Very Nice

by Marcy Dermansky

  Rachel

  My professor accepted a bottom sheet and a comforter. Zahid Azzam. He was in my house. I could say his name out loud. He was going to sleep in my father’s office. I had never seen this coming. We could sleep with each other again. I felt like my skin was on fire. I kept looking at him, looking away.

  He was wearing the same blue shirt.

  My mother has already begun to clear the room out. She had told me that maybe it was going to be her new painting studio. She already had a painting studio, a beautiful room on the first floor that looked out onto the lawn, but she said my father’s office got better light.

  Really, she just wanted to take over his room. She wanted to let my father know that he was not welcome to come back. My mother had told me that she was fine about his leaving. I had found out via e-mail, which seemed cowardly, on both of their parts, but it had been easier for me, too. Then they came to the college to take me out for brunch, and I wished that they hadn’t. They fought the entire time.

  Anyway, I was not sure she was fine.

  I did not think she would want my professor sleeping in our house if she was fine. I did not think she would want my writing professor sleeping in our house if she knew what had happened between us. But she didn’t suspect anything. If anything, she probably thought I was still a virgin. That night at dinner, she had looked at me affectionately, as if I were still a child. She had told my professor what a good writer I was, probably aware of how mortifying that was. Why would she do that to me? I had the perverse desire to tell her everything. I had a strange feeling that my mother was flirting with him. Worse, I felt like he was flirting with her. He was being charitable, obviously, but I wanted to warn him. My mother was vulnerable. She could misunderstand. We were all lobbying for the affection of Princess.

  It was weird.

  My mother won the contest over the dog. Once the food was brought to the table, the dog attached herself to my mother’s legs. We had only had Princess for about two weeks but I had this strange feeling we might end up keeping her. I actually felt bad for my professor. All year long, I had watched him with his dog. Walking her on campus. Going to office hours, Princess asleep on the couch where students were supposed to sit. I had not meant to steal his dog.

  I was glad I had stolen his dog.

  I had not meant to sleep with him.

  I had no idea what I was doing.

  Now it was almost eleven, and they had both been drinking. My mother would not let me drink, which was ridiculous. By the end of dinner, I had become annoyed by their conversation. He had mysteriously become one of the adults, one of my mother’s friends, and I was fidgety and started looking at my phone, which was something my mother hated, but I would not leave the table, because I would not leave them alone. I stared at his long fingers, holding the stem of his wine glass, and I blushed. I had kissed those fingers. They had cupped the back of my ass, gone inside me. I wondered how and when I could get him alone again. My professor said something about taking the train home.

  “You will do no such thing,” my mother said.

  I watched this happen. Suddenly, I became vigilant, wondering where she would put him. My father’s study actually made the most sense, with a couch that turned into a bed. Could I sneak into his room? Would he sneak into mine? I had no idea what would happen tonight. The next day. I would have to wake up early and go to camp. It was a job, but still: Go to camp. I hated the way it sounded. Like I was a little kid.

  Would he be gone when I got back?

  Back to New York, taking Princess with him?

  Maybe he would stay.

  His hair had gotten longer.

  It had been only two weeks since the last time I saw him. All through dinner, he almost compulsively pushed the hair out of his eyes. I could imagine my mother giving him a haircut. I had a flashback of her cutting my bangs when I was a child. Having me sit on the kitchen table and getting out her sharp scissors, trimming my bangs. It never came out right, always a little bit crooked, choppy, somehow uneven, wrong, until I finally revolted, refused to ever let her cut my hair again, and I had not had bangs since then.

  My mother gave Zahid a pair of my father’s pajama bottoms and a plain white T-shirt to sleep in. I found this reassuring. She was behaving like a mother, like the elementary school teacher that she was, and that was how my professor would see her. I did not want my life to become a Lifetime movie.

  My professor. My lover. Zahid Azzam. Sleeping in my house. I would start calling him by his name. I had assumed it was all over, but maybe it wasn’t. He was sleeping down the hall. He liked me, I knew that he did, he had to, even if he had shown no signs over dinner. Of course he hadn’t. We were with my mother.

  He wanted what he wanted and what he wanted was me.

  I could not sleep, tossing and turning, waiting for a knock on my door.

  * * *

  —

  He was still asleep when I woke up for camp the next day. Zahid. I hesitated in front of his closed door. Maybe he had been waiting for me to come into his room. That must have been it. I had made the first move before. We had a pattern. A history, even. Now I felt awkward, going downstairs in my clothes. A red camp T-shirt. Shorts. Sandals. Could I make that sexy somehow? I couldn’t. The shorts were short, but still.

  I didn’t wear sexy clothes, anyway. That wasn’t me. I was relieved that it was just my mother in the kitchen. There was a fresh pot of coffee. She had cut me a grapefruit.

  “Do you want avocado toast?” she asked, kissing me on top of my head.

  Of course, I wanted avocado toast.

  It was good coffee. This was nothing new. This was not for Zahid. Everything was nice in my mother’s house. She bought expensive coffee beans, ground them herself. My mother served me my breakfast. She liked to joke that she was the best restaurant in town.

  “Best restaurant in town,” she said now.

  I groaned.

  “So what do you think?” she asked.

  “Of what?” I said. I knew what she was asking me. “You mean the strange man upstairs?”

  My mother sat down with her coffee. She laughed. She seemed pleased about the man upstairs. My mother. I had no idea what was really going on inside her head.

  “How do you feel about him staying here?” she asked.

  “Do you mean for more than one night?”

  “I do.”

  I nodded, pretending to consider the idea. I had already resigned myself to having the most boring summer in the history of summers. Now my writing professor was here. In my house. I thought about Zahid, sleeping down the hall, his hairless chest. Maybe, fingers crossed, soon he would be sleeping with me again, back in my bed. I could not really believe it.

  “Are you serious?”

  Luckily, my mother was in motion again. She did not notice anything. She was refilling Princess’s water bowl. The toast popped and she was mashing avocado and then smoothing them onto the bread.

  “The truth is,” she said, “I am not ready to let go of this poodle.”

  “I’m sorry, Mom,” I said.

  “Yeah.” My mother sighed. “It was too soon.”

  I looked at Princess, drinking from Posey’s old water bowl. If I were my writing professor, I would get my dog away from my mother as fast as I could.

  “You heard him. He has a subletter staying in his apartment,” my mother said. “I don’t think he has anywhere to go.”

  “So?” I said.

  It was so strange. My mother lobbying for Zahid to stay. I knew from Twitter that his life was a mess. It would be stupid for so many reasons to get mixed up in his problems. This was completely obvious to me. But, of course, I wanted him to stay. He had told me that I was beautiful. When I was naked, he had said it again. Beautiful. Me. My mother wanted him to stay. I would go to him, sneak quietly under th
e covers.

  “I’m just surprised,” I said.

  “Honestly,” my mother said, “so am I.”

  She handed me a plate with two pieces of perfect avocado toast and then took one for herself.

  “Hey,” I said.

  “Hey what?” my mother said. “Half of this is for me.”

  “The tip is going down,” I said.

  “Ha,” she said.

  I had one friend at college whose parents made her pay for her own groceries. She paid for groceries and tuition and housing. She was on financial aid, worked two jobs and was always studying. I understood that I was lucky.

  “You really want him to stay?” I said.

  It felt important to act as if I did not care.

  “Let’s just see how it goes,” she said. “Day by day. He might also say no. It’s just an idea.”

  I nodded.

  It was more than a little bit surreal. I remembered them at dinner. They had been talking about a French movie I had never seen. They had talked on and on about New Wave cinema while I checked Instagram on my phone. My writing professor might be staying with us. Zahid Azzam. I blushed again. The thought popped into my mind that my mother and I were in competition. It was a ridiculous idea. She was a million years old. She could have the dog.

  Becca

  Zahid was grateful.

  He kept on thanking me.

  Thanking me for every little thing, as if any minute I would kick him out. He was incredibly polite. He put all of his cups into the dishwasher. He had been at the house for a couple of days when he asked me if I might like for him to open the swimming pool.

  “You know how to do that?”

  “Lifeguard,” he said. “Pool man. It’s my sideline. Every writer needs a sideline.”

  “I thought it was teaching,” I said.

  “That, too.”

  I laughed. It was pleasant in the house, when Rachel was away at camp. Zahid borrowed the car, shopped for chemicals in the next town over. I had given him money for chlorine, shock, whatever he needed. He opened the swimming pool.

  “Amazing,” Rachel said, when she came home from day camp. The water was blue and sparkling. I watched, curious, when she showed up at the pool wearing a tiny bikini. Rachel was not the type to wear a bikini. Within minutes, she had covered herself with a T-shirt.

  Zahid had set up his laptop computer on Jonathan’s desk. He was writing. Downstairs, I painted. We would take breaks. At lunch, he would tell me how many words he had written. The numbers did not mean anything to me, but I understood the significance of what he was sharing with me. I would show him what I had painted. We would take Posey on long walks, down on the Sound. We would eat turkey sandwiches together. “This is my very favorite lunch,” he said. “Thank you.”

  It was as if I had made him something fancy.

  He seemed nothing like the man in the author photo, the oh-so-serious man in a suit who had written such an inscrutable award-winning novel. I had not particularly liked it, struggling to get through, but now I wanted to read it again.

  I drove to a neighboring town where there was a bookstore. His book was not in stock. This seemed like a sad thing. I ordered a copy. On impulse, I went into the J.Crew next door. I bought him a bathing suit. It was on sale.

  “Thank you,” Zahid said when I gave it to him. “Thank you so much.”

  It was selfish, really. I found it discomfiting to see him in Jonathan’s bathing suit. Zahid had gone back to New York and returned with a small suitcase, but he seemed to wear the same clothes over and over again.

  “This is so incredibly generous,” he said, gazing at his new bathing suit. Somehow, the comment hit me the wrong way.

  “It was twenty-two dollars on sale,” I said. “You can pay me back if you want.”

  Zahid went upstairs. He returned with a twenty-dollar bill and eight quarters.

  I laughed.

  I also took the money.

  It was fine. All of it. The bathing suit, the companionship, the distraction he provided over the summer. He was almost as good as his dog, and that was saying a lot. I was attracted to my daughter’s writing professor, but I didn’t see what was the harm of it. My husband had left me. My daughter was too young for him, though she clearly had a crush. He was a beautiful man. He had slender fingers, eyelashes too long for a man. He had long limbs, dark eyes. I had been married for such a long time.

  I found that I was thinking about him, all the time. Christ, I had bought him a bathing suit. He went into the bathroom and he put it on.

  He looked good. The suit was dark purple. Trunks. They really had been on sale.

  “Got to get my money’s worth,” he said.

  It was a terrible joke.

  “Terrible joke,” he said.

  Which was weird, this man speaking my thoughts out loud, only with a slight English accent.

  “Join me at the pool?” he asked.

  I nodded. I would join him at the pool. I went upstairs to change into my new bathing suit. I had bought one for myself as well. It was also purple. A bikini. Boy shorts and a midriff top that covered most of my stomach but left my belly button exposed. We matched. It was a little bit ridiculous. I had bought one for Rachel, too. A one-piece.

  * * *

  —

  At the pool, Zahid thanked me again.

  “For what?” I said.

  “For letting me stay here.”

  I did not respond. If he thanked me one more time, I would have to ask him to leave. Instead, I dove into the water. I looked good in my new suit. I was glad about this. Posey started to bark. I swam the entire length of the pool. Underwater, I could still hear Posey barking. She was worried about me. I touched the wall and swam back. Bark, bark, bark, bark.

  I swam the length of the pool three times in a row without taking a breath. I swam until I was completely out of air. I had been on a swim team, once upon a time. Zahid was looking at me when I emerged for air. He whistled. I wanted to thank him, but I refrained.

  Jonathan

  I woke up with the chills. I was sweating. For the first time since I’d left my wife, I wished that I were home. Becca would take my temperature. Becca would put a cold washcloth on my forehead. She might not go so far as to make me chicken soup, but she would certainly go to my favorite deli in town and buy my favorite chicken soup. If anything, I missed my butcher. I missed my gas grill. I missed my swimming pool. I missed being taken care of. What was the saying? It was too late to teach a dog new tricks.

  I thought I would be an exception to this rule.

  Mandy had flown to Houston the night before. From there, she would go on to Los Angeles and then Hawaii. She was going to spend a couple of days in Hawaii and then take the trip back in reverse.

  “A pilot’s life,” she said.

  It was a nice one. I missed Mandy when she was gone. It was so wonderful, wanting a woman, counting the days until she got back. There was absolutely nothing wrong with Rebecca. She was a beautiful woman. She took yoga classes and took care of the house. But she had been practically invisible to me for years. She talked to me about book reviews in The New York Times or her day at the elementary school and my eyes glazed over. It was right after I had left that the boy came into her classroom with the gun. Becca shrugged it off, but I should have been there for her.

  She had been terrific on television. She looked good, she was articulate. “I got lucky,” she said, but clearly that wasn’t true. She was good in a crisis. She had poise.

  “I am fine,” she said, not bothering to hide her irritation when I called. She did not want to go to dinner. She did not want to see me. It was painful. I had to remind myself that I had left her.

  I had already made my choice. Mandy was fun. Mandy adored me. She had those bangs. Those perky breasts. The uniform. My fev
er had to be high. I had a horrible headache. I could not find any ibuprofen. I downed two Motrin instead.

  I texted Mandy. I asked her if she had a thermometer. I wanted her to know, I supposed, that I was not feeling well.

  As a rule, I did not get sick. I played tennis. I swam laps. I was, as my best friend and personal physician told me, vigorously healthy. I would not be sick today.

  I got out of bed and lost my balance. I was dizzy. I was definitely sick. I made it to the bathroom and I sat down on the toilet to take a piss. This was not me. Something felt wrong, disturbingly. I had a red sore on my dick.

  “Mandy,” I bellowed, my voice carrying into the empty loft. “What the fuck?”

  * * *

  —

  I had some things to take care of at the office, an allocations report to turn in, a deal almost ready to close. I called Khloe. I asked her if she could take care of these things for me.

  “Um, Jonathan,” she said. “You know that I am not your administrative assistant?”

  I almost hung up the phone. I was giving this girl a shot and she wanted to piss it away with college feminism. Things had certainly changed at the office. It was this brave new world, where you had to be careful about every little thing that you did or said. Blink at a pretty intern and it was sexual harassment. My own daughter thought I was racist because I’d told her Khloe was black. What the hell? I had a sore on my penis. A sore on my penis.

  “No, you idiot.” The insult slipped out. I had a fever. I did not have time to be polite. I was her boss, for Christ’s sake. “I know you are not my admin, I have a very good one, thank you very much. You are my best junior analyst and I am entrusting you with some important tasks. You want me to ask Baxter, say the word. I will hang up right now.”

  That shut her up.

  I told her what needed to get done. I hung up before she could thank me.