Ally Hughes Has Sex Sometimes

by Jules Moulin

  “Sex is something,” Lizzie complained. Ally handed her a chocolate-covered spoon. She tasted it. “Yum! Amazing!”

  “Thank you,” said Ally, returning to the bowl.

  Lizzie sat down. “Can we say I made it? The frosting and the cake? Can we say we made the dinner together, so he thinks I cook? He’s old-fashioned.”

  “Sure, let’s lie.”

  “Can we? Please? What do you care?”

  “I don’t,” Ally said, pouring the batter into a pan. “But you should be yourself with him, honey. And not pretend to be someone else.”

  Lizzie sat forward, thinking, picking through a bowl of olives. “Noah’s against my nose job, too. Just so you know . . .” She popped an olive into her mouth.

  “He is?” Ally said, turning from the counter toward the oven. “I like him already.”

  “Which is ironic,” Lizzie added wryly in a singsong voice. “Because you’re both so perfectly formed, with puny noses and puffy lips and perfect smiles. I guess you can feel superior together and fight that good fight together. I guess.”

  Ally ignored this. “I can’t wait to meet him.” Suddenly feeling untethered and excited, she set the timer, took off her apron, and looked around.

  The meal was on track. The house was in order. Tidy and clean. Muriel had come down the day before to visit her father up in the Bronx. Ally was thrilled to pay for her ticket to and from Providence. She missed Muriel. Together they’d cleaned the brownstone all day, and Ally was pleased.

  —

  At ten after eight, Noah rang the bell.

  “Did anyone follow you?” Lizzie asked, leading him inside, taking the flowers, chocolate, and beer. Noah had brought a six-pack of Stella.

  “No,” he said and peeled off his cap, glasses, and scarf.

  Wherever he went, paparazzi hid and then jumped out of corners with long-lens cameras, snapping and flashing. Lizzie feigned concern and disgust, but truly she loved it: not the attention, but the cat and mouse of the whole game. Dodging the lenses. Noah had learned how to hide, to stay low. He even used a double. But somehow photographers always found him, and Lizzie was impressed. She wanted to know what they knew that she didn’t.

  —

  “You’re a smart kid,” Teddy said. He and Lizzie and Noah, too, buzzed around the kitchen, preparing to eat. “How do I get your mom to Augusta?” Teddy had bought, and brought with him, a set of new golf clubs.

  “Georgia? In August?” Lizzie said.

  Ted pulled out a putter. “Golf is the sport of a patient man. Right, Noah?”

  Noah smiled. He stood in front of the open fridge, loading in the Stella, bottle by bottle.

  “Lizzie’s mother—you haven’t met her—she is a woman who tries a man’s patience.”

  “No, she doesn’t,” Lizzie insisted and opened the cupboard for wineglasses.

  “I’ve been fighting for months—months—to get that woman out of this house. On a trip. Any trip.”

  “She’s been busy.” Lizzie turned to Noah. “My grandmother died in March. My mom took care of her.”

  “See this baby?” Ted held up the club. “This will inspire her. These babies cost thirty-two grand. There’s gold in here.”

  “She doesn’t play,” Lizzie said to Noah. “She’s never played. She never will play.”

  Noah smiled.

  “That’s true,” said Ted. “But a man can dream. Right, Noah?”

  “Sure,” said Noah, straightening up and closing the fridge.

  Teddy leaned the club in the corner.

  “What’s on your feet?” Lizzie asked as he approached her to open the wine. Teddy was wearing high-top sneakers, odd with his khakis and button-down shirt. They were also gold.

  “You like ’em?”

  “No.”

  “Nike only made twenty-five pairs. They’re signed by Kobe.” He opened a drawer and took out a corkscrew.

  “Bryant?”

  “The one.”

  “Your sneakers are signed by a rapist?”

  “What?” Teddy argued, grabbing a bottle and plunging the screw into its cork. “How do you even— You were, like, five.”

  “I was, like, nine,” Lizzie said and slid a glass toward him.

  Teddy popped the cork and looked at Noah. “2010 Cabernet. Lokoya. Work?”

  “Sure,” Noah said.

  Teddy poured.

  “Ladies first,” Lizzie instructed.

  “Guests first.” He turned and handed the glass to Noah. “As for Kobe—you know they settled?” He peered at Lizzie as he poured a second glass. “She wouldn’t testify.”

  “Oh, then she must have been lying,” said Lizzie.

  Noah just watched.

  “The shoes are for charity. You against charity?”

  “I am,” Lizzie said. “And faith and hope, and love.”

  —

  Luckily for Ally, the feud continued and no one saw her enter and blanch and stop in her tracks in total surprise.

  “A pleasure,” said Noah, a moment later, extending his hand.

  Ally shook it and stood there staring.

  This was Claire’s kitchen, now hers. The kitchen where she took her first steps. Blew out candles on birthday cakes. Where she saw her mother cry and cry the night her father never came home, when she was six . . .

  And Jake was here? The boy from the back? But his name was Noah?

  Lizzie’s date?

  Jake from Providence?

  Jake, ten years later, smack in the middle of Ally’s past and her new life?

  He had lost weight. His hair was shorter. His face looked older. But it was the boy from the back, no doubt, and something in his eyes was saying hello.

  “I know you,” she said.

  “I told you, Mom,” Lizzie said and turned to Jake. “She said she had no idea who you were.”

  “No,” Ally said. “We’ve met before.”

  “Mom, please. He’s everywhere. Everyone thinks they’ve met him before.”

  “But I have,” Ally begged.

  Jake interrupted. “I had you at Brown, Professor Hughes.”

  “What?” Lizzie said and spun from the fridge with a cheese tray. “No way! Come on! No way! What?” She looked back and forth from Ally to Jake and back again.

  “Wow,” said Ted, pouring a third glass of wine.

  “Gender and Sex,” Jake continued. “Women and Work. Fem Economics.”

  “Yes,” Ally said. “Your face is coming back.”

  “I almost didn’t get credit,” Jake joked. “But your mom let me slide.”

  “You almost failed him, Mom? You did?”

  Ally unsteadily moved toward the oven to check on the chicken.

  “Was she a hard-ass? Tell us!” cried Lizzie.

  Teddy turned to Jake. “You went to Brown?”

  “Just to play ball. I never finished.”

  Ally grabbed the oven mitt, fumbled, and dropped it. She reached to the floor, picked it up, stood, and steadied herself on the counter edge. “Your name,” she said breathlessly, “it wasn’t Noah.”

  “They made him change it,” Lizzie offered. “His real name is Jake.”

  “Jake,” said Ally.

  “There was a Jake Bean in SAG,” he explained. “The Screen Actors Guild. They don’t let actors have the same name. Noah’s my middle name.”

  “Oh. I see.” Ally turned and handed the oven mitt off to Lizzie. “Excuse me a sec.” If she didn’t go, she thought she might faint. She needed a second to catch her breath and slow down her heart. “I need—a Tylenol. I have this little—you know—headache. Lizzie, the chicken. Please take it out. Ted, wine for me.”

  “You’re drinking tonight?” Ted asked, surprised.

  “Yup,” Ally said, and she
flew out the same way she’d come.

  —

  On the third floor, she escaped into the bedroom. The phone. The phone.

  Where was the phone?

  She had left it on the bed.

  That same bed. The same bed. Where she and Jake, or she and Noah, or she and whatever his name was now . . .

  She had to call Anna.

  Anna Baines knew about Jake. She was the one. And she would answer as Lizzie would, always after three calls. It was a thing. It was a promise. A pact they had made when they were ten. A pact Ally made with Lizzie later, and Anna made with her children, too.

  Three calls.

  After two, Anna picked up.

  Ally had moved to the master bath and locked the door. “Guess who’s here!” she whisper-yelled, hushed and hysterical.

  “Put down that iPad!” Anna yelled at her eight-year-old son across the kitchen. Anna lived in Denver. “Sorry. Go.”

  “Do you remember Jake?”

  “Jake, Jake . . .”

  “The boy at Brown?”

  “Wait!” Anna said. “No, I don’t.”

  “You do! Come on. He was my student! Claire had Lizzie. I had the weekend. He came to—to—put a lock in our door—and stayed for two days.” Ally swallowed. “We did it—we did it—in every corner, on every surface of that sweet little house.”

  “Wait, wait . . . It’s coming back . . .”

  “That UTI!”

  “That nearly killed you!”

  “Yes!”

  “Yes!” Anna cried. “That terrible UTI!” She remembered. “The boy with the perfect penis.”

  “Right. The boy with the perfect penis is downstairs now, with Lizzie, waiting for me to serve them dinner!”

  “What?”

  “They’re seeing each other!”

  “No!”

  “Yes!”

  “Did he know— I’m confused—wait, did he know you’re her mother?”

  “No! I don’t know!”

  “Did he recognize you?”

  “He didn’t look surprised. I feel sick.”

  “He knew, then, that you’re Lizzie’s mom?”

  “Unless he totally forgot about me.”

  “No. You’re unforgettable, Ally.”

  “Please,” Ally said. She fingered the bath towel hanging from the door. She clutched it for ballast. The palms of her hands were sweaty and cold.

  “Does Lizzie know?”

  “I don’t know. No.”

  “You have to go downstairs. You have guests.”

  “No kidding! What do I do?”

  “You fake it through dinner, and after they leave— Is Teddy there?”

  “He’s pouring the wine! He brought the wine! Four bottles!”

  “Maybe—maybe Lizzie knows. Maybe it’s a test,” Anna offered.

  Ally paused. Would Lizzie test her? What would be the point? “No,” she said, considering this. “She was surprised. She couldn’t fake something like that. She’s not that good an actress.”

  “Ally.”

  “She’s no Meryl Streep!”

  “Way to be supportive.”

  “Can we stay on point?”

  “Mom!” Lizzie yelled from the first floor.

  “Coming!” said Ally. To Anna, she said, “I have to go.” She didn’t move. She sat on the edge of the tub and breathed. She looked at the ceiling. Looked at her feet. It had been months since she had painted her toenails. Why did she always wait so long?

  “The chicken’s getting cold!” Lizzie yelled.

  “Coming! Start!” She turned her attention back to Anna. “I have to do this. Please stay awake. I’ll call you later.”

  “Call me—and, Ally?”

  “Yes?”

  “Was the weekend good? Ten years ago? I seem to remember you loved this guy.”

  “Loved him? No.”

  “Yes, you did.”

  “No, I didn’t!” Ally protested a little too much.

  “Something was good. The sex?”

  “The sex.” Ally closed her eyes to think. She had to swallow before she spoke. Her mouth was dry. “Honestly, it was marvelous.”

  JAKE LIFTED ALLY IN one swift motion, as if she weighed nothing. He propped her up on the kitchen counter.

  The palms of his hands found her knees, and he spread them apart and moved between them. He cupped her face and found her mouth in a third kiss.

  Move, Ally thought. She wanted to lie down, to feel the weight of his body on hers. She wanted him for hours in a bed, between sheets, not for minutes on the counter, even as spotless as Muriel had made it.

  “Let’s go upstairs,” she whispered frantically as Jake brushed her neck with his lips. He returned to her mouth, and she nudged him forward and slid off the counter.

  Out from under him, she left the kitchen, moved to the hall, and headed upstairs. Jake followed. On the staircase, he pushed past Ally as if they were racing.

  In her bedroom, he flipped on the light, reached the bed first, and climbed up on all fours. He turned and rose to his knees to collect her.

  She stopped in the doorway. “Jake, I have to tell you . . . something,” Ally said softly, her voice filled with worry.

  “What?” he said.

  Ally paused. She hated to admit it. “I haven’t done this in a . . . long time.”

  Jake blinked. “Okay.”

  “I don’t mean months. I mean years.”

  “It’s okay, Ally,” he said reassuringly. It was the first time he used her first name. It almost took her breath away.

  Ally looked down and studied the floor. “I mean, I’ve done it a few times—actual sex—since I got pregnant.”

  “A few times?”

  “I’ve fooled around. But the actual act? The actual thing?”

  “Your daughter is ten?”

  Ally nodded.

  “So you’ve had sex a few times in the last ten years?”

  “Eleven,” said Ally. “Twice in eleven. Kind of.”

  Jake thought about it. He looked at the floor. He looked at Ally and smiled. “That is a shame,” he finally said. “That is tragic. For all men. Everywhere.” Then he studied her. “Ally?”

  “Yes?”

  “Don’t do anything for me tonight.”

  “What?”

  “Let’s let tonight be all about you.”

  Ally smiled and took a deep breath.

  He was still there. Despite her admission, he knelt on the bed, ready to take her. “Get over here.”

  She moved to the bed, unsure. He met her at the edge, leaned in, and kissed her. He twisted her body into a cradle, dipped her, and placed her down on her back.

  Long and flush, he lowered his body on top of hers. They kissed and kissed, and kissed and kissed.

  She had forgotten how wonderful it was.

  A man.

  A man with large, calloused hands; long, heavy limbs and rough hair; large muscle groups, so foreign; weight and strength. Jake’s smell was musky and sweet. Staggering.

  He started to unfasten her blouse from the bottom, button by button. “Tell me to stop.”

  Ally said nothing. Don’t stop, she thought.

  Ever. Ever.

  He made his way up, button by button, as if he had done so a thousand times, and never moved his lips from hers.

  When he finished, he rose to an elbow, parted her blouse, tugged her bra down, and lifted her breasts up and out. He ducked to devour them.

  Ally’s head fell back onto the pillow.

  Goodness.

  He’s an expert, she thought, running her fingers through his hair, full and brown and thick. Thank goodness he needed a haircut, and how could this kid, at twenty-one, be so adept, so skilled, so
smooth? How could he be so lovely? she wondered.

  Jake sat back, pulled off his T-shirt, and placed it beside him on the bed.

  Ally’s lips parted. Her eyes grew wide.

  His body was sculpted, smooth, and unreal, as if he’d stepped from a magazine cover. His chest and abs, his broad shoulders and lean, athletic arms, looked as if a sculptor had chiseled them.

  “You’re so pretty,” Jake whispered, breaking her reverie, seeming to be caught in his own.

  Ally snapped to. “What? Please! Look at you!” She rolled her eyes.

  “Please what?”

  Ally didn’t feel pretty. Sure, she knew she’d been pretty once. All young women are somewhat attractive.

  “You are,” Jake said, gazing at her lips. “That smile. That smile.”

  She did have an infectious smile. But she had kept her baby weight, had stopped jogging, and hadn’t had a haircut in years. Years.

  “Everyone thinks so. Everyone says so.”

  “What? Who?” Ally wondered how that could be. She never wore makeup, never dressed up. She only shopped for Lizzie. She’d pick up a pair of jeans here, a sweater there, in Newport’s nicer Goodwill shops, but mostly she lived in sneakers and sweats and jeans she’d bought in DC to make room for her freshman fifteen.

  “What is this? I think you have a . . .” Jake smiled and reached forward, over her head.

  “What? What is it?”

  “You have a sticky—”

  “A what?”

  “A sticky note stuck to your—”

  “Me?” she said, embarrassed. She turned her head to see what it was as he plucked the pink sticky note out of her hair and showed it to her. A Russian phrase was scrawled across it in red crayon. Lizzie’s writing.

  “Oh, that’s sexy. They’re all over. My daughter—she’s teaching herself Russian. I think this says, ‘I hate you, Mom.’”

  “Russian?” Jake laughed.

  “She’s a little on the—gifted—side. Hebrew and French too. It’s insane.”

  He plucked the note from Ally’s hand and sailed it off the side of the bed.

  “I’m sure there are—more,” she said, peering under the top sheet. “Sometimes I find them stuck to my butt as I walk out the door.” She lifted to her elbows and looked around for more. There were a few, seven or eight, which was odd, Ally thought. Hadn’t Muriel changed the sheets? She must’ve forgot.