by Joy Fielding
“Is that why you let me order dinner for you? And yes, you’re making perfect sense.”
She looked around the very dim restaurant. Her eyes were only now beginning to make out the small tables and chairs clustered about the small room. She noticed that even at this hour most of the tables were full. “I just thought that you would probably know what item on the menu was best,” she said smiling, thinking that any man who would fly for several hours and spend hundreds of dollars only to fly back that same evening, had to have a dish he especially liked. “Why did you specify that the lobster had to be boiled exactly seven and a half minutes?”
“Something I learned from an old college professor. Don’t ask me how it came up, but I still have this clear picture of him standing behind his podium exclaiming, ‘Never boil a lobster for a period any shorter or longer than precisely seven and a half minutes.’”
“Why is that?”
Victor smiled. “Beats the shit out of me.”
It was the first time Donna had heard him swear and it caught her off guard. She laughed long and loud.
“It was a math course of some sort,” he continued. “He must have been talking about precision, I suppose. Who knows? It’s a long time ago. About the only thing I remember about his class actually—except for the seven and a half minutes—is that every time we had a test or an exam, I used to intermingle verses of haiku poetry—my own—amidst the cut and dryness of the arithmetic.”
Donna was surprised. “Haiku poetry?”
“Yes, you know. The Japanese style verse that’s only seventeen syllables long. The key is to create an entire image, produce something of vivid clarity, a thought painting a picture, inside a very rigid structure.”
“Why did you do that?”
He thought, smiling. “I’m not sure. Maybe to show the old guy that poetry could be every bit as precise as mathematics. I don’t know. Maybe for my own recreation.” He paused. “Why are you smiling?”
“It’s just so nice to have a real conversation with someone,” she said sincerely. “Most guys I’ve gone out with lately don’t really talk about anything, let alone haiku poetry. They just always seem to be steering the conversation over to sex.” She stopped, realizing that in the last several minutes, she had done precisely that. Twice.
“Are you from New York originally?” she asked.
“Connecticut.”
“Your family still there?”
“My father died of a heart attack when I was five.”
“So did mine—but I was twenty-three. Your mother?”
“Dead.”
“Two orphans,” she said, smiling sadly. “I have a sister. Joan. She’s at Radcliffe.”
“Only child,” he responded.
Their lobster arrived, overspilling the plate. They ate in long silences punctuated by short, staccato bursts of conversation and much laughter.
She: “Do you live right in Palm Beach?”
He: “I have a house in Lantana. You?”
She: “An apartment in West Palm.”
More silence. More champagne.
She: “How come you have a house?” Breathholding pause. “You’re not married, are you?” Of course, that was it. He was married! That was why he had to be back that night. Goddamn! Of course! He was married.
He: “No, I’m not married.”
She: “Are you sure?”
He: “Very.”
More silence. Dessert. Coffee. Check please.
He: “Why do you pick at your cuticles?”
She: “Nerves.”
He: “What are you nervous about?”
She: “Life.”
Much laughter. Much hugging on the way to the airport. Sleeping—half sleeping on each other’s shoulders on the plane ride home. Crawling into his Seville at the West Palm Beach airport. Driving quickly to the ocean. Parking the car and listening to the roar of the waves. Was any of this real? Had any of it actually happened? She looked into his beautiful face. I could love this man, she realized with some sense of panic. I could really love this man.
She hadn’t necked in a parked car in years, more years than she could remember. Donna tried to picture who the boy had been, her mind careening back through at least ten casual lovers, rolling over on assorted beds back through time, pausing long enough to single out one or two who had approached love, perhaps overtaking it only to see it slide backward, rolling slowly into a steady decline like Sisyphus’ mythical rock until it hit bottom. Rock bottom.
This time was nothing like those.
Victor’s lips were gentle, not urgent. His kisses were the kisses of a romantic, not a horny teenager. His mouth was open but not devouring, knowing exactly when and how, and how much. Her mother had been right—he had good hands.
“Why are you stopping?” she heard a voice ask. Her voice. “Who said that?” she laughed, trying to joke, surprised at her own eagerness, her own willingness not to be coy.
“As much as I love the ocean,” he said quietly, his head lowered against hers, his breath gently whisking against her chin, “I’ve never been one for making love in the front seat of a car—or the back seat, for that matter.”
The revelation came as no surprise. She fought the urge to ask, “Your place or mine?” and remained quiet until he resumed speaking several seconds later.
“Besides,” he continued, “I don’t like starting anything I can’t finish.”
“Why can’t you finish?” she asked, again surprised by the urgency in her voice and the disappointment she heard creeping in. They both laughed.
“Because I have to be up very early in the morning,” he answered, taking her hands and intermingling their fingers.
“Going somewhere?” she asked, hearing a loud voice inside her saying, “I knew it was too good to be true; he’s leaving to join the Peace Corps in darkest Africa first thing in the morning!” The voice was so loud and insistent she almost didn’t hear what he actually said in the following instant. “You’re going where?” she shouted, Africa quickly becoming the preferred place to be, as she permitted his voice to penetrate the one now screaming inside her.
He said it again simply, with even a hint of a smile. Almost, in fact, if it was possible, eloquently. “To jail,” he repeated, and then neither said another word.
THREE
She picked him up in front of the West Palm Beach jailhouse at seven P.M. on Sunday night. He was smiling, looking none the worse for wear for his two-day incarceration—if anything, he looked even better than she remembered, dressed casually in blue jeans and an open-neck shirt. He was already waiting for her—they had released him some ten minutes ahead of schedule.
“Time off for good behavior,” he joked, getting into the passenger seat beside her and immediately cradling her in his arms, his lips tasting better than a good brandy as they touched lightly down on hers.
“Honest to God,” she began, starting the ignition, “I don’t believe this whole thing.” Especially the way my heart is thumping, she thought. She pulled away from the curb into the middle of the street. For some reason, the West Palm Beach jail was situated on one of West Palm’s main streets just next to a used car lot. From the outside, it looked like just another reasonably run-down store front. West Palm Beach was separated from its easterly counterpart, Palm Beach, more by a gulf of dollars than by the inland waterway that physically divided the two territories. West Palm had a decidedly lived-in aura; nothing in Palm Beach proper betrayed any signs of use or age—except possibly its population.
“Do you always pull away from the curb like that?” Victor asked casually. “You’ll ruin the tread in your tires.” Donna smiled, finding it very difficult to concentrate on anything other than the few black hairs she had seen escaping the top of his pale blue shirt.
“Well, I’ve certainly learned my lesson,” he said solemnly, pausing dramatically. “I’ll never run a stop sign again.”
“I thought you said you didn’t run that stop sign.”
<
br /> “They said I did.”
“But you said you didn’t and that’s why you chose two days in jail rather than pay the stupid ticket. A questionable move, even if you were innocent! Now you say you were guilty?”
“As charged, yes,” he agreed, nodding his head. “But I couldn’t let them know that, not after I made such a fuss. The principle of it all, you know.” He laughed.
She laughed as well, although she wasn’t sure why. In her mind, she was trying to come to quick terms with a man who would choose two days in jail rather than pay a traffic ticket he could well afford for an offense he now admitted he was guilty of committing—and still refer to it as a matter of principle.
They crossed over a bridge and headed onto South Ocean Boulevard. “So, how was it?” she asked. “Rough?”
“You better believe it. Two days in solitary confinement!”
“Solitary confinement?”
“There was no one else there.”
“You were the only prisoner?” He nodded. “Then you weren’t raped,” she stated more than asked. Why was she always talking about sex?
“I was hoping we’d save that for tonight,” he said, their eyes freezing on each other’s. “Watch the red light!”
Her foot moved immediately to the brake, slamming down hard, jerking them both forward. They were a good fifty feet from the stoplight and there were no other cars in the vicinity.
“Sorry,” he said immediately. “I just saw it out of the corner of my eye and I thought it was closer.” Donna’s heart was racing. “That’s okay. I shouldn’t have taken my eyes off the road.”
“Would you be insulted if I asked you to let me drive?” he asked, suddenly.
“You want to drive?” she repeated.
“If you wouldn’t mind.” He paused, smiling. “For some reason I feel a little nervous tonight, and I usually find that I can relax behind the wheel of a car.”
“I wouldn’t mind a bit,” Donna said earnestly.
Victor opened his door and Donna slid over into the place he left vacant while Victor walked around the front of the red Mustang and proceeded to occupy the driver’s seat Donna had given up.
“That’s better,” he said, and she immediately agreed. He advanced the fifty feet to the stoplight, which turned green precisely upon his arrival. A good sign, she thought.
He looked over at her briefly, the thin lines around his eyes relaxing into creases which, she thought, actually seemed to be smiling. His voice was very soft. “Home?” he asked, and then turned his attention back to the road without waiting for an answer.
Donna couldn’t believe what was happening to her.
She had been prepared for him to be a good, even an excellent lover (although she had also spent the previous two days convincing herself that he would probably not be—something was bound to go wrong somewhere—not even fantasies were as good as this reality). She had not been prepared, however, for just how good, how truly excellent he was. Beyond excellence. Into the realm of the fantastic.
She had never had a lover who was so willing to do anything—everything—to make her feel good. His dedication—a strange word to use, she realized, but she could think of none better—was all-encompassing. He wanted only to make her happy. He wanted nothing from her except for her to lie there smiling. She was simultaneously passive and delirious.
They had walked quickly and silently from the car into his moderately large bungalow and once inside, he had taken her hand and led her through the hallway, past the living and dining rooms and the kitchen, all of which Donna noted in passing were neat and tasteful, and back to the rear of the house where the bedrooms were situated.
Donna guessed there must be three, possibly four bedrooms, by the length of the hallway. He led her into the first room, a room of soft blues and beiges (“surf and sand,” he joked quietly, leading her to the double bed and starting to kiss around her mouth).
He undressed her without saying a word, letting his hands, his fingers, do all the talking. When she reached over to unbutton his shirt, he moved just out of her reach, pulling back the bed covers and guiding her inside them. “Let me,” he said, his voice very low, his fingers moving to unbutton his shirt. “Let me do everything.” Donna had never heard anything as sexy as those four words sounded.
She watched as he took off his shirt and slipped out of his shoes and socks. Donna felt she should perhaps avert her eyes as he lowered his jeans and shorts but she didn’t, couldn’t. He was the most beautiful man she had ever seen.
He crawled into bed beside her and immediately took her in his arms, his lips moving softly over hers. They kissed for what seemed like an incredibly prolonged period and yet simultaneously felt like no time at all.
Everything he did was more than she had hoped. The way he touched her, moved her, stimulated her, while demanding nothing in return. At one point, she had moved to take him in her mouth, but he had caught her hair with his hand and brought her body over his, positioning her open legs directly above his waiting mouth and lowering her slowly down.
“Let me—” she whispered later, using his words.
“No,” he said, again moving just out of her reach and sliding his head down her body, his hands remaining on her breasts. “I want it all,” he said as his tongue moved slowly down her skin. “I can’t get enough of you.”
When he finally entered her, she felt she was beyond further orgasms, her entire body soaked with perspiration; her hair clinging wetly to her head, sticking against her cheek. “I can’t come any more,” she breathed, feeling his hands rotating her hips against the rhythm of his own.
“You’ll come,” he said, shifting their positions, lifting both her legs over his shoulders, high into the air, raising himself onto his knees.
“Oh my God,” she shouted, feeling him penetrate deep inside her. “Jesus Christ!” She could barely catch her breath.
Minutes later, he brought her legs down and turned her so that they lay moving together on their sides. Slowly, very slowly. His lips tentatively moved away from hers. She opened her eyes to find him staring at her.
“Would it upset you very much,” he asked, “if I told you I think I’m falling in love with you?”
She began to cry, realized she was indeed coming again, and hugged him so tightly against her that she found it hard to distinguish where he left off and she began.
They decided to get married two months later over mushroom burgers at Hamburger Heaven.
“When?” she asked, as she drove him back to his office after lunch was finished.
“As soon as I can make all the arrangements,” he said, his body suddenly tensing.
“What’s the matter?”
“Sorry, honey,” he said, sounding genuinely contrite. “It’s just that I get very nervous when you hold your hands on the wheel like that.” She looked at her hands; they were resting with a moderate degree of casual abandon at the bottom of the steering wheel, a position they often maintained when she was driving. “If something were to happen,” he continued, “you know, if some idiot did something stupid and you had to move fast, you’d never get your hands back on the wheel in time to get out of his way. You’d be a goner.” Her hands moved to the proper position on either side of the steering wheel.
“You’re right,” she said, “I better start being more careful with myself.”
She pulled the car to a halt in front of his office, a large stucco building of appropriate canary yellow. A stocky man of medium height walked past their parked car and into the building’s imposing front door.
“Wasn’t that Danny Vogel?” she asked. He nodded. “Haven’t you patched up that silly squabble yet?” He shook his head. “I thought he apologized.”
“He did.” Victor got out of the car and leaned back inside. “You decide who you’d like to invite. Make a list. As far as I’m concerned, the fewer people the better.”
He started to close the door. “Victor?” He pulled it back open and stuck h
is head inside. “I love you,” she said.
“I love you, honey,” he answered, closing the door gently.
Donna watched him walk inside the large white door. He didn’t look back. It seemed he never looked back. About anything. He was so sure of everything he did. “Oh, God, Mother,” she heard herself suddenly exclaim, realizing how little she really knew this man, feeling an advance onslaught of pre-nuptial jitters, “please tell me I’m doing the right thing.” But the only voice she heard was the DJ on the car radio telling her it was two o’clock and time for a look at the news.
She had been sitting for well over an hour just staring at the name. Lenore Cressy. Beside it, printed neatly in the same even black-inked hand that had penned the multitude of other names, addresses and phone numbers in the small black leatherbound book, was a Connecticut address and phone number. Lenore Cressy. Donna continued to stare.
He had told her there was no wife; his mother was dead; he’d been an only child. Who then? Perhaps an aunt or a cousin. Obviously a relation. She looked away from the address book, debating with herself what to do. Their wedding was less than two weeks away and so far he’d only asked her to do two things for him—arrange for the flowers and the photographers. It meant two phone calls, and yet here she was, already sidelined by an irrelevancy. She tried to assign herself to the task at hand. They had decided on white and yellow roses, and since he mentioned that he also loved daisies, they had been added to the decor. She looked around the room, suddenly very glad he had thought of having the wedding here, at his home, the home that would soon also be hers.
His list of the people he wanted to invite consisted only of five names, which brought the total number of guests to twenty people. She’d sought out his address book, not deliberately to spy on him, but to find the phone number of the florist he had suggested she call after telling her he knew it to be superior to the one a friend of hers had recommended. Carnation Florists, right there under the letter C. Seven listings above Cressy, Lenore.