by Jules Moulin
Ally nodded, forcing a smile. “Nice to see you.”
He turned and Ted walked him out, on his heels. They went down the stoop, discussing Ted’s site: the live demonstrations, the customer reviews . . .
“One moment, boys,” Ally said, pulling Lizzie back inside. She closed the front door. “It’s going to rain.” She stepped into the closet, found an umbrella, stepped back out, and lowered her voice: “You were a little rude to Ted—”
“I’m sorry,” said Lizzie and took the umbrella from Ally’s hand. “I am. I am.” She opened it up to see if it worked. “There’s something—off—about him. I just can’t put my finger on—”
“Nothing’s off. He’s a little spoiled. That’s all. A little—”
“No. That’s not all,” Lizzie insisted. The umbrella wouldn’t lock. “This is broken.” She gave the umbrella back to Ally, and Ally disappeared back into the closet. Lizzie continued, whispering too. “It’s weird. You feel it. I know you do.”
Ally returned with a second umbrella. “Teddy is smart, funny, cute—and generous.”
“If he’s so cute, then do him, Mother,” Lizzie said, not unkindly.
“Elizabeth, please.”
“Have sex if he’s so cute. Do it already.” She opened the umbrella and stood underneath. “But, no, you won’t, because he’s strange—and we can’t say why. He seems like a catch, and yet—”
“He was our guest. He is my friend.”
“I’m sorry, but he has a secret, and I have the right to be worried. I do. I’m the kid.” She closed the umbrella and mocked her mother, pretending to sob: “You’re beautiful, honey. Even your nose. You’re sacred, sweetie. If you want to marry some preppy freak, I have to prepare myself too—”
“Stop,” Ally said.
Lizzie smiled. “And Noah? What?”
“Noah’s lovely.”
“Lovely?”
“Great and cool and great.”
Lizzie nodded. “And that’s what you need. A great man. I cannot believe he had you at Brown!”
“Small world,” Ally said as she reached for the knob. She opened the door and drew Lizzie close. “Call me tonight. We need to talk.” She kissed her on the ear.
“I love you, Mama.” Lizzie kissed her back and walked out.
—
“Did you remember him?” Teddy asked an hour later. He sat at the table and finished the cake while Ally scrubbed the pans in the sink.
“I remember his writing,” Ally said. “These papers—went on forever. The last one was on this erotica writer, Anaïs Nin.”
Teddy looked up. “Erotica? Porn? Porn, you mean? You taught porn?”
Ally stopped scrubbing. “He was . . . Catholic, I think, and so freaked out by the threesomes, orgies, hermaphrodites . . .”
Teddy was suddenly standing behind her. “Sounds fun to me.” She could feel him at her back. He whispered in her ear: “Teach me, too?” He placed his hands on top of her shoulders and started to massage them.
Ally turned and said kindly, “Not a great night . . . and you have a cold.”
Teddy’s face fell. He stepped back and leaned against the table, perching his buttocks half on, half off. “You need to get out of Brooklyn, Al. Out of this house.”
Ally turned to the sink, embarrassed. She picked up a Brillo and started to scrub a casserole dish. “I’m sorry. You’re right.”
“We got together. Your mother was sick. You said you were stressed. She passed away and you were sad. When I’m upset, all I want is to hop in the sack. We have fun. Don’t we?”
“Yes.”
“Have you ever been—frigid before?”
Ally paused and looked at the dish. “Frigid?” she said quietly, wondering if in fact she was. She turned. “But we fool around.”
“Yes, we do, but we’re adults. Grown-ups, Ally, and I can’t get past second base.”
Ally nodded. He was right. That was true.
Teddy looked around the kitchen. “I think you’re stuck. In her house. You can’t have fun in your mother’s house. You can’t get out from under her—spell.” Ted reached into his pants pocket and pulled out the soggy handkerchief. He blew his nose. “You need a vacation—or a shrink.”
“Maybe,” said Ally. “My best friend’s a shrink. I’ll ask her.”
“Or maybe you’re not attracted to me.”
“Please,” she insisted, turning around. “You’re attractive. You are.”
“I know!” He laughed. “I know I am! I’ve got appeal.”
“You do.”
“But that doesn’t mean . . . Some women need—some need a meal. Some need commitment.” He was musing.
Ally nodded. “Some do,” she said, “but tonight, I’m tired. Five-course dinner, cooked from scratch. Lizzie and her nose . . .”
“All right,” he said. “I’m an ass. I got you a new set of golf clubs. There.” He pointed to the corner.
“Ted.”
He straightened and lifted his buttocks from the table and tucked in his shirt. “I want to take you down to this course. I like you, Al, I always have, and I’d like to take this to the next level.”
Ally studied him for a moment. “Aren’t you—seeing other people?”
Teddy paused. “Not really.”
She rubbed her eyes. “I thought you were. I had this sense—”
“You want to go steady? We can go steady.”
Ally turned to the counter and picked up a piece of tinfoil. She wrapped it around a chicken breast.
“You want me to pin you? Give you my ring and my varsity jacket?”
She turned and handed the chicken to Ted. “Did you play sports?”
“No,” he admitted. “Only the golf.”
Ally smiled.
—
At the front door, he kissed her. “You know what I thought? All night tonight?” He lowered his voice.
“No. What.”
“Ally has a fantastic ass. It’s perfect.”
“Thank you.”
“I’d pay for that ass. To own that ass.”
She gently pushed him out the door.
“That turns you on,” he sang as he left. “You’re pushing me out because you’re turned on.” He trudged down the stoop. “Am I right?”
“Nope. Good night, Ted. Thanks for the wine.”
“Night, Al. Love you.”
Ally waved and watched him walk off toward Hicks Street. Then she looked up at the low-hanging clouds and held out her hand. It had started to rain.
—
In the kitchen, she washed down the table.
Maybe he was right, she thought, Ted.
Claire was still so alive in these rooms.
She drew still and pictured her mother there, sitting at the table, ever so erect, ever so tall, but shrinking in girth as the chemo ate her away.
“He’s eager,” Claire had said with a smirk, of Ted. “About you.” She raised her brows, thinned but still arched, and sat still in the way she sat still toward the end, as if moving even an inch might cause pain. She wore that pale pink, thinning robe, with the white scalloped edge. “He never married?”
“No,” Ally said, holding the kettle under the faucet.
“What’s his problem?”
Ally smiled. “What’s mine? I’m over forty and I’m not married.”
“You were abandoned,” Claire said mercilessly, as a matter of fact. “On purpose.” She reached for her Parliaments. “I was abandoned by accident. It wasn’t me. Accidents happen. Old people drive. Daddy died. But Pierre left you on purpose. That’s yours. Your problem. What’s Ted’s?”
Ally thought better than to respond. Not right away. She placed the kettle on top of the burner and turned on the gas that lit the flame. “Just because he’s
not married, that doesn’t mean he has a problem.”
Claire’s eyes shifted. “Yes, it does.”
Ally was choosing her arguments carefully, trying to avoid them if she could.
“Anyway, he’s courting you.”
“Maybe he is.”
“He is. He asked me”—Claire turned her head toward the stove—“if I thought you would.”
“What? Would what?”
“Get married.”
“He did?” Ally said and opened a cabinet. She took out a tea tin. “Ted did? When?”
“Last week. While you were out getting the Popsicles. Lime. When we ran out of lime.”
—
In Ally’s bedroom, Jake’s old T-shirt hung on the hamper.
Mortified, she picked it up, dashed to the closet, and threw it inside, deep in the back. She had called Anna. “Do you think it’s weird that I won’t sleep with Ted?”
“How was dinner?”
“Wait. First. Do you think it’s weird?”
“No,” Anna said in a soft voice, trying not to wake her husband.
Ally walked into the bathroom. “Because—because I had a colleague. This adjunct at Brown. She had sex with the pizza guy. Every time she called Domino’s.”
“And?”
“And she had sex with her oil-change guy. And her dentist. In his office. He closed the door and they did it on the chair. It reclined.”
“Ally?”
“Yes?”
“It’s not weird to want to be in love before you have sex. Everyone’s different. You need love and intimacy. Some women don’t. It’s not a crime. Now, how was dinner?”
Ally started to take off her clothes. “Have you ever heard of Noah Bean?”
“You’re killing me here.”
“Have you?” she said and peeled off her shorts.
“The actor?” said Anna.
“You have?” Ally said and gazed at her legs. She looked at them in the mirror too.
“Why?”
She took off her underwear. “Well,” she said. “That’s him. That’s the boy with the perfect penis.”
Anna paused. “What are you saying? I’m confused.”
“Are you awake?” She piled her clothes on top of the toilet. “Did I wake you up?”
“We went to bed early.”
“Oh, I’m sorry.”
“Ally? What about Noah Bean?”
“That’s the guy. He changed his name.”
“Wait, I don’t get it,” Anna whispered, sounding panicked, growing more alert by the second.
“You’re asleep. I’ll call you tomorrow.”
“No! Stay! Are you—saying . . . Are you saying that . . . you slept with Noah Bean?”
“He wasn’t Noah Bean back then. But yes, I did.”
Anna then screamed.
Ally held the phone from her ear. Anna’s husband, startled, woke up: “What! What! What the hell happened?”
“Ally had sex with Noah Bean!”
“Who?” he bellowed. “Who the hell is that?”
“Are you telling John?” Ally was mortified.
Anna returned. “How come you never told me this?”
“I didn’t know!”
“‘Hurry up, woman! There’s no time to waste!’” Anna yelled in a convincing English accent. She was imitating Jake in his role as the knight.
“What are you saying? Hurry up what?”
“His famous line: ‘Hurry up, woman! There’s no time to waste!’ He’s Lancelot, Ally, and People’s Sexiest Man Alive, from three years ago or maybe four . . .”
Ally sighed. She looked in the mirror and studied her belly fat. “But whatever.” How did it get there? She took the roll of it in her hand. “He’s a person. A regular person.”
“No, he’s not. Google People.”
“I will not . . . Google People.”
“You’re such a snob.”
“I’m not a snob.” Ally turned to the side and did a plié. “I’m in a—dilemma. Call me back when the shock wears off.”
Anna laughed. “Did you tell Ted?”
“No. Not yet.”
“Lizzie?”
“I will. What’s weird, what’s also weird: He quoted me.”
“Huh?”
“He quoted this story I wrote for Elle.”
“Wow.”
“I think. Unless—”
“He remembered,” Anna said coyly. “Ally?”
“Yes?”
“Get me an autograph? Please?”
Ally growled. “This is—that is—not helpful. I’m hanging up.”
Anna hung up, and Ally hung up and looked in the mirror.
People’s Sexiest Man Alive?
She studied the stretch marks across her hips. The pockets of bulge in her inner thighs. She’d never had a problem with her thighs before!
Until this year.
Damn, she thought. She should join a gym.
Forty-one.
Forty-one was the worst.
She turned back around and stood up straight, as straight as she could, and sucked in her belly.
She straightened her neck and lifted her head, but the slight double chin remained.
She peered in close to examine her face: the little red spots and three fine lines. It was as if they had appeared on her face. Across her forehead. Overnight.
She ran her fingers through her hair, sure it had started to thin.
Maybe it was stress, she thought, and stepped out to find a T-shirt to wear. One that did not belong to Jake.
She left the bathroom, went down the hall and into the bedroom.
All that stress. All that grief. The changes in her body. Maybe she didn’t feel confident enough, and that was why she wouldn’t sleep with Ted.
When had it been? When had she agreed to coffee, after he found her on Facebook?
While she’d been trolling for Jake.
Jake.
January, she’d agreed to coffee. She remembered snow on the ground. Two or three months before Claire had died?
Claire had been sick, and Teddy had been so bighearted. Called all the time. Sent food. Ran errands. Came the moment Claire died. Attended the wake. Sent a bouquet, an enormous bouquet. And he had been so very patient . . .
About the sex.
Ally had claimed to be too stressed. Then too busy. Then too sad. That’s what she thought and that’s what she said.
She had too much to do before and after: the hospice, the funeral, Claire’s estate . . .
Teddy was cute. Teddy was bright. Teddy was happy to travel to Brooklyn to eat, to walk, to read the paper . . .
What was wrong with her?
She’d had flings. Well, one. With Jake. She wasn’t in love with him back then. Was she?
In a tank and sweatpants, she climbed into bed.
Maybe Ted was right about her. Maybe she was. Frigid. Repressed. Maybe she needed to embrace pleasure for pleasure’s sake. What was wrong with pleasure? Nothing. What was wrong with fun? Nothing. She rolled over and grabbed the phone.
“Ally?” said Ted as he picked up.
“Let’s go away. Next weekend. Let’s go and . . . you know. I’m ready.”
“You are?” he asked, sounding surprised.
“Something is wrong with me. Let’s do this.”
She would have sex.
Sex with Ted.
Yes, she would. “Bring protection. I’m not on the pill.”
“I didn’t think so,” he said with a laugh.
Ally looked at the ceiling and waited. He joked, of course, but when had it become mandatory for all single women to be on the pill?
“Don’t worry, Al. I’m done with all the baby making.”<
br />
“What?”
“Vasectomy. Four years ago. Snip, snip.”
“Really?” said Ally. She was surprised.
“How about the Hamptons? Nantucket? Name it. We’ll fly.”
“Good,” Ally said. She didn’t care where. “What about diseases?”
“Yes?”
“Tests? Have you had—recent tests?” She wanted to disappear under her covers. She hated this conversation. Hated it.
“Not twenty-one, honeybun.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means don’t worry.”
Ally paused. “Okay,” she said. “Good night.”
“Sleep tight. And, Ally?”
“Yes?”
“I can’t wait.”
—
Ally lay awake until two o’clock.
Then she wondered about the dishes.
Had she run them in the washer?
They’d chatted about it, she and Jake, but once he had loaded the dishwasher full, did he actually run it? Did she?
She wanted to wake up to clean dishes, dishes that meant the dinner was done, dishes she could put clean, clear away.
She got up to check.
Halfway downstairs to the first floor she paused. Something below caught her eye.
On the table by the door, a navy blue cap sat on a scarf with gold-rimmed sunglasses tucked inside.
Ally stared at it for a moment and then approached.
She recognized the hat. Through sweat and rain and drying again, the Boston Red Sox baseball cap had formed itself to Jake’s head.
She took out the glasses and slipped them on.
She gazed at herself in the hall mirror and tried to look like an actor or model: at first with annoyance, a look of disgust. Then contempt. Then she tried bored. None of it worked. The glasses didn’t suit her. She set them back down.
She picked up the cap and held it to her nose.
Crazy, she thought. Totally bonkers. Standing there, smelling her daughter’s date’s hat. That was the moment. She had crossed over from partially sane to officially nuts. The nutty professor. She inhaled as the doorbell rang.
Startled, she threw the cap as if she’d been caught. She sailed it like a Frisbee, and it bounced off the wall and landed again on top of the scarf.
Quickly, heart racing, she tucked in the Ray-Bans, turned, and steadied herself on the rail.