“I respect your personal space.”
“Ha!”
“But how is the wine cold?”
“You’ll just need to search my bag. But I bet you’re glad I brought it. I bet you won’t call me hopeless when you drink most of it.”
“I bet you have a second bottle in there.”
I smile and shrug. “You’ll just have to find out.” The truth is, there is a second bottle. I like to be prepared, especially on pseudo–boyfriend/girlfriend picnics.
“Yeah, find out, then wreck Hoffman’s car. Or get pulled over.”
“You can just pay him off. The cop. Or Hoffman too, I guess.”
Josh lifts an eyebrow at this. “Just what are you saying?”
“I’m not saying anything.”
“Sometimes,” he says, “extra measures are needed to get things done.”
We eat our lunch, and drink the wine. Josh asks if he can have the pickle I’ve left sitting on my paper sandwich wrapper, and I give it to him.
“I didn’t think you were the pickle type,” he says.
“I should have gotten an apple,” I say. “I’m an apple type. My grandparents had an orchard by Spokane. Katie and I used to go there in the summers. Like your cabin.”
“Orchards are good places,” Josh says.
“They are. I loved it there.”
“Are your grandparents still living?”
“No. They were old. My mom’s parents. But their place is still an orchard. They got a conservation easement on it. Katie and I talk about driving there sometime. They even kept the name.”
“What is it?”
“The name? Mason Farms. That was their last name. My mom’s maiden name.”
“You should drive there,” Josh says. “With your sister.” He’s finished the pickle. “Want to hike down to the beach?”
“There’s a beach?”
“Right down the hill.” Josh points down the slope. As he does so, a car slows on the road up behind us, and then drives on. It’s the first car we’ve seen since we’ve been here.
“Is it far?” I ask.
“Ten minutes. Maybe twenty.”
I gather up our mess and our bottle and stuff everything into my bag, and we start down the hillside on a dusty, narrow trail through the brush. Smaller trails branch off in different directions, but we stick to the most defined path that seems to be heading in the direction Josh wants to go. I’m walking a few steps behind him, looking at his back, and I can’t help but think again of Monday night and the idea that maybe it’s time for me to be a little aggressive for once. I pause.
“Hey,” I call. “Stop. Come back up this way.”
“What?”
“Come with me.”
“Where are you going?”
“Just come with me, okay?”
He trots up and I lead him not quite a hundred feet into the brush. The wind brings us the smell from the ocean below, and a couple of birds hover on the current of air above us.
“Sit down,” I say. “Sit. Right there.”
He does, grinning because he knows what I’m going to do, and I kneel in front of him and unbutton his shorts.
“There could be people back here, you know.”
“Do you not want me to?”
“I didn’t say that.”
I lean forward, as if I’m going to kiss him, but I don’t. “Why are you smiling like that?”
“I’m smiling?”
“It’s more like a smirk. I’m not going to do it if you have that look on your face.”
Josh adopts a suitably serious expression and I slide myself down and get to work, feeling an outdoorsy thrill; the breeze and the sun and the tiny worry of being caught all make it seem dangerous and fun.
I use my hand and turn my head up toward him.
“Look at me,” I say, almost surprising myself. I want him to look at me.
He bites his lip and nods. “Okay.”
“Watch me.” It’s almost a whisper.
“Yes.”
I get to work again, glancing up from time to time to meet his wide-open eyes. Then I take another little break and use my hand, staring at him, watching him watch me, but Josh makes a sudden “ah!” sound—overexcitement on his part (or poor timing on my own) has resulted in a dark wet splatter spreading down from the shoulder across the chest of my sage-colored freebie sport top.
“Um, sorry,” Josh says.
“No, no,” I say, looking away. “I’m sorry.” Now I am embarrassed; while him watching and the threat of getting caught giving a blow job seemed daring, the thought of being seen with some guy’s spunk all over my shirt is positively mortifying. I work with a deli napkin from my bag to try to clean up the mess, turning away to hide my blush, and then I put my jacket back on while Josh closes up his shorts.
“I’m sorry,” he says again.
“No, really. Don’t. Let’s just go down to the beach.” I do not want to be seen.
I let him go ahead so I can take a couple breaths and let the burning in my cheeks subside. Following him back out to the main trail and starting down again, composure returns and I begin to wonder if the people at Cippoletti would be interested in hearing my thoughts on the sperm-resistant qualities of their clothing in my feedback report. This thought leads to a giggle, which in turn leads to a full, unstoppable laugh as I stumble down behind Josh through the loose, dusty rock of the trail.
16
Gert stays home on Friday, and, while I’m not happy that he’s hurt himself, I welcome the break. I’m not really looking forward to the fact that, as we scan higher up my body, there won’t be enough room for Gert’s jury-rigged sheet to protect me from the lasers and I’m probably going to need to go back to the eyeshades. I’ll resist that as long as I can.
I’ve stayed home too, and this time, Patrick is around. I have no idea why he’s not at work, and I don’t know if he realizes that I’m here, as well. But from the sound of things, it’s business as usual. This morning he’s been standing on the landing right outside my door and yelling things down to Danny.
“Is it working now?” he shouts.
“No,” Danny calls back from below me. “Still ‘page not found.’”
“Hold on.” I hear him run back up the stairs. Danny must be having problems with his Internet. Patrick set us all up to share the same connection, and somehow (either through generosity or forgetfulness, I can’t figure out which) he’s allowed me to stay online. When I hear his footsteps coming down the stairs again, I go over and put my ear to the door.
“Try it now.”
“What do you want me to load?”
“I don’t care, it doesn’t matter. Try anything. Bring up the weather.”
“Hey, that’s it, you got it. What did you do?”
“Just rebooted.”
“Thanks, man.”
Patrick goes upstairs, slowly this time. I hear him cough as he climbs the stairs, and I hear him close his door, softly. Across the room my cell starts to ring, and I dart over and hide it under a pillow on my couch so no one will hear it.
Wait, wait. I live here. I can answer my phone in my apartment. I’m not hiding from anything, right?
Except maybe—I realize just as I pull the phone from under the pillow and flip it open—my mother, who appears to be the person calling.
“Mom,” I say.
“Jessica, how are you?”
“I’m fine, Mom. What’s up?”
“Oh.” She starts with a wavering voice. “I’ve just been thinking about—”
“What, Denver? Are you obsessed? Can you just get it out of your head for a little bit? Can you turn off the TV? Jesus, Mom, you’re going to drive yourself crazy.”
“Jessica.” Her voice is hard now, hard the way it would be when I got a bad grade or something in high school. “I’ve been thinking about your sister’s party.”
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” God, I suck. “What about it?”
“Well, the p
arty will be that Saturday night. Your sister will be coming out the week before. It would be so nice if you could come early too….”
“I cannot do that, seriously.”
“Well, fine then. Jane is coming, did I tell you your aunt Jane is coming? And Alison will be here too.”
“That’s great, Mom,” I say, and I mean it; Katie and I have always agreed that our mom’s sister Jane is our favorite aunt, and her daughter, Alison, is our favorite cousin. “But what’s the problem?”
“I would like to have a little bit of time with just the three of us.”
“What do you mean, Mom? Katie and I are going to be there all week.”
“I want to do something special.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know. But I’d like it to be special.”
“It will be special, Mom. I’m looking forward to seeing you. Really.”
“I know,” she says. “But just something.”
“We could go out to dinner?”
“Something more than going out to dinner.”
I really don’t know what to say. She sounds so damn sincere. “I’ll think about it, Mom. I’ll give some thought to what we can do.”
“Will you?”
“Yes. Serious thought.”
“Thank you, Jessica. But really, how about Denver?”
“Mom.”
“What?”
“Let’s just not talk about that, okay? They stopped him, right? Isn’t that what’s important?”
“But it’s such an incredible story of how they—”
“Ah, someone’s at my door, Mom. Gotta run. Love you.”
“I love you too, Jessica.”
Josh, in an apparent continuation of our recent boyfriend/girlfriend act, suggests on Saturday that we go out to dinner. This sounds nice, but I’ve already spoken to Amy about seeing her for the first time in forever. Plans are combined easily, though, and Josh and Amy, who both know about each other but have never met, seem interested in meeting and have no problem with us becoming a dinner threesome.
I’ve made reservations for us at Poulson’s. It’s a pretty nice place, and I’m using the occasion as an excuse to wear my maybe-too-formal black dress with the teeny straps. I’m really into the whole idea of this being a date, and when I see myself in my bathroom mirror in the dress I decide to go even that crazy extra step and dig around the drawer next to the sink for some lipstick.
I do have a problem, however: Josh insists on coming to my apartment and walking with me to the restaurant rather than just meeting me there. I don’t really care about him being here; it’s just the procedure of actually getting him in that I’m apprehensive about. I feel awkward enough getting myself in and out.
Now, almost formally dressed with my hair pulled back and more made up than I’ve been in probably two years, I’m nervous. I keep going to my window over the street to watch for him; I’m expecting to see him coming from the direction of the bus stop, but then I wonder if maybe he’ll borrow Hoffman’s Porsche to come and pick me up—how embarrassing would that be?
There is wine, though, always there’s wine lately, and I go to the kitchen and grant myself permission to pour a full giant glass with the thought that it might help me relax. And just as I take my second long sip, or maybe the third, my doorbell buzzes and the glass is on the counter and I run over to see Josh’s sandy head waiting at the front door of the building. I hit the buzzer and have my door open, and when he makes it up to my landing I rush him in to avoid any awkward situations.
“Hey, what’s up?” he says. “You seem eager.”
“I am. Hi.” I lean forward to listen at the door for a moment, before giving him a quick kiss. “How are you?”
“I’m fine. You look great.”
“You mean it?”
“I wouldn’t have said it if I didn’t mean it. You look fantastic. Is that lipstick?”
“Yes?” I feel my face getting hot. “I can take it off.”
“No, no, leave it. It’s fun. Have I ever seen you wearing makeup?”
“Probably not. Really, I can take it off.”
“Leave it. Seriously.”
“Come to the kitchen,” I say. “Do you want some wine?”
“Do I get a glass that big?”
“This is the only big one I have. It saves me trips to refill.”
“I’ll share it with you.”
We sit at my table, and it isn’t long before I’m refilling. Josh looks fantastic himself in a dark, collarless shirt with a jacket and dark pants; he even has on nice shoes. I had no idea he was into clothes.
“I didn’t know you even owned a jacket, Josh.”
“Oh, you know, it is a date and everything.”
“Aren’t you sweet.”
“I do have a confession to make.” He’s seems to be ahead of me already in wine consumption. I can see it in his cheeks.
“Yes?”
“I borrowed the jacket from Hoffman.”
“You are sweet. I’m picturing you asking.”
“I thought the evening warranted it.”
“But, I have to ask, Hoffman has a jacket? And one that nice?”
“Hoffman sells his work for a lot of money. And he has a taste for fine things.”
“Like the car.”
“Like the car. And certain grad students.”
“Zing.”
“I didn’t say that, did I?”
“I didn’t hear a thing.” I grab my goblet-esque glass and down the last sip before Josh gets it, and I pour the last of the bottle.
“Running low,” Josh says. “Are we busing it to the restaurant?”
“We could, but it isn’t such a long walk. I’d like to walk.”
“I’d like to walk too.”
Josh seems unusually animated tonight. I can’t really tell if it’s happiness, or something else. I might even call it affection. We finish the wine and leave—undetected—from my building, and as we’re walking down my street he actually grabs my hand.
Amy is waiting for us at Poulson’s. She looks great too; introductions are made and we take our table and everyone seems happy. Amy orders a martini; I haven’t had one in forever and it sounds good, so I order one as well.
“Sure, I’ll have one too,” Josh says when asked.
“How would you like that?” the drinks girl asks.
“I don’t know, how would I like that?” He looks at Amy and me. “I’ve never had one before.”
“You’ve really never had a martini?” Amy asks. “Alright, you want a dirty gin martini, up. Sapphire. That’s the way to start out.”
“What she says,” Josh says to the girl. She leaves the table, and Josh looks at us and shrugs. “New at this. Jessica is corrupting me.”
“Oh, she’s good at that,” Amy says. “She corrupted me.”
“I did not. You were corrupt well before we met. I know this for a fact.”
“She’s a liar, Josh. Have you figured out yet that she’s a liar?”
We’re having fun, joking around, and I’m pleased at the way Amy and Josh seem to be getting along. It’s nice to feel for once that I can be open about the fact that I’ve been seeing him. The drinks come, and Josh raises his eyebrows when he takes a sip.
“Now that’s—”
“That, Josh, is the taste of civilization,” Amy says, and we all laugh.
“It’s the taste of something, not sure what,” Josh says. “But it’s good.”
“They make them very well here,” Amy says.
“You would know,” I say.
We go slowly with the drinks; we talk and laugh and order an appetizer made of tiny grilled wedges of polenta. The restaurant isn’t slammed, and we aren’t feeling rushed, so we order a second round of drinks.
“But there’s a rule about the martini, Josh,” Amy says.
“What’s that?”
“They’re like a woman’s breasts.”
“Wait, what?” He looks at me,
his cheeks very red. “Martinis are like breasts how?”
Amy loves to tell this joke whenever she can, but I beat her to it. “One is not enough,” I say. “But three is too many.”
He looks totally blank for a one-one-thousand two-one-thousand, but then suddenly gets it and starts to laugh. “Oh, okay, okay, that’s really funny. I’ll remember that.”
Amy taps the stem of her glass with her fingernail. “You should. Strong medicine, here.” Josh nods in an obedient-little-boy sort of way. “So, I know you’re an artist. Like, a printer, right? Tell me just what it is that you do.”
This, of course, is the magic request, and Josh’s face illuminates as he sits up straight and gives the stock ten-minute explanation of the process of lithography. He’s very enthusiastic, and his explanation is animated and fun, so I don’t mind so much that I’ve heard it a few times before. He does pause for us to order our entrees and a bottle of wine, though.
“Okay, I get all that,” Amy says when he finishes, and she seems sincerely interested. “But what does Jessica’s body have to do with it? This crazy scanner, it’s a scanner you told me about, right? It seems like a very modern thing to put together with this centuries-old art form you’re doing.”
“That’s just it,” Josh says. “That’s exactly the point.”
“But how is my friend’s body involved?”
“You will just have to see how that comes together. You will see it. You will understand it.”
“Is the scanning hard? I mean physically, like, for you, Jess. Is it difficult?”
“It’s more boring than anything else,” I say. “I’m just a prop. But we’re on hiatus at the moment.” I tell her about tall Dutch Gert, and how he cut himself, and Amy gasps and puts her hands to her mouth when I describe the injury to his hand.
“God, it was such a mess, blood everywhere, it was on my feet, everywhere!” Josh seems to be shrinking down into his chair as I talk about it. “The woman from the Academy was a bitch too. And poor Josh here, I think the blood was a little—”
“No,” he says. “That’s not right. That’s not how it was.” He’s defensive, and looks a little angry.
“I’m sorry, Josh. I would have freaked out too if I walked in on that. And these two weird guys came in after—”
“Stop! That’s not, that’s not how it was.”
Jessica Z Page 15