by Jules Moulin
Jake rolled off her and helped to collect them. “You were in college when you had your kid?”
Ally paused. She looked at him. “Yes. I was your age,” she said. “Exactly.”
“That must be a pretty good story.”
Ally sighed.
“Can I hear it?”
“Now?”
“Why not?” Jake said and lay down next to her on his side, propping his head up on his hand.
So Ally explained . . .
“It started in Economics,” she said. “Junior year. I was twenty. Just like you.”
“I’m twenty-one,” Jake corrected her.
Pierre Ben-Shahar had flashed her his beguiling smile. They had started to date that September, and after a party on Magis Row, they had sex.
He’d entered her once without a condom, Ally’s first time, on a mid-September night, but only for a second. “Maybe four. Four seconds. Maybe ten. But no more than that,” Ally had explained to her mother.
Claire was furious.
Ally discovered she was pregnant on Halloween night when Pierre insisted she dress as a brick and he as a bricklayer.
“He was inside me for two seconds. Twelve, maybe fifteen seconds. Twenty seconds, tops. He didn’t even come,” she explained to Jake.
Pierre had the Alexander Popov of sperm, she decided after the birth. That was the only explanation.
Two years before, Popov the swimmer won two golds in the Summer Olympics, and Popov the sperm had clearly dived into Pierre’s pre-ejaculate, swam, survived, and swam and survived, hiding himself inside of Ally for at least two weeks before he made Lizzie.
He was a survivor, that little sperm.
That was her theory.
And Ally was too.
Despite being twenty and pregnant in college, at Georgetown, no less, a Catholic school, Ally thought motherhood was absolute bliss.
She was born to be Lizzie’s mother.
Lizzie was simply meant to be.
So senior year, she powered through, nursing and sleepless, and knocked out a notable senior thesis that brought her to Brown.
“What?” Jake asked. “What was it on?”
“Really?” she said and buried her face in her hands.
“Tell me.”
She paused. “It was—it was a—gender analysis of Barbara Kennelly’s Pension Reform Act; 1993; pension benefits, cost of living, you know, post separation and divorce; who voted, why, how it died, blah-blah.”
Jake smiled.
“I also wrote a second on the economic ramifications of paternal abandonment in southeast DC.”
“Wow!” Jake said.
Ally smiled. “Talk about inspired. I was so mad. Both got published. Big journals. Peer-reviewed.”
The papers took Ally to Brown, she explained, with grants and a TA appointment as she worked toward her PhD.
It was not her plan. Feminist economics.
“Sometimes you lead your life,” she said, “and sometimes your life leads you.”
The work put a roof over her head, and Brown had safe, loving day care.
“And I had a beautiful baby girl.”
Jake lay there listening.
She didn’t need the courtship, she said, the engagement, the parties. The gifts, the showers, the white dress, the day. She didn’t need the marriage or the man.
Especially not Pierre Ben-Shahar, who had threatened to kill himself tout de suite unless she aborted tout de suite. He escaped that summer across the Atlantic, hopped back and forth from Paris to Haifa and back and back, one month with mom, another with dad, and never returned to the States again.
And never returned Ally’s calls.
“His loss,” Jake said. He reached out and tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear.
Ally sighed.
She had made peace with her life alone. Alone with Lizzie. But peace or not, she hadn’t seen a penis in many years. The lack of sex, of intimacy, the lack of a man, was, at times, excruciating.
And other times, not.
She focused on Lizzie, designing her lectures, joining committees, writing on the side under pseudonyms, and all the sweet and relentless courting of one nasty chair who stole her from the Economics Department.
She had to stay in and stick it out, Claire reminded her. Tenure, tenure! She needed tenure! Providence for life! If she worked hard and played by the rules.
Ally knew she’d never get it. Her mother had no idea what it took or how it worked. She wasn’t even sure she wanted it.
That was it. That was the story. She gazed at Jake.
Jake, her student! Jake, like some hero from a daytime soap! Jake in her bedroom! The boy in the back, half naked!
He leaned in and kissed her on the lips, then rolled back on top of her, kissing her harder, even more deeply.
Suddenly Ally was tugging at his belt.
She couldn’t resist. She couldn’t wait. She wanted him now. She had suffered long enough.
She sat up and pulled his belt apart, then fumbled with the button at the top of his zipper.
Jake grew still, looking pleased and surprised.
Ally wanted him. She wanted to release him. She’d felt him building against her belly, pressing against her inner thighs.
She pulled down his zipper, and Jake rose back to his knees to help. He pulled down his jeans and kicked them off. Then did the same with his gray cotton briefs.
Oh no! she thought when she saw him in the shadows, huge and ready and poised for her. Her jaw dropped and her mouth opened wide. She couldn’t help it. “Oh my goodness.”
It was— He was absolutely perfect.
Astonishingly perfect.
Wider in girth, straighter, firmer, longer and wider, wider and longer, stronger somehow, than any she’d ever seen before. He was— It was magnificent. “Oh my goodness,” she said again. She couldn’t help but stare as she slid off her jeans and panties, too.
And then the phone rang.
The phone.
The cordless phone at the foot of the bed.
“Shoot!” she said in anguish. “Sorry!”
Jake smiled and slid to her side.
“Oh my goodness. Hold that thought.” She knew it was Lizzie and Claire calling. They were calling, of course, to say good night. It was after ten. “I’m so sorry. I have to get this.”
“Your kid?”
“I think.” She reached around him to pick up the phone.
“WEATHER SAYS YOUR FEMINISM is so 1960s, Mom.” Lizzie handed the pasta to Jake. “She says you’re a product of the time you were born.”
“I wasn’t born in the sixties, honey.”
“You weren’t?”
“No!” Ally laughed.
“You don’t know when your mother was born?” Jake leaned across the table. He spooned the pasta onto Ally’s plate.
“Teddy, could you wait?” Lizzie scolded, glaring at him.
“Sorry. I’m hungry,” Teddy said, looking up from his meal, chewing.
“I thought you were patient,” Lizzie sniped.
He put down his fork.
“Nineteen seventy-three,” Ally said as she laid out the chicken. “Thank you, Jake.”
Jake sat down and served himself.
“Weather says you’re a postfeminist.”
“Weather’s wrong.”
“How is she wrong? What are you, then?”
“Do we want to do this?” Ally said. “Now?”
Lizzie continued. “She said you are. But we’re not. We’re neofeminists. Modern consumers. Not afraid of beauty or sex. Not afraid to define ourselves, market ourselves, sell ourselves. Wait, is this cheese?” She looked at her plate.
“Buffalo mozzarella, honey.”
“Oh, thanks.�
�� She turned to Jake. “I can’t touch dairy. Weather says dairy and gluten are poison.”
“True, if you’re lactose intolerant,” Ally said.
“Or you’re celiac,” Jake added.
“Weather weighs almost two hundred pounds,” Ally continued kindly, fairly, taking a seat. “Should she be giving diet advice?”
Really she wanted to kill Weather: Stephanie Rachel Weather Weiner, Lizzie’s best friend from theater camp from when they were ten. Weather, with her fourteen piercings and forearms covered in kitten tattoos.
“All that genetically modified gluten. Italy, France. Saudi Arabia banned it,” said Lizzie.
“Isn’t cheese dairy?” Ted asked, digging in again now that Ally was seated.
“Not all cheese,” Lizzie explained. “Dairy is cow.”
“Weather has too many cats,” Ally quipped, trying to lighten the tension at the table. “Nine. Is that legal?” She picked up her fork.
“Cats or not, fat or not, she is rocking Lady Bracknell. In our class. Acting class. Oscar Wilde. She dyed her hair gray.”
“I think when you mess with your face,” Jake said, “you’re moving away from something authentic. It’s easy to see what’s fake up there. It’s a big screen.”
“That’s a good point,” Ally agreed, looking at Lizzie hopefully. “Jake should know.” She turned to him. “Lizzie said you’ve had some success?”
“Some success?” Ted bellowed, looking at Ally. “He’s huge, Ally! Huge! Huge, huge!”
“Okay!” she said. She knew exactly how huge he was.
“What big screen?” Lizzie continued. “Theaters will be obsolete in ten years. Spielberg said that on NPR. Spielberg and that Star Wars guy. We’ll be watching TV on our phones.”
Jake took his napkin and wiped his mouth. “The point is, who do you want to be? Helen Mirren or Jennifer Grey?”
“Neither,” said Lizzie. “I want to be me.”
“Jennifer Grey?” Ally asked.
“Dirty Dancing,” Jake explained. “The girl who played Baby. She chopped off her nose and it killed her career.”
“No!” Ally cooed. “She was so cute!”
Lizzie rolled her eyes and grabbed the wine. She poured herself another glass. “My mother is obsessed with old movies, and Noah is obsessed with old women: Helen Mirren, Judi Dench—”
“You’ve had enough wine,” Ally said.
“I’ve had a glass.”
“Two, I believe.”
“So cheers! So great! So let’s get drunk!”
“Good,” said Teddy. “This is Lokoya from Napa. Did I say that? Three hundred bucks a bottle, ladies. Drink all you like.”
Lizzie turned to Jake. “You can be fat and homely and old, and no one cares. For women, it’s different.” She looked at Ally. “It’s okay for some football player to jack himself up for the NFL—twenty-three-inch biceps—biceps—for his job—the size of my waist—but it’s not okay for an actress to change her body for hers?” She was upset.
“Lizzie,” said Ally as gently as she could. “That’s a good point. We’re not ganging up—”
“You are! You and Noah! You’re like a team.”
Jake and Ally glanced at each other.
“And Ted, with nothing to add.”
Ted looked up. “Nothing to add? I brought twelve hundred bucks’ worth of wine.”
“I know you agree with me,” Lizzie said.
“Well, I might,” Teddy replied. “In theory, yes. But I, for one, would miss your face.”
“I would too,” Ally said.
“Me three,” said Jake.
“Let’s forget it,” Lizzie muttered. “I’m the youngest . . . at this table. There might be something I know about this world—this age I live in—that you guys don’t. So you can think your judgmental thoughts and feel superior with all your birthdays—and I will do what I want with my nose.” She drained her glass in one fell swoop.
Ally studied her.
No one spoke for a long moment. Lizzie put down her glass. Ally pushed pasta around on her plate. Jake dropped his napkin, then picked it up and broke the silence. “So, Ted, do you travel? A lot? For work?”
Teddy looked up and eyed Jake. “Only to Silicon Valley. Why?”
THE PHONE WAS RINGING. “My daughter, Lizzie, she gets upset. She’s sensitive.” Ally grabbed the phone and her underwear. “She’s supersmart and can only put up with my mom for so long.”
Jake laughed. “You want me to go?” he asked sweetly. “You want to be private?”
“No,” Ally said. “Unless you want to.”
“Whatever you need.” He reached to the floor to find his briefs.
“I won’t be long.” She answered the phone. “Hello?” she said. “Sweetie?”
“Mommy?” said Lizzie.
“Hi, honey.” She glanced at Jake. He was pulling on his briefs.
“Grandma won’t let me sleep in my slippers.”
“What?” Ally said, pulling her underwear back on, distracted.
“She won’t let me sleep in my slippers.”
“I’m sorry. How are you otherwise?” She couldn’t focus. “Are you having fun?”
“No.”
“Is she there?”
“Downstairs.”
“Where are you?” Underwear on, Ally looked down and pulled her shirt closed. She fastened the button between her breasts.
“Brushing my teeth. Can you come here?”
“I wish, honey. But, sweetie, I told you. My TA went home. Back to Omaha. The capital city of?”
“Yoko?”
“Yoko.”
“Nebraska?”
“Yup. She got that disease that made her sleepy. Mono? Remember?”
“Will she come back?”
“In the fall.”
“And be better?”
“Yup, but for now, she’s home, so Mommy has to finish her work.”
“Grandma said you get it from kissing.”
Ally paused before she spoke. “No, honey. Grandma’s wrong. It’s in your liver. It’s in an organ inside your body.”
“You sure?”
“I am. It’s not from kissing.”
Then suddenly: “Please grade them here!”
“No, sweetie. I’ll see you Sunday. You’ll have fun.”
“I won’t!”
“You will. Tomorrow you will. Why are you up? It’s after ten.” She looked at Jake. He was still at attention in his briefs. The light from the windows had landed on him, there in the dark, and outlined him, his cuts and curves.
“She won’t let me sleep in my slippers.”
“Okay.”
“And she’s smoking. I think. Again.”
Ally cringed. “Walk down the phone. I’ll take care of it. Where are you now?” She ripped her gaze from Jake.
“Going downstairs.”
Ally scuttled to the end of the bed. “Where is Grandma?”
“In the kitchen.”
“What was for dinner?”
“Nothing. Burgers.”
“Oh. That’s— Sorry. That’s my fault.” She waited a moment, stood, and abandoned the bed, moving toward the hall. She glanced back as Jake sat up. He tucked a pillow under his head and pulled a blanket around his waist. He waved.
On Cranberry Street, Lizzie handed Claire the phone. Ally could hear them in the background. “She wants you.”
“What? Hello? Ally?” Claire sounded startled.
“Hi, Mom.” Ally stood in the dark hall, gazing downstairs.
“A couple of things.” Claire addressed Lizzie. “I need to speak to your mother alone.”
Ally rolled her eyes and waited. She waited some more. “Why can’t she sleep in her slippers?”
“Wha
t?”
“Her slippers. Why can’t she wear them?”
“It’s hot. The soles are dirty.”
“Please let her.”
“Did she have a growth spurt?”
Ally paused. “I don’t know. Did she?” She turned and went into Lizzie’s room.
“Her skirts are too short.”
It felt so empty without Lizzie there; all the shadows, the dapple of ambient light from the windows casting across Lizzie’s motionless things.
“This is the city, Allison. She looks like a little you know what.”
“No, I don’t. What?” Cradling the phone, Ally bent over and straightened the sheet on the new bottom bunk.
“A hooker,” said Claire.
Ally paused. She turned, sat down, and took a deep breath. She waited for Claire to keep going. She did:
“I’ll take her shopping tomorrow at Saks. She needs new clothes. And flip-flops, Ally? She needs proper shoes.”
“That would be lovely.” Ally sighed.
“Her hair is too long. The ends are split. I’ll take her to Barrett.”
“You can braid it.”
“This isn’t—a prairie.”
“French braid it.”
“I’ll take her to Bergdorf’s after Saks.”
“Isn’t there—a barber on Montague Street?”
“We’ll go to John Barrett, and, Ally?”
“Yes?”
“She won’t eat my food.”
“That’s—my fault. I forgot to tell you . . . She’s a vegetarian. Now. As of last week.”
“What? Why? How should I know?”
“I’m sorry. You shouldn’t. I should have told you, but just let her sleep in her slippers, okay? And do not smoke around her, please.”
Claire paused. “Getting your work done?”
Ally looked guilty. “Yes,” she said and rose from the bed, bumping her head on the top bunk. “Ow.” She headed into the dark hall. “Can I have her back? To say good night?”
“Lizzie! Your mother!”
Ally held the phone from her ear. For a moment. Then she entered her bedroom again.
“Oh, and, Ally? She asked me to buy her that gun. For her birthday.”
“No,” Ally said, gazing at Jake lying there. “No gun. No BBs.” He stared at the ceiling, a bed pillow pulled up over his chest. “A toy gun is fine, but nothing with ammo. Foam is all right.” Jake smiled. “Mom? You there?”