“Yes. Bingo, Mr. O’Leary. Got it. So? Who has an answer? Who has something interesting to say?”
There were seven minutes left. There was still time.
“Forget the difficult language. Forget the funny costumes everyone is probably wearing in your heads. Just think about the story. The plot. The conflict. Millions and millions of books have been written since this one, and we’re still assigning it. Why?”
“My mom says it’s about the death of innocence,” said Britney.
A few nodded.
“Okay,” he said. “That’s not bad. Pure love is easily corrupted. Young passion burns hottest. You can get some mileage out of that, for sure. But it’s more than that. Writers have been killing off innocence forever. Let’s dig deeper.”
Britney looked annoyed. Mitch figured she’d been saving that one—a mic drop at the bell to ramp up her participation grade. To be fair, though, Mitch wasn’t entirely sure what he was hoping to hear. He just wanted to hear something. Something new. Something not cribbed from a ten-second Google search in the hallway before class.
He looked at Scarlett, who was looking at him, then he forced himself to look away. And then his eyes fell on Luke.
Oh, Luke. His ace in the hole, seated at shy attention in the second row, closest to the window, like always. Luke blushed, anticipating what was about to happen. Mitch made it a point to not always put his best student on the spot, but sometimes you need a good old-fashioned book nerd to save the day. “What do you think, Luke?” he said.
Luke frowned, accepting his fate.
“Tell us what makes this thing so brilliant.”
Luke blushed more deeply now with so many eyes on him. Mitch glanced at the clock.
“I—” Luke started.
Mitch nodded, encouraging him.
“I actually think it kinda sucked, Mr. B.”
It was easily the last thing Mitch could’ve imagined Luke saying at that moment. “Excuse me?”
Luke shrugged. “I do.”
“Heck yeah!” said Kenny. “See, even the all-star thinks this book bites it.”
“Zip it, Jecelin.”
For the first time in as long as Mitch could remember, the entire class was intellectually present. Whatever happened from here, that was a good thing.
“Okay, Luke. You’ve got our attention. But you know the rules. You can’t say something that outlandish and not back it up. You’ve got about ninety seconds. Explain yourself. What about this—one of the most famous, most read, most discussed works of literature in history—sucks?”
“Well, I don’t like how it makes us feel,” he said. “As readers.”
“What do you mean?”
“The entire time you’re reading it, you know what’s gonna happen, right? We all know the ending.”
“Well, yeah,” said Britney. “Duh.”
Luke leaned forward, pushing ahead. “We know it’s all gonna go wrong. It’s gonna be a tragedy. It’s…it’s inevitable. But you care about them the whole time. And you want it to work out for them because they love each other, even though you know it won’t. And then you have to watch them die anyway.”
Mitch smiled.
The bell rang, and everyone scattered.
16
Do you remember me?
Jessica typed this and stared at it on her iPhone screen. She deleted it, and then she typed it again, and then she deleted it again, because she didn’t like how it sounded. Too needy, like fishing for a compliment, like she was just begging him to say something like “How could I not?”
She was at the Under Armour store, downtown, a few blocks from her office. She needed a new sports bra. A water bottle, too, and maybe some new Orioles T-shirts for the kids and Mitch. She couldn’t remember the last time she got them something fun “just because.”
And then she saw the underwear mannequin.
Headless. Armless. Legless. It was a torso made of gray plaster, perfectly muscled, in nothing but a pair of sleek, skintight boxer briefs. To say it made her think of Ryan wasn’t entirely accurate, because she’d been thinking about him nonstop anyway. It did, however, for the first time, make her consider what he might look like in his underwear. He was young, and he was gorgeous, so of course this was the kind of underwear he’d wear, right?
The headline above the display read, definitively, YOU’LL NEVER WEAR REGULAR UNDERWEAR AGAIN. She read this a few times in her head, searching for some kind of meaning that wasn’t ominous.
YOU’LL NEVER BE WITH YOUR REGULAR HUSBAND AGAIN.
YOU’LL NEVER BE SATISFIED BY YOUR REGULAR LIFE AGAIN.
She imagined them standing face-to-face, she and Ryan. She’d tug at the front button of his jeans, revealing the bold Under Armour waistband like a promise.
Do you remember me?
She held her breath and hit Send.
He could say no. Or he could say nothing. If either of those things happened, she’d just put her phone back in her purse, and that’d be that. She’d shop. She’d buy some things for her family. She’d go back to her REGULAR life. She’d be fine.
When her phone buzzed twenty seconds later, though, Jessica realized she was still holding her breath. She let it out slowly and didn’t look at her phone right away. Instead, she held it in her hand and turned to look at her own reflection in a mirror near some hoodies. Music pumped through the store, upbeat and motivational.
Shiraz?
She looked at her reflection again and found that she was smiling.
I guess you don’t write your phone number on just anyone’s wrist.
She wondered if she should’ve included a smiley face or something to temper what she’d just written. Her heart raced, pumping blood furiously. She held three Orioles T-shirts in the crook of her arm.
The typing bubble appeared, with its pulsating ellipses, followed by a little buzz in her hand.
Have I caused another moral dilemma?
* * *
—
When she asked him where he was, she expected him to text back that he was at work. That was how she’d put it all together in her head. He’d be at Bar Vasquez, and the place would be empty because it was four in the afternoon. It was only a few blocks from the Under Armour store. She’d walk over and have a drink. She’d have a glass of wine, maybe two, and she’d initiate some small step forward. She’d touch his forearm. She’d hold his gaze. If she was feeling particularly bold, she’d say something like, “Maybe we should meet somewhere sometime.”
And that would be enough, thank you very much. Her marriage was evolving, and evolution moved slowly.
But when her phone buzzed again, she read, I’m at home, and she had no idea how to respond. The dynamics had shifted, her plan ruined. No matter, though. Before she could devise a new one, he texted her again.
Maybe you should be here too?
And now she was in a row house in Locust Point, every nerve ending in her body on high alert and humming with pure electricity.
“You’re lucky,” said Ryan. “I don’t usually have shiraz. Not the most robust wine cellar in town, I guess.” He nodded to the brushed-metal wine rack in the corner of the tiny kitchen next to the fridge.
The glass in her hand was foggy with dish-detergent residue, but she was relieved to have something to do with her hands. She took another sip and felt warmth. “It’s fine,” she said. “It’s good.”
He was drinking beer from a can. He was barefoot, in jeans and a Bruce Springsteen T-shirt with the Born in the U.S.A. album cover on the chest.
“Were you even alive when that album came out?” she asked.
He looked down at himself. “Doubt it. The shirt’s vintage. My dad’s a huge Springsteen guy. Loves him.”
She took another sip of wine and tried to remember the year the album was released
.
“I’m really glad you texted me,” he said. “I mean, I was a little surprised you texted me. But definitely glad.”
“Why were you surprised?” she said. To her, of course, this all seemed inevitable.
He didn’t respond, though. Instead, he looked at her hand. And when she followed his eyes, she arrived at the diamond on her finger, the one she’d worn virtually every moment of her life for years and years. She moved her hand to her hip, out of view. “I guess I felt like being spontaneous today,” she said. The s got snagged on her bottom teeth, and she flushed. Her old lisp. “Thspontaneous.”
“Damn,” he said.
“What?”
“That’s sexy.”
“Three years of speech therapy in elementary school,” she said. “It comes back sometimes when I’m—” She didn’t finish this, because she wasn’t sure exactly how. Nervous didn’t quite cover it. It was an entirely new sensation. She remembered being a little girl, standing on a diving board at their local pool with her toes peeking over the edge. Her dad bobbing in the deep end, waiting to catch her. Come on, babes. Treading water’s not as easy as it looks.
This moment felt like that moment.
The tiny kitchen connected to a main sitting room with a flat-screen mounted to the wall, an overstuffed leather couch, and a few Orioles and Ravens bobbleheads. The floor was cluttered with pieces of furniture and odd bits of wood. “So, what’s all this? This stuff. Is it broken?”
He laughed. “The opposite, actually. That thing there, that’s gonna be an end table. That one over there will eventually be a kick-ass bookshelf. The dark one—that chewed-up-looking thing—that’ll be the nicest hope chest you’ve ever seen. My roommate and I, it’s kind of this side hustle we’ve got going. Our real jobs—I’m a waiter-slash-bartender, as you know, and he works on cars. But we build furniture, too. Reclaimed wood, mostly. It’s a thing people are into. Taking all these old things and making them new.”
“Oh,” she said. “That’s neat.”
Neat? Who says neat?
He laughed. “The bartender thing pays way better. More tips.”
She looked around the first floor. A wooden staircase led up to darkness. “You said you have a roommate?”
“Yeah.”
“Is he here?”
“Why?” He smiled, teasing her, the bastard.
“I’m just wondering.”
“Nah. He’s in and out. Keeps kinda weird hours.”
She thought of bending her knobby little-girl knees. She thought of the diving board dipping beneath her feet, and how it felt being launched through the air. She thought of the glorious sensation of falling. “So, where do you sleep?” she asked.
* * *
—
Taking his clothes off was the best part. Literally stripping him. It was the thing she’d think about most when she thought of all this. As far as memories went, it’d be more powerful than guilt or regret.
His bedroom was small and narrow but tidy and cool, sparsely decorated.
He kissed her, standing just inside his bedroom door, which he had closed behind him. She stood on her toes to meet his mouth. His hands held her face, then moved to her hair. He ran his fingers through it, grabbing and pulling just enough to angle her head the way he wanted it, and the shock of that simple act of dominance made her moan into his mouth.
She found the hem of the Springsteen T-shirt and pulled up, grazing her knuckles along his stomach. He held his arms up so she could take it off of him, and she took in what she saw—the effortless, youthful perfection of his upper body—and she laughed at the sheer absurdity of how fucking beautiful he was.
“What?” he said.
“Good Lord. How old are you, again?”
He found the top button of her blouse and started working his way downward. “You seem kinda fixated on that. My age.” He kissed her forehead and then her temple and then her earlobe, and it felt so good she might have toppled over if he wasn’t holding her by her shirt, opening it slowly. “I mean,” he said, “at this point, does it really matter?”
Her shirt fell to the floor next to his. He was right; it didn’t matter at all.
He pulled the zipper down the side of her skirt, and that fell to the floor, too. The vulnerability of standing there in her underwear wasn’t as difficult as she imagined it’d be. This was mostly because of the look on his face. He stared at her—no more fluttering eyes and stolen glances—and she could see how badly he wanted her.
He gently touched the side of her face and her throat, his palms rough against her skin, and ran his hand down her chest and slid it under the top of her bra. He squeezed her—again, gently—and as the tip of his thumb grazed her nipple she made a sound she’d never heard herself make before, like a small, breathless sob.
She meant to undo his belt slowly, to make a sexy thing of it, but she couldn’t keep herself together long enough to do anything other than tear into it. Same went for his button and zipper, and there they were: his underwear. She wasn’t sure if they were Under Armour, but they fit him like a second skin, like something so much better than whatever regular underwear was. The shape of his penis against the sleek gray fabric was as vivid as a 3-D printing. She touched the tip of it, and his stomach muscles twitched.
It’d been so long since removing clothing had been part of sex.
For years, she and Mitch had treated it like an appointment they were rushing to. This observation wasn’t an indictment against him or against them. It’s just how you have sex when you’re tired, and when you know that at any second you might hear a cry or a shout or, worse, approaching footsteps.
She liked this better.
With her right hand, she grabbed the stretchy elastic waistband and pulled down. And with her left hand, she took hold of him. His body shuddered when she squeezed, and again when she moved her hand up and down.
“Fuck,” he whispered.
They kissed again. She closed her eyes and kept hold of him, tugging lightly, until he was fully hard in her hand.
When she felt his hand on hers, she opened her eyes. He was looking again at her engagement and wedding rings—which were, at present, against his cock. His eyes were question marks.
She released her grip and kissed his chin. Then she took her rings off and placed them on his nightstand.
17
It was trash night in their neighborhood, which was a thing for Mitch and the kids. Every week, Emily and Jude helped him gather all the bags from the house, consolidate them into the big can in the garage, and then roll it down their long driveway to the curb.
This particular evening was different in that, along with the regular garbage, the week’s trash included the broken pieces of Jessica and Mitch’s bed.
The box spring was fine, and the headboard, too. They could eventually be given away. Mitch leaned them against the wall in the unfinished part of the basement where things like that went, their own Island of Misfit Household Objects.
It was the wooden frame that was the issue.
The two long boards that connected to the headboard had splintered into four jagged spears that he had no idea what to do with. They looked like chunks of a mighty tree, felled by lightning in the woods. Mitch carried them while Emily and Jude took turns rolling the garbage can. Needless to say, they had a few questions.
“So, wait, it just, like, broke?” asked Jude. “The whole bed?”
“Yep. It was really something.”
“Did you save your receipt?” asked Jude. “Can you bring it back to the store and get a new one for free?”
“Well, it’s about fifteen years old, bud. Receipts don’t really cover you that long.”
“Does that happen with beds? Do they just break like that?”
“Sometimes. Kinda the way it goes. Things get old and worn out
. Stuff breaks.”
Emily seemed more shaken by the damage than Jude. “Did you guys get hurt?”
“Nope. We’re fine. Mommy and Daddy are tough.”
“Were you jumping on it?” she asked.
He smiled, and loved her wildly for being so young and innocent. “No jumping on the bed, hon, remember? That’s how people get hurt.”
Emily looked at the ground.
“So, you were just sleeping?” asked Jude. “That’s it?”
“Mm-hmm,” said Mitch. “Just one of those things.”
“Could my bed break like that, too?” asked Emily. “While I’m sleeping?”
“No way. We made sure yours was extra strong when we bought it.”
Some birds escaped up into the trees and stared at them from above as they walked. The neighborhood was one of the most heavily forested in the Baltimore suburbs, which Mitch supposed was one of the reasons the kids found E.T. so scary. Some of the most terrifying moments in that movie take place in the woods, which was pretty much the view from their windows. There were so many places for an alien to lurk.
“Whoa, Dad. Look. Check that out.”
There was a Jeep Wrangler in the driveway next door, at James and Ellen’s place. It was brand-new and beautiful, and upon further inspection, Mitch saw that Luke was sitting in the driver’s seat. When Luke saw them see him, he looked embarrassed.
The kids ran next door while Mitch dealt with the garbage. That was how cool the Jeep was: cool enough to make the kids stop what they were doing and run. Mitch parked the garbage can near the mailbox and laid the pieces of the frame in the grass next to it before joining everyone in Luke’s driveway.
“Sweet Jeep, man,” he said. “Is it yours?”
Luke hopped out onto the driveway and shut the door. “It’s a bribe,” he said. “From my dad.”
“Well, I recommend you take it.” Mitch touched the fender, and then one of the big, shiny tires. The whole vehicle glowed—hunter green and gleaming.
“I thought I was getting a used Toyota Camry.”
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