jane tucked the frame back into her drawer. “Yes, sir,” she said. “Is there anything else? Sir?”

  “Your annual review forms are on my desk,” he said. “Please fill them out. And say something bad about yourself for once. Personnel might catch on.”

  Jane said, “I’m recommending a fifteen percent raise.”

  “Recommend ten,” he said, “and leave it on my desk to sign.”

  With that, Peter made a dash for the elevator. He refused to contemplate what Jane was suggesting about Betty. The sisters might look alike, but their personalities were completely different. Even if looking at Betty did evoke memories of a young Ilene, Peter would never touch his sister-in-law. He wouldn’t dare. She’d be horrified. Even more abhorrent, she might not be horrified.

  The whole issue gave him palpitations. He knew he’d have to move out of her one-bedroom at some point. Betty hadn’t fired a “leave now” warning shot like Jane and Tim had. But Peter knew he wasn’t good for Betty. She was content to spend every evening watching videos with him. She was a beautiful young woman. She needed to go out.

  Peter strode out of the building, into the September heat. Still felt like August in the city. He loosened his tie, remarking to himself as always that he sweat so much less than he had last summer. He walked across Madison Avenue, along 45th Street, toward Grand Central. As usual, he stopped at Hudson News—the big one, to watch if anyone picked up a copy of Bucks.

  He couldn’t resist flipping through a copy himself, turning immediately to his story on price gouging in the personal services industry. He’d written a nasty screed on the arbitrary billing practices of personal trainers, nutritionists, private chefs, and interior decorators, including a first-person sidebar about Peggy McFarthing. He hoped to God that she went out of business because of it. He hadn’t gotten a phone call from her lawyer, not that she had any basis to sue him. He’d described his own experience. No slander in that. He sent a dozen copies to Peggy’s office with a note, thanking her for all she’d done for him. He chuckled to himself, thinking of her reading his description of her as “a brittle scarecrow.”

  “Excuse me,” said a lilting female voice.

  Peter looked up from his article to see a woman—make that a WOMAN. Blonde ponytail swinging high on her head, tight stretchy bike shorts, a midriff-baring T-shirt that revealed a tan, crunched-to-concrete belly. Skin that practically snapped with dewy freshness. He guessed she was twenty-one. Twenty-three, tops.

  Peter stepped out of her way, clearing a passage to the magazine racks. To his amazement, she picked up a copy of Bucks. She flipped to his article. She saw him staring, and noticed that his magazine was opened to the same page.

  She pointed at her magazine, and then at his. They laughed. Together. Like old, dear friends. She said, “I’m a personal trainer. This article is the talk of New York Sports. Some customers have come in demanding flat fees.”

  “You don’t say,” Peter marveled, loving the idea that a bevy of hard female bodies in skimpy spandex leotards were evoking his name and prose, even to revile him. Perhaps the harem of spinning instructors would try to pile on top of him in protest.

  She said, “A lot of trainers are pretty pissed off about it. But I think it’s good.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah. It’s wrong to charge some old geezer three times as much for an hour just because he’s willing to pay it.”

  “Yeah,” he agreed. He’d agree to anything she said just to watch her talk. When she spoke, she bobbed her head up and down, telegraphing “yes, yes, yes” with each syllable.

  “A lot of the male trainers do the same thing, jacking up the price for old ladies.”

  “That is pathetic,” he said.

  “I’d never do it,” she said. “I have this one customer? He’s divorced from his wife, and he’s really lonely. You can tell, because all he does is talk about getting in shape to meet women. He’s asked me out a couple times, and I keep telling him that I don’t date clients. He asks about other girls at the club, too. I don’t have the heart to tell him that none of the other girls would date a guy that old, even though he’s in pretty good shape. I tell you, there’s nothing sadder than a hard-up, lonely, divorced older man.”

  Peter nodded along (yes, yes, yes) for the duration of her confession, picturing her bending over a glute builder, some stooped, gray-haired granddad looking on. Peter didn’t want to ask, but felt compelled: “How old is this geezer?”

  “Ancient,” she said.

  “In years,” he asked.

  “I’d have to guess,” she said.

  Please don’t say forty, he prayed. “Go ahead.”

  She stopped nodding suddenly, and said, “How old are you?”

  “Thirty,” he said. “You thought twenty-five, right?”

  She laughed. So did he. Together. They were such dear friends. She said, “Okay, I’ll tell you.”

  Please don’t say forty, he prayed harder. “Yes?”

  “He’s at least fifty.”

  “Fifty?” Peter practically shouted the number with relief. “And he’s hitting on twenty-year-olds? You should charge him double just to teach him a lesson.”

  “It’s more fun to make him do a hundred military-style pushups,” she said, bobbing her head.

  He liked her so very much. He held out his hand. She shook. “I’m Peter,” he said. “Peter Vermillion.”

  She mouthed his name to herself. “You’re the guy who wrote this article?” she asked, reverence in her voice.

  He tried to be humble. “I wouldn’t have admitted it. But you’re such a scrupulous woman.”

  “Pleased to meet you,” she said. “I’d better be going.”

  She was leaving? “Wait,” he said. “You haven’t told me your name. We could talk again, over drinks or dinner.”

  The blonde trainer smiled radiantly, head bobbing yes, yes, yes, while she said, “No, no, no. I can’t go out with you, Peter. Even at thirty, you’re still way too old for me. And you seem like the kind of guy who wants a relationship. I don’t do that. I hook up.”

  Before he insisted he didn’t want a relationship, Peter figured he should find out what she meant. “Hooking up?” he asked. It sounded painful.

  “Going out in groups of girls, and picking up groups of guys, taking them back to someone’s apartment and having safe-yet-casual sex,” she said. “I think I’m leaning toward lesbianism, anyway. And even if I were at
tracted to you, I couldn’t do much about it until my labial piercings heal.”

  “Labial piercings,” he said.

  “Four of them. Two on each side. Very tasteful. Refined,” she said, nodding yes, yes, yes.

  Peter checked his watch, straightened his tie, cleared his throat. He said, “I’ll be going now.”

  She smiled again, bobbing. He couldn’t keep himself from glancing at the crotch of her bike shorts for visible signs of hardware. He replaced the magazine on the rack and walked off toward the subway, trying hard not to imagine what a labial piercing looked like. He also tried hard to forget something she’d said, but the phrase “hard-up, lonely, divorced older man” rang in his head.

  Chapter 34

  Saturday, September 13

  7:00 P.M.

  Betty arrived right on time. She was embarrassed to be so punctual. Punctuality meant only one thing: that she had nothing better to do on a Saturday night than baby-sit her nephew.

  Frieda welcomed her with a hug. “Justin is in a mood,” she warned.

  Betty had seen his moods. “I can handle it,” she said. Betty’s strategy with her nephew’s crankiness was to ignore him completely. It worked amazingly well. When Frieda tried to crack a bad mood of Justin’s, she hovered, cajoled, eventually got angry, which, plain as day to Betty, only worsened the kid’s temperament.

  “Come in back,” said Frieda. Betty followed her into the bedroom. Her sister fussed with her black cocktail number. “We’re going to some magazine party,” said Frieda. “David said it’ll be a bunch of bond wonks pounding dirty martinis.”

  “Fun,” said Betty, settling in on the bed to watch her sister finish dressing.

  “David gets invited everywhere. Sam and I never went to parties. We never spent time with other people,” said Frieda.

  Betty said, “Every time you say something positive about David, you throw in a comparison to Sam. You and Sam never spent time with other people because you couldn’t tear yourself out of bed. How is the sex with David, by the way?”